Historical Ignorance and Confederate Generals

The Confederacy has been the excuse for some of today's rioting, property destruction and grossly uninformed statements. Among the latter is the testimony before the House Armed Services Committee by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley in favor of renaming Confederate-named military bases. He said: "The Confederacy, the American Civil War, was fought, and it was an act of rebellion. It was an act of treason, at the time, against the Union, against the Stars and Stripes, against the U.S. Constitution."

There are a few facts about our founding that should be acknowledged. Let's start at the beginning, namely the American War of Independence (1775-1783), a war between Great Britain and its 13 colonies, which declared independence in July 1776. The peace agreement that ended the war is known as the Treaty of Paris signed by Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay, and Henry Laurens and by British Commissioner Richard Oswald on Sept. 3, 1783. Article I of the Treaty held that "New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and Independent States."

Delegates from these states met in Philadelphia in 1787 to form a union. During the Philadelphia convention, a proposal was made to permit the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, rejected it. Minutes from the debate paraphrased his opinion: "A union of the states containing such an ingredient [would] provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."

During the ratification debates, Virginia's delegates said, "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." The ratification documents of New York and Rhode Island expressed similar sentiments; namely, they held the right to dissolve their relationship with the United States. Ratification of the Constitution was by no means certain. States feared federal usurpation of their powers. If there were a provision to suppress a seceding state, the Constitution would never have been ratified. The ratification votes were close with Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts voting in favor by the slimmest of margins. Rhode Island initially rejected it in a popular referendum and finally voted to ratify -- 34 for, 32 against.

Most Americans do not know that the first secessionist movement started in New England. Many New Englanders were infuriated by President Thomas Jefferson's Louisiana Purchase in 1803, which they saw as an unconstitutional act. Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, who was George Washington's secretary of war and secretary of state, led the movement. He said, "The Eastern states must and will dissolve the union and form a separate government." Other prominent Americans such as John Quincy Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Fisher Ames, Josiah Quincy III, and Joseph Story shared his call for secession. While the New England secessionist movement was strong, it failed to garner support at the 1814-15 Hartford Convention.

Even on the eve of the War of 1861, unionist politicians saw secession as a state's right. Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland said, "Any attempt to preserve the union between the states of this Confederacy by force would be impractical and destructive of republican liberty." New-York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): "If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." The Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19, 1861): "An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful, could produce nothing but evil -- evil unmitigated in character and appalling in extent." The New-York Times (March 21, 1861): "There is a growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go."

Confederate generals fought for independence from the Union just as George Washington fought for independence from Great Britain. Those who label Robert E. Lee and other Confederate generals as traitors might also label George Washington a traitor. Great Britain's King George III and the British parliament would have agreed.

woodpusher: "I see that you cannot identify what branch of the Federal government the States are a part of. Your omission is telling."
[BroJoeK] Your insistence on playing senseless word games is more telling.

I am not the one who (#403) posted:

[BroJoeK #403] OIFVeteran: "There was a short period when two states were not part of the government currently operating at the time, but they were still apart of the United States of America."

I am not the one at a loss to explain what it means for states to be part of the government and not part of the United States. Ronald Reagan stated the obvious in his First Inaugural Address, January 20, 1981

All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government.

Your attempt to avoid explaining is understandable.

woodpusher: "Why did nobody in the Congress even question or oppose these claims by MADISON et al?"
[BroJoeK #499] Neither Madison nor anybody else at the time officially recognized Rhode Island as a separate & independent country.

Nonsense.

Congressional Register, Volume I, 1789,

Page 412, Mr. SHERMAN, June 5, 1789:

But all we are now to consider, I believe, is, that we invite the state of Rhode Island to join our confederacy, what will be the effect of such a measure we cannot tell till we try it.

Page 413, Mr. MADISON, June 5, 1789:

My idea on the subject now before the House is, that it would be improper in this body to expose themselves to have such a proposition rejected by the legislature of the state of Rhode Island

Mr. SHERMAN considered "that we invite the state of Rhode Island to join our confederacy."

Mr. MADISON considered "that it would be improper in this body to expose themselves to have such a proposition rejected by the legislature of the state of Rhode Island"

How do you invite a state to join a confederacy if it is a member of said confederacy?

