President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

The War To Eliminate Human Chattel Slavery

 

IIRC Several courts over the years have ruled that indeed the President is NOT an officer of the United States.
I'm betting that's the route SCOTUS goes to put Trump back on the ballot.

 

What a charming and generous soul you reveal yourself to be on those occasions you deign to interact with me. How kind of you to lower yourself in such instances.

 

This is a pretty comprehensive take down as well as a reproach to how we teach history in this country.

 

Primary documents stating the causes of leaving the United States and establishing a new country.

Texas Declaration of Causes:

"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 States to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility [sic] 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?"

Mississippi:

"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."

There are eleven more, but they are not fundamentally different, other than Mississippi's assertion that white people could not bear the heat of the Mississippi sun. Note that these are not excerpts to get the good parts, they start at the first sentence of the body of the document, which continues on in further detail.

 

If the former governor of the state of South Carolina can't have a reliable, easy answer to this question that puts the question to bed for good, what else is she not prepared for?

Or is her answer what she believes? I keep saying that republicans keep telling us who they are, and to believe them.

Well...

 

David McCullough: "Abraham Lincoln did not live to see the day in December 1865, when the requisite number of states ratified the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, which did not cause the Civil War. Good night."

 

I am not, and have not been, quibbling with your/others' interpretation of those. But do me a favor ... quote Lincoln's letter to Horace Greeley from August of 1862.

 

Nope. Lincoln's personal and political positions and compromises were not the topic under discussion here. If you want to quote it and state a position, feel free, don't toss it into my lap.

 

Lincoln thought the abolition of slavery was desirable but not necessary early in his term. By 1863 he became convinced it was necessary for the future existence of the nation.

 

The topic of discussion is whether one could, with some degree of validity, argue that the war wasn't "about" slavery (slavery's being a "root cause," as you put it, is another matter). As it takes two (at least) to tango when it comes to war, it seems that a glimpse into both parties' mindsets (particularly in the early days of the actual conflict) would be of some value.

 

His home state's legislature was just thrilled with the Emancipation Proclamation at first: