Posted on 02/20/2020 9:13:10 PM PST by Pelham
Thomas Fleming talked about his book, A Disease in the Public Mind: A New Understanding of Why We Fought the Civil War, in which he portrays the Civil War as a tragedy that American leaders foresaw and struggled to prevent.
He spoke about how public opinion and propaganda helped spark the war, and the longstanding tensions between the North and South. He also discussed events that heightened fear of a slave rebellion in the southern states. The Pritzker Military Library hosted this event.
Because Lincoln had no constitutional authority to abolish slavery in the north. He did, however, have constitutional authority to treat slaves as “contraband of war” after congress passed the confiscation acts in 1861 and 1862. The second act stated slaves of civilian and military rebels “shall be forever free.”
Lincoln did lobby hard to get the amendment banning slavery passed, and even signed it, which was not required by the constitution.
Lincoln worried that the border states might rebel if he moved to quickly on emancipation. He believed it was more important to win the war first, then to free the slaves.
Much like the constitutional founding fathers thought it was more important to have all the states remain a part of the Union then it was to get rid of slavery.
America was not founding on violent secession. America was founded on the right of revolution and the founders didn’t invoke this right until 11 years after England started to oppress them. You know, “a long train of abuses and usurpations.”
Here is a list I made comparing the rebellion of 1776 with the rebellion of 1860-61. It shows in start contrast just how different these two events were.
A comparison between the 1776 rebellion and the 1860 rebellion. RW = the Revolutionary War, ACW = the American Civil War.
The rebelling party was a full member of the body politic:
RW: no. ACW: yes
The rebelling party had willfully and freely entered into the government from which it was rebelling:
RW: no. ACW: yes
The rebelling party had access to full representation on the national stage:
RW: no. ACW: yes
The rebelling party had attempted to have their grievances redressed, and hostilities began before they declared separation and independence:
RW: yes. ACW: No
The rebelling party began their rebellion after losing a free and fair election in which they were a full participant:
RW: no. ACW: yes
The rebelling party made clear in their documents of separation that their main concern was protecting chattel slavery of the African race:
RW: no. ACW: yes
The rebelling party made clear their right to separation through war and de facto independence:
RW: yes. ACW: no
How are these conflicts remotely similar?
Thomas Jefferson believed states had a right to secede. He was correct. That is why Jefferson Davis was not tried for treason. He could have been tried but wasn’t. The Federal Government knew they would have lost the case of they brought it.
No, Jefferson Davis was not tried for treason because by the time they got around to it the civilian courts in Virginia had already been reestablished and because his crimes occurred in Virginia he would have to be tried there. That meant he would have been tried by jurors from that area, which meant former rebels. I’m not at home right now but I have the letter from the prosecutor to the attorney general of the US stating these facts there. Will post when I get home.
They weren’t worried that secession wasn’t illegal the were worried that a jury filled with former confederation would acquit Davis no matter what the facts were. In other words a biased jury.
The Supreme Court actually decided that secession, as done by the southern rebels, was “null and void” and “without meaning” and Texas was never out of the Union just in control of rebels in Texas vs White, 1869.
Nonsense. Davis could have been tried, perhaps should have been tried, but between delays and Chief Justice Chase believing that the sooner the matter was dispensed with then the sooner the healing could begin the charges were eventually dropped on Fifth Amendment grounds. Within the year Johnson issued his final clemency proclamation and the matter was settled for all time. Had Davis been tried on treason charges he would have been convicted.
Here’s the letter I was referring to.
Richard Henry Dana, Jr. letter to Attorney General W.M. Evarts
“Sir,
While preparing with yourself, before you assumed your present post, to perform the honorable duty the President had assigned to us, of conducting the trial of Jefferson Davis, you know how much my mind was moved, from the first, by doubts of the expediency of trying him at all. The reasons which prevented my presenting those doubts no longer exist, and they have so ripened into conviction that I feel it my duty to lay them before you in form, as you now hold a post of official responsibly for the proceeding.
After the most serious reflection, I cannot see any good reason why the Government should make a question whether the late civil war was treason, and whether Jefferson Davis took any part in it, and submit those questions to the decision of a petit jury of the vicinage of Richmond at “nisi prius” [”court of original jurisdiction”].
As the Constitution in terms settles the fact that our republic is a state against which treason may be committed, the only constitutional question attending the late war was whether a levying of war against the United States which would otherwise be treason, is relieved of that character by the fact that it took the form of secession from the Union by state authority. In other words the legal issue was, whether secession by a State is a right, making an act legal and obligatory upon the nation which would otherwise have been treason.
