Posted on 06/09/2009 8:47:35 AM PDT by Davy Buck
My oh my, what would the critics, the Civil War publications, publishers, and bloggers do if it weren't for the bad boys of the Confederacy and those who study them and also those who wish to honor their ancestors who fought for the Confederacy?
(Excerpt) Read more at oldvirginiablog.blogspot.com ...
Secession -- peaceful, lawful, negotiated and approved by Congress is one thing. It is not mentioned in the Constitution, nor specifically by the Founders in 1787 (that I'm aware of). What they do specifically mention are Constitutional Amendments and Constitutional Conventions to address or redress whatever failures the Constitution experiences. So there is NO constitutional issue regarding these lawful actions.
The Constitution also specifically authorizes Congress to declare war, suppress insurrections and repel invasions, along with taking actions against rebellion and "domestic violence." So there is NO constitutional issue regarding these lawful actions.
Southern states in 1861 had not even completed seceding before they began unlawful insurrections and invasions against dozens of Federal forts, armories, customs houses and ships. When two of these forts -- Sumter and Pickney -- were sent resupplies and reinforcements, the South resorted to extreme violence against the United States.
So, it was not secession which caused the Civil War. It was insurrection, rebellion, "domestic violence," etc.
A Decade of Massive Growth in Southern Wealth
The American nation was built on the vast farmlands that stretch from the South to the midlands. That farmland produced the wealth that funded American industrialization: It permitted the formation of a class of small landholders who, amazingly, could produce more than they could consume. They could sell their excess crops in the east and in Europe and save that money, which eventually became the founding capital of American industry.
Far from stagnating due to its labor pool as many have suggested, the economy of the antebellum South grew quite rapidly. Between 1840 and 1860, per capita income increased more rapidly in the South than in the rest of the nation. By 1860 the south attained a level of per capita income which was high by the standards of the time, surpassing the status of many European countries.
Although primarily a rural land, the South in 1860 had a lively urban population that included merchants and manufacturers centered in 20 cities with over 10,000 population each, the largest of which were Charleston and New Orleans.
By 1860, the South had more than $96,000,000 invested in about 20,000 factories. Nearly 110,000 factory workers were turning out products worth approximately $155,000,000 annually. Many of the laborers toiled in the plants only a portion of their time, for many of the factories still operated on the old domestic or putting-out system.
The professional classes of the South were not unlike anywhere else, except that their prosperity depended upon the success of the planters. The doctors, lawyers, journalists, and career-military officers - economically and socially tied into the planter economy. By 1850, non-slaveholding white farmers were increasing more rapidly as a group than were slaveholders.
The Southern economy had changed greatly in the decade of the 1850’s. Southern banking had grown extensively. At the end of 1859, the amount of money on hand in Southern banks was 20% higher than in Northeastern banks.
The growth in personal wealth in the South in the 1850’s was extensive. From the 1850 census, and state census records in 1858, the value of land and personal property had increased by 57%, while the same measure in the Northeast showed an increase of only 11%.
The typical southern state farm in 1860 had a valuation of $7,101. In the northern states this figure was $3,311.
Other industries that the South had historically ignored were receiving investment. Southern shipbuilding had grown to the point that there were in 1859 145 ship-building locations in the South that turned out 43,000 ship tons constructed that year. Southern shipyards were turning out both steam and sail powered vessels for the coastal and river trade.
The harbor in Charleston was being dredged in order to accommodate deep draft vessels used in transatlantic trade. Neither shipbuilding nor dredging was underwritten by any US Treasury money.
In 1853, the Southern states had 26% of the total railroad mileage in the country for 23% of the US population.
By 1859 according to the Boston Railway Times, there were 27,000 miles of railroads in the United States and that the Southern states percentage had grown to one third of the total of miles built. In addition to this fact, the railroads in the South had been constructed with private monies instead of Federal subsidies, were paid for, and had been cheaper to construct.
Connecting rail lines enabled a complete journey from practically any major Southern city on the Atlantic coast all the way to Monroe, Louisiana. A north/south journey followed connecting rail lines from New Orleans to Memphis and beyond the Ohio River.
This railroad capacity, plus the new shipbuilding abilities, meant that the South was becoming highly competitive in the transportation business. Thus the value of shipping from Southern harbors increased.
All the profitable branches of commercialism that thrived on the movement of Southern goods—freighting, brokering, selling, banking, insurance, storage—found in the Northeast, were receiving increased competition from businessmen in the South.
