Posted on 08/11/2015 1:11:21 PM PDT by iowamark
What caused the Civil War? That seems like the sort of simple, straightforward question that any elementary school child should be able to answer. Yet many Americans—including, mostly, my fellow Southerners—claim that that the cause was economic or state’s rights or just about anything other than slavery.
But slavery was indisputably the primary cause, explains Colonel Ty Seidule, Professor of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
The abolition of slavery was the single greatest act of liberty-promotion in the history of America. Because of that fact, it’s natural for people who love freedom, love tradition, and love the South to want to believe that the continued enslavement of our neighbors could not have possibly been the motivation for succession. But we should love truth even more than liberty and heritage, which is why we should not only acknowledge the truth about the cause of the war but be thankful that the Confederacy lost and that freedom won.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.acton.org ...
Mollypitcher1 : “I am not particularly aware of any outstanding good , let alone “all the good” that Lincoln accomplished.”
Well... there was that matter of, ahem, er... a “peculiar institution” which bit the dust, and also the United States of America which somehow survived.
But I’d suppose those mean nothing to someone whose fondest fantasies are to see the USA destroyed and their own, ahem, “institutions” restored, right?
Mollypitcher1: “Your contention that there is only ‘hear-say’ is a typical lawyer’s trick to tamp down the truth”.
Might as well start here, since I’ve never used that term “hear-say” on this thread.
So, are you confusing me with somebody else?
Mollypitcher1 : “I would call that statement misleading, perhaps decidedly misleading, as I am certain you are aware that numerous emissaries of southern states went to Washington and requested audience with Lincoln which he ADAMANTLY REFUSED”.
Of course Union officials refused to meet Jefferson Davis’ emmisaries, and if you’ll read again the words you quoted from me, you’ll see that’s just what they say.
Neither President Buchanan nor Lincoln nor Secretary Seward met directly with Confederate emmisaries, though they did meet intermediaries who passed along their words, how accurately we can’t know.
One reason why is their correct belief that the US Constitution empowers Congress, not the President, to deal with such matters, but of course Jefferson Davis never sent emmisaries to Congress.
Regardless, the subject here is Lincoln ‘ s offer to Virginia of “a fort for a state” — surrender Fort Sumter in exchange for Virginia ‘ s pledge not to secede.
When Virginia ‘ s secession convention delegates refused Lincoln ‘ s offer, Lincoln ordered, and notified South Carolina’s governor of, a repeat of President Buchanan’s January resupply mission to Fort Sumter.
Now all this has been explained to you numerous times, FRiend.
X: “Davis declared that he was issuing letters of marque and reprisal authorizing attacks on union shipping almost two weeks before he said he only wanted peace.”
Indeed, if you study the time line of Confederate steps toward war, you’ll see they were months ahead of the Union at every phase.
To cite just one example, in early 1861 the Union army totalled about 15,000 more than half scattered in small forts out west.
But in early March, before Lincoln even took office, the Confederate congress ordered up an army of 100,000 troops.
After Fort Sumter, Lincoln requested 75,000 troops to put down the rebellion, Davis responded with 300,000 more Confederates and a declaration of war on the United States.
And there’s much more... point is, all along the way the Confederacy lead the charge towards war.
Lincoln was slow responding, but he never backed down.
That’s why our pro-Confederates here loathe and despise Lincoln to this day.
You do so love to attempt to display a knowledge of the subject which too conveniently excuses Lincoln’s deliberate acts of war. I do not need anything explained to me about the War of Northern Aggression as I have been a student of the historical facts probably since before you were born, FRiend!.
You do not have to use the “Word” hear-say to exhibit clearly that you are inferring it. I do not confuse people, especially those who are are clearly biased and well indoctrinated in the “winners” story.
Amazingly you have not addressed my claim that with the exception of his Postmaster General, Lincoln went against the expressed opinion of his entire cabinet as well as General Winfield Scott that supplying Ft. Sumpter would lead to War.
We are today living in a country in which State’s Rights have practically been abolished in the craze for an unwieldy Central Government. We have Lincoln to blame for that!
