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

Why would you challenge somethng so easy to prove?

Cause you haven't proven anything. Unsourced, unspecified, and anonymous allegations of voter suppression from a tainted writer like McPherson are about as credible as Al Sharpton ranting about the alleged police blockades near black polling places in Florida.

Oh, and for the record - none of the vaguely described "incidents" you quoted from McPhernut even pertain to the Virginia secession referendum in May. Supposing that they even happened, one refers to demonstrations the day after Fort Sumter and the other to debates in the convention later that week. So once again, Walt, you have not only failed to prove anything but have also failed to even make pertinent comments about the event you previously claimed.

Scores of historians have spent countless hours trying to discredit Butler and his story. But since it is impossible to prove a negative, and since, as other historians have pointed out, Butler's account is "full and circumstantial" and there was no reason for him to lie, these efforts have proved fruitless. More to the point, Lincoln said the same thing about colonization and his fear of Black violence to others (see page 615). Based on these and other factors, some scholars, Ludwell H. Johnson and Herman Belz among them, have concluded that there is no reason to doubt the Butler account. "If Butler's recollection is substantially correct, as it appears to be," George Fredrickson said, "then one can only conclude that Lincoln continued to his dying day to deny the possibility of racial harmony and equality in the United States and persisted in regarding colonization as the only real alternative to perpetual race conflict"

Forced Into Glory, Lerone Bennett, Jr., p. 617

"MORE damnyankee propaganda & SPIN!"

Nice try, Stand, but the FACTS don't support your case.

The steam-powered tractor was a technological dead end. They were cumbersome and expensive to operate. The small farmer could not afford to own one, and even agricultural combines found them uneconomic. They were tried in the mining and petroleum industries (after the 1870's) with equally poor success. It was not until after the First World War, in the 1920, when the light gasoline-powered tractors became affordable and popular.

The first technological revolution in American agriculture began with horse and/or mule driven machinery. Since cotton was king in the South, it should be of interest to note that cotton harvesting machinery was NOT in widespread use until the 1940's! My Tennessee forebears were still doing it the hard way - by hand - in the 1880's and 1890's ... one reason they came out to California.

The US Department of Agriculture reports:

1850 It takes 75-90 labor-hours to produce 100 bushels of corn on 2 1/2 acres, with a walking plow, harrow, and hand planting.
1890 It takes 40-50 labor-hours to produce 100 bushels of corn on 2 1/2 acres with a 2-bottom plow, disc and peg tooth harrow, and two-row planter.
1890 Almost all field machinery was still powered by animals or by hand.
As late as 1945 most cotton was sown by mule power and was hand-picked. (The spindle cottonpicker was commercially produced in 1942.)

The point being, if the South had managed to retain it independence from the North, the institution of slavery would have continued on quite well for several decades.

"GEN U S Grant, despite what the walt brigade says, was STILL holding HIS slaves a year after Richmond fell;the Philadelphia Inquirer (the last time I looked, PA was NOT a southern state & Philadelphia was not a city in dixie.) attacked Grant in print in early 1866 for "failing yet to manumitt his slaves".

You like to talk about "damnyankee propoganda," well, here's a case of "southron propoganda" at its worst.

Ulysses Grant's father, Jesse, was an abolitionist Whig. The Jesse Grant family, including son Hiram Ulysses, never owned slaves.

Julia Dent Grant was the daughter of Missouri slave-owner Frederick Dent. He owned as many as 18 slaves. Dent did not approve of abolitionst Grant, and the Dent's refused to attend the wedding of their daughter Julia to Grant.

Nevertheless, Julia was given use of four domestic servants (house slaves) by her father, especially when Ulysses was away on duty. It is entirely unclear who had title - there is no proof at all that Julia actually owed, rather than used these four servants. To the best I can research, these slaves stayed in Missouri. Grant states in his Memoirs that the four servants Julia used were freed in 1863. Mary Robinson, one of the other Dent family servants, stated that Ulysses told her that he would have free the "White Haven" (Dent family farm) slaves earlier, if it were in his power. Grant noted in his Memoirs that on his visit to to White Haven in 1863, the slaves, with few exceptions, had scattered.

It has sometimes been suggested that US Grant himself owned slaves. This is a misrepresentation. For a brief period in 1858-1859, Grant employed three African men. In a letter, Grant wrote, "I now have three Negro men, two hired by the year and one of Mr. Dent's." The Dent slave was a 35-year old mulatto named William Jones. By March 1859, when Dent gifted Jones to Grant, Grant freed Jones. At that time, the Grant family was in financial trouble, and Jones could have fetched up to $1,000 at sale. Ulysses Grant was unwilling to sell another human being.

The charitable act of freeing the slave William Jones, even while he could have made money on the sale, shows the type of character possessed by US Grant.

Quoting unsubstantiated innuendo from a muckraking newspaper is hardly history, and you know it Stand!

For many years after the Civil War, to be called a "Vallandigham" was a terrific insult to one's patriotism. It was as bad as being called a "Benedict Arnold" after the Revolutionary War, and somewhat similar to being labeled a "Quisling" after the Second World War.

Franklin Roosevelt used the "Vallandigham" invective several times in speeches.

forebears = forbearers
sheesh!

For many years after the Civil War, to be called a "Vallandigham" was a terrific insult to one's patriotism.

