REMEMBERING MR. LINCOLN

Today is the anniversary of the birth of America’s great or greatest president, Abraham Lincoln. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom at the exact moment when the country was on the threshold of abandoning what he called its “ancient faith” that all men are created equal.

In 1858 Lincoln attained national prominence in the Republican Party as the result of the contest for the Senate seat held by Stephen Douglas. It was Lincoln’s losing campaign against Douglas that made him a figure of sufficient prominence that he could be the party’s 1860 presidential nominee.

At the convention of the Illinois Republican Party in June, Lincoln was the unanimous choice to run against Douglas. After declaring him their candidate late on the afternoon of June 16, the entire convention returned that evening to hear Lincoln speak. Accepting the convention’s nomination, Lincoln gave one of the most incendiary speeches in American history.

Lincoln electrified the convention, asserting that the institution of slavery had made the United States “a house divided against itself.” Slavery would either be extirpated or become lawful nationwide, Lincoln predicted, provocatively quoting scriptural authority to the effect that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” Demonstrating how it “changed the course of history,” Harry Jaffa calls it “[t]he speech that changed the world.”

DiogenesLamp: "Are you forgetting that the Union government tried to sneak in troops and munitions with the Star of the West?"

Unarmed civilian transport SS Star of the West
January 9, 1861, off Morris Island, SC:

Star of the West was an unarmed civilian transport, sent by Doughfaced Democrat Pres. Buchanan to reinforce Ft. Sumter.
And this is an issue in your mind because of what?

DiogenesLamp: "Firstly, the ship's orders (obviously made their way into the hands of the confederates) said that they would use force."

First of all, there's no need to invent Confederates spying on Union orders -- for which there is no evidence -- when Lincoln himself directly advised SC Gov. Pickens of his plans, and Pickens had no need to see actual orders to Fox or Mercer to know that he, Pickens, intended to force Fort Sumter's surrender, period.

Second, Lincoln's orders were, in effect, "no first use of force", so the choice to start Civil War was up to Jefferson Davis.
And Davis already made his choices long before any of Lincoln's "war fleet" left New York.

DiogenesLamp: "Secondly, the government had already tried to sneak more forces into the fort, and had been caught been deceptive."

Just as the US today sends supplies and reinforcements as needed into Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, regardless of whatever the Cu-Coms may or may not feel about it.
It's irrelevant.

DiogenesLamp: "Thirdly, when they launched their invasion of Fort Pickens, they had said they weren't going to do that, and yet they did.
When they were caught (as woodpusher pointed out in the messages he posted above) they said, to paraphrase Harry Reid, "Well it worked, didn't it?""

All of that is 100% irrelevant, since Jefferson Davis had already ordered CSA Gen. Bragg to capture Fort Pickens on April 3, long before any Union "invasion" even started, and for reasons which had nothing whatever to do with your nonsense explanations.

And you perfectly well know all of this, but utterly refuse to admit the truth of it.

So, yet again, here are Jefferson Davis' own words:

"There would be to us an advantage in so placing them

that an attack by them

would be a necessity, but when we are ready to relieve our territory and jurisdiction of the presence of a foreign garrison

that advantage is overbalanced by other considerations.

"The case of Pensacola, [Ft. Pickens], then is reduced [to] the more palpable elements of a military problem and your measures may without disturbing views be directed to the capture of Fort Pickens and the defence of the harbor.
You will soon have I hope a force sufficient to occupy all the points necessary for that end.
As many additional troops as may be required can be promptly furnished."
[Jefferson Davis to Braxton Bragg, 3 Apr 1861]""

In point of fact, Davis had made his choice to start Civil War as early as January 20, 1861, when he wrote to his friend, Copperhead Democrat former Pres. Pierce:

"When Lincoln comes in he will have but to continue in the path of his predecessor to inaugurate a civil war"

The following words are not my own, but they do well express my opinions about the clear facts of this matter:

"I think if we look at the total situation, the viewpoint that Davis ordered the firing on Fort Sumter to bring the upper south and the border states into the confederacy fits the entire situation, whereas the viewpoint that Davis was merely passively reacting to bold, brilliant strategic moves made by Lincoln until he finally had to attack because there was no alternative is a misrepresentation of Davis and does him a great disservice."

To my knowledge, Davis never regretted starting the Civil War and never blamed anybody else for it.

FLT-bird: "Nobody has ever denied that civil liberties were infringed upon in the CSA.
They clearly were.
It was not however on nearly as large of a scale as happened in the Union under Lincoln.
So no, he didn't "prove his case" by citing some instances of civil liberties being infringed upon in the Southern states since nobody ever argued that this did not happen.
The question was how much in each comparatively."

So, just to be clear, this whole discussion is over your word "tyrant" -- you claim Lincoln was a "tyrant" and I'm saying if you can define Lincoln as "tyrant" then Davis was also a "tyrant".
So, you claim Lincoln was more of a "tyrant" than Davis and I'm saying the facts don't really support your claims.

So, what are the facts?
Well, you've cited one book and I've cited two books, none of which we've read, but all of which will provide us with data and examples of who and how much people were oppressed by the "tyrants" Lincoln and Davis, during the US Civil War.
Will they let us say for certain who, exactly was oppressed more?

Yes, clearly, those most oppressed on both sides were people living on the borders -- geographically or politically.
For the Union, those would be people in Border States like Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri.
For the Confederacy, it would be Unionist regions like Eastern Tennessee, Western North Carolina, Northern Alabama and Northern Arkansas.

So, how many oppressed whites were there?
Well... if we look at pro-Confederates in Border Union States like Maryland, Kentucky & Missouri, then rough estimate we can say maybe one million oppressed pro-Confederates in Union states, out of a total Union white population of around 22 million.

What about oppressed Unionists in Confederate regions like Eastern Tennessee, Western North Carolina, etc.?
My estimate is there were about a million of those too -- oppressed white Unionists living in the Confederacy, out of a total white Confederate population around 5.5 million.
Now, maybe I'm exaggerating, maybe there were only half as many oppressed whites in the Confederacy, say only half a million, not a full million.
That still makes the overall percentage of oppressed whites around 10% in the Confederacy compared to just 4% in Union states.

FLT-bird: "But there wasn't nearly as much under Jefferson Davis as there was under Abe Lincoln.
So no, I'm not going to "confess" to something that isn't true."

So, for sake of argument, I'm willing to concede there were only half as many oppressed Unionist whites in the Confederacy as oppressed pro-Confederates in the Union.
That still makes the overall percentage of oppressed whites more than double in the Confederacy than in the Union.
Do the math.

FLT-bird: Arrest, Arbitrary, During The Civil War

I noticed that your own source does list historian Mark Neely's book as an authority.
It doesn't say whether the estimated 38,000 Union arrests came from Neely.
I also noticed your source claimed the Union required internal passports for travel, but that was not true.
Only Confederate authorities required passports for internal travel of citizens, the same as for slaves.

FLT-bird: Lincoln’s Suspension of Habeas Corpus

Your own link here portrays Democrat Crazy-Roger Taney as waging law-fare (warfare by law) on Lincoln the same way despicable Democrats today wage law-fare on Pres. Trump.

Democrats have always been politically mentally ill.

FLT-bird: "How does one prove a negative?
You have not provided any document which shows that the CSA declared war.
The reason you have not is because they did not."

And yet the Confederate document itself says it's a declaration of war.

FLT-bird: "They recognized the existence of conflict.
Note they did not declare war."

Your repeated denials notwithstanding, that is a declaration of war for every practical and legal purpose.
That document did for the Confederacy everything a declaration of war is intended to do, only somehow allowing Lost Cause Democrats to claim for centuries afterwards that it wasn't really.

