• SherBeareth@mastodon.world
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    3 days ago

    @tonytins They have just been biding their time.

    It’s easy to see why we couldn’t abolish slavery by legislation. The hate runs deep and the greed is plentiful.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          That goes beyond the legislative outlawing slavery. A big cause belli for the war was insurrectionist abolitionists (John Brown, most notably) threatening the possibility of a national slave revolt. Also, slave trafficking in northern states, as the courts dismantled all the regulation against interstate traffic. New York, for instance, was the largest slave trading city in the US on the eve of the civil war.

          The Southern response was to impose material law on the north, through the Fugitive Slave Act and then the armed rebellion.

          This was long before any legislation was under consideration. Hell, it was before Lincoln had even taken office.

          The question, in 1860, was not whether to outlaw slavery nationally. It was whether anti-slavery laws could be enforced anywhere, even regionally.