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The American Civil War Timeline- 150th Anniversary (2 Viewers)

Tennessee - ceded territory from North Carolina to the federal government who then created a territory that was then quickly made a state after its first attempt at statehood under a different name didn't work. For a brief period the territory tried to rejoin the state of North Carolina but it didn't take. I'm thinking the North Carolina people didn't like their western cousins very much.

 
Yankee,

Why were these new territories/states ceded from other states. Why would NC want to give up any land

 
Yankee,Why were these new territories/states ceded from other states. Why would NC want to give up any land
Much of the land was between the Appalachias and the Mississippi River. It wasn't controlled land though it was land that the American government "won" with the Treaty of Paris ending the revolution. The states laid claim to those lands through their colonial governments and after the new American governments took voer they still tried to claim these lands. There was very little government in the cessioned land however.Basically, almost all of the cessioned land changed hands for two reasons. First, much of it, especially int he south, was part of the assumption deals worked out for the federal government to assume all state debts. Second, controlling the lands was proving to be too expensive and strapping the "mother" states of capital and resources. Better to give the federal government the headache.So, as we see, of the 11 rebel states, 7 of them were lands ceded to the federal government by their "mother" states, were land won in war by the federal government, or was land purchased or acquired through treaty of the federal government. The ramining 4 of North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia were original colonies. Although of the 3 Georgia is the most interesting becasue the crown did not formally make it a colony until the late 1750's early 1760's and as a result there was little functioning colonial government there of any kind leading up to the revolution.
 
New York also ceded territory to the federal government of lands west of the Ontario region, sold some land to Pennsylvania to be done with it and stopped fighting over a tiny little piece of useless land that would later become Vermont.

 
Yankee since you are doing all the states, why don't we backtrack and go over the Northwest Territory (1787 IIRC?).

Was slavery expressly prohibited from all the territories? Earlier we saw Wisconsin was listed as having a couple slaves...were slaveholders allowed to bring their bound servants into free states?

Also...which northern states initially allowed slaves, but later abolished the practice?

 
Wasn't Maine once part of Massachusetts as well?
It became part of the MAssachusetts Bay Colony in the 17th century. France and England fought over it continually and it eventually became part of the British Canada's. The United States got it as part of the revolution and it was still considered part of Massachusetts. To settle the matter of the Missouri Compromise and because of the geographic problems it created, Maine was broken from Mass. and admitted as a free state with Misouri going slave.ETA - the final border of Maine was not agreed on until about 1840 or so with England.
 
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So, as we see, of the 11 rebel states, 7 of them were lands ceded to the federal government by their "mother" states, were land won in war by the federal government, or was land purchased or acquired through treaty of the federal government. The ramining 4 of North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia were original colonies. Although of the 3 Georgia is the most interesting becasue the crown did not formally make it a colony until the late 1750's early 1760's and as a result there was little functioning colonial government there of any kind leading up to the revolution.
I'm not sure I'm fulling getting your point here. If your point is that those 7 states had no right to leave the Union since they were not part of the original contract, it seems to me that by making that argument you are therefore granting the right to secede to North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia, since they were original states. I don't think you want to make that argument. To play devil's advocate here: where in the Constitution does it disallow a state to leave the Union?
 
Yankee since you are doing all the states, why don't we backtrack and go over the Northwest Territory (1787 IIRC?).
I was just going over the 11 rebel states after the mention of Mexican American War and the result of Texas. The Northwest Territory of Ohio was disputed land for decades. New York, Virginia, Massachusetts and Connecticut all claimed rights to the land. Maryland and a few others objected to the claims because it gave those states unstoppable westward expansion without end while other states were locked and couldn't grow that way. As a compromise the land was ceded to the federal government over the course of several years after the revolution.To make Ohio a state a portion of the land to west of present day Ohio was ceded again to the federal government from the Northwest Territory to create the Indiana Territory and the northwest Territory ceased to exist.
Was slavery expressly prohibited from all the territories? Earlier we saw Wisconsin was listed as having a couple slaves...were slaveholders allowed to bring their bound servants into free states?
The Northwest Ordinace prohibited it but the territorial governors got around it any way they could. It resulted in de facto slavery that the law of the territory didn't fight.
Also...which northern states initially allowed slaves, but later abolished the practice?
Vermont was the first to abolish it as, interesting enough, it was techinically an independent "nation" for awhile there. Pennsyivania soon followed suit and by 1804 with New Jersey ending the way, most norther states had abolished it. There was a proposal to ban slavery in all territories around that time and it was defeated in Congress. Then the Missouri Compromise threw the whole thing into chaos.
 
So, as we see, of the 11 rebel states, 7 of them were lands ceded to the federal government by their "mother" states, were land won in war by the federal government, or was land purchased or acquired through treaty of the federal government. The ramining 4 of North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia were original colonies. Although of the 3 Georgia is the most interesting becasue the crown did not formally make it a colony until the late 1750's early 1760's and as a result there was little functioning colonial government there of any kind leading up to the revolution.
I'm not sure I'm fulling getting your point here. If your point is that those 7 states had no right to leave the Union since they were not part of the original contract, it seems to me that by making that argument you are therefore granting the right to secede to North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia, since they were original states. I don't think you want to make that argument. To play devil's advocate here: where in the Constitution does it disallow a state to leave the Union?
If there was something like that then it would not be called a revolt. It would have some legal term and all you would need to do is sign some papers in court
 
So, as we see, of the 11 rebel states, 7 of them were lands ceded to the federal government by their "mother" states, were land won in war by the federal government, or was land purchased or acquired through treaty of the federal government. The ramining 4 of North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia were original colonies. Although of the 3 Georgia is the most interesting becasue the crown did not formally make it a colony until the late 1750's early 1760's and as a result there was little functioning colonial government there of any kind leading up to the revolution.
I'm not sure I'm fulling getting your point here. If your point is that those 7 states had no right to leave the Union since they were not part of the original contract, it seems to me that by making that argument you are therefore granting the right to secede to North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia, since they were original states. I don't think you want to make that argument. To play devil's advocate here: where in the Constitution does it disallow a state to leave the Union?
No, my point is that for those specific 7 states, there was no amount of justified legalism that would grant them the power to make legal rebellion. That's not the same as saying that the remaining 4 therefore had that right. Those 7 states had absolutely no legal justification at all by the simpl fact that they were creations of the federal government without any further history. The difference with the remaining 4 is the colonial period but in the end, those remaining 4 still had no legitimate power to do what they did.As for your final quetion, this is where a few posters seem to think the test lies. But in fact the Constitution does not specifically need to say in the exact words, no state may secede from the union, in order for the law to be in the Constitution. The Constitution is clear on its supremacy, its supremacy after ratification and acceptance and it is clear that the national Congress is charged with all legislative power over the entirety of the country coupled with the fact that no state may confederate with any other state or foreign power. The argument that the states left first and therefore didn't violate the Constitution holds no legal or rational basis. The only way to supercede the Constitution is to amend it.
 
