Ten Neo-Confederate Myths

March 9, 2013 | vanity

[BroJoeK]

Ten Neo-Confederate Myths (+one)

1. "Secession was not all about slavery."

   In fact, a study of the earliest secessionists documents shows, when they bother to give reasons at all, their only major concern was to protect the institution of slavery.
   For example, four seceding states issued "Declarations of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify Secession from the Federal Union".
   These documents use words like "slavery" and "institution" over 100 times, words like "tax" and "tariff" only once (re: a tax on slaves), "usurpation" once (re: slavery in territories), "oppression" once (re: potential future restrictions on slavery).

   So secession wasn't just all about slavery, it was only about slavery.

2. "Secession had something to do with 'Big Government' in Washington exceeding its Constitutional limits."

   In fact, secessionists biggest real complaint was that Washington was not doing enough to enforce fugitive slave laws in Northern states.
   Mississippi's Declaration is instructive since it begins by explaining why slavery is so important:

   "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world.
   Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.
   These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.
   These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization."

   It goes on to complain that the Federal Government is not enforcing its own Fugitive Slave laws, saying that anti-slavery feeling:

   "has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union..."

   In fact, the Compromise of 1850 shifted responsibility for enforcing Fugitive Slave laws from northern states to the Federal Government, so this complaint amounts to a declaration that Washington is not powerful enough.

3. "A 'right of secession' is guaranteed by the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution."

   In fact, no where in the Founders' literature is the 10th Amendment referenced as justifying unilateral, unapproved secession "at pleasure".
   Instead, secession (or "disunion") is always seen as a last resort, requiring mutual consent or material usurpations and oppression.
   For example, the Virginia Ratification Statement says:

   "...the people of Virginia, declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression..."

   James Madison explained it this way:

   "It has been too much the case in expounding the Constitution of the U. S. that its meaning has been sought not in its peculiar and unprecedented modifications of Power; but by viewing it, some through the medium of a simple Govt. others thro' that of a mere League of Govts.
   It is neither the one nor the other; but essentially different from both....

   "It is the nature & essence of a compact that it is equally obligatory on the parties to it, and of course that no one of them can be liberated therefrom without the consent of the others, or such a violation or abuse of it by the others, as will amount to a dissolution of the compact.
   Applying this view of the subject to a single community, it results, that the compact being between the individuals composing it, no individual or set of individuals can at pleasure, break off and set up for themselves, without such a violation of the compact as absolves them from its obligations."

4. "In 1860, Abraham Lincoln wanted to abolish slavery in the South."

   In fact, the 1860 Republican platform only called for restricting slavery from territories where it did not already exist.
   And Lincoln repeatedly said he would not threaten slavery in states where it was already legal.

5. "Abraham Lincoln refused to allow slave-states to leave the Union in peace."

   In fact, neither out-going President Buchanan nor incoming President Lincoln did anything to stop secessionists from declaring independence and forming a new Confederacy.
   And Buchanan did nothing to stop secessionists from unlawfully seizing Federal properties or threatening and shooting at Federal officials.
   Nor did Lincoln, until after the Confederacy started war at Fort Sumter (April 12, 1861) and then formally declared war on the United States, May 6, 1861.

6. "Lincoln started war by invading the South."

   In fact, no Confederate soldier was killed by any Union force, and no Confederate state was "invaded" by any Union army until after secessionists started war at Fort Sumter and formally declared war on May 6, 1861.
   The first Confederate soldier was not killed directly in battle until June 10, 1861.

7. "The Confederacy did not threaten or attack the Union --
   the South just wanted to be left alone."

   In fact, from Day One, Confederacy was an assault on the United States, and did many things to provoke and start, then formally declared war on the United States.

   From Day One secessionists began to unlawfully seize dozens of Federal properties (i.e., forts, armories, ships, arsenals, mints, etc.), often even before they formally declared secession.
   At the same time, they illegally threatened, imprisoned and fired on Federal officials -- for example, the ship Star of the West attempting to resupply Fort Sumter in January 1861 -- then launched a major assault to force Sumter's surrender, while offering military support for secessionist forces in a Union state (Missouri) .
   And all of that was before formally declaring war on the United States.