Seward as well as others appointed by Lincoln met with Southerners on the subject. You are dodging the issue when you so concisely claim Lincoln, Buchanan, and Seward did not meet with Davis’ “Emissaries.”They met with important southerners and their words and promises were recorded.
As far as Virginia is concerned, when Virginia was ORDERED to supply troops to the North, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Virginia seceded. This, of course, was well AFTER the “incident” of Fort Sumpter.
By the way, just so we’re clear on this point, neither Seward nor Lincoln, nor for that matter Buchanan ever talked directly to Jefferson Davis’ emmisaries. All used middle men who may or may not have repeated their words accurately.
“middle men who may or may not have repeated their words accurately” is CLEARLY a suggestion of hear-say.
"I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink to decide cases properly brought before them, and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes."
Compare that to this earlier in Amercan History statement by President Andrew Jackson's Attorney General:
"Whatever may be the force of the decision of the Supreme Court in binding the parties and settling their rights in the particular case before them, I am not prepared to admit that a construction given to the constitution by the Supreme Court in deciding any one or more cases fixes of itself irrevokably [sic] and permanently its constuction in that particular and binds the states and the Legislative and executive branches of the General government, forever afterwards to conform to it and adopt it in every other case as the true reading of the instrument although all of them may unite in believing it erroneous."
Those two statements more than rhyme. But that's not all. The author of the second statement was none other than Robert B. Taney (later to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and author the Dred Scott decision).
The Civil War was caused by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is our "tyrant" (to this day). Judicial Tyranny. All of the powers of the central government are derived from "courts". I rest my case.
Lincoln immediately began moving to meet the crisis head on. The U.S. Army had less than 800 officers and only some 14,000 enlisted men, yet the federal government needed to mobilize for war. The only law in existence permitting the raising of additional troops was the Militia Act of 1792, which empowered the president to call out the militia to suppress insurrection. Using this law, on April 15, Lincoln issued a proclamation declaring that an insurrection existed, called out 75,000 men to put it down, and convened a special session of Congress for July 4.
On April 19, Lincoln issued his proclamation blockading Southern ports. It provided that “a competent force will be posted so as to prevent entrance and exit of vessels” from the ports of the states in rebellion. Then, to make the proclamation official, he signed this document, authorizing “the Secretary of State to affix the Seal of the United States to a Proclamation setting on foot a Blockade of the ports of the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.” The seal was affixed to the blockade proclamation, which was announced that day. It was a de facto declaration of war by the Union against the Confederacy.
After the war, the Supreme Court issued an opinion fixing the exact dates on which the war began. It held: “…The proclamation of intended blockade by the President may therefore be assumed as marking the first of these dates.” Thus, according to the Supreme Court, Lincoln’s signature on this order sealing the imposition of the blockade marked the official beginning of the Civil War.
Ditto: “ Everyone knew secession was nearly inevitable. There was no surprise.”
No, my impression is that very few, if any, Northerners fully grasped what was going on in 1860.
Yes, all understood they didn’t want slavery in their own states or in western territories.
That’s why so many abandoned the old Whig party for the radical new Republicans.
But they didn’t really understand how or why Northern and Southern Democrats split into two parties, and whether that meant minority Republicans could carry the election.
Indeed, I think the majority expectation, North, South, East & West was that the election would be thrown into the House of Representatives, where deals would be made and agreements struck which satisfy everyone a little, and preserve the Union.
Few expected that Republicans alone would sweep the election, and even fewer understood what that must mean.
But within two days of the November 1860 election, South Carolina began to organize it’s secession convention, with the result that Northerners were confused & split on how to respond.
Lincoln during these months kept publicly silent, and privately very circumspect.
I guess that was the key. Northerners who voted for Lincoln believed that they were finally standing up to the slave owners. They wanted to have their say and wanted their voice to be heard. They didn't expect that the Republican would crush the other candidates.
Still less did they think they were going to crush the South militarily. That's something people (disgruntled Southerners and Copperheads as well as progressive academics) came up with later. It's reading back what turned out to happen into the intentions of people at the time.
