Posted on 11/02/2002 11:20:01 AM PST by Aurelius
"Civil War" is at best a misleading name for that conflict. Many Southerners avoid using it because of the implication that there were factions in every locality. "Civil" means "relating to the people within a community." The term describes only one aspect of the event, and subtly discredits Southerners defending home and country, rather than fomenting a political coup.
The typical Southern community was not divided at all. Dixie was that community, and the consensus in Dixie was to defy strangers and meddlers from the North who insisted on ruling and intended to invade. The typical Southerner fought for independence. There were (and still are) more differences between Yankees and Southerners than between Yankees and English-speaking Canadians.
It was a civil war, but not on the battlefield. It was a civil war in New York City when a draft protest turned into a rampaging mob of 70,000. That civil war lasted four days because all the available troops were at Gettysburg, fighting soldiers from another land. It was a civil war when they returned and fired into this New York crowd, killing nearly 2,000 of their own divided "community."
It was a civil war when Illinois' Governor Yates reported an "insurrection in Edgar County. Union men on one side, Copperheads on the other. They have had two battles." It was a civil war for the Union Army when the 109th Illinois had to be disbanded because its men were Southern sympathizers. It was a civil war in Indiana when thousands of draft resisters hid in enclaves. From the governor: "Matters assume grave import. Two hundred mounted armed men in Rush county have today resisted arrest of deserters . . . southern Indiana is ripe for revolution."
The governors of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York reported that they could not enforce the draft without 10-20,000 troops in each state. Violent opposition struck in Wisconsin and Michigan. Four thousand Pennsylvanians refused to march south. Sherman wrote: "Mutiny was common to the whole army, and it was not subdued till several regiments, or parts of regiments had been ordered to Fort Jefferson, Florida, as punishment."
It was not a civil war in those parts of the South removed from the border regions. Had it been a civil war, Lincoln's government could have leveraged local support to subdue those states brutally, as it did in Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia. Union policy was to treat border state combatants as renegades under martial law instead of as legitimate armed forces.
Marylanders were similar to Virginians strongly Southern, but cautious. However, when Lincoln called for troops to coerce the states, Virginia seceded.
Immediately, Lincoln moved to secure Maryland. Habeus corpus was suspended and Southern sympathizers arrested in Baltimore. General Banks dissolved the Baltimore police board. Secretary of War Cameron wrote him: "The passage of any act of secession by the legislature of Maryland must be prevented. If necessary all or any part of the members must be arrested." Arrests were sufficient to prevent a vote. The mayor of Baltimore, most of the city government, and newspaper editors were jailed. One of those editors was the grandson of the author of The Star Spangled Banner. Francis Key Howard wrote of his imprisonment: When I looked out in the morning, I could not help being struck by an odd and not pleasant coincidence. On that same day forty-seven years before, my grandfather, Mr Francis Scott Key, then prisoner on a British ship, had witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry. When on the following morning the hostile fleet drew off, defeated, he wrote the song so long popular. . . . As I stood upon the very scene of that conflict, I could not but contrast my position with his, forty-seven years before. The flag which he had then so proudly hailed, I saw waving at the same place over the victims of as vulgar and brutal despotism as modern times have witnessed.
Documents of the period show more than 38,000 political prisoners in northern jails. In The Life of William H. Seward, Bancroft wrote: The person "suspected" of disloyalty was often seized at night, borne off to the nearest fort. . . . Month after month many of them were crowded together in gloomy and damp case mates, where even dangerous pirates captured on privateers ought not to have remained long. Many had committed no overt act. There were among them editors and political leaders of character and honor, but whose freedom would be prejudicial to the prosecution of the war. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus everywhere, arrested candidates, and banished Ohio congressman Vallandigham from the country. More than 300 newspapers were closed. Secretary of War Stanton told a visitor, "If I tap that little bell, I can send you to a place where you will never again hear the dogs bark." Neither habeas corpus nor freedom of the press were ever suspended in the South, even in the most desperate of times. The Raleigh News and Observer wrote after the war "It is to the honour of the Confederate government that no Confederate secretary could touch a bell and send a citizen to prison."
Yankee power was most unrestrained in Missouri. From its initial defiant movement of troops, the Union routinely escalated hostilities. They encouraged atrocities, insidiously veiled behind a facade of inept negligence. They exhibited arrogance and contempt for law, their own constitution, Southerners, and life itself.
The authorities entered private homes without warrant or provocation, seizing arms and other properties. They required written permits for travel. Random "drive-by" shootings of citizens from trains by soldiers were commonplace. Citizens were fined, jailed, banished, and even executed for as little as expressing dissent, or upon the accusation of a government informer.
