Chelsea Clinton answers DT's question: "Why was there a civil war? Why couldn't that be worked out?"

[pnwmom]

http://verifiedpolitics.com/trump-just-said-andrew-jackson-alive-civil-war-chelsea-clintons-response-perfect/

Chelsea Clinton:

1 word answer: Slavery. Longer: When Andrew Jackson died in 1845 (16 yrs before the Civil War began), he owned 150 men, women and children.

Then there was this snarky reply:

Colin Carr @colinthehogs

BREAKING: Chelsea Clinton discovered Google

And Chelsea's response:

Chelsea Clinton ✔@ChelseaClinton

Hi Colin - I've been to Hermitage, Andrew Jackson's home in Tennessee. Worth visiting. Doesn't shy away from Jackson's slave-owning history.

[gratuitous]

1. Haw, haw, haw, Colin

Perhaps you could introduce President Trump to the Google.

[angstlessk]

3. In the beginning it could have preserved slavery, but in the end

it was about abolishing slavery....maybe not for the right reasons...but THANK GOD IT MORPHED INTO ANTI SLAVERY!

[L. Coyote]

4. It was about slavery!

[former9thward]

5. Not according to the CIC.

His name was Lincoln BTW.

[WinkyDink]

9. Lincoln, you will note, is not the topic. Confederate forces fired on Ft. Sumter, starting the Civil

War.

Why? To keep their right to own slaves for their economy.

[wishstar]

33. According to the Confederate states, slavery was definitely their reason for leaving Union

Lincoln's statements must be considered in the context that he was a politician who had to manipulate all sides of the issue for maximum political gain and to minimize political fallout.

However, the declarations and pronouncements made by the individual Confederate states when they left the Union to join the Confederacy are very clear that their reason was slavery which they defended as a Constitutional right to property that the Federal govt was threatening to take away.

[LanternWaste]

49. Yet according to each rebelling state's Articles of Secession, it in fact, was.

Yet according to each rebelling state's Articles of Secession, it in fact, was.

These being the states that actually began the conflict, BTW... (six of open, half a dozen of the other and each post mark as petulant as the other).

[pnwmom]

6. It WAS about slavery -- that's why the South fought for leaving the union, regardless of what

Lincoln's feelings about the issue were.

http://www.livescience.com/13673-civil-war-anniversary-myths.html

The most widespread myth is also the most basic. Across America, 60 percent to 75 percent of high-school history teachers believe and teach that the South seceded for state's rights, said Jim Loewen, author of "Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong" (Touchstone, 1996) and co-editor of "The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The 'Great Truth' about the 'Lost Cause'" (University Press of Mississippi, 2010).

"It's complete B.S.," Loewen told LiveScience. "And by B.S., I mean 'bad scholarship.'"

In fact, Loewen said, the original documents of the Confederacy show quite clearly that the war was based on one thing: slavery. For example, in its declaration of secession, Mississippi explained, "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world … a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization." In its declaration of secession, South Carolina actually comes out against the rights of states to make their own laws — at least when those laws conflict with slaveholding. "In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals," the document reads. The right of transit, Loewen said, was the right of slaveholders to bring their slaves along with them on trips to non-slaveholding states.

http://www.npr.org/2010/10/11/130489804/lincolns-evolving-thoughts-on-slavery-and-freedom

It was not until the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the freedom of all slaves and then named 10 specific states where the law would take affect, that Lincoln publicly rejected his earlier views.


"The Emancipation Proclamation completely repudiates all of those previous ideas for Lincoln," says Foner. "[The abolishment of slavery is] immediate, not gradual. There is no mention of compensation and there is nothing in it about colonization. After the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln says nothing publicly about colonization."

[Leith]

7. Lincoln Said It Wasn't About Slavery

because he was more interested in preserving the Union at the time.

It was the confederate south that made no secret that it was about slavery. Most of them mentioned it as the main reason in their declarations of secession.

[yodermon]

8. Both paragraphs were 100% about slavery.

Oh yes he's trying to save the Union, bcz he knows a war is about to break out
about
fucking
slavery.

[Staph]

10. It is true that Lincoln called up volunteers to try to preserve the Union.

Southern states were trying to leave.

