Posted on 01/18/2015 11:26:40 AM PST by Sean_Anthony
What in the world was the average southerner fighting for then?
” He had to make a choice to either defend the Constitution or the Union. He made the correct decision to defend the Constitution.”
What he actually needed to defend was VIRGINIA. He said so.
Truly a great man.
Well suspending habeus corpus, arresting and jailing sitting congressmen and attempting to arrest and jail the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court seems a bit more worrisome than running the yanks out of your territory after you have announced secession. :-)
I’m trying to remember the Confederate invasion of New York and Boston. LOL!
Wow, a lot of maniacal haters on this thread!
Their conniptions are entertaining, but it is sad that such ignorance can be had.
The blacks have been on their own for a hundred and fifty years.
Mr catfish! Lol. Hell, I actually like catfish anyway.
The confederacy also suspended habeas, jailed opposition figures and never even got around to nominating a supreme court.
Well there was the attempt to burn New York by the self-styled Confederate Army of Manhattan
There wasn't a plan to burn Boston that I know of. But then again there were no sitting congressmen arrested or any plan to arrest Chief Justice Taney either.
” But then again there were no sitting congressmen arrested or any plan to arrest Chief Justice Taney either. “
Lincoln had at least one Congressman arrested and jailed and he put out orders to arrest Taney but thankfully cooler heads refused to carry out Lincolns’ direct orders.
Facts can be worrisome things. :-)
They can be. Who was the Congressman and why do you suppose that none of Taney's biographers ever mentioned any attempt to arrest him?
When you have an invading army that threatens your economy, social mores, and way of life, I'd think 9 out of 10 men would defend their land.
I guess the not~so~bright ones do so when they bring it on themselves.
Lincoln and the “Writ of Liberty”
It is 2:30 a.m., and everyone in the darkened house is asleep. Suddenly, there are loud voices outside the house and a heavy banging at the door.
A man opens an upstairs window and looks down on the scene unfolding in his front yard. Unbelieving, he sees soldiers carrying rifles with fixed bayonets surrounding his house and an army officer at his door, shouting that he is under arrest.
The shocked citizen refuses to admit the soldiers into his home. The officer orders his men to break down the door. After forcing their way into the house, the soldiers rush upstairs and break apart two bedroom doors before finding the man they have come to arrest.
The arrested man is secretly taken aboard a special train and transported to another city where he is locked up in a military barracks. The prisoner never sees a judge and is not even formally charged with a crime. Instead, within 24 hours after his arrest, he is brought before eight army officers who put him on trial for making disloyal speeches against the government.
This incident sounds like it might have happened in Nazi Germany But it occurred in the United States and involved a former Ohio congressman named Clement L. Vallandigham. Even more surprising, the army men who arrested Vallandigham and put him on trial were given the authority to do so by one of Americas greatest presidents: Abraham Lincoln.
There is no documented proof that Lincoln ever ordered the arrest of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The only narrative of the incident is from Ward Lamom in the 1880s. He was a friend and body guard to Lincoln.
Ah, so when you said “sitting congressmen” you meant “former congressman.”
The U.S. Congress man arrested was Henry May, Delegate from Baltimore. A couple of day later, one third of the Maryland legislature was arrested. This was to prevent the possibility of a vote of secession. No one actually ever tried to arrest the Chief Justice. He himself thought that he might be arrested after the Merryman decision. There is no solid proof that the Lincoln administration considered arresting Taney. Sure they would have like to, but the only source for the supposed arrest of Taney is from statements made in the 1880s by a friend and bodyguard to Lincoln.
Now, about that Taney claim?
You are aware that what you are talking about occurred in September 1861? Months after the Civil War had begun? And that would mean that the Maryland legislators that you spoke of, who were a minority to begin with, were advocating joining a war ongoing against the federal government? Given all that then what would expect the government to do?
And I had not heard of Henry May before. Thank you for educating me.
Many men believed they were fighting for their right to remove themselves from the Federal government which they felt had become tyrannical.In order to fully understand the reasoning of the South, you have to step into their shoes. Back then the US was thought of much as we think of the UN, a group of nations (or states) that were united. So if several leading nations in the UN were to tell us to do something that we thought was infringing on our rights, what would we do?
Another plagerization:
The main cause of the Civil War was States Rights. The South was afraid that Abraham Lincoln would emancipate slaves, and they believed that the US President should not be making decisions that affected the entire country and that States should have the right to make those decisions. It wasn't so much the emancipation of slaves that concerned the South, but rather the fact that if Lincoln were to free the slaves, it would be denying the states their rights.
Begs the point. The President of the Confederacy ordered Confederate military forces to fire on a United States military installation. That by the definition of the term in the Constitution of the United States is treason. It is an act of War. No different than if Canadians opened fire on Fort Niagara, or if the Royal Navy shelled Fort Sumter from their warships.
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