On this date in 1864 President Lincoln receives a Christmas gift.

[Bull Snipe]

"I beg to present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns and plenty of ammunition and about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." General William T. Sherman's "March to the Sea" was over. During the campaign General Sherman had made good on his promise d “to make Georgia howl”. Atlanta was a smoldering ruin, Savannah was in Union hands, closing one of the last large ports to Confederate blockade runners. Sherman’s Army wrecked 300 miles of railroad and numerous bridges and miles of telegraph lines. It seized 5,000 horses, 4,000 mules, and 13,000 head of cattle. It confiscated 9.5 million pounds of corn and 10.5 million pounds of fodder, and destroyed uncounted cotton gins and mills. In all, about 100 million dollars of damage was done to Georgia and the Confederate war effort.

[OIFVeteran]

I feel as if we are talking past each other. Let me clarify. I think the founders were right, at the time, to put the unification of the country over ending slavery. The biggest fear of the founding fathers who supported the constitution was that the country would not survive under the articles of confederation.

Under the AoC it was feared that the central government was too weak and the states would break off on their own. This would lead to wars between the state’s and meddling and conquests by foreign powers. I think they were absolutely correct on this assumption. See all the Europeans wars and say how often parts of Italy were invaded until they unified. If the country had fallen apart it’s possible that instead of being retired from the US Army I would be retired from the Ohio Army and a veteran of the 32nd and 33rd Ohio Michigan wars.

When I say I wish the founders had ended slavery or put a definitive time frame on it ending(like they did the slave trade) I’m wishing the representatives from South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina had the wisdom and foresight to see that slavery was incompatible with a country who’s foundational premise is “all men are created equal”.

[x]

I usually don't respond to Kalamata's nonsense, because I don't want to get pelted with his garbage, but this certainly invites a reponse:

Did you never wonder why the Far-left political hacks disguised as historians, such as Eric Foner, Allen Guelzo, and the late Harry Jaffa, have swooned over Lincoln?

Jaffa wrote for Barry Goldwater and contributed to conservative periodicals. He certainly wasn't everybody's idea of a conservative. He tread on a lot of toes in arguments. But he was not "far left" or a "political hack.

That's even more true of Guelzo, who has also contributed to leading conservative publications and is even something of an Evangelical. Conservatism can't be pure Lysander Spooner or Thomas Jefferson and certainly not pure Jefferson Davis. It needs realists as well as dreamers, and the more one cares about something, the more apt one is to be realistic about it, rather than engage in fantasies. That's why people like Hamilton, Clay and Lincoln, shouldn't simply be condemned - and certainly not in hysterical terms - for not conforming to libertarian fantasies.

Eric Foner definitely is on the left and very prominent there. His views on the Civil War and Reconstruction, though, are very different from those on the left a century ago, like Charles Beard, who was far more sympathetic to slaveowners and the Confederacy. Beard and other progressives had no use for slavery but they saw the Southerners as fellow opponents of big business, industrialism and the Republican Party.

[Charles W. Adams, "When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession." Rowman & Littlefield, 2000, p.3]

Check out Adams’s bibliography. Who is one of Adams's main sources? None other than Eric Foner's uncle, Philip Foner. Uncle Philip has been accused of being a plagiarist himself, and he was generally acknowledged to have been a Communist, losing a teaching position for that in the Forties - about the time he was writing Business and Slavery: The New York Merchants and the Irrepressible Conflict. What does Charles Adams say about that book? He calls it "remarkable" and says, "If money makes the world go around (private sector) and is the heart of war and the blood of governments (public sector), then the Foner book explains more about the Civil War than any other study."

Let us pause and reflect: the theory that Kalamata and Diogenes have been expounding for months, even years, rests largely on a book by a Marxist historian. Those ideas didn't start with Foner; they go back to Charles Beard and others. And Marxist or progressive or Lost Causer origins don't necessarily mean the theory is wrong, but it ought to make us think at least a little before dismissing other views and adopting economic determinism and the idea that the bad bankers were behind it all.