This issue I suppose to have been settled by the action of every department of the Government, by the action of the people itself, and by those events which are definitive in the affairs of men.
The Supreme Court in the Prize Cases held, by happily a unanimous opinion, that acts of the States, whether secession ordinances, or in whatever form cast, could not be brought into the cases, as justifications for the war, and had no legal effect on the character of the war, or on the political status of territory or persons or property, and that the line of enemy’s territory was a question of fact, depending upon the line of bayonets of an actual war. The rule in the Prize Cases has been steadily followed in the Supreme Court since, and in the Circuit Courts, without an intimation of a doubt. That the law making and executive departments have treated this secession and war as treason, is a matter of history, as well as is the action of the people in the highest sanction of war.”
“It cannot be doubted that the Circuit Court at the trial will instruct the jury, in conformity with these decisions, that the late attempt to establish and sustain by war an independent empire within the United States was treason. The only question of fact submitted to the Jury will be whether Jefferson Davis took any part in the war. As it is one of the great facts of history that he was its head, civil and military, why should we desire to make a question of it and refer its decision to a jury, with power to find in the negative or affirmative, or to disagree? It is not an appropriate question for the decision of a jury; certainly it is not a fact which a Government should, without great cause, give a jury a chance to ignore.
We know that these indictments are to be tried in what was for five years enemy’s territory, which is not yet restored to the exercise of all its political functions, and where the fires are not extinct. We know that it only requires one dissentient juror to defeat the Government and give Jefferson Davis and his favorers a triumph. Now, is not such a result one which we must include in our calculation of possibilities? Whatever modes may be legally adopted to draw a jury, or to purge it, and whatever the influence of the court or of counsel, we know that a vavorer of treason may get upon the jury. But that is not necessary. A fear of personal violence or social ostracism may be enough to induce one man to withhold his assent from the verdict, especially as be need not come forward personally, nor give a reason, even in the jury-room.
This possible result would be most humiliating to the Government and people of this country, and none the less so from the fact that it would be absurd. The Government would be stopped in its judicial course because it could neither assume nor judicially determine that Jefferson Davis took part in the late civil war. Such a result would also bring into doubt the adequacy of our penal system to deal with such cases as this.
If it were important to secure a verdict as a means of punishing the defendant, the question would present itself differently. But it would be beneath the dignity of the Government and of the issue, to inflict upon him a minor punishment; and, as to a sentence of death, I am sure that, after this lapse of time and after all that has occurred in the interval, the people of the United States would not desire to see it enforced.
In fine, after the fullest consideration, it seems to me that, by pursuing the trial, the Government can get only a re-affirmation by a Circuit Court at “nisi prius” of a rule of public law settled for this country in every way in which such a matter can be settled, only giving to a jury drawn from the region of the rebellion a chance to disregard the law when announced. It gives that jury a like opportunity to ignore the fact that Jefferson Davis took any part in the late civil war. And one man upon the jury can secure these results. The risks of such absurd and discreditable issues of a great state trial are assumed for the sake of a verdict which, if obtained, will settle nothing in law or national practice not now settled, and nothing in fact not now history, while no judgment rendered thereon do we think will be ever executed.
Besides these reasons, and perhaps because of them, I think that the public interest in the trial has ceased among the most earnest and loyal citizens.
If your views and those of the President should be in favor of proceeding with the trial, I am confident that I can do my duty as counsel, to the utmost of my ability and with all zeal. For my doubts are not what the verdict ought to be. On the contrary, I should feel all the more strongly, if the trial is begun, the importance of a victory to the Government, and the necessity of putting forth all powers and using all lawful means to secure it. Still, I feel it my duty to say that if the President should judge otherwise, my position in the cause is at his disposal.”
President Johnson noted on the letter, “This opinion must be filed with care, A.J.”
Laz, we didn’t secede from anything. We threw of the chains of a monarchy. The Civil War was treason committed against a duly elected government.
Whatever. Davis wasn’t tried because the feds didn’t want to have his views upheld in court. That is the bottom line. It is not like the 1860s era republicans were a benevolent lot and let Confederates off the hook out of the goodness of their hearts. The Confederate states were not trying to overthrow the government because that would be treason. They just wanted out of a union they voluntarily entered, like a divorce. It is only common sense that states should be able to leave a union they voluntarily created and many people believed that at the time.