   After declaring war, the Confederacy sent forces into every Union state near the Confederacy, and some well beyond.
   Invaded Union states & territories included:
   

   • Maryland
   • Pennsylvania
   • Ohio
   • Indiana
   • Kentucky
   • Missouri
   • Kansas
   • Oklahoma
   • New Mexico
   • Arizona
   
   In addition, small Confederate forces operated in California, Colorado and even briefly invaded Vermont from Canada.
   You could also add an invasion of Illinois planned by Confederate President Davis in January 1862, but made impossible by US Grant's victories at Forts Henry and Donaldson.

   In every state or territory outside the Confederacy proper, Confederate forces both "lived off the land" and attempted to "requisition" supplies to support Confederate forces at home.

   Secessionists also assaulted the United states by claiming possession of several Union states and territories which had never, or could never, in any form vote to seceed.
   So bottom line: the Confederacy threatened every Union state and territory it could reach.

8. "The Union murdered, raped and pillaged civilians throughout the South."

   In fact, there are remarkably few records of civilians murdered or raped by either side, certainly as compared to other wars in history.
   But "pillaging" is a different subject, and both sides did it -- at least to some degree.
   The Union army was generally self-sufficient, well supplied from its own rail-heads, and seldom in need to "live off the land."
   In four years of war, the best known exceptions are Grant at Vicksburg and Sherman's "march to the sea".
   In both cases, their actions were crucial to victory.

   By contrast, Confederate armies were forced to "live off the land" both at home and abroad.
   Yes, inside the Confederacy itself, armies "paid" for their "requisitions" with nearly worthless money, but once they marched into Union states and territories, their money was absolutely worthless, and so regardless of what they called it, their "requisitions" were no better than pillaging.
   Perhaps the most famous example of Confederate pillaging, it's often said, cost RE Lee victory at the Battle of Gettysburg: while Lee's "eyes and ears" -- J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry -- was out pillaging desperately needed supplies in Maryland and Pennsylvania, Lee was partially blind to Union movements and strengths.

9. "There was no treason in anything the south did."

   In fact, only one crime is defined in the US Constitution, and that is "treason".
   The Constitution's definition of "treason" could not be simpler and clearer:

   "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort...
   The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason..."

   The Constitution also provides for Federal actions against "rebellion", "insurrection", "domestic violence", "invasion" declared war and treason.
   So Pro-Confederate arguments that "there was no treason" depend first of all on the legality of secession.
   If their secession was lawful, then there was no "treason", except of course among those citizens of Union states (i.e., Maryland, Kentucky & Missouri) which "adhered to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort".
   But the bottom line is this: in previous cases -- i.e., the Whiskey Rebellion -- once rebellion was defeated, rebels were all released or pardoned by the President of the United States.
   And that pattern, first established by President Washington, was followed under Presidents Lincoln and Johnson.

10. "If you oppose slave-holders' secession declarations in 1860, then you're just another statist liberal."

    In fact, lawful secession by mutual consent could be 100% constitutional, if representatives submitted and passed such a bill in Congress, signed by the President.
    Alternatively, states could bring suit in the United States Supreme Court for a material breach of contract and have the Federal government declared an "oppressive" or "usurping" power justifying secession.

    But Deep-South slave-holders' unilateral, unapproved declarations of secession, without any material breach of contract issues, followed by insurrection and a declaration of war on the United States -- these our Founders clearly understood were acts of rebellion and treason -- which the Constitution was designed to defeat.

    That leads to the larger question of whether our Pro-Confederates actually respect the Constitution as it was intended or, do they really wish for a return to those far looser, less binding -- you might even say, 1960s style "free love" marriage contract -- for which their union was named: the Articles of Confederation?

    But consider: the Confederacy's constitution was basically a carbon copy of the US Constitution, emphasizing rights of holders of human "property".
    So there's no evidence that Confederate leaders were in any way more tolerant -- or "free love" advocates -- regarding secession from the Confederacy than any Union loyalist.

    Then what, precisely, does the allegation of "statism" mean?
    The truth is, in this context, it's simply one more spurious insult, and means nothing more than, "I don't like you because you won't agree with me."
    Poor baby... ;-)

Plus, one "bonus" myth:

• "Since Franklin Roosevelt is President Obama's political daddy, then Lincoln is Obama's political grandpa."

  No, no, no way...

  Yes, FDR could be the O-man's political daddy, and his political mother those 1960s radicals like, well, his mother.