Have you ever heard of the American Society for Promoting National Unity? It was a group founded early in 1861 to preserve the union through compromise with the South on slavery. Its members included former presidents, former vice presidential candidates, politicians, a mob of ministers, New York and Massachusetts businessmen, and names from the cream of New York society.

In March and in April of 1861 - right up until Sumter - they were still calling for compromise to save the Union. Too late I know. But a good indication that peace was more on the minds of New York's elites than war.

Now that you know about American Society for Promoting National Unity, it's not hard to find the membership list on their prospectus - a broad cross-section of the wealthy and prominent who sought peace and unity through concessions to the South. Can anyone come up with the names of those who were supposedly beating the war drums in 1861? Not people who just expressed concern about revenue, or people who wanted a show of firmness, but people who actually wanted war. In the North, I mean. We all know about the wild war talk in the South.

[x]

In Japan's view, Hawaii and the Philippines were not essential to America's national security, any more than Malaya was essential to Britain's or Indochina to France's. But countries don't let others decide what is essential to their national security, and if attacked, they respond.

Moreover, at a time when national survival is threatened "symbolic" meaning becomes important. If your country is falling apart into warring states, holding on to something as a symbol to rally around may come to seem essential.

In any case, countries don't let foreign powers or breakaway factions tell them what is and what isn't essential to their survival.

[rockrr]

You’re gonna to get pelted with his garbage no matter what so go for it!

[jeffersondem]

“When I say I wish the founders had ended slavery or put a definitive time frame on it ending(like they did the slave trade) I’m wishing the representatives from South Carolina, Georgia and North Carolina had the wisdom and foresight to see that slavery was incompatible with a country who’s foundational premise is “all men are created equal”.

The people who drafted the proposed United States Constitution figured they needed at least nine states ratifying to create a viable country. That is what they said: nine shall be sufficient.

Without Georgia and North and South Carolina there was more than enough states to ratify the constitution and have a viable country.

Your eagerness to scapegoat three thirteenths of the original states probably serves some purpose you have in mind. I don’t know.

We do know of the original 13 slave states, 13 of them voted to include slavery in the United States Constitution.

[Kalamata]

>>BroJoeK wrote: "In short, Confederates represented an existential economic, political and military threat to the United States,"
>>DiogenesLamp wrote: "Not a military threat, but definitely an economic and political threat. They would have eventually taken away New York's wealth and power, and the Empire City of the Empire state was never going to allow that to happen. That is why the Empire City of the Empire state is still running Washington DC to this very day."

I believe the city of New York was ready to secede along with the Southern States:

"With our aggrieved brethren of the Slave States, we have friendly relations and a common sympathy. We have not participated in the warfare upon their constitutional rights or their domestic institutions. While other portions of our State have unfortunately been imbued with the fanatical spirit which actuates a portion of the people of New England, the city of New York has unfalteringly preserved the integrity of its principles of adherence to the compromises of the Constitution and the equal rights of the people of all the States. We have respected the local interests of every section, at no time oppressing, but all the while aiding in the development of the resources of the whole country. Our ships have penetrated to every clime, and so have New York capital, energy and enterprise found their way to every State, and, indeed, to almost every county and town of the American Union. If we have derived sustenance from the Union, so have we in return disseminated blessings for the common benefit of all. Therefore, New York has a right to expect, and should endeavor to preserve a continuance of uninterrupted intercourse with every section."

"It is, however, folly to disguise the fact that, judging from the past, New York may have more cause of apprehension from the aggressive legislation of our own State than from external dangers. We have already largely suffered from this cause. For the past five years, our interests and corporate rights have been repeatedly trampled upon. Being an integral portion of the State, it has been assumed, and in effect tacitly admitted on our part by nonresistance, that all political and governmental power over us rested in the State Legislature. Even the common right of taxing ourselves for our own government, has been yielded, and we are not permitted to do so without this authority."

[Fernando Wood, "Mayor Wood's Recommendation of the Secession of New York City." Teaching American History, Jan 6, 1861]

Apparently, the good Mayor promoted the doctrine of "working together as a team." Too bad the Northern merchants didn't agree. Our nation would have been both prosperous, and free.