But it was a declaration of war, for all legal and practical purposes.

FLT-bird: "Did you notice the part where FDR asked for a formal declaration of war from the Congress?
The Confederate Congress never issued a declaration of war."

There is nothing in FDR's request for a declaration that the Confederate declaration of May 6, 1861 did not accomplish.
Both acknowledged that war existed and accomplished the same purposes of a declaration of war.

FLT-bird: "but the constitution does not say the United States.
The Constitution says "against them"....ie the states - who were the parties to the constitution after all."

Now I see what your real problem is -- since you never actually read the Constitution, you have no real idea what it says.
Here it is, yet again:

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

Are we clear on this now?

FLT-bird: "No they didn't.
They were merely defending themselves from attack.
They never sought to rule over the Northern states, to seize any of their territory, etc.
They were not fighting a war of aggression.
It was Lincoln and the Union which were doing that."

Notice 13 stars:

You and everyone else well know that's not true.
The truth is that Confederates not only invaded Union states like Kentucky and Missouri, plus Union territories like Oklahoma and New Mexico, Confederates also declared those Union states & territories to be Confederate!
For crying out loud -- Missouri and Kentucky were the 12th & 13th stars on Confederate flags!

So, it's simply a Democrat lie to claim the Confederacy did not threaten the Republican Union.
And of course, lying is what Democrats do, it's how Democrats make their livings, and Confederates were overwhelmingly Democrats.

FLT-bird: "Only willful blindness or dishonesty prevents you from admitting that federal warships invaded South Carolina's territory."

On way we know that's not true is because you refuse to cite a specific example of a Union warship that "invaded South Carolina's territory".

FLT-bird: "It was Lincoln who insisted upon war."

Obviously, it was Davis' choice to fire the first shots, and by his own confession, he did so for reasons which had nothing to do with Lincoln's actions.

FLT-bird: "Guess what. anti Black opinions were the absolute norm for most White people in the mid 19th century - North....South....European....wherever.
It was a time we in our modern world would consider to be both very racist as well as very sexist.
Taney's opinions were not unusual for the time.
Lincoln himself was a flaming racist."

Taney's insane anti-black opinions were noted as such at the time, even by "moderate" anti-salvery men like Abraham Lincoln.
Lincoln fully understood what Crazy-Roger's words meant:

"We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State."

FLT-bird: "It has been confirmed by multiple people.
Its just inconvenient for your politics."

And yet you've cited no others with primary knowledge of the alleged warrant.

FLT-bird: "I'll repeat, Lincoln shut down over 100 opposition newspapers and censored all telegraph traffic."

Sorry, but those are flat-out lies since even your own sources don't confirm them.

Lincoln's House Divided Speech, June 16, 1858, Springfield, Illinois.

Thank you for posting the various messages relating to the campaign in Charleston and the campaign in Pensacola. I see a few that I wasn't familiar with. I find the missing letter #58 from Anderson to be intriguing. It's probably something they didn't want anyone to see.

The important content of #58 would be his intelligence assessment of the force required to take Fort Sumter.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b201037&seq=629

Gideon Welles, Fort Sumter, Galaxy vol. 10, pg 613 (#629)

At page 617 (#633):

Commodore Stringham, whom I had selected as an assistant in matters of detail in the Navy Department, had two or three conferences with General Scott and Commodore Ward in my presence, and it was not difficult to perceive that the General had no confidence whatever in any successful effort to reinforce Sumter either by land or water. In successive Cabinet meetings this subject was fully discussed—Generals Scott and Totten and Commodore Stringham being sometimes present. At one of these conferences General Totten read by direction of General Scott an elaborate argument or report which had been prepared by these two officers in obedience to orders from the President. In this carefully prepared paper they stated the impracticability of relieving the garrison should the insurgents resist by force, and that ultimately Sumter must inevitably fall. Some discussion took place between them and Commodore Stringham, while he did not decisively contradict, did not fully assent to their views. Memoranda were submitted from Major Anderson, in which all of the officers under the command united, expressing his professional opinion that Fort Sumter could not be relieved and reinforced with less than twenty thousand good and well-disciplined men. These views were fully endorsed by the military gentlemen who were consulted, and had great influence on the President and the Cabinet.

See also Gideon Welles, Facts in Relation to the Reinforcement of Fort Pickens in the Spring of 1861, Galaxy (January 1871) pp. 92-107, at 105-106.

There is no denying the fact that an important vessel was at a critical period surreptitiously withdrawn from her destination and deprived of her legitimate commander by an order extracted from the President. That the President was deceived in this matter by some one, unintentionally or otherwise, there is no doubt; for as soon as he was made acquainted with the true state of the case he countermanded the order which had been extracted from him, and directed the restoration of the vessel to Mercer. Now who extracted the order, who deceived the President, and what was the object, are matters in issue on which the Quartermaster General volunteers an opinion, pronounces a judgment, and makes accusations. I merely give the facts and, so far as I know them, the actors.
The Powhatan, instead of going to Charleston and then returning North, as was ordered, where in the then feeble condition of the navy, she could have rendered valuable service, especially at Norfolk, was diverted to a quarter where she was not needed. Without the knowledge of the Secretary of the Navy and against the final express order of the President, she was sent on a useless mission, ostensibly to perform a service that she did not and could not execute. In this there was error, irregularity—perhaps worse—on the part of the some one or more. I for years, in the then condition of affairs, bore the blame and responsibility of these errors and failures, for which others, whose secret operations defeated my measures, were justly accountable. A faithful exposition, now that the condition of the country is changed, is excepted to by one of the principal actors.
In neither of the publications does General Meigs attempt any explanation of the unwarrantable and inexcusable attempt to thrust Captain Barron, a well-known secessionist, into the Navy Department, and into intimate and confidential relations with the head of that Department without consulting him. General Meigs declares that "the overt act of interference with the navy most complained of" is the matter of the Powhatan. This is a serious mistake. Highly improper as was that interference, it is vastly less exceptionable and reprehensible than the executive order to create a new naval bureau and make Barron chief, which was at the same time and by the same parties extracted from the President. Was Captain Meigs, in whose handwriting this mysterious order first appeared detailing Barron for Department duty, the author of this intrigue? Was Lt. D.D. Porter, who wrote the remarkable postscript to that remarkable order directing the Secretary of the Navy to establish a new bureau and do other illegal acts, guilty of that impropriety, disrespect, and interference with his superior? Or was there someone else who attempted to interfere with the organization of the Navy Department, and to place a rebel captain in a position for "detailing all officers for duty," whereby the most important commands could be given to rebels; "supervising charges made against officers," which would enable rebel officers to escape conviction and punishment? This interference with the organization and administration of the Navy Department was attempted by some one.

I could suggest you add one more to the list. I recall seeing a telegraph message in March from Washington DC to the Southern authorities warning them that ships were being prepared to attack them. If I recall, it was signed "a friend."

"A Friend" was James E. Harvey. South Carolinian by birth, Minister to Portugal under Lincoln.

