Posted on 02/13/2009 8:05:16 AM PST by Dick Bachert
I don't know what they teach in U.S. history classes today. But back in the middle of the last century, when I was in elementary school, there was absolutely no question about how we were to regard Abraham Lincoln. We were taught to feel a reverence bordering on awe for Honest Abe, the Great Emancipator, the eloquent martyr who saved the Republic.
We were required to memorize the Gettysburg Address. And if we were lucky enough to join a field trip to our nation's capitol, one of the most significant events was our visit to the Lincoln Memorial. (A few of us rapscallions spoiled the solemnity of the moment by sliding down the sides of the monument.)
That was what we were taught in the grade schools of Cleveland, Ohio. And I suspect it wasn't any different in any other school in the North. Some of you sons and daughters of the South will have to tell me what your teachers and history books said.
It wasn't until I became an adult and started reading history on my own that I began to doubt the version of events I was taught nearly six decades ago. For example, did you know that Lincoln suspended civil liberties in the North, including the writ of habeas corpus? That he filled the jails with more than 13,000 political prisoners, all incarcerated without due process? The Supreme Court protested Lincoln's disregard for our Constitutional protections, but the president replied he had a war to fight. Since he commanded the army, Lincoln won that argument.
And speaking of the war, guess who uttered these words:
"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable — a most sacred right — a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of their territory as they inhabit."
Okay, I'll admit this is a trick question. The speaker was Abraham Lincoln. But he was not talking about the southern states that tried to secede from the Union. No, these remarks were made in 1847, when Lincoln was defending the right of Texans to demand their independence from Mexico. A dozen years later, when six southern states tried to declare their independence, Lincoln's response was to wage war on them.
As a child, I never questioned the assertion that the South was wrong to secede. And that Lincoln was right to use as much force as necessary to preserve the Union. Later, as I grew to understand the strength and uniqueness of our Constitutional Republic, I began to question both assumptions.
The U.S. Constitution, I came to believe, was a contract — a contract between the various states and the federal government they created. Note that the Constitution had to be approved by the states, not a majority of the citizens. There was no "majority rule" here, no popular vote taken.
But this raises the question, if it was necessary for the states to adopt the Constitution, why wouldn't it be legal for some of those states to rescind that vote, especially if they felt the contract had been broken? More and more, I found myself thinking that the South was legally and morally right in declaring its independence. And the North, by invading those states and waging war on them, was wrong.
And what a terrible war it was. By the time it was over, nearly 625,000 Americans were dead — more American servicemen than were killed in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined. Fully one-fourth of the draft-age white population of the South was dead.
The devastation in the former states of the confederacy is hard to imagine. Sherman's march from Atlanta to Savannah is notorious for its savagery. But he was far from the only Northern officer who ordered his troops to lay waste to southern farms, fields, and plantations. Union troops routinely destroyed crops, sacked homes, and even stabled their horses in Southern churches.
As H.W. Crocker III puts it in The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War (Regnery Publishing, 2008), "If abiding by the law of a free republic and fighting a defensive war solely against armed combatants be flaws, the South had them and the North did not. Lincoln ignored the law, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court when it suited him. His armies waged war on the farms, livelihoods, and people of the South, not just against their armies."
Of all the big lies about the War Between the States, the biggest of all may be that it was necessary to end slavery. The truth is that many illustrious southerners, including Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, recognized that slavery had to come to an end. But it should not come by force of arms, they felt; not at the point of a gun, but rather through the free consent of the owners, with the proper preparation of the slaves. To get them ready for their own freedom, for example, Lee's wife insisted the family's slaves be taught to read and write, and the women how to sew.
Despite what most of us have been taught, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves. It wasn't a law, but an edict. It specifically exempted the Border States and any parts of the South that were already under the control of Federal forces. It applied only to areas that were still in rebellion. So the Proclamation, of and by itself, did not free a single slave.
What it did, however, was change the nature of the conflict. Now the war was no longer about restoring the Union, or preventing Southern independence. Now it was about the morality, and the legality, of slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation did not make the war more popular in the north, but it did end the possibility of other countries, especially France and Britain, from coming to the aid of the South. They might have been willing to assist southern independence; but support a war in favor of slavery? Never.
As Crocker notes, "In Southern eyes, the Emancipation Proclamation was the ultimate in Yankee perfidy — an attempt to incite slave uprisings against Confederate women and children." Then he notes, "Happily, while the proclamation did encourage slaves to seek their freedom, there were no slave uprisings, no murders of women and children — which might say something good about Southerners too, both white and black."
Abraham Lincoln, more than any other president who came before him, changed the very nature of our government. There would never again be as many limitations on the powers of the federal government. And just as tragic, the concept of states' rights suffered a blow from which it has never recovered.
I'm told that more than 14,000 books have been written about Abraham Lincoln. Most, of course, are incredibly adulatory. The few that attempt to balance the scales are virtually ignored. While it may not be true that might makes right, it is definitely true that the winners write the history books.
