Posted on 06/12/2003 5:58:28 AM PDT by 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.
Walt
Why Wlat, whatever are you talking about??? That is the stuff of Lincoln Republicanism and I thought you would find it full of merit.
It sounds almost like Lincoln to me.
Do you mean you really and truly disapprove of that wonderful example of Lincoln Republican wisdom?
Do it. See what happens.
You're using it as a slur. The reference is to incest, and you know it. You're calling on all those old Alfred Hitchcock and Deliverance vignettes of backwoods grannies cuddling brainless 21-year-old dwarves, to portray Southerners as mongolian idiots, incest-bred monsters with webbed fingers and extra toes. It's on a par with the worst of Jim Crow racist caricature, and if you refer to it again I'll nail you between the eyes.
Did you read the whole thing? Did you read every last word? You have to read the whole thing, in its entirety, to truly get the full flavor of that kind of Yankee Republicanism.
Despite voluminous evidence, SW will not admit that slavery was growing exponentially. Instead he believes that slavery would have died out in 5 to 10 years.
SW also believes, based on a lecture by a good economist, but a poor historian, the dubious claim that only "10,000 people cared about the plight of slaves." He correctly notes the nearly 4,000,000 slaves cared, but he ignores the widespead abolitionist movement in the Northern States, which had reduced the number of slaves therein to a small fraction of the Southern states.
For the purpose of arguement, let me put the question another way; of the nearly 8,000,000 white residents of the southern and border slaveholding states, 400,000 were slaveholders. I would guess nearly all of them cared about the continuation of slavery. They cared so much, they were willing to break up the country than risk living under a President with abolitionist tendencies (several of the states seceded before Lincoln was even inaugurated). Stand Watie and several others point to the motivations of the Northerners and cry out, "I've been lied to and made a fool of!" But what were the motivations of the Southerners? Read the words of their leaders, spoken in the heady days of late 1860 and early 1861. For the South, it was most certainly about slavery. Make no mistake about it, the War for Southern Independence was fought to preserve the the Southern, antebellum way of life, and that included keeping their "darkies" in servitude.
I've read many such words. Among them is the following:
"History tells us of the king of Lacedaemon and his three hundred who died at Thermopylae. There was an oath in Sparta as there is an oath in South Carolina. The people of South Carolina have sworn to maintain the independence and the freedom of their State. It is the law of that State. When Leonidas and his gallant three hundred fell, history tells us – I know not whether the inscription is still to be seen – that upon the stone which covered that gallant dead were inscribed these words, “Stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that we lie here in obedience to their laws.” In my own state there is an inscription not less touching. Upon the blood-stained stones of the Alamo there is now to be seen written these words: “Thermopylae had her messengers of death; the Alamo had none.” Those who have no sentiment; those who laugh at it; those who regard a sense of honor as one of the relics of barbarism and the incident of the institution of slavery, I know do not understand, or appreciate the feelings which influence the people of the slaveholding States." - Louis Trezevant Wigfall, US Senate, Dec. 13, 1860
Ooops.
Walt
I like something with a bit more pith:
"He {Lincoln] also began to understand the effect that slavery had on white Southerners. He took great interest in affairs in Kentucky, where his father-in-law, Robert S. Todd, along with Henry Clay, was working for gradual emancipation, which they hoped the Kentucky constitutional convention of 1849 would endorse. But the convention overwhelmingly rejected all plans to end slavery or even to ameliorate it. Todd, a candidate for the senate, died during the campaign; had he lived, he could have been disastrously defeated. These developments gave Lincoln a new insight into Southern society. Even nonslaveholders, who constituted an overwhelming majority of the Kentucky voters, were opposed to any form of emancipation. The prospect of owning slaves, he learned, was "highly seductive to the thoughtless and giddy headed young men," because slaves were "the most glittering ostentatious and displaying property in the world." As a young Kentuckian told him, "You might have any amount of land; money in your pocket or bank stock and while traveling around no body would be any wiser, but if you had a darkey trudging at your heels every body would see him and know that you owned slaves."
