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.

[mac] McPherson was one of over 400 academians who signed the Wilentz petition opposing the Clinton impeachment. The petition signers come from a broad spectrum of institutes of higher education from all across the country.
[gop] Appealing to the appallingly broad scope of professional left wing idiocy in academia will earn you no points here, mac.

Here is a partial list of schools, whose preeminent history scholars signed the petition. University of Virginia, University of Tennessee, Vanderbilt, University of North Carolina, Duke, University of South Carolina, University of Georgia, University of Florida, University of New Orleans, University of Mississippi, University of Texas, Rice, George Mason, University of Kansas and Johns Hopkins University.

I guess this is the southern-left-wing, huh?

McPherson's signature on that petition does not necessarily demonstrate his communist affiliations. Rather, it simply establishes one of his many links to the far left of the political spectrum, be that communist or the communist lite brand that dominates today's democrat party.

Pretending that the universe of petition signers are all left-wingers because several petition signers are known to be, will not earn you any points anywhere. Your logic here seems to be, A) some left-wingers opposed the Clinton impeachment, B) James McPherson opposed the Clinton impeachment, ergo James McPherson is a left-winger.

Eric Foner did not sign the petition, what does that do to your tautology? [or does your head just explode?]

You also haven’t addressed the fact that when offered an opportunity to publicly defend the president in fron of Congress, McPherson declined. The fact that in his capacity as a member of the Princeton faculty he defended his position to the campus newspaper is not as you suggested ‘offering public statements of support to the Clinton WH.'

The charge is baseless an unworthy of further consideration.

He categorizes "the anti-abortion people" as "extremes on the Right," as if to suggest that simply opposing abortion is an extreme right wing position. That is by definition ad homin.

Once again you’ve taken McPherson’s words out of context to create a man of straw. McPherson was discussing the Brooks-Sumner fight and he concluded thusly.

[JM]” My own feeling is that the 1850s was probably the decade in all of American history with the most passionate and irreconcilable polarization, which foreshadowed the war in many ways. So it went from a moral argument, the Abolitionists versus the pro-slavery forces, to a political argument, to physical confrontation, to war, over the course of a generation.

I don't know if in domestic politics that particular pattern has ever replicated itself on anything like the same level. I don't think the culture wars of the 1960s, of which I think the Clinton impeachment is part, are at nearly the same level for the whole country. There are groups, like the anti-abortion people, extremes on the Right, the Wall Street Journal being the more respectable spokesman for some of these, but I don't think they've engaged the whole country in the same way that the debates and conflicts of the 1850s did.

So you see McPherson was listing groups in contemporary times whose positions and convictions might be compared to the abolitionists and southern fire-eaters of the 1850s. In fact he distinguishes the anti-abortion [pro-life] group from the "extremes on the right". Exactly the opposite from the way you characterized it.

You seem to have difficulty distinguishing the difference between a legitimate political organization like WSWS, which you disagree with, and other quasi-terrorist or out-right terrorist groups. The fact that McPherson hasn’t spoken with the groups you cited is…meaningless.

With regard to McPherson’s so-called interview on the Pacifica, you haven’t provided a link to the full transcript. Given your pattern of mischaracterization when you have provided direct sources, I will not engage in speculation about what was said and what wasn’t. It doesn’t change the simple fact that whatever he said about the CBF is irrelevant to the false accusation you made, that he is a communist.

You also neglect to account for the misleading nature of their description of McPherson as one who is not politically involved as you completely ignored his role as an advisor to the Bill Bradley campaign, his many political statements on left wing political issues such as affirmative action, and, of course, you attempted to gloss over and excuse away his Clinton advocacy during impeachment.

I didn’t mention McPherson being an advisor to Bill Bradley because he wasn’t an advisor to Bill Bradley. The Bradley presidential campaign ran out of gas fairly early in 2000 as I recall. If you have direct evidence that supports McPherson, was acting as a political advisor to Bill Bradley, show it. BTW didn’t Bradley advocate the ‘flat tax’ back in the 1980s? Now there’s a far left-wing position for you!

Your premise that James McPherson is a left-wing socialist is false. Your distortions and mischaracterizations of the evidence are amusing [especially the really big lettering], but fail to prove your case. Perhaps what frustrates you is the fact that McPherson is a renowned historian, an academic scholar, a best-selling author, and apparently an outspoken critic of the neo-supremist perspective.

Good for him!

Abraham Lincoln believed that "if a Negro is a man, then my ancient faith teaches me that all men are created equal." Yet he also stated that because "there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality," he strongly favored colonization of the blacks. He was disgusted by the thought of amalgamation of black and white races. In response to Stephen A. Douglas, he concluded that, "the separation of the races is the only perfect preventative of amalgamation."

With his background as one of eleven managers of the Illinois State Colonization Society elected in 1857, Lincoln brought with him ideas about colonization. He supported the separation of the races for several reasons. He believed that blacks were inferior to whites and therefore not entitled to live in the same society as whites. He also rationalized that the removal of the black laborers would create a market for white laborers. "Reduce the supply of black labor by colonizing the black laborer out of the country and by precisely so much you increase the demand for and wages of white labor." His basic motive, however, for his extensive efforts was to once again have a purely white America.

lincoln's colonization efforts

Guess he didn't say any of this either huh Walt? And my, my abe part of the Colonization Society within three years of running for office? Surely he couldn't have taken any of these ideas with him into office..... And surely you dare not question this source. One of the sources used is your fellow worshipper, Socialist Jimmy Mac

[nc] YOUR RESPONSE TO DOUGLASS'S CRITICISM OF LINCOLN'S PLAN TO COLONIZE BLACKS, EXCUSING LINCOLN THE PIMP ON THE GROUNDS THAT HE WAS JUST TRYING TO SAVE THE UNION, IS WHAT IS GROTESQUE.

[Wlat] People didn't think that at the time. That is why this is all so silly.

Lincoln the race pimp thought like that. Read the words straight from the Book of Abraham.

February 27, 1860

In the language of Mr. Jefferson, uttered many years ago, ``It is still in our power to direct the process of emancipation, and deportation, peaceably, and in such slow degrees, as that the evil will wear off insensibly; and their places be, pari passu, filled up by free white laborers. If, on the contrary, it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at the prospect held up.''

The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol 3, page 541.

December 1, 1862

Heretofore colored people, to some extent, have fled north from bondage; and now, perhaps, from both bondage and destitution. But if gradual emancipation and deportation be adopted, they will have neither to flee from.

I cannot make it better known than it already is, that I strongly favor colonization.

With deportation, even to a limited extent, enhanced wages to white labor is mathematically certain. Labor is like any other commodity in the market---increase the demand for it, and you increase the price of it. Reduce the supply of black labor, by colonizing the black laborer out of the country, and, by precisely so much, you increase the demand for, and wages of, white labor.

The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol 5, page 535-6.

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