MovieChat Forums > Field of Lost Shoes (2015) Discussion > Northern Revisionist History....

Northern Revisionist History....

posted 9 years ago by RvaBread22
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Its ironic when anyone challenges an Abe Lincoln myth believer gets called a "revisionist" The blatant honesty is that much of what we think happened did not, and in fact was written by a victor's perspective of conflict.

Examining the main points, we can start with these and it is hard for some people to swallow, especially some Yankees who actually believe their great great grandfather was fighting to free a slave.

Myth 1."The Federal Army was fighting to free slaves"

Nope. They were actually fighting to preserve the Union. In fact interviews with with former Union soldiers confirm this most all the time. The Abolitionist movement in the North was a very small precious few. Not only were they not interested in freeing slaves, they actually conscripted some against their will to fight in the Union Army.

Myth 2. Abe Lincoln was anti-slavery

No. In fact, he felt that the entire race of people enslaved were unintelligent inferiors. Much like Jefferson, he believed they should be sent back to Africa. He didn't want to free slaves if he didn't have to. The ECP was strictly a military defends move

Myth 3. The South couldn't be on the defensive. They fire at Ft Sumter
Yes, they did, and why? Because they believed in Sovereignty of States and were trying to take back control of Ft Sumter from the Federal Government. Every historian from Shelby Foote to the most ardent Yankee, realized the South was on the defense.

Need I even say that the South was invaded by force? Several times over. Many women black and white were raped by Federal officers. Not to mention thousands of acres of farmland burned , towns and cities destroyed, civilians starved to death, and a cultural genocide of an entire group of people. Who is more like the Nazis? The desolate South destroyed , or the invading Union forces burning, raping, pillaging and murdering? I'll leave that to you to decide.

Myth 4: Every Southerner owned slaves/wanted slavery

Not even close. Only a select few in the Confederate Government were advocating expanding slavery. The average Southron did not own any if few slaves, and many were simply defending their own homes against invasion by force by the Federal Government.

Myth 5. Every black person in the South was a slave before the War until Lincoln freed them.

Many people are shocked to learn there were freed Negroes in the South, long long before this conflict. Some even worked in Southern cities such as Richmond and Savannah. Some even had slaves of their own. Just as not all white people were slave owners, not all Negroes were slaves!

When people in the South had their homes and land destroyed and their women folk raped and tortured by the Federal Government, is no wonder they are still "fighting the war" to this very day. Because the South believed in the Constitution, they believed in States Rights, and the rights for States to be independent territories. And they were fighting for Independence.

[–] irishtom29 9 years ago

Straw men. Those who understand the rebellion know that The United States and it's soldiers were fighting to crush treasonous rebellion, not to free slaves. However, while the Federals were not fighting to stop slavery the rebels most certainly were fighting to preserve slavery. This disconnection between the two causes is the source of endless confusion to those who need a simpler understanding.

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[–] nicolo001-675-680396 9 years ago

1) The federal Army of the Potomac invaded Virginia, not South Carolina; 2) Virginians led by Robert E. Lee, himself a descendant of Martha Washington, fought to repel the invaders. I'm not why this is so difficult for some to understand.

[–] daboss216 9 years ago

Anyone that says the Civil War was NOT fought because of slavery is a wrong. The North fought the South because the South seceded. They seceded because of slavery. Therefore, the main flashpoint of the war was the slavery issue.

The federal army may have been fighting to "preserve the union", but they were also fighting a region that rebelled specifically over the issue of slavery. By the end of the war, the fight was not simply to preserve the union, but to also completely abolish the issue that tore the union apart in the first place. So, yes, by war's end, the federal army was fighting to end slavery.

"....especially some Yankees who actually believe their great great grandfather was fighting to free a slave".

Yankees? Yankees? Really? People outside of baseball fans and Australians still use that word? That's funny. I feel bad for people that can't get over their regions loss in a war that ended over 150 years ago. Especially when history has proven their reasons for fighting were not only morally wrong, but simply un-American.

[–] RvaBread22 9 years ago

Succession wasn't entirely over slavery. In fact, slavery was part of many issues due to large tariffs and an oppressive Federal Government.

The South was invaded by force.

But the Northern Armies certainly were not fighting to free slaves. In fact several accounts of Federal soldiers occupying the South paints a totally different picture. Slaves being raped by Union troops. Burning the houses and used them for firewood. No emancipation there. Just pillaging, raping, and plundering and destroying the whole South.

[–] sized-2 9 years ago

I suggest anyone who wants the entire picture read James McPherson's Battle Cry Of Freedom. It packs a wallop for a single volume.

http://www.amazon.com/Battle-Cry-Freedom-Oxford-History-ebook/dp/B002N XOQLQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424331566&sr=1-1&amp ;keywords=battle+cry+of+freedom

[–] RvaBread22 9 years ago

He's a Northern Revisionist.

[–] sized-2 9 years ago

Sure he is, just like that Yankee Shelby Foote.

[–] JavaCoder 9 years ago

Well done, Sir. Unfortunately, we here in the U.S. live in a society where the perception of the "Civil" War, as well as its causes and its aftermath, is based on a complete fabrication which, today, holds the status of religious dogma. It's simply not acceptable to question the accepted mythology or the omnipotent, leviathan, Lincolnite federal government that emerged in the aftermath of the war. It's no big mystery that Lincoln's "memorial" resembles the Temple of Zeus and holds a more prominent place in D.C. than even Washington's.

To expand somewhat on your points, here are some tidbits that anyone with a modicum of intellectual curiosity can investigate for themselves:

1. The federal army was in fact a legion of conscripts drawn from every northern State and forced on pain of prison to fight for Lincoln's federal government - hardly different in any way from the manner in which Rome conscripted the residents of its various conquered territories for the purpose of raising large armies. The most ardent concern in the north with respect to the slavery issue, was the spread of cheap, black labor from the south. This was the primary cause for opposition to the spread of slavery to the territories / new states, not any altruistic opposition to the institution of slavery, per se. Slavery had been an accepted institution for centuries, and slaves had been held to one degree or another in almost EVERY northern State at some point after 1776 (see the US census of 1800, for example) - but the institution was not feasible in an industrialized, capitalist economy such as that which was emerging in the north. This is why Lincoln could PUBLICLY speechify about black inferiority, and shipping all the blacks back to Africa with no fear of reprisal for failing to be "politically correct". For research: look up the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and the immigration laws in IN, IL and OH from the early-mid 1800s, which required blacks to post prohibitive bonds in order to relocate there; also look up the American Colonization Society and its various supporters as well as the histories of Liberia and Sierra Leone.

2. As you note, Lincoln made clear that he had no problem with the institution of slavery in the south. In fact, during his first inaugural address, he openly SUPPORTED the Corwin Amendment, which had passed as a Joint Resolution in Congress only days before, which provided statutory protection for the institution of slavery in perpetuity. That resolution was ratified in MD and OH as the (first) 13th Amendment, but the process of further ratification was halted with the opening of hostilities. Clearly, the north's interest (as expressed by Congress) was in preserving the revenue being extorted from the southern States, and NOT in ending slavery where it existed.

3. South Carolina seceded in December of 1860. Sumpter wasn't fired upon until April of 1861. The obvious question is: why the delay? If the south was "in rebellion", as we are taught, then why did they leave the fort unmolested for months? Why did local businesses trade with the occupants of the fort during that period, selling them provisions, etc.? The answer, clearly, is that there was no reason to attack the fort while the SC state government was negotiating with the federals for the property - a negotiation that had been initiated with Buchanan (the same negotiation was under way with FL for the Ft. Pickens site). The agreement in both of these cases was that these installations would remain unmolested as long as no attempt was made to reinforce them. The reason Sumpter was fired upon was Lincoln's decision on April 6, 1861, to send a fleet of warships carrying federal troops into Charleston Harbor with the purpose of reinforcing the fort and, thus, taking control of the most important southern port - IN DIRECT VIOLATION of an existing agreement between the State of South Carolina and the federal government, which had kept the peace until that time. Lincoln pursued the same action at Ft. Pickens in FL (the documentary evidence of this was kept from Congress using an early example of "executive privilege"). Lincoln's intent, clearly, was to provoke a defensive action that he could use to justify all-out war, and that's exactly what he got at Sumpter. This was a unilateral, unconstitutional/illegal and immoral provocation designed for one purpose: to conquer the seceding States militarily, in order to recoup the federal operating capital that had been lost with their secession, some 75% of which was coming from southern States via tariff, and which had been earmarked for Lincoln's political supporters, former employers (the railroads) and cronies in the north. The result of this single order by Lincoln was over ONE MILLION American causalties and a fundamental transformation of the US from a Republic comprised of independent, sovereign States, into an empire of conquered provinces and vassals from which the federal government has extorted increasing levels of wealth ever since in order to benefit those who control it.