Mr. Kalamata

[Kalamata]

>>Kalamata wrote: "Obviously, the 10th Amendment didn't help Joey's understanding, revealing he is more legally-challenged than most. Perhaps if the framers had also explained that the delegated and prohibited powers are found in Article I, Sections 8 and 9, respectively, it would have been easier for him to understand them?"
>>BroJoeK wrote: "Nonsense, the truth is that no Founder ever explained the 10th Amendment, or any other section, as somehow justifying an unlimited "right of secession" in the way our Lost Causers fantasize."

No, that didn't help either. Joey is still as ignorant about the interpretation as ever. Let's try this:

"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite." [James Madison, Federalist No. 45, in Bill Bailey, "The Complete Federalist Papers." The New Federalist Papers Project, pp.214-215]"

Joey is a Statist, so I also doubt that explanation by Madison will penetrate his thick skull full of mush, unless he is deceiving us, which is a strong possibility.

For the rest of you, interpretation of constitutional law is a simple concept. In this case, the "few and defined," listed in Article I, section 8, do NOT include a power over secession, one way or the other; nor does Article I, section 9 prohibit the power over secession to the states! Therefore, the power over secession belongs to the states, by default.

Mr. Kalamata

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp quoting Maryland's song:

"The despot's heel is on thy shore, Maryland!
His torch is at thy temple door, Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore,
And be the battle queen of yore,
Maryland! My Maryland! "

The fact is that Maryland's legislature voted four-to-one against secession in April 1861.
After Confederates declared war against the United States, only one-third of Maryland's legislators were considered pro-Confederate traitors.
Marylanders served in the Union Army about two-to-one over the Confederate army.

So Maryland was a Union state by law and by its citizens' sympathies.
That makes those who supported the Confederate cause traitors to the United States, regardless of their later propaganda prowess.

[OIFVeteran]

However, the state of New York stood firmly for the Union.

ANTI-SECESSION RESOLUTIONS OF THE NEW YORK LEGISLATURE
Passed by the New York State Assembly, 11 January 1861
[Text located by Sean Rogers, Furman University. Transcribed by Lloyd Benson from the New York Times, 12 January 1861]

Whereas, The insurgent State of South Carolina, after seizing the Post-offices, Custom-House, moneys and fortifications of the Federal Government, has, by firing into a vessel ordered by the Government to convey troops and provisions to Fort Sumter, virtually declared war; and

Whereas, The forts and property of the United States Government in Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana have been unlawfully seized, with hostile intentions; and

Whereas, Their Senators in Congress avow and maintain their treasonable acts; therefore,

Resolved, (if the Senate concur,) That the Legislature of New York is profoundly impressed with the value of the Union, and determined to preserve it unimpaired; that it greets with joy the recent firm, dignified and patriotic Special Message of the President of the United States, and that we tender to him through the Chief Magistrate of our own State, whatever aid in men and money may be required to enable him to enforce the laws and uphold the authority of the Federal Government; and that, in the defence of the Union, which has conferred prosperity and happiness upon the American people, renewing the pledge given and redeemed by our fathers, we are ready to devote our fortunes, our lives, and our sacred honor.

Resolved, (if the Senate concur,) That the Union-loving citizens and representatives of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee, who labor with devoted courage and patriotism to withhold their States from the vortex of secession, are entitled to the gratitude and admiration of the whole people.

Resolved, (if the Senate concur,) That the Government be respectfully requested to forward, forthwith, copies of the foregoing resolutions to the President of the Nation, and the Governors of all the States of the Union.

[OIFVeteran]

The only purpose I have is the belief that our country would have been better off if we had gotten rid of, or never had, chattel slavery. You seem to not have a problem with slavery. Do you or do you not believe slavery is a great moral wrong?

[jeffersondem]

“You seem to not have a problem with slavery.”

That is an interesting comment.

May we see your data on that?

