The Civil War wasn’t about slavery

Dennis, to answer your question on the rebirth of the intent of the founders, I think the answer is yes. But, it is mainly on the internet, web, irc and various bbs' that these ideas have the chance to be seena nd heard, and to spread. Of course, there are many, many folks out there who feel as we do; just the other day a couple of fishermen came into my office and made me feel like I was a pro-centralized gubment fan, with the views they espoused. These are the people the gov't is afraid of, why else would they infiltrate every patriot and militia in the country otherwise? To "keep us safe"? Pardon me while I laugh cynically.

To all who have read Williams' excellent article, I urge you to read Lysander Spooner's "No Treason" concerning the Civil War and the trampling of individual rights. You can find most of it at: http://www.highlink.net/isil.org/conlib/index.htm

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"All I ask is equal freedom. When it is denied, as it always is, I take it anyhow."
 
Prior to the War Between the States the treaties of the USA were signed "The United States ARE...." after the War the treaties were signed "The United States IS...."

Do you doubt that the war was over States Rights and Federalism?

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Ne Conjuge Nobiscum
"If there be treachery, let there be jehad!"
 
Well according to Williams I reckon I'm a "bitter southerner". I've always referred to the war, including in post on this forum, as the war of nothern aggression.

And yes I agree (and was taught from an early age) it was about a polictical power struggle and rights and NOT slavery.
I have the Confederate flag tattooed on my upper arm. Many people take it to be a racist statement. It is not. It is a *freedom* statement.

My first thought when I visited the (new) Southern Party web site was will "the south rise again?"

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Gunslinger

We live in a time in which attitudes and deeds once respected as courageous and honorable are now scorned as being antiquated and subversive.
 
Lord Dunmore made a proclamation establishing martial law in Virginia. His confidence stemmed from a skirmish in which a small following of blacks and loyalists joined regular troops and defeated 300 Virginians. Thus, on Nov. 7, he called upon "every person capable of bearing arms to resort to his Majesty's crown and government." What shocked southerners in his announcement were the words, "all indented serants, Negroes and others" would be freed if they were able and willing to bear arms for the King.

Lord Dunmore's Ethiopian Regiment numbered a little less than 300. They first fought near Norfolk at the Great Bridge where they were bested by the Virginia militia. The end result was they reembarked at Norfolk and left the town to be burned by the militia.

American reaction to Lord Dunmore's self styled emancipation proclamation was swift. Threats of death were made against any negro conspiring to rebel or make insurrection. Runaways were encouraged to return to their duties to avoid the penalty. As a preventative measure, slaveowners moved male slaves age 13 and over away from the eastern counties.

Lord Dunmore lamented that he would have had a larger regiment but for fever which struck down many former slaves. Dunmore finally gave up and sailed to New York.

A second black regiment of about 200 was raised on Long Island by the British. The American response to was to raise an all-black regiment in Rhode Island.

Even after Dunmore fled the scene, British CiC General Clinton issued his own proclamation which succeeded in thousands of defections (though not necessarily recruitments).

The final unit was more of an improvised guerilla band of which some members received training from the British. Calling themselves the "King of England's Soldiers," they continued to fight even after the war was lost.

After the war, many slaves who fled to the British in search of freedom found themselves sold back into slavery in the West Indies.

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Vigilantibus et non dormientibus jura subveniunt
 
Now that we've all gotten a history lesson, lets look at the 10th amendment in light of this. The tenth was the "capstone" of the Bill of Rights and was meant to block all further federal growth so that states and "The People" need not fear losing their rights.

Article Ten: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Basically, if it isn't expressly spelled out in the Constitution, it ISN'T a federal power. This includes the Income Tax, Federal gun legislation, the Educatio Deptartment - the entire fedral bureaucracy other than the State Department and the Military.
This was Lincolns crime, he destroyed the tenth amendment and usurped the powers of the people and the States.
Vote Libertarian, restore the Constitution and let all of these things fall back to the staes jurisdiction or simply disappear.


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Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan
 
Off the topic just a little, but the upsurption of the powers of the states by the Fed Gov started during the Whiskey Rebellion. Those farmers should have won that sucker not the Fed Gov.

And if you want to get really technical, the upsurption of the states powers began when the ARTICLES of CONFEDERATION were replaced by the CONSTITUTION. Prior to that event, there was no strong central goverment such as there was after the Constitution was adopted. Many of the signers of the Decleration of Independance refused to sign the Constitution because they feared the forming of a strong central goverment.

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Ne Conjuge Nobiscum
"If there be treachery, let there be jehad!"
 
