You asked an interesting question. What defines Canada indeed? Why don’t you elaborate on what you think defines Canada?

Having known people from the South and people from Canada I can tell you they are very different cultures.

Why is it that Canada has an economic system that is more akin to Europe then America?

As to your second point, maybe you could elaborate more on the similarities you see between the position of woman and the position of slaves in the early 1800’s.

In reality, slavery is what came to define the South.

After partition, the South wouldn’t need a peculiar institution to define it. What defines Canada?

You don’t come to the position where you have four million people in slavery without structuring your whole society around those things that are necessary to keep those people in slavery.

This is an argument that proves too much, e.g. that emancipation of women could never have come about except by external force.

Philemon 1 NIV 12 I am sending him—who is my very heart—back to you.

…do you not understand??? Sounds like Article IV, Section 2 of you Federal Compact of 1787 to me as well.

Here’s some more plain verses of Scripture y’all have trouble with:

John 8:35 NIV •
Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever.

Ephesians 6:5 NIV • [ Slaves and Masters ] Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ.

and again:

Colossians 3:22 NIV •
Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord.

and again:

Titus 2:9 NIV •
Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them,

and again:

1 Peter 2:18 NIV •
Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to those who are good and considerate, but also to those who are harsh.

etc., etc., etc.

Slavery was sanctioned by the Laws of God & Man. You’re abolitionist heretics and revolutionaries obeyed neither.

As to Calhoun’s statement, the very FACT we didn’t expand into alien lands [like the yankees did in Cuba, the Philippines, Costa Rica, etc.] is proof enough. Certainly we took our Slaves into the new territories, and were clearly permitted to do so under the Federal Compact not barring such, like certain yankee states were it was illegal for a coloured to live, notwithstanding some rhetorical speechifying by a handful of Southrons. Want some more edification?

I must concede defeat.

If the words of Calhoun (who was dead before the south declared its independence) are to outweigh the words of Yancy, Rhett, Toombs, Davis, and all the others who actually led the south to independence (not to mention almost all of the major newspapers of the era), then there is nothing more for me to say on the subject of the South’s imperial ambitions.

If you think the book of Philemon (from which I derive my pen name) is God’s word on how to return slaves, then I really must concede defeat. How can I prove that the sky is blue to one who insists that it is green? You use of Philemon is similarly beyond refutation.

After all, in Philemon Paul says…

Therefore, although in Christ I could be bold and order you to do what you ought to do, yet I appeal to you on the basis of love.

And what is it that Paul thinks that Philemon “ought to do?” Paul is pretty clear…
Perhaps the reason he was separated from you for a little while was that you might have him back for good- no longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He is very dear to me but even dearer to you, both as a man and as a brother in the Lord.
So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back-not to mention that you owe me your very self.

I must be blind in my sins, but I cannot read that any other way than to think that Paul is telling Philemon that he “ought” to proclaim Onesimus legally free. Saying “no longer a slave” seems pretty clear to me and it is further strengthened by “welcome him as you would welcome me”.
I think that the reason that Paul sent Onesimus back had nothing to with him being a runway slave and everything to with the fact that he stole money from Philemon. Otherwise Paul’s offer to pay Philemon makes no sense. In the South, the slave owners paid people who sent slaves back, not the other way around.

I suppose that you see this differently. I suppose that you think that Paul wanted to be welcomed as a slave the next time he came by Philemon’s place. If you hold that view, nothing I can say will make any difference.

I think that you misunderstood what I meant when I said that Deuteronomy 23:15-16 was a little gotcha verse. I only brought it up to illustrate the misuse of the OT by pro-slavery preachers in the South. They all took it for granted that a slave in the OT was the same as a slave in South. But there was nothing in the OT that provided for the punishing slaves who ran away. In fact, Israelis were prohibited by the law from handing runaways over to their masters.

In short, slaves in the OT had the right to walk. That makes them a little different from slaves in the south. But since you ignore Deuteronomy 23:15-16, I don’t think there is any way for me to convince you of this fact.

But I consider this to be minor point. That is why I did not belabor the point.
The serious issue was the pro-slavery understanding of gospel. To their mind making others serve them with the threat of violence was accomplishing a great service for God. I do not believe that such people can be in any way considered disciples of Him who put on the garments of a slave to serve his own disciples and who said, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.”

I don’t imagine that you are open to listening to that line of argument, however, so I must concede defeat.

On a historical note, you are wrong to say that the North gradually succumbed to heresy even as you define it. It would be more accurate to say that South “purified” itself.