Authorities called citizens to their door in the middle of the night and shot them or took them away. Amnesty was promised to partisans, but many who attempted to surrender were executed. Men like Frank and Jesse James witnessed these things and vowed never to accept a pardon from such a government.
Senator Jim Lane, known as "the grim chieftain of Kansas," ravaged Missouri. Halleck wrote McClellan: "I receive almost daily complaints of outrages committed by these men in the name of the United States, and the evidence is so conclusive as to leave no doubt of their correctness . . . Lane has been made a brigadier-general. I cannot conceive of a more injudicious appointment . . . offering a premium for rascality and robbing." McClellan gave the letter to Lincoln. After reading it, Lincoln turned it over and wrote on the back, "An excellent letter, though I am sorry General Halleck is so unfavourably impressed with General Lane."
September 1862 brought executions for refusing to swear allegiance to the U.S. In October at Palmyra, Missouri, ten political prisoners and POWs were executed because a Union informer disappeared. Soon afterwards, Lincoln promoted to brigadier-general the man responsible.
In 1863 General Ewing imprisoned as many wives, mothers, and sisters of Quantrill's Confederate partisan band as could be found. The building housing most of them collapsed in August, killing many. Ewing had been warned that the building was in danger of collapse, and the guerrillas believed that it had been deliberate. In retaliation Quantrill sacked and burned Lawrence, Kansas. Ewing then issued an order forcing all persons in four counties of western Missouri living more than a mile from a military base to leave the state. They were forced from their homes at gunpoint and escorted away. Then all property was destroyed. Cass County, which had a population of 10,000 was reduced to 600 by this "ethnic cleansing." Union Colonel Lazear wrote his wife that the ensuing arson was so thorough that only stone chimneys could be seen for hundreds of miles. "It is heart sickening to see what I have seen since I have been back here. A desolated country, men, women, and children, some of them almost naked. Some on foot and some in wagons. Oh God."
Loyalty oaths and bonds were required of all citizens. If guerrillas attacked, property in the area was confiscated and sold at auction. Suspects were imprisoned and by 1864 the mortality rate of Union-held prisoners had reached fifty percent. Union Surgeon George Rex reported: Undergoing the confinement in these crowded and insufficiently ventilated quarters are many citizen prisoners, against whom the charges are of a very trivial character, or perhaps upon investigation . . . no charges at all are sustained.
The Union implemented Sherman's philosophy of war against civilians. He wrote: "To the petulant and persistent secessionist, why, death is mercy, and the quicker he or she is disposed of the better. . . . There is a class of people . . . who must be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order." To General Sheridan, Sherman wrote: ". . . the present class of men who rule the South must be killed outright rather than in conquest of territory. . . a great deal of it yet remains to be done, therefore, I shall expect you on any and all occasions to make bloody results."
To General Kilpatrick he wrote: "It is petty nonsense for Wheeler and Beauregard and such vain heroes to talk of our warring against women and children. If they claim to be men they should defend their women and children and prevent us reaching their homes." In a moment of candor he wrote Grant: "You and I and every commander must go through the war justly chargeable with crimes."
While ransacking Georgia, Sherman removed two thousand women, children, and elderly to Ohio where they were forced to work in Union war factories. Families were separated, property confiscated, and even wedding bands taken from their hands. The U.S. never tried to reunite them.
Crimes were committed on both sides, but the Confederate offenses were a fraction of the Federals'. The Southern leadership spoke and acted against abuses, while Lincoln ran a "loose ship" of administration, under which authorities could tacitly countenance abuses while professing to be against them. Lincoln once asked McClellan if he could get close enough to Richmond to shell the civilian population of the city.
When Jefferson Davis was urged to retaliate in kind, and adopt a cruel war policy like the U.S., cabinet member Judah P. Benjamin said "he was immovable in resistance to such counsels, insisting that it was repugnant to every sentiment of justice and humanity that the innocent should be made victims for the crimes of such monsters."
America lost the "civil war" because she lost her soul. You opine that those were necessary war measures? Then why were they never employed by the Confederacy even in the dark days of imminent defeat? It was because the South still adhered to the transcendence of principle. The South did not believe that the end justified the means. Most Southerners believed that right and wrong and truth were God-given, and not man's creation.
Therefore, man had to submit to them. It was not man's place to decide that principles could be abandoned when expedient. Robert E. Lee said it best: "There is a true glory and a true honour; the glory of duty done the honour of the integrity of principle."