It's an incorrect bottom line.
It is not like the 1860s era republicans were a benevolent lot and let Confederates off the hook out of the goodness of their hearts.
They didn't. Johnson did.
The Confederate states were not trying to overthrow the government because that would be treason.
They entered into armed rebellion and warred against the government. That is treason.
They just wanted out of a union they voluntarily entered, like a divorce.
A divorce requires a judicial ruling to become legal. Using your analogy the Southern states walked out if the marriage after having run up the credit cards and grabbing every bit of community property not nailed down on their way out.
It is only common sense that states should be able to leave a union they voluntarily created and many people believed that at the time.
With the exception of the original 13 they needed permission to join the Union. Shouldn't leaving require the same? Walking out and abandoning responsibility for issues like debt and treaty obligations while lifting every piece of property they could without compensation is a plan guaranteed to end in acrimony. Which was probably what the Southern states wanted all along.
The Confederate States territory was invaded. They didn’t so much enter armed rebellion as simply defend themselves. You can post as much B.S. as you like but the reason that no Confederate leaders were tried for treason is because both sides knew it wasn’t treason. It wasn’t lack of opportunity and it wasn’t benevolence, it was because the government knew they would lose the case if they brought it.
Start a war and things like that happen. Having done so, if you can't keep your opponent out of your territory you have nobody but yourself to blame.
They didn’t so much enter armed rebellion as simply defend themselves.
Rebellion is defined as open, armed and usually unsuccessful defiance of or opposition to an established government. That's a pretty fair description of what the Confederacy did. Especially the unsuccessful part.
You can post as much B.S. as you like...
And take your job away from you? I'd rather not.
...but the reason that no Confederate leaders were tried for treason is because both sides knew it wasn’t treason.
There are a number of reasons why Davis was never tried but any idea that his acts were not treasonous were not among them.
It wasn’t lack of opportunity and it wasn’t benevolence, it was because the government knew they would lose the case if they brought it.
Nonsense.
Whatever. I think you are wrong and I don’t expect that to change. Have a great life.
You are projecting, Snipe. I am a small-government conservative Republican, in the mold of the Jeffersonian Republicans. It is you who are sounding like a big-government, crony-capitalist, Democrat-Party control-freak. A true abolitionist named Lysander Spooner had your RINO Whig Party nailed, early on:
"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 pretences that they have "Saved the Country," and "Preserved our Glorious Union," are frauds like all the rest of their pretences. By them they mean simply that they have subjugated, and maintained their power over, an unwilling people. This they call "Saving the Country;" as if an enslaved and subjugated people – or as if any people kept in subjection by the sword (as it is intended that all of us shall be hereafter) – could be said to have any country. This, too, they call "Preserving our Glorious Union;" as if there could be said to be any Union, glorious or inglorious, that was not voluntary. Or as if there could be said to be any union between masters and slaves; between those who conquer, and those who are subjugated.
"All these cries of having "abolished slavery," of having "saved the country," of having "preserved the union," of establishing "a government of consent," and of "maintaining the national honor," are all gross, shameless, transparent cheats – so transparent that they ought to deceive no one – when uttered as justifications for the war, or for the government that has succeeded the war, or for now compelling the people to pay the cost of the war, or for compelling anybody to support a government that he does not want.
"The lesson taught by all these facts is this: As long as mankind continue to pay "National Debts," so-called, – that is, so long as they are such dupes and cowards as to pay for being cheated, plundered, enslaved, and murdered, – so long there will be enough to lend the money for those purposes; and with that money a plenty of tools, called soldiers [e.g., a standing army of tax collectors,] can be hired to keep them in subjection. But when they refuse any longer to pay for being thus cheated, plundered, enslaved, and murdered, they will cease to have cheats, and usurpers, and robbers, and murderers and blood-money loan-mongers for masters."
[Spooner, Lysander, "No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority Vol VI." By the Author, 1867, pp.57-59]
You are a fraud, Snipe -- just another big-government control-freak who is clueless about what makes a free republic
Mr. Kalamata
You have been brainwashed by revisionist history. The only loser under the Lincoln Administration was our Free Republic.