The Life of William H. Seward, Vol. 2, by Frederic Bancroft, 1900, pg. 145

It is not so easy to deal with what is known as the Harvey incident. When the government seized the telegraph offices it was found that, on April 6, James E. Harvey had telegraphed to Charleston: "Positively determined not to withdraw Anderson. Supplies go immediately, supported by a naval force under Stringham if their landing be resisted.—A Friend."¹ Harvey was a South Carolinian by birth, and had lately been a Washington correspondent for several northern newspapers. A little later he became Minister to Portugal. Upon the discovery of his dispatch, The New York Tribune, the Times, and many other newspapers demanded his immediate recall. for his act was akin to treason.² A Senate committee also made a like demand, but without effect. Why? Seward stood in the way. Not only had he given Harvey the information, but he knew of the telegram the day it was sent. Nevertheless, he allowed him to depart on his mission; and later when everybody was boiling with indignation, Seward explained that at first he himself was indignant and advised the President to revoke Harvey's commission. "But thinking it over coolly," said Seward, "I thought it wrong to punish a man for his stupid folly, when really he had committed no crime!"³
__________ ¹ War Records, 287
² Tribune, June 8, 10, 20, 1861; Times, June 7, 1861.
³ 4 Nicolay and Hay, 31, 32.

Id. at 140:

During the first days of April Seward's communications with the Confederate commissioners came to a climax. After the 1st the reports that the hostile movements were preparing grew more positive from day to day. On the 4th the commissioners credited the rumor that the United States intended to resist the acquisition of Santo Domingo by Spain. The next day they suspected that this might be a ruse. By the evening of the 6th day they thought the armaments were to be used against Fort Pickens, and perhaps against Sumter.¹ Early the following (Sunday) morning Campbell was again called in. He then sent a note to Seward, stating that various reports had caused the commissioners "anxiety and concern for two or three days"; that he had repeated to them the assurances that the administration would give notice to Governor Pickens before attempting to supply Sumter, and that he (Campbell) "should have notice whenever any measure changing the existing status prejudicially to the Confederate States is contemplated as respects Fort Pickens." He concluded with these sentences: "I do not experience the same anxiety or concern as they express. But if I have said more than I am authorized, I pray that you will advise me."² To this inquiry Seward answered, without date or signature: "Faith as to Sumter fully kept; wait and see; other suggestions received, and will be respectfully considered."²
__________
¹ Telegrams to Toombs of the dates mentioned.
² This is quoted from the copy preserved by the commissioners.
³ Crawford's Genesis, etc., 340. The copy that the commissioners took of Campbell's letter, to which this was a reply, contains nothing to call forth the last eight words. It seems likely that after the commission's copy of Campbell's note was made, he added his offer to go to Montgomery, to which Crawford refers (ibid.), and to which Seward's eight words were probably an answer.

In a footnote to the Davis letter to Braxton Bragg of April 3, 1861, The Papers of Jefferson Davis, LSU Press, Vol. 7 contains a footnote at pg. 87 which may be of interest.

² For about ten days reports from Washington, New York and Florida indicated Union plans to reinforce Fort Pickens. On April 2 Secretary of War Walker notified Beauregard the Confederate government had never believed Fort Sumter would be evacuated; simultaneously, the Confederate Secretary of State instructed his commissioners in Washington that there would be no truce unless both forts were given up. On the Union side, Lincoln had struggled with the problem long before his inauguration and his cabinet was still far from unanimous on the solution in late March. Secretary of State William H. Seward urged that Sumter be evacuated to avoid war, and Pickens be reinforced to assert the government's authority. Commanding general Winfield Scott, who had pressed Buchanan to hold both forts, now recommended their evacuation as a military necessity, believing a massive land and naval effort—impossible to mount in March—would be needed to hold Sumter alone. Scott did favor holding Forts Jefferson and Taylor for their great strategic value. Buchanan had sent an expedition to Pensacola to augment the small force which had taken possession of the dilapidated fort on January 10-11. A truce, engineered by Florida senator Stephen R, Mallory, was reached on January 28: the United States agreed not land troops unless Pickens was attacked. Like Buchanan before him, Lincoln was criticized for failing to take decisive action; on March 11he ordered troops landed and on the 31st sanctioned a secret expedition, initiated by Seward, to reinforce Fort Pickens (O.R. ser1, v1, 200-201, v52, pt2, 27-28; [numerous additional citations omitted.]

See also, to get in at the beginning:

CW 4:157

Confidential
Hon. F. P. Blair, Sr.
Springfield, Ills.
My dear Sir Dec. 21. 1860
Yours giving an account of an interview with Gen. Scott, is received, and for which I thank you. According to my present view, if the forts shall be given up before the inaugeration, the General must retake them afterwards.
Yours truly
A. LINCOLN

CW 4:159

Confidential
Major David Hunter,
Springfield, Ills., Dec. 22, 1860.
My dear Sir: I am much obliged by the receipt of yours of the 18th. The most we can do now is to watch events, and be as well prepared as possible for any turn things may take. If the forts fall, my judgment is that they are to be retaken. When I shall determine definitely my time of starting of Washington, I will notify you.
Yours truly,
A. LINCOLN.

FLT-bird: "In law, a superior can delegate some of his rights to a subordinate.
He still retains those rights in full and can resume them."

Pro-Confederate opinions notwithstanding, our Founders all believed such "resuming" could only be for material cause, not "at pleasure".
Just as Virginia's 1788 ratifying statement said:

"...powers granted under the Constitution... may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression,"

FLT-bird: "The CSA did what it could to build a navy but it had had no time to build one up prior to the war"

The Union navy at war's end had roughly twice the number of vessels as served the Confederate cause -- 671 Union vs. circa 380 Confederate ships & boats.
Union ships were arguably bigger and more purpose-built, so the count of numbers doesn't tell the whole story.

FLT-bird on Fort Sumter ownership: "There was no such treaty between the Union and South Carolina or Florida."

No need for a treaty, since there was an 1836 legal document transferring ownership of Fort Sumter to the Federal government.

"In the

House of Representatives, December 31st, 1836
"The Committee on Federal relations, to which was referred the Governor's message, relating to the site of Fort Sumter, in the harbour of Charleston, and the report of the Committee on Federal Relations from the Senate on the same subject, beg leave to Report by Resolution:

"Resolved, That this state do cede to the United States, all the right, title and claim of South Carolina to the site of Fort Sumter and the requisite quantity of adjacent territory, Provided, That all processes, civil and criminal issued... "

So, as of at least 1836, Fort Sumter was Federal, not SC state property.
Nor did South Carolina ever attempt to lawfully repossess Fort Sumter, by eminent domain or any other legal sham.

Now we have the matter of the US Constitution:

Article I Section 8

"Congress shall have the power . . . To exercise the exclusive Legislation in all cases whatsoever, . . .
and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which same shall be, for the erection of Forts, Magazines, arsenals, dock-yards and other needed buildings; . . ."

"Congress shall have the power . . . to suppress insurrections . . ."

These were powers, given under the U.S. Constitution to Congress and not states.

FLT-bird: "By any definition in any book in history, having warships repeatedly invade the territorial waters of another country is an act of war and Lincoln 100% knew and understood that."

But that never happened, and Davis knew it and didn't care.
You also know it, but chose to lie about it, and why?

Reasons for Secession	S. Carolina	Mississippi	Georgia	Texas	Rbt. Rhett	A. Stephens	AVERAGE OF 6
Historical context	41%	20%	23%	21%	20%	20%	24%
Slavery	20%	73%	56%	54%	35%	50%	48%
States' Rights	37%	3%	4%	15%	15%	10%	14%
Lincoln's election	2%	4%	4%	4%	5%	0%	3%
Economic issues**	0	0	15%	0%	25%	20%	10%
Military protection	0	0	0	6%	0%	0%	1%

So, just to be clear, this whole discussion is over your word "tyrant" -- you claim Lincoln was a "tyrant" and I'm saying if you can define Lincoln as "tyrant" then Davis was also a "tyrant".

and I'm saying I disagree. Lincoln started the war unconstitutionally, deliberately targeted civilians, ran POW camps that were extermination camps (again deliberately), committed ethnic cleansing and genocide against native peoples and trampled on Americans' civil liberties to a vastly greater extent than was done in the CSA.

