[stainlessbanner]

The South sent three men to meet with Lincoln, to pay the federal government for any property seized, yet Lincoln refused to meet with them. Despite his promises to the contrary, Lincoln invaded South Carolina, forcing the South to defend themselves. Many claim that the South was the aggressor, would they assert that the woman shooting the rapist enetering her bedroom to be the aggressor? The South stood upon the well-established principle of public law that "the aggressor in a war is not the first who uses force, but the first who renders force necessary."

[Henry E. Hallam, The Constitutional History of England from Henry VII to George II, (1827)]

[Paul Ross]

Pure pretext. And rightly rejected. Where was the lawful determination of the amount to be compensated???? Any rate, any lawful condemnation proceeding, would have allowed for the property holder to sue to counter the State's claims for eminent domain. That was never afforded the Federal Government, which of course never did recognize the legality of the secession anyways. And as the Federal government, no State has ANY right to exercise eminent domain as against it. The Federal body is the superior one. So for Lincoln to have treated with the phony reps would merely have been an acqueicence to the secession. Cunning, these Confederates were, but, they were not dealing with Hans Blix.

[Paul Ross]

"the aggressor in a war is not the first who uses force, but the first who renders force necessary."

Hoist by your own petard. The South's refusal to abide by losing a national election and its sore-loser 'secession' and larcenies made force necessary....

[mac_truck]

Many claim that the South was the aggressor,

Gee, I wonder where they got that idea?

[WhiskeyPapa]

Many claim that the South was the aggressor...

That interpretation seems valid.

"We have the Executive with us, and the Senate & in all probability the H.R. too. Besides we have repealed the Missouri line & the Supreme Court in a decision of great power, has declared it, & all kindred measures on the part of the Federal Govt. unconstitutional null & void. So, that before our enemies can reach us, they must first break down the Supreme Court - change the Senate & seize the Executive & by an open appeal to Revolution, restore the Missouri line, repeal the Fugitive slave law & change the whole governt. As long as the Govt. is on our side I am for sustaining it, & using its power for our benefit, & placing the screws upon the throats of our opponents".

- Francis W. Pickens, Governor of South Carolina, June,1857

"No power in executive hands can be too great, no discretion too absolute, at such moments as these...we need a dictator. Let lawyers talk when the world has time to hear them. Now, let the sword do its work. Usurpations of power by the chief, for the preservation of the people from robbers and murderers, will be reckoned as genius and patriotism by all sensible men in the world now and by every historian that will judge the deed hereafter."-- Richmond Examiner, May 8, 1861.

Quoted from "The Coming Fury" p. 360 by Bruce Catton

"The unhappy fact was that it had become impossible to safeguard slavery without brutal violence to countless individuals; either the institution had to be given up, or the brutality committed.

The legislators of Louisiana and Arkansas, of Alabama and Georgia, with humane men like Ruffin and the Eastern Shore planters of Maryland, had faced this alternative. They had chosen the institution. The Richmond Examiner stated their choice in unflinching language:

It is all an hallucination to suppose that we are ever going to get rid of slavery, or that it will ever be desirable to do so. It is a thing that we cannot do without;that is righteous, profitable, and permanent, and that belongs to Southern society as inherently, intrinsically, and durably as the white race itself. Southern men should act as if the canopy of heaven were inscribed with a covenant, in letters of fire, that the negro is here, and here forever—is our property, and ours forever—is never to be emancipated—is to be kept hard at work and in rigid subjection all his days.

This has the ring of the Richmond publicist Fitzhugh, and would have been repudiated by many Southerners. But Jefferson Davis said, July 6, 1859, "There is not probably an intelligent mind among our own citizens who doubts either the moral or the legal right of the institution of African slavery." Senator A. G. ' Brown said September 4, 1858, that he wanted Cuban, Mexican, and Central American territory for slavery; "I would spread the blessings of slavery . . . to the uttermost ends of the earth." Such utterances treated slavery as permanent, and assumed that it must be defended at every point."

-- "The Coming Fury" by Bruce Catton

Walt

[Non-Sequitur]

The South sent three men to meet with Lincoln, to pay the federal government for any property seized, yet Lincoln refused to meet with them.

Hmmm. And yet in the next post you quote the letter from Governor Pickens where he proudly stated that he demanded posession of the fort. No offer to pay, no negotiation.

As for the three men you claim were sent to pay for property seized, that is a misstatement. Their task, first and foremost, was for the purpose of negotiating friendly relations between the United States and the confederacy. In other words, to accept the confederate states as an independent country. Lincoln was not about to do that so the scheme was doomed from the start. Also, why should the United States government believe that the negotiations were in good faith? Having appropriated the property in the first place the confederates could have offered anything and the United States was in no position to complain. The time for negotiating the price of the facilities was before the confederates seized them.

[stand watie]

WELL SAID! the FACT that the military forces of the southland, despite great VALOR & HONOR, were not able to win freedom does NOT mean they were any less RIGHT in trying to get LIBERTY!

free dixie,sw

[stand watie]

neither does the valor of the common soldier in blue wash away the INNOCENT BLOOD on the hands of the damnyankee WAR CRIMINALS. there is NOT enough soap & water in the world for that task!

free the south,sw