CLEMENT LAIRD VALLANDIGHAM

Speech delivered in House of Representatives (excerpt)

July 10, 1861

And not this only, but, as a part of the history of the last session, let me remind you that bills were introduced into this House, proposing to abolish and close up certain Southern ports of entry; to authorize the President to blockade the Southern coast, and to call out the militia, and accept the services of volunteers -- not for three years merely -- but without any limit as to either numbers or time, for the very purpose of enforcing the laws, collecting the revenue, and protecting the public property -- and were passed, vehemently and earnestly, in this House, prior to the arrival of the President in this city, and were then -- though seven States had seceded, and set up a government of their own -- voted down, postponed, thrust aside, or in some other way disposed of, sometimes by large majorities in this House, till, at last, Congress adjourned without any action at all. Peace, then, seemed to be the policy of all parties.

Thus, sir, the case stood, at twelve o'clock on the 4th of March last, when, from the eastern portico of this capitol, and in the presence of twenty thousand of his countrymen, but enveloped in a cloud of soldiery, which no other American President ever saw, Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office to support the Constitution, and delivered his inaugural -- a message, I regret to say, not written in the direct and straightforward language which becomes an American President and an American statesman, and which was expected from the plain, blunt, honest man of the North-west -- but with the forked tongue and crooked counsel of the New York politician leaving thirty millions of people in doubt whether it meant peace or war. But, whatever may have been the secret purpose and meaning of the inaugural, practically, for six weeks, the policy of peace prevailed; and they were weeks of happiness to the patriot, and prosperity to the country. Business revived; trade returned; commerce flourished. Never was there a fairer prospect before any people.

Secession in the past, languished, and was spiritless, and harmless; secession in the future, was arrested, and perished. By overwhelming majorities, Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Missouri -- all declared for the old Union, and every heart beat high with hope that, in due course of time, and through faith and patience and peace, and by ultimate and adequate compromise, every State could be restored to it. It is true, indeed, sir, that the Republican party, with great unanimity, and great earnestness and determination, had resolved against all conciliation and compromise. But, on the other hand, the whole Democratic party, and the whole Constitutional-Union party, were equally resolved that there should be no civil war, upon any pretext: and both sides prepared for an appeal to that great and final arbiter of all disputes in a free country -- the people.

Sir, I do not propose to inquire, now, whether the President and his Cabinet were sincere and in earnest, and meant, really, to persevere to the end in the policy of peace; or whether, from the first, they meant civil war, and only waited to gain time till they were fairly seated in power, and had disposed, too, of that prodigious horde of spoilsmen and office-seekers which came down, at the first, like an avalanche upon them. But I do know that the people believed them sincere, and cordially ratified and approved of the policy of peace -- not as they subsequently responded to the policy of war, in a whirlwind of passion and madness -- but calmly and soberly, and as the result of their deliberate and most solemn judgment; and believing that civil war was absolute and eternal disunion, while secession was but partial and temporary, they cordially indorsed, also, the proposed evacuation of Sumter, and the other forts and public property within the seceded States. Nor, sir, will I stop, now, to explore the several causes which either led to a change in the apparent policy, or an early development of the original and real purposes of the Administration. But there are two which I can not pass by. And the first of these was party necessity, or the clamor of politicians, and especially of certain wicked, reckless, and unprincipled conductors of a partisan press. The peace policy was crushing out the Republican party. Under that policy, sir, it was melting away like snow before the sun. The general election in Rhode Island and Connecticut, and municipal elections in New York and in the western States, gave abundant evidence that the people were resolved upon the most ample and satisfactory Constitutional guarantees to the South, as the price of a restoration of the Union. And then it was, sir, that the long and agonizing howl of defeated and disappointed politicians came up before the Administration. The newspaper press teemed with appeals and threats to the President. The mails groaned under the weight of letters demanding a change of policy; while a secret conclave of the Governors of Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and other States, assembled here, promised men and money to support the President in the irrepressible conflict which they now invoked. And thus it was, sir, that the necessities of a party in the pangs of dissolution, in the very hour and article of death, demanding vigorous measures, which could result in nothing but civil war, renewed secession, and absolute and eternal disunion were preferred and hearkened to before the peace and harmony and prosperity of the whole country.

But there was another and yet stronger impelling cause, without which this horrid calamity of civil war might have been postponed, and, perhaps, finally averted. One of the last and worst acts of a Congress which, born in bitterness and nurtured in convulsion, literally did those things which it ought not to have done, and left undone those things which it ought to have done, was the passage of an obscure, ill-considered, ill-digested, and unstatesmanlike high protective tariff act, commonly known as "The Morrill Tariff." Just about the same time, too, the Confederate Congress, at Montgomery, adopted our old tariff of 1857, which we had rejected to make way for the Morrill act, fixing their rate of duties at five, fifteen, and twenty per cent. lower than ours. The result was as inevitable as the laws of trade are inexorable. Trade and commerce -- and especially the trade and commerce of the West -- began to look to the South. Turned out of their natural course, years ago, by the canals and railroads of Pennsylvania and New York, and diverted eastward at a heavy cost to the West, they threatened now to resume their ancient and accustomed channels -- the water-courses -- the Ohio and the Mississippi. And political association and union, it was well known, must soon follow the direction of trade and interest. The city of New York, the great commercial emporium of the Union, and the North-west, the chief granary of the Union, began to clamor now, loudly, for a repeal of the pernicious and ruinous tariff.

