Posted on 12/05/2014 5:44:32 AM PST by TurboZamboni
MILLEDGEVILLE, Ga. (AP) — At the heart of this well-preserved antebellum city, sunbeams stream through the arched windows of a grand public meeting room that mirrors the whole Civil War — including its death throes, unfolding 150 years ago this week when Union Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman launched his scorching March to the Sea.
The first major objective along Sherman's route, Milledgeville was Georgia's capital at the time, and this room was the legislative chamber. Crossing its gleaming floor, Amy Wright couldn't help recalling family stories of the hated "foragers" who swept through then. "They were just called 'Sherman's men,'" she said in a hushed voice.
(Excerpt) Read more at twincities.com ...
PS: It is in paragraph 2 of the speech. It amazes me HE put that in his speech, to me it's a "mea culpa".
Slave trading, perhaps. Slave holding, not so much. Rhode Island adopted an graduated emancipation program in 1784. By 1800 the census showed fewer than 400 slaves and by 1840, the last time any slaves were registered, the number had fallen to 5.
“We fortify our embassies without intending to take action against the country we are in.”
Try rolling in a bunch of tanks into Moscow at the US embassy. So, no, dummy, it is not the same thing as fortifying a fort.
“Slave holding, not so much. “
Where do you read your history, MSNBC? RI was a major slave holding/using colony until 1784. To claim they outlawed and had no slaves is ridiculous.
If you read my post you would see that I didn't say that. They didn't outlaw slavery, they adopted a graduated emancipation system. They didn't suddenly free their slaves, there were slaves held as late as 1840. But I don't know of anything that supports your claim that Rhode Island had more slaves on a per capita basis.
While you are at it why not throw in the Klingons and the Starship Enterprise? LOL!
On the occasion corresponding to this four years ago all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impending civil war. All dreaded it, all sought to avert it. While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, insurgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came.
Lincoln reminds the audience of the occasion four years previous. He makes it clear that the south instigated the hostilities. The third sentence points out that the "insurgent agents" were busy with their proposition of dissolving the Union - a proposition that Lincoln as duty-bound to abjure. The fourth sentence repudiates any notion of an acknowledgement of personal fault (mea culpa).
I think that the more important lesson here was Lincoln's spirit of reconciliation. He could have easily used the occasion for a "victory lap" but instead he was thoughtful, respectful, and humble.
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Also, the March through Georgia may have been a bigger story at the time. People weren’t sure where Sherman was or what he was up to. “Destructive war” looked to be something new to many people. By the time Sherman got to Columbia, the story was old news.
A not so clever way of saying a peace delegation wanted to negotiate. Slimy politicians are not a new phenomenon.
And “peace delegation” is a not so clever euphemism for the group who sought capitulation and dismantlement of the Union. Slimy is as slimy does.
That is the second time you have attacked me “ad hominum”.
We actually have very sophisticated weapons in many of our embassies. But Lincoln wasn’t rolling tanks into Fort Sumter either, so your argument is basically worthless.
Depends upon what their version of peace was? I remember reading that one of their demands was the return of their property (slaves) from different places in the North. Especially if the slaves escaped after the secession. Meaning the North would be responsible for rounding up escaped slaves and returning them to a foreign government.
Sounds like they were trying to dictate terms of surrender rather than terms of peace.
Supply a reference or otherwise this get filed under mythology.
Seems sliminess is contagious, you might want to seek the truth.
I will try to find a copy of he Impending Crisis: America Before the Civil War, 1848-1861 by David Potter online, but I believe the reference is around page 487 or 488.
I'm presuming that you are referring to the unofficial "peace delegation" of Rives, Somers, Doniphan, and Guthrie. Lincoln did meet with them and offered compromise to them. It was they who refused. If you refer to the delegation of Crawford, Forsyth and Roman that was a dishonest proposition of way too little, far too late. anyway, they weren't there to negotiate, bargain, or (especially) compromise - they were there to make demands.
I found an interesting and revealing comment from Martin Crawford to Robert Toombs March 6, 1861:
I have felt it my duty under instructions from your department, as well as from my best judgment to adopt and support Mr. Seward's policy, upon condition, however, that the present status is to be rigidly maintained. His reasons and my own, it is proper to say, are as wide apart as the poles: he is fully persuaded that peace will bring about a reconstruction of the Union, whilst I feel confident that it will build up and cement our confederacy and put us beyond the reach either of his arms or of his diplomacy. It is well that he should indulge in dreams which we know are not to be realized.In other words, he knows that he is bargaining in bad faith and doesn't care - as long as it gives the insurrectionists time to fortify their positions.
The bloody fools were the slavers who sought war - and got devastation for their trouble.
Sherman himself said that the Carolinas were much more difficult. He got quite a surprise at Bentonville, North Carolina:
http://www.nccivilwar150.com/history/bentonville.htm
MONTGOMERY, February 27, 1861.
The President of the United States: Being animated by an earnest desire to unite and bind together our respective countries by friendly ties, I have appointed M. J. Crawford, one of our most settled and trustworthy citizens, as special commissioner of the Confederate States of America to the Government of the United States; and I have now the honor to introduce him to you, and to ask for him a reception and treatment corresponding to his station and to the purpose for which he is sent. Those purposes he will more particularly explain to you. Hoping that through his agency. &c. [sic.] JEFF'N DAVIS.
For the purpose of establishing friendly relations between the Confederate States and the United States, and reposing special trust, &c., Martin J. Crawford, John Forsyth, and A. B. Roman are appointed special commissioners of the Confederate States to the United States. I have invested them with full and all manner of power and authority for and in the name of the Confederate States to meet and confer with any person or persons duly authorized by the Government of the United States being furnished with like powers and authority, and with them to agree, treat, consult, and negotiate of and concerning all matters and subjects interesting to both nations, and to conclude and sign a treaty or treaties, convention or conventions, touching the premises, transmitting the same to the President of the Confederate States for his final ratification by and with the consent of the Congress of the Confederate States.
Given under my hand at the city of Montgomery this 27th day of February, A.D. 1861, and of the Independence of the Confederate States the eighty-fifth.
JEFF N DAVIS.
ROBERT TOOMBS, Secretary of State.
How do you think the armed Marines guarding embassies around the world got there?
It may be getting confused with the Peace Conference in Washington in February, where the idea of such a clause to a constitutional amendment to appease the southern states was discussed.
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