Posted on 07/26/2021 4:33:01 PM PDT by ammodotcom
The Battle of Appomattox Courthouse is considered by many historians the end of the Civil War and the start of post-Civil War America. The events of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General and future President Ulysses S. Grant at a small town courthouse in Central Virginia put into effect much of what was to follow.
The surrender at Appomattox Courthouse was about reconciliation, healing, and restoring the Union. While the Radical Republicans had their mercifully brief time in the sun rubbing defeated Dixie’s nose in it, they represented the bleeding edge of Northern radicalism that wanted to punish the South, not reintegrate it into the Union as an equal partner.
The sentiment of actual Civil War veterans is far removed from the attitude of the far left in America today. Modern day “woke-Americans” clamor for the removal of Confederate statues in the South, the lion’s share of which were erected while Civil War veterans were still alive. There was little objection to these statues at the time because it was considered an important part of the national reconciliation to allow the defeated South to honor its wartime dead and because there is a longstanding tradition of memorializing defeated foes in honor cultures.
(Excerpt) Read more at ammo.com ...
The fact is, the South leaving creates an immediate boost in wealth for all Southern citizens because they get out of the protective tariffs and they could have tossed out the navigation act of 1817 which created the northern shipping monopoly and economic control of their trade with Europe.
People can posture, but what I believe in is where the money goes. The North loses millions of dollars per year of revenue, and the South gains millions of dollars of revenue.
Do you think the Wealthy Northern fat cats were going to say "We have to stop the South because us rich folk will lose huge sums of money!" No, they wouldn't. They would try to make it look like some other thing the public would be outraged about.
And do you think the Wealthy Southern fat cats were going to say "We have to leave the Union because this will make enormous profits for us rich folk if we do!" No, they wouldn't. They would try to make it look like some other thing the public would be outraged about.
But money tells the truth while everyone else is lying, and the truth the money tells is that the North would have lost in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year in income, while the South would have gained that hundreds of millions of dollars per year in income.
Charles Dickens, who was very much himself a staunch abolitionist saw the political reality of the day quite clearly.
Charles Dickens letter to the WW Cerjet 16 March 1862:"I take the facts of the American quarrel to stand thus. Slavery has in reality nothing on earth to do with it, in any kind of association with any generous or chivalrous sentiment on the part of the North. But the North having gradually got to itself the making of the laws and the settlement of the tariffs, and having taxed South most abominably for its own advantage, began to see, as the country grew, that unless it advocated the laying down of a geographical line beyond which slavery should not extend, the South would necessarily to recover it's old political power, and be able to help itself a little in the adjustment of the commercial affairs.
Every reasonable creature may know, if willing, that the North hates the Negro, and until it was convenient to make a pretense that sympathy with him was the cause of the War, it hated the Abolitionists and derided them up hill and down dale. For the rest, there's not a pins difference between the two parties. They will both rant and lie and fight until they come to a compromise; and the slave may be thrown into that compromise or thrown out, just as it happens."
"As to Secession being Rebellion, it is distinctly provable by State papers that Washington, considered it no such thing – that Massachusetts, now loudest against it, has itself asserted its right to secede, again and again – and that years ago, when the two Carolinas began to train their militia expressly for Secession, commissioners sent to treat with them and to represent the disastrous policy of such secession, never hinted it would be rebellion."
And this.
Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this, as of many other evils. The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel.
It's about economics and the abuse of power in Washington DC. You know, the same crap we are dealing with now, from the same sources in Washington DC, enabled by the same rich "elites" in the Northeast.
So i'm ready to look at your economic data from this period as soon as you post it or a link to it.
Because it's not true. The 23 million or so people in the North were contributing their 27% to the Federal Treasury.
But was it their fair share? Not at all.
No less believable than your 73% figure.
You mean where all the money was coming in? Where all the imports were sold? Where the overwhelming majority of federal revenues came from?
You are stalling.
Show me your source of economic data from 1860 era.
Why has this never been mentioned before? I've read a lot of civil war history, and i've never heard of a plot to takeover Washington DC. Where did you get this information?
You may not be able to help being a fool, but you don't need to be snarky about it. Try to keep up with the conversation. You wrote: "Lincoln did not enforce the law as written. He suspended habeas corpus and locked people up willy nilly for simply criticizing him." That is what we were talking about. And while I think more was involved than simply criticism, Lincoln suspended habeus corpus to prevent rebels from taking over Maryland and keep the capital from being surrounded or overrun. He might well have had to do that even if he had let Sumter fall to the rebels.
Using the military force of the United States against the people of America is indeed a Lincoln like tactic, but unlike Lincoln, Ike did it to support the rule of law in the US, instead of to force his own control on the people.