Longhair,

Masonic offshoots such as the Knights of The Golden Circle by many accounts definitely had a hand in whipping up an incendiary climate prior to the war. On the other side John Brown and others (although publicly denouncing Masonry at times) seem to have had at least some affiliations in that direction. This would at the very least suggest that although pre war violence and passions were very real, they were at least to some degree contrived.

By the way, although not a Civil War book, James Billington's (former Librarian of Congress) work entitled "Fire in the Minds of Men" might be a good piece for you to read. His description of the forces guiding the revolutionary movements of the past few centuries is very enlightening.
 
Hoplite, thanks for the info. where might i find info on the Knights of the Golden Circle? i've never heard of them. the Knights Templar yes, but the Golden Circle is new to me.....

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what me worry?
 
From: Ivan8883 6-26-99 753PM EDT No doubt in my mind that the South was correct in its assessment that the Northern plutocrats wanted economic control of the South through tariffs which as a sore point for years before. The South a legal right to secede peacefully,but Lincoln I believe was a honest man who honestly believed that keeping the Union was most important. He did suspend habeas corpus(sp) in Maryland during the warand as Commander in Chief allowed his armies to pillage the South. But I think all the bloodshed bothered this man and his assasination was a many years disaster for the South. Of coarse slavery was not the cause of the War Between the Statesbut it helped Lincoln win the war as he used many Black soldiers in the last two years of the war which (war) was becoming unpopular in the North. From what I have read, the war was not popular among many in the South and the North,but strangely fought in a most bloody manner for the period. I cannot consider Lincoln in the catagory of one who desired to destroy Republic form of government. This destruction of our Republic was started by 20th Century presidents such as Wilson(Federal Reserve System<Income tax,WWI entrance,Big debt beganfor nation,popular election of Senate) and FDR(fill in the blanks for what this man did to what remained of our Republic when he came in office) . The evil men ,whether presidents or plutocrats, destroyed our Republican form of government in the twentieth century,something even the War Between the States could not do in the last century. Ivan8883
 
FromIvan8883 6-26-99 825PM EDT Income Tax,entrance into WWI,beginning of big Fed. Debt,and popular election of Senate) and FDRwho created the powwerful centralized monster we know today . The War between the States could not destroy our Republic. But it was destroyed in this century by various presidents and plutocrats combined. Ivan8883
 
Here's some precedent for our future from the past...

"In 1861, following the inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, a series of arrests of American citizens was undertaken, under the loose oversight of Secretary of State Seward. Arrests normally occurred at night, at the order of Secretary Seward or a military officer, on grounds of:

• suspicion of having given, or intending to give, aid or comfort to the enemy;

• public or private communications that opposed U.S. enlistments or encouraged C.S. enlistments;

• expressing sympathy with the South;

• criticizing the Lincoln administration; or

• belonging to proscribed organizations.

Prisoners were locked in crowded casemates or batteries within a fort. Visitors were forbidden with rare exceptions. Attorneys were absolutely forbidden — requesting an attorney would prejudice a defendant’s case. Only unsealed letters would be forwarded; such letters were returned or retained in the case file if they contained objectionable matter. Thus, without a statute — or even a presidential proclamation — authorizing these arrests, American citizens were arrested by
military officers, on suspicion, held without trial in military facilities, and denied access to the courts, yet no martial law had yet been declared."

I especially like the "criticizing the administration" and "belonging to proscribed organizations" provisions. Let's see...what could our current "comrade in the White House" do with these?

(This is off the GOA site at http://www.gunowners.org )


[This message has been edited by RepublicThunderbolt (edited June 26, 1999).]
 
You folks are much better read on the Civil War than I am. Please speculate on the course of events if there had been no war, if the South had successfully ceceded. Would we have eventually become a bi-coastal nation anyway? Or would we have have had more cecessions and fragmentation? What would the United States be comprised of today? And the Confederate States? And-- what are the implications? Would England have allied itself with the South and entertained imperial plans in North America with the South as its partner? Would slavery have collapsed of its own evil weight?
 
Even before the Civil War (WBTS), slavery was dying. It cost more to house, feed, clothe and doctor slaves than it would to pay a field hand, who had to then handle all those expenses himself. The importation of slaves was already outlawed by the time of the WBTS so only by childbirth could the numbrs of slaves be maintained.

With the numbers of Irish immigrants arriving in the country, far more than the birth rate of the poor slaves, there was a ready labor pool to be used. It was least costly to hire someone off the boat at $1/day, or what ever the rate of pay it was, than to spend several $1,000 for a "field slave" who could run off. Slavery only became an excuse for the war.

