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
The most reasonable and compelling information is totally rationalized away by the neo-confederates.
There is plenty of leeway in the record for President Lincoln to have done everything he did, with very few exceptions. There was both precedent for some things he did, and no precedent to prohibit him in others. As he said, nothing was done that went outside the powers of Congress. Those that love the United States won't carp over what president Lincoln did in the hour of need.
Walt
"The attempt to reinforce Sumter will provoke an attack and involve war...
You take President Lincoln to task for initiating actions that were entirely within his purview and entirely required by his oath and duties as president.
You neo-confederates could probably be safely ignored completely. The things you profess to throw up your hands in disgust over don't amount to a hill of beans.
Walt
When I converse with neo-confederates, I am especially fond of Mathew 7, verses 21-23.
Walt
Suspension of the writ. You've been following along.
Raising an army seems like it also qualifies, Carrying out acts of war without a declaration or the approval of Congress surely extends beyond constitutional executive power. I don't have time to look into it and provide a detailed response right now. We can table that one for the next thread if it's ok with you.
Not exactly, Partisan. They were raising an army for the purpose of repelling an invasion which they saw was forthcoming from Lincoln. Defense of one's home is no crime.
those were insurgents whom President Lincoln ordered to disarm and disburse in his procalamtion
So what you're saying is that Lincoln was the Baghdad Bob of his day? Even I give the man more credit than this.
The armistice you mention is imaginary.
Really? Seems that a lot of people knew about it, for it's being imaginary and all. Your saying so does make me think about looking into it, as I consider you the foremost authority on imaginary powers of government.
Even if there had been, it would have been the equivalent of police agreeing not to storm a terrorist-held building while they tired to talk them into surrendering.
Another appeal to the weak of mind? Can I expect this to end sometime soon? The Southerners who'd seceeded prior to Sumter were no terrorists, which you already know. What acts, sanctioned by the acting CSA government, qualify as terrorism?
Of course, this is not what was said. It was specifically stated that the war was prosecuted to further the Republican ideals.
If you don't like it, take it up with this Grand Old Partisan fellow who keeps coming around here and proclaiming the state almighty.
In 1999, Donna Brazille called the Republican party the "Party of the white boys," and someone else said Dick Cheney was representative of "the Taliban wing of the Republican party."
Using partisan crybabies as sources doesn't hold up to scrutiny, and is once again an appeal to the weak-minded cheerleaders, not the thinkers.
Who are these neo-Confederates that you keep talking about?
It is your contention, then, that Lincoln was authorized under the Militia act to kill newspaper editors and congressmen?
I have, and as had been pointed out time and again the question of whether or not the president has the power to suspend the writ has never been definitively answered by the Supreme Court.
Raising an army seems like it also qualifies, Carrying out acts of war without a declaration or the approval of Congress surely extends beyond constitutional executive power.
The Constitution does not say that the president needs congressional approval to increase or decrease the size of the army. Congressional approval is needed to pass legislation to pay for such an increase, and that is what happened. The Militia Act gave the president the authority to call up the militia when congress was not in session. President Lincoln abided by every provision of that law.
President Lincoln carried out no act of war, in fact war was never declared by the Lincoln adminsitration. Nor should it have since war is conducted between sovereign nations. One does not declare war on rebellious parts of your own country.
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