[OIFVeteran]

How about a straight forward answer from you first on the question I asked. Do you believe slavery is a great moral wrong?

[DiogenesLamp]

Let us pause and reflect: the theory that Kalamata and Diogenes have been expounding for months, even years, rests largely on a book by a Marxist historian.

Hardly. Never heard of it. Never read of it. I started to realize there was more to the story when I saw this map,

and then later saw this chart

which caused me to realize that something did not make any sense.

I deduced that there was a massive amount of money at stake with the North Losing it and the South gaining it, just from these two bits of data, and I did so independently of anyone else telling me this. I later find my ideas confirmed in other people's writings and subsequent data discoveries, but arriving at the idea for myself was all me.

[DiogenesLamp]

"If money makes the world go around (private sector) and is the heart of war and the blood of governments (public sector), then the Foner book explains more about the Civil War than any other study."

I have been saying for something like three years that the Civil War was a war about money. It was about the North losing hundreds of millions of dollars per year, and the South gaining that money.

The war was began by Lincoln to prevent that from happening.

I have been posting this gif for about three years to illustrate the point.

And do not doubt it. The existing corruption coalition between Washington DC and New York plutocrats is still running the nation today, and is in fact Donald Trump's most deadly foe. They own the media propaganda apparatus, and their entire purpose is to insure Washington DC's taxpayer money keeps flowing through their pockets.

[DiogenesLamp]

Moreover, at a time when national survival is threatened "symbolic" meaning becomes important. If your country is falling apart into warring states, holding on to something as a symbol to rally around may come to seem essential.

April 16, 1861, The Buffalo Daily Courier

The affair at Fort Sumter, it seems to us, has been planned as a means by which the war feeling at the North should be intensified, and the administration thus receive popular support for its policy…. If the armament which lay outside the harbor, while the fort was being battered to pieces, had been designed for the relief of Major Anderson, it certainly would have made a show of fulfilling its mission. But it seems plain to us that no such design was had. The administration, virtually, to use a homely illustration, stood at Sumter like a boy with a chip on his shoulder, daring his antagonist to knock it off. The Carolinians have knocked off the chip. War is inaugurated, and the design of the administration accomplished.

[DiogenesLamp]

"With our aggrieved brethren of the Slave States, we have friendly relations and a common sympathy. We have not participated in the warfare upon their constitutional rights or their domestic institutions."

New York was making a lot of money off of slave produced goods, and there were a lot of New Yorkers that supported the Southern states, but the Plutocrats, those behind the scenes businessmen of power, recognized the threat that direct Southern trade with Europe would pose for them.

The total amount of money involved for the Southern trade was something like 200-230 million, and the loss of this money stream would have seriously hurt New York's economic picture, but the greater loss by far would have been from low-tariffed European goods displacing domestic markets for North Eastern manufacturers.

The Mississippi river would have provided access for thousands of cheaper and better quality goods from Europe to flood through the Mid West and border states. The railroads would lose income, the great lakes shipping would lose income, and the people in the North producing these goods would have lost income.

Economic interests of states would have shifted from a New York centric model to a New Orleans centric model, and their political orbits would have shifted towards the confederacy.

People focus on "tariffs" which are just the tip of the iceberg, and most people are ignorant of the larger economic patters that would have developed all to the detriment of the powerful people in the North during that era.

[DiogenesLamp]

The fact is that Maryland's legislature voted four-to-one against secession in April 1861.

Was this before or after Lincoln locked up all the ones in favor of it?

Marylanders served in the Union Army about two-to-one over the Confederate army.

You suggest a lot of significance with a bit of data like this, but was not Maryland occupied by Federal armies at the time? Wasn't it more likely that the men of Maryland would be pressed into service by the Union and only Volunteers who could leave the state would join the Confederacy?

It was a lot easier to get into the Union army from Maryland than it was to get into the Confederate army if you were in Maryland.

[DiogenesLamp]

The only purpose I have is the belief that our country would have been better off if we had gotten rid of, or never had, chattel slavery.