Acquired by Great Britain from France following the 1763 Treaty of Paris, the Ohio Country had been closed to white settlement by the Proclamation of 1763. The United States claimed the region after the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolutionary War, but was subject to overlapping and conflicting claims of the states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Virginia, as well as a lingering British presence that was not settled until the War of 1812.

The region had long been desired for expansion by colonists, however, and urgency of the settlement of the claims of the states was prompted in large measure by the de facto opening of the area to settlement following the loss of British control.

In 1784, Thomas Jefferson proposed that the states should relinquish their particular claims to all the territory west of the Appalachians, and the area should be divided into new states of the Union. Jefferson's proposal of creating a national domain through state cessions of western lands came from earlier proposals dating back to 1776 debates about the Articles of Confederation.[1] Jefferson proposed creating seventeen roughly rectangular states from the territory, and even suggested names for the new states, including Chersonesus, Sylvania, Assenisipia, Metropotamia, Polypotamia, Pelisipia, Saratoga, Washington, Michigania and Illinoia. The proposal was adopted in a modified form, and without Jefferson's invented names, as the Northwest Ordinance of 1784. This ordinance established the example that would become the basis for the Northwest Ordinance three years later. Michigan, Illinois, and Washington would eventually be used as state names.
[yankee23fan]OH-VAH-RATED **CLAP CLAP clap-clap-clap** OH-VAH-RATED **CLAP CLAP clap-clap-clap**

[/yankee23fan]

 
As for your final quetion, this is where a few posters seem to think the test lies. But in fact the Constitution does not specifically need to say in the exact words, no state may secede from the union, in order for the law to be in the Constitution. The Constitution is clear on its supremacy, its supremacy after ratification and acceptance and it is clear that the national Congress is charged with all legislative power over the entirety of the country coupled with the fact that no state may confederate with any other state or foreign power. The argument that the states left first and therefore didn't violate the Constitution holds no legal or rational basis. The only way to supercede the Constitution is to amend it.
Good answer, and fair enough. As we approach in the timeline the secession of South Carolina, I will attempt to post here some of the original and modern day arguments for its legality, and hopefully you can respond. For now, let me present a scenario to you off the top of my head:Let's suppose that, following some extreme crisis, an Adolf Hitler type was elected President, and the first thing he did was have Congress vote for an Enabling Act, which gave him executive power beyond Constitutional limitations in order to deal with the crisis. (The crisis could be nuclear terrorism- a hydrogen bomb goes off in New York, etc.) Let's further suppose the first thing this President does with his new power is order martial law throughout the United States, and eliminates habeus corpus, and then starts arresting people without explanation. Suppose my native California does not want to go along with this. Have we no legal right at that point to leave the Union? If we believe that the federal government is behaving unconstitutionally, are we criminals for attempting to split? What is your position?
 
Let's further suppose the first thing this President does with his new power is order martial law throughout the United States, and eliminates habeus corpus, and then starts arresting people without explanation. Suppose my native California does not want to go along with this. Have we no legal right at that point to leave the Union? If we believe that the federal government is behaving unconstitutionally, are we criminals for attempting to split? What is your position?
Huh...Lincoln do all three of those during the ACW (though to be fair, martial law was not universal everywhere or for the duration). Of course, by then the Confederate states had already 'gone out'.
 
As for your final quetion, this is where a few posters seem to think the test lies. But in fact the Constitution does not specifically need to say in the exact words, no state may secede from the union, in order for the law to be in the Constitution. The Constitution is clear on its supremacy, its supremacy after ratification and acceptance and it is clear that the national Congress is charged with all legislative power over the entirety of the country coupled with the fact that no state may confederate with any other state or foreign power. The argument that the states left first and therefore didn't violate the Constitution holds no legal or rational basis. The only way to supercede the Constitution is to amend it.
Good answer, and fair enough. As we approach in the timeline the secession of South Carolina, I will attempt to post here some of the original and modern day arguments for its legality, and hopefully you can respond. For now, let me present a scenario to you off the top of my head:Let's suppose that, following some extreme crisis, an Adolf Hitler type was elected President, and the first thing he did was have Congress vote for an Enabling Act, which gave him executive power beyond Constitutional limitations in order to deal with the crisis. (The crisis could be nuclear terrorism- a hydrogen bomb goes off in New York, etc.) Let's further suppose the first thing this President does with his new power is order martial law throughout the United States, and eliminates habeus corpus, and then starts arresting people without explanation. Suppose my native California does not want to go along with this. Have we no legal right at that point to leave the Union? If we believe that the federal government is behaving unconstitutionally, are we criminals for attempting to split? What is your position?
I have to agree...our nation was borne from breaking away from an overzealous gov't and the fact that we're each given the right to bear arms...most importantly to defend ourselves...not only against individual foes but our own gov't run amuck."A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."A free state...seems pretty clear to me why that's part of the all powerful Constitution. It's to give the people the right to rise up against an unruly gov't.
 
No, my point is that for those specific 7 states, there was no amount of justified legalism that would grant them the power to make legal rebellion. That's not the same as saying that the remaining 4 therefore had that right. Those 7 states had absolutely no legal justification at all by the simpl fact that they were creations of the federal government without any further history. The difference with the remaining 4 is the colonial period but in the end, those remaining 4 still had no legitimate power to do what they did.
Some interesting stuff Yankee, I didn't know most of that. These 7 states and their lack of history regarding their creation isn't relevant, imho. No matter how they were created, once they joined the Union they were equal partners and anything within the constitution would apply to them as much as it did to the other 4.
 
tdoss, you also raise a good point that I wasn't really thinking about. When was the 2nd Amendment enacted and what exactly is the purpose of that amendment? Does it relate to the right of rebellion? Is this a right inherent our constitution?

