If Secession Was Illegal - then How Come...?

The Patriotist ^ | 2003 | Al Benson, Jr.

[Aurelius]

Over the years I've heard many rail at the South for seceding from the 'glorious Union.' They claim that Jeff Davis and all Southerners were really nothing but traitors - and some of these people were born and raised in the South and should know better, but don't, thanks to their government school 'education.'

Frank Conner, in his excellent book The South Under Siege 1830-2000 deals in some detail with the question of Davis' alleged 'treason.' In referring to the Northern leaders he noted: "They believed the most logical means of justifying the North's war would be to have the federal government convict Davis of treason against the United States. Such a conviction must presuppose that the Confederate States could not have seceded from the Union; so convicting Davis would validate the war and make it morally legitimate."

Although this was the way the federal government planned to proceed, that prolific South-hater, Thaddeus Stevens, couldn't keep his mouth shut and he let the cat out of the bag. Stevens said: "The Southerners should be treated as a conquered alien enemy...This can be done without violence to the established principles only on the theory that the Southern states were severed from the Union and were an independent government de facto and an alien enemy to be dealt with according to the laws of war...No reform can be effected in the Southern States if they have never left the Union..." And, although he did not plainly say it, what Stevens really desired was that the Christian culture of the Old South be 'reformed' into something more compatible with his beliefs. No matter how you look at it, the feds tried to have it both ways - they claimed the South was in rebellion and had never been out of the Union, but then it had to do certain things to 'get back' into the Union it had never been out of. Strange, is it not, that the 'history' books never seem to pick up on this?

At any rate, the Northern government prepared to try President Davis for treason while it had him in prison. Mr. Conner has observed that: "The War Department presented its evidence for a treason trial against Davis to a famed jurist, Francis Lieber, for his analysis. Lieber pronounced 'Davis will not be found guilty and we shall stand there completely beaten'." According to Mr. Conner, U.S. Attorney General James Speed appointed a renowned attorney, John J. Clifford, as his chief prosecutor. Clifford, after studying the government's evidence against Davis, withdrew from the case. He said he had 'grave doubts' about it. Not to be undone, Speed then appointed Richard Henry Dana, a prominent maritime lawyer, to the case. Mr. Dana also withdrew. He said basically, that as long as the North had won a military victory over the South, they should just be satisfied with that. In other words - "you won the war, boys, so don't push your luck beyond that."

Mr. Conner tells us that: "In 1866 President Johnson appointed a new U.S. attorney general, Henry Stanburg. But Stanburg wouldn't touch the case either. Thus had spoken the North's best and brightest jurists re the legitimacy of the War of Northern Aggression - even though the Jefferson Davis case offered blinding fame to the prosecutor who could prove that the South had seceded unconstitutionally." None of these bright lights from the North would touch this case with a ten-foot pole. It's not that they were dumb, in fact the reverse is true. These men knew a dead horse when they saw it and were not about to climb aboard and attempt to ride it across the treacherous stream of illegal secession. They knew better. In fact, a Northerner from New York, Charles O'Connor, became the legal counsel for Jeff Davis - without charge. That, plus the celebrity jurists from the North that refused to touch the case, told the federal government that they really had no case against Davis or secession and that Davis was merely being held as a political prisoner.

Author Richard Street, writing in The Civil War back in the 1950s said exactly the same thing. Referring to Jeff Davis, Street wrote: "He was imprisoned after the war, was never brought to trial. The North didn't dare give him a trial, knowing that a trial would establish that secession was not unconstitutional, that there had been no 'rebellion' and that the South had got a raw deal." At one point the government intimated that it would be willing to offer Davis a pardon, should he ask for one. Davis refused that and he demanded that the government either give him a pardon or give him a trial, or admit that they had dealt unjustly with him. Mr. Street said: "He died 'unpardoned' by a government that was leery of giving him a public hearing." If Davis was as guilty as they claimed, why no trial???

Had the federal government had any possible chance to convict Davis and therefore declare secession unconstitutional they would have done so in a New York minute. The fact that they diddled around and finally released him without benefit of the trial he wanted proves that the North had no real case against secession. Over 600,000 boys, both North and South, were killed or maimed so the North could fight a war of conquest over something that the South did that was neither illegal or wrong. Yet they claim the moral high ground because the 'freed' the slaves, a farce at best.

[Gianni]

"unreasonable" -- It's the key word of the 4th amendment, the one concerning seizure of property.

The discussion was of the 5th amendmend, the one concerning the deprivation of property.

[Gianni]

neither

Impossible. You stated outrightly that the man said things he didn't believe strictly for the purpose of getting elected in 'democrat Illinois.' As such, he was either sacrificing his ideology or his honesty for political gain.