It's like a tug of war. Most voters are pulling one way to prevent the voters on the other side from getting everything their own way. If it turns out that one side wins, theorists come out to say that there was a secret plan to annihilate the other side, but massive victories or defeats were rarely something people contemplated -- certainly not something on the average voters mind.
Which brings up another theory I have speculated about. That is why would Jeff Davis give the order to fire on Sumter?
At that point, his Confederacy consisted of seven deep south states with small populations and where slaves outnumbered free whites. They were not really viable as a nation unless they got the upper South slave states to join them. The slave states of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and Arkansas had already rejected secession. If the CSA had any chance of survival, he needed the population and economic resources of those states.
. Did he figure the only way to move those states to secession was to start a shooting war?
So, are you now saying my report is inaccurate?
"Hear-say" is a legal term whose exact meaning I'm not certain of.
What I am certain, from all reports I've read, is that Union officials such as Presidents Buchanan & Lincoln and Secretary Seward did not discuss events directly with Jefferson Davis' emissaries.
So whether Davis' emissaries received all the words accurately seems to me a legitimate question -- do you disagree?
That is exactly my theory, though I don't ask it as a question, but state it as fact because, simply, no other theory makes any sense.
By all accounts Davis was far from stupid, and wouldn't start a war his little 7-state Deep South Confederacy couldn't possibly win on its own, except, except, except if he fully expected several other slave-states to switch sides from Union to Confederacy and join his fight.
Indeed, the core of all this goes to Virginia's Constitution ratification statement where it says:
The point here, exactly contrary to what our FRiends DiogenesLamps and others claim, our Founders never ever expressed a "right to secede" at pleasure.
There had to be some material breach, some major misbehavior such as "injury or oppression".
That's why Virginia's secession convention could not vote for secession before Fort Sumter -- they needed an excuse, and so far neither outgoing President Buchanan nor incoming President Lincoln had yet given them one.
Jefferson Davis knew Fort Sumter would provide Virginia the excuse they needed, and that is the only logical explanation I've ever seen.
Which brings us to the question of why did Lincoln spring Davis' Fort Sumter trap?
The short answer is: Lincoln thought he had no other choice besides surrender, because despite warnings he was not certain whether Davis was bluffing, and so Lincoln could only learn the real truth by testing it.
Then if it proved the Confederacy was determined to have a war, Fort Sumter would be their opportunity to start it, and that would clarify for everyone what needed to be done next.
So those who claim "Lincoln started it" are correct in the sense of somebody knowingly springing a trap.
But the "trap" itself was laid by Jefferson Davis, who bears moral responsibility for the war it started.
This is a theory, about which there may be some merit. I do not necessarily disagree with you here. You may very well have put your finger on something with this idea. I am going to keep this idea in the back of my mind, neither fully accepting it nor dismissing it until I see more evidence one way or the other.
The point here, exactly contrary to what our FRiends DiogenesLamps and others claim, our Founders never ever expressed a "right to secede" at pleasure. There had to be some material breach, some major misbehavior such as "injury or oppression".
--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
"Consent of the Governed" definitely sounds like "at pleasure." So does "Whenever any form of Government becomes Destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."
There had to be some material breach, some major misbehavior such as "injury or oppression".
If you are operating under the premise that slaves are "property" then certainly The acts of the Non-Slave states, and the intentions of the Government to limit slavery in new territories, sounds very much like an intent to deprive people of property rights.
Under the paradigm of that era, this would constitutes a "material breach, some major misbehavior such as "injury or oppression". In fact, it is not that dissimilar to collectivism regarding the seizure of real estate property, in their eyes at least.
Could an obscure former one-term Congressman from Illinois really beat the famous and talented Stephen A. Douglas, who had already defeated Lincoln for Senator in 1858? Wouldn't Bell be able to hold on to Fillmore's vote (the old Whigs) and keep the Republicans from sweeping the North? Wasn't it likely that with so many candidates in the race that the election would be thrown into the House of Representatives? Douglas was certainly optimistic at least when his campaign started out, expecting support in both the North and the South -- which didn't pan out.
