Posted on 06/09/2009 8:47:35 AM PDT by Davy Buck
My oh my, what would the critics, the Civil War publications, publishers, and bloggers do if it weren't for the bad boys of the Confederacy and those who study them and also those who wish to honor their ancestors who fought for the Confederacy?
(Excerpt) Read more at oldvirginiablog.blogspot.com ...
A contract is a VOLUNTARY compact formed by individuals. If one unilaterally breaks the contract, the others can use the power of legal force to ensure compliance.
By not valid I mean not Constitutional. James Madison wrote that a rightful secession requires the consent of the other states as well as those leaving. As he noted, "The characteristic distinction between free Governments and Governments not free is, that the former are founded on compact, not between the Government and those for whom it acts, but between the parties creating the Government. Each of those being equal, neither can have more rights to say that the compact has been violated and dissolved, than every other has to deny the fact, and to insist on the execution of the bargains. An inference from the doctrine that a single state has a right to secede at will from the rest, is that the rest would have an equal right to secede from it; in other words, to turn it, against its will, out of its union with them. Such a doctrine would not, till of late, have been palatable anywhere, on nowhere less so than where it is not most contended for."
To accept the idea that a state can unilaterally secede from the Union is to believe that it has more rights under the Constitution than the other states.
It appears to you, but then again your view of things has always been a bit...imaginative. Regardless of what Congress did to the Militia Act, the Insurrection Act gave Lincoln all the authority he needed.
Which is, of couse, why every state other than the original 13 had to be allowed in? Nothing voluntary about that. They entered because the other states said they could. Same should be true for leaving.
What acts of force before secession? The only acts of force before secession that I'm aware of were Anderson's troops charging laborers in Fort Sumter with bayonets and fighting with and overcoming the schooner captain, which is basically piracy. After the passage of secession by state conventions but before the the people of the states involved voted on it, some states did take action to protect themselves by taking possession of forts and arsenals, such as in Texas and Virginia and maybe other places. For example, a show of overwhelming force was used in Texas to force the federal troops there to leave the state after the secession convention voted for secession.
After secession, those properties and troops would no more automatically belong to Southern states than would, for example property owned by a citizen of France.
Seceded states were no longer bound by the Constitution than we were to Great Britain after the Revolutionary War or Texas was subject to the rule of the Mexican Constitution after San Jacinto. As such, the states had ultimate control of who owned what within their boundaries. Look at all the nationalizations of US owned property that have occurred in countries all around the globe, while the US did little or nothing about it.
... no federal reinforcements were sent by President Buchanan
Ignoring the Star of the West, are we?
By the way, to my knowledge there were no Southerners of the time who objected to the term "rebellion."
I imagine there were a great number of people both North and South who thought that the secession of a state was constitutional and not a rebellion. As Union general and later president, Rutherford Hayes said "The truth is, the men of the South believed in their theory of the Constitution. There was plausibility, perhaps more than plausibility, in the States' rights doctrine under the terms and in the history of the Constitution." Let's look at some of that history. From the New York ratification document [Link]:
Ratification of the Constitution by the State of New York; July 26, 1788.
WE the Delegates of the People of the State of New York, duly elected and Met in Convention, having maturely considered the Constitution for the United States of America, agreed to on the seventeenth day of September, in the year One thousand Seven hundred and Eighty seven, by the Convention then assembled at Philadelphia in the Common-wealth of Pennsylvania (a Copy whereof precedes these presents) and having also seriously and deliberately considered the present situation of the United States, Do declare and make known. ...
That the Powers of Government may be reassumed by the People, whensoever it shall become necessary to their Happiness; ...
... Under these impressions and declaring that the rights aforesaid cannot be abridged or violated, and that the Explanations aforesaid are consistent with the said Constitution ... We the said Delegates, in the Name and in the behalf of the People of the State of New York Do by these presents Assent to and Ratify the said Constitution.
Looks like Hayes was right.
The tariff rate in the years before the Civil War was close to its lowest rate in US history and hadn't been much of an issue at all since the early 1840s.
