Posted on 09/22/2010 7:55:54 AM PDT by Michael Zak
On this day in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln (R-IL) issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Effective at yearend, all slaves in Confederate-controlled territory would be "forever free."
(Excerpt) Read more at grandoldpartisan.typepad.com ...
Of course they were, but there were plenty of Southern victories to point to, and I doubt if most southerners believed they were losing the war until after Gettysburg and Vicksburg, in 1863 -- if even then.
And the larger point I've tried to make here is that conflict actually began, not as a "war of Northern Aggression" but rather a "war of Southern Aggression" against the Union -- which included many seizures of Federal property and Southern invasions of Union states and territories.
If I remember right, one of the last of these invasions was the Early / McCausland burning of Chambersburg, Pennsylvania in July 1864.
Point is, the South launched many operations against the Union, and these did not end until the war was nearly over.
The Union took years to get geared-up, ramped-up, trained, equipped and effectively led to victory.
In the mean time, the South enjoyed some periods of relative success.
A misunderstanding on my part then. When you said that for two years the South had the best of the war I thought you were saying that they were winning.
Jeff Davis would have had them shot...then arrested...then hung...and then maybe tried.
I acknowledge the constitutional rights of the States — not grudgingly, but fairly and fully, and I will give them any legislation for reclaiming their fugitive slaves.
The point the Republican party wanted to stress was to oppose making slave States out of the newly acquired territory, not abolishing slavery as it then existed.
Lincoln in speeches at Peoria, Illinois
The pretense that the "abolition of slavery" was either a motive or justification for the war, is a fraud of the same character with that of "maintaining the national honor." Who, but such usurpers, robbers, and murderers as they, ever established slavery? Or what government, except one resting upon the sword, like the one we now have, was ever capable of maintaining slavery? And why did these men abolish slavery? Not from any love of liberty in general -- not as an act of justice to the black man himself, but only "as a war measure," and because they wanted his assistance, and that of his friends, in carrying on the war they had undertaken for maintaining and intensifying that political, commercial, and industrial slavery, to which they have subjected the great body of the people, both black and white. And yet these imposters now cry out that they have abolished the chattel slavery of the black man -- although that was not the motive of the war -- as if they thought they could thereby conceal, atone for, or justify that other slavery which they were fighting to perpetuate, and to render more rigorous and inexorable than it ever was before. There was no difference of principle -- but only of degree -- between the slavery they boast they have abolished, and the slavery they were fighting to preserve; for all restraints upon men's natural liberty, not necessary for the simple maintenance of justice, are of the nature of slavery, and differ from each other only in degree. If their object had really been to abolish slavery, or maintain liberty or justice generally, they had only to say: All, whether white or black, who want the protection of this government, shall have it; and all who do not want it, will be left in peace, so long as they leave us in peace. Had they said this, slavery would necessarily have been abolished at once; the war would have been saved; and a thousand times nobler union than we have ever had would have been the result. It would have been a voluntary union of free men; such a union as will one day exist among all men, the world over, if the several nations, so called, shall ever get rid of the usurpers, robbers, and murderers, called governments, that now plunder, enslave, and destroy them. Still another of the frauds of these men is, that they are now establishing, and that the war was designed to establish, "a government of consent." The only idea they have ever manifested as to what is a government of consent, is this -- that it is one to which everybody must consent, or be shot. This idea was the dominant one on which the war was carried on; and it is the dominant one, now that we have got what is called "peace." Their pretenses that they have "Saved the Country," and "Preserved our Glorious Union," are frauds like all the rest of their pretenses. By them they mean simply that they have subjugated, and maintained their power over, an unwilling people.
a Republican President issued the Emancipation Proclamation
He also wanted to send them to Liberia.
And in attempting to do so you always manage to attack the heritage of the last solid Republican voting block in the country: The South.
In addition, I see that you pinged your South hating buddies to join you in another round of Reb bashing.
If the Republican Party becomes infested with your ilk, you're gonna lose the South. Trust me on this. We don't like yankees of any stripe looking down their bulbous noses at us.
It is a misstatement that the pretext for Arizona's secession was the interruption of the U.S. postal service. Here is the quote from their March 16, 1861, secession document:
RESOLVED, That the recent enactment of the Federal Congress, removing the mail service from the Atlantic to the Pacific States from the Southern to the Central or Northern route, is another powerful reason for us to ask the Southern Confederate States of America for a continuation of the postal service over the Butterfield or El Paso route, at the earliest period.
That statement simply cites a reason to ask the CSA to provide the postal service since the route goes through the CSA. That they could do without seceding. The reasons for seceding were more what you put at the first part of your excerpt. Here is the first part of the document:
WHEREAS, a sectional party of the North has disregarded the Constitution of the United States, violated the rights of the Southern States, and heaped wrongs and indignities upon their people; and WHEREAS, the Government of the United States has heretofore failed to give us adequate protection against the savages within our midst and has denied us an administration of the laws, and that security for life, liberty, and property which is due from all governments to the people; and WHEREAS, it is an inherent, inalienable right in all people to modify, alter, or abolish their form of government whenever it fails in the legitimate objects of its institution, or when it is subversive thereof; and WHEREAS, in a government of federated, sovereign States, each State has a right to withdraw from the confederacy whenever the treaty by which the league is formed, is broken; and WHEREAS, the Territories belonging to said league in common should be divided when the league is broken, and should be attached to the separating States according to their geographical position and political identity; and WHEREAS, Arizona naturally belongs to the Confederate States of America (who have rightfully and lawfully withdrawn from said league), both geographically and politically, by ties of a common interest and a common cause; and WHEREAS we, the citizens of that part of New Mexico called Arizona, in the present distracted state of political affairs between the North and the South, deem it our duty as citizens of the United States to make known our opinions and intentions; therefore be it...
