GOP CANDIDATE: CIVIL WAR WASN’T ABOUT SLAVERY
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Republican Senate nominee Corey Stewart said that he doesn’t believe that the Civil War was fought over the issue of slavery, arguing that it was mostly about states’ rights.
In a Monday interview with Hill.TV’s “Rising,” Stewart, who recently won the GOP nomination in the Virginia Senate race, said that not all parts of Virginia’s history are “pretty.”
But he said he doesn’t associate slavery with the war.
“I don’t at all. If you look at the history, that’s not what it meant at all, and I don’t believe that the Civil War was ultimately fought over the issue of slavery,” Stewart said.
When “Rising” co-host Krystal Ball pressed him again if the Civil War was “significantly” fought over slavery, Stewart said some of them talked about slavery, but added that most soldiers never owned slaves and “they didn’t fight to preserve the institution of slavery.”
“We have to put ourselves in the shoes of the people who were fighting at that time and from their perspective, they saw it as a federal intrusion of the state,” he said.
Stewart also said he doesn’t support a Richmond elementary school named after a Confederate general deciding to rename it after former President Obama.
“I’m not opposed to somebody naming a school after a president of the United States, even though I don’t like Barack Obama ,” Stewart said. “Don’t take the name of a historic figure off a school. That is political correctness run amuck.”
Stewart, the chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, has been a outspoken defender of Confederate monuments. That was the centerpiece of Stewart’s campaign when he ran in the Virginia governor’s race in 2017 and came surprisingly close to the GOP nomination.
During his Senate campaign, Stewart has been a vocal supporter of President Trump . Stewart previously worked as a co-chairman of Trump’s presidential campaign in Virginia. He went on to eke out a win over a more moderate GOP candidate, state Del. Nick Freitas.
Stewart will face off against Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine , who was Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton ’s running mate in 2016.
Kaine is heavily favored in his reelection race in the blue-leaning state. Clinton won Virginia by more than 5 points in 2016 — a bigger margin of victory than Obama — and a recent poll from Roanoke College found Kaine ahead of Stewart by 11 points.
— Lisa Hagen
Tags
Who is online
99 visitors
This dipshit will be one of the top candidates Trump stumps for in the fall.
And he is exactly right, a state's right to be a slave state. Sorry dumb ass, slavery was the central cause of the civil war. Even the traitors said so in their secession documents.
" Republican Senate nominee Corey Stewart said that he doesn’t believe that the Civil War was fought over the issue of slavery, arguing that it was mostly about states’ rights."
In a way, he's right, but not in the way he thinks. The lead up to the war was fueled by the major contention between the Southern slave holding States and the Northern States who believed they had States rights to pass legislation that allowed them to refuse the Southern States demand to return escaped slaves. The Southern States screamed and whined at the Northern States claiming they were in violation of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act which was a civil clause added to the constitution that applied fines for anyone helping slaves or refusing to return escaped slaves. The South got so upset at the Northern States claiming their States rights to pass laws protecting their citizens from the act that they forced congress on threat of secession to pass the 1850 Fugitive Slave act which forcibly compelled citizens to assist in the capture of runaway slaves. It also denied slaves the right to a jury trial and increased the penalty for interfering with the rendition process to $1,000 and six months in jail.
"Widespread opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 saw the law become virtually unenforceable in certain Northern states, and by 1860 only around 330 slaves had been successfully returned to their Southern masters. Republican and Free Soil congressmen regularly introduced bills and resolutions related to repealing the Fugitive Slave Act, but the law persisted until after the beginning of the Civil War."
The South was very clear as to why they started the war, there really is no wiggle room around the statements made by the leaders of their movement, the traitors who attacked US federal troops at Fort Sumter April 12, 1861 which was just two weeks after the speech given by the Vice President of the confederacy, Alexander Stephens.
"The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution . Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away... Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell."
O ur new government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition ." Alexander Stephens Vice President of the Confederacy - March 21, 1861.
So yeah, Northern States fought for their States rights to deny being a participant in human trafficking by refusing to return escaped slaves, the Southern States were trying to use the Federal government to FORCE Northern States to comply and when the Federal government refused to enforce the federal law, the Southern States seceded and treasonously attacked US soldiers.
Good recap.
I just find it sadly humorous every time I hear a dumb ass wannabe confederate claim the civil war was about States rights when they completely miss the fact that the Southern States were the ones trying to use the Federal government to enforce returning escaped slaves. They seceded because they couldn't get the Federal government to enforce their Federal law on the Northern States who refused to be forced to participate in human trafficking. It wasn't the Northern States and the Federal government trying to force emancipation on them, that only came after the war ended when the 13th amendment was signed in December 1865.
Some people today think that there is a mystery or a confusion over the cause of the war that they can exploit or defend today. Only to the uninformed. As soon as Lincoln got the presidential nomination from the relatively new Republican Party the handwriting was on the wall. The south knew that Lincoln and the Republican Party were anti-slavery. And you are right about the escaped slaves and about the southern documents of secession.