I'm just asking which one it was.

[Grand Old Partisan]

Your saying that President Lincoln was either a principled liar or an ideological whore demonstrates your dire need for psychiatric care. Good luck with that.

[Gianni]

Your saying that President Lincoln was either a principled liar or an ideological whore demonstrates your dire need for psychiatric care. Good luck with that.

Let's see if you can follow:

[Partisan] Those Lincoln quotes ignore the political context, in which he was trying to win elections in a very racist, predominately Democrat Illinois. Lincoln was always more progressive on racial issues than most of his electorate, but not so much so to preclude any chance of winning.

[G] Lincoln either lied or altered his 'ideology' for political gain, which was it?

[Partisan] You're in dire need of psychiatric care

You are the one who stated that Lincoln's "ideology" was somehow hinged on his chances of winning election. I'm just asking whether or not he was genuinely flexible or putting on a front.

[capitan_refugio]

Sam Houston was an interesting character and spoke from the perspective of having been a national leader (twice president of the Republic of Texas, as well as a U.S. congressman and Governor from Tennessee, and a U.S. Senator from Texas).

There can be no doubt that Houston thought secession was wrong. He gave up his office as Governor of the State of Texas rather than sign on to the secessionist convention's plans. At the same time, from the quotes you have provided, it was clear he knew what the political realities were. But by 1860, Houston was approaching 70 years of age (although he had fathered 8 children in the past 17 years - the rascal), and was not able to put up a fight he might have some years earlier. He would be tossed as Governor within four months.

Within a couple of weeks of this newspaper article you quote, South Carolina ("Too small for a Republic, too large for an insane asylum") had declared secession, and before Lincoln ever took the oath of office, six more states had opted out of the Union and were attempting to form a new country, based on the proposition that slavery was a "positive good."

With the November 1860 election of Lincoln, who was not an avowed abolitionist, but who clearly felt slavery was morally wrong, the Southern politicians were apoplectic. (But what did they expect, after conspiring to walk out on the 1860 Democratic Charleston nominating convention - and splitting from the national party to put up their own pro-slavery ticket?) One might say that Democratic lame-duck President Buchanan took the path that fellow Unionist Democrat Houston advised. Such a path led directly to civil war.

Houston, who had a keen military mind, knew that a civil war would be lost by the South. Perhaps, by 1863, he bought into the notion that if the South could hold on until November 1864, a "Peace Democrat" would be elected President, and a negotiated settlement would happen. It is hard to say, because he died soon thereafter.

[capitan_refugio]

Nolu - you should read Rehnquist's recent book on the "war powers" of the President. He writes specifically about the Lincoln situation. Rehnquist makes an reasoned argument in behalf of Lincoln's policies, neither commending nor deprecating him.

Afterward, you may revise your opinion as to whether it was really "outside the power of the President" to preserve the Constitution and the Union.

[GOPcapitalist]

Very presumptuous of you to issue me an order.

It is no less presumptious than for you to assert an unsourced statistic as fact and demand that all others accept it in spite of the gratuitous manner in which you assert it.

[GOPcapitalist]

So, in your opinion, was Lincoln a principled liar or just an ideological whore?" neither

Then how do you account for his lies and ideological whoring?

[quadrant]

If I, as a Southerner, have anger toward anyone, it is toward the leaders of the South who were so foolish as to begin a war they could not win. They abdicated their responsibilities to the people whom they governed.

Personally, I think the North was foolish not to let the South leave (after all, who wants union with a perpetually discontented region given to threats of rebellion?) but that complete dissolution of the Union was unpalatable to the North was understandable, given the sacrifices that had been made during the Revolutionary War, sacrifices which were after less than a century still vivid in the public imagination.

Southerners who are angry with the treatment the South recieved after the Civil War should read history. The South was treated far better than almost all in history who followed similar courses. The confiscation of property after war is commonplace, witness the confiscation of estates owned by the supporters of the House of York after the Wars of the Roses in England or the loss of property by Japanese landowners after World War II.

[Grand Old Partisan]

If the United States Government had allowed the rebel states to secede, war with the Confederacy would have soon broken out over many reasons: e.g., the border states, east Tennessee, the Southwest, access to the lower Mississippi, slaves escaping northward, southern debts to northern creditors. People understood this better than many do today.

[rustbucket]

The quotes I listed from Sam Houston's 1860 letter are but a small part of the letter. I long ago made a copy of the letter from microfilm but had never read it. The copy turned out so faint and poor that reading it was difficult, almost painful. I didn't know what, other than a long copy of some letter by Houston, I had until I got out a magnifying glass last night.

