Posted on 11/28/2021 6:26:59 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
WASHINGTON, Wednesday, Nov. 27.
The recent instructions given to Gen. BROWN, in command of Fort Pickens, were to open upon the rebel works as soon as he felt he could do so with a certainty of success, or in case any exigency should arise which required that an attack be made. He was instructed also to repel any attack upon Fort Pickens.
The armament of the Niagara, which rebel accounts state, was compelled to haul off at Pensacola on account of damage sustained, consists of twelve 11-inch shell guns, which have always proved themselves so destructive in an engagement, beside several howitzers. The Colorado carries the same armament as the Wabash, twenty-eight 9-inch and fourteen 8-inch shell guns.
It is currently stated and believed among the Washington Secessionists that JOHN C. BRCEKINRIBGE and R.M.T. HUNTER have already been selected by JEFF. DAVIS' Government to go abroad as Ambassadors in place of SLIDELL and MASON, and that they are intending to secretly cross our lines into Canada and sail from Quebec or Halifax. They may fail as signally as did their predecessors.
Major-Gen. BANKS arrived in the city this afternoon, and this evening has been in consultation with Gen. MCCLELLAN.
Gen. MCCLELLAN, Assistant Secretary Fox, and Commodore GOLDSBOROUGH, had a protracted interview to-day.
The rebels are strengthening their forces on the right of our lines, opposite Gens. MCCALL's and SMITH's divisions. There are no indications of their falling back at any point in front of our forces.
Last night Gen. WADSWORTH, with a portion of his brigade, marched to Fairfax Court-house on a reconnoissance. They found no rebel troops in the place. He was informed that much dissatisfaction existed among the South Carolina and Georgia troops at Centerville, owing to a desire to return South to defend those States.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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The Great Rebellion: No Later Intelligence from Fort Pickens – 2-3
The Fight at Fort Pickens: Another Flag of Truce to Norfolk but No News – 3-4
Important from Missouri: The National Pickets at Sedalia Fired Upon – 4
Editorial: Thanksgiving Day – 4
Editorial: Slavery and the Rebellion– 4-5
Editorial: Eastern and Western Virginia – 5
The Case of Mr. Faulkner – 5
bkmk
Vastly inferior technology, vastly superior information.
I would absolutely drop a quarter to see the two-headed monster child!
Gentlemen only. Leave the wife at home.
"Today" the war is about seven months old and we might predict it has another 41+ months to run.
As of "today" fewer than one-half of one percent of those doomed to die in the war have already done so...
At some point Confederate supporters will begin to claim the war was NOT "all about slavery" or the Union did NOT fight to "free the slaves", but that hasn't happened yet.
In the mean time, you remember Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner -- a Radical Republican abolitionist, now recovered from his injuries at the hands of Congressman Brooks and here argues that destroying the Confederacy requires also destroying slavery.
So, abolition will proceed slowly, step-by-step, beginning already with the 1861 Confiscation Act (of "contraband of war"), then to compensated emancipations in Washington, DC, and similar proposals in other Union slave-states, then a wider emancipation of Confederate slaves...
"Today" one of my great-grandfathers is a young farmer in central Illinois, his family is fresh off the boat from Europe, having escaped to dodge the draft into one of Europe's endless wars, they speak little-to-no English, they may never have seen an African-American, but they are by nature, culture & religion abolitionists.
He will not voluntarily enlist until the Fall of 1862, by which time emancipation will be the firm policy of the Union army.
So he will, from the beginning, be fighting to "free the slaves", regardless of what some people afterwards may claim.
It was indeed all about slavery in the end, despite the intellectual gymnastics of the Lost Causers to claim otherwise.
“States rights!’’ they cry but never finish the verse.
States rights to own another human being.
I’ve been to Ft. Pickens, and I can assure you there is absolutely no intelligence there.
I’ll bring an apple to the next class.
5.56mm
In the mean time, you remember Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner -- a Radical Republican abolitionist, now recovered from his injuries at the hands of Congressman Brooks and here argues that destroying the Confederacy requires also destroying slavery.[NYT 28 Nov 1861]"Slavery and the Rebellion
Senator Sumner delivered an address last evening before the Republican Union on the 'Origin and Cause of the Rebellion.'
