Quote:
Originally Posted by guy44
And secession nowadays is a silly idea. What SHOULD have happened is Lincoln could have told the South that they could seceed as long as they let blacks and Native Americans leave first. Then the U.S. could have developed without the money drain of the South...yeah, thats the ticket. I am being mildly facetious, of course. Mildly.
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In spite of your caveat that you're being facetious, I'm motivated to post a couple of things.
First of all, the cause of the war wasn't slavery. The cause was the increasing economic clout of the South.
The North was perfectly happy to sell slaves to the South. Northerners, after all, were the owners of the slave boats. However, a point was reached at which the south didn't need to buy any more slaves, because their slaves were having children.
Furthermore, a growing Southern economy resulted in Europe beginning to divert its shipping to Southern ports. It was this increasing economic hit that caused the North to instigate war.
For those who will try to say that the North undertook the war for humanitarian reasons, I offer the following:
Non-resident blacks were forbidden to attend public schools in Connecticut because "... it would tend to the great increase of the colored people of the state."
William Lloyd Garrison, as cited in
Virginia's Attitude Toward Slavery and Succession
New Jersey prohibited free blacks from settling in the state.
Massachusetts passed a law that allowed the flogging of blacks who came into the state and remained for longer than two months.
Indiana's constitution stated that "...no negro or mulatto shall come into or settle in the state..."
Illinois in 1853 enacted a law "...to prevent the immigration of free negroes into this state."
Oregon's 1857 constitution provided that "...No free negro or mulatto, not residing in this state at the time of adoption [of the constitution of the state of Oregon] ... shall come,reside, or be within this state..."
Beverly B. Munford, Virginia's Attitude Toward Slavery and Succession
"But why should emancipation South send free people North? ... And in any event cannot the North decide for itself whether to receive them?"
Abraham Lincoln, in a message to Congress, December, 1862
State /Year Blacks Barred from Voting
New Jersey 1807
Connecticut 1814
Rhode Island 1822
Pennsylvania 1838
Edgar J. McManus, Black Bondage in the North
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It
should be difficult to convince anyone that with laws like these on the books, Union soldiers were willing to fight and die for the freedom of blacks who were not allowed to reside in Northern states. However, there's a ton of revisionist history out there.
Even the Emancipation Proclamation only freed Southern slaves, NOT Northern ones. It even exempted from freedom those slaves in the areas of the South that were under Northern control. Read it if you don't believe me.
Looks like not much has changed--we still argue about the true reasons for going to war.