All that being said, the letter occupies about two full columns of The Daily Picayune. He wrote it to explain his position to Texans. There is a lot more to the letter than what I posted, but much of my copy is too light to read. The next time I go to that library, I'll try to make a better copy.

I probably would have taken Houston's position not to secede right then, had I been around at the time. The North had too many resources, and war would be the ruin of the South. However, unlike Houston apparently, I think secession is legitimate and constitutional. It is the last resort, short of arms, to a tyrannical central government.

Perhaps we wouldn't have gotten to the tyranny yet if the Southern congressmen had stayed in their seats. However, maybe the Southern congressmen read the tealeaves and saw they did not have enough votes to stop bad bills. For example, the Morrill tariff, which was a huge money transfer from the South to the North, had passed the House in 1860. The tariff only needed to clear the Senate, which it did in 1861 before the war started. The rise of a sectional party was disaster for the country.

I also don't think Lincoln would have enforced the Constitution against the Northern states that had been violating the runaway slave part of it. Sam Houston said Lincoln would have to face this situation and hopefully would support the Constitution. Houston was an optimist on this issue. I think Lincoln would have let the Northern states keep violating the Constitution.

[GOPcapitalist]

maybe the Southern congressmen read the tealeaves and saw they did not have enough votes to stop bad bills. For example, the Morrill tariff, which was a huge money transfer from the South to the North, had passed the House in 1860. The tariff only needed to clear the Senate, which it did in 1861 before the war started.

That seems to have been a big part of it. Here's what was said at the time:

"Tell me not that we have got the legislative department of this Government, for I say we have not. As to this body, where do we stand? Why, sir, there are now eighteen non-slaveholding States. In a few weeks we shall have the nineteenth, for Kansas will be brought in. Then arithmetic which settles our position is simple and easy. Thirty-eight northern Senators you will have upon this floor. We shall have thirty to your thirty-eight. After the 4th of March, the Senator from California, the Senator from Indiana, the Senator from New Jersey, and the Senator from Minnesota will be here. That reduces the northern phalanx to thirty-four... There are four of the northern Senators upon whom we can rely, whom we know to be friends, whom we have trusted in our days of trial heretofore, and in whom, as Constitution-loving men, we will trust. Then we stand thirty-four to thirty-four, and your Black Republican Vice President to give the casting vote. Mr. Lincoln can make his own nominations with perfect security that they will be confirmed by this body, even if every slaveholding State should remain in the Union, which, thank God, they will not do. You have elected your President, and you can inaugurate him; and we will have neither lot nor parcel in this matter." - Sen. Louis T. Wigfall, TX, Dec. 12, 1860

When the Morrill bill came up two months later the first wave of southern senators had left. Those who remained vehemently opposed it and the following was said:

"Mr. President, it is very disagreeable to speak, as I do on this occasion, with a consciousness of my utter inability to prevent the passage of this bill. I have no doubt that the adoption of this measure is a foregone conclusion. I believe it has been generally understood that the adhesion of the State of Pennsylvania to the Republican party was upon the condition of the passage of this Morrill-tariff bill; and I suppose an obligation that has been incurred at such a price must be carried out. Still, I owe it, perhaps, to those whose opinions I represented on this committee, and to my constituents, to expose, if I can, the shallow pretexts on which it is sought to adopt this measure, and strip it of those disguises in the shape of specific duties, under which its enormous taxation is hidden...But pass this bill, and you send a blight over that land; the tide of emigration will commence - I fear to flow outward - once more, and we shall begin to decline and retrograde, instead of advancing, as I had fondly hoped we should do. And what I say of my own State I may justly say of the other southern States. But, sir, I do not press that view of the subject. I know that here we are too weak to resist or to defend ourselves; those who sympathize with our wrongs are too weak to help us; those who are strong enough to help us do not sympathize with our wrongs, or whatever we may suffer under it. No, sir; this bill will pass. And let it pass into the statute-book; let it pass into history, that we may know how it is that the South has been dealt with when New England and Pennsylvania held the power to deal with her interests." - Sen. R M T Hunter, VA, Feb. 13, 1861

[WhiskeyPapa]

Cite your sources for the 6% of all federal troops being draftees (which means that 94% were volunteers).

The draft provided only @ 50,000 men. Over a million served.