4. Exactly. What every southerner wanted was to preserve the State sovereignty that had been established by ratification of the Constitution, which imposed an obligation on the federal government to "guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and [to] protect each of them against Invasion". Lincoln's military INVASION of the south on patently false pretenses (i.e., a "rebellion" that never occurred) was just cause for an armed response by the citizens of the southern States. This is why Lincoln's illegal actions only led to the subsequent secession of MORE States.

5. There were more free blacks in the South at the opening of the "Civil" War than in the North. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has written extensively on this topic.

Anyone who sees the overwhelming level of corruption and overreach by today's federal government can trace the cause directly back to Lincoln's decision to provoke and wage an illegal, unnecessary war on southern civilians, solely for the purpose of maintaining hegemony of the federal government and extorting the wealth of the citizens that government was established to protect. People living today have no concept of what this nation was like prior to that decision - that history has been filtered out of the federally-controlled, compulsory public education system (as well as virtually all private education). What we are taught is, quite literally, a "history" written by the victors (i.e., the Point-oh-One-Percenters who established oligarchical control over the entire nation by the federal government through military conquest).

In the aftermath of Lincoln's decision to provoke an illegal war, the U.S. saw the re-establishment of a central bank (1864), the imposition of debt-based fiat currency thanks to a Supreme Court packing scheme pursued by Grant (1871 - which has led to ongoing, generational theft pursued by the Federal Reserve), the establishment of regionally-unbalanced, protectionist tariffs, the widespread federal pursuit of Hamiltonian, crony "capitalism" (neo-mercantilism), the concsription of every resident of every State into a "national citizenry" subject to direct rule by the federal government (via the 14A), the imposition of direct tax on income (via the 16A), and the breakdown of State sovereignty through the popular election of Senators (via the 17A).

For more info, research "American System" economic policy and the manner in which it was imposed on the U.S. at the point of a rifle by former Whigs like Lincoln and his successors.

[–] amkatz 9 years ago

It's actually quite sad to see so many meticulous citations spoiled by confirmation biases.

In the first point you take the Union Army to task for having been a conscript army, but seem unaware (or you hope your readers are) that the Confederacy introduced conscription before the North.

Both armies fielded conscripts, both fielded men who believed in their causes.

Opposition to slavery wasn't based only on the prospect of competition from cheap labor. In fact, that makes very little sense, because slaves weren't competing for the same jobs as freemen and women. Moral opposition to the institution was well established and growing in the north.

Lost Causers typically ignore the consequences of both the Dred Scott decision and the Fugitive Slave Act as measures of southern aggression forcing slavery into states and territories where it had been forbidden.

Lincoln did seek to resupply the federal fort Sumpter in Charleston Harbor, but went out of his way to do so in a manner that wouldn't be provocative. Because he never viewed secession as a legal reality, there was no question of "negotiations" with South Carolina to return the fort.

Face it, what it all boils down to is that it sucks to lose.

[–] JavaCoder 9 years ago

Quick tip (free): invest in some reading comprehension classes.

I didn't take Lincoln's invading, murderous hordes "to task for having been a conscript army", sorry. Rather, I simply identified that force for what it was. Citizens being drafted for the express purpose of invading other territories is a very different thing from drafting an army to repel such an invasion. You should spend some time learning to understand the difference.

Also, I didn't claim that cheap black labor was the "only" issue, and it wasn't a factor in the opposition to slavery at all (again: get some help with reading comprehension). Northerners opposed the SPREAD of slavery to new states and territories for the same reason that they opposed immigration of freed blacks from the south into the north. In particular, IL, IN and OH had very oppressive immigration laws in this regard (look it up). The reason: as Lincoln clearly stated in his debates with Douglas, the prevailing attitude toward blacks was that they were considered one step up from beasts of burden, worked essentially for free, and would be taking jobs from whites if given the chance. There was NO widespread northern opposition to slavery in the south, as was proved irrefutably by the passage of the Corwin Amendment AFTER the secession - a point you took pains to avoid acknowledging.

You clearly don't know the first thing regarding Lincoln's illegal actions with respect to Ft. Sumpter and Ft. Pickens. There were, contrary to your fact-free view, very active negotiations taking place after December 1860 regarding the disposition of the property at Ft. Sumpter. Lincoln went out of his way in both cases to provoke an armed response, and then hid the documentary evidence from Congress when it was requested.

The notion that the south was an aggressor in ANY sense is not only laughable, but unsupportable. The south seceded, peacefully, and not a shot was fired until Lincoln sought to exert federal control through military force.

Adolescents are obsessed with 'winning' and 'losing' and, as such, are blinded to the facts of history, as your post clearly demonstrates.

[–] amkatz 9 years ago

Lincoln's actions in reinforcing Fort Sumpter are illegal only if one recognizes secession as legal. Lincoln did not. He made that very clear from the onset. Therefore negotiations with southern representatives are meaningless.

The Corwin Amendment was an attempt to avoid open conflict between the states, one that ultimately failed. It was in keeping, however, with Lincoln's position on slavery, which he admitted he would maintain in order to prevent civil war. It was expedience, not a ringing endorsement of slavery from the north. Why is it impossible to believe that to the north, slavery was bad, but war was worse?

Of course the presence of some four million Blacks as potential competition for labor was an issue in all of the states.

Funny, that modern day lost causers seem to lack the perspective of the ancestors they lionize. The south took the same gamble the United States did in declaring independence from Great Britain. I don't think a single founding father had any illusions as to what would happen if they didn't prevail militarily over the Crown. "Hang together or hang separately"?

The Treaty of Paris ensued because the British lacked the capacity to subdue the former colonies. Framers of the Confederacy gambled that the north would similarly lack the capacity to invade & subdue the south. They were wrong. You think they really believed that northern troops would never step foot on southern soil regardless of how the war went?

Secession is legal only if one wins the ensuing war. So it's not adolescent to focus on winning or losing. It's very much to the point, & talking about how the south was right in this day is meaningless. It wasn't.

Personally I think the relationship between the states & the US wasn't sustainable indefinitely. If slavery hadn't become the spark for secession some other issue would have come along eventually.

[–] JavaCoder 9 years ago

What Lincoln "recognized" was utterly irrelevant. He was not crowned King or Emperor and handed dictatorial powers (his multiple illegal actions notwithstanding), he was nothing more than an elected servant who couldn't even manage 40% of the national popular vote because the policies he sought to enforce were so unpopular - the very same crony-capitalist, neo-mercantilist policies that are destroying our currency and our economy today (again, do yourself a favor and go study up on "American System" economic policies).

Furthermore, there is nothing in the Constitution authorizing the President to use military force in case of a State exercising its Tenth Amendment powers (which include secession, nullification, and all other powers NOT SPECIFICALLY DELEGATED to the federal government), much less any authorization to force States to provide soldiers for the purpose of waging war against each other. Lincoln's actions were not only illegal and immoral, they were pursued in bad faith, as he was clearly aware of the standing agreements that had kept the peace for months - agreements he knowingly and intentionally violated in order to provoke armed conflict.

And you persist in missing the point on the Corwin Amendment. It was not an attempt to avoid conflict; it was an attempt to appease the southern States, reverse the secession and restore 75% of the federal government's operating capital (which would come from imports tariffs imposed on southerners), i.e., proof that neither the North nor Lincoln provoked and pursued war to end slavery and "free the slaves", as is the popular, erroneous mythology today.

In taking up arms months AFTER the secession, the "Framers of the Confederacy" were responding to Lincoln's illegal invasion using conscripted federal forces, after they had peacefully withdrawn from an increasingly corrupt federal government. They weren't "gambling" in any sense of the word, as you so insipidly put it. Your knowledge of that history is clearly nonexistent.