Threatened thus with the loss of both political power and wealth, or the repeal of the tariff, and, at last, of both, New England -- and Pennsylvania, too, the land of Penn, cradled in peace -- demanded, now, coercion and civil war, with all its horrors, as the price of preserving either from destruction. Ay, sir, Pennsylvania, the great key-stone of the arch of the Union, was willing to levy the whole weight of her iron upon that sacred arch, and crush it beneath the load. The subjugation of the South -- ay, sir, the subjugation of the South! -- I am not talking to children or fools; for there is not a man in this House fit to be a Representative here, who does not know that the South can not be forced to yield obedience to your laws and authority again, until you have conquered and subjugated her -- the subjugation of the South, and the closing up of her ports -- first, by force, in war, and afterward, by tariff laws, in peace -- was deliberately resolved upon by the East. And, sir, when once this policy was begun, these self-same motives of waning commerce, and threatened loss of trade, impelled the great city of New York, and her merchants and her politicians and her press -- with here and there an honorable exception -- to place herself in the very front rank among the worshipers of Moloch. Much, indeed, of that outburst and uprising in the North, which followed the proclamation of the 15th of April, as well, perhaps, as the proclamation itself, was called forth, not so much by the fall of Sumter -- an event long anticipated -- as by the notion that the "insurrection," as it was called, might be crushed out in a few weeks, if not by the display, certainly, at least, by the presence of an overwhelming force.

These, sir, were the chief causes which, along with others, led to a change in the policy of the Administration, and, instead of peace, forced us, headlong, into civil war, with all its accumulated horrors.

But, whatever may have been the causes or the motives of the act, it is certain that there was a change in the policy which the Administration meant to adopt, or which, at least, they led the country to believe they intended to pursue. I will not venture, now, to assert, what may yet, some day, be made to appear, that the subsequent acts of the Administration, and its enormous and persistent infractions of the Constitution, its high-minded usurpations of power, formed any part of a deliberate conspiracy to overthrow the present form of Federal-republican government, and to establish a strong centralized Government in its stead. No, sir; whatever their purposes now, I rather think that, in the beginning, they rushed, heedlessly and headlong into the gulf, believing that, as the seat of war was then far distant and difficult of access, the display of vigor in re-enforcing Sumter and Pickens, and in calling out seventy-five thousand militia, upon the firing of the first gun, and above all, in that exceedingly happy and original conceit of commanding the insurgent States to "disperse in twenty days," would not, on the one hand, precipitate a crisis, while, upon the other, it would satisfy its own violent partisans, and thus revive and restore the failing fortunes of the Republican party.

I can hardly conceive, sir, that the President and his advisers could be guilty of the exceeding folly of expecting to carry on a general civil war by a mere posse comitatus of three-months militia. It may be, indeed, that, with wicked and most desperate cunning, the President meant all this as a mere entering-wedge to that which was to rive the oak asunder; or, possibly, as a test, to learn the public sentiment of the North and West. But however it may be, the rapid secession and movements of Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee, taking with them, as I have said, elsewhere, four millions and a half of people, immense wealth, inexhaustible resources, five hundred thousand fighting men, and the graves of Washington and Jackson, and bringing up, too, in one single day, the frontier from the Gulf to the Ohio and the Potomac, together with the abandonment, by the one side, and the occupation, by the other, of Harper's Ferry and the Norfolk navy-yard; and the fierce gust and whirlwind of passion in the North, compelled either a sudden waking-up of the President and his advisers to the frightful significancy of the act which they had committed, in heedlessly breaking the vase which imprisoned the slumbering demon of civil war, or else a premature but most rapid development of the daring plot to foster and promote secession, and then to set up a new and strong form of government in the States which might remain in the Union.

But, whatever may have been the purpose, I assert here, to-day, as a Representative, that every principal act of the Administration since has been a glaring usurpation of power, and a palpable and dangerous violation of that very Constitution which this civil war is professedly waged to support. Sir, I pass by the proclamation of the 15th of April, summoning the militia -- not to defend this capital -- there is not a word about the capital in the proclamation, and there was then no possible danger to it from any quarter, but to retake and occupy forts and property a thousand miles off -- summoning, I say, the militia to suppress the so-called insurrection. I do not believe, indeed, and no man believed in February last, when Mr. Stanton, of Ohio, introduced the bill to enlarge the act of 1795, that that act ever contemplated the case of a general revolution, and of resistance by an organized government. But no matter.

The militia thus called out, with a shadow, at least, of authority, and for a period extending one month beyond the assembling of Congress, were amply sufficient to protect the capital against any force which was then likely to be sent against it -- and the event has proved it -- and ample enough, also, to suppress the outbreak in Maryland. Every other principal act of the Administration might well have been postponed, and ought to have been postponed, until the meeting of Congress; or, if the exigencies of the occasion demanded it, Congress should forthwith have been assembled. What if two or three States should not have been represented, although even this need not have happened; but better this, a thousand times, than that the Constitution should be repeatedly and flagrantly violated, and public liberty and private right trampled under foot. As for Harper's Ferry and the Norfolk navy-yard, they rather needed protection against the Administration, by whose orders millions of property were wantonly destroyed, which was not in the slightest danger from any quarter, at the date of the proclamation.

But, sir, Congress was not assembled at once, as Congress should have been, and the great question of civil war submitted to their deliberations. The Representatives of the States and of the people were not allowed the slightest voice in this, the most momentous question ever presented to any government. The entire responsibility of the whole work was boldly assumed by the Executive, and all the powers required for the purposes in hand were boldly usurped from either the States or the people, or from the legislative department; while the voice of the judiciary, that last refuge and hope of liberty, was turned away from with contempt.