Walt

[rustbucket]

After the Southern congressmen left, there were few remaining in Congress who could give the Southern viewpoint. Here, for example, is Kentucky Senator Breckinridge arguing against a resolution that stated the North was fighting the war for the Constitution (July 25, 1861):

The conduct of the war up to this time has not been characterized by any purpose to maintain the supremacy of the Constitution; on the contrary, it has been deliberately trampled under foot in every step of the procedure. I have undertaken to show, and other gentlemen have undertaken to show, that the Constitution has been deliberately, frequently, and flagrantly violated. We have heard violent, denunciatory, stirring speeches made in opposition; but we have heard no arguments to meet those we have had the honor to adduce before the Senate. While they stand unanswered, I maintain that the war, in its inception and in its progress, is not to maintain the Constitution, but is in derogation of that instrument. ...

...I am quite aware, sir, that I stand here, in uttering these comments, almost alone.

[stand watie]

don't you wish you were correct???

the reason that i NO LONGER footnote my posts it that the walt brigade spent all their time saying "that's NOT a good source".

frankly, it became too much trouble, especially when the damnyankees/damnfools kept saying that the ORIGIONAL service records at the US National Archives and official state archives "couldn't be believed, as the rebels had contaminated the records".

i LOL at that particuliar bit of stupidity. it is my well-considered belief that the walt brigade either doesn't know enough to do the research and/or that they are LIARS by nature and will, every time, attempt to cover up the truth.

besides i enjoy tormenting them!

as for the number of blacks who were in rebel uniform, those are NOT my numbers, but rather those of Professor H R Blackerby of Tuskeegee University's Department of History. see his famous book, BLACKS IN BLUE AND GRAY for more detailed data.

he said the number of FREE "persons of colour" in the rebel military was between 100,000 - 150,000 (depending on who you count as black, indians, creoles or "coloureds". it took him a LONG TIME to separate people like me who are bi-racial.).

SLAVES were NOT counted, as only FREEMEN could take the oath of enlistment. as Dr. blackerby did the research for the book for over 20 years, he knew the TRUTH, uncomfortable as it may be to some now.

free dixie,sw

[Grand Old Partisan]

John Breckinridge was a Confederate rebel and, of course, a Democrat. Patriots could not care less what he thought about the Civil War.

[nolu chan]

USN (ret), I presume that had you been in the Navy in 1861, you would have remained loyal and assisted the Navy in suppressing the rebellion.

As a Yankee, I have difficulty seeing it any other way.

[Grand Old Partisan]

The relevant question would be: Regardless of where you were from, would you have reamined loyal to the Navy in 1861.

[nolu chan]

[GOP] These quotes about war are not supportive of your assertion about "acts of war." They could just as easily said "fighting" or "the rebels will shoot at us." As for whether the rebels would consider something an "act of war" is irrevelant.

But they are NOT rebels, they are LINCOLN'S cabinet and military officers.

But they did not say fighting, they said WAR.

As Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy observed, EVERY MEMBER OF THE CABINET KNEW IT WOULD BE AN ACT OF WAR.

"The attempt to reinforce Sumter will provoke an attack and involve war. The very preparation for such an expedition will precipate war at that point. I oppose beginning war at that point. I would advise against the expedition to Charleston. I would at once, at every cost, prepare for war at Pensacola and Texas. I would instruct Major anderson to retire from Sumter."
~ William Seward ~

"There was not a man in the Cabinet that did not know that an attempt to reinforce Sumter would be the first blow of the war."
~ Gideon Welles ~

"They have placed an engineer officer at Fort Pickens to violate, as I consider, our agreement not to reinforce. I do not believe that we are entirely absolved from all agreement of January 29."
~ General Bragg ~

"Dissolution of the Union is better than a conflict. I will oppose any attempt to reinforce Sumter if it means war."
~ Salmon P. Chase ~

"The question of reinforcing Fort Sumter has been under consideration in the cabinet, and it is understood that the question, whether or no, it is not desirable to withdraw all the troops except two or three men, rather than incur the bloodshed which will probably occur, before troops and supplies are put into it, is now to be decided. The question has been under discussion in high military circles for some days. Gen. Scott advises that reinforcements cannot now be put in without an enormous sacrifice of life. He is understood to say, that we have neither military or naval force at hand sufficient to supply the Fort against the threatened opposition, which it would require twenty thousand men to overcome. Besides, if it should initiate civil war, in addition to uniting the South, and overwhelming the Union sentiment there, in the waves of passion, it would require two hudred and fifty thousand Government soldiers to carry on the struggle, and a hundred millions of money to begin with."

~ The New York Times, March 11, 1861 ~

[Grand Old Partisan]

Your point was about "an act of war" in a legal sense -- not a dictionary sense -- implying that the Confederacy was an independent country. Since the Confederacy was merely a rebellion part of the United States, any acts taken against it by the U.S. Government were not "acts of war," a concept which applies to acts between independent countries.