After the initial secession of the first seven states those states sent what they called "secession commissioners" to the border states to try and convince them to secede also. The appeal was based almost entirely on the need to defend slavery as the southern way of life.
Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners …
Amazon.com: Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War (A Nation Divided: Studies in the Civil War Era) (9780813921044): Charles B. Dew: Books
Throughout Charles B. Dew’s Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War , Dew argues that the leading proponents of southern secession advocated secession as a means of protecting southern slave-holding culture and race-based social hierarchies. Using such primary sources as speeches, writings, and correspondence of the leaders of the southern secession movement, Dew validates his thesis that southern secessionists such as Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens, and John Smith Preston feared that continued union with the north would lead to an inevitable war between free–labor states and slave-holding states (45); a clash of cultures in which southern whites protected their racial superiority to their slaves through forced subordination through the implementation of slavery (50). [1]
No, they didn't. Don't sully the northern cause with misinformation.
"Following increased pressure from Southern politicians, Congress passed a revised Fugitive Slave Act in 1850.
Part of Henry Clay’s famed Compromise of 1850—a group of bills that helped quiet early calls for Southern secession—this new law forcibly compelled citizens to assist in the capture of runaway slaves. It also denied slaves the right to a jury trial and increased the penalty for interfering with the rendition process to $1,000 and six months in jail.
In order to ensure the statute was enforced, the 1850 law also placed control of individual cases in the hands of federal commissioners. These agents were paid more for returning a suspected slave than for freeing them, leading many to argue the law was biased in favor of Southern slaveholders.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was met with even more impassioned criticism and resistance than the earlier measure. States like Vermont and Wisconsin passed new measures intended to bypass and even nullify the law, and abolitionists redoubled their efforts to assist runaway slaves.
The Underground Railroad reached its peak in the 1850s, with many slaves fleeing to Canada to escape U.S. jurisdiction.
Resistance also occasionally boiled over into riots and revolts. In 1851 a mob of antislavery activists rushed a Boston courthouse and forcibly liberated an escaped slave named Shadrach Minkins from federal custody. Similar rescues were later made in New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Widespread opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 saw the law become virtually unenforceable in certain Northern states, and by 1860 only around 330 slaves had been successfully returned to their Southern masters.
Republican and Free Soil congressmen regularly introduced bills and resolutions related to repealing the Fugitive Slave Act, but the law persisted until after the beginning of the Civil War. It wasn’t until June 28, 1864, that both of the Fugitive Slave Acts were repealed by an act of Congress."
Not sure how you figure I'm "sullying" the Northern States, they were the heroes.
y seceded because they couldn't get the Federal government to enforce their Federal law
The Federal government did, in fact, enforce the FSA. All three Presidents during the 1850s were zealous advocates of the law and did everything they could to enforce it.
Local riots sometimes interfered with individual returns, but it wasn't for want of effort on the part of the federal government.
Not sure how you figure I'm "sullying" the Northern States, they were the heroes
You seem to be claiming the Federal government deliberately reneged on the Compromise of 1850 and refused to enforce a valid law, which would legitimize the rebellion. That's why Lincoln campaigned on enforcing the Fugitive Slave Act in 1860 and returned slaves to their masters even after the war started. He believed in the rule of law even when it was personally odious to him. A lesson many would do well to learn.
They didn't "deliberately renege", there was just far too much push back against such an odious immoral law. History is clear, it was a States rights issue only in as much as the Southern States were furious at Northern States passing " measures intended to bypass and even nullify the law".
The idea that pushing back on Federal overreach, such as trying to force States to participate in human trafficking, would " legitimize the rebellion" is frankly horrifying. There was nothing legitimate about the confederacy, they were clear on their intentions, they attacked US soldiers in a clear act of treason to protect what they believed was their right to own humans like cattle.
" He believed in the rule of law even when it was personally odious to him. A lesson many would do well to learn."
I disagree. If a law is unjust and immoral such as capturing and returning slaves to their supposed masters, or telling you to take young children away from their parents who are simply trying to apply for asylum, then non-violent civil disobedience and protest and refusing to participate in the unjust law is the right thing to do. It took nearly a hundred years after the constitution was written to get rid of its protections of slavery because too many people accepted the status quo even though many knew it was unjust and immoral. It finally took a refusal to abide by the law to force everyone to address the elephant in the room.
How can rotted-brain crap like this persist?
It's a "Duh!" topic.
The Confederates themselves, in their states' declarations of secession, and in their Vice-president's infamous "Cornerstone" speech, were perfectly clear about their motive: the permanent preservation of slavery. For anyone with an ounce of intellectual integrity, there can be no doubt.
oh, wait ... ... intellectual integrity...
Never mind.