Posted on 06/28/2017 11:20:43 AM PDT by Sopater
My "Rewriting American History" column of a fortnight ago, about the dismantling of Confederate monuments, generated considerable mail. Some argued there should not be statues honoring traitors such as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis, who fought against the Union. Victors of wars get to write the history, and the history they write often does not reflect the facts. Let's look at some of the facts and ask: Did the South have a right to secede from the Union? If it did, we can't label Confederate generals as traitors.
Article 1 of the Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the war between the Colonies and Great Britain, held "New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and Independent States." Representatives of these states came together in Philadelphia in 1787 to write a constitution and form a union.
During the ratification debates, Virginia's delegates said, "The powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." The ratification documents of New York and Rhode Island expressed similar sentiments.
At the Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," rejected it. The minutes from the debate paraphrased his opinion: "A union of the states containing such an ingredient (would) provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."
America's first secessionist movement started in New England after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Many were infuriated by what they saw as an unconstitutional act by President Thomas Jefferson. The movement was led by Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, George Washington's secretary of war and secretary of state. He later became a congressman and senator. "The principles of our Revolution point to the remedy — a separation," Pickering wrote to George Cabot in 1803, for "the people of the East cannot reconcile their habits, views, and interests with those of the South and West." His Senate colleague James Hillhouse of Connecticut agreed, saying, "The Eastern states must and will dissolve the union and form a separate government." This call for secession was shared by other prominent Americans, such as John Quincy Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Fisher Ames, Josiah Quincy III and Joseph Story. The call failed to garner support at the 1814-15 Hartford Convention.
The U.S. Constitution would have never been ratified — and a union never created — if the people of those 13 "free sovereign and Independent States" did not believe that they had the right to secede. Even on the eve of the War of 1861, unionist politicians saw secession as a right that states had. Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland said, "Any attempt to preserve the union between the states of this Confederacy by force would be impractical and destructive of republican liberty." The Northern Democratic and Republican parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace.
Northern newspapers editorialized in favor of the South's right to secede. New-York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): "If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." The Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19, 1861): "An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful, could produce nothing but evil — evil unmitigated in character and appalling in extent." The New-York Times (March 21, 1861): "There is a growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go."
Confederate generals were fighting for independence from the Union just as George Washington and other generals fought for independence from Great Britain. Those who'd label Gen. Robert E. Lee as a traitor might also label George Washington as a traitor. I'm sure Great Britain's King George III would have agreed.
My understanding is that the Confederate constitution did not allow secession. Interesting that.
“Because southern states were denying some of their citizens their constitutional rights the federal government had to step in and secure those rights.”
If your statement is true, we should be able to read Lincoln’s first inaugural address and confirm it.
Your statement is not - is not correct.
Article III, Section 3: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort."
Nothing in there about overthrowing or conquering. And by the strict interpretation of that definition then Lee was a traitor.
It’s sad that you’re serious.
Depends on your interpretation. But the Confederate Constitution did protect slave imports and did not allow non-slave states.
The victors did write the history. Or most of it. And more to the point, the victors defined the terms of the peace. After the Civil War, "the victors" could have gone either way, and their choice was hotly debated. There were those who wanted hangings and retribution. The peace and reconciliation faction won out -- remarkably, after Lincoln's assassination. Reconciliation was complex, and it involved a mutual understanding that the former enemies would honor the valor and sacrifice of the soldiers on both sides. They sacramentalized the war and agreed to remember it as a shared tragedy.
150 years later, leftists want to tear down the memorials, desecrate the graves, reopen the wounds and rub them with salt -- not to eradicate vestiges of white supremacy, which is long gone, but to strip American history of its mythic, unifying and ennobling themes, of which the tragedy of the Civil War is an important element. And because they see short term political advantage in inflaming racial hatred, which is to be manipulated for partisan purposes.
I guess 150 years after the fact people think they can get away with rewriting history. On that subject, I wrote the below letter, which the Washington Times (Reagan’s favorite paper) published. For the men with the greatest motive to apply the word “traitor”, the idea never crossed their minds. I sometimes wonder if Ken Burn’s Civil War could be shown today?
