Fort Pillow and more.....

[coloradoclyde]

I still think your missing the point, the freedom exist wether or not it’s recognized. Not recognizing can lead to endless strife in the oppressed society, but the rights are there wether or not the oppressors recognize them or not.
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I am not missing your point.

You are making a transcendental argument.

 

[tenngun]

Let’s say you and I are at an event. And we have this discussion. We both have a right of free speech. We both can expect to have a meeting of minds without anger, name calling ect. However in the middle of one of your comments I punch you and tell you to shut up. I then go crazy pull out a non traditional gun and tell any who come to your aid to back off.
You still have the same right of free speech, I’ve violated your right and used threat of death to continue to violate it.
A cute girl has the right to put on her sexiest little out fit and walk any where safely. A fat business man doing some sort of cash business has the right to put all his days earnings in a bag and walk down any road safely.
At our campfire at an event you can talk without fear of violence. That girl can come and sit, and at the most face nothing more then told this is a period correct attired camp would she consider changing, and the business man could set his bag of cash down and be safe. Although he may be asked if he wants to play an historic card game called monte.
However there are places where she and he would be unsafe to walk, it doesn’t mean they don’t have the right, it means some places some people don’t recognize those rights.
Government exist for no other reason then to protect those rights. That is government only legitimate job, to protect our rights. Government should never be the thug that disenfranchised us. Some times people have to die to remind the government of that fact, sometimes the government is so oppressive it is not then stopped, yet those rights exist beyond government approval. Any entity violating your rights, GB, the Federal Government of Lincoln, me at the fire, mugger or rapist are all the same. Your rights remain yours violated or not.
It’s not transcendental. It’s the way our founder saw the government, it’s the way the south saw government. It’s the way our constitution provides for. It’s what the south was fighting for.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Is there a "pecking order" to rights? meaning, are some more important than the other?

Do you afford someone (person or entity) the same rights if they are trying to take away another persons rights?

Are there specific rights or do you consider anything to be a right?

 

[tenngun]

My guess is you are talking about the rights of slaves. People who should have by right been made free no later then 1787. Though we need keep in mind that Lincoln did not set out to free slaves. That’s not what he claimed the war was about. He ran on a platform of preventing the spread of slavery in the new territories. He fought the war to preserve the Union. The emancipation proclamation only freed slaves in areas in rebellion and didn’t touch it in the slave states that did not quit the union.
Slaves were legal property under law and under the constitution as it existed in 1860 he had no right to strip legally obtained wealth from its owners.
Slavery was the cause of the war in the fact that all the differentces over states rights teriffs ect was rooted in slavery. However it was a legally protected activity. And the protection of property was one of the goals of the constitution.
There were less then four hundred thousand slave owners , but to free those slaves war was made on eight million southerners who were disenfranchised of their rights by the war. And the only way those same southerners were allowed to practice limited freedoms again was to agree to dictates from Washington. “See my gun? It is for me your going to vote”.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Your argument is like a live fish on a hot skillet......Flip-flop.

 

[tenngun]

I think I’ve been pretty consistent that the federal government did not have the constitutional authority to invade the south, that, in accordance with Supreme Court finding, the feds were required to protect the property rights of the south, that free and independent states, that a free people had the right to sever political ties with a government that they felt was stepping on their rights, or infact for any reason what so ever.
This is a different issue then the rights and wrongs of slavery. Slavery was becoming seen as incompatible with the freedoms that all should enjoy.
Remember however the south saw itself as bennifiting the slave population. They saw black Africans as suffering under a lack of intelligence, moral conscience and an ability to develop civilization. By taking them ”˜out of the jungle, getting them modest clothing, exposing them to Christianity, giving them employment putting them in houses ect as a boon to the poor superstitious simi brutes they felt them to be.
They were to be treated as children or mentally incompetents guided feed housed and worked in accordance to their perceived ablities.
Thirty years after the war Kipling would encourage the new world power of the United States to take up the White Mans burden and join westren Europe in civilizing a brutish world. Eighty years after the war Patton would call for the same thing.
Slavery caused the war, but the issue wasn’t slavery it was people’s rights to self determination.

 

[coloradoclyde]

I think I’ve been pretty consistent that the federal government did not have the constitutional authority to invade the south, that, in accordance with Supreme Court finding, the feds were required to protect the property rights of the south, .

By "flip flop" I meant you are all over the pan.

What about gov't property in the south? it was the rebels that seized government property first in Charleston.

in accordance with Supreme Court finding, the feds were required to protect the property rights of the south,

Are you referring to Dred Scott?

 

[tenngun]

Yes to the Dred Scot question.
”˜Federdal land was on South Carolina property. At the most the Feds could have taken payment for construction cost of the fort.
In any case, siezure of federal lands by South Carolina didn’t justify marching in to Virgina.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Dread Scott was a clear partisan Supreme court disaster....And was ultimately eliminated in by the passage of the 14th amendment 1868

Just like our founding fathers intended as they wrote in the opening line of the preamble to the constitution...

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice

It is a shame it took a war to beat back such "imperfectness" as the Dred Scott decision.

 

[tenngun]

Imperfect or not it was the law. Without rule of law we descend in to tyranny. It was Stari decisis.
On a personal level I find Roe v Wade to have been missfound. That said,people who have attacked abortion clinics and providers are terrorist and need be punished as such.
I don’t speed even if I think a limit is unessacary on a strip of road. Rule of law is our most civilizing factor.
Yes the constitution was framed to create a more perfect union. But it was a union of free people freely entered into. It did not require those people to surrender freedom to be a part of the union. Oliver Holmes said “the constitution is not a suicide pact”.