How does the legislature of Rhode Island reject said invitation unless it is not a member of said confederacy?

Page 413, Mr. AMES, June 5, 1789:

I should be glad to know if any gentleman contemplates the state of Rhode Island, dissevered from the union; . . . Do gentlemen imagine that state will join the union? ... If a wish of congress will bring them into the union. . . .

Page 438, Mr. JACKSON, June 8, 1789:

The States of Rhode-Island and North-Carolina are not in the Union. As to the latter, we have every presumption that they will come in. . . .
It being the case that those states are not yet come into the Union, when they join us we shall have another list of amendments to consider, and another bill of rights to frame.

Page 441, Mr. GERRY, June 8, 1789:

There are two states not in the union. . . . They have told you, that they cannot accede to the union unless certain amendments are made to the constitution; if you deny a compliance with their request in this particular, you refuse an accomodation to bring about that desirable event, and leave them detached from the union.

You can't handle the truth.

But the key point in all these discussions is that changes to state or territory status & boundaries were accomplished by mutual consent, just as James Madison and the US Constitution require.

Mutual consent, or as the U.S. Supreme Court put it, successful revolution.

Vermont v. New Hampshire, 289 U.S. 593, 607-608 (1933)

Our conclusion as to the meaning and effect of the Order-in-Council of 1764 would be decisive of the boundary of Vermont upon her admission to the Union were it not for the history of Vermont as a revolutionary government and the consequent uncertainty whether she was admitted under the second clause of Art. IV, § 3, of the Constitution as a new state formed out of the territory of New York, with her boundary accordingly determined by that of New York, or whether she was admitted under the first clause of Art. IV, § 3, as an independent revolutionary state with self-constituted boundaries.
The Special Master found that attempts by the New York authorities after 1764 to interfere with the possession of the holders of the New Hampshire grants made prior to the Order-in-Council led to protest and forcible resistance which assumed the proportions of a revolutionary movement. This movement culminated in 1777 in the Declaration of Independence by the towns comprising the New Hampshire grants on both sides of the Green Mountains, which proclaimed that the jurisdiction granted by the Crown "to New York government over the people of the New Hampshire Grants is totally dissolved," and that a free and independent government is set up within the territory now Vermont, bounded "east on Connecticut River . . . as far as the New Hampshire Grants extends." From that time until the admission of Vermont into the Union in 1791, an independent government was maintained with defined geographical limits extending on the east to the Connecticut River. In view of these facts, the Special Master concluded that the Order-in-Council was nullified by successful revolution, and Vermont was admitted as an independent state with self-constituted boundaries. But he also found, as we have said, that Vermont's claims of jurisdiction to the thread of the river were restricted to the low water mark on the western side by resolutions of Congress of August 20, 21, 1781, and their acceptance by resolution of the Vermont Legislature, February 22, 1782. In addition, he found that Vermont was not recognized as an independent state by Congress either under the Articles of Confederation or under the Constitution, but that her independence was recognized by New Hampshire in 1777, by Massachusetts in 1781, and by New York in 1790.

It does not matter that the U.S. government, when there was one, did not officially recognize Vermont's independence until it entered the union. At the time of admission, and thereafter, they were officially recognized by the U.S. Government to have been previously, and at the time of admission, a free and independent state. Vermont was explicitly NOT admitted under Clause 2 of Article 4, Sec 3. You keep prattling on as if Clause 2 applied. It did not. Vermont was admitted and a free and independent state which achieved that status by their successful revolution of 1777.

Article 4, Section 3:

Section 3.
New states may be admitted by the Congress into this union; but no new states 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.
The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular state.

The boldfaced part did not apply.

woodpusher quoting Virginia 1776 Constitution, adopted June 29, 1776.: "By which several acts of misrule, the government of this country, as formerly exercised under the crown of Great Britain, is TOTALLY DISSOLVED."

Part of the answer here is in the next paragraph:

"...and in compliance with a recommendation of the general Congress, do ordain and declare the future form of government of Virginia to be as followeth: "

Virginia was a member of the Continental Congress and recognized its authority.

The Continental Congress was a group of COLONIES. The King was the sovereign authority.

