For What is the Confederacy to be Blamed?

Self | 8/16/17 | Self

[Nero Germanicus]

Isn’t it ironic that the most rabid secessionist fire eater, Robert Toombs, referenced in my post above, was the only person to vote against the bombardment.
Excerpt from Toombs’ farewell address in the U.S. Senate on January 7, 1861): “We want no negro equality, no negro citizenship; we want no negro race to degrade our own; and as one man [we] would meet you upon the border with the sword in one hand and the torch in the other.”

General Toombs was wounded at Antietam and after the war he fled first to Cuba, and then to Paris, along with General P.G.T. Beauregard and Julia Colquitt, wife of another Confederate general.
He returned to Georgia in 1867 but he refused to request a pardon from the president and regained neither his right to vote nor his political career. He died in 1885, blinded and ravaged by alcoholism, a man without a country.

[DiogenesLamp]

“Mr. President, at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet’s nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal.”

Lincoln was given pretty much the same advice, but he didn't have to worry about the Northern press telling the truth about what he had done, because he would soon have them under his thumb.

The only thing the Northern public was going to hear was what he would allow them to hear.

And today, the "Deep State" still has control over the Northern Press, which is nowadays known as ABC, NBC, CBS and yes, CNN.

[Nero Germanicus]

President Lincoln was very fortunate that none of the Union ships fired first or fired without provocation at Fort Sumter or at Fort Pickens. Everyone in the North understood Major Anderson using his cannon balls in retaliation, he was under direct attack: 85 men completely surrounded vs 3,000. Even the folks watchiing the bmbardment cheered Armstrong and his men for their bravery.
If the Union ships had initiated any violence it is highly unlikely that the border slaveholding states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia) would have stayed in the Union.
Sometimes its better to be lucky than good.

[DiogenesLamp]

President Lincoln was very fortunate that none of the Union ships fired first or fired without provocation at Fort Sumter or at Fort Pickens.

Luck has nothing to do with it. He sent the command ship to Pensacola in the full knowledge that nothing would happen if that ship didn't show up.

He let the Confederates believe exactly what their spies had told them and he counted that they would act on the information. Lincoln was playing to the Northern Public, and no one else.

If the Union ships had initiated any violence it is highly unlikely that the border slaveholding states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, Delaware and West Virginia) would have stayed in the Union. Sometimes its better to be lucky than good.

Again with the claim of "luck"? The Union ships weren't going to attack despite their orders because their orders also told them that they would take direction from Captain Mercer of the Powhatan.

Since that ship wasn't going to be there, they could not fulfill their orders.

It was a clever manipulation, not luck.

[Nero Germanicus]

However at Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens the rebels had opened fire before Lincoln was even inaugurated. Remember the attack on the Star of the West? Remember the armed attempt to take Fort Pickens and the gunfire that repelled that attempt?
Lincoln really had no choice. If he peacefully surrendered federal property he would be implicitly recognizing the legitimacy of the Confederate States of America and in doing so he would be committing treason. Not the best way to begin a presidency. His Inaugural Address on March 4 pledged to not surrender any federal property.
What was really lucky for Lincoln was that a 32 hour, 40 cannon bombardment made it clear to the world that the rebels were itching for a fight.

[DiogenesLamp]

However at Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens the rebels had opened fire before Lincoln was even inaugurated. Remember the attack on the Star of the West? Remember the armed attempt to take Fort Pickens and the gunfire that repelled that attempt?

Apparently not the way you remember it. Cadets at the Citadel fired at the ship, and did no real damage. At Fort Pickens, there was no armed attempt to take Fort Pickens. Some members of the local militia went to investigate what was going on at the abandoned fort, and were fired at by Union troops which had recently started occupying it.

Lincoln really had no choice. If he peacefully surrendered federal property he would be implicitly recognizing the legitimacy of the Confederate States of America and in doing so he would be committing treason.