Yes, it's adolescent to whine about winning and losing, as you have. The South didn't declare war, they didn't secede in order to "win". They sought a peaceful resolution to an untenable situation that the federal government had created by overstepping its authority, in exactly the same way they had done in 1832, when slavery was not even remotely a factor (again, you choose to ignore this precedent).

Enjoy your federally-engineered ignorance and your baseless fantasies about "lost causers" if it makes you feel better. The reality is just as the OP expressed, and your willful inability to comprehend that is an example of how and why this nation is disintegrating from within.

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[–] zeeboe82 9 years ago

Fact 1. "The Federal Army was fighting to free slaves."

During the War between the States, thousands of men joined the United States military for a variety of different reasons. The same is true of soldiers today. For example, here in the United States of America, many rushed to join the services after 9/11, but if you do the research, you will find many who joined for various other reasons.

Some join out of a sense of duty to their country, some for employment or job training. Some join for the educational benefits, others for the adventure and the travel the service affords. Not since the early days in the 1970's does the U.S. military employ the draft, so all are volunteers at the present time.

But there is one thing that never changes. If you're a soldier, you go to war when the government tells you for the reasons they give you. The same thing happened in the United States Civil War.

Even if most men in the U.S. Military in the 1860's had no interest in ending slavery, as soon as President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, they were fighting to free the slaves rather any of them liked it or not. FYI: The EP was one of the issues that lead to the New York Draft Riots. Fighting to preserve the Union was fine, but fighting to free slaves was not according to plenty of Northerners. That's why many in New York City rioted.

On the other side - Even if the majority of Confederate troops did not own a slave or never could afford one, and if they enlisted for a variety of reasons such as defending their homes, they fought for their government and it's goals and it's objectives and there can be no doubt that slavery, it's preservation and it's protection, was a cause for the Confederates according to the Confederate States Constitution.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp

Article I, Section 9, Clause 4 of the Confederate States Constitution prohibited the Confederate government from restricting slavery in any way:

"No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

Article IV, Section 2 , Clause 1 also prohibited states from interfering with slavery:

"The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired." (So much for States Rights!)

Perhaps the most menacing provision of the Confederate States Constitution was the explicit protection Article IV, Section 3, Clause 3 offered to slavery in all future territories conquered or acquired by the Confederacy:

"The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several States; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States."

This provision ensured the perpetuation of slavery as long and as far as the Confederate States of America could extend it's political reach, and more then a few Confederates had their eyes fixed on Cuba and Central and South America as objects of future conquest.

Unlike the Confederate States Constitution, the United States Constitution freely permitted states to abolish slavery. If the day ever came when slavery was eliminated voluntarily throughout the United States of America, not one word of the United States Constitution would need to be changed, whereas slavery would never lawfully be abolished under the Confederate States Constitution.

Fact 2. "Abe Lincoln was anti-slavery"

"No. In fact, he felt that the entire race of people enslaved were unintelligent inferiors. Much like Jefferson, he believed they should be sent back to Africa. He didn't want to free slaves if he didn't have to. The ECP was strictly a military defends move"

If the long and sad story of race relations in the U.S.A. teaches anything, it is that many people of different skin colors have a very difficult time seeing one another as equals, as fellow citizens, and as potential friends or spouses rather then as members of separate racial groups.

Unlike in the ancient world, where neighboring tribes and cities enslaved one another through warfare and thus masters and slaves often looked quite similar to one another, slavery in the United States of America corresponded in large measure with color for the most part. By the time of the War of the Rebellion, virtually all slaves were black; none were white.

When a human being looks at another human being, color is among the first sensory perceptions that strike the beholder, and when skin color is so closely tied to political and social status as it was with American slavery at that time, moving society beyond color-consciousness to color-blindness becomes a daunting challenge.

President Lincoln was concerned that when American white people saw African-Americans, they would immediately associate them with slavery, and therefore assign to them an inferior social rank; When American black people saw whites, they would immediately associate them with the masters who oppressed them. Thus, President Lincoln feared that widespread manumission might lead to a terrible race war in the United States of America.

Fearing that black and white people would never be able to live together freely and peacefully, President Lincoln looked to some kind of plan for colonization to solve the American race problem that slavery had created. If slavery could be eliminated from the United States of America, then colonization would be necessary for two reasons:

1. It would protect White-Americans against possible retaliation from former slaves seeking revenge.

2. Colonization would offer security for Black-Americans, who as free people might not be protected in the U.S.A. to the extent they were when they were consider to be valuable property as slaves.

The only colonization plan President Lincoln actually sponsored was an 1863 expedition to the Caribbean in which black people participated voluntarily and which the U.S. Congress funded fully. When after only a few months it turned into a debacle, President Lincoln sent a ship to bring the colonists back to the United States. And after seeing over 200,000 African-American men volunteer and fight for the United States Military during the American Civil War and seeing how well white and black Union troops worked together, President Lincoln fully dropped his support for plans to colonize freed slaves. Never again did he speak seriously about colonization for black people, pressing instead for white and black people to learn to live together in the United States as free Americans.

Fact 3. "The South couldn't be on the defensive. They fire at Ft Sumter"

They also attacked United States soldiers marching in Baltimore, Maryland who were on their way to Washington D.C. because there was an entire rebel army just waiting to invade the capital.

The rebs had no right to attack a U.S. fort because no one recognized the southern states as being their own country. They were states in open and illegal rebellion against the United States.

Here is a link to a transcript for the Constitution of the United States of America.

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html

Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution places important restrictions on powers states might otherwise exercise. The third paragraph of that section in particular commands that -

"no state shall, without the consent of Congress...enter into any agreement or compact with another state."

In other words, states may enter into an "agreement" or a "compact" with the other states, but only with the consent of the United States Congress.

Some states may find it useful, economically, socially, or otherwise, to make certain agreements with others regarding the use of a common river or mineral rights for adjacent lands, but the requirement that the United States Congress consent to such agreements ensures that they are not designed to injure the common good or the integrity of the Union.

Any agreement between individual states must be authorized by a constitutional majority of Americans as represented in the U.S. Congress.

The first paragraph of Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution is even more prohibitory -

"No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation."

Further, Article IV, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution authorizes the national government to -

"guarantee to every state in the union a republican form of government". Meaning that the national government has the constitutional power to oppose any monarchial or any other non-republican form of government that one or several of the states might attempt to implement.

Article IV, Section 3, Clause 1 of the United States Constitution says -

"New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress."

Myth 4: "Every Southerner owned slaves/wanted slavery"

"Not even close. Only a select few in the Confederate Government were advocating expanding slavery. The average Southron did not own any if few slaves, and many were simply defending their own homes against invasion by force by the Federal Government."

Per the 1850 census there were some 350,000 slaveowners. In order to get a handle on the number of white southerners with a vested interest in slavery and those slaveowners we have to add:

1. The slaveowner's non-slave-owning wives, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, maiden aunts, dotty uncles, nephews, nieces, and unemployed cousins all of whom might depend to some extent on ol' massa and his slaves for their substance.

United States senator James Hammond of South Carolina (he is of "Cotton is King" fame) pointed out that the 350,000 slaveholders numbers actually represented not individuals, but families, and needed to be multiplied by five or six to give an accurate picture of those directly benefiting from slavery. Five times 350,000 = 1,750,000.

2. Add to that the overseers, the slave patrollers, the doctors, lawyers, merchants, etc, and their families, who relied on the slaveowner for much of their income.

3. Add the upwardly mobile non-slaveholding white men who most likely hoped to become slaveowners someday. (The only reason why so many white men in the South did not own slaves is because they couldn't afford it, not because they did not desire to.)

4. Then we have the non-slaving white men who admired and honored the slaveowner aristocracy and looked to the planters for leadership.

5. Top that off with all those who took a gospel from Albert G. Brown of Mississippi and his ilk when he argued that without slavery,

"The Negro will intrude into his [the non-slaveholding white man] presence -- insist on being treated as an equal -- that he shall go to the white man's table, and the white man to his -- that he shall share the white man's bed, and the white man his -- that his son shall marry the white man's daughter, and the white man's daughter his son. In short, they shall live on terms of perfect social equality."

Put them all together and that spells a majority of southern white people who had or thought they had a vested interest in preserving and protecting slavery, up to and including fighting for it.

