Posted on 01/20/2016 5:03:47 AM PST by Kaslin
Last July, Anthony Hervey, an outspoken black advocate for the Confederate flag, was killed in a car crash. Arlene Barnum, a surviving passenger in the vehicle, told authorities and the media that they had been forced off the road by a carload of "angry young black men" after Hervey, while wearing his Confederate kepi, stopped at a convenience store en route to his home in Oxford, Mississippi. His death was in no small part caused by the gross level of ignorance, organized deceit and anger about the War of 1861. Much of the ignorance stems from the fact that most Americans believe the war was initiated to free slaves, when in truth, freeing slaves was little more than an afterthought. I want to lay out a few quotations and ask what you make of them.
During the "Civil War," ex-slave Frederick Douglass observed, "There are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may to destroy the Federal Government and build up that of the traitors and rebels" (Douglass' Monthly, September 1861).
"For more than two years, negroes had been extensively employed in belligerent operations by the Confederacy. They had been embodied and drilled as Rebel soldiers, and had paraded with White troops at a time when this would not have been tolerated in the armies of the Union." (Horace Greeley, in his book, "The American Conflict").
"Over 3,000 negroes must be included in this number (of Confederate troops). These were clad in all kinds of uniforms, not only in cast-off or captured United States uniforms, but in coats with Southern buttons, State buttons, etc. These were shabby, but not shabbier or seedier than those worn by white men in rebel ranks. Most of the negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabres, bowie-knives, dirks, etc. They were supplied, in many instances, with knapsacks, haversacks, canteens, etc., and were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederacy Army. They were seen riding on horses and mules, driving wagons, riding on caissons, in ambulances, with the staff of Generals, and promiscuously mixed up with all the rebel horde" (report by Dr. Lewis H. Steiner, chief inspector of the U.S. Sanitary Commission).
In April 1861, a Petersburg, Virginia, newspaper proposed "three cheers for the patriotic free Negroes of Lynchburg" after 70 blacks offered "to act in whatever capacity" had been "assigned to them" in defense of Virginia.
Those are but a few examples of the important role that blacks served as soldiers, freemen and slaves on the side of the Confederacy. The flap over the Confederate flag is not quite so simple as the nation's race "experts" make it. They want us to believe the flag is a symbol of racism. Yes, racists have used the Confederate flag as their symbol, but racists have also marched behind the U.S. flag and have used the Bible. Would anyone suggest banning the U.S. flag from state buildings and references to the Bible?
Black civil rights activists, their white liberal supporters and historically ignorant Americans who attack the Confederate flag have committed a deep, despicable dishonor to our patriotic Southern black ancestors who marched, fought and died not to protect slavery but to protect their homeland from Northern aggression. They don't deserve the dishonor. Dr. Leonard Haynes, a black professor at Southern University, stated, "When you eliminate the black Confederate soldier, you've eliminated the history of the South."
Yes, but the discussion was over the principle of limited government than over the actual expansion of slavery. Anyone who looks at the western territories that were being argued over can see that these lands were not lands that were profitable for cotton farming and slavery. Take a look at New Mexico territory. This territory was open to slavery but it never had more than a dozen slaves. The point of the arguements was who got to decide this issue for each territory...the people of that teritorry or the fed gov?
Confederate leadership was virtually 100% slave-holders, and were primarily motivated by their desires to preserve, protect and defend their "peculiar institution" of slavery That is the reason they refused, even months before the bitter, bitter end, to make a peace deal with Lincoln which would have freed slaves, even with Lincoln's offer of $400,000,000 in compensation!
Your problem is you keep trying to portray them as being for the permanent perpetuation of slavery. They weren't . They were for abolishing it graudally in their own time like the North did. And I think you misunderstand their refusal to make peace even when offered compensation for the slaves. It wasn't slavery they were trying to protect, it was their independence. Taking the deal would have meant surrender. They began freeing and arming blacks on their own before they were forced to surrender. They even told Europe earlier on that they would free their slaves within five years in return for recognition. Independence was what they really valued.
