Posted on 01/11/2014 11:16:07 AM PST by Davy Buck
However if one truly wants to make such a big deal out of what we call the armed conflict which occurred in America from 1861 to 1865 , and if its historical accuracy and honesty that one truly seeks, then I think Douglas Southall Freeman is, perhaps, the truest to historical accuracy in coining the proper term . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at oldvirginiablog.blogspot.com ...
So that brings us back to the South making bad decisions. They ascribed the motivation of the abolitionists to the vast majority of Northerners, thus they presumed that an attack was coming. They started raising an army and fortifying their borders. They failed to nurture the more general feelings that existed through most of the North.
Now that, that is a starling aperçu.
I hate it when facts upset my pet theories.
Thanks, I guess.
To be clear, when I refer to “...the more general feelings that existed through most of the North.” I am not implying a pro-slavery stance, but rather an aversion to war as a means to settle the issue of slavery.
“So that brings us back to the South making bad decisions. They ascribed the motivation of the abolitionists to the vast majority of Northerners, thus they presumed that an attack was coming. They started raising an army and fortifying their borders. They failed to nurture the more general feelings that existed through most of the North”
Unfortunately “the more general feelings throughout most of the North” were mostly what the South suspected them to be. For several decades Abolitionists had been running an effective hate campaign against the people of the South that Goebbels would have applauded.
Historian Thomas Fleming has new book on this very subject:
http://thomasflemingwriter.com/publicmind.html :
By the time John Brown hung from the gallows for his crimes at Harper’s Ferry, Northern abolitionists had made him a “holy martyr” in their campaign against Southern slave owners.
This Northern hatred for Southerners long predated their objections to slavery. They were convinced that New England, whose spokesmen had begun the American Revolution, should have been the leader of the new nation. Instead, they had been displaced by Southern “slavocrats” like Thomas Jefferson.
This malevolent envy exacerbated the South’s greatest fear: a race war. Jefferson’s cry, “We are truly to be pitied,” summed up their dread. For decades, extremists in both regions flung insults and threats, creating intractable enmities.
By 1861, only a civil war that would kill a million men could save the Union.
Praise for A Disease in the Public Mind
Lincoln would have liked this brilliant book. It lights a path through history to his great goal: an America united by understanding and forgiveness.”
—Charles Bracelen Flood, author of 1864: Lincoln at the Gates of History
“In A Disease in the Public Mind, Thomas Fleming sets one to thinking, as all good books should do. A master story-teller and a wise and eloquent wordsmith, he has produced a disturbing chronicle of the national malady that led to fatal division. I’ve long believed that the Civil War was an unavoidable, even necessary, conflict. Fleming has forced me to wonder.”
—Robert Cowley, historian and founding editor of the award-winning MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History
“At last! A book that explains, in clear, fast-paced prose, why, how and how early the cancer of slavery metastasized, resisting all attempts at eradication until it poisoned the minds of Americans, North and South, causing the needless deaths of nearly one million men in the nation’s deadliest war.”
—Willard Sterne Randall, Founding Fathers biographer and presidential historian
“The prolific Fleming, for decades a fixture among American historians, pinpoints public opinion as the proximate origin of the war…Making a plausible presentation of antebellum attitudes and illusions, Fleming is sure to spark lively discussion about the Civil War.”
—Booklist
An Excerpt from A Disease in the Public Mind by Thomas Fleming
On April 18, 1861, Colonel Robeft E. Lee rode across the “long bridge” that linked Virginia to Washington and tied his horse in front of Montgomery Blair’s house on Pennsylvania Avenue, opposite the building containing the State War and Navy Departments. It was an appropriate setting for one of the most crucial conversations in American history.
Waiting for him was balding seventy year old Francis Preston Blair. There is no record of the exact words, but we know that Blair, after the usual courtesies, grew solemn and told Lee that he had been authorized by President Lincoln to offer him command of the Northern Army that would assemble when the 75,000 volunteers reached Washington.