 
As for your final quetion, this is where a few posters seem to think the test lies. But in fact the Constitution does not specifically need to say in the exact words, no state may secede from the union, in order for the law to be in the Constitution. The Constitution is clear on its supremacy, its supremacy after ratification and acceptance and it is clear that the national Congress is charged with all legislative power over the entirety of the country coupled with the fact that no state may confederate with any other state or foreign power. The argument that the states left first and therefore didn't violate the Constitution holds no legal or rational basis. The only way to supercede the Constitution is to amend it.
Good answer, and fair enough. As we approach in the timeline the secession of South Carolina, I will attempt to post here some of the original and modern day arguments for its legality, and hopefully you can respond. For now, let me present a scenario to you off the top of my head:Let's suppose that, following some extreme crisis, an Adolf Hitler type was elected President, and the first thing he did was have Congress vote for an Enabling Act, which gave him executive power beyond Constitutional limitations in order to deal with the crisis. (The crisis could be nuclear terrorism- a hydrogen bomb goes off in New York, etc.) Let's further suppose the first thing this President does with his new power is order martial law throughout the United States, and eliminates habeus corpus, and then starts arresting people without explanation. Suppose my native California does not want to go along with this. Have we no legal right at that point to leave the Union? If we believe that the federal government is behaving unconstitutionally, are we criminals for attempting to split? What is your position?
No. Yes. Sometimes revolution/rebellion is necessary.The founders were traitors to the British crown and acted against the monarchy and its authority. The southern rebels were traitors to the Constitution and acted against the federal government and its authority. One of them won and the other didn't; and one of them accepted that they were traitors and criminals to their native authority and one seems to think that such an argument is hogwash.
 
No matter how they were created, once they joined the Union they were equal partners and anything within the constitution would apply to them as much as it did to the other 4.
I agree and have always said as much. Glad to see you finally agree that all the states were bound by the Constitution.
 
These 7 states and their lack of history regarding their creation isn't relevant, imho.
And I disagree here. One of the most central arguments to the rebels cause and the thread that runs through most of the other arguments is that they were states that signed on with the specific intent to leave if they ever found that the federal union did not serve their interests. Before you even get to that argument - basically before you get to the Constitutional stance of the argument, you must eliminate from that argument those 7 states because they most cerainly did not "join" under that condition. The exact opposite actually - if that position was legitimate. They were creations of the federal government solely and where then divided and created into states.
 
tdoss, you also raise a good point that I wasn't really thinking about. When was the 2nd Amendment enacted and what exactly is the purpose of that amendment? Does it relate to the right of rebellion? Is this a right inherent our constitution?
Well it wasn't enacted to specifically give the people the authority to overturn the government whenever they wanted as tdoss makes it sound. And the "free state" doesn't mean each individual state free from the federal government as he makes it seem either.There is no legal right of rebellion in the Constitution. But many of the founders did believe that rebellion against a tyrannical government, while illegal to that government, could be justified in other ways - that's no shock. Sometimes I wonder if 2nd Amendment debates would be much easier if Madison was allowed to keep the original wording of the Amendment.
 
tdoss, you also raise a good point that I wasn't really thinking about. When was the 2nd Amendment enacted and what exactly is the purpose of that amendment? Does it relate to the right of rebellion? Is this a right inherent our constitution?
Well it wasn't enacted to specifically give the people the authority to overturn the government whenever they wanted as tdoss makes it sound. And the "free state" doesn't mean each individual state free from the federal government as he makes it seem either.There is no legal right of rebellion in the Constitution. But many of the founders did believe that rebellion against a tyrannical government, while illegal to that government, could be justified in other ways - that's no shock. Sometimes I wonder if 2nd Amendment debates would be much easier if Madison was allowed to keep the original wording of the Amendment.
A bit of a hijack, but if you ignore for the moment the legality (or lack thereof) of secession, what do you believe would happen today if a state attempted to secede? Personally, I can't imagine the feds would go to war over it.
 
tdoss, you also raise a good point that I wasn't really thinking about. When was the 2nd Amendment enacted and what exactly is the purpose of that amendment? Does it relate to the right of rebellion? Is this a right inherent our constitution?
Well it wasn't enacted to specifically give the people the authority to overturn the government whenever they wanted as tdoss makes it sound. And the "free state" doesn't mean each individual state free from the federal government as he makes it seem either.There is no legal right of rebellion in the Constitution. But many of the founders did believe that rebellion against a tyrannical government, while illegal to that government, could be justified in other ways - that's no shock. Sometimes I wonder if 2nd Amendment debates would be much easier if Madison was allowed to keep the original wording of the Amendment.
A bit of a hijack, but if you ignore for the moment the legality (or lack thereof) of secession, what do you believe would happen today if a state attempted to secede? Personally, I can't imagine the feds would go to war over it.
I do. The results of allowing it would be catastrophic.
 
tdoss, you also raise a good point that I wasn't really thinking about. When was the 2nd Amendment enacted and what exactly is the purpose of that amendment? Does it relate to the right of rebellion? Is this a right inherent our constitution?
Well it wasn't enacted to specifically give the people the authority to overturn the government whenever they wanted as tdoss makes it sound. And the "free state" doesn't mean each individual state free from the federal government as he makes it seem either.There is no legal right of rebellion in the Constitution. But many of the founders did believe that rebellion against a tyrannical government, while illegal to that government, could be justified in other ways - that's no shock. Sometimes I wonder if 2nd Amendment debates would be much easier if Madison was allowed to keep the original wording of the Amendment.
A bit of a hijack, but if you ignore for the moment the legality (or lack thereof) of secession, what do you believe would happen today if a state attempted to secede? Personally, I can't imagine the feds would go to war over it.
I've wondered this myself when starting to read this thread. Texas has sure been hinting that they may continue towards that. Honestly though, I have no idea what would happen.
 
tdoss, you also raise a good point that I wasn't really thinking about. When was the 2nd Amendment enacted and what exactly is the purpose of that amendment? Does it relate to the right of rebellion? Is this a right inherent our constitution?
Well it wasn't enacted to specifically give the people the authority to overturn the government whenever they wanted as tdoss makes it sound. And the "free state" doesn't mean each individual state free from the federal government as he makes it seem either.There is no legal right of rebellion in the Constitution. But many of the founders did believe that rebellion against a tyrannical government, while illegal to that government, could be justified in other ways - that's no shock. Sometimes I wonder if 2nd Amendment debates would be much easier if Madison was allowed to keep the original wording of the Amendment.
Do you happen to have a link to that wording? I did a Google search and only came up with some discussion regarding the number of commas. Thanks!
 