Sir, the right of blockade -- and I begin with it -- is a belligerent right, incident to a state of war, and it can not be exercised until war has been declared or recognized; and Congress alone can declare or recognize war. But Congress had not declared or recognized war. On the contrary, they had, but a little while before, expressly refused to declare it, or to arm the President with the power to make it. And thus the President, in declaring a blockade of certain ports in the States of the South, and in applying to it the rules governing blockades as between independent powers, violated the Constitution.

But if, on the other hand, he meant to deal with these States as still in the Union, and subject to Federal authority, then he usurped a power which belongs to Congress alone -- the power to abolish and close up ports of entry; a power, too, which Congress had, also, but a few weeks before, refused to exercise. And yet, without the repeal or abolition of ports of entry, any attempt, by either Congress or the President, to blockade these ports, is a violation of the spirit, if not of the letter, of that clause of the Constitution which declares that "no preference shall be given, by any regulation of commerce or revenue, to the ports of one State over those of another."

Sir, upon this point I do not speak without the highest authority. In the very midst of the South Carolina nullification controversy, it was suggested, that in the recess of Congress, and without a law to govern him, the President, Andrew Jackson, meant to send down a fleet to Charleston and blockade the port. But the bare suggestion called forth the indignant protest of Daniel Webster, himself the arch enemy of nullification, and whose brightest laurels were won in the three years' conflict in the Senate Chamber, with its ablest champions. In an address, in October, 1832, at Worcester, Massachusetts, to a National Republican convention -- it was before the birth, or christening, at least of the Whig party -- the great expounder of the Constitution, said:

We are told, sir, that the President will immediately employ the military force, and at once blockade Charleston. A military remedy -- a remedy by direct belligerent operation, has thus been suggested, and nothing else has been suggested, as the intended means of preserving the Union. Sir, there is no little reason to think that this suggestion is true. We can not be altogether unmindful of the past, and, therefore, we can not be altogether unapprehensive for the future. For one, sir, I raise my voice, beforehand, against the unauthorized employment of military power, and against superseding the authority of the laws, by an armed force, under pretense of putting down nullification. The President has no authority to blockade Charleston.

Jackson! Jackson, sir! the great Jackson! did not dare to do it without authority of Congress; but our Jackson of to-day, the little Jackson at the other end of the avenue, and the mimic Jacksons around him, do blockade, not only Charleston harbor, but the whole Southern coast, three thousand miles in extent, by a single stroke of the pen.

"The President has no authority to employ military force till he shall be duly required" -- Mark the word: "required so to do by law and civil authorities. His duty is to cause the laws to be executed. His duty is to support the civil authority."

As in the Merryman case, forsooth; but I shall recur to that hereafter:

His duty is, if the laws be resisted, to employ the military force of the country, if necessary, for their support and execution; but to do all this in compliance only with law and with decisions of the tribunals. If, by any ingenious devices, those who resist the laws escape from the reach of judicial authority, as it is now provided to be exercised, it is entirely competent to Congress to make such new provisions as the exigency of the case may demand.

Treason, sir, rank treason, all this to-day. And, yet, thirty years ago, it was true Union patriotism and sound Constitutional law! Sir, I prefer the wisdom and stern fidelity to principle of the fathers.

Such was the voice of Webster, and such too, let me add, the voice, in his last great speech in the Senate, of the Douglas whose death the land now mourns.

Next after the blockade, sir, in the catalogue of daring executive usurpations, comes the proclamation of the 3d of May, and the orders of the War and Navy Departments in pursuance of it -- a proclamation and usurpation which would have cost any English sovereign his head at any time within the last two hundred years. Sir, the Constitution not only confines to Congress the right to declare war, but expressly provides that "Congress (not the President) shall have power to raise and support armies;" and to "provide and maintain a navy." In pursuance of this authority, Congress, years ago, had fixed the number of officers, and of the regiments, of the different kinds of service; and also, the number of ships, officers, marines, and seamen which should compose the navy. Not only that, but Congress has repeatedly, within the last five years, refused to increase the regular army. More than that still: in February and March last, the House, upon several test votes, repeatedly and expressly refused to authorize the President to accept the service of volunteers for the very purpose of protecting the public property, enforcing the laws, and collecting the revenue. And, yet, the President, of his own mere will and authority, and without the shadow of right, has proceeded to increase, and has increased, the standing army by twenty-five thousand men; the navy by eighteen thousand; and has called for, and accepted the services of, forty regiments of volunteers for three years, numbering forty-two thousand men, and making thus a grand army, or military force, raised by executive proclamation alone, without the sanction of Congress, without warrant of law, and in direct violation of the Constitution, and of his oath of office, of eighty-five thousand soldiers enlisted for three and five years, and already in the field. And, yet, the President now asks us to support the army which he has thus raised, to ratify his usurpations by a law ex post facto, and thus to make ourselves parties to our own degradation, and to his infractions of the Constitution.

Meanwhile, however, he has taken good care not only to enlist the men, organize the regiments, and muster them into service, but to provide, in advance, for a horde of forlorn, worn-out, and broken-down politicians of his own party, by appointing, either by himself, or through the Governors of the States, major-generals, brigadier-generals, colonels, lieutenant-colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants, adjutants, quarter-masters, and surgeons, without any limit as to numbers, and without so much as once saying to Congress, "By your leave, gentlemen."