 

[Artificer]

I think I’ve been pretty consistent that the federal government did not have the constitutional authority to invade the south, that, in accordance with Supreme Court finding, the feds were required to protect the property rights of the south, .

What about gov't property in the south? it was the rebels that seized government property first in Charleston.

There had already been a deal between the Officials of the South Carolina government and Major Anderson to peaceably evacuate the Fort, AS LONG AS the Fort was not to be resupplied or reinforced. When Lincoln ordered it resupplied and reinforced by sea, he committed the first act of War. Of course since the North won the War, this important detail has been left out of most records on the War.

Admittedly the above does not speak to the actual Fort, itself, though. I also freely admit there were excellent legal arguments on both sides whether the Fort remained the property of the Federal Government or South Carolina - had it actually been evacuated. However, since Lincoln's resupply/reinforcement by sea was the First Act of War against South Carolina, then it became a "prize" of War to South Carolina. But again, since the South lost the War, that is another detail that is almost never mentioned.

Gus

 

[coloradoclyde]

When Lincoln ordered it resupplied and reinforced by sea, he committed the first act of War.

I wouldn't have ceded to such terrorist demands either....

Were I Lincoln, I would have granted Confederates their freedom, sovereignty and their desire for slaves......I would have marched my armies south from Washington loading everyone loyal to the confederacy onto ships bound for Africa..... :haha:

 

[tenngun]

You seem to think that the Federal government owned the states. The states own the states not the federal government. The states granted some power to the federal government in exchange for mutual protection, under the constitution the feds grant nothing to the states.
Most recently this was demonstrated by the electoral college victory of Trump. 3/5 of the states voted for him, overcoming the popular vote. Because the people are supreme, delegating power to the state, that in turn delegates power to the federal government.
South Carolina owns South Carolina, it gave some power to the federal government in exchange for protection. When that protection was not only withheld but also the federal government became an aggressor against South Carolina then the state had the right to withdraw. The fact that the feds raped South Carolina didn’t make it legal or right.

 

[coloradoclyde]

The people own....


The people of the South were not given the opportunity to decide if they wanted to secede.
as a result there were many anti-secessionists.

I'll call them hostages. Held hostage by those who already held people in chains.

Had everyone in the south been informed and afforded the chance to decide their fate, the war probably wouldn't have happened.

 

[Artificer]

The people own....


The people of the South were not given the opportunity to decide if they wanted to secede.
as a result there were many anti-secessionists.

I'll call them hostages. Held hostage by those who already held people in chains.

Had everyone in the south been informed and afforded the chance to decide their fate, the war probably wouldn't have happened.

First of all is that your opinion on what would have been the result had all the people of the South voted for the War, or do you have period statistics to show what you claim? If you have period evidence, please provide it.

There were MANY people in the North and in the Border States who did not personally vote for and wanted NO PART of "Mr. Lincoln's War," either. As such they were also "held hostage" by your argument. My own family in Kentucky was but one example.

There were enough people in the North who had grown so tired and so disgusted with the War that Lincoln came close to not being re-elected. They were also held hostage by your argument.

Of course the HUGE Draft Riots in New York and other places also showed many people in the North believed they were held hostage to the War. (And yes because I am interested in historic accuracy, there were a good number of people in the South who also did not want to be drafted.)

Gus

 

[coloradoclyde]

There were MANY people in the North and in the Border States who did not personally vote for and wanted NO PART of "Mr. Lincoln's War," either. As such they were also "held hostage" by your argument. My own family in Kentucky was but one example.

There were enough people in the North who had grown so tired and so disgusted with the War that Lincoln came close to not being re-elected. They were also held hostage by your argument.

Of course the HUGE Draft Riots in New York and other places also showed many people in the North believed they were held hostage to the War. (And yes because I am interested in historic accuracy, there were a good number of people in the South who also did not want to be drafted.)

Gus

I agree with all of that, with one notable caveat....Everything you wrote took place after the south seceded and started the war....

I was talking about southerners not having a choice in the matter beforehand. Their leaders led them to their destruction....As is often the case of the rich and powerful...We are merely pawns for their amusement. Rich Southern slave owners viewed common white people in the same regard as their " black property".

 

[coloradoclyde]

If the south was truly fighting for it's rights, then it lost before the war ever began....Secession made sure of that.

 

[Artificer]

I was talking about southerners not having a choice in the matter beforehand. Their leaders led them to their destruction....As is often the case of the rich and powerful...We are merely pawns for their amusement. Rich Southern slave owners viewed common white people in the same regard as their " black property".

Rich/Powerful people in the North also had no qualms about starting the War, including by the first act of War of resupplying/reinforcing Fort Sumter after the North had agreed to peaceful evacuation. They had no qualms about what would happen to the people who actually fought it.

Rich Northerners considered their factory workers as "throw away labor" before the War, and of course since they and others made so much money off the War, had no qualms about supporting it and sending others off to War.

I will agree that the Hot Heads in South Carolina wound up giving Lincoln and other powerful/rich men in the North the EXCUSE to get the War going, which is exactly what Lincoln and other War Mongers in the North wanted by first agreeing to peaceful evacuation of Fort Sumter and then the treacherous Opening Act of War by sending a fleet to resupply/reinforce Fort Sumter. They knew they could make it look like the South had done the first hostile act of the War and that's exactly the way it was promoted and advertised in the North at the time and covered up in the Official Records and most historic references.

Gus

 

[coloradoclyde]

If I recall correctly , Lincoln's own diary confirmed that he did not want war.

 

[Artificer]

Maybe that was from the time BEFORE he authorized the treacherous first act of War?

Gus