Here was a moment when history’s direction hung on the loyalties and beliefs and emotions of a single man. If Robert E. Lee had accepted this offer, there is at least a possibility that Virginia would have refused to secede. Even if she seceded, Lee’s prestige as a soldier, his links through his father and his wife to George Washington, would have had an enormous impact on the legitimacy of the South’s resistance. Northern newspapers would have trumpeted the significance of his decision. Deep divisive doubts would have been implanted in the souls of thousands of wavering southern Unionists, especially in Virginia. The duration of the war, its very nature, would have changed.
As Colonel Lee sat there, trying to absorb this astounding offer, what did he think and feel? What did he remember? From what we have seen of his life in this book, almost certainly the first memory was John Brown. That madman’s rant about sin of slavery and the blood that was required to wash it away, the pikes he had been prepared to put into the hands of enraged slaves, pikes that might have been thrust into the bodies of Lee’s daughters and wife, the letters in Brown’s carpetbag linking him to wealthy northern backers. Could he invade Virginia or any southern state at the head of an army composed of men who believed John Brown was as divine as Jesus Christ?
You’re thinking of the wrong Johnston, KB- the Fabian tactic Johnston was Joseph E Johnston.
In contrast Albert Sydney Johnston was regarded by Jeff Davis as his finest general. In fact Davis said that Johnston’s death at Shiloh was the turning point of the war.
Albert Johnston had a career as a Texas Republic general, a US Army general, and a Confederate general. He was the first commander of the famed US Second Cavalry that fought the Comanche. One of his field officers was Robert E Lee, who followed Johnston as commander of that unit. Albert Johnston was much like Lee and had he survived to command the western armies the Union armies in the west would have had a much harder fight.
Got that.
The greatest argument that I have the average northerner wasn't fervent on a war to eradicate slavery, was the lack of its mention in actually recruiting soldiers and securing funds.
I think the impression in the South was certainly that it existed, but evidence supports that Lincoln did not believe that it would be a persuasive argument. Of course, once war began all factions and motives were welcomed on the ground, if not reflected in rhetoric.
OK, lets study the timeline.
Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania: - June/July 1863.
Lee's invasion of Maryland: September, 1862
Bragg's invasion of Kentucky: August, 1862
Polk invades Kentucky : September, 1861
Battle of Belmont Missouri: November, 1861
Battle of Boonville, Missouri: June, 1861
Battle of Cape Girardeau, Missouri: April, 1863
Battle of Carthage, Missouri: July, 1861
Battle of Glorieta Pass, New Mexico: March, 1862
Battle of Valverde, New Mexico: February, 1862
Second American Revolution.
No, the "South" did not send a delegation. An illegitimate entity called the Confederate States of America sent a delegation. Lincoln, rightly, did not recognize that entity and refused to recognize them as legitimate.
I’ll give you the Maryland intrusion in Sept. 1862, although there was no goal of holding territory, but rather maneuvering against the Army of the Potomac (same with Gettysburg).
The PA invasion you list was the Gettysburg affair.
Kentucky and Missouri had strong factions fighting on both sides. We only think of them as Union states because the Union won.
Both Confederate and Union governments claimed ownership and territorial rights over New Mexico Territory, which isn’t surprising when you look at the demographics of who was settling there. Not a matter of the CSA claiming territory that was clearly Union, but rather a fight between confederates and unionists that lived there for control of their destiny.
yeah,yeah....sure, whatever you say....have a nice day sir.
So the "single standard" is whatever the Confederacy wanted? They wanted all the slave states and were entitled to them, but because they didn't set up puppet regimes for free states, the rest of the country should have been grateful and just given them whatever they wanted?
The fundamental point was that the secession of West Virginia was exactly the same issue of self-determination as the secession of the CSA. On the issue of self-determination alone, you cannot logically reject one and accept the other, nor accept one and reject the other. There must be other elements brought into the discussion to make a differentiation.
West Virginia became a state following the constitutional procedure for admitting new states. You can argue that what happened was illegitimate, because the people who were shooting at us weren't given a veto over it, but the process is written in black and white in the constitution. It wasn't a matter of some abstract right to self-determination to be exercised in spite of the provisions of the constitution. "Self-determination" doesn't automatically trump the rule of law or the Constitution.
Why did Lincoln and his supporters consider it worth war to make half the country, who overwhelmingly wished to split bonds, submit to federal control?
