Historian suggests Southerners defeated Confederacy

Valdosta State professor pens ‘Bitterly Divided: The South’s Inner Civil War’

Generations of students have been taught that the South lost the Civil War because of the North’s superior industry and population. A new book suggests another reason: Southerners were largely responsible for defeating the Confederacy.

In “Bitterly Divided: The South’s Inner Civil War” (New Press, $27.95), historian David Williams of Valdosta State University lays out some tradition-upsetting arguments that might make the granite brow of Jefferson Davis crack on Stone Mountain.

“With this book,” wrote Publishers Weekly, “the history of the Civil War will never be the same again.”

Actually, historians have long fallen into two camps in explaining the Confederacy’s demise — one stressing the Union’s advantages, the other the South’s divisions. Williams gives vivid expression to the latter view, drawing on state and local studies done primarily in the past two decades.

The 49-year-old South Georgia native discussed his interpretations in an interview from Valdosta.

A: That’s right. In late 1860 and early 1861, there were a series of votes on the secession question in all the slave states, and the overwhelming majority voted against it. It was only in the Deep South, from South Carolina to Texas, that there was much support for secession, and even there it was deeply divided. In Georgia, a slight majority of voters were against secession.

A: The popular vote didn’t decide the question. It chose delegates to a convention. That’s the way slaveholders wanted it, because they didn’t trust people to vote on the question directly. More than 30 delegates who had pledged to oppose secession changed their votes at the convention. Most historians think that was by design. The suspicion is that the secessionists ran two slates — one for and one supposedly against — and whichever was elected, they’d vote for secession.

A: The shooting war over secession started in the South between Southerners. There were incidents in several states. Weeks before Fort Sumter, seven Unionists were lynched in Tallahatchie County, Miss.

A: No. As a result, about 300,000 Southern whites served in the Union army. Couple that with almost 200,000 Southern blacks who served, and that combined to make almost a fourth of the total Union force. All those Southerners who fought for the North were a major reason the Confederacy was defeated.

Q: In the spring of 1862, the Confederacy enacted the first draft in American history. Planters had an easy time getting out of it, didn’t they?

A: Very easy. If they owned 20 or more slaves, they were pretty much excused from the draft. Some of them paid off draft officials. Early in the war, they could pay the Confederate government $500 and get out of the draft.

Q: You use the phrase “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight” several times. Does this history anger you?

A: I don’t think it would be unfair to say that. It seems like the common folk were very much ignored and used by the planter elite. As a result, over half a million Americans died.

My great-great-grandfather was almost one: John Joseph Kirkland. He was a poor farmer in Early County, no slaves. He was 33, just under draft age, and had five children at home. He went ahead and enlisted so he could get a $50 bonus. A year later, he lost a leg at the Battle of Chancellorsville.

A: That does seem strange, because we think of the South as a vast agricultural region. But the planters were growing too much cotton and tobacco and not enough food. Cotton and tobacco paid more.

Q: You say the Confederate army stripped the fields of much of the produce and livestock there was, leaving civilians hungry. That sounds like Sherman’s troops marching through Georgia.

Q: When they couldn’t feed their families, Southern women started food riots. There was a big one in Richmond. Were there any in Georgia?

A: Every major city in Georgia had food riots. We’ve documented more than 20. In Atlanta, a woman walked into a store on Whitehall Street and drew a revolver and told the rest of the women to take what they wanted. They moved from store to store.

Q: The deprivations at home led to a very high desertion rate among Confederates. How bad was it?

A: By 1864, two-thirds of the Army was absent with or without leave. It got worse after that.

A: Yes. It surprised me that many Confederate deserters could count on the support of slaves to hide them and move them from one location to another.

A: They were very important to undermining the Confederate war effort. When slaves heard that Abraham Lincoln had been elected, many of them thought they were free and started leaving plantations. So many eventually escaped to Union lines that they forced the issue. As other historians have said, Lincoln didn’t free the slaves; the slaves freed themselves.

Q: If there was so much division in the South and it was such an important part of the Confederacy’s downfall, why isn’t this a larger part of our national memory?

A: The biggest reason is regional pride. It gratified white Southerners to think the South was united during the Civil War. It gratified Northerners to believe they defeated a united South.

Q: Why do you think so much Southern identity has been wrapped up in the Confederacy? We’re talking about four of the 400 years since Jamestown was settled. It seems like the tail wagged the dog — and now you tell us the tail is pretty raggedy.

A: I think popular memory got wrapped up in race. Most white Southerners opposed secession, but they were also predominantly racists. After the war, they wanted to keep it a white man’s country and maintain their status over African-Americans. It became easy for Southerners to misremember what happened during the war. A lot of people whose families had opposed the Confederacy became staunch neo-Confederates after a generation or two, mainly for racist reasons.