Demeaning Our Military Heritage
This country owes as much of its enviable martial heritage to the South as the North. But now to serve popular morality, we must banish from history the Confederate battle flag and those who served under it. Responding to these assertions, I quote Joshua Chamberlain who received the Confederate surrender at Appomattox.
“Before us in proud humiliation stood the embodiment of manhood: men whom neither toils and sufferings, nor the fact of death, nor disaster, nor hopelessness could bend from their resolve; standing before us now, thin, worn, and famished, but erect, and with eyes looking level into ours, waking memories that bound us together as no other bond;—was not such manhood to be welcomed back into a Union so tested and assured?”
Winston Churchill commented concerning American entry into WW II that victory was then assured, because our Civil War demonstrated the tenacity required to defeat the Nazis.
Joshua Chamberlain
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joshua_Chamberlain
P.S.
At Appomattox General Grant said, “I felt like anything rather than rejoicing at the downfall of a foe who had fought so long and valiantly, and had suffered so much for a cause, though that cause was, I believe, one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse. I do not question, however, the sincerity of the great mass of those who were opposed to us”.
The poisonous fruit of cultural Marxism.
The vile calling out their betters in moral fauxraging.
In the preamble: "It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the hearts of the most serene and most potent Prince George the Third, by the grace of God, king of Great Britain, France, and Ireland, defender of the faith, duke of Brunswick and Lunebourg, arch-treasurer and prince elector of the Holy Roman Empire etc., and of the United States of America, to forget all past misunderstandings and differences that have unhappily interrupted the good correspondence and friendship which they mutually wish to restore, and to establish such a beneficial and satisfactory intercourse , between the two countries upon the ground of reciprocal advantages and mutual convenience as may promote and secure to both perpetual peace and harmony...
In Article 2: "And that all disputes which might arise in future on the subject of the boundaries of the said United States may be prevented, it is hereby agreed and declared, that the following are and shall be their boundaries..."
In Article 3: "It is agreed that the people of the United States shall continue to enjoy unmolested the right to take fish of every kind on the Grand Bank and on all the other banks of Newfoundland...
In Article 8: "The navigation of the river Mississippi, from its source to the ocean, shall forever remain free and open to the subjects of Great Britain and the citizens of the United States."
In Article 9: "In case it should so happen that any place or territory belonging to Great Britain or to the United States should have been conquered by the arms of either from the other before the arrival of the said Provisional Articles in America, it is agreed that the same shall be restored without difficulty and without requiring any compensation."
And finally John Adams, Ben Franklin, and John Jay signed in the name of the United States. Nobody signed in the name of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North or South Carolina, or Georgia.
Eisenhower rubber stamped FDR’s kicking the Constitution to the curb and give us instead a government that can do as it may because it says so.
As a general he was great.
But that misdeed alone makes him as bad as FDR as a POTUS.
And also worse than the general he disparages.
Again: the government as an ongoing concern in all it’s illegal abuses is NOT what he swore an oath to uphold and protect, but it is what he chose to honor over what he swore in vain to uphold and protect.
“I remember when the morons infiltrated here and called themselves Southrons.”
There was some jackwad here years ago who would that term as a sarcastic insult in diatribes about how much the South sucked. I don’t miss that loser one bit. Yes, the generals of the confederacy were patriots.
Germany's claim was that they invaded Poland because Poland started the war. Pretty much the same claim you're making for the Confederacy.
The States formed the Union to begin with. The Union didn’t form the States.
The truth is, President Washington et. al. declared independence from and rebelled against the British Crown.
The truth is, General Lee et. al. declared independence from and rebelled against the United States of America.
One emerged victorious, and one lost.
Is that not true?
They were Americans same as anyone else.
These question come up from time to time as somehow the Confederacy was a “them”
The Confederacy was “us” it is part of American history and as American as apple pie.
They were Americans, not traitors.
It was if they read Article IV, Section 3. The process for admission is right there.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.