So, you claim Lincoln was more of a "tyrant" than Davis and I'm saying the facts don't really support your claims.

But they do.

Yes, clearly, those most oppressed on both sides were people living on the borders -- geographically or politically. So, how many oppressed whites were there? Well... if we look at pro-Confederates in Border Union States like Maryland, Kentucky & Missouri, then rough estimate we can say maybe one million oppressed pro-Confederates in Union states, out of a total Union white population of around 22 million. What about oppressed Unionists in Confederate regions like Eastern Tennessee, Western North Carolina, etc.? My estimate is there were about a million of those too -- oppressed white Unionists living in the Confederacy, out of a total white Confederate population around 5.5 million. Now, maybe I'm exaggerating, maybe there were only half as many oppressed whites in the Confederacy, say only half a million, not a full million. That still makes the overall percentage of oppressed whites around 10% in the Confederacy compared to just 4% in Union states.

This is just pure speculation on your part. We know there were far more jailed without charge or trial - or at best trial before military tribunals only in the Union. There were multiple congressmen jailed or banished in the Union but none in the CSA. The censorship regime was far more extensive in the Union. There have been multiple allegations from people at the time as well as historians of ballot box stuffing in the Union - none in the CSA. etc.

So, for sake of argument, I'm willing to concede there were only half as many oppressed Unionist whites in the Confederacy as oppressed pro-Confederates in the Union. That still makes the overall percentage of oppressed whites more than double in the Confederacy than in the Union. Do the math.

I'm not willing to concede to self serving guesstimates you pulled out of thin air.

I noticed that your own source does list historian Mark Neely's book as an authority.,/p>

Yes I disagree with them about that. I don't find him the least bit credible.

It doesn't say whether the estimated 38,000 Union arrests came from Neely.

So what? The 38,000 estimate for the high end of the range is a number you see from many historians because there is evidence to support it.

I also noticed your source claimed the Union required internal passports for travel, but that was not true. Only Confederate authorities required passports for internal travel of citizens, the same as for slaves.

Yeah....another false claim by you.

"Fate has indeed taken a malignant pleasure in flouting the admirers of the United States. It is not merely that their hopes of its universal empire have been disappointed; the mortification has been much deeper than this. Every theory to which they paid special homage has been successively repudiated by their favorite statesmen. They were Apostles of Free Trade: America has established a tariff, compared to which our heaviest protection-tariff has been flimsy. She has become a land of passports, of conscriptions, of press censorship and post-office espionage; of bastilles and lettres de cachet [this was a letter that bore an official seal which authorized the imprisonment, without trial of any person named in the letter] There was little difference between the government of Mr. Lincoln and the government of Napoleon III. There was the form of a legislative assembly, where scarcely any dared to oppose for fear of the charge of treason." the Quarterly Review in Britain

Your own link here portrays Democrat Crazy-Roger Taney as waging law-fare (warfare by law) on Lincoln the same way despicable Democrats today wage law-fare on Pres. Trump.

LOL! No it doesn't. Taney ruled against some of Lincoln's more tyrannical actions as he should have. His job as a Supreme Court Justice was to uphold the Constitution after all.

And yet the Confederate document itself says it's a declaration of war.,/p>

And yet it does not. It recognizes there is a war going on. It does not declare war on the US.

Your repeated denials notwithstanding, that is a declaration of war for every practical and legal purpose. That document did for the Confederacy everything a declaration of war is intended to do, only somehow allowing Lost Cause Democrats to claim for centuries afterwards that it wasn't really. But it was a declaration of war, for all legal and practical purposes.

No it is not which is why you are all alone in making this claim. Even the vast majority of PC Revisionists in Academia do not support this claim.

There is nothing in FDR's request for a declaration that the Confederate declaration of May 6, 1861 did not accomplish. Both acknowledged that war existed and accomplished the same purposes of a declaration of war.

Again, no it does not and you are practically all alone in making this ridiculous claim. Even your fellow PC Revisionists in Academia do not support it.

Now I see what your real problem is -- since you never actually read the Constitution, you have no real idea what it says. Here it is, yet again: Article III, Section 3: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." Are we clear on this now?

Gee, in 3 years of law school and in passing the bar I never read the constitution. News to me!

Obviously I did read it and noticed it said "THEM"....to wit: the states. The CSA did not declare war against them and was not seeking to impose its rule upon them. The CSA would have been quite happy to live and let live. It was the Lincoln administration which needed war, started the war and which waged a war of aggression.

Notice 13 stars: You and everyone else well know that's not true. The truth is that Confederates not only invaded Union states like Kentucky and Missouri, plus Union territories like Oklahoma and New Mexico, Confederates also declared those Union states & territories to be Confederate! For crying out loud -- Missouri and Kentucky were the 12th & 13th stars on Confederate flags!

You realize all of that happened AFTER Lincoln started the war and started waging a war of aggression against them right? They left and made no claims to any US territory. They were quite happy to depart in peace. It was Lincoln who insisted on war. Once he started the war all bets were off. At that point the CSA was willing to do whatever it would take to win just as any other country would.

So, it's simply a Democrat lie to claim the Confederacy did not threaten the Republican Union. And of course, lying is what Democrats do, it's how Democrats make their livings, and Confederates were overwhelmingly Democrats.

The CSA did not threaten the Union. They were quite happy to leave in peace and made every effort to do so. They even offered to establish good trade relations with the Union and offered free passage of the Mississippi.

Also your "Democrats always and at all times bad, Republicans always and at all times good" mantra is laughable....what one would expect of a kindergartner. The political parties are broad coalitions which shift and change over time. The Democrats used to be the party of limited government, balanced budgets and decentralized power.....ie in the mid 19th century they used to be exactly the opposite of what they are now. Hell, in my lifetime I've seen them go from being the party of the working man to the party of Wall Street, Big Pharma, Big Tech and the Billionaire class.

They used to be the ones who insisted on preventing illegal immigration whereas now they facilitate it. They used to be the ones who were staunchly free speech now they're the biggest fans of censorship. They used to be anti war. Now they support constant Deep State meddling abroad. etc.

On way we know that's not true is because you refuse to cite a specific example of a Union warship that "invaded South Carolina's territory".

You yourself already listed one. Go back a few posts and read.

Obviously, it was Davis' choice to fire the first shots, and by his own confession, he did so for reasons which had nothing to do with Lincoln's actions.

It was Lincoln's choice to invade South Carolina's territory so as to provoke war. He did so for reasons he himself confessed to - Money.

"If I do that, what would become of my revenue? I might as well shut up housekeeping at once!" ~ Lincoln, in response to the suggestion by the Virginian Commissioners to abandon the custom house of Fort Sumter. (Housekeeping is a euphemism for federal spending.)

"But what am I to do in the meantime with those men at Montgomery [meaning the Confederate constitutional convention]? Am I to let them go on... [a]nd open Charleston, etc., as ports of entry, with their ten-percent tariff. What, then, would become of my tariff?" ~ Lincoln to Colonel John B. Baldwin, deputized by the Virginian Commissioners to determine whether Lincoln would use force, April 4, 1861.