Q: Has this knowledge affected your feelings about Southern heritage? Did you have an opinion about the former Georgia flag?

A: I had a graduate student who did his thesis on that. He looked into the origins of the 1956 state flag and concluded that the Confederate battle emblem was put there not to honor our ancestors but as a statement against school integration.

A: Yes. They didn’t really deny anything I had to say, but they weren’t real happy to hear it. I told them, “Well, I’m not making this up.”

Not me, that was nonsequitur.

My apologies...

But since you asked, did anybody say, when the 10th Amendment was debated, "Wow, this will secure our right to secede unilaterally!" (or words to that effect in the language of the day)?

The right of secession is obviously included among "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States," which "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people [of the States]." If you disagree, would you care to cite a specific constitutional clause that prohibits State secession?

;>)

That is a little like saying your right to take money out of your bank account allows you to take money from other people's accounts as well.

A state's ability to exercise its reserved powers doesn't mean that it can simply negate the legitimate power of the federal government through a unilateral act of secession.

If you disagree, would you care to cite a specific constitutional clause that prohibits State secession?

As I and others have already said: the supremacy clause.

This is a tactic, right?

You simply ignore everything everyone else says to you and then pretend that you have proven your point.

That is a little like saying your right to take money out of your bank account allows you to take money from other people's accounts as well.

A state's ability to exercise its reserved powers doesn't mean that it can simply negate the legitimate power of the federal government through a unilateral act of secession.

LOL! You suggest that the States did NOT reserve the right of secession? Please read the ratification documents of New York, Rhode Island and the Providence Plantations, and Virginia, PLUS the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. You claim some "legitimate power of the federal government" to prevent State secession (~1860-61)?

Quote the constitutional clause that prohibited it, sport.

As I and others have already said: the supremacy clause.

Care to be more specific? Of course not.

This is a tactic, right?

You simply ignore everything everyone else says to you and then pretend that you have proven your point.

Actually, I simply read every historical document you refuse to read (you might start with James Madison's 'Report on the Virginia Resolutions,' sport ;>), and then recognize that I am somewhat more well informed than my pig-ignorant brothers...

;>)

To continue my analogy, that is like saying that you made a "reservation" allowing you to take money from other accounts when you opened yours. You can make any kind of "reservation" you like, but if you don't write it into a contract it doesn't matter. And for the record, some of those "reservations" refer to the right of rebellion, which is different from secession on demand.

Care to be more specific? Of course not.

That's the same tactic again. "Wideawake" and others explained this to you already. You act like you didn't read it, and when you've disgusted everyone so much that they give up, you pile on the sarcasm and act like you've won something.

Read Madison's December 23, 1832 letter to Nicholas Trist which denies the existence of a right to unilateral secession and denies that the Virginia Resolutions asserts anything of the kind.

Yes, the "but I had my fingers crossed" excuse doesn't work.

Again: the supremacy clause gives the federal government complete authority to determine the constitutionality of the acts of state legislatures.

Secession - an act which asserts the supremacy of the state over the federal government in constitutional matters - is clearly a legal impossibility under the US Constitution.

You can make any kind of "reservation" you like, but if you don't write it into a contract it doesn't matter.

Sorry, sport, but the 'reservations of rights' mentioned in the ratification documents are indeed a part of the contract.

WIJG: Care to be more specific? Of course not.

x:: That's the same tactic again. "Wideawake" and others explained this to you already.

Sorry, sport - I was just asking for a more specific reference. To which of the two uses of the word "supreme" in the US Constitution were you referring? One would indicate that you are a liberal; the other that you are a conservative. Based on your response, I assume it's the former. And as I noted earlier (in anticipation of your above response), I would suggest that you read Mr. Madison's 'Report on the Virginia Resolutions'...

You act like you didn't read it, and when you've disgusted everyone so much that they give up, you pile on the sarcasm and act like you've won something.

Sorry, sport, but I'm just tired of referring folks like you to the written, public declarations of the Founders - which you blatantly ignore, in post, after post, after post. The facts are there - but you choose to ignore them. "Sarcasm?" It's just a substitute for the absolute disgust you actually deserve...

Read Madison's December 23, 1832 letter to Nicholas Trist which denies the existence of a right to unilateral secession and denies that the Virginia Resolutions asserts anything of the kind.

Oh, you betcha! Why on earth would I give greater weight to an opinion voiced in a private letter, than I would to an opinion voiced in a document published for public consideration, during a time of political crisis? You sound like a freaking Clinton apologist ('Bill told everyone in America he didn't even know Monica, but that doesn't matter, because he mentioned the affair to his great-aunt Betty in a private letter.') Your opinions make me want to vomit...

That is a little like saying your right to take money out of your bank account allows you to take money from other people's accounts as well.

Actually, it's not.

