“”” The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson, in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were, that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with; but the general opinion of the men of that day was, that, somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. [...] Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of a Government built upon it—when the "storm came and the wind blew, it fell." “””

The Vice President of the Confederacy literally stood and gave a speech about why slavery was the reason they seceded from the union, but I’m not really surprised to find people who still try to distort the truth to push their views. It’s their way to virtue signal.

I'm not sure why you posted this. Are you sure you read my post? I never said the South wasn't fighting to keep slavery.

In fact, the main point of my post was closer to something like "people generally aren't good, but just want to virtue signal to sound good." Obviously, the fact that the south was even worse (and still even tried to justify it on moral grounds) seems to fit into that idea.

Anyways, the responses here are not giving me much faith in humanity. I'm still living with tyranny. Anyone want to step up, or just keep alternating between virtue signalling and being outraged?

Who cares if it's virtue signalling and outrage if it still leads to a good outcome? At some point awareness reaches a boiling point and change happens, maybe not as fast as it should but it happens.

Stop and frisk would not have mostly ended in New York City if people were not outraged by it. Of course ending it hasn't solved most of our problems, but it's better to have 99 problems than to have 100. Should we just sit on our hands until someone in a million years devises the utopia that is compatible with human behavior?

Because it's an honest look at the world.

Should every injustice need to wait for its opportunity to be used as a pretext for power struggles in order for it to be thwarted?

What about the people living with tyranny today? Does it matter that they can ask for help and nobody cares about them. And people will even bully and criticize them? Even today? Even right here?

I'm not upset people responded to some of things around the central point I made. I am upset they are suggesting that central point was correct.

Hate to break it to you, but downvotes do not prove that you are right. Sometimes they indicate that you're right and stepped on peoples' corns, but that's rare. It's more common that they indicate you're wrong, clueless, willfully blind to the available evidence, and/or being a jerk.

Using downvotes to validate your position is a logical fallacy. I see it often enough here that there ought to be a catchy name for it. Martyrdom Fallacy, maybe?

I kind of agree with your reply to citrablue, though - "downvote to disagree without explanation" is a really poor communication channel. "I was downvoted without comment, and now I see the error of my ways" said no one ever.

The point is that if I was wrong, there would be responses like, "what's wrong? How can I help, I would put my life on the line to help someone suffering from tyranny?"

But not one person has done that.

Anyways, about the downvotes thing. While focusing too much on the downvotes thing is kind of a distraction to the main idea, I can tell you I have a reasonable load of karma here and it is easy to get by writing comments stating the obvious, or agreeing with consensus. Controversial comments or novel ideas can be of high value, but garner low or negative karma. So I dont think you're really accurate about that. Further, generalizing about internet karma points as being especially meaningful in general contexts, like you did, is already a questionable idea.

People tend to downvote because there is complaining about downvoting. There's also a related section in the site guidelines.

Ok, I can understand that, but in this case there is particular meaning and decision made with regard to the problems I addressed. You should take another look to understand that part of it.

The full Jackson quote you're looking for is: "Therefore the tariff was only the pretext, and disunion and a Southern confederacy the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or slavery, question." He wasn't talking about the North making pretexts for aggression against the South, he was fed up with the South not adhering to the Union as he saw it. Lincoln is a little more complex, but it suffices to say that the politics of slavery always took the forefront over whatever his personal beliefs may have been.

Ok maybe "northern aggression" is a bit too controversial word choice as this history is debated and some people are going to chime up and express their own personal expertise and disagreements. But this was my reading of it and also how it was taught to me uni, but it doesn't matter, we can agree for purposes of the main point that slavery (a moral cause) was a pretext and even today, it's hard to find people who care about what is right. I know this, because I'm dealing with blatant abuse.

Regardless of the merits of your statement (although tbh it's more of a rant than a cogent argument), I caution you not to take the downvotes as a sign you are correct. The downvoting may reflect how people received what you said, but does not address anything about the accuracy/correctness.

If you get what are basically bad feelings about someone's ideas, you can try to show them where they're unreasonable if you want to change their view. Relying on your negative feelings to let you insult them will almost always entrench their view, and for good reason.

Jackson also literally said "In the monuments and fortifications of an unknown people, spread over the extensive regions of the West, we behold the memorials of a once powerful race, which was exterminated of has disappeared to make room for the existing savage tribes".

He was a racist white supremacist conspiracy theorist. His opinions on slavery are completely unrelated to the events that transpired 30 years after his tenure.

I really don’t get what the purpose of trying to make this the Oppression Olympics is. That one group is oppressed does not minimize another group’s oppression.

A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.

In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution, and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787, in regard to the Northwestern Territory.

The feeling increased, until, in 1819-20, it deprived the South of more than half the vast territory acquired from France.

The same hostility dismembered Texas and seized upon all the territory acquired from Mexico.

It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.

It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.

It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.

It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.

It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.

It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.

It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.

It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.

It has invaded a State, and invested with the honors of martyrdom the wretch whose purpose was to apply flames to our dwellings, and the weapons of destruction to our lives.

It has broken every compact into which it has entered for our security.

It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system.

It knows no relenting or hesitation in its purposes; it stops not in its march of aggression, and leaves us no room to hope for cessation or for pause.

It has recently obtained control of the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood.

Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England.

Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it.