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.
A supreme court ruling issued by the north after the fact has no meaning.
WP: That is ridiculous. If that were true, they would have --insisted-- that the legality of secession be brought before the Supreme Court, as required by the Judiciary Act of 1789.
They believed the Constitution allowed them to secede. Once seceded, US laws did not apply to them -- they were no longer part of the US. They did not have to go to the Supreme Court to get a blessing.
If you don't understand where they were coming from, Walt, you really don't have a good understanding of the war.
Best available information would indicate that the right is reserved to the congress, not to mention that there are a great many Americans who do not rely on lawyers to read the plaintext of the constitution to them like children. "Interpretation" is something that is done with art, not government. Lincoln's practice of government could, at best, be described as 'artful.'
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.
Untrue. A war among factions of a single country is still called a civil war. Did Lincoln never refer to it as a 'war'? You'll have to do better than to deny that a war occurred.
It was, once again, this Grand Old Partisan fellow who claimed that the suspension of habeas corpus was (ab)used only against those whom Lincoln was "empowered to kill." Take it up with him.
If one day there is an Islamic insurgency ...
Yes, words are dangerous, and must not be used.
Another lie. Are you saying that there have been no patriots who criticized Lincoln's practices and policies?
Rediculous.
And you have unmasked your inability to follow even your own arguments. Your use of partisan crybabies as trusted sources is over the top and people see it for what it is. Those men were not conservatives, and your attempts to link them somehow with the modern party structures are easily exposed as faulty.
Odd that you would bad-mouth a democrat provocatuer - even if it were true (it isn't, but then neither is anything else you say). Take a look back at the things you've posted to FR's known resident Democrat provocatuer:
Way to go! Ouch! That Hurts! Well Said! Yadda Yadda!
this particuliar one is also spitting on the graves of the brave union soldiers who did NOT surrender and were killed in honorable close combat.
offhand, i cannot think of a single reputable historian who believes the LIES endlessly repeated by the south-hating REVISIONISTS.(btw, you use the word massacre;interesting to me as an Indian, it is peculiar that 500 Indians killed by the army is a "wonderful victory over hostile savages" BUT more than one soldier killed by Indians is a massacre!)
free dixie,sw
if what you say is true, where did the service records of at least 100,000 black servicemen come from? did the US Archives and the state archivists invent the records to confuse people like me & you?
did Morehouse College fill empty graves in the basement of Graves Hall with nothing, rather than the bodies of at least 120 black CSA soldiers (about 30 of them are identified by name)killed at Atlanta?
the bottom line is that you are the victim of the "publick screwls edumakation", which is/was intended to DECEIVE the naive & ignorant.
believe what you will, but understand that you will be perceived by knowledgeable persons as a "the earth is flat sort".
free dixie,sw
most of what passes for history is in "modern America" is nothing more than self-serving damnyankee propaganda. LIES told by the damnyankee apologists do not become magically true by repetition.
once again, i have to ask you: how do you feel about the 100,000 black CSA soldiers, sailors & marines who fought for dixie LIBERTY? were they fighting to continue slavery? do you think they were stupid? OR could it be that the black troops were fighting to defend their homes,families & property from the "filth that came down from the north"?
go read BLACKS IN BLUE & GRAY,by Professor H R Blackerby of the Tuskeegee University department of history, then come back and we'll talk.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
The only first hand account I have read of that says it did not exist is from a legislator who had been there a few weeks earlier, seen that they did not have a quorum at the time, and departed before the vote. I've read that the records of procedings survived from one of the chambers and list a quorum. The other chamber has not been found, though reports exist that it had one as well.
I've never seen an actual vote count out of the Neosho session. I've read accounts that when the Missouri legislature reconvened in Cassville a week later there were only 11 senators and between 35 and 44 representatives, far below quorum requirements. There may not have been many more than that in Neosho.
The Charleston Mercury's report on Nov. 25, 1861 gives the vote as follows:
"The meeting of the Missouri State Legislature, which passed the ordinance of secession at Neosho on the 2d inst. Was well attended - a full quorum being present, including 23 members of the Upper and 77 of the Lower House; 19 of the former and 68 of the latter constitute a quorum."
This is the only period newspaper report I have found so far that gives numbers, but it doesn't provide any further information on them.
free dixie,sw
THAT is the mark of a fool.
free dixie,sw
in 1860, you' couldn't have found 10,000 people in the WHOLE country who cared a damn about the plight of the slaves. (nobody, of course, asked the slaves!) almost NOBODY was willing to fight a war about it either.
it's just a self-serving damnyankee LIE. nothing more;nothing less.
free dixie,sw
Newsflash for ya, Partisan. The only avowed Democrat disrupter around here is a guy YOU hang out with, YOU praise, and YOU support in these threads. His name is Walt aka WhiskeyPapa. He votes Democrat, voted for Clinton, voted for Gore, regularly refers to George W. Bush as a "retard," blames Bush's father for 9/11, and calls the constitution a "pact with the devil" signed to protect "rich white men." None of that seems to bother you in the least when you are engaged in the business of kissing his sorry rear end around this forum. Therefore that you would accuse other freepers without any basis or evidence of being Democrats reeks of both hypocrisy and absurdity.
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