Epitaph on headstone of Union soldier buried close to Philadelphia.

[Gary G]

I wonder why Lysander Spooner, the great northern abolitionist was so opposed to Lincoln the tyrant?


Maybe we can understand the times, and not the later propaganda so much, by reading some of his writings.
I found them interesting:
http://www.lysanderspooner.org/

[ironfoot]

I wonder why Lysander Spooner, the great northern abolitionist was so opposed to Lincoln the tyrant?


Maybe we can understand the times, and not the later propaganda so much, by reading some of his writings.
I found them interesting:
http://www.lysanderspooner.org/

Pretty easy to figure out. Spooner was revolutionary for his day. He figured slavery was illegal. Most of the country, and the Supreme Court thought it was legal. Lincoln thought it was legal where it existed, but wanted to keep it out of the territories. That is what he said in his Coopers Union speech:
 
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/cooper.htm
 
If it was kept out of the territories, the free states would begin to outnumber the slave states, and the free states would push to end slavery. So most of the slave states seceded in order to try to preserve and expand slavery.
 

[Gary G]

Let's let Spooner speak for himself:


http://lysanderspooner.org/node/44


The principle, on which the war was waged by the North, was simply this: That men may rightfully be compelled to submit to, and support, a government that they do not want; and that resistance, on their part, makes them traitors and criminals.

Notwithstanding all the proclamations we have made to mankind, within the last ninety years, that our government rests on consent, and that that was the rightful basis on which any government could rest, the late war has practically demonstrated that our government rests upon force --- as much so as any government that ever existed.

------------------------------------
This whole thing is worth reading because it applies to today's loss of liberty and freedom as much as it did 1867.

[rio grande]

Plenty of epitaths down here in the South too, of equally good men who thought highly of the rights of self-determination and secession.
 

[crappie10]

And you guys think ours, is the only country in the history of the world to have this happen to it. good lord, every country had growing pains and conflict. It's no wonder the Russians, English, Chinese, middle easterns and all the others are still fighting amongst themselves.
AREN'T WE BETTER THAN THAT

[ironglow]

It was a rebellion to perpetuate slavery.
 
Lincoln's anti slavery views were well known as result of the Lincoln/Douglas debates and Lincoln's Coopers Union speech. Lincoln was elected on an anti-slavery Republican platform. Lincoln was elected President of the whole country, not just the North. The South would not abide by the results of the presidential election, and engaged in armed revolt.  The North fought to preserve the Union and representative democracy. The South fought to perpetuate it's significant investment in "property" in  the form of human slaves.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln%E2%80%93Douglas_debates_of_1858

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/cooper.htm

http://www.cprr.org/Museum/Ephemera/Republican_Platform_1860.html

http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html

http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres32.html

http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html

http://americancivilwar.com/documents/index.html

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm

http://www.filibustercartoons.com/CSA.htm

Lincoln's last speech:

http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/last.htm

"For the first time in a public setting, Lincoln expressed his support for black suffrage. This statement incensed John Wilkes Booth, a member of the audience, who vowed, "That is the last speech he will make." A white supremacist and Confederate activist, Booth made good on his threat three days later."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
 
  ..And look how Lincoln's party gets thanked for it..by the people he freed from slavery..
   Actually, in a few short years it would have been accomplished without war..
 
   Sorry LC..This thread was about a headstone for a deceased veteran..let's go back to it fellows..

[BAGTIC]

Lincoln did not free the  slaves in the north because he did not have the authority to free them. Slavery was  legal in the United States and so recognized by the Constitution. He freed the slaves in the south because it was by their own declaration a separate sovereign nation and Lincoln was exercising his authority under martial law over a conquered nation just as we did over Germany and Japan years later.
There were never any export taxes. They were forbidden by the Constitution. Nor were there any internal tariffs between the states. These two prohibitions were among the reasons the Articles of Confederation were replaced.
West Virginia seceded from the rest of the state of Virginia as it had a right to under the principle of the same 'right of secession' that the confederate states claimed legitimized their secession. Ironically if Virginia had stayed  in the Union west Virginia would have been prevented from separating without the approval of the majority of the voters in both Virginia and the proposed new state of West Virginia. Seeing as how almost all of Virginia's population was in the east it never would have passed. Virginia, by seceding shot itself in the foot, er... ass. If the CSA states had stayed in the Union slavery could never have been abolished without their consent.
After the ban on importation of slaves in 1806 the slave trade began to decline, one reason being that Great Britain abolished slavery and the Royal Navy began hunting down slave ships. In the next twenty years there were even proposals in the Virginia legislature to ban slavery and abolition was making headway. What changed things was the invention of the cotton gin which made cotton plantations profitable for the big land owners.
Almost all the slaves were imported into the south. The main ports of entry were Chesapeake Bay/Richmond; Charleston, SC; Savannah, GA; New Orleans. Very few entered this country through northern ports.
 
 

[littlecanoe]

BAGTIC,

I don't wanna change the message of your post but this statement in a well thought post seems to point to the idea that KEEPING slaves wasn't the idea behind VA's seceding.

""Seeing as how almost all of Virginia's population was in the east it never would have passed. Virginia, by seceding shot itself in the foot, er... ass. If the CSA states had stayed in the Union slavery could never have been abolished without their consent.""

lc

[greenmtnboy]

Damn Dee   Id say you are Condemned to Repeat it         
   Better known as The War of Southern Stupidity...

[BAGTIC]

Littlecanoe,
I disagree. Virginia's interests were monetary. In the early 1800's when cotton was less profitable VA was considering abolition but after the cotton gin was introduced the cotton business began to boom. They were not about to give up slavery then. $$$$$$.
If the southern states had stayed in the Union slavery would still have been legal and all the destruction avoided. The abolitionist states could never get enough votes to amendmend the Constitution and they could never get enough majority to add new states to the Union to sway the issue. It would have been a stalemate. Southern prosperity would have been short lived in any case as the CSA main customer Great Britain was abolitionists and succumbing to domestic pressures to boycott the CSA. GB was rapidly developing alternative cotton sources in Egypt and India and they would have gradually taken over much of the CSA's market. The CSA was on the losing side of history.
The people of the South were inveigled  into a self destructive course of action by southern politicians motivated by their own ambition. Ironically many of the same people who are so irate about modern politicians doing the same thing seem unable to accept the reality that politicians have not changed over the centuries and they therefore refuse to even consider that some of their ancestors might have done the same thing.  No, their ancestors were all noble saints.