  And one of his grandparents is well known: his intellectual maternal grandpa is Karl Marx.
  But the other grandpa is certainly not Lincoln.
  Rather, it is Lincoln's evil doppelganger, the other tall thin President born in Kentucky: Jefferson Davis.

  How can that be?
  Well, here's my list -- both Obama and Davis are/were:

  • Democrats
    
  • Like all Democrats, committed to using government power to benefit selected classes of voters, by laws requiring others to provide uncompensated services (Obama's taxes & regulations, Davis' slavery).
    
  • Pitted different groups of Americans against each other for their own political gain (whites vs blacks, rich vs poor & on & on, it never ends).
    
  • Cared nothing for the US Constitution, indeed wanted to rewrite it to insert "positive rights" (Obama's right to government provided free stuff, Davis' right to own human "property").
    
  • Yes, it's a stretch, but ominous: willing to wage war on American citizens (Obama's drones).

[DustyMoment]

Are you kidding me? You have refuted pretty much every one of my facts and I doubt most of yours.

Re-read the thread if you don’t believe me.

[JCBreckenridge]

They should have gone to Breckenridge.

[donmeaker]

You are right. I somehow convoluted Greenville being the capital of Franklin, its Unionist convention (to secede from Tennessee) and the battle of Franklin.

Serves me right for not looking it up.

[BroJoeK]

Ecliptic: "Someone please show me the official documents or discussions concerning doing away with slavery that caused the south to succeed.
The south did not just leave the union because of slavery."

Sorry, I missed your post on first review.
You ask an excellent question.

Secessionists themselves wrote some documents explaining why they declared independence from the United States.
This site shows all four of them, though not in proper sequence.
The correct sequence is South Carolina (#1), Mississippi (#2), Georgia (#5), then Texas (#7).

The first two (South Carolina and Mississippi) are especially important to understand, because they were the first ones ever written -- in late December 1860 and early January 1861 -- in the heat and flush of excitement of the moment, and before there was a lot of feed-back or second thoughts coming in from other Southerners or sympathetic northerners.

In those two documents we see the primary motivating force behind secession, and there is simply no doubt: it was their concerns to protect the institution of slavery, and nothing else.

Later, the argument gets gussied up with some other minor issues.
But I thought of an analogy to explain it all:

Consider a long and happily married couple.
Of course, neither thinks the other is "perfect", both are fully aware of the other's short-comings, but since the marriage is happy and stable, both are willing to overlook and forgive any minor matters.
That sounds perfectly realistic, right?

OK, now let's suppose that, for sake of discussion, the wife suddenly discovers her husband has been leading a double life all these years.
He has, oh, say, a second family, just something totally unacceptable to her, and so she decides to end the marriage.

On her way out the door, she tells him why, the real reason: he has a second family.
But then she also throws in all the other little stuff which bothered her all those years, but were not by themselves cause for divorce.

In the case of secession beginning in 1860, protecting slavery was their real reason, everything else was minor stuff, thrown in as they walked out the door.

You can see this clearly, by reading South Carolina and Mississippi first -- there's no mention of anything except slavery.
Later, as it's going out the door, so to speak, Texas throws in some other minor items, none of which individually, or all together, would have driven Southerners to secession.

If you ask, "how real was the actual threat to slavery," well, that is a complicated question.
Yes, Southern secessionist "Fire Eaters" exaggerated the immediate threat to slavery represented by the election of "Black Republican" Lincoln, in November 1860.
But long term there's no doubt that slavery was in for a rough-go, no matter which course of action the Southern slave-holders chose.

[BroJoeK]

MestaMachine: "I can’t see that this is the entire story.
It doesn’t fit with all the things that were going on at the time and this is a bad rap on the South."

It is not intended to be "the entire story", simply a listing of the most commonly seen Neo-Confederate myths, along with fact-based responses.
It is intended to forewarn and forearm readers who might encounter these myths in life, or on other FR threads.

So you say, "this is a bad rap on the South"?
Can you quote some examples of what you consider a "bad rap"?

[BroJoeK]

KoRn: "lol Did you get up this morning, and just feel like starting a fight?
This thread is gonna be a good one! lol"

Hardly! The idea struck some months ago, and I thought about it and puttered with it for a long time before, ahem, a fellow FReeper urged me to finish and post it. ;-)

[BroJoeK]

allendale: "Whatever the reasons, there is no doubt that the formation of the Confederacy was once the greatest domestic threat to the well being of the United States.
Today the greatest threat is the Democratic Party."