The South tried to leave peacefully, which they lawfully and naturally had a right to do; but Lincoln would have none of it. Lincoln, the dictator, made that point crystal clear in his Inaugural Address on March 4, 1861 – which was a declaration of war, -- as well as through his surrogates, like William Seward, who explained that Lincoln was going to take back the forts within the borders of the Confederate nation:
"[March 26, 1861] I dined at Mr. [Henry Sheldon] Sanford's, where I was introduced to Mr. Seward, Secretary of State; Mr. Truman Smith, an ex-senator, much respected among the Republican party; Mr. Anthony, a senator of the United States, a journalist, a very intelligent-looking man, with an Israelitish cast of face; Colonel Foster of the Illinois railway, of reputation in the States as a geologist; and one or two more gentlemen... After dinner... In reference to an assertion in a New York paper, that orders had been given to evacuate Sumter, "That," [Seward] said, "is a plain lie — no such orders have been given. We will give up nothing we have—abandon nothing that has been intrusted to us. If people would only read these statements by the light of the President's inaugural, they would not be deceived." He wanted no extra session of Congress. "History tells us that kings who call extra parliaments lose their heads," and he informed the company he had impressed the President with his historical parallels."
"All through this conversation his tone was that of a man very sanguine, and with a supreme contempt for those who thought there was anything serious in secession." Why," said he, "I myself, my brothers, and sisters, have been all secessionists — we seceded from home when we were young, but we all went back to it sooner or later. These States will all come back in the same way." I doubt if he was ever in the South; but he affirmed that the state of living and of society there was something like that in the State of New York sixty or seventy years ago. In the North all was life, enterprise, industry, mechanical skill. In the South there was dependence on black labor, and an idle extravagance which was mistaken for elegant luxury — tumble-down old hackney-coaches, such as had not been seen north of the Potomac for half a century, harness never cleaned, ungroomed horses, worked at the mill one day and sent to town the next, badly furnished houses, bad cookery, imperfect education. No parallel could be drawn between them and the Northern States at all. "You are all very angry," he said, "about the Morrill tariff. You must, however, let us be best judges of our own affairs. If we judge rightly, you have no right to complain; if we judge wrongly, we shall soon be taught by the results, and shall correct our error. It is evident that if the Morrill tariff fulfils expectations, and raises a revenue, British manufacturers suffer nothing, and we suffer nothing, for the revenue is raised here, and trade is not injured. If the tariff fails to create a revenue, we shall be driven to modify or repeal it." [Russell, William Howard, "My Diary, North and South, Vol I." Bradbury and Evans, 1863, pp.49-51]
Lincoln was a very corrupt and ambitious politician, who was not about to allow HIS tariff-generating shipping to be diverted to free-trading Confederacy ports. He and his cronies were in the position to get filthy rich on federally-funded "internal improvements," such as the Transcontinental Railroad, and no one was going to stop him without bloodshed. As long as Lincoln was president, war was inevitable.
Mr. Kalamata
The reference to Democratic underground was because, like you, they like to call people names.
What words of praise did Mr. Spooner have for The Confederate Government.
You mean like the pejorative "Lost Causer"?
****************
>>Bull Snipe wrote: "What words of praise did Mr. Spooner have for The Confederate Government."
The word "confederate" is mentioned only twice in the book I quoted, and in both cases regarding the "confederates in crime" of the Lincoln dictatorship:
"The Constitution itself, then, being of no authority, on what authority does our government practically rest? On what ground can those who pretend to administer it, claim the right to seize men's property, to restrain them of their natural liberty of action, industry, and trade, and to kill all who deny their authority to dispose of men's properties, liberties, and lives at their pleasure or discretion?..."
"Not knowing who his principals are, he has no right to say that he has any. He can, at most, say only that he is the agent of a secret band of robbers and murderers, who are bound by that faith which prevails among confederates in crime, to stand by him, if his acts, done in their name, shall be resisted."
"Men honestly engaged in attempting to establish justice in the world, have no occasion thus to act in secret, or to appoint agents to do acts for which they (the principals) are not willing to be responsible."
"The secret ballot makes a secret government; and a secret government is a secret band of robbers and murderers. Open despotism is better than this. The single despot stands out in the face of all men, and says: I am the State: My will is law: I am your master: I take the responsibility of my acts: The only arbiter I acknowledge is the sword: If anyone denies my right, let him try conclusions with me."
"But a secret government is little less than a government of assassins. Under it, a man knows not who his tyrants are, until they have struck, and perhaps not then. He may guess, beforehand, as to some of his immediate neighbors. But he really knows nothing. The man to whom he would most naturally fly for protection, may prove an enemy, when the time of trial comes."
"This is the kind of government we have; and it is the only one we are likely to have, until men are ready to say: We will consent to no Constitution, except such an one as we are neither ashamed nor afraid to sign; and we will authorize no government to do any thing in our name which we are not willing to be personally responsible for."