A lot of white people (then and now) fear black people, especially black men after the Nat Turner debacle. So even the common white men of the South who did not own slaves would prefer to see black people kept as slaves due to their fear of them.

All and all, if you study the social history of the American South, there was a widespread acceptance of and support for slavery in the antebellum south that went beyond the owners of record of slaves. Plus slavery was not just an economic/labor system, it was a system of social control sustained by a people who could not conceive of living with four million free black people who as freed people might expect some modicum of political power.

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[–] JavaCoder 9 years ago

Read some history. You clearly have a very muddy understanding of the period.

The federal army in 1861 was built on conscription through Lincoln's demands, sent to each State, to raise fighting forces. Yes, some joined freely because they were lied to by Lincoln's government. That - like many other things in this country - is something that hasn't changed in over 150 years.

As for "freeing slaves", that gambit wasn't pursued until 1863 - quite a long while after Lincoln provoked the war. So it's intellectually dishonest to claim that armies were raised to free any slave. The EP was issued because support for the war was dwindling, and there was real fear that it would result in his re-election defeat. So the tune was changed from "Save the Union" to "Free the Slaves". Deceit at its most obvious, and Lincoln was an expert at it.

Southern soldiers went to war because their homeland was invaded. Period. Without Lincoln's unilateral and unconstitutional decision to invade the South, there would have been no military conflict. Southern Citizens weren't fighiting to preserve the institution of slavery, per se, no matter how many times your teachers may have repeated that lie.

Your criticism of the Confederate Constitution rings pretty hollow, given the fact that the federal Congress ALSO voted, through a joint resolution, to provide the institution of slavery with statutory protection in perpetuity (read about the Corwin Amendment). In fact, all this resolution did was to reaffirm what the U.S. Constitution had already clearly expressed, i.e., that the question of slavery as an institution was one which fell under STATE jurisdiction, not federal. As such, the Confederate Constitution - which was only made necessary through the imposition of "American System" economic policies designed to decimate the South financially - was literally no different from the U.S. version. That is, it was simply explicit where the former had been implicit.

Beyond that, while I'm aware that every American is indoctrinated from kindergarten to believe that the only issue driving the so-called "Civil" War was slavery, you really should try to overcome your obsession with the slavery issue, and look at a clause-for-clause comparison of the two Constitutions, since the Confederate version actually corrected a lot of the problems that have led to federal overreach, corruption and general decline in the U.S. since. Things are moving back in that direction, in fact, with many States realizing that they need precisely the sort of changes that the Confederate Constitution implemented, leading to a much weaker central government and far stronger, sovereign States, just as the Founders had initially established them.

[–] zeeboe82 9 years ago

Javacoder - Why is it when you come across something historical that you agree with, you believe it, no questions asked, but if you come across something historical that you disagree with, you think it's all lies and a conspiracy?

In regards of the Union soldier's patriotism - I think the large number of desertions and the New York Draft Riots clearly proves that if certain Northerners did not wish to fight in the Civil War, they weren't going to. Given that the North won the war however, clearly the Army of the Free had more passion for their cause then you may like to admit.

Are you saying the attack on Fort Sumter was a lie? That the assault of Federal troops in Baltimore didn't happen? Because those are the two main reasons why most Northerners joined the U.S. Military during the War of the Rebellion.

Men (especially young men) don't need much of a reason to fight in a war too. For generations, men join the military to break the boredom of their lives, because their friends are all doing it and because most men love fighting and competition. The only legal way men can fight is by being a soldier and/or an athlete. They love the rush that being a soldier brings and the action and that they get to become heroes. That is why a lot of men joined President Lincoln's Army. They were no different then men today. They weren't "forced" into doing anything and you make it seem like the majority were, and only a small minority wanted to fight. It's the other way around.

Loyal Americans responded to the attack on Fort Sumter the same way Americans reacted to the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the attacks on the World Trade Center. After the attack on Fort Sumter, all over the North, veterans wanted to reenlist in the military and join the cause just like older veterans did after 9/11, women began sewing the American flag, people would wave American flags in the street, people also began displaying patriotism everywhere, and would sing patriotic songs's, and put American flags and other red, white, and blue symbols around their homes, schools, and business's. Just like Americans did after 9/11.....I realize 9/11 and the attack on Fort Sumter are completely different, but it caused the exact same reaction: Anger. Loyal Americans saw the attack on Fort Sumter as a giant spit wad on their country, and they were not going to tolerate it. And after the attacks, that was when Mr. Lincoln of course called for 75,000 men to volunteer to fight, and given how angry many Northerner's were, it's no surprise so many did.

You mentioned the Corwin Amendment - Slavery was entirely a function of state, not national law. Intrinsic to the compromises reached in the formation of the United States Constitution, the federal government, including the president, was powerless to interfere with slavery as it existed in any state. Slavery in South Carolina for example, could be abolished only by the people of South Carolina. In President Lincoln's first inaugural address delivered more then a month before the South fired upon Fort Sumter, President Lincoln stated clearly "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

Neither President Lincoln, nor anyone else in the federal government had any authority to interfere with slavery as it existed within the states. This is why President Lincoln indicated that he would not oppose the Corwin Amendment. This was a last-ditch effort purposed by Congress during the final days of the Buchanan administration, attempting to mollify Southerners by expressly prohibiting Congress from interfering "with the domestic institutions [of any state], including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said state".

President Lincoln understood that such a amendment would merely reiterate the principle of federalism already secured by the Constitution: with or without the Corwin Amendment, the national government had no justification over slavery in South Carolina or any other state.

The Confederate States Constitution repeated references to the protection of slavery makes the entire document pieces of toilet paper in my book. In other words, I have no interest in the rebels laws because the authors are bigots and taking legal advice from them wouldn't be prudent.

The often used quote from Neo-Rebels that only 5%, 3%, etc., of Southerners owned slaves is not accurate, slavery was an institution recognized by a soldier's state, enshrined in his state's constitution, protected by his courts in his laws, and preached from his church's pulpit that it was condoned in the Bible and was his heritage and right.

But even if he did not own a slave or never could afford one, or if he enlisted for a variety of reasons, he fought for his government and it's goals and it's objectives and there can be no doubt that slavery, it's preservation and it's protection, was the main cause of the war. Without it, no secession. With no secession, no war. Period.

Many a boy and man in the South enlisted for the adventure, the travel, a chance at a good fight, to protect his family and his home and never owned one slave. I can agree with that. But whether he wanted to or not, he fought for it. Of this there can be no doubt. Even later in the war, when the average soldier complained of the twenty slaves law, or how the war had become a "rich man's war and a poor man's fight", he fought to protect the institution of slavery.

The simple fact remains, without slavery, without those who were in charge who had a vested interest in slavery, not one of those non-slaveholding boys and men would have ever needed to enlist. There was simply no other reason, no other cause, that could bring about the slaughter of 620,000 Americans. Not big interferring government, because there was no such thing in 1861.

16,000 soldiers, 2/3rds scattered west of the Mississippi in company sized packets fighting Native Americans? A handful of federal marshals? A part-time U.S. attorney general? The most contact common folks had with the Federal government was their local U.S. post offices.

The tariff? Which hardly anyone but that 5% of slaveholders ever saw or had to pay because they imported luxuary goods like Cuban cigars, French wines and silks? If you were a farmer in the South, how much did you import? Nothing. And the tariff was paid, 92% of it, in the NORTH, not the South. Slaves didn't import. Millions of Southern residents didn't import goods from overseas and the tariff was so low, it was considered almost a "free trade" environment at the time.

And please don't mention the upcoming vote on the Morril Tariff as a reason for secession. At the time it was merely a replacement tariff, designed to make up for shortfalls in the federal revenue. At the time of the firing on Fort Sumter, there was two hundred thousand dollars in the U.S. Treasury. The tariff as a cause? NO.

I have heard and seen the other so-called causes, i.e., Big Business, Money the North was going to lose or so desired to take from the South and have to reply with the word that makes the most sense. BALONEY. Not when I read Northern businessmen who visited President Lincoln and begged him to offer more concessions to the South in order not to effect business.

What does that leave? One thing and one thing only, the only issue to agitate the nation for fifty years prior to Fort Sumter - slavery. To say otherwise is to flatly deny history and to call every Southerner of the period, who declared openly and clearly what the war was about, a liar or a fool. I cannot bring myself to believe either.