For the segregationists of the 1950s what Eisenhower was doing at Little Rock was similar to or the same as what Lincoln was doing a century before in the eyes of the secessionists. Both stood up for the union and the rule of law.
Lincoln did not believe in equality, and he very much wanted to induce and encourage black people to leave the United States. But this is the sort of stuff people nowadays do not talk about because it makes Lincoln look bad by modern standards.
Lincoln came closer to believing in equality than 90% percent of his contemporaries and closer than some of Eisenhower's contemporaries.
And what do you mean by saying people don't talk about that now? Some people talk about nothing else. At this point the surprising thing is that he was as friendly to African-American aspirations as he was given his era and his background.
Do you know what "circular reasoning is"?
Do you? I have pointed out time and time again that you reject non-material motivations beforehand and then, when you don't see any, conclude that there weren't any. That is circular reasoning. But you never respond to this. It's nice that you've learned the phrase, but disappointing that you don't recognize it in your own postings.
I am presuming this is to Capt. Mercer. OK, that does not mean that Porter was given any other orders than those that Lincoln signed with Seward present or any documents that were not presented to Lincoln by Seward on this issue.
If you have any other sources, I would willingly like to read them. So far you have not demonstrated that a special set of “Secret Orders” to Porter, to start a war at Pensacola was written by Lincoln.
I almost feel sorry for DL at this point. He is gradually regressing into his own peculiar myths about the Civil War, and it is hard to watch. He is back to ranting about something that exists only in his mind, namely “the British Union”. There is simply no such entity and there never was. But he thinks if he can make out the United Kingdom to be a “Union”, it will bolster his bad analogy of comparing the American Revolution to the Civil War. Oh, and also his homegrown, unique take on the Corwin Amendment (as if it passed and became an Amendment to the Constitution.) I also empathize with his struggle to find the proper analogy for what happened at Fort Sumter. He is conflating Lincoln’s analogy of comparing the separation of the North and the South (in his first inaugural address) to the separation of a married couple. Along with the following three Bad Analogies relating to the situation at Sumter, from none other than the President of the CSA!
To wit:
#1. “Statement to his cabinet ( President Davis ) “The order for the sending of the fleet was a declaration of war. The responsibility is on their shoulders,not ours. The juggle for position as to who shall fire the first shot in such an hour is unworthy of a great people and their cause. A deadly weapon has been aimed at our heart. Only a fool would wait until the first shot has been fired.”
#2. “From Davis's point of view, to permit the strengthening of Sumter, even if done in a peaceable manner, was unacceptable. It meant the continued presence of a hostile threat to Charleston. Further, although the ostensible purpose of the expedition was to resupply, not reinforce the fort, the Confederacy had no guarantee that Lincoln would abide by his word. And even if he restricted his actions to resupply in this case, what was to prevent him from attempting to reinforce the fort in the future? Thus, the attack on Sumter was a measure of "defense." To have acquiesced in the fort's relief, even at the risk of firing the first shot, "would have been as unwise as it would be to hesitate to strike down the arm of the assailant, who levels a deadly weapon at one's breast, until he has actually fired."
#3. Jefferson Davis, who, like Stephens, wrote his account after the Civil War, took a similar position. Fort Sumter was rightfully South Carolina's property after secession, and the Confederate government had shown great "forbearance" in trying to reach an equitable settlement with the federal government. But the Lincoln administration destroyed these efforts by sending "a hostile fleet" to Sumter. "The attempt to represent us as the aggressors," Davis argued, "is as unfounded as the complaint made by the wolf against the lamb in the familiar fable. He who makes the assault is not necessarily he that strikes the first blow or fires the first gun."
https://www.tulane.edu/~sumter/Reflections/LinWar.html
I apologize. You are usually decent in your responses and I should not have done it.
And while I think more was involved than simply criticism, Lincoln suspended habeus corpus to prevent rebels from taking over Maryland and keep the capital from being surrounded or overrun.
Without Lincoln using force to control Maryland, it very likely would have seceded with the other states, though i've seen some evidence to the contrary. In playing "chicken" with South Carolina, he was tampering with events that were going to spiral out of control.
I don't think Lincoln expected the disaster he ended up with, but he should have done.
For the segregationists of the 1950s what Eisenhower was doing at Little Rock was similar to or the same as what Lincoln was doing a century before in the eyes of the secessionists.
Your attempt to link these two men is ironic, because Lincoln was himself a very determined segregationist. Segregation is exactly what he wanted. He wanted black people kept away from white society. It's ugly, but that was what Lincoln spoke and wrote.