Slavery was its cause, and in the extinction of Slavery must be found its cure.
The argument is brief,—the logic compact—the conclusion inevitable.
Extinguish the cause, if you would effect a cure—extract the root, if you would destroy the ache—kill the poison if you would arrest decay—these are simple self-evident suggestions which commend themselves to common sense and the common experience of all the world.
Mr. Sumner has a very easy task when he seeks to persuade a Northern audience that Slavery is the foe of the Union, that Slavery inspires the hearts and strengthens the arms of those who are waging war upon it, and that, if we would end the war, we must strike a death-blow at the power which gives motive and vigor to those by whom it is waged..."
[BroJoeK]
The Times editors fully agree, but also argue that how slavery is abolished is important.
They urge caution for practical political reasons.
So, abolition will proceed slowly, step-by-step, beginning already with the 1861 Confiscation Act (of "contraband of war"), then to compensated emancipations in Washington, DC, and similar proposals in other Union slave-states, then a wider emancipation of Confederate slaves...
As pointed out elsewhere, property seized as contraband of war only interfered with the property rights of the proper owner during the time of the war. Estates were seized and held, but returned after the war (for example, Arlington). Lincoln lacked authority to nullify the property rights of the owners by proclamation. The vast majority of the slaves were not taken in by the Army, but had simply left the plantation. In legal contemplation, they were fugitive slaves. The Thirteenth Amendment was not a meaningless appendage to the Constitution. It was necessary to grant the slaves actual freedom. The citizenship clause of the Fourteenth Amendment was necessary as the freedmen were not eligible for naturalization.
SUMNER Speech, given at Cooper Institute on November 27, 1861 was entitled "The Rebellion: Its Origin and Main-Spring."
The argument may be "brief" but the speech still fills sixteen pages.
The paragraph on page 9 which gives rise to the correct title states:
But looking at the concessions proposed, I have always found them utterly unreasonable and indefensible. I should not expose them now, if they did not constantly testify to the origin and main-spring of this rebellion. Slavery was always the single subject-matter, and nothing else. Slavery was not only an integral part of every concession, but the single integer. The single idea was to give some new security—in some form—to slavery.
SUMNER Speech given at Cooper Institute, November 5, 1864, "Slavery and the Rebellion, One and Inseparable," at pg 7.
Again it is said that the object of the war is to abolish Slavery. This also is a mistake, although it is generally urged by those who seek occasion to criticise the war, and, therefore, it is in the nature of a misrepresentation. At the beginning of the war and during its early stages, Slavery was left untouched in the enjoyment of a peculiar immunity, such as was accorded to no other rebel interest. If this peculiar immunity has been discontinued, it is only because Slavery is at last seen in its true character, and because its absolute identity with the Rebellion has come to be recognized.Not to restore the Constitution, not to abolish Slavery, do we now go forth to battle. For neither of these. But simply to put down the Rebellion. It is this and nothing more. Never in history was there a war where the object was so manifest; If, in the process of putting down the Rebellion, the Constitution shall be completely restored or Slavery shall be coftipletely abolished, the war will still be the same in its essential object.
SUMNER Speech, given at Cooper Institute on November 27, 1861 entitled "The Rebellion: Its Origin and Main-Spring," at pg. 10,
There was another string of propositions much discussed during the last winter, which bore the name of the venerable Senator from whom they came—Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky. These also related to slavery and nothing else. They were more obnoxious even than those from the Peace Conference. And yet there were petitioners from the North—and even from Massachusetts—who prayed for this great surrender to slavery. Considering the character of these propositions—that they sought to change the Constitution in a manner revolting to the moral sense; to foist into the Constitution the idea of property in man; to protect slavery in. all present territory south of 36° 30', and to carry it into all territory hereafter acquired south of that line, and thus to make our beautiful Stars and Stripes in their southern march, the flag of slavery; considering that they further sought to give new constitutional securities to slavery in the national capital and in other places within the exclusive Federal jurisdiction; that they sought to give new constitutional securities to the transit of slaves from State to State, opening the way to a roll-call of slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill or the gates of Faneuil Hall; and that they also sought the disfranchisement of more than 10,000 of my fellow-citizens in Massachusetts, whose rights are fixed by the Constitution of that Commonwealth, drawn by John Adams; considering these things, I felt at the time, and I still feel, that the best apology of those petitioners was that they were ignorant of the true character of these propositions, and that in signing the petition they knew not what they did. But even in their ignorance they testified to slavery, while the propositions were the familiar voice of slavery crying, “Give, give.”