A rapidly growing group of people in the South were the “free blacks”. “Free”, in reference to Southern black Americans who were not slaves. They had been freed by former masters legally, had bought their way out of slavery from masters who allowed it, or had been born to manumitted slaves.
Most of the 250,000 free blacks lived in Virginia and Maryland, but clusters could also be found in Louisiana, particularly around New Orleans, in North Carolina, Tennessee, and in the border states of Kentucky and Missouri. Free Southern blacks in most communities held unskilled jobs, working usually as farm hands or day laborers. Some were trained as artisans and followed trades such as carpentry or shoemaking.
A few became wealthy. Some free blacks became slaveholders themselves. Carter G. Woodson, a pioneer black historian, reported that 4,071 free blacks held 13,446 slaves in 1830. The largest concentration of black slaveholders were around New Orleans (753 owners with 2,351 slaves) Richmond, and in Maryland.
With regard to housing, in the North there were 1.13 families per dwelling. In the West, the housing ratio was 1.02, and the South was 1.01. Therefore, the Southern family had at least the same or better accommodations.
In 1860, Virginia had twenty-three colleges enrolling 2,824 students, as against New York's seventeen colleges listing 2,970 students; and Georgia's thirty-two colleges with 3,302 students nominally overshadowed the eight Massachusetts colleges with 1,733 registrants.
In terms of crime, in the decade of 1850, in the North 1 in 310 blacks were in jail. In the South, 1 in 10,000. Of the white population, in the North 1 in 3000 were in jail. In the South, there were 1 in 5000 in jail.
Net worth of southerners was higher than their counterparts in the North and West.
Personal wealth in ownership of farm implements, machinery, and animals was greater in the South.
When the 1860 Census was completed it was noted that one measure of the census was “True Value of Personal Property” which was the per capita value of owned property. According to this measure of accumulation of personal wealth, the leading and most wealthy states among all of the United States were Mississippi, South Carolina, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana.
The larger cotton plantations were of such a size and complexity that they were comparable to New England's factories. Lumber and grist mills were typically a part of these plantation's operations. Some had their own cotton gins. Large sugar plantations processed the cane once it was harvested. Some men owned several plantations and, therefore, found hired managers essential.
Slave owners constituted the wealthiest class in the nation. The average slave owner was more than five times as wealthy as the average Northerner; more than ten times as wealthy as the average non-slave holding Southerner.
According to the census, with only 30% of the nation’s (free) population, the South had 60% of the “wealthiest men.” The 1860 individual per capita income in the South was $3,978; in the North it was $2,040.
Former Census Office Director, James DeBow had said in the 1850’s that,
“The proportion (of valuable property ownership) which the slaveholders of the South bear to the entire population is greater than that of the owners of land or houses, agricultural stock, State, Bank or other corporation securities…In the States which are among the largest slaveholding, South Carolina, and Georgia, the land proprietors outnumber nearly two to one, in relative proportion, the owners of the same property in Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.”
Citizens of the South thus tended to invest in crop raw materials, farm animals, machinery for farming, slaves to aid in the work, and tracts of real estate.
Of the more than 8 million whites in the American South in 1860, those who owned slaves numbered 383,637. Of those, 2,292 were large planters who held more than 100 slaves.
Indentured slaves, either through the actions of their owners, or their ability to earn money beyond their regular work schedules, eventually earned their freedom. More than a quarter of a million blacks were free in the South during the years preceding the Civil War.
This meant that there were actually more free blacks in the South than there were in the North during these years.
Possibly, the part regarding Fort Pickens.
"USRC Harriet Lane again transferred to the Navy 30 March 1861 for service in the expedition sent to Charleston, South Carolina, to supply the Fort Sumter garrison after the outbreak of the American Civil War.
"She departed New York 8 April and arrived off Charleston 11 April.
"The next day she fired a shot across the bow of United States Mail Steamer Nashville on her monthly route from New York with passengers and merchandise to Charleston when that merchantman appeared with no colors flying. Nashville avoided further attack by promptly hoisting the United States ensign. [2 days later Nashville raised the Palmetto flag to begin her career as one of the most elusive Confederate privateers]
"When Major Robert Anderson surrendered Fort Sumter 13 April, USRC Harriet Lane withdrew with her sister ships."
Note especially, the shot across the Nashville's bow occurred on April 12 -- after firing on Fort Sumter had begun.
