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

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.

Please provide a quote from before 1863, i.e., before military and political necessity and expediency turned him into a race pimp.

That is easy to do.

President Lincoln wasn't a race pimp.

"I confess that I hate to see the poor creatures hunted down down, and caught, and carried back to their stripes and unwarranted toils; but I bite my lip and keep quiet. In 1841 you and I had together a tedious low-water trip, on a Steam Boat from Louisville to St. Louis. You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border. It is hardly fair for you to assume, that I have no such interest in a thing which has, and continually exercises, the power of making me miserable. You ought rather to appreciate how much the great body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty to the Constitution and the Union."

8/24/54

"If A can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B. -- why not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A.?

-- You say A. is a white, and B. is black. It is --color--, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be the slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.

You do not mean color exactly? -- You mean the whites are --intellectually-- the superiors of the blacks, and therefore, have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.

But, say you, it is a question of --interest--; and, if you can make it your --interest--, you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you."

1854

My friends, I have detained you about as long as I desired to do, and I have only to say, let us discard all this quibbling about this man and the other man; this race and that race and the other race being inferior, and therefore they must be placed in an inferior position; discarding our standard that we have left us. Let us discard all these things, and unite as one people throughout this land, until we shall once more stand up declaring that all men are created equal."

A. Lincoln, 7/10/58

"I will say here, while upon this subject, that I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. [Loud cheers.] I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects---certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man."

August, 1858

"I do not expect the Union to be dissolved--I do not expect the house to fall--But I do expect it will cease to be divided. Either the opponents of slavery, will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is the course of ultimate extinctioon; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new--North as well as South. Have we no tendency towards the latter condition?"

1858

"The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society. And yet they are denied, and evaded, with no small show of success. One dashingly calls them "glittering generalities"; another bluntly calls them "self evident lies"; and still others insidiously argue that they only apply to "superior races."

These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect. -- the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would delight a convocation of crowned heads, plotting against the people. They are the van-guard -- the miners and sappers -- of returning despotism. We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us. This is a world of compensations; and he that would -be- no slave, must consent to --have-- no slave. Those that deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves, and under a just God cannot long retain it."

3/1/59

"But to be plain, you are dissatisfied with me about the negro. Quite likely there is a difference of opinion between you and myself upon that subject. I certainly wish that all men could be free, while I suppose that you do not. ....peace does not appear as distant as it did. I hope it will come soon, and come to stay; and so come as to worth the keeping in all future time. It will have then been proved that, among free men, there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and that they who take such appeal are sure to lose their case, and pay the cost. And then, there will be some black men, who can remember that, with silent tongue, and clenched teeth, and steady eye, and well-poised bayonet they have helped mankind on to this great consumation; while, I fear, there will be some white ones, unable to forget that, with malignant heart, and deceitful speech, have strove to hinder it. Still let us not be over-sanguine of a speedy final triumph. Let us be quite sober. Let us dilligently apply the means, never doubting that a just God, in his own good time, will give us the rightful result."

8/23/63

"I am naturally anti-slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remember when I did not so think, and feel...

In telling this tale I attempt no compliment to my own sagacity. I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years struggle the Nation's condition is not what either party, or any man devised, or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, and wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South, shall pay for our complicity in that wrong, impartial history will find therein new cause to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God."

4/4/64

"it is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers."

4/11/65

sources: "Abraham Lincoln, Mystic Chords of Memory" published by the Book of the Month Club, 1984 and:

"Lincoln, Speeches and Writings, 1859-65, Library of the Americas, Don E. Fehrenbacher, ed. 1989

Walt

I was amazed by your post #1001. In part you wrote:

"chattal slavery was dying by 1861. it might have lasted another 10 years (my guess is perhaps five years.).

even if slavery had lasted another 10 years, the death of a MILLION PEOPLE (half of those were innocent civilians!)seems a very high price to pay for manumission, especially since a large portion of the civilans killed were slaves.