I do not see how that could have happened. Slavery was on the wane until Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin which suddenly made large labor farms very profitable. Much of the nation's wealth was built on the economics this produced.

The only way to have avoided this eventuality was to never let it get rooted in the first place, so the crucial nexus at which it could have been prevented was at least a hundred years further in the past from 1787.

Slavery is a Muslim transplant into a Christian country, and it never really fit our culture, though people would make excuses for it because it benefited them.

[BroJoeK]

continuing with Kalamata's lengthy post #645:

Kalamata repeating a previous claim: "The Confederacy was a foreign nation when Lincoln invaded, and could not possibly have committed insurrection or rebellion."

To my knowledge no US legal body has ever recognized Confederate secession as legitimate.
Your argument is rejected.

Kalamata: "As usual, Joey is glossing over Lincoln's tyranny."

Just like today's Democrats Mr. Olive knows he can't re-assassinate Republican President Lincoln, he can't even impeach Lincoln, all Democrats like Dan-bo can do is muddy up a Republican President with laughable accusations, but why?

Well, if we take today's Democrats as following the same template, then the answer is obvious -- today we have the most successful Republican president (since who? Reagan? Coolidge? TR? Grant?) and Republican success reduces Democrats to irrelevancy.
Republican success exposes Democrat uselessness and risks for them mass desertions of core constituencies -- white women, black men, Hispanics, blue collar workers, etc.
So, if you are a Democrat leader faced with existential threats from Republican successes, how do you hold onto your base?

Obviously, you dirty up Republicans as much as you possibly can, with accusations however exaggerated, however ridiculous & false, it doesn't matter, just keep the accusations flowing.

So today we see yet another generation of young Democrats being taught that their Republican president is... well... the devil -- a tyrant, a dictator, a Nazi, a racist, sexist, homophobe, whatever dirt they can throw to distract attention from a genuine Republican doing what all Republicans promise to do but only seldom accomplish.

As a child, young Dan-bo was abused by Democrats who filled his little mind with lies, nonsense & hatreds just as they do today with yet another innocent young generation.

Kalamata: "In April of 1861, Lincoln found a previously unknown presidential power to suspend habeas corpus, which he then used to arrest and imprison anyone who opposed his political theory and ambitions, with particular animosity toward those who expressed support for the original construction of the U. S. Constitution."

That's total nonsense.
The truth is, the US Constitution authorizes the Federal government to suspend habeas corpus "in cases of rebellion or insurrection" and there was no law or court ruling before Lincoln that such authority was restricted to Congress, even in emergencies.

The truth is, those arrested were all pro-Confederates who had declared war against the United States Constitution, hoping to replace it with their own Confederate constitution.

Kalamata: " Lincoln's politics had now become the Constitution of the United States, which included a new-found presidential power to charge with treason those who opposed his politics.
The Lincoln Constitution of United States, debated and ratified by Abraham Lincoln the instant he was inaugurated, had become the Supreme Law of the Land in 1861."

That is pure gibberish, typical of Democrat anti-American propaganda.

Kalamata: "Fact: Lincoln formally declared war against the South on April 19, 1861 (less than a week after the Fort Sumter surrender) when he ordered the blockade of Southern ports.
Fact: By blockading Southern ports, Lincoln was either admitting the Confederacy was a foreign power, or admitting to his own treason.
Take your pick."

And yet more cockamamie nonsense.
In fact, General Winfield Scott's "Anaconda Plan" had been prepared many years earlier as a standard response to potential rebellion.
There was no Union declaration of war, no admission of Confederate sovereignty, no "treason" by Lincoln against those who were waging war on the United States.

Kalamata: "Fact: Maryland legislators were threatened to avoid debating the issue of secession, or else; so naturally the majority secessionists eventually lost the vote:"

The real truth is that Kalamata here quotes at length from Maryland's machinations without ever mentioning the most important fact about it: on April 29, 1861 the Maryland legislature voted 53-13, four to one, against secession.
That was before the Confederates' May 6, 1961 Declaration of War on the United States.
After their D.O.W. Maryland pro-Confederate legislators were arrested -- about 1/3 in total.
In short, there was never a majority of Marylanders supporting secession.
Maryland was always a Union state.

