Yes, Once they fired on Ft Sumter all bets were off But from 11/60 to 4/61 there were many attempts of diplomacy....had the slave owners been offered reimbursement for giving up their property, like they did in Great Britten, maybe the South would have been less unified. Fort Sumter flag
Their whole economy and a lot of their wealth relied on slave labor. The South simply could not conceive of any way forward that would not ruin them. The thing is that some plantation owners freed their slaves, offered them wages and continued on as viable enterprises. It was a failure of imagination.
Anyway.... did not mean to get waytracked into a discussion of civil war, slavery and the 13th amendment.. my point was Elder was not the best GOp candidate to challenge Newsom and his little bits of craziness are just enough to keep Newsom in his job in a dark blue state.
The thing is the slave owners were owed nothing so you are highlighting the South was unified mainly around slavery and treason against the Union. The U.S. had several chances at the declaration of independence, the articles of confederationa and the constitutional convention to do away with slavery but the young fragile nation could not stand to lose the support of the south and had to give in to slavery. Not to mention some of the biggest arhictects of these documents were Southerners who needed slaves so they were not going to shoot each themselves in the foot. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are my two favorite political leaders and thinkers but they failed miserable as individuals when they had the chance to step up and drop the hypocrisy and end slavery. After TJ, that boat sailed until the Missouri Compromise and the leaders failed again.
The GOP just can't find any more of the John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, or Charlton Heston types. Yet, they have plenty of crazy psycho maniacs that can bring in the crowd because the crowd misses their TV heros. wrbtrader
Yes, it had to be compromised to create a country They did try to check Southern electoral power by counting slaves as 3/5 for appropriation reasons Within 20 years they were able to ban the slave trade...its probably the best they could do at the time "Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves" took effect in 1808
Slave Trade Act of 1794 This act, signed into law by President George Washington, was an early step toward ending the international slave trade. It prohibited transporting slaves from the United States to any foreign place or country. It also made it illegal for American citizens to outfit a ship for purposes of importing slaves. The act did not, however, affect foreign nations and their importation of slaves; and the penalties for Americans convicted under this law were fines and did not include incarceration.