If you'll remember, I mentioned to you before that Arizona had also seceded on February 3, 1861, more than a month before the document you cite. In their February 3 secession document [Source: Austin, Texas State Gazette of February 23, 1861] they do not mention the postal service issue. Thus, it is hard to see that the interruption of postal service was the pretext for their secession, since they had already seceded without mentioning it. The first secession document was issued before the formation of the CSA when they wanted to be attached to the Republic of Texas should Texas secede; the second was issued after the formation of the CSA.
The secession of a territory is not unlike the statement of a child saying which parent he wants to live with after a divorce.
You left a couple of steps out after that hanging part, so let's get it straight: he'da shot em, hung em, then burned em! Then, when they were good and crispy, he woulda cut em down and fed them into a wood chipper! Then he woulda raked up the chips and fed em to the hawgs where they would eventually return to their former selves: shit piles! Damn yankee sympathizers...
Free Dixie!
Thus becoming good Lost Causers in the process. I wondered where all y'all came from.
I submit that while it's possible for states to secede with the consent of the other states, absolutely nothing in the Constitution supports the idea of a territory seceding.
+1
Possibly "winning," like "beauty" was in the eyes of beholders?
Clearly in 1861 the South believed they could win a war, otherwise they would have used a different strategy -- perhaps more conciliatory and, dare I say it, Constitutional?
If they had believed they were going to lose a war, they may have attempted, for example, applying to Congress to secede.
But also clearly, they had no such thoughts -- they expected to win, and that's why they did everything to provoke a war, of which Fort Sumter was just the final straw.
And throughout 1861, the Confederacy was on the march -- expanding from seven states to eleven after Sumter, sending their forces into Union states of Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, the pro-Union counties of Western Virginia, North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee, as well as western territories like Oklahoma and New Mexico.
The South also achieved a number of military victories, the most important being at Manassas / Bull Run, but also Wilson's Creek and Lexington in Missouri (a Union state), Balls Bluff in Barber, VA, and just to mention the famous exploits of the Confederate cavalry officer, Nathan Bedford Forest at Caseyville, Eddysville (Nov 24) and Sacramento (Dec 28) in Kentucky (a Union state).
So, at the end of December 1861, on the first anniversary of South Carolina's secession, your average southerner could look around and note with some satisfaction the military and political accomplishments of his Confederacy.
Indeed the first major Union victories did not begin until January (Mills Springs, KY) and February (Fort Henry, Tennessee, then Burnside at Roanoke, North Carolina) of 1862.
But when, exactly, did your average southerner begin to realize his cause was lost?
Certainly not in 1862, I'd say, possibly after Gettysburg and Vicksburg in 1863, but just as likely, not until Sherman took Atlanta in 1864.
And the point of all this was to answer jessduntno's claim that Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was the cause of the change in the North's military fortunes.
It wasn't. There was a change -- or at least a perceived change -- at Antietam, but that's what allowed Lincoln's Proclamation, the Proclamation did not cause it.
Despite what FreeRepublic's rules say, you can't post that without the permission of other posters. After all, your posts may cause nausea and baldness in opposition posters.
What's good for the goose is good for the gander. At least the nausea-inducing post part.
Poor pokie's manufactured outrage didn't slow him up from pinging his coven of misfits, morons, and America bashers LOL.
If the Republican Party becomes infested with your ilk, you're gonna lose the South. Trust me on this. We don't like yankees of any stripe looking down their bulbous noses at us.
How would you ever notice who is in the party pokie? You've got you own bulbous snout shoved so firmly up your own poop-chute.
My thoughts exactly! This "Southern Strategy" of Steele's will blow up in his face. Many of us have had more than enough of this type of politics.
Even a simpleton knows that the South is conservative. Doesn't take a genius to figure out that being true to conservative principles will win elections down here.
IMHO these posts are the trial balloon for this strategy.
“Even a simpleton knows that the South is conservative. Doesn’t take a genius to figure out that being true to conservative principles will win elections down here.”
Zak is not a simpleton ... you give him way too much credit. The fact that he gets his little army of zealots (a couple of whom I believe are from the Steele office and/or penned by Zak) to engage in this kind of vitriol is typical of the GOP hackarama we have been living with all these years ... they will do anything to make a buck and keep us at each others throats.
“IMHO these posts are the trial balloon for this strategy.”
That and they get his pathetic BS blog pimped out and keep his name in the Google searches ... another goal. He’s a professional GOP hack that doesn’t want to earn a living the way we do ... he wants to cash in on his GOP ties to Steele that go WAYYY back. I hope the SOB chokes on this strategy and people see his GOP cronyism and cheap blog pimping for what it is.
Republicans rightly honor Abraham Lincoln, our nation’s best president, and celebrate his accomplishments, such as the Emancipation Proclamation.
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