The State of Virginia declared the independence of the State of Virginia on JUNE 29, 1776. The State of Virginia, after JUNE 29, 1776 was a FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT _______?

To what COUNTRY did the Virginia Constitution refer in JUNE 1776?

If the United States was then a country, it existed in JUNE 1776, and was made up of one free state and 12 COLONIES.

And whatever you quoted was not the next paragraph. Or the one after that. Here is my quoted paragraph, and the rest of the document. Your quote does not seem to appear in the Virginia Bill of Rights or the Virginia Constitution.

http://www.nhinet.org/ccs/docs/va-1776.htm

By which several acts of misrule, the government of this country, as formerly exercised under the crown of Great Britain, is TOTALLY DISSOLVED.
We therefore, the delegates and representatives of the good people of Virginia, having maturely considered the premises, and viewing with great concern the deplorable conditions to which this once happy country must be reduced, unless some regular, adequate mode of civil polity is speedily adopted, and in compliance with a recommendation of the general Congress, do ordain and declare the future form of government of Virginia to be as followeth:

These were the special delegates of Virginia to the Fifth Convention of Virginia, following a recommendation of the general Congress of Virginia, in crafting a Constitution for the people of Virginia.

[BroJoeK] But there's more to this story, which you may remember from the musical "1776"

In have not seen it and generally do not take Broadway or Hollywood as historically accurate. For example, there are many stirring examples of congressional dabate in the Spielberg movie, Lincoln. Not a word of it was taken from the verbatim records of the actual debates.

[BroJoeK] the Continental Congress requested Virginia's declaration

Cite, link, quote please.

The Journals of the Continental Congress may be found here.

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

The Convention sat from May 6 to July 5, 1776, meeting at the Capitol in Williamsburg. It elected Edmund Pendleton its presiding officer after his return as president of the First Continental Congress in Philadelphia. There were three parties in the Fifth Convention. The first was mainly made up of wealthy planters, who sought to continue their hold on local government as it had grown up during colonial Virginia's history. These included Robert Carter Nicholas Sr. who opposed the Declaration of Independence from King George. It dominated the convention by a malapportionment that lent an advantage to the slaveholding east. One historian maintained that this party ensured the continuation of slavery at a time when other states began gradual emancipation. It ensured the continued self-perpetuating gentry rule of county government with a franchise limited by property requirements underpinning the republican form of state government. The second party was made up of the intellectuals of the Enlightenment: lawyers, physicians and "aspiring young men". These included the older generation of George Mason, George Wythe, Edmund Pendleton, and the younger Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. The third party was a minority of young men mainly from western Virginia. This party was led by Patrick Henry and included "radicals" who had supported independence earlier than 1775.
On May 15, the Convention declared that the government of Virginia as "formerly exercised" by King George in Parliament was "totally dissolved" in light of the King's repeated injuries and his "abandoning the helm of government and declaring us out of his allegiance and protection". The Convention adopted a set of three resolutions: one calling for a declaration of rights for Virginia, one calling for the establishment of a republican constitution, and a third calling for federal relations with whichever other colonies would have them and alliances with whichever foreign countries would have them. It also instructed its delegates to the Continental Congress in Philadelphia to declare independence. Virginia's congressional delegation was thus the only one under unconditional positive instructions to declare independence; Virginia was already independent of Parliament as the "fourth realm" of British Empire, but its convention did not want their state, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, to "hang separately." According to James Madison's correspondence for that day, Williamsburg residents marked the occasion by taking down the Union Jack from over the colonial capitol and running up a continental union flag, keeping the Union Jack of the British Empire in the canton and adding the thirteen red and white stripes of the self-governing British East India Company.

Notes of Debates in the Continental Congress, 13–15 May 1776.

