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New Federal Database Will Track Americans' Credit Ratings, Other Financial Info
schwit1 (797399) writes "As many as 227 million Americans may be compelled to disclose intimate details of their families and financial lives — including their Social Security numbers — in a new national database being assembled by two federal agencies.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau posted an April 16 Federal Register notice of an expansion of their joint National Mortgage Database Program to include personally identifiable information that reveals actual users, a reversal of previously stated policy. The FHFA will manage the database and share it with CFPB. A CFPB internal planning document for 2013-17 describes the bureau as monitoring 95 percent of all mortgage transactions. FHFA officials claim the database is essential to conducting a monthly mortgage survey required by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 and to help it prepare an annual report for Congress."
The point where your oligarchs completely stop pretending you have any democratic say in your country.
I see no way in which have all these life-defining records collected all neatly in one place could ever possibly be a failure of an idea.
As opposed to the private credit rating agencies that have all your personal credit information with zero transparency and accountability?
I'd rather this be in the public sphere where hopefully the agency has my interests at heart, rather than some private, for profit corporation.
Of course I live in Soviet-Canuckastan, so my opinion may differ from my "freedom loving free marketer loving" cousins to the south...
hmmm...so why would us Americans have to give to the feds the very number they assigned to us?
sheesh...no wonder the healthcare website cost is at over $1bil and climbing.
never bring a twinkie to a food fight.
Mortgages are public records. State and local governments already have all that data. Anyone can look it up. Data companies have already collected it for most parts of the US and use it for marketing.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is only going to have a 1 in 20 sample of the data. That's enough to look for improper activity by lenders. There's a lot of funny stuff going on in the foreclosure area, but nobody has been analysing that as a "big data" problem.
can't wait to crack into that puppy!!!
Mmm...now...lemme see....going to have to make a rather large shopping list to buy some of those absolute nessecities....maybe even start a state owned business...I mean, a private business.(Woops, nothing to see here...move along....move along.)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
burn down the cities, and go live in the woods. problem solved.
Anyone who objects to this is a ideologue, there for not scientific.
I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.
Because they promise one thing, delivered another and morph it into something it should never have been.
My place may be tiny (single-wide trailer on a .1 acre lot) but I own it free and clear. No mortgage. So they can't check my mortgage info. Phht.
Just last night at dinner, I held a rant about the "racial unfairness" of credit scores. And how the federal government "needs" to shut down all the run by "rich old white men" "private for profit" credit rating companies and start it's own that will be mandated as the only source of credit scores in the USA. It could then use this agency to "empower" minorities to receive "fair" credit scores aka averaged to be the same as caucasian and asian americans. Aka, if the average credit score of whitish to yellowish people is 650, then a weighted bias must be given to black and hispanic people separately to ensure they have the same average credit score along with all other underprivileged minorities. Thus making it possible for more of them to qualify for affordable credit. Otherwise, you are denying them opportunity which is how credit scores are basicly modern slavery. I didn't want to go there by someone has to. One could also move simply away from these system of punishing people of color for having been tricked into taking on too much debt by the whiteman by measure nontraditional factors when calculating the credit score. More of a biographical assessment similar to what the FAA is now using to test for New hires for air traffic control.
Of course, What would probably happen is the free market would find a solution. Ether some loophole or work around; or Some combination of it being almost impossible to get an unsecured loan or everyone paying more for the people who were previously known bad credit risks.
Trailer is nice because its disposable. Now you can save up for one of those nifty shot-crete dome homes. Low maintenance and near indestructible.
I just cant keep wrapping my brain around the garbage they pull. The last 12 years will go down as the worst in US history. Crooked leaders, crooked leaders buddies. CEO's with incomes = to 300 times what their avg employee gets paid. I think they will no longer be able to keep the frog in the boiling water when using a flame thrower on it.
According to TFA:
Late car payment? It'll be recorded.
Late creditcard payment? Skipped a child support payment? Forgot to pay the water bill? It'll be recorded. Or so TFA says.
The database will also encompass a mortgage holderâ(TM)s entire credit history, including delinquent payments, late payments, minimum payments, high account balances and credit scores, according to the notice.
Really?! "high account balances?!"
The composition of your family? Feast your eyes on this little nugget FTFA:
The two agencies will also assemble âoehousehold demographic data,â including racial and ethnic data, gender, marital status, religion, education, employment history, military status, household composition, the number of wage earners and a familyâ(TM)s total wealth and assets.