This runs afoul of the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Prigg v Pennsylvania, 41 US 608, 610-15 (1842) Story J., Opinion of the Court, unanimous 9-0.
Few questions which have ever come before this Court involve more delicate and important considerations; and few upon which the public at large may be presumed to feel a more profound and pervading interest. We have accordingly given them our most deliberate examination; and it has become my duty to state the result to which we have arrived, and the reasoning by which it is supported.Before, however, we proceed to the points more immediately before us, it may be well—in order to clear the case of difficulty—to say, that in the exposition of this part of the Constitution, we shall limit ourselves to those considerations which appropriately and exclusively belong to it, without laying down any rules of interpretation of a more general nature. It will, indeed, probably, be found, when we look to the character of the Constitution itself, the objects which it seeks to attain, the powers which it confers, the duties which it enjoins, and the rights which it secures, as well as the known historical fact that many of its provisions were matters of compromise of opposing interests and opinions; that no uniform rule of interpretation can be applied to it which may not allow; even if it does not positively demand, many modifications in its actual application to particular clauses. And, perhaps, the safest rule ot interpretation after all will be found to be to look to the nature and objects of the particular powers, duties, and rights, with all the lights and aids of contemporary history; and to give to the words of each just such operation and force, consistent with their legitimate meaning, as may fairly secure and attain the ends proposed.
There are two clauses in the Constitution upon the subject of fugitives, which stand in juxtaposition with each other, and have been thought mutually to illustrate each other. They are both contained in the second section of the fourth article, and are in the following words: “A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another state, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime.”
“No person held to service or labour in one state under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labour; but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due.”
The last clause is that, the true interpretation whereof is directly in judgment before us. Historically, it is well known, that the object of this clause was to secure to the citizens of the slaveholding states the complete right and title of ownership in their slaves, as property, in every state in the Union into which they might escape from the state where they were held in servitude. The full recognition of this right and title was indispensable to the security of this species of property in all the slaveholding states; and, indeed, was so vital to the preservation of their domestic interests and institutions, that it cannot be doubted that it constituted a fundamental article, without the adoption of which the Union could not have been formed. Its true design was to guard against the doctrines and principles prevalent in the non-slaveholding states by preventing them from intermeddling with, or obstructing, or abolishing the rights of the owners of slaves.
By the general law of nations, no nation is bound to recognise the state of slavery, as to foreign slaves found within its territorial dominions, when, it is in opposition to its own policy and institutions, in favour of the subjects of other nations where slavery is recognised. If it does it, it is as a matter of comity, and not as a matter of international right. The state of slavery is deemed to be a mere municipal regulation, founded upon and limited to the range of the territorial laws. This was fully recognised in Somerset's Case, Lofft’s Rep. 1; S. C., 11 State Trials by Harg. 340; S. C., 20 Howell's State Trials, 79; which was decided before the American revolution. It is manifest from this consideration, that if the Constitution had not contained this clause, every non-slaveholding state in the Union, would have been at liberty to have declared free all runaway slaves coming within its limits, and to have given them entire immunity and protection against the claims of their masters; a course which would have created the most bitter animosities, and engendered perpetual strife between the different states. The clause was, therefore, of the last importance to the safety and security of the southern states; and could not have been surrendered by them without endangering their whole property in slaves. The clause was accordingly adopted into the Constitution by the unanimous consent of the framers of it; a proof at once of its intrinsic and practical necessity.