Beginning with this wide breach of the Constitution, this enormous usurpation of the most dangerous of all powers -- the power of the sword -- other infractions and assumptions were easy; and after public liberty, private right soon fell. The privacy of the telegraph was invaded in the search after treason and traitors; although it turns out, significantly enough, that the only victim, so far, is one of the appointees and especial pets of the Administration. The telegraphic dispatches, preserved under every pledge of secrecy for the protection and safety of the telegraph companies, were seized and carried away without search-warrant, without probable cause, without oath, and without description of the places to be searched, or of the things to be seized, and in plain violation of the right of the people to be secure in their houses, persons, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. One step more, sir, will bring upon us search and seizure of the public mails; and, finally, as in the worst days of English oppression -- as in the times of the Russells and the Sydneys of English martyrdom -- of the drawers and secretaries of the private citizen; though even then tyrants had the grace to look to the forms of the law, and the execution was judicial murder, not military slaughter. But who shall say that the future Tiberius of America shall have the modesty of his Roman predecessor, in extenuation of whose character it is written by the great historian, avertit occulos, jussitque scelera non spectavit.

Sir, the rights of property having been thus wantonly violated, it needed but a little stretch of usurpation to invade the sanctity of the person; and a victim was not long wanting. A private citizen of Maryland, not subject to the rules and articles of war -- not in a case arising in the land or naval forces, nor in the militia, when in actual service -- is seized in his own house, in the dead hour of the night, not by any civil officer, nor upon any civil process, but by a band of armed soldiers, under the verbal orders of a military chief, and is ruthlessly torn from his wife and his children, and hurried off to a fortress of the United States -- and that fortress, as if in mockery, the very one over whose ramparts had floated that star-spangled banner immortalized in song by the patriot prisoner, who, "by dawn's early light," saw its folds gleaming amid the wreck of battle, and invoked the blessings of heaven upon it, and prayed that it might long wave "o'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave."

And, sir, when the highest judicial officer of the land, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, upon whose shoulders, "when the judicial ermine fell, it touched nothing not as spotless as itself," the aged, the venerable, the gentle, and pure-minded Taney, who, but a little while before, had administered to the President the oath to support the Constitution, and to execute the laws, issued, as by law it was his sworn duty to issue, the high prerogative writ of habeas corpus -- that great writ of right, that main bulwark of personal liberty, commanding the body of the accused to be brought before him, that justice and right might be done by due course of law, and without denial or delay, the gates of the fortress, its cannon turned towards, and in plain sight of the city, where the court sat, and frowning from its ramparts, were closed against the officer of the law, and the answer returned that the officer in command has, by the authority of the President, suspended the writ of habeas corpus. And thus it is, sir, that the accused has ever since been held a prisoner without due process of law; without bail; without presentment by a grand jury; without speedy, or public trial by a petit jury, of his own State or district, or any trial at all; without information of the nature and cause of the accusation; without being confronted with the witnesses against him; without compulsory process to obtain witnesses in his favor; and without the assistance of counsel for his defense. And this is our boasted American liberty? And thus it is, too, sir, that here, here in America, in the seventy-third year of the Republic, that great writ and security of personal freedom, which it cost the patriots and freemen of England six hundred years of labor and toil and blood to extort and to hold fast from venal judges and tyrant kings; written in the great charter of Runnymede by the iron barons, who made the simple Latin and uncouth words of the times, nullus liber homo, in the language of Chatham, worth all the classics; recovered and confirmed a hundred times afterward, as often as violated and stolen away, and finally, and firmly secured at last by the great act of Charles II, and transferred thence to our own Constitution and laws, has been wantonly and ruthlessly trampled in the dust. Ay, sir, that great writ, bearing, by a special command of Parliament, those other uncouth, but magic words, per statutum tricessimo primo Caroli secundi regis, which no English judge, no English minister, no king or queen of England, dare disobey; that writ, brought over by our fathers, and cherished by them, as a priceless inheritance of liberty, an American President has contemptuously set at defiance. Nay, more, he has ordered his subordinate military chiefs to suspend it at their discretion! And, yet, after all this, he cooly comes before this House and the Senate and the country, and pleads that he is only preserving and protecting the Constitution; and demands and expects of this House and of the Senate and the country their thanks for his usurpations; while, outside of this capitol, his myrmidons are clamoring for impeachment of the Chief Justice, as engaged in a conspiracy to break down the Federal Government.

Sir, however much necessity -- the tyrant's plea -- may be urged in extenuation of the usurpations and infractions of the President in regard to public liberty, there can be no such apology or defense for his invasions of private right. What overruling necessity required the violation of the sanctity of private property and private confidence? What great public danger demanded the arrest and imprisonment, without trial by common law, of one single private citizen, for an act done weeks before, openly, and by authority of his State? If guilty of treason, was not the judicial power ample enough and strong enough for his conviction and punishment? What, then, was needed in his case, but the precedent under which other men, in other places, might become the victims of executive suspicion and displeasure?

As to the pretense, sir, that the President has the Constitutional right to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, I will not waste time in arguing it. The case is as plain as words can make it. It is a legislative power; it is found only in the legislative article; it belongs to Congress only to do it. Subordinate officers have disobeyed it; General Wilkinson disobeyed it, but he sent his prisoners on for judicial trial; General Jackson disobeyed it, and was reprimanded by James Madison; but no President, nobody but Congress, ever before assumed the right to suspend it. And, sir, that other pretense of necessity, I repeat, can not be allowed. It had no existence in fact. The Constitution can not be preserved by violating it. It is an offense to the intelligence of this House, and of the country, to pretend that all this, and the other gross and multiplied infractions of the Constitution and usurpations of power were done by the President and his advisors out of pure love and devotion to the Constitution. But if so, sir, then they have but one step further to take, and declare, in the language of Sir Boyle Roche, in the Irish House of Commons, that such is the depth of their attachment to it, that they are prepared to give up, not merely a part, but the whole of the Constitution, to preserve the remainder. And yet, if indeed this pretext of necessity be well founded, then let me say, that a cause which demands the sacrifice of the Constitution and of the dearest securities of property, liberty, and life, can not be just; at least, it is not worth the sacrifice.

