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I'm not sure what you're arguing, but I don't think its true that the claim "we want to secede because of injustices against us" was retroactive. see: https://

I'm not sure what you're arguing, but I don't think its true that the claim "we want to secede because of injustices against us" was retroactive. see: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati... "The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union." I think there's a tendency for discussions about the south's position in the civil war to end up with slavery poisoning the well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisoning_the_well

bandyaboot 3y ago
It wasn’t necessarily retroactive, but it was always pretense. edit: see Texas’ declaration of secession for what it looked like when they weren’t shy about saying the quiet part out loud.
- chargingmarmot 3y ago
  This one is called a circumstantial ad hominem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Circumstantial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Circumstantial
  - bandyaboot 3y ago
    Not exactly sure what you’re getting at. Use your words.
catgary 3y ago
The injustices being, primarily, that they were no longer allowed to engage in chattel slavery.
- bandyaboot 3y ago
  What Texas deemed “odious unconstitutional restrictions”.
- qwytw 3y ago
  > that they were no longer That they might no longer be allowed to engage in chattel slavery at some indeterminate point in the future. Outright abolition was still a fringe policy at the beginning of the war.
  - eesmith 3y ago
    My reading of South Carolina's "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union" says they believed otherwise. They seemed to regard abolition as no longer a fringe policy but one which, in the North, was effectively mainstream, and were certain that after Lincoln's inauguration the North would wage a war to exterminate slavery. > For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms [emphasis in the original] of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. ... > On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States. The Texans seemed to have similar viewpoints that the abolition of slavery was not a fringe policy, and would be carried out during the next administration: > By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments. ... > And, finally, by the combined sectional vote of the seventeen non-slave-holding States, they have elected as president and vice-president of the whole confederacy two men whose chief claims to such high positions are their approval of these long continued wrongs, and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the slave-holding States. (I trust that "within the next administration" isn't what you mean by "indeterminate".)
eesmith 3y ago
To complete the sentence you incompletely quoted: "but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right." What are those "frequent violations of the Constitution"? > In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof. > The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." > This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River. > The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States. > The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. It's all about the injustice that they are not able to keep slaves like they want to.
flir 3y ago
That's the first sentence. Second sentence: "For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery." Third sentence: "...and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property..." (my emphasis) C'mon.

bandyaboot 3y ago

It wasn’t necessarily retroactive, but it was always pretense. edit: see Texas’ declaration of secession for what it looked like when they weren’t shy about saying the quiet part out loud.

chargingmarmot 3y ago
This one is called a circumstantial ad hominem. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Circumstantial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Circumstantial
- bandyaboot 3y ago
  Not exactly sure what you’re getting at. Use your words.

catgary 3y ago

The injustices being, primarily, that they were no longer allowed to engage in chattel slavery.

bandyaboot 3y ago
What Texas deemed “odious unconstitutional restrictions”.
qwytw 3y ago
> that they were no longer That they might no longer be allowed to engage in chattel slavery at some indeterminate point in the future. Outright abolition was still a fringe policy at the beginning of the war.
- eesmith 3y ago
  My reading of South Carolina's "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union" says they believed otherwise. They seemed to regard abolition as no longer a fringe policy but one which, in the North, was effectively mainstream, and were certain that after Lincoln's inauguration the North would wage a war to exterminate slavery. > For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms [emphasis in the original] of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. ... > On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States. The Texans seemed to have similar viewpoints that the abolition of slavery was not a fringe policy, and would be carried out during the next administration: > By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments. ... > And, finally, by the combined sectional vote of the seventeen non-slave-holding States, they have elected as president and vice-president of the whole confederacy two men whose chief claims to such high positions are their approval of these long continued wrongs, and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the slave-holding States. (I trust that "within the next administration" isn't what you mean by "indeterminate".)

eesmith 3y ago

To complete the sentence you incompletely quoted: "but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right." What are those "frequent violations of the Constitution"? > In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof. > The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." > This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River. > The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States. > The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. It's all about the injustice that they are not able to keep slaves like they want to.

flir 3y ago

That's the first sentence. Second sentence: "For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery." Third sentence: "...and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property..." (my emphasis) C'mon.