Rubbish & propaganda, because 1860 Republicans never threatened slavery in the South.
Of course they didn't. The arguements between the politicians was always about the territories. The only ones who brought up the topic of immediate abolition everywhere were the abolitionists, many of whom were quite vitriolic and supported murderers like John Brown. while Republicans were mostly Northern, Unionist voters could be found in every Southern state
Of course. And you are correct in noting that the Republican party at that time was purely a sectional phenomena.
I think you underestimate the tariff issue. True the Morrill tariff was not passed while the South was still in the union, but they had had all election season to hear the North talk about passing it.
may even have admitted that abolishing slavery was necessary.
He was the one who approved of telling Britain and France that the South would abolish slavery in return for recognition.
falls into the same category as the North's 1861 desperate attempt to save the Union by making legal slavery a matter of constitutional amendment. It shows that under duress, some people will say & do anything.
If slavery was the only issue or even the most important one, then they would have taken the North up on this offer. And likewise if slavery was the only or the main issue they wouldn't have offered to give it up to gain recogntition.
Wigfall negotiated terms with Anderson and got him to run up the white flag over the fort after Wigfall left, stopping the bombardment. Confederate General Beauregard sent three officers to the fort. They told Anderson they were not authorized to negotiate terms (nor was Wigfall). Then another boat carrying two Confederate officers from Beauregard's staff came, and they were authorized to agree to terms of the surrender. They agreed to Wigfall's terms although they argued for a while about Wigfall's and Anderson's agreement to allow the Union troops to salute their flag. They finally agreed to that.
The Wigfall-Anderson terms stopped the bombardment and thus the possible killing of Union soldiers if the bombardment had continues. No Union troops were killed in the bombardment, although a few were wounded. Unfortunately, however, a canon used in Anderson's salute to the flag exploded killing one of the Union troops.
But to reply to everything you have provided would be a daunting task! A couple of comments. Fort Sumter, prior to it being surrendered, seems to have been like Grand Central Staion. Everybody of the times seems to have had some connection to it. From the time during the Buchanan Administration when Anderson decided to move from Ft Moultrie to Ft Sumter, there were nonstop visitors from north and south. Dispatches, telegrams, official and unofficial, couriers, US mail (!), food from the local markets, spy's and counter spy's, etc. It was definitely a hub of activity and all eyes were on it.
As far as my ancestors, on my mothers side, who settled "Strawberry Banke" in Portsmouth, NH in 1623, their troubles were with the Piscataqua (Algonquin) tribes. The Pequot were more down towards Connecticut. I've never done a DNA test, but it is family lore that we have "Blackfoot " in us. You may have heard of Hannah Dustin from Haverhill. Her family was kidnapped and the Indians took off north. She followed them for days, and then one night came upon them sleeping and killed them with a hatchet and rescued her family. I am related to her on both sides of my family. In any event, I am more Irish than anything else now, with a lot of other stuff mixed in.
I think King Philip was buried near to where I live now. From vague memory, his gravesite was desecrated by some high school students some time back, when they played stickball with his skull or some such.
The South was not economically behind as much as many think::
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/fogel.htm
Correction: Abenaqui (not Algonquian)
Republicans proposed that people of each territory should decide.
In that they were supported by Northern "Douglas Democrats", but opposed by Southern Democrats who insisted such decisions be made in Washington.
That is the issue which split the Democrat convention in Charleston, SC, in April 1860.
Southern Democrats were for more Federal power protecting slavery, while Northern Democrats & Republicans wanted more territorial & states' rights to abolish it.
The result was Southern Fire Eaters, lead by William Yancey, walked out and eventually nominated their own candidates.
DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "Your problem is you keep trying to portray them as being for the permanent perpetuation of slavery.
They weren't .
