April 28, 2024
CONFEDERATE HERITAGE, STATES RIGHTS, AND SLAVERY OF THE NORTH

(This first portion was copied and pasted for all to read the start of the civil divide)

“In 1828, Congress passed a tariff that increased the rates of imports into the United States to as much as 50 percent. This was the most significant increase in the country’s history. The aim was to protect American manufacturing in the North by making importing foreign goods more expensive. There were strong feelings about the Tariff of 1828. Geography divided reactions, and the country split in a way that would later be echoed by the division between the Union and the Confederacy in the Civil War. People in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, and Kentucky generally supported the tariff.

Meanwhile, Southerners nicknamed it the “Tariff of Abominations.” Residents of New England mostly opposed it as well, though not nearly as unanimously as in the South. Support of the tariff was one of the issues that helped decide the election of 1828.

John Quincy Adams lost to Andrew Jackson. Jackson, however, disappointed his native South Carolina base by supporting the tariff to help pay the national debt. The tariff forced Southerners to buy manufactured goods from businesses in the North—at high prices. On top of this, Britain was importing less cotton because their profits from exports had dropped, which also hurt the Southern economy. The tariff was reduced slightly in 1832, more of a gesture than a fix. By 1833, South Carolina was threatening secession. President Jackson compelled Congress to reduce the punitive tariff rates further, granting him the power to use military force against South Carolina if necessary. Congress passed the 1833 Compromise Tariff. This brought the rates back to a reasonable level. Still, the damage had been done: the reality of the country’s deep economic divisions and disparate concerns had been brought into stark focus, causing tension that would simmer for another few decades and then spill over into the Civil War.”

States rights: DRED SCOTT, this supreme court case “basically” said that the constitution did not give descendants of enslaved people American citizenship.

“We must remember slavery in the North was no more amicable than in the South. When looking at history, some of the worst atrocities before and after the Civil War were done in the North. Many of our cities on the Atlantic coast in the North were slave-selling centers for years. The plantation of the South had many northern owners, stockholders, and partners who were making money. The idea of the “nation” of socialist Communist Democrats selling that the South was somehow more responsible for slavery than the nation that allowed it to start with is ridiculous. The whole of the economy of the South was based on slave labor; many Southern states had more enslaved people than free people. The choices for the South were few.”

Many of the northern states passed laws contrary to federal laws about enslaved people coming into their state. (another word, state rights)In the hot months in the South, many of the rich would come to the North, bringing their cooks and maids with them; New York and some other states passed state laws that would free the enslaved people once in their state. This is where state’s rights started to become the weapon of the North. Using state rights, the North circumvented the federal laws with state laws. We are now witnessing this with the border state of Texas, where the federal law is allowing illegals, and the state law says no.

“It is humorous to me that all my life, I have heard people say that state rights had nothing to do with the Civil War, but when we see that state rights in the North proved otherwise,”

“If the cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. Because the goal of America is freedom, abused and scorned tho’ we may be, our destiny is tied up with America’s destiny.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.