Folks.. it *is* big brother. People are focusing on only the mortgage aspect, but if TFA is to be believed, it's a financial dragnet.
What the fuck are they looking for? People spending large sums on strange things?
It won't be for bureaucratic purposes. This will get tied in with law enforcement somehow. That's just my gut feeling, folks... but I do really think LEOs will want in on this.
"Mr Smith, we'd like to have a word with you.. every two weeks you withdraw $100 cash, then as you can see in these pictures, the city's automated license plate readers catch you visiting the address of a known marijuana dealer every time you make that withdrawal. Please step into the van, sir."
It's coming. Maybe not for a bag of sweet leaf, but surely for other things.
2001 was the year the US ended. We sold out to the Gov't and did so willingly; because Terrorism!, because Think of the Children, because War on Drugs! But mainly because Terrorism.
To hell with the federal government, might as well call it the Reich now.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
You mean some federal SWAT-types are gonna bust down my door and force me at gunpoint to fill out a form? Answer intimate questions like "boxers or briefs?", "pink or stink?", or perhaps even (gasp) "paper ot plastic?" OH NOES!!!
Oh wait..."compelled" means that CoreLogic (the corporation that already has all my mortgage data) wants to sell the data to the CFPB. Mmmm...doesn't look like much in the way of compellin goin on. No SWAT Team for me, then.
The official name is actually:
The Consumer Financial Fuck you in the asshole and steal every shred of privacy Bureau
Get your facts straight slashdot.
Serious economic scrutiny would stop a lot of crime. Does anyone not know someone or some business that gets by while perpetually breaking the law? How many people could not hope to explain how they can pay and expensive mortgage, a car lease or other symptoms of a rich life all the while declaring the income of a pauper?
Look at what data CoreLogic has access to.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
CoreLogic, Inc. is a North American corporation providing financial, property and consumer information, analytics and business intelligence. Headquartered in Irvine, CA, the company analyzes information assets and data to provide clients with analytics and customized data services. Data sources include property and mortgage information, motor vehicle records, criminal background records and tax records.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Despite being prohibited by Congress, the federal government is still assembling the components separately.
Mortgages are public records
Dead wrong. The specifics vary by state but in none of them are all mortgage details public.
I expect the Tea Party and libertarian-leaning Democrats to be up in arms about this.
I expect "business Republicans" and non-libertarian Democrats to see this as A Good Thing or at least a "neutral thing, but serving a good purpose" thing.
Let the sparks fly.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Is this so they can get a solid number when they sell America's home mortgages to China for some national debt relief?
How funny!
Slashdotters would howl and complain and threaten if this were proposed under Bush, or any other Republican president. Or if proposed from a Republican member of Congress. Now the POTUS Obama administration/regime proposes it and SlashDot is quiet as a church mouse.
How funny!
What a bunch of hypocrites--and you don't even realize that "your ox is being gored".
Full Disclosure: Worked at one of the money center banks in both Small Business and Credit Cards for six years and a foreign bank with a US presence for 4.
What is this thing and do I need to get my foil hat?
The database they are constructing is being used to conduct performance reviews on originated mortgages. The database won't pick you up unless you start a mortgage. Once you originate the mortgage this database is being put into place in order to monitor your performance on that mortgage and your corresponding financial condition.
Why are they doing this?
To stop the next credit crisis as the system would allow surveillance over mortgages originated by banking institutions. Today, banking regulators have broad powers to request information out of banks including everything that's going to be held in this database (personal information about you, you bet - your bank is pulling regular credit reports on you and the regulator can check your progress when they come in for an exam. Building the database would shortcut that request and help get a better view as to how institutions are originating. No longer would regulators have to show up and start poking around at a bank, but they could monitor the health of the banks portfolio.
Who would be against this? This sounds like a way to crack down on banks.
It is a way to crack down on banks and ensure that what's being originated isn't crap. Think about it. We could have better monitored the health of the entire mortgage system by have having this database in place. Those who are against this are most likely those who have a vested interest in ensuring that the mortgage industry opaque to regulators. Those concerned about privacy should realize all of this data is being collected today, I can pull your credit report and cross it with data from CoreLogic and do roughly the same thing. Yes it is all in one place and with a government entity, but so long as its being used responsibility I don't have a problem with it as it would create an excellent tool for finding bad actors within the mortgage industry.
Phone company compelling their customers to disclose their phone numbers for a new phone company database to track their customers phone usage!
Seriously! Was this article written by a "keep your government hands off my medicare" Tea Partier?!?