They were for abolishing it graudally in their own time like the North did."
Sure, that's a nice revisionist fantasy, but there's no historical evidence from the time to support such wild claims.
What the evidence supports is that Fire Eaters and others who lead the charge for secession were motivated exclusively by their desires to protect slavery.
One of those was former US Senator, then Confederate Senator Louis Wigfall, noted in previous posts here:
DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "It wasn't slavery they were trying to protect, it was their independence.
Taking the deal would have meant surrender."
And yet, within weeks of losing both independence and slavery, unconditionally, they rejected an opportunity to bargain for a better deal.
DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "They began freeing and arming blacks on their own before they were forced to surrender."
Pathetic, weak, half-hearted, insincere and way-way too late to make any difference.
Confederates had finally seen the handwriting on the wall, and made just enough changes allowing them to revise & rewrite history for their own benefit.
DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "The only ones who brought up the topic of immediate abolition everywhere were the abolitionists, many of whom were quite vitriolic and supported murderers like John Brown."
There were no "murderers like John Brown".
Brown himself was captured, tried & executed for his crimes.
His actions, while admired by some, were widely condemned by many in the North.
Of his "secret six" wealthy supporters, three fled to Canada to avoid arrest, one to Italy, one to an insane asylum (Garret Smith) with only one, Thomas Higginson, openly defending Brown.
Curiously, Garret Smith before admitting himself to an insane asylum, became the object of Senator Jefferson Davis' wrath, when Davis "unsuccessfully attempted to have Smith accused, tried, and hanged along with Brown."
In 1867 Smith helped underwrite $100,000 bond needed to free Jefferson Davis from prison.
Bottom line: John Brown's raid was highly exaggerated by Fire Eater propagandists in the South to gain sympathy for their cause of secession.
DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "And you are correct in noting that the Republican party at that time was purely a sectional phenomena."
No, that's not what I said.
In 1860 there was no national party, because both previous national parties had split in half.
In 1860 the Democrat party split in half between Northern Douglas Democrats and Southern Breckenridge Democrats.
The old Whig party had already split, between Northern Lincoln Republicans and Southern John Bell Constitutional Unionists.
And three of the four regional parties were Unionists, which on the question of secession made them allies: effectively one national party.
Only one of the four -- Southern Democrats -- was threatening to secede if the election didn't go their way.
The fact that Lincoln Republicans won the majority of electoral votes was not anticipated by some, but was exactly what Southern secessionist Fire Eaters wished for.
DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "I think you underestimate the tariff issue.
True the Morrill tariff was not passed while the South was still in the union, but they had had all election season to hear the North talk about passing it."
Like I said, tariffs were "politics as usual".
Tariffs went up, they went down, you win some, lose some and come back to politic another day.
So, there was simply no reason why a proposed modest increase in tariffs should drive some to declare their secession.
And indeed, when you read their original "Reasons for Secession" documents, while slavery is mentioned many, many times, tariffs are not mentioned, even once.
DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: Davis "...was the one who approved of telling Britain and France that the South would abolish slavery in return for recognition."
That obscure tale took a lot of googling to find & verify.
It comes from a Duncan Kenner, very large slave-holder, as reported to William Henry and first recorded in 1899.
The key fact to remember, if the tale is even true, it came at the very end of the war, as a last desperate act, before the Confederacy collapsed.
Here is the heart of the story:
The Brits, to their credit, utterly rejected Kenner's desperate proposal.
Soon after, Lee surrendered.
DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis: "If slavery was the only issue or even the most important one, then they would have taken the North up on this offer.
And likewise if slavery was the only or the main issue they wouldn't have offered to give it up to gain recogntition."
Protecting slavery was the reason -- the only reason cited -- for Deep South declarations of secession.
But clearly, once Confederate government formed, then self-preservation became its number one objective.
*************
Insane former NY Congressman Garret Smith, supported John Brown in 1859, helped pay $100,000 bond to free Jefferson Davis from prison, in 1867.
