Posted on 08/11/2015 1:11:21 PM PDT by iowamark
What caused the Civil War? That seems like the sort of simple, straightforward question that any elementary school child should be able to answer. Yet many Americans—including, mostly, my fellow Southerners—claim that that the cause was economic or state’s rights or just about anything other than slavery.
But slavery was indisputably the primary cause, explains Colonel Ty Seidule, Professor of History at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
The abolition of slavery was the single greatest act of liberty-promotion in the history of America. Because of that fact, it’s natural for people who love freedom, love tradition, and love the South to want to believe that the continued enslavement of our neighbors could not have possibly been the motivation for succession. But we should love truth even more than liberty and heritage, which is why we should not only acknowledge the truth about the cause of the war but be thankful that the Confederacy lost and that freedom won.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.acton.org ...
Let us first note that all Lost Causers reject every Supreme Court ruling they disagree with, most especially Texas v White, which ruled in 1869 that no declarations of secession were constitutionally valid.
And so your attachment to this Supreme Court 1870 ruling is strictly transactional -- you use it because you can misinterpret it to suit your own purposes.
But in fact, the Court's 1870 ruling is quite clear that Civil War can be considered as having started and ended at many different dates in different places, and that it's ruling in this case applies only to itself:
Acts of hostility by the insurgents occurred at periods so various, and of such different degrees of importance, and in parts of the country so remote from each other, both at the commencement and the close of the late civil war, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, to say on what precise day it began or terminated.
It is necessary, therefore, to refer to some public act of the political departments of the government to fix the dates, and, for obvious reasons, those of the executive department which may be and in fact was, at the commencement of hostilities, obliged to act during the recess of Congress, must be taken.
The proclamation of intended blockade by the President may therefore be assumed as marking the first of these dates, and the proclamation that the war had closed as marking the second.
But the war did not begin or close at the same time in all the states..."
In fact, the Confederate war against the United States began months earlier, under President Buchanan in January 1861, when secessionist forces began threatening Union officials, seizing Union properties and firing on Union ships attempting to resupply Fort Sumter.
The Confederates' April 12, 1861 assault on Fort Sumter was only their most recent and greatest act of war against the United States.
So the 1870 Supreme Court decision does not say on what date Confederates started Civil War, but rather which action by Federal Government can be used as the beginning of United States response.
In fact, Lincoln's April 19 declaration of blockade itself killed nobody, assaulted nobody, invaded nobody's territory, seized nobody's property.
All of that came weeks & months later.
Indeed, let us not forget that Pvt. Henry Watt, the first Confederate troop killed directly in battle with any Union force was at Big Bethel on June 10, 1861.
By that date, dozens of Union troops had been killed, over 100 wounded and more than 500 taken prisoner of war by pro-Confederates.
So the 1870 Supreme Court ruling does not say when Confederates started war, only when the United States first began to seriously act in response to secessionists' war against it.
No constitutional law can be held valid which contradicts the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration has the higher moral and legal authority because all subsequent acts rely on it's validity to authorize them.
I looked at the court's reasoning in Texas v White. The Non Unanimous opinion asserts that usage of the words "Perpetual Union" in the Articles of Confederation constitute a legally binding contract between the member states.
This is rank idiocy and perhaps deliberate lying, because English Law also constituted a "perpetual union" and the foundation of this country absolutely rejects that argument. Furthermore, all legal power in this nation derives from the Declaration of Independence, and both the Constitution and the Articles of Confederation are inferior to the legal principles stated in our founding document.
No act of man can override a natural right.
If you think that an act of man can override a natural right, then the institution of slavery must itself also fall into this category, because that is nothing more than an act of man overriding a natural right to be free.
As in everything else, you are delusional on this point, FRiend.
My advice is: seek help.
Your debating skills are weak and ineffective. When you cannot answer the point with a reasoned rebuttal, your answer is that if I disagree with you, I must be mentally ill.
You, and most of your kindred spirits must ever resort to an emotional argument because you have no reasoned one which you can put forth.
Again, I point out that if you believe that Acts of Man can override natural rights, then you yourself are making the case for the legitimacy of slavery.
Your delusions regarding our Declaration of Independence notwithstanding, nowhere and at no time did any Founder ever intentionally or unintentionally advocate or justify secession at pleasure.
All believed what the Declaration clearly states, legitimate secession must be for only the most serious reasons, of which the Declaration lists dozens against Britain.
And none of those reasons are concerns about what the King might do some time in the future, but rather they are an inventory of wrongs the King had already committed.
Most especially, 18 months before the Declaration, the Brits had formally declared war against their American Colonies and had fought over 19 battles against them, with untold numbers killed, wounded, captured and property destroyed by British forces.