- "Lincoln" by David Donald, p. 116
Walt
On this particular issue I think the facts are on the captain's side. It used to be widely believed that slavery was on its way out -- the theory I got in high school was that the lands east of the dry line in Texas were being rapidly exhausted. But the newest research shows that, consonant with cotton-production figures I've found posted online, productivity was still accelerating, and the decrepitude of some cotton holdings can be explained, I think, by the imperative of sinking every last dollar into the ground for the return offered by maximal plantings. They skimped on maintenance and overstretched their labor pool in favor of cottonseed in the ground.
That's the new picture I've gotten of the economic condition of cotton production in the late 1850's. Almost bubble-type behavior, like what we saw in the tech stocks and dot-com startups in the late 90's.
Okay, name a misdemeanor that qualifies as a crime against the State.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but the "high" in "high crimes" signifies that it is an official crime, i.e. a crime committed while in office, or using one's official powers. Such as firing the U.S. attorney investigating Madison Guaranty, in order to impede the investigation, or ordering Betty Currie to retrieve a blue dress and a grab-bag box of ties and baubles to impede the Paula Jones civil lawsuit, both of which would be felonies.
Brigham Young University Federalist Society
[exerpt]
Impeachment under English law
Proponents of the view that “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” implied some abuse of executive power also relied on the understanding of that phrase in founding-era England. Although warning of the hazard of the inference that the framers “meant to transport [English practice] unreformed into their new republic,”25 Sunstein asserted that “the term ‘high Crimes and Misdemeanors’ ” under English law was generally understood to represent “a category of political crimes against the state.”26
Put differently, the English practice of impeachment leading up to the founding era suggests that impeachable conduct included “the kind of misconduct that someone could engage in only by virtue of holding public office,” such as unlawful use of public funds, “preventing a political enemy from standing for election,” or “stopping writs of appeal.”27
Joseph Isenbergh reached a similar conclusion, asserting that “[i]n the 18th Century the word ‘high,’ when attached to the word ‘crime’ or ‘misdemeanor,’ describes a crime aiming at the state or the sovereign rather than a private person.”28 In support of this view, Isenbergh asserted that Coke distinguished “high” treason from “petit” treason in that the former was “against the sovereign,” and that Blackstone defined other “high” offenses as those committed “against the king and government.” 29
As to what qualifies as a misdemeanor against the state, I have no idea. I'm not here to defend a particualr position, only demonstrate that opposing views of the Clinton impeachment are grounded in a restrictive interpretation of the constitution, and have a basis in English Common Law.
If that is inconvienent to some of you, tough shit.
I quote it all the time:
"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free--honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just--a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."
12/01/62
Walt
It sounds like this to me:
"...the Wade-Davis bill clarified and stiffened the reconstruction policy Lincoln had begun, and nearly all Republicans in both houses gave the measure their support. Among other things, it prohibited slavery in all reconstructed states and made slave owning a federal crime punishable by fines and imprisonment. Moreover, the bill threw out Lincoln's ten percent test and decreed that a majority of voters in a conquered rebel state must take an oath of allegiance before they could establish a new government. As outlined in the bill, the restoration process would now work like this for every rebel state: the President would appoint and the Senate would confirm a provisional governor whose job was to administer the oath and call a constitutional convention charged with creating a republican form of government.
So far as the convention was concerned, the bill required that an "iron-clad" oath be taken in order to exclude ex-confederates."
"With Malice Toward None", by Stepen Oates, p. 392
But President Lincoln vetoed that bill.
And this is interesting:
"A second salient feature of clemency policy during the Lincoln administration is the December 8, 1863, issuance of a "Declaration of Amnesty and Reconstruction."
