"People still believe this myth that the North was fighting to free the slaves, and the Confederacy was all trying to enforce slavery. That is not true."
According to the Confederate States Constitution, it is true-
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp
Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 of the Confederate States Constitution prohibited the Confederate government from restricting slavery in any way:
"No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."
Article IV, Section 2 , Clause 1 also prohibited states from interfering with slavery:
"The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired." (So much for States Rights!)
Perhaps the most menacing provision of the Confederate States Constitution was the explicit protection Article IV, Section 3, Clause 3 offered to slavery in all future territories conquered or acquired by the Confederacy:
"The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several States; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States."
This provision ensured the perpetuation of slavery as long and as far as the Confederate States of America could extend it's political reach, and more then a few Confederates had their eyes fixed on Cuba and Central and South America as objects of future conquest.
Unlike the Confederate States Constitution, the United States Constitution freely permitted states to abolish slavery. If the day ever came when slavery was eliminated voluntarily throughout the United States of America, not one word of the United States Constitution would need to be changed, whereas slavery would never lawfully be abolished under the Confederate States Constitution.
"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that."
That was from a letter President Lincoln wrote in response to a editorial written by Horace Greely, the antislavery editor of the New York Tribune.
I have no reason to doubt that in the immediate crisis of the War of the Rebellion, as the death tolls of Americans grew daily, President Lincoln would have adopted the quickest and surest measures to save the Union, even if those measures did not include abolishing slavery.
If President Lincoln could stop the slaughter and restore the Union without touching slavery, why should he not have done so? Had he been able to bring the war to a speedy end, slavery would once again be a problem to solve through peaceful political processes under the U.S. Constitution, slavery would remain an evil institution, and all the difficulties that attended the earlier attempts to eradicate it would remain as well, but this was a lesser evil then the bloody carnage happening daily on the fields of battles.
Furthermore, President Lincoln at that time had no lawful authority to engage in an antislavery crusade, as Mr. Greeley desired, and the majority of the American people would not have supported one. Thus, President Lincoln rightly told Mr. Greeley that he would do with regard to slavery whatever "helped to save the Union"
When President Lincoln said, "I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races" , he stated nothing but a political fact.
From the time he reentered national politics in 1854 until his 1860 campaign for president, Mr. Lincoln had in fact never proposed to "introduce political and social equality between the white and black races."
The core of his political platform was the proposal to prohibit slavery from spreading into the federal territories; in terms of policies related to slavery and race, President Lincoln only advocated repealing the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and restoring the Missouri Compromise.
On face value then, Mr. Lincoln's words are not a statement of racial supremacy; they only describe his campaign platform.
Further, while he said it was not his purpose in 1858 to "introduce political and social equality between the white and black races", President Lincoln never denied that he believed in their political and social equality, and he never said that he would not support policies of racial equality in the future should public opinion become more receptive to them.
"I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people."
In the context of his many other statements insisting on the equality of white and black people, it seems likely that his refusal to advocate such policies was more a matter of strategy then principle on his part: Mr. Lincoln knew that there was no possibility at all of getting such policies enacted into law, so why destroy his political career by proposing those polices to an audience that wanted nothing to do with them?
Nowhere did Mr. Lincoln suggest that such policies would be wrong. Nor did he deny that he might support such policies in the future, perhaps when the American mind had cleansed itself of some of the racial prejudice and was better prepared to entertain the full implications of human equality.
"And I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."
Is there a physical difference between black and white human beings? Of course: black is black, and white is white. And while this simple difference of skin color, in itself, does not imply or require political and social inequality, the distinction of color in the United States of America at that time had become deeply entwined with slavery and questions of racial hierarchy. Mr. Lincoln was offering a sound sociological observation when he predicted that differing skin colors would "forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality."
"And in as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."
President Lincoln did not endorse a political hierarchy based on race, but indicated that such hierarchy may be a "necessity" - an inescapable result of widespread racial opinions and assumptions.
In such a case, anyone of any color, when presented with a choice of having his or her race assigned a superior or an inferior position in a given society, with no option of equal citizenship, would choose to have his or her race in the superior position.
President Lincoln's assertion is the flip side of the obvious statement that no human being would wish to be enslaved. That in no way proves that President Lincoln did not believe in the equality of rights of all humans of all colors or that he did not hope American opinion would someday move in the direction of equal citizenship of all people of all colors. It simply demonstrates that so long as necessity required that there be an unjust hierarchy based on color, and as long as the American people rejected color-blindness, President Lincoln, like anyone else, would rather be on top then on bottom if forced to choose.
Getting American audiences to listen and then persuading them of the equality of black people would require great, and perhaps unprecedented, rhetorical skills. No one, however, was more calculating in crafting his speech then President Lincoln as he attempted to refute the new pro-slavery arguments while moving public opinion, without insulting the public, back in the direction of the founding principle of human equality.
President Lincoln's challenge was to move opinions back toward the principles of the United States Declaration of Independence while avoiding the fanaticism of abolitionism, and to uphold the rule of law and protection of property rights while avoiding the fanaticism of the pro-slavery camp. In this, Mr. Lincoln's skill was unmatched.
Please consider President Lincoln's qualification of his position. If Mr. Lincoln could move public opinion to grant this basic precept of political right, that black people have the right to own and acquire property, the other precepts of civil society and civil liberties could then be argued.
If President Lincoln could persuade Americans of all black people's equal humanity and natural rights, and if Americans were to act consistently with the terms of their own social contract, justice would demand either equal citizenship for black people or the right to freely emigrate from the United States. In either case holding black people as chattel slaves violated the first principle of the American's social contract - human equality.
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