No matter how they were created, once they joined the Union they were equal partners and anything within the constitution would apply to them as much as it did to the other 4.
I agree and have always said as much. Glad to see you finally agree that all the states were bound by the Constitution.
Oh I agree that they were all bound by the Constitution, right up until they decided they were leaving.
These 7 states and their lack of history regarding their creation isn't relevant, imho.
And I disagree here. One of the most central arguments to the rebels cause and the thread that runs through most of the other arguments is that they were states that signed on with the specific intent to leave if they ever found that the federal union did not serve their interests. Before you even get to that argument - basically before you get to the Constitutional stance of the argument, you must eliminate from that argument those 7 states because they most cerainly did not "join" under that condition. The exact opposite actually - if that position was legitimate. They were creations of the federal government solely and where then divided and created into states.
Once these states became part of the Union, "joined" or "created", they inherited the same rights and priveledges as the others. It's called the State of Mississippi not the Federal State of Mississippi.
 
Oh I agree that they were all bound by the Constitution, right up until they decided they were leaving.
:thumbup:
Once these states became part of the Union, "joined" or "created", they inherited the same rights and priveledges as the others. It's called the State of Mississippi not the Federal State of Mississippi.
Agreed.
 
tdoss, you also raise a good point that I wasn't really thinking about. When was the 2nd Amendment enacted and what exactly is the purpose of that amendment? Does it relate to the right of rebellion? Is this a right inherent our constitution?
Well it wasn't enacted to specifically give the people the authority to overturn the government whenever they wanted as tdoss makes it sound. And the "free state" doesn't mean each individual state free from the federal government as he makes it seem either.There is no legal right of rebellion in the Constitution. But many of the founders did believe that rebellion against a tyrannical government, while illegal to that government, could be justified in other ways - that's no shock. Sometimes I wonder if 2nd Amendment debates would be much easier if Madison was allowed to keep the original wording of the Amendment.
Do you happen to have a link to that wording? I did a Google search and only came up with some discussion regarding the number of commas. Thanks!
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; a well armed and well regulated militia being the best security of a free country but no person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.
 
A bit of a hijack, but if you ignore for the moment the legality (or lack thereof) of secession, what do you believe would happen today if a state attempted to secede? Personally, I can't imagine the feds would go to war over it.
I do. The results of allowing it would be catastrophic.
I'll spin this line of thought off into another topic, as it's something I'd like to hear more about.
 
tdoss, you also raise a good point that I wasn't really thinking about. When was the 2nd Amendment enacted and what exactly is the purpose of that amendment? Does it relate to the right of rebellion? Is this a right inherent our constitution?
Well it wasn't enacted to specifically give the people the authority to overturn the government whenever they wanted as tdoss makes it sound. And the "free state" doesn't mean each individual state free from the federal government as he makes it seem either.There is no legal right of rebellion in the Constitution. But many of the founders did believe that rebellion against a tyrannical government, while illegal to that government, could be justified in other ways - that's no shock. Sometimes I wonder if 2nd Amendment debates would be much easier if Madison was allowed to keep the original wording of the Amendment.
A bit of a hijack, but if you ignore for the moment the legality (or lack thereof) of secession, what do you believe would happen today if a state attempted to secede? Personally, I can't imagine the feds would go to war over it.
I've wondered this myself when starting to read this thread. Texas has sure been hinting that they may continue towards that. Honestly though, I have no idea what would happen.
If Texas tried, the President would declare a state of emergency under the Defense Authorization Act and take control of the Texas National Guard without consent of the governor. If the Guard refuses the orders, the Guard of Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico will be called into action to defend the respective borders with Texas. The Army most likely will be dispatched to take control of all military bases in Texas. If fired upon, refused entry or repelled, the Marines will be used with the Navy brought into the Gulf. A state a emergency will be declared throughout the country as armed insurrection allows the executive authority to do so. Any minor ouotbreak of support for Texas throughout the rest of the country will be met with immediate declaration of martial law. Habeas Corpus will be suspended.At some point the United States military will "invade" Texas at all important spots - major cities, military installations, capital. There at least 2 and possibly more sites in Texas that house the armed nuclear stockpile of the United States. Those installations will never be allowed to be removed from the control of the federal government.During the state of emergency, it would be very interesting to see what Texan and Mexican officials did with each other if anything. We could find Mexico dragged into a war in some fashion as we relive the battles of the Mexican American war and the Mexican movement that has been underway for awhile to reclaim the lands "stolen" from them by this country.
 
A bit of a hijack, but if you ignore for the moment the legality (or lack thereof) of secession, what do you believe would happen today if a state attempted to secede? Personally, I can't imagine the feds would go to war over it.
I do. The results of allowing it would be catastrophic.
I'll spin this line of thought off into another topic, as it's something I'd like to hear more about.
I was given this book a few years back. It's not great, but it took some interesting twists.A Single Star

What kind of courage does it take for a handful of people to stand up to the most powerful government in the world? The painful answer comes as South Carolina Governor William Haselden and his allies find themselves enmeshed in the dangerous political ambitions of the President of the United States, Roger Seekings, and his ruthless, devious chief advisor. Determined to ship a hazardous cargo of plutonium and uranium across South Carolina for disposal at the Savannah River Site, the president and his aide will stop at nothing to carry out their plans, including endangering the lives of everyone in the state.

The vice president is blackmailed into silence. Military intelligence resources are recruited to spy on dissenters. Judges are bribed. The stage is set for the president to crush all opposition to his goals.

When terrorists take advantage of the explosive situation, the result is a massive nuclear tragedy that forces Haselden and his supporters to face an agonizing and incredible choice: Should South Carolina give in to the president's remorseless demands—or should it secede?
 
A bit of a hijack, but if you ignore for the moment the legality (or lack thereof) of secession, what do you believe would happen today if a state attempted to secede? Personally, I can't imagine the feds would go to war over it.
I do. The results of allowing it would be catastrophic.
I'll spin this line of thought off into another topic, as it's something I'd like to hear more about.
It's a perfect topic here. I'm assuming that is going to be the final point of discussion in this once it's done - what would have happened had the South won...
 
A bit of a hijack, but if you ignore for the moment the legality (or lack thereof) of secession, what do you believe would happen today if a state attempted to secede? Personally, I can't imagine the feds would go to war over it.
I do. The results of allowing it would be catastrophic.
I'll spin this line of thought off into another topic, as it's something I'd like to hear more about.
I was given this book a few years back. It's not great, but it took some interesting twists.A Single Star

What kind of courage does it take for a handful of people to stand up to the most powerful government in the world? The painful answer comes as South Carolina Governor William Haselden and his allies find themselves enmeshed in the dangerous political ambitions of the President of the United States, Roger Seekings, and his ruthless, devious chief advisor. Determined to ship a hazardous cargo of plutonium and uranium across South Carolina for disposal at the Savannah River Site, the president and his aide will stop at nothing to carry out their plans, including endangering the lives of everyone in the state.

The vice president is blackmailed into silence. Military intelligence resources are recruited to spy on dissenters. Judges are bribed. The stage is set for the president to crush all opposition to his goals.

