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.
Hey, that's too close!
President Lincoln wrote privately to the governor of Louisiana in March, 1864 advocating the suffrage for black soldiers.
He -openly- worked for the passage of the 13th amendment, which amply backed up his public pronouncements.
Walt
But of course! The provenance is as provenential as may be provenated. In fact, I am told that the transcript provenires from a Mr. G. C. McGrath who delivered it into the library archives of Durndell Junior College on the 22nd of July, 2003. The Flatonia Gazette-Picayune of the same day reports that the meeting occurred at the Econo-lodge in West Harrisonvillesburg but did not include a transcript.
"explanations explanatory of explanations explained"
~ Lincoln ~
The following is from excepted from the first hit on a search using "steam" "tractor" "plow":
"Steam engines were invented in the late 1700's and applied to moving vehicles by the early 1800's. Later, it's application was put to farming equipment. The application of steam engines was limited because of the enormous weight that was required in the machine. "The introduction of high-pressure boilers in the 1850's did much to lighten engines." (#14, pg. 28) The steam engine enjoyed it's largest amount of use between 1885 and 1914.
"The steam engine was first applied in Europe to the threshing process and to drainage pumps. It was not until the 1850 that the steam engine first was used in plowing in Europe (17F) "The steam plough, although able to plough ten times the area that horses could plough in a day, was cumbersome and costly, and had only a limited impact on farming in either Europe or the United States. Thus the horse remained the mains source of power until the early twentieth century." (17F, Pg 52)
"The most successful early application of steam in farming was to plowing. Before steam engines were self-propelling, and had to be hauled into position by horses, schemes for using them to haul ploughs across fields by cables had been devised." (#14 pg 67)
"Steam engines had their drawbacks. First, boiler explosions were frequently caused by low water and other factors. The steam engine was also very heavy and often would collapse bridges originally designed for simple horse and carriage."
******
Furthermore, depending on the water source, scaling in the boiler and works were a constant problem. In California, steam tractors were used like railroad engines without tracks, to haul heavy oil drilling pipe and oil tools. It worked well in the semi-desert areas of Kern County until it rained. Then the machinery would get stuck in the clay soils (Rintoul, 1989).
There are dozens of other websites and several books written about stream tractors. They NEVER became popular because of their obvious drawbacks! If you want more documentation just, ask.
But back to the original thesis: Your 5-10 year estimate on the demise of slavery (from 1860) is NON-SENSE. The plight of the typical ex-farmhand slave after 1865 was not much better than when they were owned. As the references say, steam-powered farm equipment did not really get much attention to the mid-1880's. (That's twenty years - twice your estimate.) Cotton picking did not become appreciably mechanized until the mid-1940's. (That's eighty years - eight times your estimate.)
If mules and steam equipment were so revolutionary, why weren't they adopted on a widespread basis? If the CSA had somehow gained nationhood, with slavery intact, what makes you think Southern agriculture would have taken any course different from what was taken (cotton and tobacco - 85% of planted acreage)?
Here in Ventura County, CA, we recently had a "slavery" court case! In reality, it was a case of the owner of a large nursery concern in Somis, CA, keeping illegal Mexicans on the property as indentured workers. The guy would not let them off the farm. He got busted big time. Cheap manual labor beats heavy capital investment - until you're caught! This is not dissimilar to the situation that existed immediately after the War for Southern Independence.
With regard to your 3rd point (peasant army, few well-educated tacticians), I am now reading Look Away by William Davis. Actually, I read the last chapter first ("The End"). Now I am reading it the right way! Not a pretty picture. Have you read it yet?
What Led to the Civil War?
By Walter Williams
The problems that led to the Civil War are the same problems today — big, intrusive government. The reason we don’t face the specter of another Civil War is because today’s Americans don’t have yesteryear’s spirit of liberty and constitutional respect, and political statesmanship is in short supply.
Actually, the war of 1861 was not a civil war. A civil war is a conflict between two or more factions trying to take over a government. In 1861, Confederate President Jefferson Davis was no more interested in taking over Washington than George Washington was interested in taking over England in 1776. Like Washington, Davis was seeking independence. Therefore, the war of 1861 should be called ‘The War Between the States" or the "War for Southern Independence." The more bitter southerner might call it the "War of Northern Aggression."