And why were they trying to leave? Why don't we look at the original documents from the seceding states:

Confederate States of America - Georgia Secession

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_geosec.asp

A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp

Confederate States of America - A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union
The government of the United States, by certain joint resolutions, bearing date the 1st day of March, in the year A.D. 1845, proposed to the Republic of Texas, then a free, sovereign and independent nation, the annexation of the latter to the former, as one of the co-equal states thereof,

The people of Texas, by deputies in convention assembled, on the fourth day of July of the same year, assented to and accepted said proposals and formed a constitution for the proposed State, upon which on the 29th day of December in the same year, said State was formally admitted into the Confederated Union.

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_texsec.asp


Shall I continue?

[struggle4progress]

13. ... One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union

but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict might cease with or even before the conflict itself should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental and astounding. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered. That of neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes. "Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh." If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether" ...

Abraham Lincoln
4 March 1865

[hurple]

16. As a southerner

I can say... it was.

It. Was. All. About. Slavery.

[BainsBane]

17. The war was about slavery

that is not the same as Lincoln's goal upon entering the war. Historical causes are rarely the same as specific war aims. While there is debate among historians about the cause of the war, the argument that is was caused by slavery is widespread, if not dominant.

If you see the Civil War documentary by Ken Burns, Historian Barbara Fields notes that the war was caused by the inauguration of the republic with slavery existing within its borders. Most cite its impetus later with, for example, the acquisition of territories from the Mexican War or Bleeding Kansas.

To understand what caused the War, one has to think about what led the South to secede. For them, it was the election of Abraham Lincoln, a proponent of Free Soil--stopping the spread of slavery into the new territories. Slaveholders saw that as indistinguishable from abolitionism. They believed that without territories to export their slaves to, they would face widespread insurrection like that which struck Haiti in 1791. They saw Lincoln as an existential threat to their way of life, which hinged on slavery.

Slavery was indeed the cause of the war.

[uponit7771]

19. RWTP.... FULL STOP

[oasis]

20. Hanging on to their slaves was the paramount intent of every rebel

politician who advocated leaving the union. I doubt if any of them thought Lincoln had such little desire to free the slaves. To them it was about slavery, so the Civil War was on.

I looked it up under "cause and effect". No course in U.S. History necessary.

[former9thward]

25. "No course in U.S. History necessary."

Because a course in US history might teach some actual facts. We wouldn't want those, would we?

[geek tragedy]

38. Only confederate sympathizes claim that slavery was not the

root cause of the civil war. It's right up there with denials about gas chambers under Hitler.

The south fired on Fort Sumter because of slavery, and seceded because of slavery.

This is not in doubt outside Tr*mp's white nationalist fan base.

[Nevernose]

21. Compare his earlier statements with his later statements

And compare his private to public statements. It's clear that, for Lincoln, the war was all about slavery, but in order to get the support he'd need, he'd need to also play other cards, such as "preserving the Union."

Not to mention the fact that the South seceded almost solely over slavery, and therefore "preserving the Union" became definitionally about slavery.

You should probably compare those quotes to something Lincoln said later. I don't know, say, "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" or something like that.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

22. It seems you think that if there were no slavery there still would have been the war. :eyes:

[former9thward]

26. If the Southern states had agreed to stay there would have been no Civil War.

The North did not send troops to free the slaves.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

29. You want to sweep slavery under the rug. Only you don't see they left BECAUSE of the slavery issue.

Of course slavery was the central issue, the most important issue.

It was not the proximal issue but only you seem to be using that point to deny that it was central and important.

[former9thward]

31. It was central and important to the Southern states.

It was not central and important to the North. The only thing that was important was keeping the Union together. Most politicians in the North felt slavery was collapsing under its own weight and would wither away. Whether that would have happened is pure speculation.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

32. Of course it was! Thank you. It split the nation! Duh! . . . nt

[Bernardo de La Paz]

24. Lincoln is NOT saying the war was NOT about slavery. You misinterpret.

You misinterpret.

What he is saying in those letters is that, given that there is a war, his focus is on winning the war to re-unite the Union. He is not going to let the issue of slavery interfere with winning the war. That is all.

Lincoln is NOT saying and NOT implying that the war didn't start because of the slavery issue.

[former9thward]

27. When the war started did Lincoln say it was about slavery?

There has to be a reason for a war. What was it? What did the CIC say the outcome of the war should be? You won't find slavery in any of those speeches or statements.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

30. The distal cause (slavery) was the root cause. The proximal cause (secession) doesn't erase the dist

Further, Lincoln was a skilled politician. Of course he was going to downplay the divisive issue of slavery when he had immediate issues to deal with.