[Lysander Spooner, "No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority Vol VI." Published by the Author, 1867, pp.27, 29]
Spooner speaks as least as harsh of the Northern cronies and enablers as he does the Southern slave-holders:
"For the first seventy years of the government, one portion of the lawmakers would be satisfied with nothing less than permission to rob one-sixth, or one-seventh, of the whole population, not only of their labor, but even of their right to their own persons. In 1860, this class of lawmakers comprised all the senators and representatives from fifteen, of the then thirty-three, States."
"This body of lawmakers, standing always firmly together, and capable of turning the scale for, or against, any scheme of robbery, in which northern men were interested, but on which northern men were divided,—such as navigation acts, tariffs, bounties, grants, war, peace, etc.,—could purchase immunity for their own crime, by supporting such, and so many, northern crimes—second only to their own in atrocity—as could be mutually agreed on."
"In this way the slaveholders bargained for, and secured, protection for slavery and the slave trade, by consenting to such navigation acts as some of the northern States desired, and to such tariffs on imports—such as iron, coal, wool, woollen goods, etc., — as should enable the home producers of similar articles to make fortunes by robbing everybody else in the prices of their goods."
"Another class of lawmakers have been satisfied with nothing less than such a monopoly of money, as should enable the holders of it to suppress, as far as possible, all industry and traffic, except such as they themselves should control; such a monopoly of money as would put it wholly out of the power of the great body of wealth-producers to hire the capital needed for their industries; and thus compel them—especially the mechanical portions of them—by the alternative of starvation— to sell their labor to the monopolists of money, for just such prices as these latter should choose to pay. This monopoly of money has also given, to the holders of it, a control, so nearly absolute, of all industry—agricultural as well as mechanical— and all traffic, as has enabled them to plunder all the producing classes in the prices of their labor, or the products of their labor."
"Have you been blind, all these years, to the existence, or the effects, of this monopoly of money?"
"Still another class of lawmakers have demanded unequal taxation on the various kinds of home property, that are subject to taxation; such unequal taxation as would throw heavy burdens upon some kinds of property, and very light burdens, or no burdens at all, upon other kinds."
"And yet another class of lawmakers have demanded great appropriations, or loans, of money, or grants of lands, to enterprises intended to give great wealth to a few, at the expense of everybody else."
"These are some of the schemes of downright and outright robbery, which you mildly describe as "the large variety of diverse and competing interests, subject to federal control, persistently seeking recognition of their claims in the halls of national legislation "; and each having its champions and representatives among the lawmakers."
[A letter to Grover Cleveland, May 15, 1886, in Lysander Spooner, "Let's Abolish Government: An Original Arno Press Compilation." 1973, pp.19-20]
When are you going to come to grips with the fact that many of the slave generations in the South were descendants of slaves sold by Northern slave masters and traders, and that the North got rich both trading slaves, and later via protective tariffs and crony-capitalist "internal improvements" financed on the backs of the Southern slaveholders?
Don't be deceived by sanctimonious sectionalists. Slavery was a national problem.
Mr. Kalamata
“When are you going to come to grips with the fact that many of the slave generations in the South were descendants of slaves sold by Northern slave masters and traders, and that the North got rich both trading slaves.”
Don’t need to. Was taught that more than 50 years ago.
Yes the New Englanders made money trading slaves. Yes the Boston, New York, and Philadelphia bankers financed the slave trade. They made money insuring the cotton cargos bound for Northern or European textile trades. They made money in shipping the cotton crop to New England and Europe. They made money loaning money to Southern planters to buy more land, and more slaves so they could grow more cotton.
“Slavery was a national problem.”
Agree
This is exactly correct. Chief Justice Salmon P Chase informed Federal prosecutors that Lincoln was right in wanting Davis to escape. He also told them that if they brought Davis to trial on the charge of "treason", they would most likely lose. He said "You will lose in the courts everything you won on the battlefield." He also said "Secession is not treason."
Federal prosecutors wisely let Davis go free.
A "right" that requires superior force is not a "right." If your theory were correct, people could be beaten down if they try to speak, unless they are powerful enough to win a confrontation.
Here you go again, with this "right of revolution" crap. The nation was founded on the principle that Independence was a right, given by God to all people.
A nation founded on such a principle has no reason to deny people their own right to independence. The side trying to subjugate the other is the side which is morally and legally wrong.
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