Taney's insane anti-black opinions were noted as such at the time, even by "moderate" anti-salvery men like Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln fully understood what Crazy-Roger's words meant: "We shall lie down pleasantly dreaming that the people of Missouri are on the verge of making their State free; and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State." Lincoln House Divided Speech June 16, 1858

"Negro equality! Fudge! How long, in the government of a god, great enough to make and maintain this universe, shall there continue to be knaves to vend, and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagogue-ism as this?” Abraham Lincoln

"I can conceive of no greater calamity than the assimilation of the Negro into our social and political life as our equal. . . We can never attain the ideal union our fathers dreamed, with millions of an alien, inferior race among us, whose assimilation is neither possible nor desirable.” -Abraham Lincoln

There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races ... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas ... Abraham Lincoln

“anything that argues me into . . . [the] idea of perfect social and political equality with the negro is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse chestnut to be a chestnut horse. . . . I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. (Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, New York: The Library of America, 1989, edited by Don Fehrenbacher, pp. 511-512)

“I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people. And I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. … And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. Abraham Lincoln

"Our republican system was meant for a homogeneous people. As long as blacks continue to live with the whites they constitute a threat to the national life. Family life may also collapse and the increase of mixed breed bastards may some day challenge the supremacy of the white man." Abraham Lincoln

There are no quotes of Taney making such immoderate public statements about Blacks though yes, it can safely be assumed he too would be quite racist by modern standards. Even by the standards of the day however, Lincoln was a flaming racist.

Its just inconvenient for your politics." And yet you've cited no others with primary knowledge of the alleged warrant.

And yet I've cited two such sources.

Sorry, but those are flat-out lies since even your own sources don't confirm them.

Sorry but your denial is a flat out lie. I've provided sources which absolutely do confirm he shut down over 100 opposition newspapers.

Pro-Confederate opinions notwithstanding, our Founders all believed such "resuming" could only be for material cause, not "at pleasure". Just as Virginia's 1788 ratifying statement said: "...powers granted under the Constitution... may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression,"

Yes and it was up to each state to determine if there was sufficient cause. The Southern states did determine there was sufficient clause and exercised their right to unilaterally secede.

FLT-bird: "The CSA did what it could to build a navy but it had had no time to build one up prior to the war" The Union navy at war's end had roughly twice the number of vessels as served the Confederate cause -- 671 Union vs. circa 380 Confederate ships & boats. Union ships were arguably bigger and more purpose-built, so the count of numbers doesn't tell the whole story.

OK. No argument. As I said, the Union inherited the US Navy as well as the region where the shipbuilding industry - built up via generations of subsidies and protectionism - was located. Its no surprise their navy was far larger than the CSA's given that the CSA had to start from scratch while fighting a major land war and given the fact that the North's total White population was about 4 times that of the CSA.

No need for a treaty, since there was an 1836 legal document transferring ownership of Fort Sumter to the Federal government. "In the [SC] House of Representatives, December 31st, 1836 "The Committee on Federal relations, to which was referred the Governor's message, relating to the site of Fort Sumter, in the harbour of Charleston, and the report of the Committee on Federal Relations from the Senate on the same subject, beg leave to Report by Resolution: "Resolved, That this state do cede to the United States, all the right, title and claim of South Carolina to the site of Fort Sumter and the requisite quantity of adjacent territory, Provided, That all processes, civil and criminal issued... " So, as of at least 1836, Fort Sumter was Federal, not SC state property. Nor did South Carolina ever attempt to lawfully repossess Fort Sumter, by eminent domain or any other legal sham. Now we have the matter of the US Constitution:

Ah but there you are wrong. South Carolina did lay claim to Fort Sumter under eminent domain once it resumed the powers of government it had delegated to the federal government.

"Article I Section 8: "Congress shall have the power . . . To exercise the exclusive Legislation in all cases whatsoever, . . . and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which same shall be, for the erection of Forts, Magazines, arsenals, dock-yards and other needed buildings; . . ." "Congress shall have the power . . . to suppress insurrections . . ." These were powers, given under the U.S. Constitution to Congress and not states.

So long as the state was in and was a part of the US. South Carolina no longer was and had resumed such powers as sovereign.

But that never happened, and Davis knew it and didn't care. You also know it, but chose to lie about it, and why?

but it did happen and you've even cited instances. Why are you lying about it now? Do you really think anybody is going to believe your lies?

FLT-bird: "and I'm saying I disagree.
Lincoln started the war unconstitutionally, deliberately targeted civilians, ran POW camps that were extermination camps (again deliberately), committed ethnic cleansing and genocide against native peoples and trampled on Americans' civil liberties to a vastly greater extent than was done in the CSA."

All of that is 100% lies and nonsense, fact-free fantasizing and redefining words to suit your own nefarious purposes.

Lincoln didn't start the war.
By his own confession, that was Jefferson Davis.
There was nothing "unconstitutional" about Lincoln's actions at Forts Sumter or Pickens, but Confederate actions there were 100% illegal.
Lincoln didn't "target civilians", that's just crazy-talk.
Indeed, there were remarkably few civilian casualties compared to any other civil war in history.
Union POW camps were no more "extermination camps" than were Confederate camps, and Union camp overall death rates were less than in Confederate run POW camps.
Survival rates averaged over 85% in Union camps, slightly more than in Confederate camps.
Those are not "extermination" level numbers.
There is no evidence whatever that Lincoln himself had anything to do with, or knowledge of, abuses of Native Americans in Minnesota.
The fact is that Unionists in Confederate states were treated no better than Copperhead Democrats in Union states.
Indeed, there is no Union equivalent to the Shelton Laurel Confederate army massacre of Unionist civilians in January of 1863, among other examples.

So it's all just nonsense, Lost Cause fantasies, nothing more.

FLT-bird: "This is just pure speculation on your part.
We know there were far more jailed without charge or trial - or at best trial before military tribunals only in the Union.
There were multiple congressmen jailed or banished in the Union but none in the CSA.
The censorship regime was far more extensive in the Union.
There have been multiple allegations from people at the time as well as historians of ballot box stuffing in the Union - none in the CSA. etc."

Nearly all of which is explained by the absence of a political opposition party in the Confederacy.
There were no Confederate political equivalents of Northern Copperhead Democrats even legally allowed.
So, from Day One, levels of political oppression within the Confederacy were vastly greater than in the Union.

As for total numbers jailed, relative to population sizes, they seem to be roughly the same.

FLT-bird on historian Mark Neely: "Yes I disagree with them about that.
I don't find him the least bit credible."

I see, so, are you telling us that you've actually read Neely's books, both of them, all the way through?
That would be pretty amazing.

FLT-bird: "So what?
The 38,000 estimate for the high end of the range is a number you see from many historians because there is evidence to support it."

And you can name these alleged historians and cite the evidence they used for their estimates?

FLT-bird quoting the Quarterly Review in Britain on the USA: "She has become a land of passports..."

Well, if your Quarterly Review in Britain said it, then how can it not be true?
The Quarterly Review was known for its harsh and often unfair criticisms, one most notably charged as responsible for the death of young British poet John Keats in 1821.

Here's the truth: there is no evidence confirming the British Quarterly Review's implication that internal passports were required of citizens in Union states.
They were, however, required in Confederate states for citizens and slaves alike.

FLT-bird: "LOL!
No it doesn't.
Taney ruled against some of Lincoln's more tyrannical actions as he should have.
His job as a Supreme Court Justice was to uphold the Constitution after all."

SCOTUS never ruled on Lincoln's "more tyrannical actions".
Crazy-Roger Taney, expressing his personal opinions as a circuit court judge with zero authority, then attempted to physically enforce his own crazy opinions.
That was law-fare then, just as it is today.

FLT-bird on the CSA declaration of war: "And yet it does not.
It recognizes there is a war going on.
It does not declare war on the US."

Of course, it does because it's the same thing -- there is no legal or practical difference between "recognizing" war and "declaring" war.
Such documents, under whatever words are used, give a country's political leaders extraordinary powers to wage war against their identified enemies.

"In modern international law, a declaration of war signifies the recognition between countries of a state of hostilities."

