The Meaning of the Gettysburg Address

[Bill Richter]

The problem was not in the south's submission to Lincoln but Lincoln's submission to the Constitution. Lincoln was merely the man who represented all of the South's feeling in that matter. His election was a symbol that the Union no longer had anything to offer the South as to following the Founder's document of 1787. You assume that secession was some sort of great travesty. The South saw it as the breaking of a contract much as the 13 colonies saw the actions of King George in 1770s. As we seceded from Gt Br the South seceded from the tyranny of the North. There was no ned to present terms to the North. It had known for years what the South believed and ignored it. By 1861, the North has driven most Southerners into the hands of the secessionists. The South had compromised many times, Missouri in 1820, over Nullification in 1833, the Compromise of 1850. Its only victory in any prewar negotiations was the Kansas-Nebraska Act which repealed the Mo Comp and the Mo Comp was declared unconstitutional by a 7-2 vote of the Supreme Ct in 1857, and the Fugitive slave law upheld by that court t in 1859 by a 9-0 vote. And you all think that Lemmon had no relevance--Abe Lincoln did not think that and said so in the House Divided Speech. Too many of you all have fallen for the Lincoln Myth, that he was the great peace advocate in 1861. He was not. There was nothing laft to argue about. The secessionists won in the South for the first time, having failed in 1850. But they warned then that if the Comp of 1850 was not upheld in all of its provisions, secession was the answer.