Confederate President Jefferson Davis wanted a tropical empire

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The re-writers of history would have us believe that slavery was not the issue that drove the nation to a tragic civil war. It was state’s rights and federal power they say. A few weeks after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, Jefferson Davis said: “all we ask is to be left alone,” which fans the flames of the “state’s rights” belief.

According to The Economist, in 1848, just after the acquisition of California and New Mexico, President James Polk was “decidedly in favor of purchasing Cuba and making it one of the States of the Union.” Cheering him on was Jefferson Davis, then a senator from Mississippi. “Cuba must be ours,” he said, to “increase the number of slave holding constituencies.” Once the plan to buy Cuba failed, Mississippi’s other senator, Albert Gallatin Brown, started drooling over Mexico. “I want Tamaulipas, Potosi, and one or two other Mexican states; and I want them all for the same reason—for the planting and spreading of slavery.” So Davis and Brown may have wanted the federal government to leave them alone, but don’t mistake that plea for principle: Cubans and Mexicans deserved no such shield from federal interference.

Georgia Supreme Court Justice Benning, trying to persuade the Virginia Legislature to leave the Union, predicted race war if slavery was not protected. “The consequence will be that our men will be all exterminated or expelled to wander as vagabonds over a hostile earth, and as for our women, their fate will be too horrible to contemplate even in fancy.” Thus, secession would maintain not only slavery but the prevailing ideology of white supremacy as well.

William Walker was an American physician, lawyer, journalist and adventurer, who organized several private military expeditions into Latin America, with the intention of establishing English speaking coloniesunder his personal control, an enterprise then known as “filibustering.” Walker became president of the Republic of Nicaragua in 1856 and ruled until 1857, when he was defeated by a coalition of Central American armies. He was executed by the government of Honduras in 1860.

Well before the civil war, Walker convinced many Southerners of the desirability of creating a slave-holding empire in tropical Latin America. In 1861, when U.S. Senator John J. Crittenden proposed that the 36°30′ parallel north be declared as a line of demarcation between free and slave territories, some Republicans denounced such an arrangement, saying that it “would amount to a perpetual covenant of war against every people, tribe, and State owning a foot of land between here and Tierra del Fuego.

The South had expansionist plans. During the Civil War itself, the South attempted to conquer areas outside of the Confederacy: New Mexico and Arizona, as well as Kansas and Kentucky. In Kentucky’s case, the state formally declared neutrality at the start of the Civil War – then it was invaded by a Confederate army of conquest. The state then had to call on Union forces to protect its citizens from the invading Confederate forces.

Slavery was embedded in the Confederate Constitution, and they had no intention of seeing it dissolve. Read the Cornerstone Speech by Confederate Vice President Alexander Hamilton Stephens to see what the entire motivating factor of the South was: chattel slavery supported by an overwhelming and systemic ideology of white supremacy.

 

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Holte Ender

Holte Ender will always try to see your point of view, but sometimes it is hard to stick his head that far up his @$$.
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Terry Hunter
11 years ago

It is my deeply held belief that the DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES is and has been and always will be the worst thing to happen to anyone of African decent in America. Margret Sanger,Woodrow Wilson, Harry Truman,Robert Byrd,Edward Douglass White,Warren G. Harding,David Duke, and Strom Thurmond are some of the evidence that fosters my belief. Wake Up America, read the Democratic Tea Leaves.
OBAMA IS THE CURRENT HOUSE NIGGER OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY.
I AM AFRICAN AMERICAN THAT HAS LEFT THE PLANTATION!!!
2012 OMG

GorgeousKevin
12 years ago

LONG LIVE THE CONFEDERACY!! Abraham Licoln was a prosecutor of runaway slaves before he became a politician, I was taught that in 5th grade you idiots lol. He was also a white supremacist, and stated numerous times that he hated the south for “mixing the races” what a savage man he was! He got what he deserved. Anyway, may THE CONFEDERATE STATES RISE ONCE AGAIN, AND VICTORY SHALL BE OURS!

12 years ago

The north was economically superior because they benefited from slavery (processing slave-grown cotton in their textile mills, shipping slave-grown cotton to Europe in their merchant ships) without the drain of supporting slaves or the stigma of owning them. Kinda like having your cake and eating it, too. The sentiments expressed in Stephens’ Cornerstone Speech were held by virtually all whites at the time, even the sainted abolitionists: http://one80dts.blogspot.com/2011/06/test-your-history-indoctrin-i-mean.html

Whatever “sins” the South may have been “guilty” of — the north was no better.

12 years ago

Four Dinners, We’ll excuse your ignorance of American history since you are of British descent.

The Civil War was about one thing: slavery. Any ideas of expansionism or empire on the part of the traitor jefferson davis was all for the expansion of slavery. The south lived in fear that the north would abolish slavery and made a preemptive decision to succeed.
It wasn’t about states rights or economic differences except where slavery was involved. . . and NO, Abraham Lincoln absolutely never owned slaves. What a ridiculous thing to say. I’ve never even heard hard core revisionist southerners make such an outlandish claim.

And the north was not economically inferior to the south. Perhaps since the Brits traded with the southern states to a greater degree for all those agricultural commodities they relied on from other nations you might have that strange notion.

RichieRich
Reply to  SagaciousHillbilly
12 years ago

. . . strange notion . . . That’s putting it mildly.

Reply to  SagaciousHillbilly
12 years ago

I wouldn’t trust anything anyone says who doesn’t know “succeed” from “secede.”

Ken
Reply to  SagaciousHillbilly
11 years ago

Mary Todd Lincoln’s family in Kentucky owned slaves.

BigHarryH
12 years ago

No matter you say, the mob will always say it was states rights, they can talk themselves into anything.

12 years ago

I certainly claim no expertise and little knowledge but – isn’t it true that the Civil War was mainly about the South being wealthier with its cotton growing than the North? Just something I heard a while back – also Lincoln had slaves anyway I believe?

I stand to be corrected but I’ve heard there’s some dispute over whether slavery was that relevent to it all – still, the fact that it was abolished afterwards meant some good came out of it I suppose.

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