If it really was a matter of half the country wanting to leave, Lincoln wouldn't have won the war or even been elected. By voters or population it was considerably less than half. That ought to have inspired caution in the secessionist leaders, rather than recklessness.
If you have to kill and crush a state to make it submit to your union, it is obviously a one-sided benefit. Much the same as the difference between the union of marriage and rape.
Bringing up rape in this context is like bringing up Hitler. It calls into question just how good your arguments really are (as well as your sense of good taste).
But what the Unionists were concerned about was what they regarded as the rule of law and constitutional procedure. To that we can add the sense of nationhood and anger at the insult to the flag.
Given the ambiguities involved, the may have been wrong about what the rule of law required, but their case wasn't any worse than that of the secessionists. The other, more emotional matters don't have as much appeal today (at least until such emotions flare up again), but they were taken very seriously by the 19th century.
To say that the unionists didn't have a case apart from slavery is to stack the deck by simply ignoring such arguments as they did have and make.
Of course, the North could have proffered to have a national solution to slavery, say a 10-20 year plan to purchase, apprentice, and free slaves. That was a popular notion, and the cost certainly would have been less than the war. It was a common notion because it is exactly what the British had done. The South might have rejected it, but it would have been worth exploring.
It was not a popular notion. Not in the slave states, where the matter couldn't even be discussed, and probably not in the country as a whole. There was the matter of cost and the matter of what would happen to the freedmen, what rights and opportunities would be given to the former slaves.
But beyond all that, compensated emancipation -- the prospect of an end to slavery -- wasn't a measure that would appease the secessionists, but rather one that would inflame them. Talk about an end to slavery in anything other than the remote fullness of time was bound to be perceived as a threat to plantation interests and would incense many slave-owners.
Others, convinced the boom in cotton prices would continue would simply dismiss such a proposal. Such a proposal would also likely cost the government support in the Border States and the southern Midwest.
So why not negotiate? Likely because Lincoln and his supporters saw a need to strike while the iron was hot, the country was agitated, and not risk losing a chance to end slavery, whatever the means. But that's not what he sold to the Northern people who would do the dying.
I'd say it was Davis who was "striking while the iron was hot" -- creating a crisis to whip up support for secession. As for Lincoln, any US president wants to save face. No president wants to be seen as the one who let the country fall to pieces on his watch. So most presidents would not simply collapse before separatist demands. The same goes for most leaders of most countries around the world -- very much including democratically elected leaders.
So if you are leading a separationist movement and want to be successful, you recognize that. You try to avoid pushing your would-be former government's back to the wall. You recognize that what's at stake isn't just your own wants and wishes.
But I suspect that secessionist leaders then and their defenders now are more into emotionalism than in actually achieving their goals through prudent and responsible action.
You’ve struck on the key.
Your SimpleMinded opponent desperately wants to promote the meme that it was northern interests that caused the War of Southern Aggression. In order to do so one must ignore who for decades leading up to the war constantly agitated against union solidarity (the south), who seized on the event of a presidential election to commit their insurrection (the south), who instigated hostile actions against their neighbors all across the nation (the south), and who illegally stole federal forts, ships, arsenals, armories, mints, etc., fired on Federal ships, and threatened Federal officials even before Lincoln called for militias to restore order (the south).
And yet with all this belligerence they still castigate Lincoln for failing to “show restraint”. I’m inclined to chalk it up to invincible ignorance.
Hardly a ringing endorsement. Davis thought that Braxton Bragg was an fine general, too.
Albert Johnston was much like Lee and had he survived to command the western armies the Union armies in the west would have had a much harder fight.
We will never know for sure. Certainly Albert Johnston had all the potential to be a fine general; but then again so did the other Johnston. But since he was killed in his first major action then his true value as an army commander will never be known.
The slave states weren't taken by the CSA, they were sovereign and left of their own accord. The struggles (and dual governments) in states such as Missouri were the result of relatively balanced forces struggling for control within those states. Union puppet states set up of non-border states that were vastly in favor of secession were morally reprehensible assaults on the Constitution.