I firmly believe that slavery, and the South's refusal to give it up, and it's stubborn insistance to protect it, to maintain it, and to expand it at the expense of others, brought on the war and the need for non-slaveholders to sacrifice their homes, their families, and their lives for one of the worst reasons ever to go to war for. That's why the American Civil War truly was Jefferson Davis's war. I have researched this subject for years to have come to this opinion. I have seen nothing in a percentage figure to convince me otherwise.

On a personal note - Why is it that guys like you can never seem to take the rebels own words when it comes to the primary reason why they left the Union? Why do you ignore declarations and ordinances of secession? The Confederate States Constitution? The very words recorded in the U.S. Congress? The fifty years of agitation over slavery right up until the election of 1860? The newspapers articles? The letters and diaries of the time?

I have study so much history from that time period and then I get on this tech world called the Internet, and I literally laugh out loud sometimes at the childlike ignorance guys like you have in regards of this topic. It's like you think it makes you "cool" because you're going against what the mainstream taught you and you live in this make-believe world concerning the War on slavery.

For people who identify with and admire the Confederacy, it's painful to admit that their war was about slavery, because deep in your hearts, you know slavery's an evil thing, and how could your heroes have fought to preserve it?

Well, ignore or downplay slavery all you like, and/or tell yourselves slaves were treated well, but know this - slavery has, is, and will always be at the bottom of every issue concerning the War between the States, every supposed cause, and every reason why the South was ultimately led away from the United States of America. It will not go away, it will not recede, and it will not be driven from the pages of our collective history.

Here are some southern states declarations of secession. They say exactly why they seceded -

South Carolina -

"A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction."

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

So South Carolina's OWN declaration identifies that Mr. Lincoln was hostile to slavery. Does anyone out there still need more proof? You do? Okay.

Mississippi's Declaration -

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world.

http://www.avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_...csa_missec.asp

Georgia -

"The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state."

http://www.avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_...csa_geosec.asp

Texas -

"Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as neg-ro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened "

https://www.tsl.texas.gov/ref/aboutt.../2feb1861.html

"Our new Government is founded upon exactly the opposite ideas; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition." - *Confederate* Vice President Alexander Stephens

And now a quote from the Neo-Confederate who started this discussion -

".....is no wonder they are still "fighting the war" to this very day. Because the South believed in the Constitution, they believed in States Rights, and the rights for States to be independent territories. And they were fighting for Independence."

Rvabread22 - Maybe instead of parroting Neo-Confederates, you should actually read what the United States Constitution says about secession and states rights, as well as read what the Confederate States Constitution says about slavery. If that is asking too much, perhaps you could just listen.

What the United States Constitution says about secession and states rights - https://youtu.be/RiCPyICCVII

What the Confederate States Constitution says about slavery - https://youtu.be/tUvP0hkB5A4

Your repeated use of that outdated word towards the end of your original post to describe African-Americans clearly proves you are a racist.

I feel so sorry for white people in the south not getting to be "free". :-(

LMAO #WhitePeopleProblems

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[–] 9 years ago

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[–] JavaCoder 9 years ago

Apparently, you believe a book-length post of copy/pasted propaganda will lend your position some shred of credibiity. Sorry. Anyone can parrot the federal government's standard party line, as you're doing.

Your first paragraph baselessly attributes thoughts/beliefs to me without cause, and sets the tone for the rest of your confused, parroted nonsense.

The federal government (not "The North") won the war simply because they had more human lives to sacrifice and, ultimately, access to greater financial and industrial resources. Meanwhile, Lincoln's police state crushed all opposition to his economic and war agenda so that any dissent aimed at peace was eliminated. As such, their "victory" had absolutely nothing to do with the federal soldiers' "passion". The very idea is risible to anyone even mildly familiar with the facts of the period.

Your slavery-obsessed opinion of the Confederate Constitution is irrelevant, and doesn't change the fact that it did, in fact, contain many much-needed fixes for problems that had led to the issues of the day, given the federal government's tendency for overreach. That you refuse to examine it is just another example of indoctrinated intolerance and close-mindedness. In retrospect, it has been made absolutely clear that the Confederate Constitution would have served the nation and its citizens far better, given the obvious fact that the slavery issue would have worked itself out, just as it did in every other civilized nation (notably, without the sort of military conflict provoked and pursued by Lincoln). Beyond this, dismissing the facts of the time, as you have done, and replacing them with cherry-picked, copy-pasted glurge, doesn't actually make a case.

On the tariff, we know based on the crisis that occurred in 1832 that your tired, uninformed position is, well, invalid. The conflict between the federal government and the agrarian South - which imported virtually ALL of its manufactured goods, ALL of which were subject to the onerous federal tariff - existed for decades. The secession and Lincoln's choice to pursue war in response, were the culmination of that conflict. If you understood what you'd copied and pasted, you would recognize that the references to slavery in the secession declarations were legal justifications, not moral pronouncements. The federal government had failed to meet its obligations under the Constitution, as freely ratified by every State. That failure provided the legal basis for secession, and was cited as such. You and those who seek to demonize the South for resisting invasion choose to view that legal justification as something more. That's on you.

As for secession and states "rights", neither are mentioned in any way whatsoever in the Constitution, and all I need to do to know that is to simply read it, which you clearly haven't, or you wouldn't need a YouTube video to explain it to you.

I've already pointed out that I'm well aware of the differences between the U.S. and Confederate Constitutions, and suggested that you should make yourself equally knowledgable, but you have refused to do so. I'm not sure what you're afraid of, other than possibly having to confront your own cognitive dissonance. As such, it's pretty clear that you would rather dismiss that knowledge by leaning on your obsession with the slavery issue. That's your choice. In case you change your mind, here's a handy reference:

http://www.jjmccullough.com/CSA.htm

[–] zeeboe82 9 years ago

"Apparently, you believe a book-length post of copy/pasted propaganda will lend your position some shred of credibiity. Sorry. Anyone can parrot the federal government's standard party line, as you're doing."

If you are as passionate about this subject as I am Sir, then you wouldn't mind long posts. You should be happy to have the opportunity to have the discussion, but one of us must not be that interested in the War of Southern Aggression. Given your lack of official sources in your comments and your complaints about long posts, it won't take a genius to figure out who the casual history fan here is.

So you don't consider the United States Constitution, the Confederate States Constitution and official declarations of secession from various southern states to be valuable sources of data concerning Mr. Jefferson Davis's War?

"Your first paragraph baselessly attributes thoughts/beliefs to me without cause, and sets the tone for the rest of your confused, parroted nonsense."

The discussion was the mindset of 1860's United States soldiers, Sir. You implied that entire great army was full of men coerced into duty and I proved otherwise because I have read tons of books about President Lincoln's Army and I have read their letters and journal entires as well. If you would like some book recommendations about Billy Yank, I would be delighted to provide you with a list.

""The federal government (not "The North") won the war simply because they had more human lives to sacrifice and, ultimately, access to greater financial and industrial resources. Meanwhile, Lincoln's police state crushed all opposition to his economic and war agenda so that any dissent aimed at peace was eliminated. As such, their "victory" had absolutely nothing to do with the federal soldiers' "passion". The very idea is risible to anyone even mildly familiar with the facts of the period."

The Continental Army during the American Revolution, the Viet Cong during The Vietnam War and Afghanistan rebels during the Soviet War all were the underdogs in their conflicts facing a giant foe, yet they all were able to win their wars despite a strong lack of numbers and resources.

The Rebel Army lacked the determination to win.

In regards of your other comments, you are clearly referring to President Lincoln's response to the violent actions of rebels in Baltimore, Maryland. To remind ourselves of the dangers confronting President Lincoln and the United States Government in early 1861, I would like, if I may please, to recall Mr. Lincoln's trip to Washington D.C., Maryland, prior to his inauguration and the first days of his presidency.

President Lincoln departed from his hometown of Springfield, Illinois, on February 11th, 1861, traveling by train on a meandering route to Washington D.C., Maryland, with multiple stops along the way. At that time, six southern states had already passed ordinances of secession. (Texas would soon become the seventh on February 23), and rumors were spreading that Southern sympathizers might attempt to harm President Lincoln and prevent his inauguration.