Therefore, logically, a recognition of hostilities is, by definition, a declaration of war.
Now, can we stop with the absurd nonsense?

FLT-bird: "No it is not which is why you are all alone in making this claim.
Even the vast majority of PC Revisionists in Academia do not support this claim."

Then you can quote examples of valid historians who claim that "recognition" is not effectively the same thing as "declaring" war?

FLT-bird: "Gee, in 3 years of law school and in passing the bar I never read the constitution.
News to me!"

You've obviously failed in everything.

FLT-bird: "Obviously I did read it and noticed it said "THEM"....to wit: the states.
The CSA did not declare war against them and was not seeking to impose its rule upon them.
The CSA would have been quite happy to live and let live.
It was the Lincoln administration which needed war, started the war and which waged a war of aggression."

Every word of that is lies... lawyerly lies or course, but why else hire a lawyer except to invent plausible sounding lies?

FLT-bird: "You realize all of that happened AFTER Lincoln started the war and started waging a war of aggression against them right?
They left and made no claims to any US territory.
They were quite happy to depart in peace.
It was Lincoln who insisted on war.
Once he started the war all bets were off.
At that point the CSA was willing to do whatever it would take to win just as any other country would."

And the pro-Confederate lawyer-lies just never stop...

The truth is that secessionists were waging war against the Union from Day One in December 1860, and most notably on January 9, 1861, with firing on, and striking, the Union civilian steamer Star of the West.
Secessionists' warfare included threats and illegal seizures of dozens of Federal properties -- forts, ships, arsenals and mints -- some even before secessionists had formally declared themselves.

FLT-bird: "The CSA did not threaten the Union.
They were quite happy to leave in peace and made every effort to do so.
They even offered to establish good trade relations with the Union and offered free passage of the Mississippi."

Nooooo... from Day One in December 1860, secessionists began threatening Union officials and seizing Union properties.
As early as January 20, 1861, Jefferson Davis himself threatened civil war in a letter to his close friend, Copperhead Democrat former Pres. Pierce:

"When Lincoln comes in he will have but to continue in the path of his predecessor to inaugurate a civil war"

There is simply no doubt that, from Day One, secessionists - Confederates intended to start war.

FLT-bird: "Also your "Democrats always and at all times bad, Republicans always and at all times good" mantra is laughable....what one would expect of a kindergartner.
The political parties are broad coalitions which shift and change over time.
The Democrats used to be the party of limited government, balanced budgets and decentralized power.....ie"

My formula for parties (not people!) is this: Democrats = 100% evil, Republicans = 51% good.
In reality, Democrats were never, ever, what you claim here.
Democrats only ever posed and pretended to be such when they were the minority party in opposition to majority Federalists, Whigs or Republicans.
Whenever Democrats came to political power, they almost immediately threw off their pretenses of "small government" and "strict construction" and got on with the serious business of oppressing their political opponents.

A perfect example -- the only Democrat president between Buchanan (1857-61) and Wilson (1913-21) was former NY Governor Grover Cleveland, whose reputation is as the epitome of "conservative Democrat".
And maybe he was, in some respects, but in 1894 he supported a Democrat majority bill in Congress, and then signed into law, an unconstitutional peacetime income tax, which was struck down by SCOTUS the following year.
Democrats were never truly conservative.

FLT-bird: "They used to be the ones who insisted on preventing illegal immigration whereas now they facilitate it.
They used to be the ones who were staunchly free speech now they're the biggest fans of censorship.
They used to be anti war.
Now they support constant Deep State meddling abroad. etc."

Sorry, but still no: Democrats were never truly any of those things in principle, because Democrats have no principles, only the politics of winning.

Democrats always supported immigration, legal or otherwise, because those are their voters, going all the way back to the election of 1800, when NY Tammany Hall Democrats helped elect Thomas Jefferson president over Federalist John Adams.
Democrats' alleged opposition to illegal immigration was strictly for public consumption of their labor union supporters, which seems to be a non-factor today.
Democrats never made a serious effort to even slow down illegal immigration.
"Free Speech" for 1960s hippy Democrat protesters was strictly a slogan they used while not in total power over government and academia.
Once in power, they began shutting down free speech -- beginning with "political correctness" -- just as they always did historically, most notoriously with "Gag rules" in Congress from 1836 to 1844.
Democrats were never, ever, truly "anti-war", and we can see that with a list of wars, military operations and "meddling" under Democrat presidents:
- Barbary Wars (Jefferson & Madison)
- War of 1812 (Madison)
- Monroe Doctrine (Monroe's meddling abroad)
- Trail of Tears (Jackson)
- Mexican War (Polk)
- Ostend Manifesto on Cuba (Pierce meddling abroad)
- Paraguay Expedition (Buchanan)
- Civil War (Davis)
- Hawaii and South America (Cleveland)
- First World War (Wilson)
- Second World War (FD Roosevelt)
- Korean War (Truman)
- Vietnam War (Kennedy-Johnson)
- Iran Revolution (Carter meddling abroad)
- Former Yugoslavia (Clinton)
- Isis, Libia & Ukraine (Obama meddling abroad)
- Ukraine (Biden)
The saddest part of this legacy is that since WWII, while Democrats are just as eager as ever to go to war, they've been utterly unable to figure out how win our wars and end up skedaddling disgracefully, most notoriously from Vietnam and Afghanistan.

FLT-bird: "You yourself already listed one.
Go back a few posts and read."

Then you misread my words, and your obfuscations here tell us you know perfectly well you're telling us just another lawyerly lie.

FLT-bird: "It was Lincoln's choice to invade South Carolina's territory so as to provoke war.
He did so for reasons he himself confessed to - Money.
"If I do that, what would become of my revenue?
I might as well shut up housekeeping at once!"
~ Lincoln, in response to the suggestion by the Virginian Commissioners to abandon the custom house of Fort Sumter.
(Housekeeping is a euphemism for federal spending.)"

Pro-Confederate lies confirmed by nobody without an anti-Lincoln ax to grind.

FLT-bird: "There are no quotes of Taney making such immoderate public statements about Blacks though yes, it can safely be assumed he too would be quite racist by modern standards.
Even by the standards of the day however, Lincoln was a flaming racist."

Crazy-Roger Taney was in a class by himself, along with every other Southern slaveholder.
They weren't just "racists", because the word "racist" doesn't do them justice.
What Crazy Roger expressed in his 1857 Dred Scott decision was his fantasy that Africans were, in effect, not human beings and therefore did not need to be considered as "all men are created equal".
From this, Crazy decided that Africans, enslaved or free, could never be citizens -- that's the worst of his Dred Scott nonsense.

FLT-bird: "And yet I've cited two such sources."

You cited only one primary source, a bodyguard who first reported it 25 years later.
There are no other primary sources.

FLT-bird: "Sorry but your denial is a flat out lie.
I've provided sources which absolutely do confirm he shut down over 100 opposition newspapers."

It's not what your source said, and you can simply prove me wrong by quoting where it says exactly what you here claim.

FLT-bird: "Yes and it was up to each state to determine if there was sufficient cause.
The Southern states did determine there was sufficient clause and exercised their right to unilaterally secede."

But in reality, secessionists had no material legal cause in December 1860 -- nothing which remotely resembled conditions of the 1776 Declaration of Independence -- a fact which Virginians themselves fully understood, which is why Virginians refused to declare secession until after Jefferson Davis started civil war at Fort Sumter.
So, in 1860 Democrats began seceding at pleasure -- in anger at losing the election and in fear of what incoming Republican Pres. Lincoln might do someday.

There was nothing our Founders would recognize as legitimate in it.