When terrorists take advantage of the explosive situation, the result is a massive nuclear tragedy that forces Haselden and his supporters to face an agonizing and incredible choice: Should South Carolina give in to the president's remorseless demands—or should it secede?
:D Gotta love South Carolina..... :lmao:
 
A bit of a hijack, but if you ignore for the moment the legality (or lack thereof) of secession, what do you believe would happen today if a state attempted to secede? Personally, I can't imagine the feds would go to war over it.
I do. The results of allowing it would be catastrophic.
I'll spin this line of thought off into another topic, as it's something I'd like to hear more about.
It's a perfect topic here. I'm assuming that is going to be the final point of discussion in this once it's done - what would have happened had the South won...
Nah, I'm really more interested in what people think the federal government should do in such a situation today. The world is different today than it was in 1860, so I imagine the response should and would be different.
 
Uncle Tom's Cabin

Resentment of the Fugitive Slave Act continued to simmer among many Yankees. Even the heart of an occasional law-and-order man could be melted by the vision of a runaway manacled for return to bondage. Among evangelical Protestants who had been swept into the antislavery movement by the Second Great Awakening, such a vision generated outrage and activism. This is what gave Uncle Tom's Cabin such outstanding success. As the daughter, sister, and wife of Congregational clergymen, Harriet Beecher Stowe had breathed that doctrinal air of sin, guilt, atonement, and salvation since childhood. She could clothe these themes in prose that throbbed with pathos as well as bathos. Uncle Tom's Cabin came out in the spring of 1852. Within a year it sold 300,000 copies in the United States alone- comparable to at least 3 million today. The novel enjoyed equal popularity in Britain and was translated into several foreign languages. Within a decade it had sold more than 2 million copies in the United States, making it the best seller of all time in proportion to population.

Although Stowe said that God inspired the book, the Fugitive Slave Act served as His mundane instrument. "Hattie, if I could use a pen as you can, I would write something that will make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is," said her sister-in-law after Congress passed the law. "I will if I live," vowed Harriet. And she did, writing by candlelight in the kitchen after putting her 6 children to bed and finishing the household chores. Unforgettable characters came alive in these pages despite a contrived plot and episodic structure that threatened to run away with the author. "That triumphant work," wrote Henry James, who had been moved by it in his youth, was "much less a book than a state of vision." Drawing on her observances of bondage in Kentucky and her experiences with runaway slaves during a residence of 18 years in Cincinnati, this New England woman made the image of Eliza running across the Ohio River on ice floes or Tom enduring the beatings of Simon Legree in Lousiana more real than life for millions of readers. Nor was the book simply an indictment of the South. Some of its more winsome characters were southerners, and its most loathsome villain, Simon Legree, was a transplanted Yankee. Mrs. Stowe (or perhaps God) rebuked the whole nation for the sin of slavery. She aimed the novel at the evangelical conscience of the North. And she hit her mark.

It is not possible to measure precisely the political influence of Uncle Tom's Cabin. One can quantify its sales but cannot point to votes that it changed or laws that it inspired. Yet few contemporaries doubted its power. :Never was there such a literary coup-de-mainas this," said Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In England, Lord Palmerston, who as prime minister a decade later would face a decision whether to intervene on behalf of the South in the Civil War, read Uncle Tom's Cabin and admired it not so much for the story as "for the statesmanship of it." As Abraham Lincoln was grappling with the problems of slavery in the summer of 1862, he borrowed from the Library of Congress A Key To Uncle Tom's Cabin. a subsequent volume by Stowe containing documentation on which she had based the novel. WHen Lincoln met the author later that year, he reportedly greeted her with the words, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war."

Uncle Tom's Cabin struck a raw nerve in the South. Despite efforts to ban it, copies sold so fast in Charleston and elsewhere that booksellers could not keep up with the demand. The vehemence of southern denunciations of Mrs. Stowe's "falsehoods" and "distortions" was perhaps the best gauge of how close they hit home. "There never before was anything so detestable or so monstrous among women as this," declared the New Orleans Crescent. The editor of the Southern Literary Messenger instructed his book reviewer: "I would have the review as hot as hellfire, blasting and searing the reputation of the vile wretch in petticoats who could write such a volume." WIthin 2 years proslavery writers had answered Uncle Tom's Cabin with at least 15 novels whose thesis that slaves were better off than free workers in the North was capsulized by the title of one of them: Uncle Robin in His Cabin in Virginia and Tom Without One in Boston.

In a later age "Uncle Tom" became a epithet for a black person who behaved with fawning servility toward white oppressors. This was partly a product of the ubiquitous Tom shows that paraded across the stage for generations and transmuted the novel into comic or grotesque melodrama. But an obsequious Tom was not the Uncle Tom of Stowe's pages. That Tom was one of the few true Christians in a novel intended to stir the emotions of a Christian public. Indeed, Tom was a Christ figure. Like Jesus he suffered agony inflicted by evil secular power. Like Jesus he died for the sins of humankind in order to save the oppressors as well as his own people. Stowe's readers lived in an age that understood this message better than ours.

 
It is difficult to place too much emphasis on the social impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin. It was a the best selling novel of the 19th century, and second only to the Bible among all books sold in the century. In fact in some years it outsold the scriptures, a singular event during the antebellum period. Following its initial serialization in an abolitionist magazine, it was published in March, 1852, and by May unauthorized versions were appearing in England (copyright law did not extend internationally at that time).

Prior to its publication, for many northerners slavery was a distant political subject for which they held no personal responsibility. Its galvanizing affect on southerners was equally compelling and forceful. No book has ever had such a cataclysmic impact on an entire nation.

 
It is difficult to place too much emphasis on the social impact of Uncle Tom's Cabin. It was a the best selling novel of the 19th century, and second only to the Bible among all books sold in the century. In fact in some years it outsold the scriptures, a singular event during the antebellum period. Following its initial serialization in an abolitionist magazine, it was published in March, 1852, and by May unauthorized versions were appearing in England (copyright law did not extend internationally at that time).