Transcendence means "above and independent of, and supreme." To recognize the transcendence of principle is to recognize that there are absolutes, and that absolutes must come from a Creator. It is to acknowledge that these absolutes are not social constructs that have evolved over time or situational posits that can be altered when fashionable. This humility leads men to respect authority, honor their heritage, and submit to the wisdom that has preceded them, acknowledging their own dependence, and not imagining that they are autonomous, without accountability.
It is chiefly social and familial accountability, enabled by the presence of law written in the conscience of humanity, which restrains the evil that is present within man, thereby establishing civilization. The reality of evil within humanity is evident in the corrupting effect of power, since power is of itself neither good nor evil. Power, in its simplest form, is the lack of restraint, while restraint is accountability in some form. Enduring and benevolent civilizations have recognized this and embraced restraints to ensure that human power would not be concentrated to their detriment. The Constitution was a codified restraint of this kind.
Restraints on the central government are as necessary to protect us from tyranny as the balance between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The limits are proportional to the power retained by the states, because the states are the only entities capable of enforcing meaningful restraint upon the federal government. Although they originally delegated limited power to that government, it has usurped all the power. That usurpation became unstoppable after the South lost, because the tenth amendment became a dead letter, and all the states lost. The possibility of secession was the only deterrent sufficient to guarantee states the sovereignty necessary to hold the central power accountable.
The victors justified themselves to the world and history by brute force and sly obfuscation. The elimination of slavery was trumpeted as the justifying crown of victory. As to saving the Union, is that not like preserving a marriage by beating the wife into submission?
The result is the humanist monster-state, and activist judges who reinvent what the constitution means. They have lost the ability to understand and receive it, since they have abandoned the transcendence of principle. They will always find a way to make themselves the final authority. New amendments designed to strengthen the plain intent of the Founding Fathers will eventually fail, because no loophole can be drawn so tight as to eliminate a scoundrel.
Both sides lost. The U.S. lost its character and began the abandonment of transcendent foundations. Dixie lost its will to live. Yet where principles remain- under cold ashes, deeply buried remains an ember of hope. And where there is a smoldering hope, the fire may yet burn again.
Mr. Rudulph is the SL Southwest Alabama District Chairman.
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Ex post facto legislation is unconstutional.
I don't think many would object if the discontented told the existing government that things weren't working out and some sort of separation would have to be arranged. Some might object, but a pacific, rational, moderate approach to separation would eventually have won out. But this wasn't the path the secessionists took. They felt themselves to be aggrieved and wanted to "act out" their anger. The saw themselves as the reincarnation of the revolutionary spirit of 1776. A false assumption, and one which encouraged them to take the wrong course.
Both sides wanted to win or keep as much as they could. Is this gangster behavior? I don't know. It looks more like the way states behave in the real world. Faced with threats or uncertainty governments assert themselves to ward off challengers.
What's irritating to some of us, is the way that some Rockwell libertarians portray government as a monster but make exceptions for the seceeding states or the Confederacy. They weren't lacking in those domineering and aggressive characteristics that are so objectionable in governments.
Unilateral secession will always be problematic because of the disagreement over the things the seceders can take with them. Of course the right of rebellion against tyranny exists. And those who favor separation are free to work peacefully towards that goal. But unilateral secession seems bound to produce wars, because each side will make itself the judge of the terms of separation.
Ex post facto legislation is unconstutional.
True, but I'm not really sure that term fits what Congress did in this case. Congress wasn't punishing anyone for things that were legal when they did them.
So are you suggesting that the firing was done without the approval of Jefferson Davis? He appointed Beauregard the commanding officer in Charleston on March 1. His war department issued the order to Beauregard on April 10 to demand the surrender of Sumter with the orders to open fire if a date for surrender was not provided. If there was a hot-head in this it was Davis himself. He gave the order. He bears the responsibility.
Then please provide some of that "abundant" documentation to back up your ludicrous assertion. In other words, you have no documentation, and are unable to provide any, right?
BTW, in Butler's Book, Butler documents his being asked to accept the vice-Presidency with Salmon P. Chase (pp. 632-633), and then by President Lincoln (pp, 633-634), p. 633 containing a picture of Simon Cameron who represented Lincoln in the offer, citing "reasons of personal friendship which would make it pleasant to have you with him."
Butler declined, stating that the VP was a nothing position and would be punishment instead.
Well, that's all bogus, because Cameron is the man of whom Lincoln said, "he was so corrupt, the only thing he --wouldn't-- steal was a red hot stove."
Cameron was Lincoln's first Secretary of War, sent home after about a year and replaced by Stanton. Lincoln didn't want Cameron at all, and in 1860, offered, withdrew and then offered the War portfolio to him. I as seriously doubt he had any play in this as I doubt that Butler ever met with Lincoln on the subject of forced deportation of blacks -- a position that neither Lincoln NOR Butler is on the record during the war as supporting.
