Posted on 06/12/2003 5:58:28 AM PDT by Aurelius
Over the years I've heard many rail at the South for seceding from the 'glorious Union.' They claim that Jeff Davis and all Southerners were really nothing but traitors - and some of these people were born and raised in the South and should know better, but don't, thanks to their government school 'education.'
Frank Conner, in his excellent book The South Under Siege 1830-2000 deals in some detail with the question of Davis' alleged 'treason.' In referring to the Northern leaders he noted: "They believed the most logical means of justifying the North's war would be to have the federal government convict Davis of treason against the United States. Such a conviction must presuppose that the Confederate States could not have seceded from the Union; so convicting Davis would validate the war and make it morally legitimate."
Although this was the way the federal government planned to proceed, that prolific South-hater, Thaddeus Stevens, couldn't keep his mouth shut and he let the cat out of the bag. Stevens said: "The Southerners should be treated as a conquered alien enemy...This can be done without violence to the established principles only on the theory that the Southern states were severed from the Union and were an independent government de facto and an alien enemy to be dealt with according to the laws of war...No reform can be effected in the Southern States if they have never left the Union..." And, although he did not plainly say it, what Stevens really desired was that the Christian culture of the Old South be 'reformed' into something more compatible with his beliefs. No matter how you look at it, the feds tried to have it both ways - they claimed the South was in rebellion and had never been out of the Union, but then it had to do certain things to 'get back' into the Union it had never been out of. Strange, is it not, that the 'history' books never seem to pick up on this?
At any rate, the Northern government prepared to try President Davis for treason while it had him in prison. Mr. Conner has observed that: "The War Department presented its evidence for a treason trial against Davis to a famed jurist, Francis Lieber, for his analysis. Lieber pronounced 'Davis will not be found guilty and we shall stand there completely beaten'." According to Mr. Conner, U.S. Attorney General James Speed appointed a renowned attorney, John J. Clifford, as his chief prosecutor. Clifford, after studying the government's evidence against Davis, withdrew from the case. He said he had 'grave doubts' about it. Not to be undone, Speed then appointed Richard Henry Dana, a prominent maritime lawyer, to the case. Mr. Dana also withdrew. He said basically, that as long as the North had won a military victory over the South, they should just be satisfied with that. In other words - "you won the war, boys, so don't push your luck beyond that."
Mr. Conner tells us that: "In 1866 President Johnson appointed a new U.S. attorney general, Henry Stanburg. But Stanburg wouldn't touch the case either. Thus had spoken the North's best and brightest jurists re the legitimacy of the War of Northern Aggression - even though the Jefferson Davis case offered blinding fame to the prosecutor who could prove that the South had seceded unconstitutionally." None of these bright lights from the North would touch this case with a ten-foot pole. It's not that they were dumb, in fact the reverse is true. These men knew a dead horse when they saw it and were not about to climb aboard and attempt to ride it across the treacherous stream of illegal secession. They knew better. In fact, a Northerner from New York, Charles O'Connor, became the legal counsel for Jeff Davis - without charge. That, plus the celebrity jurists from the North that refused to touch the case, told the federal government that they really had no case against Davis or secession and that Davis was merely being held as a political prisoner.
Author Richard Street, writing in The Civil War back in the 1950s said exactly the same thing. Referring to Jeff Davis, Street wrote: "He was imprisoned after the war, was never brought to trial. The North didn't dare give him a trial, knowing that a trial would establish that secession was not unconstitutional, that there had been no 'rebellion' and that the South had got a raw deal." At one point the government intimated that it would be willing to offer Davis a pardon, should he ask for one. Davis refused that and he demanded that the government either give him a pardon or give him a trial, or admit that they had dealt unjustly with him. Mr. Street said: "He died 'unpardoned' by a government that was leery of giving him a public hearing." If Davis was as guilty as they claimed, why no trial???
Had the federal government had any possible chance to convict Davis and therefore declare secession unconstitutional they would have done so in a New York minute. The fact that they diddled around and finally released him without benefit of the trial he wanted proves that the North had no real case against secession. Over 600,000 boys, both North and South, were killed or maimed so the North could fight a war of conquest over something that the South did that was neither illegal or wrong. Yet they claim the moral high ground because the 'freed' the slaves, a farce at best.
Georgia was. Or are you suggesting that the area around Andersonville was marked by famine and starvation?
James Madison Page, in his True History of Andersonville Prison page 106, says:"Many of the prisoners, being but human, raised their clenched trembling hands towards heaven and with fearful oaths cursed the authorities at Washington, and the day they were born. Oh, what hatred was engendered for our Secretary of War.
ibid, p. 20
Mr. Dana said: "This proves that it was not the Confederate authorities who insisted upon keeping our prisoners in distress, want, and disease, but the commander-in-chief of our armies." (ibid, p. 23)
They may have fired the first shot, but they were manipulated into it. Much like the Japanese in WWII.
George H.W. Bush???
Walt
When have I --ever-- defended Bill Clinton on FR?
You -could- bump your more outrageous insults to me.
Walt
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
Bingo.
Walt
chattal slavery caused the WBTS in precisely the same way that fish cause floods.
there was just ONE main cause for the war: FREEDOM for dixie & her people.
until the rise of the south-hating,marxist-leninist,statist REVISIONISTS in the 1960s, NOBODY in academia would have even suggested that the war was to "free the slaves";they would have been laughed out of the ivy-covered halls, even in damnyankeeland.
suggesting that the WBTS was about freeing the slaves is analogous to standing up in a public forum and yelling that the American Revolution was about not paying a tax on tea.
in 1860, per a lecture in 2001 by Dr. Walter Williams,professor of economics at George mason University,there were in the WHOLE country about 10,000 people total who cared a damn about the plight of the slaves (NOBODY, of course, asked the slaves); very few would have fought one skirmish over the dying institution and almost NOBODY would have fought a war, which caused the death of a MILLION people (about 1/2 of them civilians, btw.) over the demise of the "peculiar institution".
face it, burr5, you've been LIED TO and are a victim of a "pubic screwl edumakation", nothing more, nothing less.
try saying over and over to yourself: "i've been lied to and made a fool of", "i've been lied to and made a fool of", "i've been lied to and made a fool of" until the TRUTH sinks in. you'll eventually get it!
free dixie,sw
As opposed to the Yankee prison commandants that blocked such shipments from getting to the Confederate prisoners? I imagine if the North agreed to Ould's offer that food, clothing and medicine shipments could have been coordinated and security arranged.
In a repeat of his offer, Ould suggested that the Federal surgeons bring the medicine with them so that it was sure to reach the Federal prisoners. He offered to buy medicines for the Federal prisoners at two or three times their price in gold, cotton, or tobacco. The humane North never took him up on this offer.
free dixie,sw
even the National Park Service, no friend of dixie liberty, agrees with me on that.
by 1865 there was nothing to feed/clothe/house our own troops, much less anything to feed/house/clothe POWs, who President Davis had offered to FREE un-conditionally in 1864.
sadly, for you and the other damnyankee apologists, the ORIGIONAL records of the offer to free ALL the US POWs still exists and is on public display at Camp Sumpter, Andersonville, GA. the letter from Stanton, REFUSING to accept the US POWs also still exists;the origional letter is at the US Archives.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
I see. Then there was no need for the cattle drives from Florida to supply meat to Georgia and the troops. Shame the Confederates didn't know. Florida Cow Cavalry
recently he denied that the Black confederate Soldiers Memorial Foundation EXISTS. BUT he had POSTED comments on the FR thread about the org.!!!!!
i LOL!
free dixie,sw
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