Prior to its publication, for many northerners slavery was a distant political subject for which they held no personal responsibility. Its galvanizing affect on southerners was equally compelling and forceful. No book has ever had such a cataclysmic impact on an entire nation.
Why did The Diary of Anne Frank affect so many people in the 20th century? Because it was about one person, and people are able to sympathize with what happens to one person. If I tell you that millions of people are being killed in Darfur, it becomes too big a number for us to be emotionally concerned about. If I make a movie about what happens to one family in Darfur, that is a different story. Stowe was one of the first writers to catch on to this. E.M Forster's A Passage To India made Englishmen aware for the first time the dark side of their occupation of India. There are tons of other examples. But Uncle Tom's Cabin will always be the most famous.
 
tdoss, you also raise a good point that I wasn't really thinking about. When was the 2nd Amendment enacted and what exactly is the purpose of that amendment? Does it relate to the right of rebellion? Is this a right inherent our constitution?
Well it wasn't enacted to specifically give the people the authority to overturn the government whenever they wanted as tdoss makes it sound. And the "free state" doesn't mean each individual state free from the federal government as he makes it seem either.There is no legal right of rebellion in the Constitution. But many of the founders did believe that rebellion against a tyrannical government, while illegal to that government, could be justified in other ways - that's no shock. Sometimes I wonder if 2nd Amendment debates would be much easier if Madison was allowed to keep the original wording of the Amendment.
A bit of a hijack, but if you ignore for the moment the legality (or lack thereof) of secession, what do you believe would happen today if a state attempted to secede? Personally, I can't imagine the feds would go to war over it.
I've wondered this myself when starting to read this thread. Texas has sure been hinting that they may continue towards that. Honestly though, I have no idea what would happen.
If Texas tried, the President would declare a state of emergency under the Defense Authorization Act and take control of the Texas National Guard without consent of the governor. If the Guard refuses the orders, the Guard of Louisiana, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico will be called into action to defend the respective borders with Texas. The Army most likely will be dispatched to take control of all military bases in Texas. If fired upon, refused entry or repelled, the Marines will be used with the Navy brought into the Gulf. A state a emergency will be declared throughout the country as armed insurrection allows the executive authority to do so. Any minor ouotbreak of support for Texas throughout the rest of the country will be met with immediate declaration of martial law. Habeas Corpus will be suspended.At some point the United States military will "invade" Texas at all important spots - major cities, military installations, capital. There at least 2 and possibly more sites in Texas that house the armed nuclear stockpile of the United States. Those installations will never be allowed to be removed from the control of the federal government.During the state of emergency, it would be very interesting to see what Texan and Mexican officials did with each other if anything. We could find Mexico dragged into a war in some fashion as we relive the battles of the Mexican American war and the Mexican movement that has been underway for awhile to reclaim the lands "stolen" from them by this country.
What if Texas allowed the US to come in and get their nuclear stockpile and allowed them to close up shop on all things that pertained to the federal government. Do you still think this invasion would happen. What does the US have to lose by losing the land of Texas. I understand the military and government possessions that are there. But if Texas hands those over willingly, what would be the negative about losing the state. I have my own ideas but would like to hear from you (since I enjoy reading what you write :confused: )
 
What if Texas allowed the US to come in and get their nuclear stockpile and allowed them to close up shop on all things that pertained to the federal government. Do you still think this invasion would happen. What does the US have to lose by losing the land of Texas. I understand the military and government possessions that are there. But if Texas hands those over willingly, what would be the negative about losing the state. I have my own ideas but would like to hear from you (since I enjoy reading what you write <_< )
Texas couldn't allow that and expect the secession to work. The only way to decommission and remove the nuclear stockpiles int eh state is to move in massive amounts of military hardware and troops to do so. You are basically telling the federal government to bring in its full force but to take everything and leave. It wouldn't work. As soon as the "removal" force got in they would take control of the sites they were going to, declare martial law and shut down the operations of the rebel state government. It's entirely possible that a new state government loyal to the country is formed at the same time ala West Virginia.As for what we have to lose, the simple answer is everything. If Texas is allowed to leave without fuss - we simply remove all federal possessions and weapons - all hell breaks loose. Business contracts are destroyed, and the stock market tanks. The entire federal court system would almost seize under the pressure of what would happen. And that's just business.Any citizens of the United States that didn't want to stay in Texas would have to leave, and accomplishing mass exodus' like that - and the accompanying entrance into the "new" country that results would probably end up being no more successful then the India Pakistan movement of the mid 20th century. There will be conflict.And there will be precedent. If one state goes another stae will find another reason. And another. The republic will cease to exist. Any enemies of the country that wanted to see that happen would start funneling money and supplies to those that want to continue the fall. Countries that we owe a ton of money to, like China, would have to intervene to protect their own investments. We could very well find our country at the center of a global proxy war.
 
Uncle Tom's Cabin

Resentment of the Fugitive Slave Act continued to simmer among many Yankees. Even the heart of an occasional law-and-order man could be melted by the vision of a runaway manacled for return to bondage. Among evangelical Protestants who had been swept into the antislavery movement by the Second Great Awakening, such a vision generated outrage and activism. This is what gave Uncle Tom's Cabin such outstanding success. As the daughter, sister, and wife of Congregational clergymen, Harriet Beecher Stowe had breathed that doctrinal air of sin, guilt, atonement, and salvation since childhood. She could clothe these themes in prose that throbbed with pathos as well as bathos. Uncle Tom's Cabin came out in the spring of 1852. Within a year it sold 300,000 copies in the United States alone- comparable to at least 3 million today. The novel enjoyed equal popularity in Britain and was translated into several foreign languages. Within a decade it had sold more than 2 million copies in the United States, making it the best seller of all time in proportion to population.

Although Stowe said that God inspired the book, the Fugitive Slave Act served as His mundane instrument. "Hattie, if I could use a pen as you can, I would write something that will make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is," said her sister-in-law after Congress passed the law. "I will if I live," vowed Harriet. And she did, writing by candlelight in the kitchen after putting her 6 children to bed and finishing the household chores. Unforgettable characters came alive in these pages despite a contrived plot and episodic structure that threatened to run away with the author. "That triumphant work," wrote Henry James, who had been moved by it in his youth, was "much less a book than a state of vision." Drawing on her observances of bondage in Kentucky and her experiences with runaway slaves during a residence of 18 years in Cincinnati, this New England woman made the image of Eliza running across the Ohio River on ice floes or Tom enduring the beatings of Simon Legree in Lousiana more real than life for millions of readers. Nor was the book simply an indictment of the South. Some of its more winsome characters were southerners, and its most loathsome villain, Simon Legree, was a transplanted Yankee. Mrs. Stowe (or perhaps God) rebuked the whole nation for the sin of slavery. She aimed the novel at the evangelical conscience of the North. And she hit her mark.