How do you get "treason" out of recognizing the legitimacy of the Confederate States of America? They were the result of democratically held elections, and consistent with the principle established by the Declaration of Independence.

What was treasonous about recognizing that people no longer wanted to be a part of your government?

What was really lucky for Lincoln was that a 32 hour, 40 cannon bombardment made it clear to the world that the rebels were itching for a fight.

Again, it wasn't luck. Lincoln provoked the attack by sending those orders to those ships. Lincoln was hoping for an attack, because nothing else would solve his problem.

[Nero Germanicus]

The Supreme Court ruled in 1869 in Texas v White that the Articles of Confederation AND PERPETUAL UNION were the original law of the land created by the Founders and the Preamble to the Constitution establishes “a more perfect Union.”
The Court ruled that there is no leaving the Union except by a vote of ALL the states or by revolution. Eleven states attempted revolution. They failed.

[Nero Germanicus]

What would you have called it if Barack Obama had turned over Marine Base Pendleton and Edwards Air Force Base if the California legislature voted to secede?

[DiogenesLamp]

The Supreme Court ruled in 1869 in Texas v White that the Articles of Confederation AND PERPETUAL UNION were the original law of the land created by the Founders and the Preamble to the Constitution establishes “a more perfect Union.”

So? The premise on which the nation is founded cannot be gainsaid by the laws of man. The foundation of this nation is the "laws of nature, and of nature's God", not a bunch of delegates voting on something.

Natural rights are not subject to the whims of democracy. If they were, then we could vote slavery back in.

Eleven states attempted revolution. They failed.

"Revolution" is incorrect. "Independence" is correct. The 11 states had no intention of overthrowing the government in Washington DC, they just no longer wished to live under it.

Also I will point out that 13 states attempted "Independence", and they won. The other states should have won too, and for the same reason as the original 13.

[DiogenesLamp]

What would you have called it if Barack Obama had turned over Marine Base Pendleton and Edwards Air Force Base if the California legislature voted to secede?

Foolish. Those bases are critical to the interests of the United States in the pacific.

If you are going to compare those bases to Sumter, I will point out that Sumter was of no value to US interests at the time. (Unless of course you count "keeping South Carolina from trading freely with Europe" as a legitimate "US interest." )

[Nero Germanicus]

The point is federal property versus state property.

[DiogenesLamp]

The point is federal property versus state property.

UK=US.

[Nero Germanicus]

In his Inaugural Address President Lincoln promised to “hold, occupy and possess” ALL federal property.

“I therefore consider that in view of the Constitutio and the laws the Union is unbroken, and to the extent of my ability, I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part, and I Shall perform it so far as practicable unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means or in some authoritative manner direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to HOLD, OCCUPY, and POSSESS the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States in any interior locality shall be so great and universal as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the Government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating and so nearly impracticable withal that I deem it better to forego for the time the uses of such offices.”—March 4, 1861

[Nero Germanicus]

Revolution was the method. Independence was the goal. Both failed. The state of Texas abided by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Texas v White. That ruling denied that Texas had left the Union. It had been “a state in rebellion.”

[DiogenesLamp]

If the south had won the war WW I would have gone to the Germans as US would not have entered the war and no Hitler, no USSR, no Israel , no Korea, no Vietnam , Iraq, Afghanistan, no Obama, no Clinton!

Oh the humanity!

Another person who thinks as do I, that the US would not have entered World War I, and therefore the Germans would have won, and that this would have created a far more benign history than what we actually experienced.

Things could have hardly turned out worse than they did.

[DiogenesLamp]

He was not willing to let it spread to any more territory, however. That was his sticking point.

I see this point brought forth again and again, and I used to believe it. I believed it for most of my life, because that's what I had heard, over and over again.

But a funny thing happened one day when I was debating the civil war with other people. I decided to look up "cotton growing states" to see how many of the territories and western states were growing cotton without slavery. (No other cash crop was sufficiently lucrative to warrant plantation farming.) I was somewhat surprised when I discovered it wasn't being done.