By March 1859, when Dent gifted Jones to Grant, Grant freed Jones.

What is your source for the assertion that Jones was given to Grant in March 1859 rather than sometime in 1858? (I have seen nothing to prove either contention.)

Julia Dent Grant was the daughter of Missouri slave-owner Frederick Dent. He owned as many as 18 slaves. Dent did not approve of abolitionst Grant, and the Dent's refused to attend the wedding of their daughter Julia to Grant.

I do believe you got that bass ackwards. It was Grant's parents who refused to attend the wedding of Hiram U. Grant to Ms. Dent.

And let's not forget there is overwhelming evidence that Lincoln had the army out to hold down the Democrat vote.

[Wlat 1793] It's clear in the record that once neither blacks nor whites would support colonization on a large scale that President Lincoln changed his policy and began to prepare for equal rights for them.

It's clear in the record that The Pimp's ideas did not change until after the passage of The Presidential Reform Act by unanimous vote.

April 1865, Lincoln to General Butler:

But what shall we do with the negroes after they are free? I can hardly believe that the South and North can live in peace, unless we can get rid of the negroes. Certainly they cannot if we don’t get rid of the negroes whom we have armed and disciplined and who have fought with us. . . . I believe that it would be better to export them all to some fertile country with a good climate, which they could have to themselves.

Benjamin F. Butler, Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin F. Butler: A Review of His Legal, Political, and Military Career (or, Butler’s Book) (Boston: A. M. Thayer & Co. Book Publishers, 1892), p. 903.

Quoting unsubstantiated innuendo from a muckraking newspaper is hardly history, and you know it Stand!

You'll note that stand waite actually quoted nothing. He claims it happened but nothing else. He has posted his allegation on a number of occasions but, when pressed for support for his claim, for some reason has never been able to come up with a date or any evidence whatsoever that the article actually exists.

What is your source for the assertion that Jones was given to Grant in March 1859 rather than sometime in 1858? (I have seen nothing to prove either contention.)

What contention are you talking about? The fact that Grant owned a slave from sometime in 1858 until March 29, 1859 is supported by letters found in "The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, Vol. 1 through 4". In a letter that Grant wrote to his father dated March 21, 1858 he said, "I have now three Negro men, two hired by the year and one of Mr. Dent's." Whether the third man is William Jones in unclear but it's highly likely that it was. In any case, Grant wrote a later letter to his father dated October 1, 1858 and said, "Mr. Dent thinks I had better take the boy he has given Julia along with me, and let him learn the farrier's business. He is a very smart, active boy, capable of making anything, but this matter I will leave entirely to you. I can leave him here and get about three dollars per month for him now, and more as he gets older." That seems to indicate that Jones was actually given to Julia Grant, but legally property of the wife became property of the husband so Grant can be said to be the owner of Jones. In any case the fact that Grant freed the man on March 29, 1859 is supported by the manumission papers filed with the state of Missouri.

Nice try, Stand, but the FACTS don't support your case.

In case you haven't noticed by now, facts and stand waite don't often collide in the same sentence.

Just so we're clear on the meaning of "plain language" and the constitution, you confederate peckerhead.

[Sally Field voice] You like me, you really, really like me. First "Tonto", and now "peckerhead". I can't begin to express my feelings ...

But what shall we do with the negroes after they are free? I can hardly believe that the South and North can live in peace, unless we can get rid of the negroes. Certainly they cannot if we don’t get rid of the negroes whom we have armed and disciplined and who have fought with us. . . . I believe that it would be better to export them all to some fertile country with a good climate, which they could have to themselves.

Butler's comments are uncorroborated, and they don't match public statements that we know President Lincoln made.

Walt

let's not forget there is overwhelming evidence that Lincoln had the army out to hold down the Democrat vote.

There is -no- evidence of that. Can you cite -any- reputable historian that says that?

Walt

Looks like Sam Houston, if indeed he ever made that statement which you allege to his name without a source, was proven wrong at the ballot box.

Here's the whole speech:

"Fellow-Citizens: It was not my purpose or desire to address you today upon the great issues now confronting our common country, but old soldier comrades who fought with me at San Jacinto, and other dear friends, insist that I shall explain the reason why I refuse to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate Government, and why I have been deposed from the Governorship of our beloved State. The earnest solicitations of my old soldier comrades outweigh my desire to remain silent until the whirlwind of passion and popular clamor have subsided and the voice of reason can be fairly heard.

I shall, therefore, speak my honest sentiments and convictions and I now submit to you the reasons why I could not take the oath of allegiance to the so-called Confederate Government, and thereby violate the oath of allegiance I took to the Federal Government when I entered upon the duties of the Chief Magistracy of Texas. It has always been the invariable rule of my life never to form an opinion or verdict upon any great public question until I have first carefully and impartially heard and considered all the evidence and facts upon both sides, and when I have thus formed my verdict, no fear of popular condemnation can induce me to modify or change such verdict. I have never permitted popular clamor, passion, prejudice nor selfish ambition to induce me to change an opinion or verdict which my conscience and judgment has once formed and tells me is right. My only desire is to be right, and for this reason I can not nor will not sacrifice what my conscience and judgment tells me is right. I love the plaudits of my fellow citizens, but will never sacrifice the principle of right and justice for public favor or commendation.