History books have misled today’s Americans to believe the war was fought to free slaves. Statements from the time suggest otherwise. In President Lincoln’s first inaugural address, he said, ‘I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so." During the war, in an 1862 letter to the New York Daily Tribune editor Horace Greeley, Lincoln said, "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or destroy slavery." A recent article by Baltimore’s Loyola College Professor Thomas DiLorenzo titled ‘The Great Centralizer," in The Independent Review (Fall 1998) cites quotation after quotation of similar northern sentiment about slavery.
Lincoln’s intentions, as well as that of many northern politicians, were summarized by Stephen Douglas during the presidential debates. Douglas accused Lincoln of wanting to "impose on the nation a uniformity of local laws and institutions and a moral homogeneity dictated by the central government" that "place at defiance the intentions of the republic’s founders." Douglas was right, and Lincoln’s vision for our nation has now been accomplished beyond anything he could have possibly dreamed.
A precursor for a War Between the States came in 1832, when South Carolina called a convention to nullify tariff acts of 1828 and 1832, referred to as the "Tariffs of Abominations." A compromise lowering the tariff was reached, averting secession and possibly war. The North favored protective tariffs for their manufacturing industry. The South, which exported agricultural products to and imported manufactured goods from Europe, favored free trade and was hurt by the tariffs. Plus, a northern-dominated Congress enacted laws similar to Britain’s Navigation Acts to protect northern shipping interests. Shortly after Lincoln’s election, Congress passed the highly protectionist Morrill tariffs. That’s when the South seceded, setting up a new government. Their constitution was nearly identical to the U.S. Constitution except that it outlawed protectionist tariffs, business handouts and mandated a two-thirds majority vote for all spending measures.
The only good coming from the War Between the States was the abolition of slavery. The great principle enunciated in the Declaration of Independence that "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of-the governed" was overturned by force of arms. By destroying the states’ right to secession, Abraham Lincoln opened the door to the kind of unconstrained, despotic, arrogant government we have today, something the framers of the Constitution could not have possibly imagined.
States should again challenge Washington’s unconstitutional acts through nullification. But you tell me where we can find leaders with the love, courage and respect for our Constitution like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and John C. Calhoun.
Professor Walter Williams is an academic advisor to the Independent Institute, and chairman of the Department of Economics at George Mason University.
You are correct, I got it backwards. But the scorecard remains the same, Grants = abolitionists, Dents = slaveholders.
With regard to the status of Jones, the evidence is clouded. Clearly, from Grant's March 1858, letter to his father, Jones was still "Mr. Dent's." This was the time period when Grant was farming in Missouri, and land given to Julia by her father. I recall it was adjacent to the White Haven property of Frederick Dent. The short article by P. K. Sanfilippo (on the web) suggests Grant purchased Jones from Dent, but gives no details. Other sources point out there is no "title documentation" to suggest the was a sale from Dent to Grant; in fact, some sources suggest Jones "came with the farm." An October 1858 letter written by Grant continues to use verbiage that suggests the slaves in and around White Haven were considered by Grant to be Dent's property. Since Grant signed and filed the manumission papers for Jones in March 1859, he must have sometime in the prior 5 to 12 months accepted ownership of Jones. So you are correct by suggesting there is a lack of unambiguous documentation.
What a lame, pathetic, cya effort it was.
Wlatspeak = "advocating the suffrage for black soldiers"
Abespeak = "I barely suggest for your private consideration, whether some of the colored people may not be let in ..."
February 22, 1864, Hahn won election as Governor of the State of Louisiana with 6,183 votes.