How, then, are we to interpret the language of the clause? The true answer is; in such a manner, as, consistently with the words, shall fully and completely effectuate the whole objects of it. If by one mode of interpretation the right must become shadowy and unsubstantial, and without any remedial power adequate to the end; and by another mode it will attain its just end and secure its manifest purpose; it would seem, upon principles of reasoning, absolutely irresistible, that the. latter ought to prevail. No Court of justice can be authorized so to construe any clause of the Constitution as to defeat its obvious ends, when another construction, equally accordant with the words and sense thereof, will enforce and protect them.
The clause manifestly contemplates the existence of a positive, unqualified right on the part of the owner of the Slave, which no state law or regulation can in any way qualify, regulate, control, or restrain. The slave is not to be discharged from service or labour, in consequence of any state law or regulation. Now, certainly, without indulging in any nicety of criticism upon words, it may fairly and reasonably be said, that any state law or state regulation, which interrupts, limits, delays, or postpones the right of the owner to the immediate possession of the slave, and the immediate command of his service and labour, operates, pro tanto, a discharge of the slave therefrom. The question can never be, how much the slave is discharged from; but whether he is discharged from any, by the natural or necessary operation of state laws or state regulations. The question is not one of quantity or degree, but of withholding, or controlling the incidents of a positive and absolute right.
We have said that the clause contains a positive and unqualified recognition of the right of the owner in the slave, unaffected by any state law or regulation whatsoever, because there is no qualification or restriction of it to be found therein; and we have no right to insert any which is not expressed, and cannot be fairly implied; especially are we estopped from so doing, when the clause puts the right to the service or labour upon the same ground and to the same extent in every other state as in the state from which the slave escaped, and in which he was held to the service or labour. If this be so, then all the incidents to that right attach also; the owner must, therefore, have the right to seize and repossess the slave, which the local laws of his own state confer upon him as property; and we all know that this right of seizure and recaption is universally acknowledged in all the slaveholding states. Indeed, this is no more than a mere affirmance of the principles of the common law applicable to this very subject Mr. Justice Blackstone (3 BI. Comm. 4) lays it down as unquestionable doctrine. “Recaption or reprisal (says he) is another species of remedy by the mere act of the party injured. This happens when any one hath deprived another of his property in goods or chattels personal; or wrongfully detains one’s wife, child, or servant; in which case the owner of the goods, and the husband, parent, or master may lawfully claim and retake them, wherever he happens to find them, so it be not in a riotous manner, or attended with a breach of the peace.” Upon this ground we have not the slightest hesitation in holding, that, under and in virtue of the Constitution, the owner of a slave is clothed with entire authority, in every state in the Union, to seize and recapture his slave, whenever he can do it without any breach of the peace, or any illegal violence. In this sense, and to this extent this clause of the Constitution may properly be said to execute itself; and to require no aid from legislation, state or national.
Prigg v Pennsylvania, 41 US 608, 624-26 (1842) Story J., Opinion of the Court
It is scarcely conceivable that the slaveholding states would have been satisfied with leaving to the legislation of the non-slaveholding states, a power of regulation, in the absence of that of Congress, which would or might practically amount to a power to destroy the rights of the owner. If the argument, therefore, of a concurrent power in the states to act upon the subject-matter in the absence of legislation by Congress be well founded; then, if Congress had never acted at all; or if the act of Congress should be repealed without providing a substitute, there would be a resulting authbrity in each of the states to regulate the whole subject at its pleasure; and to dole out its own remedial justice, or withhold it at its pleasure, and according to its own views of policy and expediency. Surely such a state of things never could have been intended, under such a solemn guarantee of right and duty. On the other hand, construe the right of legislation as exclusive in Congress, and every evil, and every danger vanishes. The right and the duty are then co-extensive and uniform in remedy and operation throughout the whole Union. The owner has the same security, and the same remedial justice, and the same exemption from state regulation and control, through however many states he may pass with his fugitive slave in his possession, in transitu, to his own domicile. But, upon the other supposition, the moment he passes the state line, he becomes amenable to the laws of another sovereignty, whose regulations may greatly embarrass or delay the exercise of his rights; and even be repugnant to those of the state where he first arrested the fugitive. Consequences like these show that the nature and objects of the provision imperiously require that to make it effectual, it should be construed to be exclusive of state authority. We adopt the language of this Court in Sturgis v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. Rep. 193, and say, that "it has never been supposed that the concurrent power of legislation extended to every possible case in which its exercise by the states has not been expressly. prohibited. The confusion of such a practice would be endless." And we know no case in which the confusion and public inconvenience and mischiefs thereof could be more completely exemplified than the present.These are some of the reasons, but by no means all, upon which we hold the power of legislation on this subject to be exclusive in Congress. To guard, however, against any possible misconstruction of our views, it is proper to state, that we are by no means to be understood in any manner whatsoever to doubt or to interfere with the police power belonging to the states in virtue of their general sovereignty. That police power extends over all subjects within the territorial limits of the states; and has never been conceded to the United States. It is wholly distinguishable from the right and duty secured by the provision now under consideration; which is exclusively derved from and secured by the Constitution of the United States, and owes its whole efficacy thereto.