Good post BroJoeK. I had assembled some notes in preparation to responding to DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis’s post but you knocked it out of the park.
In researching Kenner’s deal I refreshed a connection that I had uncovered before but not made note of - it really does appear to be Kenner’s deal and not davis’s. That comports with what I have read of davis, who wasn’t a staunch slaver, but rather seemed to fit in that ambiguous “hate it but I still use it” case. As the record shows, he was adamantly opposed to budging on abolition, or even blacks volunteering for service until he found himself with his back against the wall. His decision was borne of reluctant pragmatism, not idealism.
There was no abolition movement to speak of in the south. Point in fact, it was illegal to speak of abolition and a good way to find yourself and your property firebombed. The southern leadership had proven itself unshaken in it’s belief that the Peculiar Institution would also be the Perpetual Institution.
Agreed, I should have mentioned that, and listed some details to illustrate the point.
But the map by county of 1860 election results shows pro-Constitutional-Union voters in every Southern state which could vote, enough votes to carry Virginia, Kentucky & Tennessee, and to make the idea of Unionism a clear national movement in 1860.
In the early 1800s there were more abolitionist societies in the South than in the North. That was before abolition became a dirty word with the coming of the northern vitriolic abolitionists.
I would love to see your evidence of that.
Slavery was an issue of course, but if it was the only one or even the main one then they would have accepted the ammendment that Lincoln was pushing regarding protecting slavery.
within weeks of losing both independence and slavery, unconditionally, they rejected an opportunity to bargain for a better deal.
The "better deal" meant of course surrender. By going so far as to reject that even in these final stages meant that they were clinging desperately onto the faintest hope of independence. If slavery was all they were clinging to they would have taken the deal, seeing as they were almost defeated as it was.
Pathetic, weak, half-hearted, insincere and way-way too late to make any difference.
There were many (like Lee and Cleburn) who wanted to institute that years before, however there were just enough of those stubborn stalwarts in Congress to block the issue until it was too late. Did you know Lincoln was also against early attempts to recruit blacks? He also waited until the North had lost a good number of battles before he finally changed stance.
You underestimate the negative effect of John Brown. He had been funded by Northerners, and after his death many Northern abolitionists called him a martyr. Have you ever heard the song "John Brown's Body"? It was very popular up North:
John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in the grave;
(3X)
His soul's marching on!
(Chorus)
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
Glory, glory, hallelujah!
his soul's marching on!
He's gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord! (3X)
His soul's marching on! (Chorus)
This kind of stuff made many in the South feel they weren't wanted or respected in the Union. Kind of the way Israelis feel when Palistinians name streets and buildings after their "martyrs". Oh btw, funny fact about Brown: His first victim in his attack on Harpers Ferry was a free black man who refused to join in his raid.
.In 1860 there was no national party
The Democrat party had always been a national party...this was the first electinon that that the Democrats had fielded a Northern and a southern candiate, however their platforms remained very similar. It does show the extent that the sections had become more fractured.
I have to laugh at how you keep downplaying the tariffs. The tariff issue alone was enough to make South Carolina seceed in the 1830s. The tariffs benefitted the North at the expense of the South and the North had used the slavery issue many times to get the tariffs they wanted. Northern politicians were ever ready to sacrifice whatever anti-slavery sentiments they had for the sake of a tariff deal. Rumors after the Compromise of 1850 linked it to logrolling for tariff protection. Illinois votes for the Compromise were connected to railroad land grants that Illinois obtained in 1850. Southern congressmen claimed to have won over Pennsylvania's delegation by promising to repay a vote for the Compromise with "adjustments" in the tariff rates. At the same time, the Pennsylvania legislature voted to repeal laws that handicapped efforts to recapture fugitive slaves.
And it was mentioned during the secession debate....here is one example...