Hmmm... Let's think this through.,. Your Social Security Number was issued by... The U.S. Social Security Administration...
So unless that's some other Federal Government, (you guessed it) they already have your Social Security Number on file (duh!).
There is also another branch of the Federal Government that has some of your financial information on file... One of those pesky TLA things... What was it... Ah! Got it --- The I.R.S.; you know, those people who steal half of your paycheck and make you jump through hoops to get any of it back again.
==========
Guess what folks, your credit information is no more yours than your medical records are (no more than your phone records are)...
Private businesses (and government agencies) keep reams of information on each and every U.S. citizen - birth records, death records, criminal records, medical records, phone records, credit records, and on and on and on... (and all kindly searchable via the N.S.A.)
If you're not worried about your banks and credit card companies collecting your information, sending/selling it to third parties for processing, aggregation, indexing and advertising, what's one more government agency in the grand scheme of things?
LOLZ ROLZl on...
It's so very sad that most Americans have never READ the Constitution. They're all so very certain the things they WANT are "constitutional" and the things they don't want others doing are "unconstitutional" but most are clueless because they've never even bothered to READ it. This nation would not be in so many of the messes it's in right now if we had simply folowed the document. It's not like reading it would take any real effort; it's written in English, and unlike "War and Peace" or "Atlas Shrugged" the founders wrote it on FOUR (big) pages.
For those too lazy to look it up... the ninth ought to make LIMITED federal government very clear even before you get to the 10th:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
The entire POINT of the Constitution was to create a small VERY LIMITED federal government with specific limited powers and responsibilities and leave the rest to the states and the people. It says this over and over again and re-states it in the 9th and 10th Amendments within the Bill of Rights. This is contrary to the desires of most politicians, bureaucrats, lawyers, investment bankers etc so they've packed the government, including the courts, with people who don't give a damn about their oaths or the Constitution and who will legislate and rule in whatever way benefits them.
Make a list of who has what....
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Um, i would rather have it with the commercial entities, they want to make sure they can make more money from me in the future, the government just wants to take it all and redistribute.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
NOBODY authorized those private credit firms to have the personal and private information of individual Americans.
The fact that several companies have built financial empires buying, selling, trading, and holding information they have no right to have in the first place does not make it legitimate. There are people who kill for money and people who steal money; THEIR "profitability" does not make their actions legitimate. The fact that these companies make billions per year and are now integral to the economy does not legitimize their activities, nor does it make the problem "unfixable", nor does it mean that government should follow them down this illegitimate rabbit hole.
These firms ought to be banned by law from having ANY personal information on any person who has not entered into an agreement with them. Want a "credit rating"? Fine. Sign a contract with Expirian or TRW or whomever authorizing it - and as a side benefit they then know who you are and how to contact you and then there's no ability for "identity theft" to exist (ANY business could submit data on a customer to the credit checker saying "is this person's data correct?" and get back a "yes" or a "no - call the police" answer instantly)
The Obama-friendly press in the US completely mis-represented the "death panel" argument and then repeatedly "reported" on it in ways that thoroughly confused the issue. People NOW are so confused most do not believe there are any panels, and most think those panels are, at worst, waiting lists (a bad form of rationing by delaying) that are in some way like what private insurance has done all along (this was a DNC talking point back in 2008).
The core point that people like Sarah Palin pointed out as a "death panel" was that the ACA sets up a panel of people who are appointed, (therefore will be unknown to and unnacountable to the public) are not required to be medical people, (politicians can appoint any bureaucrats or lobbyists they want with any agenda) who will determine what treatments are "effective", (a subjective judgement which could be base on anything individual panelists care to use including federal spending, contributions by drug companies, etc) and that doctors and hospitals will eventually be forbidden to provide any service or drug not authorized by the panel.
In other words: If you are sick or injured a panel of unaccountable government people will decide whether you live or die (based on whatever criteria they personally choose to use) and even though your doctor or hospital might have a way to save you they'll be banned from using it by federal law. The penalties will be stiff enough that no hospital or doctor will violate those rules. Your only way to survive in those situations will be to go to Washington and go before that panel and convince them you are worth saving... but you'll probably never even get that chance because you'll probably never even know their names and never be granted an audience. These parts of "Obamacare" start as "advisory" but over time they are scheduled to kick-in as mandatory - including the restrictions of care deemed "not effective" (again, without legal standards and therefore left to the whims of the panelists)
This is VERY different from the way things have always been! Pre-ACA, such panels could exist to control costs within a hospital or insurance company, but an individual could always go to some other hospital or insurance company and even appeal to the courts if needed. When such things got too offensive, they got the attention of the public and people would turn to other companies so the offending companies had to step-back in order to keep customers and stay in business. Now with the government in charge of such rationing there is NOBODY to whom an individual can turn either for an alternative (the businesses are all under the same federal rules) or to appeal (the government you'd appeal to is the one you are fighting) and the government will not allow people to go to a competitor (Canada, Japan, etc will not be allowed to offer alternative regulations in the US for Americans to select from).