We entertain no doubt whatsoever, that the states, in virtue of their general police power, possess full jurisdiction to arrest and restrain runaway slaves, and remove them from their borders, and otherwise to secure themselves against their depredations and evil example, as they certainly may do in cases of idlers; vagabonds, and paupers. The rights of the owners of fugitive slaves are in no just sense interfered with, or regulated by such a course; and in many cases, the operations of this police power, although designed essentially for other purposes, for the protection, safety and peace of the state, may essentially promote and aid the interests of the owners. But such regulations can never be permitted to interfere with or to obstruct the just rights of the owner to reclairm his slave, derived from the Constitution of the United States; or with the remedies prescribed by Congress to aid and enforce the same.
Prigg v Pennsylvania, 41 US 608, 610-15 (1842) Story J., Opinion of the Court
Upon these grounds, we are of opinion that the act of Pennsylvania upon which this indictment is founded, is unconstitutional and void. It purports to punish as a public offence against that state, the very act of seizing and removing a slave by his master, which the Constitution of the United States was designed to justify and uphold. The special verdict finds this fact, and the State Courts have rendered judgment against the plaintiff in error upon that verdict. That judgment must, therefore, be reversed, and the cause remanded to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania; with directions to carry into effect the judgment of this Court rendered upon the special verdict in favour of the plaintiff in error.
SUMNER Speech, given at Cooper Institute on November 27, 1861 was entitled "The Rebellion: Its Origin and Main-Spring," at pg. 15,
The duty which I suggest, if not urgent now, as a MILITARY NECESSITY, in just self-defence will present itself constantly on other grounds, as our armies advance in the Slave States or land on their coasts. If it does not stare us in the face at this moment, it is because unhappily we are still everywhere on the defensive. As we begin to be successful it must rise before us for practical decision; and you cannot avoid it. There will be slaves in your camps or within your extended lines whose condition you must determine. There will be slaves also claimed by rebels, whose continued chattelhood you will scorn to recognize. The decision of these two cases will settle the whole great question. Nor can the rebels complain. They challenge our armies to enter upon their territory in the free exercise of all the powers of war—according to which, as you well know, all private interests are subordinated to the public safety, which for the time becomes the supreme law above all other laws and above the Constitution itself.
This runs afoul of the U.S. Supreme Court opinion in Ex parte Milligan, 71 U.S. 2, 120-21 (1866), Davis, J., unanimous 9-0.
Time has proven the discernment of our ancestors, for even these provisions, expressed in such plain English words that it would seem the ingenuity of man could not evade them, are now, after the lapse of more than seventy years, sought to be avoided. Those great and good men foresaw that troublous times would arise when rulers and people would become restive under restraint, and seek by sharp and decisive measures to accomplish ends deemed just and proper, and that the principles of constitutional liberty would be in peril unless established by irrepealable law. The history of the world had taught them that what was done in the past might be attempted in the future. The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times and under all circumstances. No doctrine involving more pernicious consequences was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism, but the theory of necessity on which it is based is false, for the government, within the Constitution, has all the powers granted to it which are necessary to preserve its existence, as has been happily proved by the result of the great effort to throw off its just authority.