So there was no possible debate about legitimacy of reasons for the 1776 Declaration of Independence.
By stark contrast, in 1860 no legitimate reasons existed for secession, and so Confederates declared it "at pleasure", then soon provoked, started and formally declared war on the United States -- all before a single Confederate soldier was killed directly in battle with any Union force.
Bottom line: there was a huge difference between what our Founders did in 1776, and what secessionists did in 1860 & 1861.
DiogenesLamp: "Besides that, the Constitution does not prohibit separation."
Nor did either of Presidents Buchanan or Lincoln.
Secession in 1861 done peacefully would have remained peaceful, according to Lincoln's Inaugural promise.
But the Confederacy was determined to have a war, and so provoked, started and declared it on the United States.
When the Brits effectively declared war on their American colonies, in February 1775, they lost legitimacy.
Nevertheless, it was another 18 months before our Founders gave up all hope of reconciliation and declared independence.
When Confederates effectively declared war on the United States, in early 1861, they too lost legitimacy.
Nevertheless, it was another several months before President Lincoln gave up hope of reconciliation and began to move against them.
One is at a loss as to how to even attempt a rational discourse with you.
I will simply reiterate my position, that people have natural rights, and among them is the right to leave a government which no longer serves their interests. This is the position articulated by the Declaration, and it is the one to which I adhere.
You, on the other hand, seem to believe that contract law supersedes natural rights. At least the British believed that their King ruled by divine right, and was therefore in accordance with "natural law", but your position that acts of man override natural rights is one not even the British would have proffered.
DegenerateLamp’s Liberal Projection™ is acute this morning.
Any firing of weapons on a country's military is a provocation of war.
It's the reason why, from 1939 through the end of 1941, Adolf Hitler ordered his U-boats not to sink US warships in the Atlantic -- he did not wish to give President Roosevelt any excuses for declaring a war existed.
PeaRidge: "You may be aware that the first shots were fired by Federal troops on Florida civilian militia in the area of the old Spanish Fort San Carlos in Pensacola in January of 1861.
The next day the Star of the West, a federal ship under contract to run supplies into Ft. Sumter received fire and retired from the area of Ft. Moultrie."
In both cases, aggressive provocation was committed by secessionist forces against US military.
PeaRidge: "Following these events, nothing changed. No declaration of war, nothing."
Just as, for example, Congress did not declare war on Germany before December 7, 1941 despite sinkings of US ships, and deaths of US sailors, by German U-boats.
Despite FDR's urgings, Congress didn't want war, and was not satisfied that German provocations were enough to force war on us.
Nevertheless, as with Confederate provocations in 1861, German provocations in 1941 clearly indicated that war was growing ever closer.
PeaRidge: "The same is true of the firing on Ft. Sumter.
The seceded states remained in place.
No invasion, nothing.
Civilian shipping from New York continued to reach Charleston in peace."
In fact, there were numerous provocations of war related to Fort Sumter, beginning in December 1860 with secessionists' demands for its surrender, threats against Union officials, and firing on Union resupply ships.
The Confederate assault and forced surrender in April, 1861 was only their latest and most egregious act of war.
When you assault and force surrender of a country's military force, that is an act of war, regardless of what you or they may call it.
Indeed, relative to the small size of the American military at the time, 1861, the Confederate assault on troops in Fort Sumter was just as major as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.
And it was every bit as much an act of war as the Japanese attack, about which FDR famously said:
In Roosevelt's mind, the war did not begin when Congress declared it, but rather when Japan started it, on December 7.
PeaRidge: "...after the conflict the United States Supreme Court held the institution of the blockade to constitute the legal commencement of the Civil War."
In fact, the Supreme Court's 1870 decision was very clear in saying that War of Rebellion began & ended at many different times in many different places.
So, the only purpose of its decision was to establish how much time could be extended on a certain statute of limitations.
The Supreme Court in 1870 had no intention to provide Lost Causers 145 years later with a tool for venting their anger & hatreds of Lincoln specifically, Republicans in general.
Bottom line: regardless of the Supreme Court's 1870 ruling on a particular statute of limitations case, actual major force-on-force warfare began at Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861.
But no Confederate soldier was killed directly in battle with any Union force until Big Bethel on June 10, 1861, more than a month after the Confederacy formally declared war on the United States.
By that time, dozens of Union troops had been killed, more than 100 wounded and 500 captured as POWs by pro-Confederates.
No, once again, you've misread what is clearly written and understood: Our Founders' 1776 Declaration of Independence has nothing to do with your allegations of a "right to secede" at pleasure for any reason, or for no particular reason.
