Replies

To all: I much appreciate your comments and history lessons.

from lentulusgracchus: "The implication here is that, from the beginning, the Republican Party was a political crusade undertaken on a platform that included a secret war plank."

From its founding, the Republican Party was the party of anti-slavery. After all, Republicans had replaced the old Whig party, which they considered too wishy-washy and compromising. Even back then, true Republicans didn't like "moderates"!

Also, much has been made about Lincoln's supposedly "unconstitutional" actions, but you need to re-read the Constitution -- especially Article 1, Sections 8 & 9 and Article 4 Section 4. These provide for extreme actions to be taken in cases of invasion, insurrection, rebellion and domestic violence. So our Founders never intended to let everyone just "do their own thing."

Finally, I'm looking for a source, which I think is McCullough's book on John Adams, but don't have it handy here to confirm. You may remember that John Adams was George Washington's strong supporter, got Washington appointed Commander in Chief of the Army in 1775, later became Washington's Vice President, and then President Adams -- we could call him Adams 2.

Well, Adams 2's son, John Quincy Adams, became President Adams #6, then later served in the House of Representatives, where he knew Congressman Abraham Lincoln. Thus JQ Adams 6 was the only President who knew both Washington and Lincoln.

Adams 6, like his father Adams 2, was strongly anti-slavery. And I think it was Adams 6 who first formed the Constitutional opinion that the only legal way (short of an impossible Constitutional Amendment) to completely abolish slavery was a War of Rebellion, during which the Federal Government's authority could be exerted over the rebellious territories.

Thus we can say, the IDEA which eventually became the Civil War was first formed by the son of our anti-slavery Founding Father, John Adams, at the time when he and Lincoln both served in Congress. I think that's McCullough's argument...

[Me] The implication here is that, from the beginning, the Republican Party was a political crusade undertaken on a platform that included a secret war plank.

I think you're too comfortable with the terrible implications of these statements. What kind of people start a vast war like that, with their own countrymen, over money and policy?

Also, much has been made about Lincoln's supposedly "unconstitutional" actions.....

Legalistic gamesmanship aside, the moral burden remains, and it is unrelieved by any appeal to nonexistent insurrections and rebellions.

The Southern States did not rebel. They used their rightful authority to dissolve the bonds of Union between themselves and the other States. They did not, by the way, dissolve the Union among the remaining States. South Carolina seceded from Mississippi as much as she did from Oregon; but she did nothing to impair the other States' continued bonds among themselves. This "destroying the Union" stuff is just propagandistic claptrap, then and now.

Never having given up the right and power to secede, the States possessed it still, in fullness and perfection.

And yes, I've read the Constitution. Repeatedly. No cession overt or implied of the secession right anywhere in it. The Union, as somebody pointed out later, was not a suicide pact.

So our Founders never intended to let everyone just "do their own thing."

Oh, you mean, like that "freedom" thing? You might want to reexamine that incredibly authoritarian and dictatorial statement.

Finally, I'm looking for a source, which I think is McCullough's book on John Adams, but don't have it handy here .... I think it was Adams 6 who first formed the Constitutional opinion that the only legal way (short of an impossible Constitutional Amendment) to completely abolish slavery was a War of Rebellion, during which the Federal Government's authority could be exerted over the rebellious territories.

This may be one of the more important contributions to the discussion about the origins of the Civil War in the last several years.

We know John Quincy Adams is a Yankee hero, and that he fought for -- and for 10 years succeeded almost single-handedly -- exclusion of Texas from the Union.

He is also the last of the Federalist Presidents and the bridge to the Whigs who opposed the Mexican War.

If we could find a letter, a note, or a reminiscence, or if McCullough found one, that would show the outlines of this idea in John Quincy Adams's words and document its transmission to Lincoln or other Illinois Whigs, that would be a very big piece in the Chinese puzzle of the origins of the Civil War.

From its founding, the Republican Party was the party of anti-slavery.

Michigan 6 July 1854: the "republican" party was against the EXTENSION of slavery (e.g., in favour of a lily white west). The 1856 platform called for, 'who are opposed ... to the extension of slavery into free territory.'

FYI, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that was unconstitutional.

So our Founders never intended to let everyone just "do their own thing.".

Wrong. The framers specifically rejected motions that would have allowed the federal government the power to "prevent" secession, one motion made by Madison was defeated by a vote of 9-2. Secession is not rebellion.