When invoking a speech by a radical wingnut, a disclaimer should be included. Equally, it should be noted that in the Civil War era, the New York Times was of recent vintage (first appeared in 1851 as the New York Daily Times; September 14, 1857 as The New York Times. The slogan All the News That's Fit to Print first appeared in 1896.) and was not then the paper of record it was later to become. Also, it should be noted that it was a highly partisan paper at that time.
The New York Herald, founded 1835, was then the largest and most profitable daily newspaper with 84,000 circulation in 1861 under editor Horace Greeley.
The Second Confiscation Act, July 17, 1862, provided for permanent freedom for escaped slaves:
woodpusher: "When invoking a speech by a radical wingnut, a disclaimer should be included."
And yet... and yet, the fact remains that Massachusetts Senator Sumner called for the war to necessarily abolish slavery in November 1861, and the New York Times agreed.
Congress had already passed the First Confiscation Act, freeing slaves as "contraband of war" and in July 1862, the Second Confiscation Act would explicitly make freed slaves "forever free of their servitude".
And there were plenty of Confederates who well understood that defeat would mean destruction of their "peculiar institution":
The Second Confiscation Act, July 17, 1862, provided for permanent freedom for escaped slaves:"The most significant change over the first confiscation act was the final status on escaped slaves.While the first act did not make any determination on the final status of slaves after the war was over, the Second Act explicitly said that all slaves covered under it would be permanently freed.[3]
The Second Confiscation Act also prohibited anyone in the military from returning escaped slaves, even slaves that had escaped from Union states that still had legal slavery."
And yet, it was known that Congress had no such authority, and if challenged in court, the unconstitutional law would be struck down. Thus, the 13th Amendment was necessary before the war was officially declared over, and before martial law was ended, and before the civil courts were reopened to hear cases.
The proclamation was taken as a war measure. When the state of war ceased, the legal authority ceased with it. There was never authority to permanently free the slaves by proclamation. Even Lincoln said he did not have the authority.
The law of confiscation only worked to confiscate property during the state of war. After the war, estates were returned to Confederate estate holders as the justification for holding the property had ceased. Attempts to hold on to property were overturned in court, most famously with the government losing title to Arlington National Cemetery. The government then had to purchase the land for the national cemetery back from the rightful owner who had his title to the property recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Ownership was returned to the Lee/Custis family by a decision of the U.S. Supreme Court rendered on December 4, 1882. U.S. v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196 (1882)
On March 3, 1883, the Congress purchased the property from George Washington Custis Lee for $150,000.
Thomas Hart Benton, Thirty Years' View; or, A History of the Working of the American Government for Thirty Years, From 1820 to 1850, Chiefly taken from the Congress Debatesm the Private Papers of General Jackson and the Speeches of Ex-Senator Benton, with His Actual View of Men and Affairs, by a Senator of Thirty Years, 1854, Volume I.
CHAPTER XXXII.BRITISH INDEMNITY FOR DEPORTED SLAVES.