Lincoln issued the Proclamation on the same day as his annual message to Congress outlining his plan for dealing with the rebellious South. Congress had indicated its conditional approval for the President to engage in such a measure by its act of July 17, 1862, stating the President had the ability "to extend to persons who may have participated in the existing Rebellion in any State or part thereof, pardon and amnesty, with such exceptions and at such time and on such conditions as he may deem expedient for the public welfare" (McCarthy 1966, 24).
According to Lincoln's plan, if at least ten percent of the number of voters in the 1860 Presidential election in a rebellious state took an oath and constructed a republican government for the state, they could receive recognition and protection under the Guarantee Clause of Article IV, section 4 (Basler VII, 50, 55)."
President Lincoln held malice towards none, and charity for all.
But you knew that.
Walt
"I believe a large majority of our Southern people are opposed to secession, and if the secession leaders would permit our people to take ample time to consider secession and then hold fair elections the secession movement would be defeated by an overwhelming majority."
--Sam Houston
Sounds like Wigfall is trying to sell a bill of goods.
Walt
Unfortunately, it is YOUR position that is the restrictive one, which is eaasily proven wrong. See below for explanation.
As to what qualifies as a misdemeanor against the state, I have no idea.
The Constitution states, '[t]he President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.'
It does not state that it shall be for 'Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and [HIGH] Misdemeanors.' Your reading adds the restriction.
Like I previously stated, a PLAIN reading indicates that 'high crimes' are felonies. The founders explicitly list two treasonable offenses - treason & bribery. They follow that with 'high crimes' and 'misdemeanors.' If high crimes meant only crimes against the state, then that would allow the officers in question to be impeached for ANY misdemeanor, but not for a plethora of felonies not condsidered 'high crimes'. Ludicrous!
At the time of our Constitution & founding, 12 or the 13 existing separate sovereignties knows as states had religious requirements for their elected officials. They were to be held to a higher standard than the rest of us. The convention DROPPED the clause, "high crimes and misdemeanors against the United States." I wonder why.
You make the founders sound like Monty Python fans.
Walt
[Wlat 1751] I like something with a bit more pith:
Well, Wlat, your hero Lincoln liked it just as I quoted it in my 1740.
At Lincoln's direction, or at least with Lincoln's approval, James Mitchell prepared a master plan for the final solution of the Black problem, Letter on the Relation of the White and African Races in the United States, Showing the Necessity of the Colonization of the Latter.
This official document of the U.S. Government, printed by the Government Printing Office, dated May 18, 1862, was addressed to "His Excellency Abraham Lincoln". THAT is the 28-page document whose text I provided.
Evidently, Lincoln read it and said, "That's my guy!" He then immediately recruited him for the team and gave him a signing bonus -- Lincoln elevated James Mitchell to Commissioner of [Black] Emigration. It would appear that this letter passed the Lincoln test for merit. Less than 90 days after Mitchell submitted this pile of racist bilge to Lincoln, Mitchell was escorting a group of Black's for them to receive a lecture from Lincoln about why they should hop on a boat and find another continent to live in.
As Mitchell noted in the master plan, "If they should fail to do this, there would then be more propriety in weighing the requirement of some to remove without consultation, but not till then." The plan called for the Black's to be given a chance to leave voluntarily, but to be forced it they did not volunteer. Mitchell justified this by stating, "We know that there is a growing sentiment in the country which considered the removal of the freed man, without consulting him, "a moral and military necessity" -- as a measure necessary to the purity of public morals and the peace of the country...."
The object of this plan, to remove all Blacks from the country, forcibly if necessary, was so thinly veiled that nobody ever believed it but Wlat. Frederick Douglass likened Lincoln to a horse thief, possessed of American prejudice and Negro hatred.
Forced Into Glory, Lerone Bennett, Jr., p. 453-62
Monitoring all this, and collating the information he received from Lincoln insiders, Adam Gurowski told his diary in August 1862 that "the President is indefatigable in his efforts to -- save slavery" (1:256)
He was also indefatigable in his efforts to ship Blacks out of the country...