When President Lincoln's train stopped in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he received credible reports of a plot to assassinate him. This persuaded him to take precautions during the reminder of the trip. Mr. Lincoln arrived in Washington, D.C., safely under the cover of the night, but his troubles only grew worse.

The day after his inauguration on March 4th, he received word from Major Robert Anderson, the commanding officer of the Federal garrison at Fort Sumter located in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina, that the provisions for troops there would last no more then four weeks. The fort was badly in need of resupply. After agonizing about whether to send provisions, and unaware that Secretary of State, William Seward had already promised emissaries to the Confederacy, without presidential authorization, that the fort be abandoned, President Lincoln finally decided to send supplies by ship. But before they could reach Fort Sumter, early in the morning of April 12th, General P.G.T. Beauregard of the Confederate forces in Charleston, South Carolina opened fire, bombarding the garrison until Anderson surrendered on the morning of April 14th.

President Lincoln had said in his inaugural address that the Federal Government would not assail anyone of the South, stating clearly to the Southerners, "You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors."

With the bombardment of Fort Sumter, the South became the aggressor, and Mr. Lincoln quickly begin to prepare the U.S. government to defend itself.

President Lincoln called for seventy-thousand volunteer troops. (Mr. Lincoln's old political nemesis, Mr. Stephen Douglas, spoke with him the night before and supported his decision to raise an army, but Mr. Douglas thought it would be wiser to call for two-hundred thousand volunteer troops.)

Soon, however, President Lincoln learned the extent of Confederate sympathy in places far removed from the Deep South, including Maryland, a slave state that bordered Washington, D.C., to the north. Maryland was critical for moving United States troops from Northern states to Washington, D.C., because the rail lines from New York City, Philadelphia, and Harrisburg went through Baltimore.

When the first numbers of troops arrived in Baltimore on April 18th, Southern-sympathizing Marylanders stoned and harassed them. The following day, a full-scale riot broke out in the streets of Baltimore.

In his book on President Lincoln and civil liberties, the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist describes what happened when the next wave of troops attempted to pass through Baltimore, alarming the administration:

"Four days after Lincoln issued his call for volunteers, a Massachusetts regiment arrived from Philadelphia at Baltimore's President Street Station....The ninth car stopped momentarily, and in a trice all of it's windows were broken by rocks and stones....The mob placed rocks and sand on the horse-car tracks, and the solider's alighted and fell back to the station whence they had come....

[In front of them] was a mob of twenty-thousand Confederate sympathizers. The troops decided to fight their way through on foot, and the mob closed in behind as they marched...Soon the crowd loosed a volley of stones at the soldiers, who finally turned and fired their rifles into the crowd. In the final tally, sixteen people were killed, four soldiers and twelve civilians."

After that, Confederate sympathizers burned railroad bridges leading into Baltimore, effectively cutting off rail transportation into and through the city, and cut the telegraph lines between Baltimore and Washington to prevent further troops from entering the state.

On April 22, 1861, President Lincoln responded to a Baltimore committee that had requested he secure peace in Baltimore by stopping all U.S. troop movement through the city. Mr. Lincoln's frustration is manifested in his language:

"You, gentlemen, come here to me and ask for peace on any terms, and yet have no word of condemnation for those who are making war on us.

You express great horror of bloodshed, and yet would not lay a straw in the way of those who are organizing in Virginia and elsewhere to capture this city.

The rebels attack Fort Sumter, and your citizens attack troops sent to the defense of the Government, and the lives and property in Washington, and yet you would have me break my oath and surrender the Government without a blow.

There is no Washington in that – no Jackson in that – no manhood, nor honor in that. I have no desire to invade the South; but I must have troops to defend this Capital. Geographically it lies surrounded by the soil of Maryland; and mathematically the necessity exists that they should come over her territory.

Our men are not moles, and can't dig under the earth; they are not birds, and can't fly through the air. There is no way but to march across, and that they must do. But in doing this there is no need of collision.

Keep your rowdies in Baltimore, and there will be no bloodshed. Go home and tell your people that if they will not attack us, we will not attack them; but if they do attack us, we will return it, and that severely."

- President Abraham Lincoln

Believing that unless the mob violence in Baltimore was immediately contained, it might become impossible to transport troops to Washington, D.C. President Lincoln finally decided to suspend the writ of habeas corpus allowing rioters and those attacking troops and preventing their safe transportation through the city to be detained without approval from any court or judge.

FYI - The suspension of the writ of habeas corpus is justified by the Constitution for the United States of America. The United States Constitution says in Article I, Section 9, Clause 2, that the writ of habeas corpus may be suspended in time of a foreign invasion or a domestic rebellion if the public safety requires it, and if there ever was a case of domestic rebellion, it was the American Civil War.

Another FYI - The President has the legal right to send U.S. troops into battle on his or her own authority by virtue of Article II, Section 2, in the Constitution, which deems the President the Commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the United States.

On April 27, 1861, President Lincoln sent the following to General Winfield Scott, the commanding General of the Army of the United States.

"You are engaged in repressing an insurrection against the laws of the United States. If at any point on or in the vicinity of the military line which is now used between the city of Philadelphia via Perryville, Annapolis City and Annapolis Junction you find resistance which renders it necessary to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for the public safety, you personally or through the officer in command at the point where resistance occurs are authorized to suspend that writ."

Text of Mr. Lincoln's order:

"Whereas, It has become necessary to call into service, not only volunteers, but also portions of the militia of the States by draft, in order to suppress the insurrection existing in the United States, and disloyal persons are not adequately restrained by the ordinary processes of law from hindering this measure, and from giving aid and comfort in various ways to the insurrection.

Now, therefore, be it ordered, that during the existing insurrection, and as a necessary measure for suppressing the same, all rebels and insurgents, their aiders and abettors within the United States, and all persons discouraging volunteer enlistments, resisting militia drafts, or guilty of any disloyal practice affording aid and comfort to the rebels against the authority of the United States, shall be subject to martial law, and liable to trial and punishment by courts-martial or military commission.

Second: That the writ of habeas corpus is suspended in respect to all persons arrested, or who are now, or hereafter during the rebellion shall be, imprisoned in any fort, camp, arsenal, military prisons, or other place of confinement, by any military authority, or by the sentence of any court-martial or military commission.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this Twenty-fourth day of September, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-seventh.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By the President.

WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State."

President Lincoln offered the first full explanation of his emergency wartime measures and addressed publicly the question of whether he had violated the United States Constitution in his July 4, 1861, message to Congress assembled in special session. The most potent charge against Mr. Lincoln held that he had no authority to suspend the write of habeas corpus and thereby allow the detainment of citizens without benefit of judicial process. The charge stemmed from the assumption that the authority to suspend habeas corpus belonged strictly to Congress because the provision is found in Article I of the United States Constitution, which creates and enumerates the power of Congress.

In response President Lincoln noted that "the attention of the country has been called to the proposition that one who is sworn to "take care that the laws he faithfully executed', should not himself violate them." Mr. Lincoln emphasized that the oath he had taken as president required him to ensure that the laws were executed in ALL states, yet they "were being resisted, and failing of execution, in nearly one-third of the States." He then asked,

"Must they be allowed to finally fail of execution, even had it been perfectly clear, that by the use of the means necessary to their execution, some single law, made in such extreme tenderness of the citizen’s liberty, that practically, it relieves more of the guilty, than of the innocent, should, to a very limited extent, be violated? To state the question more directly, are all the laws, but one, to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces, lest that one be violated?"

President Lincoln's question reveals the incredible dilemma of his situation as president. If a president faces the choice of violating one law or allowing all the laws of the United States Constitution and the constitutional union to go unenforced, what should he do? If he does nothing to resist the rebellion and allows the Union to fall, on the one hand, he fails to execute the laws and violates his oath of office.

On the other hand, if he suspends the writ of habeas corpus in order to detain those actively rebelling against the government or those offering assistance to the rebellion, he then will be accused of usurping constitutional powers assistance to Congress, not the president.

In an 1864 letter to Albert Hodges, Mr. Lincoln explained:

"By general law, life and limb must be protected; yet often a limb must be amputated to save a life; but a life is never wisely given to save a limb. I felt that measures, otherwise unconstitutional, might become lawful, by becoming indispensable to the preservation of the constitution, through the preservation of the nation."