The Vox Populi is not always the voice of God, for when demagogues and selfish political leaders succeed in arousing public prejudice and stilling the voice of reason, then on every hand can be heard the popular cry of "Crucify him, crucify him." The Vox Populi then becomes the voice of the devil, and the hiss of mobs warns all patriots that peace and good government are in peril. I have heard the hiss of mobs upon the streets of Austin, and also heard the hiss of mobs upon the streets of Brenham, and friends have warned me that my life was in great peril if I expressed my honest sentiments and convictions.

But the hiss of the mob and the howls of their jackal leaders can not deter me nor compel me to take the oath of allegiance to a so-called Confederate Government. I protest against surrendering the Federal Constitution, its Government and its glorious flag to the Northern abolition leaders and to accept in its stead a so-called Confederate Government whose constitution contains the germs and seeds of decay which must and will lead to its speedy ruin and dismemberment if it can ever secure any real existence. Its seeds of ruin and decay are the principle of secession which permits any one or more of the Confederate States to secede from the parent Confederate Government and to establish separate governments. Can any well-informed man doubt that the time will soon come when several of the Confederate States will secede and establish separate governments? Why will such results follow in the event the Confederate Government is established? Because in all the Confederate States there are ambitious secession leaders who will be aspirants for the Presidency of the Confederacy and to exercise controlling influence in its government and in all cases where their ambitions are frustrated these leaders will cause their respective States to secede and form separate governments wherein they may be able to realize their selfish political hopes. Within ten years we would have ten or more separate Confederate Governments, which would in time fall an easy prey to foreign Governments, The increase of secession leaders will be rapid and large in all the Confederate States and their contests against each other for political leadership will lead to discord, promoting continual conspiracies and revolutions, which will produce many Count Julians, or traitors, who will call to their aid foreign Governments to despoil the people who refuse to help them gratify their selfish ambitions.

Never will I consent to give up our Federal Constitution and our union of States for a Confederate constitution and government whose foundation principles of secession must and will prevent its successful establishment; or if it should triumph, its triumph would be only temporary and its short-lived existence end in revolution and utter ruin.

The Federal Constitution, the Federal Government and its starry flag are glorious heritages bequeathed to the South and all sections of our common country by the valor and patriotism of Washington, and all the brave revolutionary soldiers, who fought for and won American independence. Our galaxy of Southern Presidents-Washington, Jefferson, Monroe. Jackson, Taylor. Tyler and Polk cemented the bonds of union between all the States which can never be broken. Washington declared for an indivisible union and Jackson made the secession of South Carolina and of other States impossible. Jefferson by the Louisiana Purchase added a vast empire of country to our union, and Polk followed his example by further extending our Union to embrace Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and California. Monroe established the Monroe Doctrine which for all time preserves and safeguards the Governments of the Western Hemisphere against foreign conquest. All our Northern Presidents have been equally patriotic and just to the South. Not a single Southern right has been violated by any President or by any Federal Administration. President Lincoln has been elected, because the secession Democratic leaders divided the Democratic party and caused the nomination of two separate Presidential Democratic tickets and nominees.

Both branches of Congress are Democratic; therefore it will be impossible for President Lincoln's administration to enact or enforce any laws or measures that can injure Southern rights. But grant for the sake of the argument that the time may come when both branches of Congress are Republican and laws are enacted and enforced which will injure or destroy Southern rights what shall we then do? I answer that sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, nor would there be the least danger of the Republican party ever controlling both branches of Congress and all branches of the Federal Government if the secession leaders would permit the Democratic party to remain a solid indivisible party. But if the day should ever come when Southern rights are ruthlessly violated or injured by the Republican party, we of the South will then fight for our rights under the Stars and Stripes and with the Federal Constitution in one hand and the sword in the other we shall march on to victory.

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. But the secession leaders declare that secession has already been peaceably accomplished and the Confederate Government independence and sovereignty will soon he acknowledged by all foreign governments. They tell us that the Confederate Government will thus be permanently established without bloodshed. They might with equal truth declare that the fountains of the great deep blue seas can be broken up without disturbing their surface waters, as to tell us that the best Government that ever existed for men can be broken up without bloodshed.

The secession leaders also tell us if war should come that European Nations will speedily come to our relief, and aid us to win our independence because cotton is King and European commerce and civilization can not long exist without cotton, therefore they must help us maintain and perpetuate our Confederate Government. Gentlemen who use such false and misleading statements forget or else are ignorant of the facts that commerce and civilization existed a long period of time before cotton was generally known and used.

