# Civil War Was Not Over Slavery? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 3, 2011, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779 "2011-11-03T20:40:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/221 "2011-11-09T17:32:59Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Enlighten me: what do you think Article IV, Section IV _ **does** _ allow the federal government to do with regard to the states? How about you tell me what you think it allows, why it does, and I’ll decide from there whether or not I agree with it. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/222 "2011-11-09T17:40:22Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Wrong. States get representation in Congress. Not true. Congress does not need to seat delegations and can vote to ignore them, and you ignore that states must send legitimate, legal delegations. > [@](#): > > No he ordered that the Union troops get out of the fort first. This belies your claim he was out for bloodshed. You are being intentionally misleading to prove your point and I find that questionable. Under what authority? It was a federal fort, literally land created ex nihilo by the U.S. government. Davis was a civilian with no authority, threatening bloodshed if he did not get his way. In fact, he was a criminal engaged in a criminal enterprise, and was quite generously treated after the war. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/223 "2011-11-09T17:48:35Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > How about you tell me what you think it allows, why it does, and I’ll decide from there whether or not I agree with it. You already know I think it allows exactly the situation in effect after the Civil War, and I already know you’ve decided – _“yes”_ – that you disagree with so applying it in that situation. You know what I think the section allows; I don’t know what you think it allows. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/224 "2011-11-09T18:27:49Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > What about the non-traitorous citizens? We are talking about the seditious state governments. Under the Constitution, Congressional representation is assigned to states, not to the people directly. [QUOTE=Article I, Section 2] The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to chuse three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode-Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New-York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Article I, Section 3] The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/225 "2011-11-09T18:44:19Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > You already know I think it allows exactly the situation in effect after the Civil War, and I already know you’ve decided – _“yes”_ – that you disagree with so applying it in that situation. You know what I think the section allows; I don’t know what you think it allows. I’m curious as to how denying representation to people in the various states can be construed as guaranteeing a Republican form of government. It appears to me it would be a direct contradiction. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/226 "2011-11-09T18:49:58Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > That’s the point. South Carolinians did not believe the Union had a “clear legal right” to have a fort there. Is there anything that South Carolina could have don’t that wouldn’t have been legal in their minds? Or yours? ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/227 "2011-11-09T18:51:34Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Not true. Congress does not need to seat delegations and can vote to ignore them, and you ignore that states must send legitimate, legal delegations. I’m sure the states of the defeated confederation would have been willing to send delegations if they were allowed to. > [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Under what authority? It was a federal fort, literally land created ex nihilo by the U.S. government. Davis was a civilian with no authority, threatening bloodshed if he did not get his way. In fact, he was a criminal engaged in a criminal enterprise, and was quite generously treated after the war. Round and round we go. Maybe if you keep on repeating this viewpoint I’ll believe it. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/228 "2011-11-09T19:16:54Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > I’m curious as to how denying representation to people in the various states can be construed as guaranteeing a Republican form of government. It appears to me it would be a direct contradiction. Well, extrapolate to the point of absurdity: imagine a vote is taken in a state, by which I mean only members of one family – let’s maybe say royal family? – are allowed to vote; everyone else is denied representation. And imagine the US in turn denies representation to that state, (a) rightly pointing out that such a vote _ **doesn’t** _ involve the guaranteed ‘republican form of government,’ and (b) instead making representation at the federal level hinge on representation at the state level: _the very instant your state counts those other votes,_ we say, _we’ll count your state’s votes._ Still a direct contradiction? ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/229 "2011-11-09T19:23:19Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > I’m sure the states of the defeated confederation would have been willing to send delegations if they were allowed to. Just like they did during the war, I imagine. > [@](#): > > Round and round we go. Maybe if you keep on repeating this viewpoint I’ll believe it. Alright, Fort Sumter was federal property. Owned lock, stock, and barrel by the US of A. Not South Carolina. Then Jeff Davis decided to start blowing it up. You can’t have it both ways. Either he started a war, or he led a domestic insurrection. Either way, he was wrong. You can only say the CSA was right if you assume from the start that it had a moral right to secession, the right to protect its slave property, and as a meaningful inference to dominate the entire United States political system. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/230 "2011-11-09T19:47:46Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Well, extrapolate to the point of absurdity: imagine a vote is taken in a state, by which I mean only members of one family – let’s maybe say royal family? – are allowed to vote; everyone else is denied representation. And imagine the US in turn denies representation to that state, (a) rightly pointing out that such a vote _ **doesn’t** _ involve the guaranteed ‘republican form of government,’ and (b) instead making representation at the federal level hinge on representation at the state level: _the very instant your state counts those other votes,_ we say, _we’ll count your state’s votes._ > > Still a direct contradiction? Ok I’ll buy that. It’s a good point, that’s why I wanted to get what you were saying straight before I disagreed. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/231 "2011-11-09T20:18:25Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Indeed the Radical Republicans of the time believed that statehood had been destroyed for the seceding states. If this is true then yes, the states had seceded. The official position of the U.S. government was that secession was rebellion in opposition to the laws of the United States: > [@](#): > > Whereas the laws of the United States have been for some time past and now are opposed and the execution thereof obstructed in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings or by the powers vested in the marshals by law: > > Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of 75,000, in order to suppress said combinations and to cause the laws to be duly executed. [Presidential Proclamation, April 15, 1861](http://www.civilwarhome.com/lincolntroops.htm) Similarly, after the war, Military Reconstruction was imposed because (according to Congress) > [@](#): > > Whereas no legal State governments or adequate protection for life or property now exists in the rebel States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida. Texas and Arkansas; and whereas it is necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in said States until loyal and republican State governments can be legally established. [An Act to provide for the more efficient Government of the Rebel States, March 2, 1867](https://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ref/abouttx/secession/reconstruction.html) The U.S. Supreme Court decision [_Texas v. White_](http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0074_0700_ZO.html) refers to statehood as “indestructible”. However, those indestructible states are part of a “perpetual union”. By engaging in insurrection against the Union, the rights of the rebel States were “suspended”, and the governments and citizens of the rebel states “incurred the consequences of rebellion”. But statehood itself had–very explicitly–_not_ been destroyed: > [@](#): > > Considered therefore as transactions under the Constitution, the ordinance of secession, adopted by the convention and ratified by a majority of the citizens of Texas, and all the acts of her legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law. The obligations of the State, as a member of the Union, and of every citizen of the State, as a citizen of the United States, remained perfect and unimpaired. It certainly follows that the State did not cease to be a State, nor her citizens to be citizens of the Union. If this were otherwise, the State must have become foreign, and her citizens foreigners. The war must have ceased to be a war for the suppression of rebellion, and must have become a war for conquest and subjugation. > > Our conclusion therefore is that Texas continued to be a State, and a State of the Union, notwithstanding the transactions to which we have referred. And this conclusion, in our judgment, is not in conflict with any act or declaration of any department of the National government, but entirely in accordance with the whole series of such acts and declarations since the first outbreak of the rebellion. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/232 "2011-11-09T21:58:59Z")
While the opinion of the Union legislature, president, and judiciary was that secession was illegal, I don’t believe a case has been made that this was in fact true. The fact is, judicial review is not an effective check on federal power. It has proven time and time again to expand this power and the case cited is another example. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/233 "2011-11-09T22:04:38Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Rehash. I’ve already stated my opinion on this issue and you have furnished neither more evidence nor a new way of looking at the issue. Right. “It was in South Carolina, so it belongs to South Carolina.” The problem I have with this line of argument is that I have a great deal of difficulty believing that you would accept the logic that underlies it, were it applied to any place other than Charleston Harbor, 1861. Otherwise, one is forced to assume that, should I ever visit your house, you would feel justified in taking my shoes, because you believe that being \*on \*your property \*makes \*them your property. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/234 "2011-11-09T22:33:41Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Right. “It was in South Carolina, so it belongs to South Carolina.” The problem I have with this line of argument is that I have a great deal of difficulty believing that you would accept the logic that underlies it, were it applied to any place other than Charleston Harbor, 1861. Otherwise, one is forced to assume that, should I ever visit your house, you would feel justified in taking my shoes, because you believe that being \*on \*your property \*makes \*them your property. Can your shoes kill me or my family? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/235 "2011-11-09T22:42:42Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Can your shoes kill me or my family? Shoes don’t kill people-_people_ kill people. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/236 "2011-11-09T22:49:13Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > Shoes don’t kill people-_people_ kill people. Especially if they’re in forts. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/237 "2011-11-09T22:54:46Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Can your shoes kill me or my family? They’ve killed millions so far, what’s a few more? ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/238 "2011-11-09T23:29:07Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Can your shoes kill me or my family? So, you’re saying it’s appropriate for the government to seize other people’s property without compensation, if the property in question is a lethal weapon? I dunno. I mean, I’m in favor of gun control, but that still seems a little extreme to me. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/239 "2011-11-09T23:34:14Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > So, you’re saying it’s appropriate for the government to seize other people’s property without compensation, if the property in question is a lethal weapon? > > I dunno. I mean, I’m in favor of gun control, but that still seems a little extreme to me. It was your foolish analogy, I tried to make it work. The property being taken is a threat to the sovereignty of South Carolina. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/240 "2011-11-09T23:48:55Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > It was your foolish analogy, I tried to make it work. The property being taken is a threat to the sovereignty of South Carolina. You’ll find that Fort Sumter lacked nuclear weapons and combat aircraft. I think that labeling it as a “threat to the sovereignty of South Carolina” is a bit much. Miller’s shoes are likely as threatening to you and your family as Fort Sumter was to South Carolina. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779.md?page=13)