http://www.loyno.edu/history/journal/1991-2/battle.htm
In March of 1864, following the election of Governor Michael Hahn -- an opponent of enfranchisement -- Jean Baptist Roudanez, a young engineer and son of Louis Charles Roudanez, and a young wine merchant named E. Arnold Bertonneau, traveled to Washington, D.C. to pursue the issue of voting rights. <13> They carried with them a petition listing more than a thousand names, "all representing both real or personal property." The basis of their demands for political recognition were the same facts which they had presented to various officials during the previous years: the services of their fathers under Jackson, their assistance to Butler and Banks during the war, their claims to ownership of property, and their loyalty to the United States. <14>
After a meeting with President Lincoln, the delegates' demands were turned down. The president stressed the urgency of restoring the Union, and that he regarded the issue of recognizing the free Blacks as enfranchised citizens a moral one in which he could not intervene. He would take such steps "whenever they could show that such accession would be necessary to the readmission of Louisiana as a State in the Union." But in a letter congratulating Hahn on his election, written shortly after the delegation's departure, Lincoln noted that the issue would more than likely reappear in the upcoming state constitutional convention. He wrote:
I barely suggest for your private consideration, whether some of the colored people may not be let in -- as, for instance, the very intelligent, and especially those who have fought gallantly in our ranks. They would probably help, in some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty within the family of freedom. But this is only a suggestion, not to be public, but to you alone. <15>
Two months later, on May 10, a proviso was written into the state constitution stating "that the Legislature shall never pass any act authorizing free Negroes to vote, or to immigrate into this state under any pretense whatever."
Citations:
Donald E. Everett, "Demands of the New Orleans Free Colored Population for Political Equality, 1862-1865," Louisiana Historical Quarterly (April, 1955).
Brenda Marie Osbey, "Faubourg Treme: Community in Transition, Part II," New Orleans Tribune (January 1991).
13 Osbey, Part III, p. 15.
14 Everett, p. 50.
15 Everett, pp. 50-51.
[Wlat 1885] He -openly- worked for the passage of the 13th amendment, which amply backed up his public pronouncements.
Lincoln's emigration aide Rev. James Mitchell told the St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat on August 16, 1894, the foundation of Lincoln's private and public policy. It was "his honest conviction that it was better for both races to separate. This was the central point of his policy, around which hung all his private views, and as far as others would let him, his public acts" Lincoln was "fully convinced" that "the republic was already dangerously encumbered with African blood that would not legally mix with American [sic] . . . . He regarded a mixed race as eminently anti-republican, because of the heterogeneous character it gives the population where it exists, and for similar reasons he did not favor the annexation of tropical lands encumbers with mixed races ...."
Politicians persistently "work for" peace on earth, good will, and prosperity for all. Persistently, they require one more term to obtain for the people whatever it is they currently claim to "work for."
During the Lincoln administration, where White soldiers were paid $13, Black soldiers were offered $7. That works sort of like three-fifths or 60% of a person had shrunk under Lincoln to 54% of a person. You can blather all you want about what he allegedly worked for. I don't know of too many politicians who fight for higher taxes but they seem to succeed at that denied goal despite themselves.
Perhaps you two have picked up a bad habit from Walt.
Thanks. I haven't had such a good laugh since your LOTR spoof of Waltrot a while back. I will stay tuned.
Now come on, NC, this would mean that Lincoln created a paradox for himself which was abused for political domination. We all know that 'Honest Abe' wouldn't declare states to be in or out of the union arbitrarily to suit his needs in any given situation.
He worked for equal rights for whom?
He did not want to hear about women's suffrage. That's over half the population right there.
Lincoln never preached equality for anyone other than white men.
You mean you would rather go where you can call people, and groups of people, traitors or enemies of the United States of America, and not take return fire.
Differences of opinion are not errors.
but his errors on the Morrill Tariff, his opinions on what caused the war
Those, as I said, have little to do with the political right to secession or nullification. You will note that at the time of the WBTS, rights did not require justification, but were endowed on men by God. To suggest that the reason one chooses to excersize a right somehow weighs on the existence of such is to deny that right based on your interpretation of events. The article's focus is not the tarrif or the reason for secession, but a call for our state leadership to grow some hairy clankers and push back against Leviathan for once.
and what it should be named,
Matter of opinion. I certainly would not call it a 'civil war' just because there was not fight over control of Washington and the government of the US. If you choose to call it a rebellion, then I cannot generate a coherent argument against that, but you and I both know that a rebellion is not necessarily a 'civil war' unless your definition of the latter is broad enough to include all domestic disturbance.
reason why the southe seceded,
See above. This has oft been a point of contention on these threads. Had the North fought the war to end slavery, then you would likely hear no argument from me and many others. Unfortnately, the end of slavery was incidental to war that was waged for a stated different purpose, yet there are those who demand we pay homage to Lincoln for ending slavery when it was not his stated goal. It is like praising Stalin for the effectiveness of today's US military.
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