They also forget or else are ignorant of the fact that the best sentiment of Europe is opposed to our systems of negro slavery. They also tell us if war comes that the superior courage of our people with their experience of the use of firearms, will enable us to triumph in battle over ten times our number of Northern forces. Never was a more false or absurd statement ever made by designing demagogues. I declare that Civil War is inevitable and is near at hand. When it comes the descendants of the heroes of Lexington and Bunker Hill will be found equal in patriotism, courage and heroic endurance with descendants of the heroes of Cowpens and Yorktown. For this reason I predict that the civil war which is now near at hand will be stubborn and of long duration. We are sadly divided among ourselves, while the North and West are united. Not only will we have to contend against a united and harmonious North, but we will also have to battle against tens of thousands of our own people, who will never desert the Stars and Stripes nor surrender the union of states for a Southern Confederacy of states, whose principles of secession must inevitably lead to discord, conspiracy and revolution, and at last anarchy and utter ruin. When the tug of war comes, it will indeed be the Greek meeting Greek. Then, oh my fellow countrymen, the fearful conflict will fill our fair land and with untold suffering, misfortune and disaster. The soil of our beloved South will drink deep the precious blood of our sons and brethren. In earnest prayer to our Heavenly Father. I have daily petitioned him to cast out from my mind the dark foreboding of the coming conflict. My prayers have caused the light of reason to cast the baleful shadows of the coming events before me. I cannot, nor will I close my eyes against the light and voice of reason. The die has been cast by your secession leaders, whom you have permitted to sow and broadcast the seeds of secession, and you must ere long reap the fearful harvest of conspiracy and revolution."

A copy of this speech was sent to The University of Texas Library by S. A. Hackworth. The Brenham Inquirer, April 3, 1861, mentions the speech, also the ominous threats made against Houston's life should he try to make a speech at Brenham; it also states that a "brave secession leader" addressed "the howling mob" stating that he would protect General Houston while he made any speech he might wish to make. But The Enquirer did not report the speech or any part of it; but did give the date as March 31, 1861.

In sending the copy to The University of Texas, Mr. S. A. Hackworth. wrote the following letter which may be of interest:

Galveston, Texas [no date]. I herewith enclose to you a correct report of the great speech made by Governor Sam Houston at Brenham, Texas, in 1861, immediately after he had been deposed from the Governorship of the State, because he refused to take the Oath of Allegiance to the Confederate Government. General Houston, accompanied by his family, was on his way, by stage travel, from Austin to his home at Cedar Point, near the old battlefield of San Jacinto. He did not wish to speak, but his old soldier comrades, and other friends at Brenham insisted that he speak his sentiments. He firmly continued to refuse their invitation, until some of the hot-blooded secessionists declared that he should not speak. This aroused the old lion-hearted hero, and he then consented to speak. I remember the scene as vividly as if it had been only yesterday. The excitement was intense; excited groups of secessionists gathered upon the street corners, and declared that it would be treason against the Confederate Government to permit Governor Houston to speak against secession. The court house was densely packed, and as Governor Houston arose to speak, cries were heard: "Put him out; don't let him speak; kill him." At this moment, Mr. Hugh McIntyre, a wealthy planter of the community, and a leading secessionist, sprang upon the table and drew a large Colt revolver saying: "I and 100 other friends of Governor Houston have invited him to address us, and we will kill the first man who insults, or who may, in any way attempt to injure him. I myself think that Governor Houston ought to have accepted the situation, and ought to have taken the oath of allegiance to our Confederate Government, but he thought otherwise. He is honest and sincere, and he shed his blood for Texas independence. There is no other man alive who has more right to be heard by the people of Texas. Now, fellow-citizens, give him your close attention; and you ruffians, keep quiet, or I will kill you."

[end]

Houston, as the text indicates, was another union man threatened with violence.

Walt

interesting! i had not seen that quote.

free dixie,sw

wishful thinking on your part.

i KNOW you'd LIKE to believe that i'm incorrect BUT the facts are these: 1.absent TWBTS, the mule-driven & STEAM-driven equipment would have ended slavery within 5-10 years. (please do not assume that slaveowners, north or south, were so stupid as to act against their informed self-interest at the point that chattal slavery was UN-economic.)

2. BOTH the mule-driven cottonpickers & steam traction machines WERE expensive, BUT the overall savings in $$$$$$ would have been great;furthermore loans would have been made available by banks to buy them.(just as the banks loaned money to buy improvements in other industries, like cotton mills for example.)

3. your comment that small farmers couldn't afford a steam traction machine is CORRECT; those same small farmers could NOT afford slaves either (and did NOT own any!). only about 6% of farmers in the southland owned a single slave! the "gone with the wind" fallacy of history is just that:FICTION. the average CSA soldier, btw, had GROSS personal assets of $25.00 or less; the PACSA was a PEASANT ARMY, led by a FEW educated, well-to-do intellectuals & tacticians. peasant revolts SELDOM succeed;offhand, the only one i can think of was the War in indochina against the french by the VietMinh.

4.steam traction machines worked BEAUTIFULLY and ECONOMICALLY! they were so sucessful in Great Britain that MANY are still being used today. your comment on the mechanical reliability is just flat WRONG! PLEASE document your finding in that regard (i predict that you cannot document the FICTION you cite; what you wrote is NOT the truth.).

5. absent TWBTS, the southland would have had the $$$$$$ to improve agriculture QUICKLY.

6. your ancestors were broken economically by the WBTS; thus they could afford nothing but the sort of relatively primative agriculture you describe. thank the imperialist, south-hating, arrogant damnyankees for you family's plight.

7. MY family, otoh, were poor, small farmers who owned about 200 acres in the Carolinas. Indians had nothing then and had our family stayed in agriculture, we'd have nothing NOW. (thankfully, my father was a GREAT all-around athlete in football, greco-roman wrestling, basketball, track & boxing and got to go to college at LSU. interestingly, despite his very dark skin-tone, Indian facial features and straight inky black hair, the powers that be at LSU decided he was WHITE! when i was in college in the '60s the same powers that be decided that i was NON-white! LOL!)

free dixie,sw