Lincoln knew full well slavery was the whale of an issue. That was why he issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, in the middle of the war, to eliminate the distal cause.

[geek tragedy]

37. The slave states started the civil war. Because of slavery.

As anyone who knows anything recognizes.

[brush]

34. Hahahahahahaha! Not about slavery? Good one.

[geek tragedy]

35. The south seceded because of slavery. Period.

To claim otherwise is to engage in David Irvingesque games of obfuscation.

[Kingofalldems]

40. So why did he free the slaves during the war?

[VOX]

48. Lincoln worked a bit of genius with his Emancipation Proclamation...

Last edited Tue May 2, 2017, 02:35 PM - Edit history (2)

of January 1863. He only freed slaves in the states that were in open rebellion (the CSA). He did *not* free them in Missouri, Maryland, Kentucky, and Delaware (the risky border states, which might also have seceded due to their dependence on a slave-driven, agrarian economy, were exempt, so they wouldn't join the Confederacy). Eventually, as the Union army began to cut the South into sections toward the end of the war, freedom of the slaves became the higher purpose of the war. It also had a practical effect, draining the South of its labor force, hastening an end to the bloody conflict.

[JI7]

11. i wish the admin would do something about long time trolls

[spooky3]

23. Ditto. N/t

[former9thward]

28. Who are you calling a troll?

[geek tragedy]

36. People who deny slavery was the root cause of the civil war

tend to be a wingnuts who look kindly upon the Confedeeacy.

[BumRushDaShow]

41. DU has fucking jumped the shark

It just gets worse and worse.

Slavery deniers are the same as Holocaust deniers IMHO.

[geek tragedy]

44. Some patterns of behaviors with certain

individuals go back years.

[BumRushDaShow]

47. Yup. nt

[Kingofalldems]

42. Thank you.

[exboyfil]

12. Without secession Lincoln would have

worked towards eliminating the expansion of slavery to other territories and an elimination of the Fugitive Slave Act. These two actions Lincoln thought would eventually lead to enough political capital to gradually eliminate slavery (more free states and continued loss of slaves to the North). I think he would have been satisfied with a gradual approach that took another 20 years before slavery was eventually eliminated.

After secession he followed the line of Jackson. Preservation of the Union was of paramount importance.

Every politician to some degree is two faced (or appears to be). The South handed Lincoln an opportunity to eliminate slavery by seceding. If the South had been willing to negotiate during the war, they might have achieved additional time for a gradual emancipation. Once freeing the slaves in the rebellious states aligned with the war aims of defeating them, then Lincoln issued his Proclamation.

One thing is for certain. Lincoln viewed chattel slavery as the abomination that it was.

[pnwmom]

18. Thanks, exboyfil!

[oasis]

14. Zinged Colin right up to his colon.

[Cha]

15. Colin Carr.. typical rw no nothing asshole..

Good on Chelsea.. Mahalo, pnwmom

[brush]

39. Chelsea's got promise, can think on her feet, doesn't toady and thus, so diff from her friend Ivanka

[Cha]

43. Yes! I was thinking about Chelsea earlier..

can you imagine having to call out your former friend's father on a national stage all the time because he's so stupid and dangerous?

I think they must be formers.

[brush]

45. Probably so. I wonder sometimes if Ivanka is embarrassed for her old man?

[Cha]

46. If she is she hides it in her sociopathic support for his

"inititives".

[Martin Eden]

50. BREAKING: Trump thinks Google is a form of pussy-grabbing

Claims he invented it long before Al Gore even thought about the internet.

[Gothmog]

51. Yeah for Chelsea Clinton

[Lithos]

52. Am going to say this a little differently

It was about economics...

Yes, in the end, this meant slavery. The whole Southern plantation economy was based on slavery. The money did everything they could to create an atmosphere justifying slavery - creating their own form of Religion (Southern Methodism being an example), etc.

This is why large areas of Appalachia did *not* vote for secession - their economy did not depend on it.

The sad thing is why slavery itself was abolished after the Civil War, the status quo of "wage slavery" did not go away and still has not gone away. The Reactionary Right still believes in it. An ironic thing is Appalachia which was so staunchly individual and pro-Union has had the economic plantation system (the mines, etc.) thrust upon it as part of the Industrial revolution and drug down as a result.

L-