West Virginia became a state following the constitutional procedure for admitting new states. You can argue that what happened was illegitimate,
But you can't argue with a shred of intellectual honesty that it was legitimate. The Soviets always "followed the law" too. What was done made a mockery of the Constitution pure and simple. That they made stage craft using the Constitution as a prop didn't make it more legitimate, it just made it more reprehensible.
If it really was a matter of half the country wanting to leave, Lincoln wouldn't have won the war or even been elected. By voters or population it was considerably less than half. That ought to have inspired caution in the secessionist leaders, rather than recklessness.
First, take a look at the map. Second, had the South had the industrial base, they would have won. Third, you are now adding mob rule to your dictatorial central government admiration. And you post on FR why?
Bringing up rape in this context is like bringing up Hitler. It calls into question just how good your arguments really are (as well as your sense of good taste).
Oh yea, because a 4 year war, killing hundreds of thousands and decimating entire regions shouldn't be compared to something as serious as rape. Next I'll be sensationalizing the holocaust by comparing it to a mass shooting.
I was correct the first time about the character of someone who hangs their hat on the legitimacy of a puppet government.
More invincible ignorance on display. I bet she thinks she’s a conservative too.
Albert Johnston had proven his command ability in his previous roles with the Texas Republic and the US Army.
You may know that Virginia's convention rejected secession by a large margin before the beginning of the war. It was only after Sumter and Lincoln's call for troops that the secession measure went through. According to the secessionist version any number of votes for union wouldn't count, but one vote for secession would be decisive.
In the convention and in the later referendum, counties that became part of West Virginia later rejected secession. If you're looking for an expression of the right to self-determination, that could be a good example. And after two years of war, who's to say how Virginians would have voted?
Two more points: 1) Just what was and what wasn't a "Border State" was largely a function of the war. Virginia and Tennessee were divided over the question of secession. Every Southern state provided troops to the Union Army, and except for South Carolina some of those troops were actually White and free before the war. 2) The question of "self-determination" is a little tricky here. If a county was 50% or 60% or 70% enslaved or a state was 30% or 40% or 50% enslaved, just what "self-determination" meant could get quite complicated.
In any event, West Virginia statehood is reversible. If it was such a crime and horror, West Virginians and Virginians certainly have the possibility of undoing it. Congress probably wouldn't stand in the way.
What was done made a mockery of the Constitution pure and simple.
The Constitution that the Confederates rejected and thought themselves to be outside of? You may be one of those people who assumes that a state government could simply say, "Now all of a sudden I am outside of the Union and the Constitution doesn't apply to me," but isn't it inconsistent to say that in some sense it still does apply when it is to your advantage? You may question the justice of what was done, but it certainly was constitutionally valid given the circumstances.
First, take a look at the map.
Square acres don't vote. People do. But my point was more that post-election malcontents should act with caution, not trumpet about that they are half the country and entitled to form another country.
Second, had the South had the industrial base, they would have won.
If those states had the industrial base they probably wouldn't have seceded. Go back to Wigfall's speech. He didn't want an industrial base. It would have been too hard to control.
I was correct the first time about the character of someone who hangs their hat on the legitimacy of a puppet government.
Because I disagree with you? It sounds more like your own character is questionable.
I think it is dangerous (conceptually) not to make a distinction between the rights of individuals and the powers of a state. The rights of a person and the powers of a state are very different ideas. I try not confuse the two.
You question referring to “states” as “ruling regimes.” I honestly do not know what to call them if not that. In the sense that the Founding generation used the term “government,” that is in the sense of “government by the consent of the governed,” I know of no ruling regime that can properly be called a “government.” Of course, in a political context a Chuck Schumer would agree with the sentiment that government be conducted “by the consent of the governed.” But his comportment, his manner of speaking, his very bearing cries out that he thinks of himself as a ruler, not a “governor.” The same can be said of The Kenyon Pretender, and of nearly every other politician. Perhaps you would care to hazard to name a few public figures who do not think of themselves as “rulers,” just as you might wish to name a few governments that are conducted genuinely by the “consent of the government.” I leave that task to you. I cannot.
Likewise, if there are some who would essay to make no marked distinction between the “rights” of individuals and the “powers” of a state (or ruling regime), then please proceed in good health by all means. Vaya con Dios, or, in Hebrew, לכי עם אלוהים.
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