It is hard to imagine today, but in President Lincoln's time (when the United States government was much smaller and did much less then it does now) an entire session of Congress might last only a few months, or even only a few weeks. The Thirty-seventh Congress, which had been elected in November of 1860, was not slated to convene until more then a year later in December of 1861. With the bombing of Fort Sumter in April of 1861, President Lincoln had little choice but to begin fighting the war without approval from, or consultation with Congress. Exercising his power under Article III, Section 3 of the United States Constitution, he called for Congress to convene in special session scheduled for July 4th, 1861, in order to ask for congressional approval for his emergency actions (which Congress promptly granted) and to request additional funding for the war effort.

[–] zeeboe82 9 years ago

"Your slavery-obsessed opinion of the Confederate Constitution is irrelevant."

Why? Explain that to me. If you're going to debate, this is a good thing to remember. You are so casual about slavery. I believe it is because you know you are wrong. Well, downplay slavery all you like, but the issue in regards of this subject won't disappear.

"On the tariff, we know based on the crisis that occurred in 1832 that your tired, uninformed position is, well, invalid. The conflict between the federal government and the agrarian South - which imported virtually ALL of its manufactured goods, ALL of which were subject to the onerous federal tariff - existed for decades. The secession and Lincoln's choice to pursue war in response, were the culmination of that conflict. If you understood what you'd copied and pasted, you would recognize that the references to slavery in the secession declarations were legal justifications, not moral pronouncements. The federal government had failed to meet its obligations under the Constitution, as freely ratified by every State. That failure provided the legal basis for secession, and was cited as such. You and those who seek to demonize the South for resisting invasion choose to view that legal justification as something more. That's on you."

President Lincoln consistently maintained that the people possessed a natural right of revolution, but not a legal right of secession, a distinction, that was and continues to be, blurred or ignored by many President Lincoln critics. (By the way - The United States Constitution makes it clear secession is illegal. Please read my other post to see those exact quotes.)

"All profess to be content in the Union, if all constitutional rights can be maintained. " ( Mr. Lincoln rightly observed in his first inaugural address) "Is it true that any right, plainly written in the Constitution, has been denied?"

The United States of America was born out of revolution, and if Southerners had been injured seriously, and were being governed without their consent, they had no less a natural right of revolution then the Americans of 1776 had.

But how had President Lincoln injured the South? What part of the United States Constitution had he ignored or violated? Mr. Lincoln was not even president when South Carolina became the first state to declare secession from the Union. The South had no answer.

The seceding states could not justify their actions by recourse to the natural right of revolution. In the weeks, months, and years before his inauguration as president, Mr. Lincoln was merely private citizen Lincoln with no more of a voice in the actions of government than any other citizen. Private citizen Lincoln had done nothing to injure the people of the Southern states, and on the sensitive point of slavery, he had stated repeatedly, and he repeated again in his first inaugural address -

"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States were it exists", because "I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."

The U.S. Constitution is perpetual. "I hold that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution", Mr. Lincoln announced in his first inaugural address, "the Union of these States is perpetual."

"Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments," Lincoln continued, because "no government proper ever had a provision in it's organic law for it's own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our national Constitution, and the Union will endure forever--it being impossible to destroy it, except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself."

Having typed that, the U.S. Constitution contains no provision for it's own demise. Only two conditions might bring about the end of the constitutional union: One is if some Americans violate the Constitution itself and infringe on the rights of others causing others to exercise their natural right to replace the Constitution and reestablish a new government (an act authorized not by the written law of the Constitution, but by natural law).

The second is if some external power, such as an invading army, destroys the authority of the Constitution and prevents it's provisions from being put into practice.

South Carolina precipitated the Nullification Crisis, 1832-1833, and part of President Jackson's response was the Force Bill of 1833, authorizing him to use federal military force. He was also armed with a new tariff bill that gradually reduced the tariffs, alleviating the immediate issue. South Carolina backed off.

South Carolina attempted secession again in 1850 and President Taylor's response was the threat of federal military force. South Carolina backed off.

So, there was precedent for President Lincoln's actions. I find it hard to believe that any politician of the time was unaware of these precedents. On the other hand, President Buchanan had the same precedents available to him, but did nothing. Perhaps, President Buchanan's inaction emboldened the fire-eaters.

The Confederate Constitution is not only evil because of it's support for slavery, but it also contradicts itself. President Lincoln and I will explain why.

If the purpose of secession is to protect a minority from an oppressive majority, then any argument for a state to secede legally and peacefully from the Union must be an argument for counties to secede from states. And any argument for counties to secede from states must be an argument for towns to secede from counties, neighborhoods from towns, families from neighborhoods, and so on. The ultimate and irreducible minority is the individual citizen.

Again, if the purpose of secession is to protect a minority against the majority, why may not an individual citizen secede whenever he or she is displeased by the laws or policies under which he or she lives? And after individuals become convinced that they have a legal right to secede, and that each individual has the legal right to reject the outcome of any election with which he or she happens to disagree with, does not civil society under law become impossible?

If a nation of people agrees to settle their political disputes through free elections and ballots, and then some who cannot win decide to resort instead to say bullets for example in order to achieve the results they desire, may a president use bullets to vindicate free elections and ballots? If a president does not defend the results of a free election, does that not set the precedent that whatever cannot be attained through free elections may be attained by threats and physical violence?

The basic human rights of people can never be the legitimate object of a political dispute; they cannot be put up for vote in an election because they are the very ground of free elections. Free government results from a voluntary compact between each individual, and the purpose of government will be to protect the equal rights of all who have agreed to the compact, whether they belong to the majority, or a minority.

With the guarantee that our rights will be secure regardless of the outcome of an election, the recourse for a losing minority is the next election in which they can try to become the new majority. But the ones who do not win the election must accept it's results for the sake of peace and wait to try again. The argument for secession is based precisely on a refusal to accept the results of free, legal, and legitimate elections.

In principle, secession implies that no law can be truly binding, and that anyone who dislikes a law has the right to legally declare himself or herself exempt from it's reach. This is why President Abraham Lincoln argued in his first inaugural address that "the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy."

President Lincoln once inquired about the constitution the Confederates had already ratified and whether they had incarnated secession as a legal feature of their constitution.

"The seceders insist that our Constitution admits of secession. They have assumed to make a National Constitution of their own, in which, of necessity, they have either discarded, or retained, the right of secession, as they insist, it exists in ours. If they have discarded it, they thereby admit that, on principle, it ought not to be in ours. If they have retained it, by their own construction of ours they show that to be consistent they must secede from one another, whenever they shall find it the easiest way of settling their debts, or effecting any other selfish, or unjust object. The principle itself is one of disintegration, and upon which no government can possibly endure. "

President Lincoln here repeated a prediction that he had offered in his first inaugural address:

"If a minority, in such case, will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which, in turn, will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy, a year or two hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it?"

What President Lincoln argued in speech, the Confederacy proved in practice. By 1864, leading Georgians, including Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens and Georgia governor Joseph E. Brown, both of whom vehemently opposed conscription, the suspension of habeas corpus, and the general centralization of confederate governmental power, were leading a movement for Georgia to secede from the Confederacy.

Had the C.S.A. endured any longer then it actually did, it is highly likely that the Confederacy would have been dissolved by multiple internal secessions.

In principle, secession stands opposed to the very idea of government. A government posses the power to govern, to command, to rule. To say that a state (or any other group) posses the legal right of secession is to say that the government over it is not truly a government, that those who want to secede can ignore it's laws. In principle, the difference between government and secession is truly the difference between government and anarchy, as President Lincoln argues. If secession is right, then government is impossible.

If government is impossible, only anarchy (or despotism) remains. But President Lincoln believed government--good government, at least--was both desirable and possible. And he believed he was conserving the principled arguments of the Founders regarding the ends and means of our government.

"As for secession and states "rights", neither are mentioned in any way whatsoever in the Constitution, and all I need to do to know that is to simply read it, which you clearly haven't, or you wouldn't need a YouTube video to explain it to you. "

The YouTube videos are mine, Sir. I made them.

I have already posted quotes from the United States Constitution and other sources. You are full of nothing but insults, opinions, and arrogance. You claim to know about both the U.S. and C.S. Constitutions, yet you have not posted any sources from either document or from anyone from the 1860's to back your opinions up. Why should anyone listen to you or believe you? By the way - How come only slave states joined the C.S.A.?