In his speech to the Georgia Secession Convention, Alexander Stephens dismissed the notion that the tariff was an issue:
The next evil that my friend complained of, was the Tariff. Well, let us look at that for a moment. About the time I commenced noticing public matters, this question was agitating the country almost as fearfully as the Slave question now is. In 1832, when I was in college, South Carolina was ready to nullify or secede from the Union on this account. And what have we seen? The tariff no longer distracts the public councils. Reason has triumphed. The present tariff was voted for by Massachusetts and South Carolina. The lion and the lamb lay down together-- every man in the Senate and House from Massachusetts and South Carolina, I think, voted for it, as did my honorable friend himself. And if it be true, to use the figure of speech of my honorable friend, that every man in the North, that works in iron and brass and wood, has his muscle strengthened by the protection of the government, that stimulant was given by his vote, and I believe every other Southern man. So we ought not to complain of that. [Mr. Toombs: That tariff lessened the duties.]Yes, and Massachusetts, with unanimity, voted with the South to lessen them, and they were made just as low as Southern men asked them to be, and those are the rates they are now at. If reason and argument, with experience, produced such changes in the sentiments of Massachusetts from 1832 to 1857, on the subject of the tariff, may not like changes be effected there by the same means, reason and argument, and appeals to patriotism on the present vexed question? And who can say that by 1875 or 1890, Massachusetts may not vote with South Carolina and Georgia upon all those questions that now distract the country and threaten its peace and existence? I believe in the power and efficiency of truth, in the omnipotence of truth, and its ultimate triumph when properly wielded.
Here is how Buchanan reacted to Anderson's move to Sumter, a move that was in violation of the truce/agreement between Buchanan and South Carolinians (no changes in the disposition of forces in Charleston Harbor until the situation could be resolved peaceably). [Source:Days of Defiance by Maury Klein]:
...The next morning when Trescot was readying their credentials [the credentials of the South Carolina commissioners who had come to talk with Buchanan], Louis Wigfall burst in with a telegram that Anderson had spiked Moultrie's guns and moved to Sumter. The commissioners and Trescot were stunned. "True or not," said Trescot amid an animated discussion, "I will pledge my life that if it has been done it has been without orders from Washington.“
Just then Floyd arrived. He blanched at the news and confirmed what Trescot had said, that such a move "would be not only against orders but in the face of orders." ....
Trescot informed Senators Jefferson Davis and Robert Hunter and went with them to the White House to demand an explanation. Buchanan had not heard of Anderson's action.
Buchanan slumped into a chair. "My God!" he cried wearily. "Are calamities ... never to come singly! I call God to witness -- you gentlemen better than anybody else know that this is not only without but against my orders. It is against my policy." ...
If Anderson had stayed in Fort Moultrie, the country (countries, actually) might have been spared a war.
Getting despirate, eh? That's the first insult of that kind to me in my long years of posting here. I argue history. You insult.
despirate = desperate
Must type more slowly.
Both of which were cases in which the victor in a war was able to dictate terms. As Lincoln said in the 1848 Mexican War speech, "It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines, or old laws; but to break up both, and make new ones." Win your revolution, then you can write your own rules. Until then you're making a "have your cake and secede from it, too" argument.
For the record, the transfer of forts occupied by the British at the Revolutionary War's end was done legally by the Treaty of Paris, not by a mystical invocation followed by prolonged shelling. In fact, the British remained in a number of frontier forts until Jay's Treaty in 1794.
Look at all the nationalizations of US owned property that have occurred in countries all around the globe, while the US did little or nothing about it.
Some things aren't worth going to war over. Others are. I don't see US lives and treasure worth expending to secure some private corporation's banana plantation. Attempting to blockade and seize a US fort, on the other hand, I'd feel differently about. Are you one of those Lost Causers who think that Cuba would be perfectly in the right to blockade and shell Guantanamo, and that the US would have no legal recourse?
Hi Bubba. Yeah, I made the point above that the South had been peacefully trying with mixed success to get fugitive slaves returned by means of the courts for far longer than we tried peacefully to get the British out of the forts.
With the Buchanan administration deciding and then later reversing itself about coercion of South Carolina (according to one of my links above) and things like the following that appeared in the newspapers, the South needed to prepare to defend itself. Taking forts and arsenals within their borders was a right step, IMHO.
Coercion Policy Towards the South. New York, Feb. 13. -- It is announced here, on high authority, that the incoming Administration will immediately attempt to retake the Southern forts, now in possession of the authorities in the seceding States. It is also stated that the blockade of Southern ports has been decided on. (Feb 14, 1861 Picayune)
And Lincoln did nothing to counter that impression in his first inaugural speech. Here's one Southern reaction to that speech:
Montgomery, March 5 -- Since the receipt of the Inaugural address of Mr. Lincoln, it is universally conceded here that war between the Confederate States and the United States is inevitable. Mr. Benjamin said last night, that in his opinion, there would be a clash of Arms within thirty days.
Win your revolution, then you can write your own rules. Until then you're making a "have your cake and secede from it, too" argument.
There is truth in what you say. However, secession is supraconstitutional. It is the supraconstitutional action by a state, one of the parties to the so-called voluntary union that was being nullified by Northern states. And, of course, it was an action by the sovereign voice of states where secession was submitted directly to the voters.
Some things aren't worth going to war over. Others are. I don't see US lives and treasure worth expending to secure some private corporation's banana plantation.
Lincoln apparently thought the presence of an independent South with a lower tariff than the US threatened the revenue he needed to run his government. I think that is the reason he provoked the war. The South seceded to protect slavery and their own economy.