[from the Diary of John Adams]

(footnotes omitted - some interesting content but subject to copyright)

[Notes of Debates in the Continental Congress, 13–15 May 1776.] 1
Mr. Duane moves that the Delegation from N. York might be read.2
When We were invited by Mass. Bay to the first Congress an Objection was made to binding ourselves by Votes of Congress.
Congress ought not to determine a Point of this Sort, about instituting Government. What is it to Congress, how Justice is administered. You have no Right to pass the Resolution—any more than Parliament has.
How does it appear that no favourable Answer is likely to be given to our Petitions? Every Account of foreign Aid, is accompanied with an Account of Commissioners.3
Why all this Haste? Why this Urging? Why this driving?—Disputes about Independence are in all the Colonies. What is this owing to, but our Indiscretion?
I shall take the Liberty of informing my Constituents that I have not been guilty of a Breach of Trust. I do protest vs. this Piece of Mechanism, this Preamble.
If the Facts in this Preamble should prove to be true, there will not be one Voice vs. Independence.
I suppose the Votes have been numbered and there is to be a Majority.4
McKean. Construes the Instructions from N. York as Mr. Sherman does, and thinks this Measure the best to produce Harmony with G. Britain. There are now 2 Governments in direct Opposition to each other. Dont doubt that foreign Mercenaries are coming to destroy Us. I do think We shall loose our Liberties, Properties and Lives too, if We do not take this Step.
S. Adams. We have been favoured with a Reading of the Instructions from N. York. I am glad of it. The first Object of that Colony is no doubt the Establishment of their Rights. Our Petitions have not been heard—yet answered with Fleets and Armies and are to be answered with Mirmidons from abroad. The Gentleman from N. York, Mr. Duane, has not objected to the Preamble, but this—he has not a Right to vote for it.5 We cant go upon stronger Reasons, than that the King has thrown us out of his Protection. Why should We support Governments under his Authority? I wonder the People have conducted so well as they have.
Mr. Wilson. Was not present in Congress when the Resolution pass’d, to which this Preamble is proposed. I was present and one of the Committee, who reported the Advice to Mass. Bay.6 N. Hampshire, Carolina and Virginia, had the same Advice, and with my hearty Concurrence.
The Claims of Parliament will meet with Resistance to the last Extremity. Those Colonies were Royal Governments. They could not subsist without some Government.
A Maxim, that all Government originates from the People. We are the Servants of the People sent here to act under a delegated Authority. If we exceed it, voluntarily, We deserve neither Excuse nor Justification.
Some have been put under Restraints by their Constituents. They cannot vote, without transgressing this Line. Suppose they should hereafter be called to an Account for it. This Province has not by any public Act, authorized us to vote upon this Question. This Province has done much and asked little from this Congress. The Assembly, largely increased, will [not]7 meet till next Monday. Will the Cause suffer much, if this Preamble is not published at this Time? If the Resolve is published without the Preamble. The Preamble contains a Reflection upon the Conduct of some People in America. It was equally irreconcileable to good Conscience Nine Months ago, to take the Oaths of Allegiance, as it is now. Two respectable Members last February, took the Oath of Allegiance in our Assembly. Why should We expose any Gentlemen to such an invidious Reflection?
In Magna Charta, there is a Clause, which authorises the People to seize the K[ing]’s Castles, and opposes his Arms when he exceeds his duty.
In this Province if that Preamble passes there will be an immediate Dissolution of every Kind of Authority. The People will be instantly in a State of Nature. Why then precipitate this Measure. Before We are prepared to build the new House, why should We pull down the old one, and expose ourselves to all the Inclemencies of the Season.8
R. H. Lee. Most of the Arguments apply to the Resolve and not to the Preamble.

The instruction to the New York delegates stated, “to concert and determine upon such measures, as shall be judged most effectual for the preservation and reestablishment of American rights and priviledges, and for the restoration of harmony between Great Britain and the Colonies.” The New York delegates were held to this restriction until July 9, 1776.

[BroJoeK]: And so, while disagreeing with me, you still verify my basic point which was that no original state was ever officially recognized as free & independent of the United States -- certainly not during the time the old Articles of Confederation were superseded by the new Constitution.

I don't agree with your contention that I "still verify" your "basic point." I verify no such thing. If you would, please stop trying to put words into my mouth that I didn't say.

As I have pointed out before on these threads, George Washington said to the Senate on August 22, 1789 that North Carolina was not a member of the "present Union." Rhode Island had also not joined the Union at that point, so Rhode Island was also not a member of the "present Union."

