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Were Confederate Generals Traitors?
Creators ^ | June 28, 2017 | Walter E. Williams

Posted on 06/28/2017 11:20:43 AM PDT by Sopater

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To: jeffersondem

Not directly, which is why I said it is merely my understanding.

One source for what is merely my understanding (not absolute certainty) is the following, however there is a good discussion and others make the point that since it (secession) was never mentioned it was implicitly allowed.

“It was proposed that the new [Confederate] Constitution explicitly recognize the right of secession, but the idea was dropped after others suggested that ‘its inclusion would discredit the claim that the right had been inherent under the old government.’ [Wilfred B.] Yearns, [The Confederate Congress (1960)], at 29; see also [Charles Robert] Lee [Jr., The Confederate Constitutions (1963)], at 101-02 (citing the relevant portions of the Journal and arguing that the right to secede was ‘implied in the specific phraseology of the Preamble,’ which in what seems to me a less than conclusive manner declared that the Constitution was the work of ‘the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character’ . . .).”

David P. Currie, Through the Looking Glass: The Confederate Constitution in Congress, 1861 - 1865, fn. 39.

Also this:

Dixie Betrayed: How The South Really Lost The Civil War, by David J. Eicher,in Chapter 11, Jockying For Position, pages 158-159:

“Meanwhile, an even greater shocker rose to the floor of the Senate. On February 5 [1863], the Senate heard a proposed amendment to the Confederate Constitution that would allow an aggrieved state to secede from the Confederacy. “It shall do so in peace,” read the proposal, “but shall be entitled to its pro rata share of property and be liable for its pro rata share of public debt to be determined by negotiation.” The idea was referred to the Judicial Committee. Two days later senators failed to recommend the amendment, and the whole thing was dropped as a dangerous idea.”

The source given for the above was listed in the book “As quoted in Southern Historical Society Papers, 48: 60, 80.”x

Both are from a discussion at the following link:
https://civilwartalk.com/threads/csa-constitution-did-not-permit-secession.8924/


81 posted on 06/28/2017 1:04:41 PM PDT by RedStateRocker (Nuke Mecca, deport all illegal aliens, abolish the IRS, DEA and ATF.)
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To: Sopater
Representatives of these states came together in Philadelphia in 1787 to write a constitution and form a union.

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.

Then we have the 1777 "Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts-bay Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia. " ratified as of 1781 by all the States.

82 posted on 06/28/2017 1:05:46 PM PDT by KrisKrinkle (Blessed be those who know the depth and breadth of their ignorance. Cursed be those who don't.)
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To: Sopater

To make it even more fun.....

Look up The Hartford Convention.

The North thought about seceding.


83 posted on 06/28/2017 1:06:00 PM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: ifinnegan
"It’s among the greatest scams in history."

No expert here, but a bigger scam though history is that the Republican party was behind the founding and atrocities by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). That racist murderous sick organization was founded by Democrats in the south who were against "reconstruction" by the Repubs after the Civil War.

And then there is the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Two guesses who mostly voted against it.

I have never understood why the Pubs let the Dimms get away with such nonsense as if their Pubs bills will kill old people, women and children. It's the same story again with Obamacare repeal. Everyone is going to die!...and RINOs step in line to be part of the good ole club, and the idiot voters fall for it. Guess it's too hard to understand that a rising tide lifts all boats. Sheesh!

Let me put into words the low information voters (LIV) can understand: You live in a town where Walmart has put mom&pop out of business and the businesses they used to frequent from their small business profits have to close. Some large company comes in and not only provides new jobs (with benefits), but also new and needed ancillary jobs/businesses like hair salons, car repair, construction/remodeling, boutique stores, eateries, and on and on for those that had to close.

Why don't you people get that the profits from that evil large corporation is lifting everyone up? So what if they make a shit load of money? Are you so enamored with the Karcrapions or just too stupid to see your own benefit?

I've owned 3 small businesses and know trickle down economics work. Wish you could ask my many employees who had no jobs or health care, and were ashamed to be on welfare, how bad it was to have an employer.

84 posted on 06/28/2017 1:07:11 PM PDT by A Navy Vet (I'm not Islamophobic - I'm Islamonauseous. Plus LGBTQxyz nauseous.)
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To: Retain Mike

Per your quote from Grant which is exact, he felt that the war was nearly over and that was it. The rest gave up soon after and Sherman got into it with the scum in DC who demanded he rewrite his conditions to Johnston.

Sherman retorted to. I believe it was Stanton, that he had better watch it because some rash person might do something to him. Grant was sent to Sherman with orders to relieve him, but Grant simply gave Sherman the new terms he was to propose to Johnston. This he did in secrete.

Grant, Sherman, Lee and Johnston saved this nation in those few days. I really believe that if the scum in DC persisted in their determination of hanging Lee and others, that Grant would have led a coup and ordered the arrest of those trying to do the deed.

Grant felt it was OVER and that was that.

Great man.


85 posted on 06/28/2017 1:08:42 PM PDT by crz
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To: Sopater

I agree. Most of the Confederate Generals had served this country faithfully in the military prior to the Civil War. And like our Patriot forefathers, who believed they were being oppressed by the British monarchy, these southern Patriots believed they were being similarly oppressed by an over-bearing government.


86 posted on 06/28/2017 1:13:07 PM PDT by mass55th (Courage is being scared to death - but saddling up anyway...John Wayne)
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To: Yosemitest

Old New England family fortunes were made on the slave trade, definitely.

