Jeniffer electronic book

The repeal, consequently, hastened the
formation of the Republican party, whose object it was to prevent the
expansion of slavery and to preserve the Union, without violating the
Constitutional rights of the South. Such a policy could no longer
prevail without a war. The Southerners had no faith in the fair
intentions of their opponents. They worked themselves into the belief
that The whole anti-slavery party was Abolitionist, and the whole
anti-slavery agitation national disloyalty. But the issue had been so
shaped that the war could be fought for the purpose of preserving
American national integrity; and that was the only issue on which a
righteous war could be fought.
Thus the really decisive debates which preceded the Civil War were not
those which took place in Congress over states-rights, but rather the
discussion in Illinois between Lincoln and Douglas as to whether
slavery was a local or a national issue. The Congressional debates were
on both sides merely a matter of legal special pleading for the purpose
of justifying a preconceived decision.


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