Here are some statistics from the Census Bureau:
Year Slave population
1790 694,000
1820 1,500,000
1850 3,200,000
1860 3,840,000

In 1790, all existing states except Massachusetts and Maine permitted slavery. By 1850, slavery was absent in the Northen States except for New Jersey (about 200 slaves) and Delaware (about 2,000 slaves). In 1850, in the Southern and "border" states slaves accounted for the following percentages of the total population:

South Carolina - 57.1%
Mississippi - 51.1%
Louisiana - 47.3%
Florida - 45.0%
Alabama - 44.4%
Georgia - 42.1%
North Carolina - 33.2%
Virginia - 33.2%
Texas - 27.4%
Tennessee - 23.7%
Arkansas - 22.4%
Kentucky - 21.5%
Maryland - 15.5%
Missouri - 12.8%

In 1790, Virginia had the largest white population, the largest "freeman" population, and the largest slave population in the nation. Virginia liked to "talk northern and act southern," hence, was in the forefront of states with residents who freed their slaves (largely without compensation). From 1790, when 40% of the Virginia population was slave, to 1850, when 33.2% of the population were slaves, the percentage of slaves dropped only 7%, but the total population of slaves increased. Using progressive Virginia as the model, slavery in the South would have died out by 2150 AD.

In 1850, 75% of slaves worked in agriculture (55% cotton, 10% tobacco, 10% other) and 25% worked as domestic or as craftsmen.

As for part two of your screed, I have no idea where those ideas came from. But for part one, how do these solid and uncontestable statistics fit into your notion that "chattle slavery was dying by 1861 [and] might have lasted another ten years ..."???

Yes, I know, they are "damnyankee lies" for "south-haters" and "flat-earthers." I'll let the readers judge for themselves if slavery was on the way out or not.

Your analysis is flawed for several reasons.
Prior to the Civil War there were few "southern debts". The production of cotton was in those days as great a cash cow as is the production of crude oil is today. In fact, a great deal of the capital held in New York City banks was owned by Southerners, and several banks in NYC almost went under when Southerners withdrew their cash at the beginning of the War.
Many slaves escaped to the North, but as a percentage of the total number of slaves, the escapees were few. One must remember that almost all slaves were illterate and had no conception of what or where the North was, except as a place "somewhere up there."
Indeed, even if they had known, the difficulties of traveling hundreds of miles through territory swarming with slave catchers were almost insurmountable. Even in Kentucky, the slave state closest to freedom, few slaves fled to Ohio.
The importation of slaves into the United States had been illegal since 1807 (I think the date is correct) and slvaes knew no other country other than the US and no status other than slavery.
The Romans had a saying that it took three generations to make a slave - meaning, of course, that after three generations a slave has no memory of freedom - and by 1865 most slaves in the US had been chattel for far longer than three generations.
I doubt that war would have broken out over access to the lower Mississippi. It was in the interest of everyone, particularly Louisiana, to allow commerce to flow freely along the river.
Texas was the Southwest in 1865, and it had known and defined borders. Oklahoma was Indian territory. Arizona and New Mexico did not exist except as geographic entities. The rest of the West, with the exception of a few scattered settlements in California, was nothing more than a blank space on the map; the Great American Desert most of it was called.
Why, indeed, would war have broken out? A settlement of the dispute between North and South was in everyone's interest, except the slaves.
I doubt if you could have convinced Iowa, Illinois, and Michigan farm boys to march south to free the slaves; save the Union, yes, but free the slaves, never. Certainly, the Irish of New York would revolted rather than undertake a war to emancipate a labor force that would have competed with them. THE GANGS OF NEW YORK, the book not the movie, details the hostility of the Irish toward black people.
Again, I beleive that a political deal short of secession was possible; some sort of federation between the two sections of the country is the most likely outcome. Thankfully, it did not happen, for if it had, slavery would have lingered into the 20th Century.

You wrote:

"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."

When people purport to know the "uncomfortable truth" about things, I like to do a "reality check." I could not get a copy of Hubert Blackerby's 1979 book, so I will take your word for what he wrote. I went back to the 1830, 1840, 1850, and 1860 US Census data and did some searches and collations. Here's what I found: In 1830 the total "Colored Feeeman" population (male and female, all ages included) was 137, 570. In 1840 it was 172,509. By 1860 it was a little over 488,000 (all states, all ages, both genders).

If I searched just the 13 Confederate states there were 62,787 free colored males over the age of 14; 69,792 free colored females over the age of 14, and; 56,248 free colored children of both genders.

In your post you state that Blackerby contends there were 100,000 to 150,000 "free persons of color" fighting for the CSA, and that none of them were slaves, because "only freemen could take the oath of enlistment.

REALITY CHECK TIME

Stand Waite & Blackerby: 100,000-150,000 free colored in CSA military
1860 US Census: 62,800 free colored men in CSA states.

Can you explain the discrepancy?
Yeah, I know: damnyankee lies, south-haters, and flat-earthers.

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