Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

NoBSforGma t1_j6jx3nw wrote

Reply to comment by MikiLove in TIL of Clement Vallandigham, a lawyer and congressman during the Civil War. The Union deported him for supporting the Confederacy. After the war, he died by accidentally shooting himself during a murder trial while trying to show the murder weapon could have misfired. His client got off as a result by MikiLove

Yes, he was deported during the war. But BEFORE the war and BEFORE the states seceded, he supported allowing them to secede which was NOT treasonous.

Basically, Lincoln made the decision to not let the states secede. He was determined to hold the country together. He declared that anyone who spoke against the war would be arrested. Was this an overstep on his part? Kind of like the Patriot Act of recent years. Not allowed to speak out against the war because that was considered "treason." I am not saying it was a wrong thing to do -- just saying it's worth a debate or discussion.

The point I am trying to make is that rather than focus on Vallandigham's support of slavery and the South or focus on his shooting himself in court, to focus on the whole swirl of breaking the union and people's right to express their opinions about it (or not) and how that played out.

In the 1860's, slavery was viewed by many people as an amoral practice. But not 100%. Be realistic. Just like there are racists today, there were people who thought that it was OK because they were "taken care of" and introduced to Christianity. As more information became available about the actual conditions of slaves and slavery laws, more people were against it.

The slave trade was abolished in the US in 1808. In other words, no slaves could legally be imported into the US after that. But prior to that time, New England ship captains were definitely involved.

I think that mostly, the rich Southern plantation owners just wanted to be left alone so they could continue doing what they were doing. And that is...... raising cotton (mostly) and selling it and making money.

"Moral outlier?" Hm. Along with the destruction of Native Americans, I guess. Done by the Federal Government.

4

MikiLove OP t1_j6jxsab wrote

There's a definitely a debate to be had about Lincoln's actions and the extreme measures he took, but once bullets started firing everything changed. Lincoln didn't suspend habeus corpus and imprison dissenters until the South fired upon Northern troops. There's a big distinction.

And I'm not talking about 1808. I'm talking about 1860. The South were outliers among the Western world, and was viewed as such. Rich Southerners wanted to continue to have cheap labor, while also maintaining their racial superiority.

And I am not here to defend the actions of the Federal Government when it came to slavery. That was abhorrent. But what I can stay is the Federal Government got it correct when it came to slavery and the Civil War

4

NoBSforGma t1_j6k1kxd wrote

I don't disagree with anything you have written - except - that "outliers among the Western world" when there were still slaves in the Caribbean islands and elsewhere in Central and South America.

1