Walt
That's a false statemeet and you know it's false.
Maybe you got hot-headed when you typed it.
Walt
Here's some info from the Georgia slave codes:
http://academic.udayton.edu/race/02rights/slavelaw.htm#1.
Excerpt:
SEC. I. CAPITAL OFFENCES.
1. Capital crimes when punished with death. -- The following shall be considered as capital offences, when committed by a slave or free person of color: insurrection, or an attempt to excite it; committing a rape, or attempting it on a free white female; murder of a free white person, or murder of a slave or free person of color, or poisoning of a human being; every and each of these offences shall, on conviction, be punished with death.
2. When punished by death, or at discretion of the court. -- And the following, also, shall be considered as capital offences, when committed by a slave or free person of color: assaulting a free white person with intent to murder, or with a weapon likely to produce death; maiming a free white person; burglary, or arson of any description; also, any attempt to poison a human being; every and each of these offences shall, on conviction, be punished with death, or such other punishment as the court in their judgement shall think most proportionate to the offence, and best promote the object of the law, and operate as a preventive for like offences in future.
3. Punishment for manslaughter. -- And in case a verdict of manslaughter shall be found by the jury, the punishment shall be by whipping, at the discretion of the court, and branded on the cheek with the letter M.
4. Punishment of slaves for striking white persons. -- If any slave shall presume to strike any white person, such slave upon trial and conviction before the justice or justices, according to the direction of this act, shall for the first offence suffer such punishment as the said justice or justices shall in his or their discretion think fit, not extending to life or limb; and for the second offence, suffer death: but in case any such slave shall grievously wound, maim , or bruise any white person, though it shall be only the first offence, such slave shall suffer death.
5. When the striking a white person justifiable. -- Provided always, that such striking, wounding, maiming, or bruising, be not done by the command, and in defense of the person or property of the owner or other person have the care and government of such slave, in which case the slave shall be wholly excused, and the owner or other person having the care and government of such slave, shall be answerable, as if the act has been committed by himself.
6. Punishment for burning or attempting to burn houses in a town. -- The willful and malicious burning or setting fire to, or attempting to burn a house in a city, town, or village, when committed by a slave or free person of color, shall be punished with death.
7. Punishment for burning or attempting to burn houses in the country. -- The willful and malicious burning a dwelling house on a farm or plantation, or elsewhere, (not in a city, town or village) or the setting fire thereto, in the nighttime, when the said house is actually occupied by a person or persons, with the intent to burn the same, when committed by a slave or free person of color, shall be punished by death.
8. Trials of offenders for arson. -- The trial of offenders against the provisions of this act, shall be had in the same courts, and conducted in the same manner, and under the same rules and regulations as are provided by the several acts now in force in this state for the trial of capital offences, when committed by a slave or free person of color.
9. Punishment of free persons of color for inveigling slaves. -- If any free person of color commits the offence of inveigling or enticing away any slave or slaves, for the purpose of, and with the intention to aid and assist such slave or slaves leaving the service of his or their owner or owners, or in going to another state, such person so offending shall, for each and every such offence, on conviction, be confined in the penitentiary at hard labor for one.(1)
10. Punishment for circulating incendiary documents.
Ouch. Can't allow free speech]
-- If any slave, Negro, mustizoe, or free person of color, or any other person, shall circulate, bring, or cause to be circulated or brought into this state, or aid or assist in any manner, or be instrumental in aiding or assisting in the circulation or bringing into this state, or in any manner concerned in any written or printed pamphlet, paper, or circular, for the purpose of exciting to insurrection, conspiracy, or resistance among the slaves, Negroes, or free persons of color of this state, against their owners or the citizens of this state, the said person or persons offending against this section of this act, shall be punished with death.
SEC.. II. MINOR OFFENCES.
11. Punishment for teaching slaves or free persons of color to read.
[great stuff, huh?]
-- If any slave, Negro, or free person of color, or any white person, shall teach any other slave, Negro, or free person of color, to read or write either written or printed characters, the said free person of color or slave shall be punished by fine and whipping, or fine or whipping, at the discretion of the court.
12. Punishment of free persons of color for trading with slaves. -- If any slave or slaves, or free persons of color shall purchase or buy any of the aforesaid commodities(2) from any slave or slaves, he, she, or they, on conviction thereof, before any justice of the peace, contrary to the true intent and meaning of this act, shall receive on his, her, or their bare back or backs, thirty-nine lashes, to be well laid on by a constable of said county, or other person appointed by the justice of the peace for that purpose: Provided, that nothing herein contained shall prevent any slave or slaves from selling poultry at any time without a ticket, in the counties of Liberty, McIntosh, Camden, Glynn, and Wayne.