All of the events regarding Winans and Merryman happened after Confederates formally declared war against the United States.

Kalamata: "Joey is lying.
Lincoln usurped power from the Congress when he suspended habeas corpus, which was the most dangerous usurpation of power against the citizens of the United States in its history."

Total nonsense.
Congress reviewed Lincoln's actions at length and authorized them.
At the same time the Confederate Congress authorized Jefferson Davis to suspend habeas corpus, which he did in proportionately the same numbers as Lincoln.

Kalamata: " Chief Justice Taney followed the Constitution in his ruling, and, yet, Joey, always playing the role of the big-government progressive, misdirects by throwing an ad hominem at the judge, rather than condemning his tyrannical, big-government, white supremacist hero, Abraham Lincoln."

Here our Dan-child simply repeats what he learned as a baby about The Devil Lincoln.
The truth is Crazy Roger Taney was a raging anti-human lunatic as illustrated in his 1857 Dred Scott decision.
During the Civil War, as Professor Neely points out (starting at minute 33), Crazy Roger had already prepared rulings effectively declaring the entire Civil War unconstitutional, from its funding to conscription.

Such rulings were never issued because no related case was brought to Crazy Roger's court.

Kalamata: "Greeley was just as annoyed with the limitations in the Constitution as Lincoln; and, yet, according to Joey, Taney was the bad guy for not sheepishly relinquishing his constitutionally-authorized position to a power-hungry mad-man."

Crazy Roger Taney was the "power-hungry mad-man" having found in the Constitution in 1857 "penumbras and emanations" regarding Dred Scott which no Founder ever intended.
In 1861 Crazy Roger, like our own Dan-bo, fantasized that the US Constitution intended to let rebellion, insurrection, invasion and treason destroy the US Constitution militarily, while Supreme Court rulings effectively hobbled Federal government.

Kalamata: "The Congress was packed with pro-crony-capitalism, pro-central-planning "republicans" who rubber-stamped any power Lincoln decided to add to his new Lincoln Constitution.
I wonder if the remaining democrats were intimidated by Lincoln's thuggery?
Just askin' . . ."

And yet again Kalamata exposes his true nature as an anti-Republican Democrat.
These are the facts: after Crazy Roger's 1857 Dred Scott ruling, Republican strength in Congress increased every election, peaking in the 40th Congress, from 1867-69.
Then, as more & more Democrat states returned, Republicans still held majorities in both houses until 1875, after which by 1879 Democrats again controlled both houses, ending Reconstruction and enshrining Jim Crow in the South.

So, during those long years of Democrat insanity (which have sadly now returned), American voters understood that Republicans were the keepers & protectors of their Constitutional government, while Democrats fought absurdly to destroy it.

Kalamata: "That is a common lie spread by the Lincoln cultists.
Davis relied on the Congress to authorize the suspension, which occurred only infrequently, and then for non-sweeping purposes.
Lincoln, on the other hand, had Hitler-like power.
He could do as he pleased, and he did."

When it suits Dan-bo's purposes he quotes Penn State Professor Neely, but in this case Neely tells us that Kalamata is totally wrong.
In fact, the proportion of pro-Union Confederates arrested by Davis was roughly the same as pro-Confederate Union citizens arrested by Lincoln.
Both Davis & Lincoln used habeas corpus, both were authorized by their Congress, but only Lincoln's drive the Dan-child to paroxysms of senseless accusations.

Enough for now, more later...

[DiogenesLamp]

To my knowledge no US legal body has ever recognized Confederate secession as legitimate.

But they recognized Abortion on demand as being a right, and so overturned all the laws in all the states which made it illegal.

They said F@ggots, which we used to lock up in asylums for being mentally ill, have a right to "marry."

They said states don't have the right to have prayer in public schools.

They said a farmer cannot grow his own wheat to feed his own cows because this violates "interstate commerce."

They said "Separate but Equal."

So we should be concerned about what these kooks say?