It is not possible to measure precisely the political influence of Uncle Tom's Cabin. One can quantify its sales but cannot point to votes that it changed or laws that it inspired. Yet few contemporaries doubted its power. :Never was there such a literary coup-de-mainas this," said Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. In England, Lord Palmerston, who as prime minister a decade later would face a decision whether to intervene on behalf of the South in the Civil War, read Uncle Tom's Cabin and admired it not so much for the story as "for the statesmanship of it." As Abraham Lincoln was grappling with the problems of slavery in the summer of 1862, he borrowed from the Library of Congress A Key To Uncle Tom's Cabin. a subsequent volume by Stowe containing documentation on which she had based the novel. WHen Lincoln met the author later that year, he reportedly greeted her with the words, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war."

Uncle Tom's Cabin struck a raw nerve in the South. Despite efforts to ban it, copies sold so fast in Charleston and elsewhere that booksellers could not keep up with the demand. The vehemence of southern denunciations of Mrs. Stowe's "falsehoods" and "distortions" was perhaps the best gauge of how close they hit home. "There never before was anything so detestable or so monstrous among women as this," declared the New Orleans Crescent. The editor of the Southern Literary Messenger instructed his book reviewer: "I would have the review as hot as hellfire, blasting and searing the reputation of the vile wretch in petticoats who could write such a volume." WIthin 2 years proslavery writers had answered Uncle Tom's Cabin with at least 15 novels whose thesis that slaves were better off than free workers in the North was capsulized by the title of one of them: Uncle Robin in His Cabin in Virginia and Tom Without One in Boston.

In a later age "Uncle Tom" became a epithet for a black person who behaved with fawning servility toward white oppressors. This was partly a product of the ubiquitous Tom shows that paraded across the stage for generations and transmuted the novel into comic or grotesque melodrama. But an obsequious Tom was not the Uncle Tom of Stowe's pages. That Tom was one of the few true Christians in a novel intended to stir the emotions of a Christian public. Indeed, Tom was a Christ figure. Like Jesus he suffered agony inflicted by evil secular power. Like Jesus he died for the sins of humankind in order to save the oppressors as well as his own people. Stowe's readers lived in an age that understood this message better than ours.
It's funny (to me) but of all the reading I've done on the era and on Lincoln specifically, I have never gotten more then a couple pages or summary notes into this book. It just never grabbed me as anything I felt like reading. But there can be no doubt that this was one of those books that grabbed the imagination of the polity and affected a shift somehow. Other books such as Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" would likewise affect national policy.Stowe was a Lincoln admirer in the end, but not always. She freely admitted that she didn't see the true long term vision of his politics until later on. Lincoln, likewise, did say that quote he is attributed with and it was with a sense that he greeted most people who visited with him. There is a famous story of how one day he was greeting peoplein the White House as was cutom back then and in line was a black woman, former slave, towards the end of the war. When she saw him and it was her turn to grab his attention she falls to her knees to thank him. He put his hands on her shoulders to pick her up and lookin at her in the yees - an act of equality few white men of power ever publically displayed with a black slave - told her that she need not bow to any man anymore. The people in the White House to dumbstruck by his act.

The funny thing in the end was that his position on slavery was never solid in any one way until the very end - but even then he was very clear that he would sacrifice almost anything to preserve the Union. You can't call him an abolitionist and you can't call him the greatest liberator of slaves, as some do, because he wasn't. He was the President charged with putting down a rebellion and keeping the Union together. He was willing to do that by almost any means necessary, even sacrificing slavery if necessary. And it was societal movements like what cam e from this book that began to change him and the country.

 
It's funny (to me) but of all the reading I've done on the era and on Lincoln specifically, I have never gotten more then a couple pages or summary notes into this book. It just never grabbed me as anything I felt like reading. But there can be no doubt that this was one of those books that grabbed the imagination of the polity and affected a shift somehow. Other books such as Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle" would likewise affect national policy....And it was societal movements like what cam e from this book that began to change him and the country.
As a literary work its not an especially noteworthy effort. Its written in the flourishing, overly dramatic romantic style that characterized most 'domestic novels*' of the era. Obvs its intent was to tug at the heartstrings - the Little Eva character is wholly unrealistic. But its greatness is not the work itself, but the movement it accelerated.*e.g., any fiction written by women during this age usually got slapped with this label.
 
The Kansas-Nebraska Act Part One

The genesis of Kansas-Nebraska lay in the same impulse that had propelled Americans westward from the beginning. Restless settlers and land speculators had begun to cast covetous eyes on the fertile soil of the Kansas and Platte river valleys. By 1852, also, the idea of a transcontinental railroad through the region had become the dream of entrepreneurs, politicians, and frontiersmen alike. But until the government extracted land cessions from the Indians and organized the area as a territory, the region could not be surveyed and farmers could not settle there. Southerners were in no hurry to organize this territory, for it lay north of 36-30 where slavery was excluded by the Missouri Compromise. Besides, they preferred a southern route for a Pacific expansion through the already organized territory of New Mexico, with New Orleans as its eastern terminus.

It so happened that two Illinois Democrats- William A. Richardson and Stephen A. Douglas- were chairmen respectively of the House and Senate committees on territories. Both were champions of Young America's manifest destiny to expand ever westward. A large investor in Chicago real estate, Douglas had enhanced the value of his property by securing a federal land grant for a railroad from that city to Mobile. Perhaps hoping to repeat the scenario from Chicago to San Francisco, Douglas and Richardson in 1853 reported bills to organize Nebraska territory embrasing most of the remaining portion of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36-30. The House quickly passed the measure, but opposition from southern senators tabled in March 1853. To get his bill enacted, Doughlas needed the support of at least 6 southern senators. And they let him know exactly what it was going to cost. From Senators Atchinson of Missouri, Butler of South Carolina, Mason and Hunter of Virginia (collectively known as the "F Street Mess") came the message: if Douglas wanted Nebraska he must repeal the ban on slavery there and place "slaveholder and non-slaveholder upon terms of equality."

Douglas knew that such action would "raise a hell of a storm" in the North. So he first tried to outflank the Missouri Compromise instead of repealing it. His initial version of the Nebraska bill in January 1854 provided that Nebraska would come in "with or without slavery as per its constitution." This was not accepted by F Street, who correctly recognized it as a dodge. So Douglas took the fateful step, He added an explicit repeal of the ban on slavey north of the Missouri Compromise borders. More than that, his new bill organized two territories: Kansas and Nebraska. This looked like a device to reserve Kansas for slavery and Nebraska for freedom, especially since the climate and soil of eastern Kansas wre similar to those of the Missouri river basin in Missouri, where most of the slavers in that state were concentrated.