Robert Barnwell Rhett railed against the then-pending Morrill Tariff before the South Carolina convention. Rhett included a lengthy attack on tariffs in his address, which the convention adopted on December 25, 1860 to accompany its secession ordinance. He said:
"And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress, is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue— to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures."
Also, this tariff the North was pushing wasn't small. It increased the effective rate collected on dutiable imports by approximately 70%. This is why when the North passed it in a knee-jerk fashion after the South had left (they were used to not having it effect them much) they found out that they had practically just killed their economy. The free South had implemented low tariffs and northern businesses began to lament about their loss of business. The fact that the northern economy was nearing collapse forced Lincoln to act quick in order force the South back into the union.
Protecting slavery was the reason -- the only reason cited -- for Deep South declarations of secession.
It is frequently mentioned yes, but note that they talk about the failure of Northern states to comply with fugitives slave laws (as stipulated by the constitution) and also the slavery in the territories issue (you know, the issues that they actually argued about). Notice that they don't further these claims by leaving the Union, the abandon all claim over these issues. It wasn't so much these slavery issues in themselves (as they just forfeited their right to them) as it was the extreme deterioration of the relation between the sections that drove them to secession. The election of a purely sectional candidate was the final nail in the coffin of this division.
And this is what I am beginning to suspect is the real cause of the war. Money.
Shocking isn’t it? lol :-)
It is to me. As silly as it sounds, I keep finding out shocking things about the civil war as time passes.
The stuff I was taught when I grew up appears to have been all crap. I have began to think that the dynamics faced by the population back in 1861 are the same dynamics we face today.
New York more or less runs the Nation due to it's wealth and influence. Most of the Prominent media centers are headquartered there, the vast bulk of wealth in the nation is concentrated there, and the financial industries and markets are concentrated there.
I saw a documentary last night on public television about the "Mine Wars" of West Virginia. Of course it was mostly a left wing screed throughout the program, but I did catch the significance of one bit of it.
The dominant control of the coal industry lay in the hands of New York. The miners working for nearly slave wages were kept poor by robber Barons of that city.
The steel to build the skyscrapers was produced by coal mined at 40 cents per "long ton." (2200 lbs)
Mine operators had a very thin margin and were really operating the mines at close to break even. The wealth was staying in New York.
Shocking isn't it? lol :-)
Here are some fascinating quotes regarding the economic factor and its influence:
"The North cut off from Southern cotton rice, tobacco, and other products would lose three fourths of her commerce, and a very large proportion of her manufactures. And thus those great fountains of finance would sink very low....Would the North in such a condition as that declare war against the South?"
Henry L. Benning
November 19, 1860
"In one single blow our foreign commerce msut be reduced to less than one-half what it now is. Our coastwise trade would pass into other hands. One-half of our shipping would lie idle at our wharves. We should lose our trade with the South, with all its immense profits. Our manufactories would be in utter ruins....millions of our people would be compelled to go out of employement."
Daily-Chicago Times
December 10, 1860
"The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods. What is our shiping without it? Literally nothing. The transportation of cotton and its fabrics employs more ships than all other trade. It is very clear that the South gains by this process, and we lose. No - we MUST NOT 'let the South go.'"
Union Democrat, Manchester New Hampshire
Economic historian Philip S. Foner explains it clearly:
" It was also exceedingly logical that when all the efforts to save the Union peacefully had failed, the merchants, regardless of political views, should have endorsed the recourse to an armed policy. They had conducted their long struggle to prevent the dissolution of the Union because they knew that their very existence as businessmen depended upon the outcome. When they finally became aware of the economic chaos secession was causing, when they saw the entire business system crumblinb before their very eyes, they knew that there was no choice left. The Union must be preserved. Any other outcome meant economic suicide."