And how many people connect the fact that Confederates were also Democrats, who fought to preserve special priveleges for some to live off the uncompensated labor of others?

[BroJoeK]

Texas Fossil: "It is silly to refight a bloody war when we are facing the biggest threat to the survival of the nation."

Not trying to re-fight anything, just hoping to forewarn and forearm readers regarding some common Neo-Confederate myths.

[BroJoeK]

WXRGina: "I’ve long heard from people who have lived around the U.S. that blacks are treated much better in the South than in the North and other “non-South” states. Hmmmmm..."

Might I suggest that historically, Southerners more often saw blacks as helpful servants, whereas Northerners saw them as unwelcomed competitors for low-wage jobs?

Today things are somewhat different, and I'm not certain if anyone can really say: how much does, oh, say, inner-city Atlanta differ from, say, inner-city Philadelphia?

[WXRGina]

Good points, Joe!

[BroJoeK]

CodeToad: "Since yankee liberals HATE the South so much, then why not just go ahead a not oppose secession?"

Nobody here "hates the South".
What concerns us is Neo-Confederates distorting the truth about the Civil War.

[BroJoeK]

John S Mosby: "Let’s take the logical conclusions from these “results”, and fast forward into the 1900’s and to today.
You have buttinsky Progressive BS from the get go.
And obamaumao is Abe Lincoln. Got news— he suuuure is.
Statists of the World, Unite."

The O-man may well look like "Black Republican" Abe Lincoln to you.
To me he looks the spitting image of Jefferson Davis, and with the same goal: to put us all on Marse' plantation.

[BroJoeK]

AmericanExceptionalist: "But I am equally repelled by the heavy-handed approach of the Unionists, who desired an overweening federal government... "

In 1861 Unionists did not support "an overweening federal government", they simply opposed the Slave-holders unilateral, unjustified declarations of secession, and their declaration of war on the United States.

All our current "overweening federal government" began about 100 years ago, with the Progressive era passage of 16th and 17th Amendments.

[x]

New Jersey had 4 faithless electors who supported Lincoln.

I gather the Democrats didn't get all their ballots organized. There was a Douglas slate of electors and a fusion slate of anti-Republican Douglas-Breckenridge-Bell electors.

Only the three Douglas men who appeared on both ballots beat the top four Republican electors. Those who were only on one of the two competing Democrat ballots lost to the Republicans. That is if I've read and understood this correctly.

It's certainly an interesting case, but I don't think it significantly changes the popular or the (all important) electoral vote count.

FWIW Something not so very different happened a century later which leads many to conclude that Nixon actually beat Kennedy in the popular vote. It's not about fraud in Illinois or Texas (though that matters as well).

Rather it's that two sets of competing Democrat electoral slates in Alabama were both counted as votes for Kennedy by the media. If you count the votes for the independent slate as not Kennedy's Nixon carried the national popular vote.

[BroJoeK]

PhiloBedo: "Yep...this thread should be titled neo-yankee revisionism, on full display."

There is actual history, and there are Neo-Confederate myths.
This thread separates some myths from reality.

[JCBreckenridge]

It’s the last time there’s been more than one faithless elector in any presidential election.

Can you imagine that 1860 election today?

[BroJoeK]

Born to Conserve: "Usually there are two sides to a debate..."

And you would like to present which side?

[BroJoeK]

Liberty Valance: "How’s that reconstruction thing workin’ out for ya?"

Say what?

[BroJoeK]

Fast Moving Angel: "……….I’d be a little concerned when they begin comparing the current resident of the White House with the 16th who..."

Your characterizations of Lincoln are inaccurate and/or unfair.
Our current president more closely resembles his fellow Democrat, Jefferson Davis.

[BroJoeK]

x: "Maybe it’s the “all” and “only” that sets some people off.
The problem is that some states didn’t secede when it was all about slavery, but waited until war had already begun.
I’d just say secession was about slavery and leave it at that."

Sorry, I'm usually so careful about saying "Deep South secession was all about slavery" to prevent any confusion over Upper South states: Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee & Arkansas.

Those states all voted against secession, and only switched after war had already begun -- when they felt forced to chose sides.
Virginians, for example, can and do claim they seceded due to "oppression" as specified in their Constitution ratification statement.

But they also chose secession after the Confederacy had formally declared war on the United States, so they well knew from the beginning what they would be getting.