Claim this is all nonsense? OK... simple test: WITHOUT GOOGLING please name all fifteen members of the IPAB, and as a bonus: what are their educations, job histories, and wall st investment interests? Did you even get the names right? Do you think your doctor or your member of congress will know these people or be willing to cross them (most members of congress are afraid to confront the IRS over their OWN interests, to say nothing of actually confronting the IRS for the benefit of a constituent.
The corporations and big business already has this information. I believe they're the ones you have to worry about. The government?, they can't find their ass with their fingers! What are you worried about?
Nice, this is just what we need. One data base with every American's personal information. As if identity theft wasn't easy enough.
First: mortages are a matter of state (not federal) law. While I know you left-wingers do not "get" the difference and find it "inconvenient" to your desires, there is a REAL difference. Not all mortgages are a matter of public record. Even those that ARE a a matter of STATE interest are still NOT the business of the Federal Government.
Second, blindly accepting the government pledge that this will only be a "sample" is every bit as STUPID and GULLIBLE as accepting the initial government claim that the NSA was only skimming "meta data" on cell phone calls between people inside the US and terrorists outside the US. At this point, you'd have to be a moron, an Obamabot, or a paid Obama shill to fall for that.
Third, the "Consumer Financial Protection Bureau" is a left-wing scam. It was concieved by the tag-team of Elizabeth Warren and Cass Sunstein (who are both advocates of “behavioral economics”) as a way to have the federal government "nudge" the public into choosing to do the things government want them to do. The basic idea was to create a monster agency to monitor the private financial activities of the masses, study them to find patterns and the easiest "choke points" where government pressure could be applied, then enable the rest of the government to steer the public by pressing on those choke points. Have you not noticed the recent pressure the Obama admin is putting on banks over accounts belonging to porn stars and gun dealers????? The CFPB has decided that certain commercial activities can more-readily (and "quietly") be controlled by squeezing the banks with extra regulations if they host bank accounts for "undesireable" businesses - this is just an early test.
As for your claim that there's a "lot of funny stuff" going on in foreclosures - that's a farce and a false justification. The biggest pile of "funny stuff" in foreclosures IN HUMAN HISTORY took place as part of the 2008 meltdown and both the establishment Republicans and the establishment Democrats fell all over themselves scrambling for massive piles of cash to bail-out their banker buddies. Any violation of the privacy of all Americans now, done supposedly over banking/mortgage activity, is a fraud as long as it is not PRECEEDED by investigations, prosecutions and BILLION DOLLAR "claw-backs" aimed at Wall St bankers and their yachts and mansions and penthouse apartments, and luxury cars and private jets...
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution reads:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
Where in there do you see permission for a federal agency to grab all the financial records for all of my credit card purchases???????
You Obamabots will justify ANY government abuse and intrusion if it advances your totalitarian goals... I get it... your boss promised to "fundamentally transform" the United States and you thought he was going to create heaven-on-Earth... but like every other socialist in human history who promises nirvana he cannot actually deliver the "good parts" and he is locking-in all the "bad parts" which will be available for future abuse. Also, unlike the other socialists in history, he is trying this crap in a country with a founding document that contradicts him and many of whose citizens are keenly aware of it.
This is a political database that the democrats are building.
They will track everything we do and use it against us if need be. Didn't vote for democrats? Then your healthcare records get lost and no medical care for you. Looking for a job, trying to get a loan? Sorry credit mysteriously ruined by identity theft.
If the republicans ever get back into power and they may never do so if they allow amnesty and those 20 million illegals bring 5 friends and relatives in then the republicans will be like they are in California.
As part of the conditions of setting up the serial number of every person in the US, it was written into law that the government shall not use the magic number for anything other than social security accounting. Yes, I know they broke that law long, log ago and continue doing so. But it's still the law. (Did you know you can get a TAX ID number if you wish not to use your SSN when filing 'voluntary' taxes?)