I totally ahkd;ld;lda;lkdkh;l with you....
I know the argument being of Southern stock and having lived in the South a number of years. It was about state’s rights according to my family. Slavery would have ended at some point peacefully. Maybe, maybe not. But it was really about slavery; Lincoln was an abolitionist and the South expected him to free the slaves at some point. In some ways it was a clash of civilizations.
As for what would have happened had the South won, I don’t know...we never will. But, how can one expect that a government based on the enslaving of one group expect them to extend liberties to another? Thus, I don’t believe those who claim it would have been a freer society are correct...it’s romanticism of the gallant South that makes people believe this.
>>>>>>> Those above mentioned EXCEPTIONS were the areas under FEDERAL CONTROL! <<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Correct.
And since they were under the control of the Federal Government, and not technically in rebellion, Lincoln could not free the slaves in those locations.
He could only free the slaves in the areas that were in active, armed rebellion BY PROCLAMATION.
All of the states and ares that were within the Union and obeying its laws had to have the slaves freed CONSTITUTIONALLY.
This he did by getting the 13th amendment through Congress.
It all begs the question why you aren't bothering to look any of this up on your own, but I digress. The short answer is many were. But the Underground Railroad rain for around 40 years, from 1810 to around 1850. During that period the primary responsibility for apprehending fuigitive slaves lay with state and local authorities per the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793. Any fugitive slave remaining in those free states was subject to arrest by any local official out for the reward. Remaining in the U.S. under those circumstances was a lot riskier than it would become.
The Underground Railroad petered out after 1840 and by 1850 it was no longer the long distance route to Canada it had been, but merely a route out of the South. Why this happened is simple. The 1842 Prigg v. Pennsylvania decision had ruled that state and local officials could not be made to enforce federal laws like the fugitive slave laws. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 gave the federal government responsibility for tracking down runaways. Personal liberty laws were being passed, and struck down, and then passed in another form. And the anti-slavery movement grew in free states to the point where the fugitives could remain in reasonable safety without much fear of being captured and sent back south.
Not everyone in the South owned slaves. In fact, most people did not own slaves...so the war had to be about something else in order to get non-slaveholders to fight. As it was the border states sent sons to both armies. My family is from Virginia...one son died on the battlefield for the Confederacy. The other son (brother) died shortly after being released from Andersonville. The family book reported his health was broken. Those who fought for the North went to Texas...life was not easy for those viewed as traitors, I’m sure.
Indeed.
That is because, for the most part, they won the peace. The lost cause myth started immediately with Jubal Early and the construction of the Marble Man. The victorious United States, eager to move on and forget and no friend of the freed slaves for the most part, sat back and let it happen.
>>>>>>>>>>>
I suppose you’re referring to the “Corwin” amendment that would have extended slavery for all time.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
No child.
I am talking about the REAL thirteenth amendment.
The one that abolished slavery.
This is a really bad secret, and I hope I can actually utter this here without being hung out to dry...
My grandmother said her grandmother told her there were times that they (the poor whites) envied the slaves because they mostly had a roof over their head and food to eat. The poor whites didn’t have much opportunity to get above their station (regardless of the occassional ‘rise above’ person who came through with an education and wasn’t stuck in the field to feed the family) and were just out in the cold if they hit hard times. I guess it was like a farmer making sure his oxen are taken care because he relies on them.
That is terrible, because no one should own another human being and my grandmother’s grandmother didn’t literally want to be a slave... but I think she was remembering after the supplies were gone in the south, the men were gone off to war and they watched the slave children eating. In a house or cabin. With a fire. And a doctor called to take care of someone when they were sick. That wasn’t all slaves of course, but most slaves were just one or two in a upper class home. Not all slaves were plantation slaves.
So there you go. That is an evil family secret that was passed to me. One of those things you hate to know, but also somewhat understand and sympathize as well.
>>>>>>>>>>>> And five months later, Lee surrendered; the war was effectively over when the amendment was enacted. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<
So? What does that have to do with the subject matter at hand.
Lincoln freed the slaves in the rebelling states with the emancipation.
He then free the rest of the slaves by changing the United States Constitution by adding the Thirteenth amendment.
I agree that slavery would have ended at some point. Slavery was an expensive proposition in that those enslaved really weren't interested in working and the cost of their care, e.g., clothing, food, et al expenses. Couple that with the fact that we were on the cusp of the industrial revolution and one could easily predict slavery's end. The cotton picking machine, for example, requires only fuel, oil and occasional maintenance. And, it doesn't create any social problems.
As for the remainder of your missive, all I can say is that everyone is entitled to their own opinion however erroneous it might be.
The first commercially successful mechanical cotton harvester was also not introduced until the late 1930's. Kind of long for the slaves to wait, don't you think?
Slaves in Union states were in the process of being freed throughout the War.
