American Political Thought: Servile Insurrection and Slavery

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I was reading this book and it touches much on a subject I hitherto had not considered. That there was a doctrine of political thought in the US that if slaves should rebel, and the Federal Government need be called in to suppress the rebellion, the Federal Government had the power to end slavery, legitimately.

This thought apparently appeared about the 1840s and was a persistent theme lost in most history discussions today. I like discussing particularly the causes of the Civil War and this will go into my discussions some day when that topic comes up. But for now the implications that the Federal Government had such a right is interesting in Federal/State relationships.

So far I haven't come across much of the counter arguments but I can certainly say that the South took extraordinary measures to provide for its own safety in Servile Insurrection. This policy probably exacerbated the causes leading to Civil War. Namely in that it gave cause to the South to be better armed and organised for war than the North. It also would have created further suspicion and fear of rebellion and the Federal Government.