To be sure, there were many people in the North who had un-orthodox views on the Bible. But these men were no different in their beliefs than Jefferson or Madison in the South, except for the fact that they were against slavery.

On the other hand, when this country was first founded there were many orthodox preachers in the South who would preach against slavery. John Wesley was the most famous of them all, but there were many others. As the South became more extreme in their devotion to their particular institution, people with beliefs like Wesley were driven out of the South by violence. For example, Levi Coffin was almost killed because he taught black people how to read. It was such threats of violence that caused him to move north.

To be fair, pro-slavery violence was not limited to the South. The devout Calvinist Lewis Tappan had his house trashed by a pro-slavery mob. Latter on, a church he built was burned to the ground by another mob.

But the violence was even worse in the South for obvious reasons. Of course, there is no reason for that to bother you any….

General audience??? Then Truth should prevail. Common usage in the South was War Between The States, though more properly would be Secession War or War For Southern Independence or even War of Northern Aggression…

As for Calhoun’s view–it’s borne out because there was no general annexation of Mexico, only the sparsely inhabited northwest fringe, and there was no further conquests further south, including the abortive efforts of Walker in Nicarauga which received little if any real support and the fact that it was a generation later before the Us Empire occupied Cuba and the Phillipines–when the North was controlling the gubment–and ONE book on the subject from one of the leftist & northern institutions is hardly conclusive…

Try reading the whole Book of Philemon–which is God’s Word on returning a Christian Slave to a Christian Master. Gothcha verses rarely are used when reading for understanding, though impressive to pagans…

You’re correct, the slavery issue does divide those who read & obey all of God’s word from those who a la cart pick and choose. such Heretics who decide for themselves what is OK ’bout God and what isn’t are denying Him by their setting of their own reason above His Soveriegnity…

I could go on about Southern Theologians understanding the fatal ‘liberal’ heresy that had crept into the north, which is why the churches split and the south remains Conservative today…

Also, try actually reading the Federal Compact of 1787, the black part. It is a document delegating certain specific powers to the Federal Gubmint, and in the case of most of the Amendment, in prohibiting specifically certain powers to the FEDERAL Gubment, not the States, i.e. most of the first 13 States had Established Churches upon Ratification. We held to the words of the Constitution, which also implicitly sanctioned slavery through the 3/5s Compromise…

Anything else not clear about the South being in the Right???

You have really managed to get into the swing of things. If I didn’t know better, I would swear you were the Chief himself writing under an assumed name. Did the Chief pay you to call him a Marxist egalitarian? It would fit his sense of humor….

For that matter, so would your complaint about the use of the term “Civil War” would be something that would tickle his fancy as well. Though I would note that the Chief made a nod in your direction by calling the essay “Considering the Invasion of the South.” But when you are writing for a general audience you have got to use generally accepted terms.

As for your Yancey quote, I just don’t buy it anymore then you would buy it if I used an Abe Lincoln quote to try to prove that he was motivated by the Constitution. Words are cheap. Only actual actions count for much.

In this regards, Yancey and the South in general were no friends to the Constitution. Yancey never fought for free speech, freedom of religion, or freedom of assembly. All of these things were subordinated in the South to the whims of slaver owners and Yancey never made a peep of protest. If the Chief had really wanted to demonize the South he would have quoted laws that were passed by these people who were supposedly so concerned about the Constitution.

You are right to point out that Calhoun had no interest in adding Mexico to the US as a state. But you are wrong to insinuate that Calhoun opinion was general throughout the South. He was old school and he did not think that the land taken from the Indians would ever run out.
The new generation that came after him knew better. Newspapers and the actions of southern politicians of the time bear this out (Jefferson Davis would be a prime example). Heck, Yancey was so extreme that he even advocating reopening the slave trade. That is how determined he was to make sure that slavery grew.

You are quite correct to note that many in the south tried to defend slavery biblically. But they did not like to debate the subject with orthodox anti slavery Christians (the Chief did an essay on such men here). Such debates raised too many questions for which they had no answers. For example this verse drove them up the wall…..

Deuteronomy 23:15-16 If a slave has taken refuge with you, do not hand him over to his master. 16 Let him live among you wherever he likes and in whatever town he chooses. Do not oppress him.

It contradicts the sprit of the fugitive slave act after all. Yet any excuse that the apologist for slavery used to try to get around this verse opened up a huge can of worms.

But pro slavery proponents in the South had bigger problems then just little gotcha verse like the above. For the debate about slavery cut to very core of what it meant to be a Christian. What did it meant to turn the other cheek? What did it mean submit to authority (including government authority)? What did it mean to follow in the foot steeps of Jesus?