Indeed, in 1798, none other than the notorious secessionists, Thomas Jefferson himself, warned against precisely what happened in December 1860 -- Jefferson's word for secession is "scission":

Jefferson continues later with:

"...it is true that in the mean time we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war, & long oppressions of enormous public debt.
but who can say what would be the evils of a scission and when & where they would end?
better keep together as we are, hawl off from Europe as soon as we can & from all attachments to any portions of it, and if we feel their power just sufficiently to hoop us together, it will be the happiest situation in which we can exist.
if the game runs sometimes against us at home, we must have patience, till luck turns, & then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost."

This was in 1798, and Jefferson himself then well understood what might happen in 1860, and warned against it.

FLT-bird: "As I said, the Union inherited the US Navy as well as the region where the shipbuilding industry - built up via generations of subsidies and protectionism - was located."

CSS Stonewall, served until 1889 in the Japanese navy.

What all this proves is that if Southerners had wanted their own merchant marine ships, they were fully capable of building & operating them.
The reason they didn't so much by 1860 was simply that shipping was a very risky enterprise and investment, paying much poorer returns than buying land, slaves and cotton seeds.

So, Southerners put their money where it paid the most.
Northerners didn't have high-paying options like cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco.

FLT-bird: "Ah but there you are wrong.
South Carolina did lay claim to Fort Sumter under eminent domain once it resumed the powers of government it had delegated to the federal government."

Oh, really?
And you have documents which can prove that?

In all these years, I've only seen your claim here once before, and never any documents to prove it, so I've assumed it just more Lost Cause Lawyerly Lies...

Show us what you have.

FLT-bird: "So long as the state was in and was a part of the US.
South Carolina no longer was and had resumed such powers as sovereign."

South Carolina unconstitutionally declared secession and then war against the United States, all your lawyerly-lies notwithstanding.
They suffered accordingly.

All of that is 100% lies and nonsense, fact-free fantasizing and redefining words to suit your own nefarious purposes.

Nope! Your denials are lies and nonsense, fact-free fantasizing and redefining words to suit your own nefarious purposes. There's no question Lincoln did all that I just listed and more.

Lincoln didn't start the war.,/p>

Yes he did.

By his own confession, that was Jefferson Davis.,/p>

Nope! Davis did not send warships to invade another sovereign country's territory. Lincoln did - with the purpose of starting a war.

There was nothing "unconstitutional" about Lincoln's actions at Forts Sumter or Pickens, but Confederate actions there were 100% illegal.,/p>

Dead wrong. Lincoln deliberately started a war without the consent of Congress. That is unconstitutional. The Confederates merely defended themselves - which is and has always been legal.

Lincoln didn't "target civilians", that's just crazy-talk. Indeed, there were remarkably few civilian casualties compared to any other civil war in history.

Examples of the union army targeting civilians are too numerous to list. Here's but one instance:

General Sherman also wrote to U.S. Brigadier General Louis Douglass Watkins at Calhoun, Georgia, on Oct. 29, 1864: "Can you not send over to Fairmount and Adairsville, burn 10 or 12 houses of known secessionists, kill a few at random and let them know it will be repeated every time a train is fired upon from Resaca to Kingston."

Brigadier General Edward M. McCook, First Cavalry Division of Cavalry Corps, at Calhoun, Georgia, on October 30, 1864, reported to Sherman, "My men killed some of those fellows two or three days since, and I had their houses burned....I will carry out your instructions thoroughly and leave the country east of the road uninhabitable."

Randomly murdering civilians is a war crime. This is in fact more evidence than existed against several who were convicted and executed at Nuremburg. That such incidents were so widespread - and went unpunished - indicates they had the approval of their commander in chief.

Union POW camps were no more "extermination camps" than were Confederate camps, and Union camp overall death rates were less than in Confederate run POW camps.

One of the Union Army's own doctors described Camp Douglas as an "extermination camp" which you would have known had you bothered to read the link and quotes I provided about Camp Douglas. Union camp death rates were significantly higher than in Confederate run POW camps as I previously showed - AND there was no shortage of food or medicine in the North unlike in the South during the war.

Survival rates averaged over 85% in Union camps, slightly more than in Confederate camps.

Wrong as previously demonstrated.

Those are not "extermination" level numbers. There is no evidence whatever that Lincoln himself had anything to do with, or knowledge of, abuses of Native Americans in Minnesota.

Another lie. Lincoln refused to provide the money the Sioux were owed under their treaty with the US...money needed to alleviate their starvation. He then sent General Pope who ran kangaroo courts which "convicted" and sentenced to death and executed 38 Santee Sioux after "trials" (before military tribunal) that averaged 10 minutes each. This was the largest public execution in American history. The Lincoln administration then ethnically cleansed the Santee Sioux and the peaceful Winnebago nearby from Minnesota and stole their land. Just for added vindictiveness, the Santee Sioux were then deliberately starved again by the US Army.

The fact is that Unionists in Confederate states were treated no better than Copperhead Democrats in Union states. Indeed, there is no Union equivalent to the Shelton Laurel Confederate army massacre of Unionist civilians in January of 1863, among other examples.

Au Contraire. The fact is that civilians were more likely to face arrest, trial if at all by military tribunal, and torture while imprisoned in the Union than in the Confederacy. For example:

One of those imprisoned for fourteen months for simply questioning the unconstitutional suspension of habeas corpus was Francis Key Howard, the grandson of Francis Scott Key and editor of the Baltimore Exchange newspaper. In response to an editorial in his newspaper that was critical of the fact that the Lincoln administration had imprisoned without due process the mayor of Baltimore, Congressman Henry May, and some twenty members of the Maryland legislature, he was imprisoned near the very spot where his grandfather composed the Star Spangled Banner. After his release, he noted the deep irony of his grandfather's beloved flag flying over "the victims of as vulgar and brutal a despotism as modern times have witnessed" (John Marshall, American Bastile, pp. 645—646).

After his release, Francis Key Howard wrote a book about his experiences entitled Fourteen Months in American Bastilles in which he described daily life as "a constant agony, the jailers as modified monsters and the government as an unfeeling persecutor which took delight in abusing its political prisoners" (Sprague, p. 284). In his defense and whitewashing of Lincoln's civil liberties abuses even Lincoln apologist Mark Neely, Jr., author of The Fate of Liberty, noted that in Fort Lafayette (aka “the American Bastille”) and in other dungeons where political prisoners where held, "Handcuffs and hanging by the wrists were rare [but not nonexistent], but in the summer of 1863 the army had developed a water torture that came to be used routinely" (p. 110) Repeatedly, whenever Congress asked for information on the arrests, he replied that it was not in the public interest to furnish the information (p. 302).

So it's all just nonsense, Lost Cause fantasies, nothing more.

So its all just PC Revisionist lies - nothing more.

Nearly all of which is explained by the absence of a political opposition party in the Confederacy. There were no Confederate political equivalents of Northern Copperhead Democrats even legally allowed. So, from Day One, levels of political oppression within the Confederacy were vastly greater than in the Union.

Completely false. President Davis was if anything criticized more harshly in Southern newspapers than President Lincoln in Northern newspapers. There were plenty who advocated remaining in the union and negotiating an end to hostilities, etc who were never subject to arrest. The fact is the political oppression, random arrests without trial and torture while imprisoned were far more common in the Union.

As for total numbers jailed, relative to population sizes, they seem to be roughly the same.,/p>

No they weren't. As has already been demonstrated the estimates of those imprisoned in the Union run from 13,000 to 38,000. That is much higher than in the CSA where Habeas Corpus was suspended on a much more modest scale than in the Union - and that's even according to PC Revisionist James McPherson.