A state's ability to exercise its reserved powers doesn't mean that it can simply negate the legitimate power of the federal government through a unilateral act of secession.

Which "legitimate power" are you referring to? Was it "enumerated?" Of course not - and in the opinion of Madison & Jefferson it was therefore not 'legitimate'...

As I and others have already said: the supremacy clause.

Is that the 'supremacy clause' that states that the Constitution is supreme (which is entirely logical) - or the 'supremacy clause' that states that the members of a certain federal court can burp after eating too much cabbage, and folks like you consider the 'output' to be "supreme?"

;>)

This is a tactic, right?
You simply ignore everything everyone else says to you and then pretend that you have proven your point.

Actually, I assume that totalitarians are simply idiots, and hope they will some day 'get a clue'...

Again: the supremacy clause gives the federal government complete authority to determine the constitutionality of the acts of state legislatures.

Wrong. As Mr. Madison noted over two hundred years ago:

But it is objected that the [federal] judicial authority is to be regarded as the sole expositor of the Constitution, in the last resort...

On this objection it might be observed, first, that there may be instances of usurped power, which the forms of the Constitution would never draw within the control of the judicial department;4 secondly, that if the decision of the [federal] judiciary be raised above the authority of the sovereign [States as] parties to the Constitution, the decisions of the other [federal] departments, not carried by the forms of the Constitution before the judiciary, must be equally authoritative and final with the decisions of that department. But the proper answer to the objection is, that the resolution of the General Assembly relates to those great and extraordinary cases, in which all the forms of the Constitution may prove ineffectual against infractions dangerous to the essential rights of the {States as] parties to it. The resolution supposes that dangerous powers, not delegated, may not only be usurped and executed by the other [federal] departments, but that the [federal] judicial department also may exercise or sanction dangerous powers beyond the grant of the Constitution; and, consequently, that the ultimate right of the [States as] parties to the Constitution, to judge whether the [constitutional] compact has been dangerously violated, must extend to violations by one delegated authority, as well as by another; by the [federal] judiciary, as well as by the [federal] executive, or the [federal] legislature.

James Madison, Report of 1799

In other words, bite me...

Secession - an act which asserts the supremacy of the state over the federal government in constitutional matters - is clearly a legal impossibility under the US Constitution.

Only if someone disagrees - as you obviously do - with Thomas Jefferson:

"I consider the foundation of the Constitution as laid on this ground: That 'all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.' To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition."

Thomas Jefferson, 1791

Please allow me to apologize - my insulting language is simply a result having been forced to make this argument, with suitable historical citations, year, after year, after year, after year...

The Founders clearly did not believe that the federal government they had established (specifically, the federal judiciary) possessed "a boundless field of power," beyond the enumerated powers detailed in the Constitution. Others here, obviously, would disagree with that statement. They would suggest that, if the "supreme" federal court so ruled, the citizens of the State of New Hampshire (or any other State) could be treated like bed bugs.

Sorry, but that argument 'lacks merit.' And it's better to recognize that simple fact before it happens, rather than after...

I'm going to clean myself off, sport.

I doubt it (you're too interested in your own little non-historical point of view). But here's a little help, sport, courtesy of Mr. Thomas Jefferson, if you actually want to attempt it:

The States in North America which confederated to establish their independence of the government of Great Britain, of which Virginia was one, became, on that acquisition, free and independent States, and as such, authorized to constitute governments, each for itself, in such form as it thought best...

To this construction of government and distribution of its powers, the Commonwealth of Virginia does religiously and affectionately adhere...

But the federal branch has assumed in some cases, and claimed in others, a right of enlarging its own powers by constructions, inferences, and indefinite deductions from those directly given, which this assembly does declare to be usurpations of the powers retained to the independent branches, mere interpolations into the compact, and direct infractions of it...

...Whilst the General Assembly [of the State of Virginia} thus declares the rights retained by the States, rights which they have never yielded, and which this State will never voluntarily yield, they do not mean to raise the banner of disaffection, or of separation from their sister States, co-parties with themselves to this compact. They know and value too highly the blessings of their Union as to foreign nations and questions arising among themselves, to consider every infraction as to be met by actual resistance. They respect too affectionately the opinions of those possessing the same rights under the same instrument, to make every difference of construction a ground of immediate rupture. They would, indeed, consider such a rupture as among the greatest calamities which could befall them; but not the greatest. There is yet one greater, submission to a government of unlimited powers...

"Declaration and Protest of the Commonwealth of Virginia, on the Principles of the Constitution of the United States of America, and on the Violations of Them," Thomas Jefferson, 1825

http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/jeffdec1.htm

That's from Mr. Jefferson's SECOND declaration (which the liberals don't mention in our public schools). "[S]ubmission to a government of unlimited powers" - gosh, that's exactly what you are advocating!

No surprise there!

;>)

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