[–] amkatz 9 years ago

Full credit to you for taking up the argument with such detail and analysis. I've learned quite a bit reading your comments here.

Of course, you are banging your head against a brick wall--that some lost causer types simply refuse to acknowledge the facts of the heritage they claim seems prima facie evidence of how profoundly flawed it is.

Particularly like your points about the remainder of the US fracturing irreparably (a point Sherman made in response to the notion of secession, saying the US would become like Mexico) with the precedent of a successful secession.

[–] Calcman 8 years ago

RvaBread22 - Thanks for having the guts to post the truth.

[–] zeeboe82 8 years ago

What is "truth"?

[–] magolding-94772 7 years ago

The Op says:

Its ironic when anyone challenges an Abe Lincoln myth believer gets called a "revisionist" The blatant honesty is that much of what we think happened did not, and in fact was written by a victor's perspective of conflict.

Examining the main points, we can start with these and it is hard for some people to swallow, especially some Yankees who actually believe their great great grandfather was fighting to free a slave.

Myth 1."The Federal Army was fighting to free slaves"

Nope. They were actually fighting to preserve the Union. In fact interviews with with former Union soldiers confirm this most all the time. The Abolitionist movement in the North was a very small precious few. Not only were they not interested in freeing slaves, they actually conscripted some against their will to fight in the Union Army.

If the Abolitionist movement was so small why did fear of it cause the South to revolt and commit treason? The Abolitionists and associated free soil groups were important in the non southern parts of the USA. The Republican Party platform in 1860 specifically promised to restrict the expansion of slavery into the territories. And the Republicans won the elections in the non Southern states. The republican Party obviously believed that anti slavery or even abolitionist opinions were common outside of the South, and their election victories proved them right.

The United States first employed national conscription during the American Civil War. The vast majority of troops were volunteers; of the 2,100,000 Union soldiers, about 2% were draftees, and another 6% were substitutes paid by draftees.[5][6]

[urlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_States#Civil_War][/url]

So the vast majority of Union soldiers were volunteers, and the vast majority of black freedmen and escaped slaves in the United States Colored Troops were very probably volunteers.

[quoteMyth 2. Abe Lincoln was anti-slavery

No. In fact, he felt that the entire race of people enslaved were unintelligent inferiors. Much like Jefferson, he believed they should be sent back to Africa. He didn't want to free slaves if he didn't have to. The ECP was strictly a military defends move ][/quote]

Abraham Lincoln and most of his major Republican allies were anti-slavery. Some were even abolitionists. Lincoln and his Republican supporters believed that the Federal government didn't have the constitutional power to abolish slavery. So they planned to used the Federal power to regulate interstate commerce to ban interstate slave trading.

Slaves usually don't reproduce fast enough to maintain their population. Most slave societies need a constant supply of new laves to maintain the numbers of slaves. Since new plantations were still being established in parts of the South and the slave population would naturally decline, most of the South wanted to import slaves.

But the international slave trade had been banned in 1808. Fortunately for slave hungry slave owners, Virginia was one of the few slave societies that produced a surplus of slaves. So Virginia tobacco plantation owners found that they made more money growing and selling slaves to other parts of the South than selling tobacco.

By abolishing the interstate slave trade the Republicans hoped to dry up the slave supply in slave importing states and territories and cause slavery to eventually wither away and end in a few generations.

Yes, Lincoln was not as enlightened as some of the Radical Republicans and Abolitionists. He believed that all the FREED slaves should be sent back to Africa. But he did hope to free a lot of slaves - the Republicans hoped that banning the interstate slave trade would cause slavery to die out in a few generations - But didn't plan to do so by dictatorial methods. Lincoln was eager to issue the Emancipation Proclamation once he decided it would help the war effort and could be accepted as a war measure by most Unionists.

Myth 3. The South couldn't be on the defensive. They fire at Ft Sumter
Yes, they did, and why? Because they believed in Sovereignty of States and were trying to take back control of Ft Sumter from the Federal Government. Every historian from Shelby Foote to the most ardent Yankee, realized the South was on the defense.

No. Every historian recognizes that the South fought the war mostly on the military defensive and rarely on the strategic offensive. But it is obvious to everyone that the South was on the political offensive. Their actions in declaring secession and seizing Federal post offices, forts, and arsenals were attacks on the United States of America. The South began the war, their actions were a sufficient causus belli and their only hope for a peaceful result was that the rest of the Union would shrug off their offensive actions and let them go without responding to their many acts of war.

Need I even say that the South was invaded by force? Several times over. Many women black and white were raped by Federal officers. Not to mention thousands of acres of farmland burned , towns and cities destroyed, civilians starved to death, and a cultural genocide of an entire group of people. Who is more like the Nazis? The desolate South destroyed , or the invading Union forces burning, raping, pillaging and murdering? I'll leave that to you to decide.

The South was not invaded. A country can only invade another country. The South was a part of the United States of America.

"Who is more like the Nazis?" Why ask that question? neither side was much like the Nazis. There was a lot less "burning, raping, pillaging and murdering" in the War of Southern Treason than you imply and a lot of it was committed by southern deserters and draft dodgers and outlaws running amok and also starving Rebel soldiers foraging for food everywhere they went, which was mostly in the South and so they victimized their fellow southerners.

And I think that an objective comparison would indicate that the South was slightly more like the Nazis than the Union.

Myth 4: Every Southerner owned slaves/wanted slavery

Not even close. Only a select few in the Confederate Government were advocating expanding slavery. The average Southern did not own any if few slaves, and many were simply defending their own homes against invasion by force by the Federal Government.

The Knights of The Golden Circle wanted to annex large parts of Latin America as slave states. If the USA had let the Confederacy go peacefully, the Confederacy might have invaded Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Caribbean to spread slavery.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_the_Golden_Circle

It is true that only a few thousand plantation owners owned 50 or more slaves, and only a minority of Southerners - upper middle class ones - owned one or two slave workers. But the majority of slave less Southerners could hope and dream that one day they might be well off enough to own a few slaves. And the majority of white southerners feared what the slaves might do if freed and so supported the continuation of slavery. And as long as there were slaves the poor white southerners could feel that they were members of the master race.

The existence of millions of farm and plantation slaves meant that poor white southerners had a hard time getting work as farm laborers. Northern farm boys worked as farmhands for pay for years to save up enough money to buy or rent farmland of their own and become independent farmers. Competition from slaves made it much harder for Southern farm boys to buy their own farms.

Year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation, the northern population grew richer and the southern population grew poorer. The vast wealth of the South mostly consisted of the land and slaves and crops owned by a few thousand plantation owners. For millions of white and black Southerners the ante-bellum years were a permanent economic depression.

The millions of Southerners who supported the Confederacy were acting against their economic interests and those of their children, deluded by their pride in being members of the master race.

Everybody knows that the best defense against the horrors of war is immediate surrender to the invaders.

Myth 5. Every black person in the South was a slave before the War until Lincoln freed them.

Many people are shocked to learn there were freed Negroes in the South, long long before this conflict. Some even worked in Southern cities such as Richmond and Savannah. Some even had slaves of their own. Just as not all white people were slave owners, not all Negroes were slaves!

When people in the South had their homes and land destroyed and their women folk raped and tortured by the Federal Government, is no wonder they are still "fighting the war" to this very day. Because the South believed in the Constitution, they believed in States Rights, and the rights for States to be independent territories. And they were fighting for Independence.

Yes a number of slaves were freed in the South, and there were a number of free Blacks in the South. But only a tiny minority of slaves were voluntarily freed by their owners. When the south turned more pro-slavery in the decades before the Civil War, many Southern states passed laws restricting the manumission of slaves so that fewer and fewer slaves were voluntarily feed in the South in the decades prior to the war.

So the Emancipation proclamation of 1863 did free thousands and thousands of slaves in the regions the Union forces occupied after that, eventually including all slaves in the regions that surrendered in 1865. And the 13th Amendment freed the rest of the slaves.

When people in the South had their homes and land destroyed and their women folk raped and tortured by the Federal Government

Your wording indicates that you limit the definition of people to males and that you consider women folk to be property just like homes are. The spirit of the Old south lives on in you.

The opinion of most constitutional scholars is that there is no right of unilateral secession and the Confederacy was totally unconstitutional and illegal.