A lot of rich liberals benefit to this day from it.

I am arguing that the post-Civil War actions of the Southern Democrats were far harmful, Jim Crow, government decreed and enforced segregation, second-class citizenship.

All foisted upon us by big government Democrats. It gave the reds real things to criticize.

It’s like all sin, it has been very harmful. It’s hurt our country more than anything else and without it the left never would have even got a foothold here.

And now the same people and spirit uses these past sins to gain power and influence as champions against what they themselves did.


87 posted on 06/28/2017 1:17:56 PM PDT by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: Sopater
Davis wasn’t always famous for disunion. As a U.S. senator and secretary of war in the 1850s, he was the champion of expanding the Capitol into the majestic meeting place Congress has today. At the same time, he was a resolute advocate for states’ rights. In 1867, he was prepared to argue that he did not betray the country because once Mississippi left it, he was no longer a U.S. citizen. “Everybody thought it was going to be the test case on the legality of secession,” says Cynthia Nicoletti, a University of Virginia legal scholar whose book Secession on Trial is due out in August. Serious people believed he had a chance of winning.

The Trial of the Century That Wasn’t

88 posted on 06/28/2017 1:23:04 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn.)
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To: bk1000

“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.”

Let’s refresh some memories.

http://www.freerepublic.com/~asouthron/

http://www.freerepublic.com/~southronpatriot/

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/594292/posts?page=303#303

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/695073/posts?page=251#251

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/688281/posts?page=633#633

I never even heard the term “Southron” til these guys started posting here.

It got so bad JimRob even had say that this isn’t a forum for the South Will Rise Again types.


89 posted on 06/28/2017 1:24:09 PM PDT by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: A Navy Vet

The KKK was started in the deep south state of Illinois.


90 posted on 06/28/2017 1:36:30 PM PDT by freedomfiter2 (Lex rex)
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To: ifinnegan

“Southern Cry was literally Slavery”

Legalized slavery in the CSA-1861-1864 4 yrs
legalized slavery in the USA 1775-1865 90 yrs

This is why the “slavery” argument is lazy and weak

This is why no one takes you (not you personally per se) seriously and communists can demagogue and use your stupidity to hurt all of us....


91 posted on 06/28/2017 1:44:17 PM PDT by OL Hickory (Jesus and the American soldier-1 died for your soul/1 died for your freedom)
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To: OL Hickory

“Legalized slavery in the CSA-1861-1864 4 yrs”

I wasn’t aware the CSA freed slaves and made slavery illegal in 1864.


92 posted on 06/28/2017 1:46:46 PM PDT by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: OL Hickory

“communists can demagogue”

Very true. Southern Democrsts definitely gave the left a lot to demagogue about.

The post-war policies were even more useful for the commies.

There’d’ve been no Obama if the Southern Democrats hadn’t done their Jim Crow and segregation and racial based oppression.

And all Democrats were fine with it for decades.


93 posted on 06/28/2017 1:51:54 PM PDT by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: bk1000

“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.”

There was a poster a few years ago with the moniker “non-sequitur” who would seem to fit that description.


94 posted on 06/28/2017 1:56:10 PM PDT by ought-six (Multiculturalism is national suicide, and political correctness is the cyanide capsule.)
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To: Sopater

Technically, yes, they were, per the definition by the US Constitution.


95 posted on 06/28/2017 2:05:36 PM PDT by Zionist Conspirator (Viriycho sogeret umesuggeret mipnei Benei Yisra'el; 'ein yotze' ve'ein ba'.)
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To: ifinnegan

“n 1864, the Confederate States began to abandon slavery. There are some indications that even without a war, the Confederacy would have ended slavery. Most historians believe that the Confederacy only started to abandon slavery once their defeat was imminent. If that were true then we are to believe that the CSA wanted independence more than they wanted to hold on to slavery. The CSA’s highest ranking generals, Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston were not slave holders and did not believe in slavery. And according to an 1860 census, only 31% of families owned slaves. 75% of families that owned slaves owned less than 10 and often worked beside them in the fields. The Confederate Constitution banned the overseas slave trade, and permitted Confederate states to abolish slavery within their borders if they wanted to do so. Slavery wasn’t abolished until 1868, 3 years after the war. Thus Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland and Delaware still had slaves.”


96 posted on 06/28/2017 2:18:50 PM PDT by OL Hickory (Jesus and the American soldier-1 died for your soul/1 died for your freedom)
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To: Zionist Conspirator
Technically, yes, they were, per the definition by the US Constitution.

They didn't try to overthrow the federal gov't, they only wished to be divorced from it.
97 posted on 06/28/2017 2:21:54 PM PDT by Sopater (Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? - Matthew 20:15a)
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To: Zionist Conspirator

Not just generals. President Andrew Johnson issued “a full pardon and amnesty for the offense of treason” to “all and every person” involved, on Christmas 1868.


98 posted on 06/28/2017 2:24:32 PM PDT by jjotto ("Ya could look it up!")
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To: DoodleDawg
In your reply 31 you said exit should be no harder than entry.

I don't recall saying that, and I didn't reply to 31.
99 posted on 06/28/2017 2:24:58 PM PDT by Sopater (Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? - Matthew 20:15a)
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To: RedStateRocker

It also required slavery be allowed and that no state could take any action to end the practice. That is why the “State Rights” argument is pure Male Bovine Scat.


100 posted on 06/28/2017 2:27:15 PM PDT by Bull Snipe (t)
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