This did indeed provoke a hell of a storm that made the debates of 1850 look like a gentle shower. The first clouds blew up from the Pierce administration itself. The president feared the political consequences of repudiating a covenant sanctified by 34 years of national life. Except for Secretary of War Jefferson Davis and Secretary of the Navy James Dobbins (of North Carolina), the cabinet opposed the repeal clause. The Administration drafted a vague alternative that would have referred the whole question of slavery to the Supreme Court. But this did not satisfy the F Street Mess. With Davis and Douglas they confronted the president with an ultimatum: endorse repeal or lose the South. Pierce surrendere. Moreover, he agreed to make the revised Kansas-Nebraska bill "a test of party orthodoxy."

This decision by President Pierce would prove to have disastrous consequences for the nation.

 
Political map of the United States

Exhibiting the comparative area of the free and slave states and the territory open to slavery or freedom by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. The black states are slave states; the red states, free. The green-shaded part illustrates the territories opened to slavery on the principle of “popular sovereignty,” introduced as a part of the Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854, an act which effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820 & radically destabilized the already unstable politics of America.

 
I haven't read the whole thread (not even close really), but have you gotten into the international impact of slavery - the pressure to keep up, the pressure to improve status in the eyes of other nations, etc? It may not have had a direct impact on the war, but the international reasons for slavery and ending slavery were very important.

 
I haven't read the whole thread (not even close really), but have you gotten into the international impact of slavery - the pressure to keep up, the pressure to improve status in the eyes of other nations, etc? It may not have had a direct impact on the war, but the international reasons for slavery and ending slavery were very important.
No, I don't think that has been covered.Perhaps you could expand on what you are referring to as this isn't something I've run across.Communication was much slower in the mid-19th century, and globalization simply did not exist.While the United States of the 1850s held great promise for the future, we were at that time very much a second tier power.Britain - by far the greatest power of the day - banned the importation of African slaves in its colonies in 1807, and the United States followed in 1808. Abolition of slavery in the British Empire was completed with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.Anyway, just some random facts to consider...I don't think I sufficiently understand your post to comment further.
 
The Kansas-Nebraska Act, Concluded

Northern Democrats and Whigs were stunned by Douglas's bill. But Free Soilers were not surprised. It was just what they had expected from the "Slave Power." And they were ready with a response to rally the North against this "gross violation of a sacred pledge," this "atrocious plot" to convert free territory into a "dreary region of depotism, inhabited by masters and slaves." These phrases came from the collaborative pens of Salmon P. Chase, Charles Sumner, Joshua Giddings, and 3 other Free Soil congressmen who published an "Appeal of the Independent Democrats" in the National Era- the same paper that had serialized Uncle Tom's Cabin.

This Appeal set the keynote for an outpouring of angry speeches, editorials, and sermons across the North. Douglas responded by insisting that the repeal of the ban on slavery north of 36-30 was nothing new. The Compromise of 1850, he declared, had superseded that restriction by allowing popular sovereignity in former Mexican territory north as well as south of that line. This was BS, and everyone knew it. The Compromise of 1850 applied to the Mexican cession, not to the Louisiana Purchase, and no one at the time- including Douglas- had thought otherwise. This was just a rationalization of policy forced on Douglas by southern pressure. Nevertheless, Democratic party discipline and Douglas's parliamentary legerdemain pushed the bill through the Senate in March by a vote of 41 to 17 with only 5 of the 24 free state Democrats joining northern Whigs and Free Soilers in opposition.

Northern Democrats in the House who had to face election in the fall proved more resistant to administration pressure. Nevertheless Alexander Stephens, floor manager of the bill, applied "whip and spur" and drove it to passage on May 22 by a vote of 115 to 104. "I feel as if the Mission of my life was performed," wrote the exultant Stephens. Perhaps so, but only by giving the coup de grace to the intersectional two-party system. Every northern Whig in the two houses had voted against the bill, while 25 out of 34 southern Whigs had voted for it. Of 75 southern Democrats, 72 voted for the measure, while 49 of 108 northern Democrats voted against it. Many of the latter knew that an affirmative vote meant defeat for reelection, while a negative vote meant an end to influence in the party establishment. Only 7 of the northern representatives who voted Aye won reelection, while most who voted Nay left the Democratic party never to return. For northern and southern Whigs the bitter divisions caused a final parting of the ways. "The Whig party has been killed off effectively by that miserable Nebraska business," wrote Truman Smith of Connecticut, who resigned in disgust from the Senate. "We Whigs of the North are unalterably determined never to have even the slightest political correspondence or connection with southern Whigs." That was fine with Southerners. "We will have no party association with Northern Whigs," they declared, "until they shall give unmistakable evidence of repentance of the impulses of a wild fanaticism."

The question now became: who would pick up the pieces of smashed political parties? In the lower South, Democrats would soon sweep most of the remaining shards of Whiggery into their own dustbin. In the upper South, Whigs clung to a precarious existence- under different names- for a few more years. In the North, matters were more complicated.

 
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The Birth of the Republican Party Part One

Some antislavery Whigs like William H. Seward hoped to rejuvenate the party for the 1854 state and congressional elections by absorbing Free Soilers and anti-Nebraska Democrats. But the latter groups declined to be absorbed. Instead, along with many Whigs they proposed to abandon "mere party names, and rally as one man for the reestablishment of liberty and the overthrow of the Slave Power." New antislavery coalitions thus formed throughout the North to contest the fall elections. These coalitions called themselves by various names- Anti-Nebraska, Fusion, People's, Independent- but the one name that emerged most prominently was Republican. An anti-Nebraska rally at a church in Ripon, Wisconsin seems to have been the first to adopt this label. A meeting of 30 congressmen in Washington endorsed the name on May 9. The new party in Michigan officially designated itself Republican in July. Conventions in numerous congressional districts, especially in the Old Northwest, chose this name that resonated with the struggle of 1776:

In view of the necessity of battling for the first principles of republican government," resolved the Michigan convention, "and against the schemes of aristocracy the most revolting and oppressive with which the earth was ever cursed, or man debased, we will co-operate and be known as Republicans.

 
Northern aggression at its finest. Slavery would have ended on its own insofar as if the south had been allowed to break with the union they would have had to eliminate slavery or else risk having no one to trade with as Europe had banned slavery years earlier.

This war was about money, not morality!

Carry on.

 
Northern aggression at its finest. Slavery would have ended on its own insofar as if the south had been allowed to break with the union they would have had to eliminate slavery or else risk having no one to trade with as Europe had banned slavery years earlier.This war was about money, not morality!Carry on.
If you truly hold this viewpoint (which is certainly legitimate) I hope you're willing to defend it when we get to 1861 in the narrative. That's still a ways away, but when we get there, I intend to explore in full detail all of the motivations on both sides, and that's when we'll hopefully discover how much truth, if any, there is to your assertion.
 

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