13. Punishment of slaves for harboring slaves. -- If any free person or any slave shall harbor, conceal, or entertain any slave that shall run away, or shall be charged or accused of any criminal matter, every free Negro, mulatto, and mustizoe, and every slave that shall harbor, conceal, or entertain any such slave, being duly convicted thereof according to the direction of this act, if a slave, shall suffer such corporeal punishment, not extending to life or limb, as the justice or justices who shall try such slave shall in his or their discretion think fit; and if a free person, shall forfeit the sum of thirty shillings for the first day, and three shillings for every day such slave shall have been absent from his or her owner or employer, to be recovered and applied as in this act hereafter directed.
14. Punishment of free persons of color for harboring slaves. -- All free persons of color within this state, who shall harbor, conceal, or entertain a slave or slaves who shall be charged or accused or any criminal matter, or shall be a runaway, shall, upon conviction (in addition to the penalty already provided for in said section(3)), be subject to the same punishment as slaves are under said section of the above recited act.
15. Constables authorized to search suspected premises for fugitive slaves. -- Any lawful constable having reason to suspect that runaway slaves, or such Negroes who may be charged or accused of any criminal offence, are harbored, concealed, or entertained in the house or houses of such slaves or free persons of color, they or any of them are authorized to enter such houses, and make search for the said runaway or runaways, or accused criminal or criminals. 16. Persons of color not allowed to preach or exhort without written license. -- No person of color, whether free or slave, shall be allowed to preach to, exhort, or join in any religious exercise with any persons of color, either free or slave, there being more that seven persons of color present. They shall first obtain a written certificate from three ordained ministers of the gospel of their own order...
Walt
Unlike you, I am not possessed by by the insane delusion that I know the final absolute truth in matters of history. So, no, I do not know that my explanation is "the truth" nor could I, any more than you could know that it is false. I nevertheless do consider my statement the most likely explanation.
I think that is most likely true, by far.
Their seeing themselves that way was an interpretation, a part of their world view, and as such may have led to misguided actions on their part. But interpretations do not have factual content and thus cannot be characterized as false. A quibble, perhaps, but I feel a need sometimes to state my objection to what I see as an gratuitous and inappropriate use of perjoratives, among which I would include your use of "over rationalistic".
I'd also like to make this clarification. As clear as it should be from my posts and explicit statements to this effect: I am a supporter of a very general right to unilateral right to secession and in particular in the case of the Confederacy in 1861. I am not by any means an apologist for the Confederacy in general or any particular personalities thereof. I hope you can understand this point; some (I won't mention names) seem unable to.
I'd be glad for some data on this. Butler was a trial lawyer. Where did this expertise in shipping come from?
There is not, so far as I know, and 4CJ has not provided any after at least ten days -- there is no evidence that Lincoln asked Butler about transporting blacks at all, let alone with the aid of the US Navy, except this book of Buter's from 1892.
Butler is on the public record in 1865 as favoring black suffrage. It just seems totally at odds with a position to force them to leave.
Walt
You would be wrong.
Okay, then I'd say that the comparison the secessionists made of themselves to the men of 1776 was an inappropriate or terribly incomplete analogy.
I am a supporter of a very general right to unilateral right to secession and in particular in the case of the Confederacy in 1861. I am not by any means an apologist for the Confederacy in general or any particular personalities thereof.
Okay again, but the idea of unilateral secession, which is not found in the Constitution, is a serpent's tooth that caused much trouble in 1861. Pursued as the men of 1861 did, unilateral secession couldn't help but make serious problems and increase the likelihood of war. For the reasons I've given in my previous post, I believe these troubles were inherent in the idea of secession on demand. That doesn't mean that the union was indissoluble, just that the country as a whole would have to have a say in the process of secession or dissolution.
Constitutional processes are shock absorbers that calm passions, encourage compromise, and put energies to constructive use. Theories of unilateral secession and absolute state sovereignty have the opposite effect, encouraging haste, thoughtlessness and hotheadedness.
I don't think that secession falls in the same category as absolute individual rights to free speech or freedom of the press or freedom of religion. I suspect the question is closer to contract or marriage law, where both rights and responsibilities are involved, and opting out one-sidedly counts as desertion or breach of contract.
Simon Cameron represented Lincoln in the offer, citing "reasons of personal friendship [between Lincoln & Butler] which would make it pleasant to have you [Butler] with him [Lincoln]."
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