"When I suggested that maybe folks here were "underplaying" the role of slavery and the slavemasters in their view of the legistative process, suddenly these quotes from contemporary Southerners, in their own words, is posted to show that the role of slavery and the slavemasters was indeed very important to this issue, and to this debate on the bill, and that I am a bigotted yankee for saying that it wasn't being recognized enough by folks here in the forum."

JAKEo

I have said this many times, it is what you presented as the ONLY reason the CSA congress voted against arming the slaves andthat was simply to maintain slavery. That in itself is wrong there were many reasons, food just being one item.

Perhaps someone who studies the needs of Lee's army can tell us how many pounds of beans were needed to keep this army in the field. With that information we could clearly see why the it was necessary to keep some of the slaves on the farms. You gotta look at all the reasons, not just slavery as to why the congressmen voted the way they did. The exact same thing happens today do we buy more M-16's or a new aircraft carrier. Look at the whole ball of wax.

You are beginning to re-visit your same old argument.

GP