They said nothing of the sort.
Instead, our Founders began using words like "necessary", "requires" and "impels...separation".
This had nothing to do with "at pleasure" or a "right of separation", but rather with the utter necessity of it, based on a long accumulation of reasons which they then listed, in detail.
Founders' reasons included, most importantly, the fact that Brits had already, 18 months before, effectively declared war on them, and by July 1776 fought at least 19 battles resulting in American deaths, injuries, captures and destruction of property..
No such reasons remotely resembling the seriousness of 1776 existed in 1860, when Deep South Fire Eaters began to organize conventions to declare secession, at pleasure.
Again, Seward did not discuss anything with Jefferson Davis' emissaries, only with intermediaries who may, or may not, have relayed his words accurately.
Lincoln at that same time was offering to trade Sumter -- "a fort for a state", Virginia -- and Seward obviously believed that would happen.
When Lincoln's offer to Virginia was refused, Lincoln returned to old President Buchanan's "plan B" which was resupply Union troops in Fort Sumter.
And that is just what Lincoln formally notified South Carolina's governor of, so there was no act of war by Lincoln, period.
The choice for war was Jefferson Davis' to make and carry the responsibility for.
That Lincoln intended to collect revenues from imports to Southern ports is expressed in his March 4, 1861 Inaugural Address:
So, what Lincoln mentions in his Inaugural we should not be surprised to hear of him mentioning in various conversations.
Nevertheless, the particular remarks you quote do not appear in any book on the period I've read, and your implication that it was a matter Lincoln obsessed over is thus not valid.
The bottom line here is that Lincoln did not, as you claim, go to war to preserve Federal revenues from import duties collected at Southern ports, since most imports came through Northern ports and Deep South ports represented a miniscule percent of the total.
Indeed, Lincoln went to war at all for one reason only: because the Confederacy first provoked, then started and formally declared war on the United States, while sending military aid to pro-Confederates in Union Missouri.
Continue down your chosen path, deaf, dumb and blind to the true facts which you bury under your repetition of a few “talking points.” Live on in oblivion. I have attempted to broaden your horizon, and widen your perspective but to no avail. You continue to bray like a mule or donkey with blinders on.
“And what is to become of the revenue?” was the reply. “I shall have no government - no revenues.”
This must be the holy grail of lost causerdom. Notice that they all point to the same source(s) (sources that point to one another in a circular-logic pseudo self-affirming style) but cannot provide one first (or even second) hand reference. Notice also that the alleged quote varies from assertion to assertion.
Since one cannot “prove a negative” you will never convince the lost causers that Lincoln never said this.
Interesting argument, inclined to agree...
I wouldn't blame the Civil War on Taney alone, but certainly in part to the interactions of newly elected President Buchanan and Taney, in early 1857, forming the Dred-Scott opinion, which all but legalized slavery in every state & territory, regardless of "states' rights".
It's what made Northerners "wide awake" to the threat posed by the Slave Power, and drove them to vote for anti-slavery Republicans.
"I will simply reiterate my position, that people have natural rights, and among them is the right to leave a government which no longer serves their interests. This is the position articulated by the Declaration, and it is the one to which I adhere........ The central premise of the Declaration is that states have a right to leave.
My position is that the "central premise" of the Declaration of the thirteen united States of America was very specifically to declare that "these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown.........."
He glosses over the innumerated specific reasons and waters it down to the extent that it is applicable to the rights of the Southern States to secede from The Union. He goes so far to miss apply the DOI to the Civil War as to create a castle in the sand and even name it ("British Union").
Furthermore, he misses the point of the controversy over the Dred Scott decision, which is, the Power of the Supreme Court. Since that decision, as Lincoln warned, ..."the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal."
Lincoln wasn't merely trying to hold the Union together, but he was trying to define/confine/limit the powers of the eminent tribunal. There was also that battle for the balance of powers in the government.
DiogenesUnion would do himself a favor if he were to return to the positions he held in his youth (Lincoln as an American hero) than to try to further lose himself in his newfound twisted and distorted perspective.
I do not gloss over them. I note that the founders asserted the enumeration of them was due to "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind", and not because there is any specific requirement in natural law to articulate them. In simple terms, the Founders listed their reasons as a courtesy, and not because they were obliged to do so.
a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
You gloss over my position by not reading it correctly, or even attempting to understand it. One begins to think you do this because you are unable to do otherwise.
Isn’t it ironic that Davis had it in mind that all “his” States would be “slave states”. Would he have accepted a non-slave state? Or would he have forced slavery upon it?
By virtue of their constitution all confederate states were required to embrace slavery.
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