It appears to me now that Lincoln regarded black people as pawns in his game to attain power and keep it, but what he did was never done for their sake, it was done for his own purposes.
Lincoln came closer to believing in equality than 90% percent of his contemporaries and closer than some of Eisenhower's contemporaries.
That is not my understanding of Lincoln at all. I don't think Lincoln ever believed in equality. With just a little looking, I can find some examples of things he said and speeches he gave where he demonstrates he clearly regards black people as unequal.
Do you have some particular statement from Lincoln in mind when you say he believed in equality?
Do you? I have pointed out time and time again that you reject non-material motivations beforehand and then, when you don't see any, conclude that there weren't any.
I believe material motivations are the only thing constant in human history, and pretensions of goodness are a smoke screen for efforts to attain and hold power. Now I will not dispute that there are "true believer" kooks out there who drink the koolaid and buy the con, but the movers and shakers who tend to underpin these events are generally motivated by money and power and how to attain and keep it.
Global warming? (Carbon credits, solar, windmills, increased government power, etc.) Sex education? (Planned parenthood, abortions, contraception, medical research on aborted fetuses) Covid 19? (More government control, stealing elections, protecting China.) Black lives matters? ( Stealing elections, intimidating the opposition, creating excuses to arrest people.)
There are true believers in all this stuff, but the big guns behind the scenes are always using it as a vehicle to power.
It's nice that you've learned the phrase, but disappointing that you don't recognize it in your own postings.
I do not recognize it in my own postings. Perhaps your perception of it is too subtle for me to grasp. Can you give me a better explained example of where I have done this?
We do not have a copy of Porter's orders. We have a copy of Mercer's orders relieving him of command, and placing a Lieutenant in charge of a major war vessel. (A Lieutenant is two ranks below a captain in the military ranking system of that time.)
For some reason, Porter never chose to release the text of his orders, but he was quite verbose about all the other things he did. He did show them to the harbor master, if I recall properly, but we can only judge what is in them based on how he proceeded to carry them out.
Can you think of any particularly good reason why he would sail the ship deep into the Atlantic away from normal shipping and then work so very hard to disguise the ship as something else? And then sail it all the way to Florida under a British flag?
Why would he do that? What possible purpose could he have in going out of his way to make sure nobody saw the Powhatan going to Florida?
And why would he immediately try to attack the Confederate shore positions upon arrival, and only be dissuaded by Meigs placing his ship in the path of the Powhatan. Porter even says he thought seriously of ramming Meigs ship to prevent it from interfering with his mission.
What mission was so important that he would consider ramming another US Navy ship to get at the Confederates?
More like trolling.
If he had secret orders signed by Abraham Lincoln, it does not seem to me that anything that Meigs would have done or said should have stopped Porter. Lincoln outranked Meigs.
Or Porter did not have any separate secret orders to start a war at Pensacola. If he would have had them, he would have shown them to Meigs. In the end, If that was Lincoln’s intent, Porter failed.
The democrats HAD BEEN IN CONTROL OF THE GOVERNMENT until Lincoln was elected!
The demoncraps were split in the 1850s. Buchanon was a Whig not a demoncrap. The Republicans won plurality in the House in 1858. Lincoln was elected in 1860. The Senate was demoncrap. So no the demoncraps did not have control of Government until Lincoln was elected. So please do your research. And the demoncraps were so intensely divided that Northern demoncraps sided with the Whigs and Republicans.
There was such a divide that had Lincoln lost the Southern demoncraps were set to turn over every law that Congress had enacted since the 1830s. Buchanon was castigated for letting the South secede. If the demoncraps were in control of government then why did the South secede? That makes no sense. Nor is it logical. Redo your research. The Compromise of 1850 was Whig not demoncrap because the South wanted to expand slavery to the West.
Not even close.
“ The presidency of James Buchanan began on March 4, 1857, when James Buchanan was inaugurated as President of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1861. Buchanan, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, took office as the 15th United States president after defeating former President Millard Fillmore of the American Party, and John C. Frémont of the Republican Party in the 1856 presidential election.”
Roflol ! Please, be serious !
“ There was such a divide that had Lincoln lost the Southern demoncraps were set to turn over every law that Congress had enacted since the 1830s. ”
The democrat party split into two in 1860 election.
“ The Northern Democratic Party was a leg of the Democratic Party during the 1860 presidential election, when the party split in two factions because of disagreements over slavery. They held two conventions before the election, in Charleston and Baltimore, where they established their platform.”
Seriously ?
“ If the demoncraps were in control of government then why did the South secede? That makes no sense. ”
In 1860, the democrats lost the House and the Presidency.
They still controlled the Senate and the Judiciary.
Geez.
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