To facilitate his plans for the racial cleansing of America, Lincoln created a Black emigration department, without giving it that name, in the Interior Department and employed James Mitchell, an Indiana minister and American Colonization Society acivist who had worked with him on colonization issues in Springfield. At Lincoln's direction, or at least with Lincoln's approval, Mitchell prepared a master plan for the final solution of the Black problem, Letter on the Relation of the white and African Races in the United States, Showing the Necessity of the colonization of the Latter. In this official document of the U.S. Government, printed by the Government Printing Office and mailed on May 18, 1862, to "His Excellency Abraham Lincoln," Mitchell said that the presence of the Negro race on the North American continent was more dangerous to the peace of the country than the Civil War. For "terrible as is this Civil War between men of kindred race for the dominion of the servant, future history will show that is has been moderate and altogether tolerable when contrasted with a struggle between the black and white race, which, within the next one or two hundred years must sweep over this nation, unless the wise and prudent statesmen of this generation avert it"
The chief danger in the future, Mitchell told Lincoln, was that "we have 4,500,000 persons, who, whilst amonst us, cannot be of us..."
Why couldn't they be "of us"?
They were, he said, of a different race, a race that threatens the blood stream of the nation and "is giving to this continent a nation of bastards."
* * *
On page after page of his government-sponsored diatribe, Mitchell warns against endangering the purity of White blood by "this repulsive admixture of blood," the "possible admixture of inferior blood," attempts to engraft "Negro blood on the population," and attempts "to pour the blood of near five million Africans into the veins of the Republic"
* * *
It would be pleasant to report that Abraham Lincoln read this repulsive mixture of racism and fascism and immediately fired Rev. Mitchell. But instead of firing Mitchell, Lincoln promoted him and gave him the task of rounding up four or five "intelligent" colored men who believed in colonization and who were willing to listen to Abraham Lincoln tell them why it was good for them
And so, on Thursday, August 14, the Rev. James Mitchell, the man the New York Tribune and other papers called America's official "commissioner of [Black] Emigration," led a group of five Black men into the executive office and introduced them to His Excellency Abraham Lincoln. This was, we are told, the first time in history that African-Americans had been invited to the White House to confer on an official matter. If so, it was an inauspicious occasion, for the president of the United States used this forum to tell native-born Americans of African descent that it was their duty to leave America for racial reasons.
* * *
Frederick Douglass attacked Lincoln's logic and his racism, saying that "a horse thief pleading that the existence of the horse is the apology for his theft or a highway man contending that the money in the traveler's pocket is the sole first cause of his robbery are about as much entitled to respect as is the President's reasoning at this point. Lincoln's position didn't surprise Douglass. "Illogical and unfair as Mr. Lincoln's statements are, they are nevertheless quite in keeping with his whole course from the beginning of his administration up to this day, and confirm the painful conviction that though elected as an anti-slavery man by Republican and Abolition voters, Mr. Lincoln is quite a genuine representative of American prejudice and Negro hatred and far more concerned for the preservation of slavery, and the favor of the Border Slave States, that for any sentiment of magnanimity or principle of justice and humanity" (FD 3:268)
* * *
The most serious charge against Lincoln came from Douglas and other Blacks who said the president of the United States was fanning the flames of bigotry and inciting acts of violence against Black men and women and their children.
"Mr. Lincoln takes care," Douglass wrote, "in urging his colonization scheme to furnish a weapon to all the ignorant and base, who need only the countenance of men in authority to commit all kinds of violence and outrage upon the colored people of the country." In pressing his suit, Lincoln, Douglass said, showed his bigotry, "his pride of race and blood," and "his contempt for Negroes." (FD 3:267)
Citations:
Gurowski, Adam. Diary. 3 vols. 1862-1866. Reprint: New York, 1968
The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, edited by Philip S. Foner, 4 vols. New York, 1955
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