Mary,
I think you are confusing the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, and supported by a
decision of the Supreme Court, with the 1860 Democratic Platform. The Act
gave federal marshals the power to enforce the return of slaves to their
owners, and made it unlawful for civilians to aid slaves seeking freedom.
The Democratic Party actually split because the Northern faction (under
Stephen Douglas) would not pass proslavery resolutions and, in response, the
Southern faction (under Breckinridge) created their own platform. You are
right, though, about the rights of Northern states, and its citizens, being
violated in order to fulfill the rights of Southern states. If you want
more info about the 1860 platform, go to these two sites:
http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/demo_d.html
http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/demo_b.html
RMK
FSL----- Original Message -----
From: "Mary L. Kirby" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2005 9:37 PM
Subject: Re: [MUSEUM-L] Gettysburg and the Sons of Confederate Veterans
> From Indigo Nights: "For the South, these folks tell me the issues leading
> up to the Civil War were more related to states' rights (from the
> perspective of the South) than
> anything else."
>
> As a child of the South, with two dead Confederate grandfathers on my
> mother's side, I well grew up with the states rights argument. In fact,
> while I do not remember the Dixiecrat rebellion, in 1952 as a young
> enthusiast of politics, I urge everyone I could find to vote for
> Eisenhower because he supported "States Rights" and would let Texas and
> Louisiana to keep the mineral rights to off shore oil drilled out to the
> Spanish 3 league limit, ca. 30 miles, not the standard US 3 mile
> international limit.
>
> Imagine my shock when I learn during the 2004 Democratic convention that
> the argument which split the Democratic Convention of 1860 was the
> Southerners insistence that there be a party plank that the Federal
> government would not only allow Blacks captured in the North to be
> returned to the South (on the assumption by the South that all Blacks were
> runaway slaves) but that the Federal government would actively seek and
> return slaves to the South.
>
> That meant that what John C Calhoun considered "States Rights" to protect
> "their Peculiar Institution" meant Southerners wanted the States Rights of
> the Free States to be violated at the expense of all taxpayers. That
> detail about the aftermath of the Dred Scott decision was never taught in
> the textbooks of the South.
>
> I agree there are those who believe that States Rights was the primary
> thing the Southerners were protecting (or Granddaddy, should I say we
> Southerners?), but they do not choose to analyze that gravitated around
> the right to have slavery.
>
> Many do get interested in a broader history once they get past the
> geneology, and in Texas a past State President was the descendant of a
> slave who won his freedom fighting for the CSA, but they can easily fall
> prey to people who want to play Scalett O'Hara (Daughters of the
> Confederate Veterans) or perpetuators of some of the negative "ideals" of
> the South. It can be tricky ground to trod.
>
> I find just plane living history reenactor more open minded.
>
> Mary L. Kirby
> [log in to unmask]
>
>
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