Though it's far more poignant today than ever before, the government doesn't follow its own laws. Not the executive, not the legislative and not the judiciary. And even though there is, presently, jack-diddly we can really do about it, it's a good thing to keep that knowledge in discussion and in circulation. If people stop talking about it, it must not be happening right?
The Civil War was about NOTHING BUT SLAVERY. Southern Democrats fired the first shots in the war THEY started because Republican Abraham Lincoln was elected and had a well-known position opposing the extension of slavery into any more states. NOBODY was arguing about ticket prices of ferry boats or the number of days in a school year or the price of a gallon of milk; the ONLY "states' right" southern Democrats were fighting about was SLAVERY.
The fact that Lincoln ended slavery (something our founders intended to eventually happen) imposed NO need on the federal government to ignore (but not repeal) the 9th and 10th amendments over the past 150 years. The nation's founders counted "non-free persons" (NOT "black people" - it was about station in society not skin color) as 3/5ths of a person was to prevent southern states (where it WAS all about skin color) from counting all their slaves as people (for purposes of allocating seats in congress) and then claiming they were not people at all (for purposes of selecting who would SIT in those seats). The founders intended the 3/5ths clause to limit the further spread of slavery and they predicted the institution would eventually be eliminated.
Forcing southern Democrats to accept that black people are human beings does not in any way mean that everybody (incluing those very same black people) must lose their 9th or 10th amendment protections against an ever-growing government interfering more and more in their states and in their personal lives. If that were the case, then forcing people to recognize that Irish or German people were human would create the same constitutional crisis. Oh, and on the SLIM chance you're NOT a racist and are just a deluded teenager pounding a keyboard in mommies basement who thinks the "stars and bars" is just a cool flag that stands for "rebellion against authority" - DROP IT. The Confederate flag is a flag of rebellion against the United States for the purpose of keeping black people as slaves.... there's NOTHING even remotely libertarian OR Republican in the idea of declaring some people to be "not human" so you can buy them and sell them and use them like cattle.
Need I say any more?
Stinking, rat-faced Jew bankers and their 'fractional reserve' banking scam. In fact, it's worse than that - the rat-faced Jew bankers create money out of NOTHING when they lend it to you, and use your signature on the agreement to repay the amount as an asset. In other words, they are enslaving you every time you take out a loan, whether it be for a car, a new business, or a house.
http://www.positivemoney.org/
I bought a bunch of 'em. I wasn't stupid because they were insured by the federal government. AAA rating. It was like buying high-yield CDs. I bought ones that had been called, so I only held them for short periods of time, but I was part of the 'bailout' group. One day a bunch of investments vanished from my brokerage account, to be replaced by cash. No warning. No questions asked. It just happened.
Did I know how they were structured? Nope. I saw a called, AAA-rated, FNMA bond with X% yield and insurance by the federal government. Buy.
The idiocy here is that the game was set up to fail. The entire premise was that people with a poor track record of repaying loans should be allowed to take out large loans - and that the federal government would back those loans. With that kind of guarantee, of course people were going to buy those mortgages on the secondary market. If the government hadn't backed the investment, the packages would have been rated as junk bonds and they would have been dramatically less attractive as an investment. In my case, they would never have gotten on my investment radar. I don't go near junk.
Ultimately, it was government-backed gambling, and is an example of people messing with the rules of a system to the point where they break it. That is, too much government manipulation of the laws. Bureaucrats are fairly good at being reactive, but they're generally terrible at being proactive.
Seriously, how does this enhance the lives of the average person. Why do we need this crap? How is it enhancing the human race?
Seriously, that's an honest question. Please tell me what I am supposed to be concerned about here.
The feds can have my SSN, they gave it to me after all. Also, I'm much more concerned with private agencies having access to my credit rating than the feds. And private agencies have been messing up/with my credit rating for decades. I don't really see what's new. So I'm asking, what's the problem here?
The Information Revolution will be fought on the command line.
I'm a conservative - and your attempts to pretend that pointing out the truth about slavery is "liberal revisionist history" is a complete joke.
"1) Why were there Union states that still allowed slavery?"
There are NO states currently allowing slavery...so ending slavery in ALL states WAS achieved. This argument you are raising is therefore only an argument about TIMING (in other words: why some states were subject to the emancipation proclamation before other states), which I will answer in response to your argument #2 (below)
"2) Why did it take Lincoln two years AFTER the war started to deliver the emancipation proclamation?"