Not true. In early December Anderson had been visited by Major Don Carlos Buell who gave him written instructions to act in the manner he thought best for the safety of his command. That included moving his men to a single facility.
Buchanan slumped into a chair. "My God!" he cried wearily. "Are calamities ... never to come singly! I call God to witness -- you gentlemen better than anybody else know that this is not only without but against my orders. It is against my policy." ...
Buchanan gives a somewhat different view on things in his letter to the South Carolina commissioners. Link
If Anderson had stayed in Fort Moultrie, the country (countries, actually) might have been spared a war.
Doubtful. If Anderson had remained in Moultrie then his position would have been attacked by the South Carolina mob and militia, as he was warned would happen. Moultrie at the time was indefensible, with civilian buildings being built up to the walls and overlooking the parapet.
Forgot to reply to this. I don't see myself as a Lost Causer so much as a Constitutionalist, thanks.
I doubt if we would win on Guantanamo in the International Courts if we tried legal recourse there. They are pretty anti-American. Castro hasn't tried it because we would respond militarily. The South responded militarily to Lincoln's actions at Sumter, the perfidy of his Administration with respect to Sumter, and his threat of taking the South's tariff revenue. Lincoln probably hoped to get the Northern people behind him by provoking the Sumter attack, and the South probably hoped to get border states in their camp (which they did) by taking the fort. Unfortunate occurrence, all the way around.
After hearing about the Buell instructions after they were sent, Buchanan was "staggered" according to Klein. He objected to the "defend yourselves to the last extremity" of the Buell letter. He dictated a response to Anderson saying "it is neither expected nor desired that you should expose yourself or that of your men in a hopeless conflict in defense of the forts." Buchanan's instructions were sent.
Governor Pickens had demanded in a letter to Buchanan that state troops be placed in Fort Sumter. This was before Anderson moved to Sumter. Buchanan offered the 'status quo in the forts' agreement to forestall Pickens. Anderson later violated that by moving to Sumter.
That is not the impression Buchanan gives in his letter to the rebel commissioners. In fact he denies that he sent any such letter to Anderson because before he could word came that the other federal facilities had been seized by South Carolina, and as far as Buchanan was concerned that was a violation of the agreement in and of itself. And I'm aware of no letter from Buchanan to Anderson included in the OR. What does Klein give as his source?
Governor Pickens had demanded in a letter to Buchanan that state troops be placed in Fort Sumter. This was before Anderson moved to Sumter. Buchanan offered the 'status quo in the forts' agreement to forestall Pickens. Anderson later violated that by moving to Sumter.
That was not Buchanan's understanding. His position was that he agreed that he would not try to reinforce the garrison in Charleston so long as they were not attacked. Nor would he order any changes in the disposition of the forces, and he did not. Anderson acted under his own authority to safeguard his command, as he was authorized to do. Buchanan refused to second guess him, especially once it was clear that there was no post that Buchanan could order Anderson back to.
Buchanan dictated it, and "A compliant Floyd signed the message, and it was sent by courier to Anderson." (page 149, Klein)
I'm in and out this afternoon. I'm cooking some skirt steak slowly on the grill for a family fajita dinner tonight, and I'm trying to wrap up the inventory for my mother's estate, which I am badly behind on. So I'll be off the thread for a few hours.
You said: "why were the warehouses built in New York and Boston if those locations were hundreds of miles away from where the vast majority of those imports were destined. Why land them hundreds of miles away only to load them on ships again and send them South?"
Federal regulations, enacted over decades, enabled Northern ports, shipping companies, and businesses to dominate trade.
Being out of the Union would allow for free trade with Europe.
Here is how it came about to be in 1860.
The success of the shipping trade of New England in the early 19th century was a deliberate effort of mercantilism, in which the South at first willingly participated.
The federal government set out at first to deliberately encourage the commercial trades there, especially ship-building and shipping. The raw material for Northern factories, and the cargoes of Northern merchantmen, would come from the South.
The July 4, 1789, tariff was the first substantive legislation passed by the new American government. But in addition to the new duties, it reduced by 10 percent or more the tariff paid for goods arriving in American craft.
It also required domestic construction for American ship registry. Navigation acts in the same decade stipulated that foreign-built and foreign-owned vessels were taxed 50 cents per ton when entering U.S. ports, while U.S.-built and -owned ones paid only six cents per ton. Furthermore, the U.S. ones paid annually, while foreign ones paid upon every entry.
This effectively blocked off U.S. coastal trade to all but vessels built and owned in the United States, and specifically the Northeast.
The navigation act of 1817 had made it official, providing "that no goods, wares, or merchandise shall be imported under penalty of forfeiture thereof, from one port in the United States to another port in the United States, in a vessel belonging wholly or in part to a subject of any foreign power."