Very little cotton in Kansas, and none in any state above it. Weren't these the "territories" to which everyone was worried that slavery might expand?

I have since been informed that cotton can only be grown in West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California thanks to modern irrigation systems that weren't possible in 1860. It looks like cotton plantations were never going to be anywhere except where they already were, so how was slavery going to expand?

This didn't make any sense to me, and so now I have begun to doubt the claim that the expansion of slavery was what they were worried about.

[marron]

The point wasn’t cotton, the point was territory. The prize was the western lands. Two issues; if they remained in the union, and the western states were brought in free instead of two-by-two, they would soon be outvoted in congress. They state this openly.

And if they were independent, again, the west was the big prize. This is why, had civil war been averted in 1860, it would have happened anyway as the two now separate countries fought for control of the west.

If you read through the articles of secession and some other sources they are quite candid that the west is the issue. And its not about cotton.

[DiogenesLamp]

The point wasn’t cotton, the point was territory. The prize was the western lands. Two issues; if they remained in the union, and the western states were brought in free instead of two-by-two, they would soon be outvoted in congress. They state this openly.

Well this is exactly what I have learned. The issue wasn't so much a real concern over slavery as it was that the money producing South would have sufficient allied states to make changes to Washington DC policy. It was about votes in Congress, the same way it is about votes in Congress today. The "Expansion of Slavery" was just propaganda to scare people into siding with the North Eastern coalition that had, (and for a long time has had) control of congress.

A curious thing I discovered was that the "Free Soil Party" was headquartered in New York. Makes me think a lot of this stuff was just Astro-Turf, same as it is nowadays.

And if they were independent, again, the west was the big prize. This is why, had civil war been averted in 1860, it would have happened anyway as the two now separate countries fought for control of the west.

I have also been saying this. The, at the time, new territories would have eventually become part of the South's influence in Washington, and would have reliably voted against the New York centered coalition, and we can indeed see that politically they have more or less done so into the modern times.

I am convinced that had the South become independent, those western states and territories would have fallen first into it's economic, and then eventually political orbit. Expansion of the Southern political coalition would have posed a grave threat to the power of those who were currently wielding control of Washington DC.

The Established powers in the Washington/New York corridor realized the threat, and took the necessary steps to prevent it from happening.

But none of this actually centered around the real possibility of slavery expanding into these areas. It was never about actual expansion of slavery, it was about expansion of the political power of the slave coalition, just as Charles Dickens noted in 1862.

"I take the facts of the American quarrel to stand thus. Slavery has in reality nothing on earth to do with it, in any kind of association with any generous or chivalrous sentiment on the part of the North. But the North having gradually got to itself the making of the laws and the settlement of the tariffs, and having taxed South most abominably for its own advantage, began to see, as the country grew, that unless it advocated the laying down of a geographical line beyond which slavery should not extend, the South would necessarily recover it's old political power, and be able to help itself a little in the adjustment of the commercial affairs."

Every reasonable creature may know, if willing, that the North hates the Negro, and until it was convenient to make a pretense that sympathy with him was the cause of the War, it hated the Abolitionists and derided them up hill and down dale. For the rest, there's not a pins difference between the two parties. They will both rant and lie and fight until they come to a compromise; and the slave may be thrown into that compromise or thrown out, just as it happens."

http://rcocean.blogspot.com/2012/09/charles-dickens-on-civil-war-march-1862.html

It was all about money and power, and who would get to control it.

[marron]

And of course I see it completely differently. As long as Christians were prepared to coexist with slavery, it would continue. But from the very day Christians abandoned the Whigs, and took a stand, in ten years it was gone.

They formed a minority party that had no chance of winning anything, and nevertheless in ten years it was gone.

[DiogenesLamp]

Post hoc ergo propter hoc.