I see, so, are you telling us that you've actually read Neely's books, both of them, all the way through? That would be pretty amazing.

I don't need to read his propaganda in total to see that its propaganda. He's a Lincoln apologist - always has been.

And you can name these alleged historians and cite the evidence they used for their estimates?

I've already provided you 5 or 6 links listing that range. Time for you to do your own homework now.

Well, if your Quarterly Review in Britain said it, then how can it not be true? The Quarterly Review was known for its harsh and often unfair criticisms, one most notably charged as responsible for the death of young British poet John Keats in 1821.

LOL! You're just whining about them because they rightly called out the Lincoln administration for its oppression.

Here's the truth: there is no evidence confirming the British Quarterly Review's implication that internal passports were required of citizens in Union states. They were, however, required in Confederate states for citizens and slaves alike.

Here's the truth: that's pure BS - which is typical of you.

Let's stop the lies right there. The situation was very similar to what it had been prior to 1775. As Robert Barnwell Rhett eloquently stated in his address to the Southern states that was attached to and sent out with South Carolina's Declaration of Causes:

"The Revolution of 1776, turned upon one great principle, self government, and self taxation, the criterion of self government. Where the interests of two people united together under one Government, are different, each must have the power to protect its interests by the organization of the Government, or they cannot be free. The interests of Great Britain and of the Colonies, were different and antagonistic.

They [the colonies] had been settled under Charters, which gave them self government, at least so far as their property was concerned. They had taxed themselves, and had never been taxed by the Government of Great Britain. To make them a part of a consolidated Empire, the Parliament of Great Britain determined to assume the power of legislating for the Colonies in all cases whatsoever.

The Southern States, now stand exactly in the same position towards the Northern States, that the Colonies did towards Great Britain. The Northern States, having the majority in Congress, claim the same power of omnipotence in legislation as the British parliament. Thus, the Government of the United States has become a consolidated Government; and the people of the Southern State, are compelled to meet the very despotism, their fathers threw off in the Revolution of 1776.

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.

Had they submitted to the pretensions of the British Government, the taxes collected from them, would have been expended in other parts of the British Empire. They were fully aware of the effect of such a policy in impoverishing the people from whom taxes are collected, and in enriching those who receive the benefit of their expenditure. To prevent the evils of such a policy, was one of the motives which drove them on to Revolution. Yet this British policy, has been fully realized towards the Southern States, by the Northern States. The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected, three fourths of them are expended at the North. This cause, with others, connected with the operation of the General Government, has made the cities of the South provincial. Their growth is paralyzed; they are mere suburbs of Northern cities. The agricultural productions of the South are the basis of the foreign commerce of the United States; yet Southern cities do not carry it on. Our foreign trade, is almost annihilated."

So, in 1860 Democrats began seceding at pleasure -- in anger at losing the election and in fear of what incoming Republican Pres. Lincoln might do someday.

As Rhett and others laid out, they seceded because they knew the tariff rate was about to explode which would wreck their economy having been through that experience a generation earlier. As the newspapers in the two largest port cities in the CSA said:

"The real causes of dissatisfaction in the South with the North, are in the unjust taxation and expenditure of the taxes by the Government of the United States, and in the revolution the North has effected in this government from a confederated republic, to a national sectional despotism." Charleston Mercury 2 days before the November 1860 election

"They [the South] know that it is their import trade that draws from the people's pockets sixty to seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interests. These are the reasons why these people do not wish the South to secede from the Union. They, the North, are enraged at the prospect of being despoiled of the rich feast upon which they have so long fed and fattened, and which they were just getting ready to enjoy with still greater gout and gusto. They are mad as hornets because the prize slips them just as they are ready to grasp it. These are the reasons why these people [the North] do not wish the South to secede from the Union." The New Orleans Daily Crescent 21 January 1861

There was nothing our Founders would recognize as legitimate in it.

False.

"The future inhabitants of [both] the Atlantic and Mississippi states will be our sons. We think we see their happiness in their union, and we wish it. Events may prove otherwise; and if they see their interest in separating why should we take sides? God bless them both, and keep them in union if it be for their good, but separate them if it be better." – Thomas Jefferson

"If any State in the Union will declare that it prefers separation" over "union," "I have no hesitation in saying, 'let us separate.'" Thomas Jefferson

Indeed, in 1798, none other than the notorious secessionists, Thomas Jefferson himself, warned against precisely what happened in December 1860 -- Jefferson's word for secession is "scission":

"...in every free & deliberating society, there must from the nature of man be opposite parties, & violent dissensions & discords; and one of these for the most part must prevail over the other for a longer or shorter time. perhaps this party division is necessary to induce each to watch & debate to the people the proceedings of the other. but if on a temporary superiority of the one party, the other is to resort to a scission of the union, no federal government can ever exist. if to rid ourselves of the present rule of Massachusetts & Connecticut, we break the union, will the evil stop there? suppose the N. England states alone cut off, will our natures be changed? are we not men still to the South of that, & with all the passions of men? immediately we shall see a Pennsylvania & a Virginia party arise in the residuary confederacy, and the public mind will be distracted with the same party spirit. what a game too will the one party have in their hands by eternally threatening the other that unless they do so & so, they will join their Northern neighbors." Jefferson continues later with: "...it is true that in the mean time we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war, & long oppressions of enormous public debt. but who can say what would be the evils of a scission and when & where they would end? better keep together as we are, hawl off from Europe as soon as we can & from all attachments to any portions of it, and if we feel their power just sufficiently to hoop us together, it will be the happiest situation in which we can exist. if the game runs sometimes against us at home, we must have patience, till luck turns, & then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost." This was in 1798, and Jefferson himself then well understood what might happen in 1860, and warned against it.

LOL! See above. Jefferson who authored the Declaration of Secession.....errr...."Independence" (which is the same thing) understood that the union was voluntary and was based on Consent. If any state did not consent, they were free to leave in peace. The only one fit to decide that was each state itself - they were sovereign after all.

CSS Stonewall, served until 1889 in the Japanese navy. What all this proves is that if Southerners had wanted their own merchant marine ships, they were fully capable of building & operating them. The reason they didn't so much by 1860 was simply that shipping was a very risky enterprise and investment, paying much poorer returns than buying land, slaves and cotton seeds. So, Southerners put their money where it paid the most. Northerners didn't have high-paying options like cotton, sugar, rice and tobacco.

People put capital to its most efficient use. That's why you see concentrations of industry in certain places. That is why for example you see capital is so heavily invested in oil production while relatively little if any is put into say, computer software development or aircraft manufacturing. The best and most profitable use of Saudi capital is in oil production. Similarly, the most efficient use of capital in the South (due to climate and soil) was cash crops. That's why they put much less capital into things like shipbuilding. Thus they did not start out with a large shipbuilding industry and were thus at a huge disadvantage wrt naval warfare.

Oh, really? And you have documents which can prove that? In all these years, I've only seen your claim here once before, and never any documents to prove it, so I've assumed it just more Lost Cause Lawyerly Lies... Show us what you have.

Once the state seceded, all federal land in the state reverted to the state government. Thus, Fort Sumter belonged to the government of South Carolina. The federal government in other states which were still in the union retained federal institutions (like the post office) and installations there even though they were paid for in part by taxes paid by South Carolinians.

South Carolina unconstitutionally declared secession and then war against the United States, all your lawyerly-lies notwithstanding. They suffered accordingly.,/p>

Another of your PC Revisionist lies. South Carolina exercised its sovereign and constitutional right to unilateral secession. Neither it nor the CSA ever declared war on the US. Lincoln started and waged a war of aggression against them - unconstitutionally.

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