The point of all this was to protect and grow the shipping industry of New England, and it worked. By 1795, the combination of foreign complication and American protection put 92 percent of all imports and 86 percent of all exports in American-flag vessels. American ship owners' annual earnings shot up between 1790 and 1807, from $5.9 million to $42.1 million.
New England shipping took a severe hit during the War of 1812 and the embargo. After the war ended, the British flooded America with manufactured goods to try to drive out the nascent American industries. They chose the port of New York for their dumping ground, in part because the British had been feeding cargoes to Boston all through the war to encourage anti-war sentiment in New England. New York was the more starved, therefore it became the port of choice.
The dumping bankrupted many towns, but it assured New York of its sea-trading supremacy. In the decades to come. New Yorkers made the most of the situation.
Four Northern and Mid-Atlantic ports still had the lion's share of the shipping. But Boston and Baltimore mainly served regional markets. Philadelphia's shipping interest had built up trade with the major seaports on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, especially as Pennsylvania's coal regions opened up in the 1820s. But New York was king. Its merchants had the ready money, it had a superior harbor, it kept freight rates down, and by 1825 some 4,000 coastal trade vessels per year arrived there. In 1828 it was estimated that the clearances from New York to ports on the Delaware Bay alone were 16,508 tons, and to the Chesapeake Bay 51,000 tons.
Early and mid-19th century Atlantic trade was based on "packet lines" -- groups of vessels offering scheduled services. It was a coastal trade at first, but when the Black Ball Line started running between New York and Liverpool in 1817, it became the way to do business across the Atlantic.
The reason for success was to have a good cargo going each way. The New York packet lines succeeded because they took in all the eastbound cotton cargoes from the U.S. The northeast did not have enough volume of paying freight on its own.
So American vessels, owned in the Northeast, sailed off to a cotton port, carrying goods for the southern market. There they loaded cotton, or occasionally naval stores or timber, for Europe. They steamed back from Europe loaded with manufactured goods, raw materials like hemp or coal, and occasionally immigrants.
Since this "triangle trade" involved a domestic leg, foreign vessels were excluded from it under the 1817 law, except a few English ones that could substitute a Canadian port for a Northern U.S. one. Since it was subsidized by the U.S. government, it was going to continue to be protectionist, and not subject to competition.
By creating a three-cornered trade in the 'cotton triangle,' New York dragged the commerce between the southern ports and Europe out of its normal course some two hundred miles to collect a heavy toll upon it.
This trade might perfectly well have taken the form of direct shuttles between Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, or New Orleans on the one hand and Liverpool or Havre on the other, leaving New York far to one side had it not interfered in this way.
To clinch this abnormal arrangement, moreover, New York developed the coastal packet lines without which it would have been extremely difficult to make the east-bound trips of the ocean packets profitable.
Even when the Southern cotton bound for Europe did not put in at the wharves of Sandy Hook or the East River, unloading and reloading, the combined income from interests, commissions, freight, insurance, and other profits took perhaps 40 cents into New York of every dollar paid for southern cotton.
The record shows that ports with moderate quantities of outbound freight could not keep up with the New York competition. This was a triangle trade. Boston started a packet line in 1833 that, to secure outbound cargo, detoured to Charleston for cotton. But about the only other local commodity it could find to move to Europe was Bostonians. Since most passengers en route to England did not want the time delays in a layover in South Carolina, the lines failed.
As for the cotton ports themselves, sufficient demand began to justify packet lines in 1851, when New Orleans hosted one sailing to Liverpool.
Yet New York by the mid-1850s could claim sixteen lines to Liverpool, three to London, three to Havre, two to Antwerp, and one each to Glasgow, Rotterdam, and Marseilles. This was subsidized by the federal post office patronage procedure.
U.S. foreign trade rose in value from $134 million in 1830 to $318 million in 1850. It tripled again in the 1850s. Between two-thirds and three-fourths of those imports entered through the port of New York.
This meant that any trading the South did, had to go through New York. Direct trade from Charleston and Savannah during this period was stagnant. The total shipping that entered from foreign countries in 1851 in the port of Charleston was 92,000 tons, in the port of New York, 1,448,000. Relatively little tariff money was collected in the port authority in Charleston.
New York shipping interests, using the Navigation Laws and in collaboration with the US Congress, effectively closed the market off from competitive shipping, and in spite of the inefficiencies, was able to control the movement of Southern goods.
http://www.etymonline.com/cw/economics.htm
And that idea came from...?
There are over a thousand pages of data quoted in each edition of the Statistical Abstract.
You used the word "corresponds"; that does not denote accuracy.
You are printing the wrong data.
I don't see you mention the funds Congress approved for the State Department being used for expenses for the Navy Department, and not approved by by Congress.
Therein lies the Constitutional violation, but it would only be the first by that man.
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