So, the issue here is whether, as reported in the Civil War Almanac, on April 8 "federal troops onboard the US revenue cutter Harriet Lane land to bolster the garrison of Fort Pickens, Florida."
Since I can't find anything to confirm this, I'm wondering if it is possibly being confused with the following, from May of 1862:
"Farragut ordered the Mortar Flotilla to Ship Island 1 May, and Harriet Lane continued to Pensacola, Florida where she transported Brigadier General Lewis G. Arnold's troops from Fort Pickens to the other side of the bay where they occupied Forts Barrancas, and McRee, Barancas Barracks, and the Navy Yard which had been abandoned by the Confederates. "
As to just who fired the first shots:
Lt. Slemmer's "decision to abandon Barrancas was hastened when, around midnight of January 8, 1861, his guards repelled a group of men intending to take the fort. Some historians note that this could be considered the first shots fired by United States forces in the Civil War."
However, consider:
"The first shots of the Civil War occurred January 9, 1861, when the Star of the West was fired upon by cadets from The Citadel, who were stationed at the Morris Island battery as the ship entered Charleston Harbor.[2]
This prevented the Star of the West from resupplying Major Robert Anderson's garrison at Fort Sumter.
The Star of the West was given a warning shot across the bow and turned about to leave the harbor mouth.
She was then fired on from Fort Moultrie and hit twice.
The mission was abandoned and the Star of the West headed for her home port of New York Harbor"
Final point: who resupplied Fort Pickens?
"Towards the latter part of January, reinforcements commanded by Captain Israel Vogdes were sent to the fort aboard the U.S.S. Brooklyn, a powerful steampowered warship.
Additional naval support was also sent to Pensacola, including the recently built sailing frigate, the U.S.S. Sabine.
Although these vessels arrived safely, the Brooklyn landed only provisions, not troops, at the fort.
The explanation for this change of policy was an arrangement, or "truce," entered into by President Buchanan and Florida officials, by which Florida agreed not to attack the fort and, in return, the Brooklyn would not land its troops unless the fort were attacked or preparations made for its attack."
From the Almanac:
April 12, 1861: "The naval squadron consisting of USS Sabine, Brooklyn, St. Louis, and Wynandotte begins to land reinforcements at Fort Pickens, Florida."
You claim to be a student of history? Who was his Opposition?
You-“Secession — peaceful, lawful, negotiated and approved by Congress is one thing. Violent insurrection against the government of the United States is something else entirely.”
I'm assuming {By your post} That the Colonist had the King's blessing? Or did they partake in a ‘violent insurrection’ and therefore—secession?
Your claimed incomes were off by at least a decimal point, pal. So no lectures on accuracy, OK?
Here are the real numbers: Northeast average per capita ($183) exceded that of the South Atlantic ($124) by about 50%.
Here's what you are correct about: I wrote those original numbers from memory, knowing they were not exactly correct, but somewhere "in the ball park."
And your suggestion, even if it's based on actual data, that Southern per capita income in 1860 was greater than Northern, is at best misleading. That's because the "per capita" has to be based on just the 5.6 million whites, only 60% of the South's population, and barely over 20% of the country's total white population -- 27 million.
The overwhelming economic & population preponderance of the North in 1860 is the reason -- indeed arguably the only reason -- the North won the Civil War.
And the only reason we are even discussing this is because of Non-Sequitur's challenge to PeaRidge's claims that most of the Federal revenues from import duties resulted from imports to the South. PeaRidge makes the bogus claim that the North waged war against the South to protect its customs revenues!
My arguments and data here are intended to support Non-Sequitur's position that even in 1860, the South was an economic backwater, compared to the industrialized North. Therefore it does not make sense to claim that Southern imports would come anywhere close to matching those of the North.
Your bogus data on supposed per capita incomes of just 5.6 million white Southerners does not change anything, imho.
Except that this country was founded by (successful) rebellion from our British masters, not secession.
Your claimed incomes were off by at least a decimal point, pal. So no lectures on accuracy, OK?
Here are the real numbers: Northeast average per capita ($183) exceded that of the South Atlantic ($124) by about 50%.
Here's what you are correct about: I wrote those original numbers from memory, knowing they were not exactly correct, but somewhere "in the ball park."
And your suggestion, even if it's based on actual data, that Southern per capita income in 1860 was greater than Northern, is at best misleading. That's because the "per capita" has to be based on just the 5.6 million whites, only 60% of the South's population, and barely over 20% of the country's total white population -- 27 million.
