networkpro
Well-Known Member
- In the Parks
- Yes
The right in question they were seceding over was the right to own slaves. The Confederate Congress explicitly forbid any Confederate state from abolishing slavery on their own. Furthermore, in 1863 Confederate General Patrick Cleburne proposed a plan of manumission and emancipation- it was his hope that this would give the South more manpower while eliminating the North's moral highground. He presented his proposal to the Confederate Congress where he was met with absolute silence and shown the door when he was finished without comment.
Moral high ground ? There you go again. Only if you choose to ignore the historical facts you can get away with that broad stroke. Remember that the Emancipation Proclamation was issued only after the third year of the Civil War, was an executive order not a law passed by the Congress, was at first a threat to those states which had succeeded that would be issued if they did not return to the union, and only applied to slaves in Confederate held lands not to those in Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware, Missouri, nor to Tennessee. It wasn't until 1865 with the adoption of the 13th amendment to the Constitution on December 6, 1865 that slavery was outlawed in the US.