I have also pointed out the words of Congress on September 12, 1789 (my bold below):

And be it further enacted, That all rum, loaf sugar, and chocolate, manufactured or made in the states of North Carolina, or Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and imported or brought into the United States, shall be deemed and taken to be subject to the like duties, as goods of the like kinds, imported from any foreign state, kingdom, or country are made subject to.

I also pointed out on this thread that the Federalist newspaper, the "Gazette of the United States," on April 15, 1789, called Rhode Island and North Carolina "Foreign States", which at that time they were.

You argue that "no original state was ever officially recognized as free & independent of the United States -- certainly not during the time the old Articles of Confederation were superseded by the new Constitution."

Forgetting [for a moment] about how the United States considered those two states in the time period you raised, let's get a Constitutional lawyer's opinion. Here is what John Remington Graham says in his book, "Free, Sovereign, and Independent States," about the 1783 Treaty of Paris:

It follows that the "People of the United States" given in reference to the Preamble [of the Constitution] were, in legal contemplation, the people in and of each of the members of the Union as free, sovereign, and independent states mentioned by his Britannic Majesty in 1783.

And

In any event, when George Washington was first inaugurated as President, there were only eleven States in the Union. North Carolina and Rhode Island were longer part of the United States. Hence these two States were independent nations, nor did they accede to the new Constitution until the most important work of the First Congress was completed. [The footnote to this statement says that not until the two states joined the Union under the new Constitution did Congress presume to extend the laws and jurisdictions of the courts of the United States to these two states separately as appears in the U.S. Statutes at Large.]

jmacusa post #411: "Due to political expediency, the nations psychical, emotional, industrial, financial cost and staggering death toll on both sides Lincoln saw no point in prosecuting Lee and Davis as the war criminals they were even though Davis wanted to continue the war in a guerrilla style fashion."

woodpusher: "You made all that crap up. See my #437."

I read your #437, it supports the historical fact that neither Presidents Lincoln, nor Johnson, nor Grant, nor Chief Justice Chase wanted to try Confederates for treason.
Our FRiend jmacusa wishes to explain that as a form of war-weariness, but I think there is a simpler, more straightforward explanation -- no Union prosecutions for treason was quid pro quo for no continuing guerilla warfare by Confederates.

Remember, Lincoln's first aim, even before freeing slaves, was to reunite the Union, and he believed, as did others, that the surest way to accomplish that was:

"With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."

Democrats then as now hated the United States, hate our Constitution and will do whatever they can, including open warfare, to corrupt or destroy us, under whichever banners they think can raise the most troops.
Back then it was the cause of "states rights" to enslave African Americans, today it is the cause of serfdom for American taxpayers.

woodpusher to jmacusa: "No, you ignorant liberal sad excuse for an Adam Schiff wannabe.
Their states seceded and were officially recognized as lawful belligerents by Lincoln’s declaration of a blockade which is strictly an international act, and is not a domestic act.
There followed a series of international recognitions of the Confederacy as lawful belligerents.
Lincoln’s proclamation of a blockade also served as the start of the war for all legal purposes."

The fact is that many in Europe's "upper crusts" sympathized with Southern slaveholding planters and wanted to support them, and some did.
But no significant European government officially recognized the Confederacy or openly provided them with the kinds of military aid which were essential to George Washington's victory in the Revolutionary War.
Had they received such massive & open aid from recognized European allies, Confederates may well have won the war, just as Washington did.

I think we can thank Secretary of State Seward on the Union side, and Jefferson Davis' poor choice of emissaries on the Confederate side for Confederates' failure to achieve even a modicum of international recognition.

woodpusher: "It is impossible to prevent access to the coast of the enemy unless there is an enemy and an enemy coast.
Only by the Confederacy being recognized as an enemy belligerent could there have been an enemy.
A blockade acts on foreign nations or belligerents.
A closing of the ports does not apply to foreign nations.
Under 19th century international law, a blockade presupposes an armed conflict, and a war presupposes an enemy."

Nothing inherent in a blockade presupposes the enemy is a foreign nation.
Indeed, the Brits blockaded American coasts in both the Revolution and the War of 1812, the first time against the rebellion, the second against the American nation.
The blockades were the same, but nothing in the first constituted British recognition of Americans as a separate nation.

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