A bill freeing slaves in DC was signed by Lincoln on April 16, 1862. Well before the Emancipation Proclamation.
Slaves in WV were freed on March 26, 1863 just a few months after the EP.
MO ended slavery on July 1, 1863.
MD ended slavery on November 1, 1864.
TN ended slavery in early 1865.
Only KY (many thousands of slaves) and DE (perhaps 200 slaves) among Union states refused to end slavery by state action.
Given this timeline, while some remained enslaved in Union areas after the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, there weren’t very many of them and it certainly wasn’t for very long.
Dred Scott still holds the record as the worst decision in SCOTUS history, despite recent strong competition.
Its biggest failure was that they went well beyond ruling on the law, as most of the language of the decision was not needed to rule on the case itself.
The Court announced that Congress had no right to restrict slavery in territories, despite the fact that it had done so going back to before the Constitution itself. Taney also, historically and legally inaccurately, stated that people of African ancestry, not just slaves, were not and never could be citizens. This is despite the well-known fact that blacks had fought in the Revolution and had the right to vote in several states at the time, including North Carolina, a southern slave state.
Taney just wrote in whatever he wanted in his decision. There is good evidence he coordinated his decision with southern politicians in Congress, at the very least a violation of judicial ethics, and some that he was working on a decision that would have invalidated northern state laws outlawing slavery in their states, waiting only for an appropriate case to attach it to. After all, if the Constitution prohibited the federal government from keeping a man from taking his property into a territory, how could a State keep him from bringing his property with him when he moved north?
Didn't quite work out that way. The soldier vote went about 2 to 1 for Abe.
The slaves didn't wait. The plantation owners did.
The idea that it was not Lincoln who destroyed the government created by Jefferson and Madison is absurd. Go find yourself a copy of Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution. This is not written by some Johnie-come-lately without any academic standing. This was written by James McPherson of Princeton who is almost universally considered the dean of "Civil War" historians. (Not be me, mind you.) In the preface he quotes a Harvard professor writing in 1869 as saying that it was as if he is no longer living in the country in which he was born. I don't have my copy at hand, and I do not recall why McPherson chose to quote the professor. Whatever it was, it wasn't what I consider the import of this. This Harvard professor never owned slaves, and probably cared little if at all about slavery. Certainly the end of slavery 400 miles to his south couldn't have had much impact on the life of a Harvard professor. No. What it was was that the government that d'Tocqueville wrote about was gone, just as gone with the wind in Cambridge, Mass. as it was in Charleston, SC. The guys you mention were barely out of diapers in 1869.
ML/NJ
Because they had their chattel taken away from them. You said slavery was doomed because mechanization would replace it. My point is that the replacement you spoke of was 70 years in the future.
I got your point, sport. Now tell me who picked the cotton during those seventy years.
I too, have at least two great, great, great, great, great grandfathers who served with the Union during the Civil War. It was a father and son. One served in the 12th Indiana (only existed for one year) and the other served in the 60th Indiana for three years.
I agree that some very bad things happened on the Federal level because of the Civil War, but I don’t blame them on Lincoln. Had the Southern states not pushed for secession, the war probably would not have occured. It certainly would have been painful economically for the South, but ultimately they would have come through a post-slavery world.
I don’t mean to be contentious, but I don’t think it is accurate to say that the war had nothing to do with slavery. Slavery was the most contentious issue of the day, not the only issue, but the most volatle one. Lincoln said several times in his debates with Douglas, and some of his campaign speeches as well, that although he believed slavery to be a moral wrong, he did not believe that a president could interfere where it already existed. He would have no legal recourse for doing so. But, as I said, he was very much against slavery extending into the new states that would be formed out of the territories in the west. He clearly stated that his primary reason for opposing slavery in the new states was that he believed slavery to be morally wrong. That doesn’t mean that he believed blacks and whites were intellectually or socially equal - only that everyone had a right to enjoy the fruits of his/her own labor.
Lincoln was also against secession as advocated by many Southern political leaders because he saw it as a direct threat to the existence of the country. How could a country long exist if it provided the means for its own extinction? These were among his questions regarding secession.
As has been pointed out by others, it was the immediate threat of secession that Lincoln ultimately went to war with the southern rebel leaders. He saw those leaders as traitors to the country because their actions would lead to the destruction of the United States if secession were permitted to stand.
Therefore, slavery was the aggravating issue that led to secession by the South. They did not want slavery to be limited to where it already existed. They wanted it to spread to some of the new states so that they would not lose their voting block in Congress and thus continue to protect their way of life. I certainly understand their dislike of Lincoln and why they would not support him for president, but I believe some of the Southern leaders hide behind the “states rights” issue and attempt to avert people’s attention away from slavery. Nathan Bedford Forrest said the war was for and completely about the insitution and promotion of slavery. He said that anyone who denied that was lying and trying to fool themselves and others.
Hired labor. So if more expensive hired help didn't speed up the mechanization what would?
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