The overwhelming economic & population preponderance of the North in 1860 is the reason -- indeed arguably the only reason -- the North won the Civil War.
And the only reason we are even discussing this is because of Non-Sequitur's challenge to PeaRidge's claims that most of the Federal revenues from import duties resulted from imports to the South. PeaRidge makes the bogus claim that the North waged war against the South to protect its customs revenues!
My arguments and data here are intended to support Non-Sequitur's position that even in 1860, the South was an economic backwater, compared to the industrialized North. Therefore it does not make sense to claim that Southern imports would come anywhere close to matching those of the North.
Your bogus data on supposed per capita incomes of just 5.6 million white Southerners does not change anything, imho.
Pal, I'm certain these numbers are 100% bogus, but can't yet figure out exactly how, or why.
Here's the important point you MUST understand: those numbers might be valid for 1 9 6 0 but in no way could be valid for 1 8 6 0. So what are we really looking at? Some kind of "adjusted for inflation" numbers? I don't think so.
I'm more inclined to think they are just P.O.S.A.* numbers invented for propaganda purposes only. But I might be wrong about that -- if someone has a better explanation, I'd like to hear it.
*P.O.S.A. = Pulled Out of Someone's *ss numbers ;-)
For crying out loud, Idabilly, you're making my point for me! The South had TWO stirling examples from our Founding Fathers on how to start a new country:
First example: a violent War of Independence, where blood on battlefields decides the issue.
Second example: a peaceful Constitutional Convention, where people debate and vote.
It's totally obvious to me that the South in 1860-61 did everything it could to provoke the first, and avoid the second. They wanted a war, and eventually they got one.
That's the core of my argument here. Thanks for helping! ;-)
as i said, i travel for the family's various enterprises, FREQUENTLY. (UNLIKE most of the DAMNyankee cretins/brain-DEAD HATERS of FR, i have a JOB.)
free dixie,sw
They wanted more guarantees for owners of slave property.
Doesn't exactly sound like the way to greater liberty.
You had posted that to me in post 1509, sourcing it as coming from Wikipedia. I thought I had responded about it but apparently not. You have to be careful with Wikipedia. Wikipedia is wrong in this instance, although a minor error. The Star of the West was hit twice before it turned around. The damage was relatively minor. The ship was turned around before it got any closer to the guns of Fort Moultrie or before being cut off from escape back out into the ocean by a Confederate vessel (I've seen both reasons listed). It was not hit on its way out of the harbor but did scrape bottom on the bar as it was leaving. [Source: Report of an army officer aboard the Star].
So, the issue here is whether, as reported in the Civil War Almanac, on April 8 "federal troops onboard the US revenue cutter Harriet Lane land to bolster the garrison of Fort Pickens, Florida."
Since I can't find anything to confirm this, I'm wondering if it is possibly being confused with the following, from May of 1862:
The transfer of troops by the Harriet Lane from Pickens to Barrancas and other installations happened on May 10, 1862, as near as I can figure [Source: Link]. So the April 8, 1861, (or other date) landing of troops for Pickens by the Lane (or other vessel) is still a mystery or an error. I've run across errors like this in books before. Certainly, you didn't intend to post erroneous information.
How much is a copy of "Yachts Against Subs" worth? Bottom line: You still haven't produced the book. The rest is just noise. Over a year of you telling us what it says, and how sorry we're going to be when it gets here, and still nothing to back it up.
Silly perhaps, but in 1860 it was the postition of James Buchanan, the President, and Edwin Stanton, the Attorney General. They believed, as did many lawyers, scholars, and ordinary Americans, that secession was unconstitutional. But they weren't sure that the federal government could do anything about secession attempts militarily.
I don't know the details. Some sources say Buchanan just didn't want to do anything but was convinced by Stanton's legal reasoning. Others say he believed military action was possible but felt he needed the authorization of Congress. Still others suggest he was just waiting for the crisis or his term in office to come to an end, whichever came first.
William Rawle, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America, was the text used at the US Military Academy from 1825-1840
No. It was used for a small portion of that time. About one or at most two years.