If there was uncertainty about the outcome of the election, there also must have been uncertainty about the likelihood of secession. It didn't happen in 1850, or during the Nullification Crisis, or in 1820, or during the War of 1812. At first the Upper South and the Border States certainly weren't in favor of secession, and couldn't their influence prevail over the hotheads further South?
Lincoln was certainly optimistic that secession could be avoided. What he and others probably didn't understand is that much of the conflict in the South wasn't just between secessionists and unionists but between immediatists and cooperationists. That is to say, there was a large group that was willing to countenance secession if enough states supported it and pledged to form a new government. Many of the Southern politicians Northerners counted on (and a large part of the Southern public) were already open to secession if the conditions were right, and Northerners didn't realize it.
Another question is whether Southern Democrats really had secession on their minds when they split the party, thus ensuring Lincoln's victory. It's an appealing theory in some ways, but I suspect they were as short-sighted as anybody else, and were looking backward, punishing Douglas for what they regarded as his past disloyalty or unreliability, rather than looking forwards with some complicated strategy of achieving independence in a slaveowners' nation. They also considered that the election might well be decided by the House of Representatives and a compromise candidate selected. We can say now that if somebody's actions produced a certain result that they must have intended that result, but things weren't that clear-cut at the time.
I am glad to see some in this August group drop the monotonous postings about who fired the first shot or who owned Ft Sumter, and move to more thoughtful speculation on causes.
Working in opposition to clarity is the question of question.
What are the specific questions?
I’ll volunteer what I think are the obvious...
Was slavery a threat to the North?
How did the abolitionists contribute to secession?
If it can be agreed that no Constitutional control on secession existed, making judicial solution moot, where did political responsibility begin?
Not at all. But the real question is was blocking the expansion of slavery to the territories a threat to the South. yes it was.
How did the abolitionists contribute to secession?
Other than being used in straw man arguments by southern fire eaters as an argument for secession, not much. The abolitionists were a small faction that had no chance of success through the political process.
If it can be agreed that no Constitutional control on secession existed, making judicial solution moot, where did political responsibility begin?
Unilateral secession is not in anyway Constitutional. If the powers that favored disunion had proposed an orderly and equitable separation through Congress, I suspect they could well have been successful, if they could have kept the passion of their own citizens intense through a long and sober political process.
But from this, war did not occur.
When the Confederacy announced its tariff rates in March of 1861, Mr. Lincoln proceeded with his plans to send warships to the South. The pending economic competition forced the hands of the Republicans in power.
Some might say that there would not have been a war without the 1860 Republican party, and its platform which was blatantly sectionalist.
In secession and preparing for a possible war, Southerners believed that they would be fighting to defend the government as it was laid down at Philadelphia in 1787 and as recognized by various state ordinances of ratification. This was a government of restricted power, commissioned to do certain things which the states could not do for themselves, but strictly defined as to its authority.
As long as each state was viewed as a sovereign entity, the maximum amount of self-determination by the states preserved, and states’ rights rigorously upheld, any drift towards despotism was automatically nipped in the bud.
That was ultimately the issue over which the South seceded since it held that the North was rebelling against this idea which had been accepted by the members of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Or to put it another way, the North was staging a revolution, the purpose of which was to do away with this older concept of the American government.
The South rejected this revolution and sought to defend what it insisted were its God-given rights. When the secession is seen in these terms, the issue of slavery, firmly fixed in the minds of so many Americans as the true cause of the war, is understood rather to be merely the catchword of the War Party in the North, and a shallow excuse to wage war and impose a social revolution.
It has been said that no event in the 1850s did more to intensify sectional animosities than the formation of the Republican party. Without the Republicans, it is difficult to envisage a civil war at all.
It has been said that no event in the 1850s did more to intensify sectional animosities than the Dred Scott ruling. Without the south’s insistence on embroiling the north into most unseemly aspects of its Peculiar Institution, it is difficult to envisage a civil war at all.
He said he wasn't going to attack, and didn't.
Was it really Lincoln's fault that Davis and the South Carolinians were so uncomfortable with ambiguous situations that they felt they had to resort to force?
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