The fort was ceded to the United states because ironically South Carolina found it had little military value and didn't feel like paying to maintain it. Why the fort was originally built has no relevance at all on what the owner is allowed to do with it lol.Redbrickbear said:Bestweekeverr said:Redbrickbear said:Bestweekeverr said:Redbrickbear said:Bestweekeverr said:Redbrickbear said:Bestweekeverr said:
Two questions
2. Why did Abraham Lincoln fight so hard for the 13th Amendment?
He was still floating the idea that the Southern States could black the 13th amendment as late as the Hampton Roads peace conference
[At the Hampton's Road conference with Stephens in 1864, he supported reunion and allow the courts to work out emancipation. Lincoln's obsession was with the Union - not slaves. Lincoln reportedly told the Confederates that Northern opinion was very much divided on the question of how these new laws would be enforced. Regarding the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln reportedly interpreted it as a simple war measure that would permanently affect only the 200,000 people who came under direct Army control during the War. Seward reportedly showed the Confederates a copy of the newly adopted Thirteenth Amendment, referred to this document also as a war measure only, and suggested that if they were to rejoin the Union, they might be able to prevent its ratification. After further discussion, Lincoln suggested that the Southern states might "avoid, as far as possible, the evils of immediate emancipation" Lincoln also offered possible compensation for emancipation, naming the figure of $400,000,000 which he later proposed to Congress. Reportedly, Seward disagreed with Lincoln about the price; Lincoln responded that the North had been complicit in the slave trade.] Johnson, "Lincoln's Solution to the Problem of Peace Terms" (1968), pp. 582-583.
But I imagine part of his desire for a 13th amendment ending slavery was that he wanted to move forward with expelling the Black population from the USA...or at least have that option open
You have to free them to kick them out
[from Rutherford, "Truths of History." Lincoln was discussing with Gen. Ben Butler the fate of free negros. Ben Butler said:
"Why not send them to Panama to dig the Canal?"
Lincoln was delighted at the suggestion and asked Butler to consult Seward at once. Only a few days later Lincoln was assassinated]
Lincoln's program "called for compensated emancipation (at least in the loyal border states) assisted by federal funds, to be followed at length by deportation & colonization of the freed Negroes."-Prof Hofstadter
"He [Lincoln] had no particular liking for the negro ; in fact, he would have been glad to deport every negro from the limits of the United States, if he could have done it."-Prof Channing (Pulitzer Prize Winning Harvard Historian from MA)
I get that Lincoln gets over-deified as a paragon and liberator, and most people aren't familiar with his actual views, but he achieved his goals of preserving the union and ending slavery. IMO these were instrumental in America becoming a super power in the 20th century, as I would imagine a split Union/Confederacy moving forward would lead to more civil wars and foreign attacks. Do you think things would be better off if the Civil War never happened?
Yes, through mass murder and bloodshed.
But again....secession is not forbidden in the Constitution.
He preserved the Union by waging a war against people for exercising a right not forbidden to them.
I have no idea what would have happened if the war never took place.
Maybe the Southern States would have returned to the Union in time....maybe we would have 3 large English speaking nations in North America...instead of 2
We can ever know know because of that conflict
"The American people, North and South, went into the war as citizens of their respective states. They came out as subjects. What they thus lost, they have never gotten back." -H.L. Mencken
"The war of 1861 was fought, not to determine the status of the negro, but to establish the permanence of the Union. From the beginning of the Republic to the end of the war, a long line of distinguished statesmen (and they were not confined to the south) believed -honestly believed- that when any state as judged for herself that she had sufficient cause to withdraw from the Union, she might do so in peace, and in harmony with the constitution. On the other hand, an equally long line of renowned leaders believed -honestly believed- that there could be no peaceful disintegration of the Republic. It was inevitable from the first that, some time, the issue thus presented must be settled. In the very nature of things, there was but one arbiter for such a question. The battlefield was the only court that could render judgment upon an issue so vital and so fundamental." -Gov. Cummins (11/15/1906), The Gov. of Iowa said this as part of the dedication to the Iowa Monument at Vicksburg battlefield in 1906.
Lmao mass murder is when you retaliate when someone shoots at you.
.
But the shots at Sumter did not kill anyone
I suppose from a PR level the Southern States could have gone on letting Federal troops occupy Strategic forts in the South.
But I doubt that was tenable long term.
Regardless mass blood shed only began once Lincoln called for 75,000 troops to invade the Southern States "in rebellion"
That's also when he lost the support of Virginia and the upland Southern States who then also left the Union
Again, South Carolina ceded away fort Sumter in 1805. That fort belonged to the Union and the Union can do with it what they please. Firing at said fort is a declaration of war, a rebellion against said owner of the fort.
Who was the Fort built to protect? If the people of South Carolina no longer feel a Federal Fort in their most important harbor is needed....why was it kept there?
[Before Lincoln held his hand up to be sworn in, almost half of the normal Treasury Revenue 'Expected' had been diverted to the CSA. Newspapers all over the country, in the hundreds and hundreds of stories brought this most serious issue to the readers - "Lincoln would not be able to run the Government, without some way of collecting the revenue going to Southern Ports." Politicians and newspapers advocated in February - the blockade of Southern ports, and making war on the seceded Southern government, due to "lost revenue." Lincoln took office March 4th, 1861 and on his way offered in several speeches, his solution to the number one issue - Lost Revenue. Lincoln offered on day one that he was going to collect revenue in Southern ports, or more commonly known as impost duties on foreign goods arriving in this country. We know them as tariffs. From March 4th to April 12th - President Lincoln day by day focused on collecting tariffs in the seceded ports. He was most concerned that any day, England and France would 'recognize' the new Confederacy, and that meant war, if he tried to coerce the seceded states back into the Union. This was the primary reason for the war: lost revenue and threat of international recognition of the CSA.]
"If the Union was formed by the accession of States, then the Union may be dissolved by the secession of States."
~ Senator Daniel Webster Massachusetts, US Senate, February 15, 1833
"When a proposition was made to authorize the Federal Government to make war upon a State, if necessary to the enforcement of the Federal laws, the convention which framed the Constitution expressly denied such power." -Congressman Henry C. Burnett, 2/26/1861
If a commercial real estate group buys an office building, but wants to turn it into a mall does the original owner have any say on what the group does with it? Of course not.