Here's something I found:
Thomas Fleming writes: "After the Civil War some vengeful anti-West Pointers did indeed try to trace Davis' disloyalty to his education under Thayer. They maintained that the future leader of the Confederacy had derived not a little encouragement from one of his textbooks at West Point, On the Constitution, by a disunionist legal philosopher named Rawle, who taught that the states had a natural right to secede. Davis himself denied that he ever studied Rawle, and West Point defenders, paging through old archives, reported that the book had been used for one year early in Thayer's regime, largely for want of an alternative text. When James Kent, New York State's great Supreme Court justice, sometimes called the American Blackstone, published his Commentaries, which sternly rejected the idea of secession, Thayer immediately snapped up copies fo rhis cadets. Only in this century has the Rawle canard been totally laid to rest in the most definitive possible way. An examination of James Kent's journal for June 3, 1828, reveals him to have been a member of West Point's Board of Visitors. After listening to the cadets recite on constitutional law, he noted 'They appeared to be masters of the first volume of my Commentaries.' The cadet who shone brightest in discoursing on the principles of this rock-ribbed Unionist was Jefferson Davis." [Thomas J. Fleming, West Point: The Men and Times of the United States Military Academy, p. 59]
There were a lot of untruths that got started in ex-Confederate publications after the war. It looks like exaggerating the importance of Rawle's work at West Point is one of them.
Jefferson may not have led the charge crafting that particular document. However, Mr. Madison did!
Can we both agree that Madison {The Father of said document} Disagreed with your beloved {Webster} Therefore, Lincoln..With just about everything!
Ida, honey, you have just got to see Madison's letter to Webster:
DEAR SIR, I return my thanks for the copy of your late very powerful speech in the Senate of the United States. It crushes " nullification," and must hasten an abandonment of secession. But this dodges the blow by confounding the claim to secede at will, with the right of seceding from intolerable oppression.
The former answers itself, being a violation without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged. The latter is another name only for revolution, about which there is no theoretic controversy.
So far as I can make out, in Madison's view, the people of a state could mount a revolt against an intolerable federal tyranny, but they didn't have the right to leave the Union without permission of the country as a whole just because they wanted to.
There was a lot of talk of Revolution in Charleston in 1860. Some secessionists thought that they really were rebelling against an evil central government. After the war, it became harder to make that argument (you know, what with the slavery thing and all that) so the notion that secession (at will for any reason or none) had been a part of the Constitution, became more prominent as an explanation for what had happened, than the idea of revolution against tyranny.
They wanted more guarantees that the states wouldn't become the bitches of the Feds, like you want.
Is there anything more moronic than the idea that the secessionist leadership was just a bunch of good ol' boys who hung out in basements drinking beer and talking about guns?
The leadership were prominent slaveowners and they cared about the survival of slavery and the preservation of White supremacy.
You'd have to be stupid or dishonest to deny that.
Your link is extraordinarily interesting:
"We proceeded without interruption until we arrived within one and three-quarter miles of forts Sumter and Moultrie -- they being apparently equidistant -- when we were opened on by a masked battery near the other end of Morris Island. This battery was about five-eights of a mile distant from us, and we were keeping as near into it as we could, to avoid the fire of Fort Moultrie. Before we were fired upon we had discovered a red palmetto flag flying, but could see nothing to indicate that there was a battery there.
"We went into the harbor with the American ensign hoisted on the flag-staff, and as soon as the first shot was fired a full-sized garrison flag was displayed at our fore, but the one was no more respected than the other.
"We kept on, still under the fire of the battery, most of the balls passing over us, one just missing the machinery, another striking but a few feet from the rudder, while a ricochet shot struck us in the fore-chains, about two feet above the water line, and just below where the man was throwing the lead...
"Finding it impossible to take my command to Fort Sumter, I was obliged most reluctantly to turn about, and try to make my way out of the harbor before my retreat should be cut off by vessels then in sight, supposed to be the cutter Aiken, coming down the channel in tow of a steamer, with the evident purpose of cutting us off. A brisk fire was kept up on us by the battery as long as we remained within range, but, fortunately, without damage to us, and we succeeded in recrossing the bar in safety, the steamer touching two or three times.
"Our course was now laid for New York Harbor, and we were followed for some hours by a steamer from Charleston for the purpose of watching us..."
I read this as saying MANY shots fired at Star of the West, though with no serious damage or injury.
All in all, a more ominous situation than usually reported.
As for the reliability of Wikipedia, I agree. But more often than not it is a useful, quick reference for key data. Have not found another single source that does the job better.
Your post #1,616 is terrific, much enjoyed - appreciated.
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