Not only was business going downhill, tax revenues dropped substantially, because the South, who had paid most of the Nation's tariffs, had left. In an editorial in the New York Evening Post on March 12, 1861, a month before Fort Sumter, the paper lamented:
"That either the revenue from dutues must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the ports must be closed to importations from abroad, is generally admitted. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; and the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe....the present order of things must come to a dead stop."
Charles Dickens, the famous author summed things up pretty well. He said:
"Union mean so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North." He also noted that "Slavery has in reality nothing on earth to do with it."
"Union mean so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North." He also noted that "Slavery has in reality nothing on earth to do with it."
That is what I have begun to realize. So why all these claims that the war was fought to end slavery?
Because that sounds so much better than saying the war was fought to maintain the money streams into the Northern States.
If the leadership had told the truth, they would not have been able to launch a war. As much as people would have hated the massive loss of jobs and economic activity, the fair minded Christians, of which the nation was mostly composed back in those days, would not have consented to a war on their brothers for money.
Only by pushing the war as a moral crusade could they hope to Unite the North in an effort to slap the chains on their brothers in the South.
The "Free the Slaves" stuff appears to have been Goebbels like Propaganda.
Again, the truth would have not been able to motivate a vast military invasion. The Union soldiers that believed they were fighting for a greater cause were duped. The meatgrinder was created and operated to serve profit, not freedom.
From a leader who knew the circumstances of impending conflict (December 3, 1860):
"The long-continued and intemperate interference of the Northern people with the question of slavery in the Southern States has at length produced its natural effects. The different sections of the Union are now arrayed against each other, and the time has arrived, so much dreaded by the Father of his Country, when hostile geographic parties have been formed.
"I have long foreseen and often forewarned my countrymen of the now impending danger. This does not proceed soley from the claim on the part of Congress or the Territorial legislatures to exclude slavery from the Territories, nor from the efforts of different States to defeat the execution of the fugitive-slave law.
"All or any of these evils might have been endured by the South without danger to the Union (as others have been) in the hope that time and reflection might apply the remedy. "The immediate peril arises not so much from these causes as from the fact that the incessant and violent agitation of the slavery question throughout the North for the last quarter of a century has at length produced its malign influence on the slaves and inspired them with vague notions of freedom.
"Hence a sense of security no longer exists around the family altar. This feeling of peace at home has given place to apprehensions of servile insurrections. Many a matron throughout the South retires at night in dread of what may befall herself and children before the morning. Should this apprehension of domestic danger, whether real or imaginary, extend and intensify itself until it shall pervade the masses of the Southern people, then disunion will become inevitable.
"Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and has been implanted in the heart of man by his Creator for the wisest purpose; and no political union, however fraught with blessings and benefits in all other respects, can long continue if the necessary consequence be to render the homes and firesides of nearly half the parties to it habitually and hopelessly insecure.
"Sooner or later the bonds of such a union must be severed. It is my conviction that this fatal period has not yet arrived, and my prayer to God is that He would preserve the Constitution and the Union throughout all generations.
"But let us take warning in time and remove the cause of danger. It can not be denied that for five and twenty years the agitation at the North against slavery has been incessant. In 1835 pictorial handbills and inflammatory appeals were circulated extensively throughout the South of a character to excite the passions of the slaves, and, in the language of General Jackson, “to stimulate them to insurrection and produce all the horrors of a servile war.” This agitation has ever since been continued by the public press, by the proceedings of State and county conventions and by abolition sermons and lectures.
"The time of Congress has been occupied in violent speeches on this never-ending subject, and appeals, in pamphlet and other forms, indorsed by distinguished names, have been sent forth from this central point and spread broadcast over the Union.
No time today, but I'll summarize your argument here as saying that slavery was the Southern Fire Eaters' excuse, not their real reason for advocating secession.
You say: their real reason was, they just didn't like those haughty New Englanders' attitudes.
Oh, attitudes about what?
Ahem, uh, oh, well..... about slavery.
Right, slavery, it always comes back to slavery.
You mean a feckless coward who precipitated a national conflict.
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