If Lincoln had lived, he had plans to "return" the slaves to Africa, Liberia was settled by freed slaves after the WBTS.

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Ne Conjuge Nobiscum
"If there be treachery, let there be jehad!"
 
Hairy Guy,

My 1966 edition of Ency.Britanica (I don't know if the newer editions have the same article) describes the Knights of the Golden Circle thus:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>A semi-military secret society that was said to exist in the midwestern states during the American Civil War.[/quote]

The Britanica article downplays the importance of the group and suggest it was of little influence and its existence was mainly used by the north to tar its enemies. A minute ago I ripped a few of the books off my shelf that I knew had info about this subject and looked at their footnotes to see what they used as source material. They cited: "10,000 Famous Freemasons";Denslow, "Treason in America";Chaitken,"High Crimes and Misdemeanors:The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson";Smith,"Confederate Agent:A discovery in History";Horan, and a few others. Actually Ralph Eppersons book "The Unseen Hand" probably wouldn't be a bad place to start if your really interested since he researches this kind of stuff and doesn't shoot from the hip too much like some "Conspiracy" historians.

By the way, some writers say the KKK was an outgrowth of the KOGC since they both came out of the same time period, had roughly the same goals, used some of the same goofy masonic/pagan terminology, and that this is further evidenced by the fact the word Kuklos means circle in Greek. Who Knows?

[This message has been edited by Hoplite (edited June 27, 1999).]
 
uh huh!! ok.. thanks again for the info Hoplite!!
oh yeah, if i remember correctly, i think Bedford Forrest, is the one most credited for the indroduction of the KKK. if i remembered this correctly, does this mean that Bedford was in the KotGC? is there anything that connect Bedford to them?
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what me worry?




[This message has been edited by longhair (edited June 27, 1999).]
 
Tombread,
Had the South been permitted to secede peacefully:
1) I suspect we would be pretty close to each other. Our Constitutions were nearly identical. Relatives were on both sides. I think we would be able to travel back and forth easily. I think we'd be closer to each other than USA is to Canada or Mexico.
2) I really wonder what effect the separation would have played in our foreign military activities! WWI, WWII, Korea, etc. might have been completely different experiences. Neither side would have been as strong as united America, but we may hve had more votes in the UN - or would we have been divided there? Would we still be playing "Globocop"?
3) As you can tell, I have no idea except for one thing - y'all would have to pay more for Texas oil!
 
From Ivan8883 6-27-99 1119AMEDT In my opinion, if the South had won the War,eventually she would have reunited back with the North. Both countries would have seen the big threat to both of them: British Imperial plans against both nations. But the irony is that Britain with the election of Wilson got back political control of United States(Federal ReserveSystem controlled by private Banksters, Income tax, Us involvement inWWI) In my opinion,our strings have been pulled by England since then. Hoplite, can you shed anylight on Albert Pikewho was the head of American Masonary ,I believe in the latter part of the last century. I have heard several times on shortwave shows that,in a letter to G. Massini(sp), he talked about three world wars needed to bring mankind under control of the Illuminati and their minions .Many good Christians,my Grandfather as an example,were and are Masons,but I, through reading and research,have discovered other facets of the highest order of the Masons. The example of the Illuminati influence in the Bloody Reign of Terror in France where perhaps a million Christians were murdered by Paris government comes to mind.This is getting off the subject or perhaps there was Illuminati influence in the creation of the War Between the States? I do know that when President Bush made that comment about the thousand points of light, it was a Illumunati symbal. This subject is fascinating and also some people believe it to be a dangerous subject to pursue. What do you think? Ivan8883
 
I've seen historians speculate that if the North hadn't gone to war ove the Southern states secession, slavery would have ended within ten years anyway. Economics would have dictated that.
The cotton economy was sinking because Egyptian and Indian cotton was flooding the market at cheap prices. It would have become cheaper in short order to free your slaves and hire people seasonally.
With slavery dead, the States rights issues and the ongoing debate over slavery in the new Western states would have become a moot point. North and South were fighting over the issue of slavery in the West because the new states would lean the precarious balance of power in congress one way or the other.

The long and short of it is that without slavery, it would have been ecomically advantageous for the Southern states to rejoin the Union and avoid the tariffs that would have been put in place on their agricultural products being shipped North.

The Civil War was a waste of time and lives.


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Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan
 
KEITH, Most wars are a waste of time and lives.

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Ne Conjuge Nobiscum
"If there be treachery, let there be jehad!"
 
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