In my judgment, the apologists for slavery never managed to avoid denying Christ. And the Orthodox Christians in the North never hesitated to point this out.

More practically, the very verses in the bible “justifying” slavery laid down a code that that the south did not follow. I find it ironic that the South tried to justify itself with the Old Testament. After all, they received the punishment that was promised in the Old Testament to Israel if they should violate the law.

First, there was no such thing as a “”civil war”"–the definition itself says otherwise. We were not seeking contol of the Union, rather we were an independent nation fighting off an imperial aggressor. We lost and have been livin’ with the Occupation ever since. It was a War for southern Independence, much as we’d fought with all the States some 80 years before.

Second, there was much more to Southern History than Slavery. From Jamestowne to the election of Ape Lincoln is not so easily pigeonholed into such a tiny box. Very important, but not solely…

As William Lowndes Yancey, the Father of Southern Nationalism himself also said:

“My friends, there is one issue before you, and to all sensible men but one issue, and but two sides of that issue. The slavery question is but one of the symbols of that issue; the commercial question is but one of the symbols of that issue; the Union question is but one of those symbols; the only issue before this country in this canvas is the integrity and the safety of the Constitution.”(Speech in Washington DC, 21 Sept 1860)

Speakin’ of Slavery, we defend it Biblically. There’s a wonderful piece from “DeBow’s Review” in 1850 which definitively defends our ‘peculiar institution’ on a Scriptural basis. I quote just a small bit and leave y’all to peruse the rest:

“What we have written is founded solely upon the Bible, and can have no force, unless it is taken for truth. If that book is of divine origin, the holding of slaves is right: as that which God has permitted, recognized and commanded, cannot be inconsistent with his will.”(September 1850), 281–286.
http://fair-use.org/debows-review/1850/09/slavery-and-the-bible#p28

If’n you don’t believe God’s Word, I’ll pray for you to meet the Lord…

A few other quotes you perhaps overlooked. We were not as monolithic in thought and as expansionistic as you’d lead us to believe. Take the great South Carolinian, John C. Calhoun. He had no interest in expansion into the former Spanish Empire:

“…it is without example or precedent, wither to hold Mexico as a province, or to incorporate her into our Union. No example of such a line of policy can be found. We have conquered many of the neighboring tribes of Indians, but we have never thought of holding them in subjection—never of incorporating them into our Union. They have either been left as an independent people amongst us, or been driven into the forests.

I know further, sir, that we have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race—the free white race. To incorporate Mexico, would be the very first instance of the kind of incorporating an Indian race; for more than half of the Mexicans are Indians, and the other is composed chiefly of mixed tribes. I protest against such a union as that! Ours, sir, is the Government of a white race. The greatest misfortunes of Spanish America are to be traced to the fatal error of placing these colored races on an equality with the white race. That error destroyed the social arrangement which formed the basis of society. The Portuguese and ourselves have escaped—the Portuguese at least to some extent—and we are the only people on this continent which have made revolutions without being followed by anarchy. And yet it is professed and talked about to erect these Mexicans into a Territorial Government, and place them on an equality with the people of the United States. I protest utterly against such a project.

Sir, it is a remarkable fact, that in the whole history of man, as far as my knowledge extends, there is no instance whatever of any civilized colored races being found equal to the establishment of free popular government, although by far the largest portion of the human family is composed of these races. And even in the savage state we scarcely find them anywhere with such government, except it be our noble savages—for noble I will call them. They, for the most part, had free institutions, but they are easily sustained among a savage people. Are we to overlook this fact? Are we to associate with ourselves as equals, companions, and fellow-citizens, the Indians and mixed race of Mexico? Sir, I should consider such a thing as fatal to our institutions.” (1848)

I’ll leave you with this to ponder, from the authour of the Declaration:

“Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people [blacks] are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them.” –Thomas Jefferson: Autobiography, 1821. ME 1:72

I am afraid that this essay must rank as the most misguided one that you have ever written. You seek to prove that the South was in the grip of a hard line ideology, but you neglected to mention that pressure from the North drove them to it. If the South had not felt besieged by the North, they would have been able to take a more moderate position in regards to slavery.

And I must say, your view on the motives that the South had for opposing the tariff is horribly unfair. Using your logic, one could prove that the South was only against torturing babies because they wished to demonstrate the moral superiority of slavery.

I hope that the unfair and hectoring nature of this essay is an aberration and that we expect that you will return to your usual modes of discourse shortly.

Neville Chamberlain