This is well-documented in the national archives, and any reasonably well educated American already knows the answer. Lincoln explained it himself at the time. The Southern states started the war over the argument of whether new states added to the Union would be "free states" (as Lincoln insisted) or "slave states" (as the southerners insisted). It was an important fight because it would decide if all future majorities in the US House and US Senate would be pro-slavery or anti-slavery, and if Lincoln got his way the US would eventually end slavery; this was intolerable to the rich slave owners on their plantations in the south. Given that an immediate freeing of slaves was not the cause of the war, and given that some slave states (Kentucky, Missouri, Rhode Island,Delaware, West Virginia) stayed with the Union, an "emancipation proclamation" at the start of the war would have served no purpose other than to cause 5 Union states to waiver. When Lincoln finally did choose to issue the proclamation, the timing was driven by wartime conditions.
"3) Why were there Union states that still did not abolish slavery AFTER the emancipation proclamation and even AFTER the Civil War?"
Any well-educated person already know this, and anybody who did dot but who has read the above SHOULD be able to easily figure it out. I will explain it here though for the benefit of anybody who was raised by a family of bitter southern democrats spoon-fed for generations with racist bile. The war did not start over any proclamation, so the proclamation was a new fact added to a volatile situation (the Civil War). Lincoln chose to issue the proclamation at a time during the war when it was likely to benefit the war effort. The proclamation had no expiration date, so anybody it freed was going to be free forever (which is why they were free during the time after the proclamation but before the US Constitution was amended to ban slavery). The proclamation only freed the slaves in Southern states for three good reasons: [1] THOSE states were at war agains the Union and their economies depended on slavery, [2] THOSE states were full of black slaves who were more-likely to cause trouble for that side of the war as soon as they realized they'd be free if that side lost the war, and [3] Lincoln was not an IDIOT (the five states NOT covered had remained in the Union and were fighting in his side; freeing their slaves during the war could fracture the Union side of the fight)
Your three numbered arguments are really just one argument and they read like any other typical consiracy theory argument list ... a bunch of nit-picking that pretends to expose some hidden ulterior scheme BUT which is really just an attempt to convince poorly-educated idiots that there are a list of "unanswered questions" when the reality is that ebery one of the so-called quations was well-known and thoroughly-documented answers. This timeline explains:
[1] Slavery was common in colonies all around the world. It pre-dated the Declaration of Independence in the US.
[2] Over time, abolishonists advanced the cause of ending slavery, and state-by-state it was being made illegal and slaves were being freed
[3] Between the war of 1812 and the Civil War there was a balance of northern "free states" and southern "slave states"
[4] The southe
The Southern States made no such arguments when they went to war. They declared war in response to Lincoln's election and his commitment that no new slave states would be added to the Union. PERIOD.
The FACT that the progressives have used the precedent of the Civil War and Lincoln's actions as a PRETENSE for ignoring the U.S. Constitution any time it interferes with their preferred policies is completely unrelated. It makes a nice "talking point" in Southern States where younger generations cannot understand how their ancestors could have been so warped and evil, and the intermediate generations did not like hearing thier parents denounced by their grandkids... but that's all it is. There is no record from the 1860's of any significant role of any argument other than slavery in the reasoning of the leaders of the Confederacy when they declared war. It is certainly true that the leaders of the Confederacy told their poor white footsoldiers that THEY were going off to war to fight and die for "states' rights" (and doubtless many footsoldiers fought in that mindset) .... BUT the only thing their leaders were concerned with was SLAVERY and their plantations.
The argument that Lincoln only freed the slaves as a war tactic is an intentionally dishonest manipulation; Lincoln and his newly-formed Republican party were on-record committed to ending slavery as a cause. The exact TIMING and SCOPE of the "Emancipation Proclamation" were indeed tactics in the war - Lincoln was a pretty smart guy. However, IF the Emancipation Proclamation itself, however, had only been a war tactic then it would have only been temporary and the 13th amendment would not have been ratified shortly after the war.
Sorry. Give it up. Slavery was illegitimate and vile and the entire cause of the Civil War.
While we're on the subject of misguided southernisms: The "Stars-and-Bars" is an evil slave rag, and NOT a general flag of a generic plucky "rebel" no matter HOW many times you've watched the "Dukes of Hazard". Anybody looking for a an honorable flag of rebellion-against-tyranny that is un-tainted by the stain of slavery can use a yellow Gadsden flag like TEA Partiers do.
"Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it." --George Santayana
Casteism
if it weren't for the fact that the Federal Government assigns SS numbers in the first place.