In this year was brought to a conclusion the long-continued controversy with Great Britain in relation to the non-fulfilment of the first article of the treaty of Ghent (1814), for the restitution of slaves carried off by the British troops in the war of 1812. It was a renewal of the misunderstanding, but with a better issue, which grew up under the seventh article of the treaty of peace of 1783 upon the same subject. The power of Washington’s administration was not able to procure the execution of that article, either by restoration of the slaves or indemnity. The slaves then taken away were carried to Nova Scotia, where, becoming an annoyance, they were transferred to Sierra Leone; and thus became the foundation of the British African colony there. The restitution of deported slaves, stipulated in the first article of the Ghent treaty, could not be accomplished between the two powers; they disagreed as to the meaning of words; and, after seven years of vain efforts to come to an understanding, it was agreed to refer the question to arbitrament. The Emperor Alexander accepted the office of arbitrator, executed it, and decided in favor of the United States. That decision was as unintelligible to Great Britain as all the previous treaty stipulations on the same subject had been. She could not understand it. A second misunderstanding grew up, giving rise to a second negotiation, which was concluded by a final agreement to pay the value of the slaves carried off. In 1827 payment was made—twelve years after the injury and the stipulation to repair it, and after continued and most strenuous exertions to obtain redress. …
The British Government undertook to extend the limitation which applied to public property to that which was private also; and so to restore only such slaves as were originally captured within the forts, and which remained therein at the time of the exchange of ratifications—a construction which would have excluded all that were induced to run away, being nearly the whole; and all that left the forts before the exchange of ratifications, which would have included the rest. She adhered to the construction given to the parallel article in the treaty of 1783, and by which all slaves taken during the war were held to be lawful prize of war, and free under the British proclamation, and not to be compensated for. The United States, on the contrary, confined this local limitation to things appurtenant to the forts; and held the slaves to be private property, subject to restitution, or claim for compensation, if carried away at all, no matter how acquired. …
[H]is Britannic Majesty’s forces had no right to carry away from the same places and territories, absolutely, any slave, by whatever means he had fallen or come into their power.” This was the second declaration, the second decision of the point; and both parties having bound themselves to abide the decision, be it what it might, a convention was immediately concluded for the purpose of carrying the Emperor’s decision into effect, by establishing a board to ascertain the number and value of the deported slaves. It was a convention formally drawn up, signed by the ministers of the three powers, done in triplicate, ratified, and ratifications exchanged, and the affair considered finished. Not so the fact! New misunderstanding, new negotiation, five years more consumed in diplomatic notes, and finally a new convention concluded! Certainly it was not the value of the property in controversy, not the amount of money to be paid, that led Great Britain to that pertinacious resistance, bordering upon cavilling and bad faith. It was the loss of an advantage in war—the loss of the future advantage of operating upon the slave States through their slave property, and which advantage would be lost if this compensation was enforced,—which induced her to stand out so long against her own stipulations, and the decisions of her own accepted arbitrator.
This new or third treaty, making indemnity for these slaves, was negotiated at London, November, .1826, between Mr. Gallatin on the part of the United States, and Messrs. Huskisson and Addington on the part of Great Britain. It commenced with reciting that “difficulties having arisen in the execution of the convention concluded at St. Petersburg, July 12th, 1822, under the mediation of his majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, between the United States of America and Great Britain, for the purpose of carrying into effect the decision of his Imperial Majesty upon the differences which had arisen between the said United States and Great Britain as to the true construction and meaning of the first article of the treaty of Ghent, therefore the said parties agree to treat again,” &c. The result of this third negotiation was to stipulate for the payment of a gross sum to the government of the United States, to be by it divided among those whose slaves had been carried off: and the sum of one million two hundred and four thousand nine hundred and sixty dollars was the amount agreed upon. This sum was satisfactory to the claimants, and was paid to the United States for their benefit in the year 1827—just twelve years after the conclusion of the war.…
At the commencement of the session of Congress, 1827-28, the President, Mr. John Quincy Adams, was able to communicate the fact of the final settling and closing up of this demand upon the British government for the value of the slaves carried off by its troops. The sum received was large, and ample to pay the damages; but that was the smallest part of the advantage gained. The example and the principle were the main points—the enforcement of such a demand against a government so powerful, and after so much resistance, and the condemnation which it carried, and the responsibilty which it implied—this was the grand advantage. Liberation and abduction of slaves was one of the modes of warfare adopted by the British, and largely counted on as a means of harassing and injuring one half of the Union. It had been practised during the Revolution, and indemnity avoided. If avoided a second time, impunity would have sanctioned the practice and rendered it inveterate; and in future wars, not only with Great Britain but with all powers, this mode of annoyance would have become an ordinary resort, leading to servile insurrections. The indemnity exacted carried along with it the condemnation of the practice, as a spoliation of private property to be atoned for; and was both a compensation for the past and a warning for the future. It implied a responsibility which no power, or art, or time could evade, and the principle of which being established, there will be no need for future arbitrations. …
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After the Civil War the Federal government -- 1871 Southern Claims Commission -- did pay millions of dollars in reparations to thousands of Southern citizens, but only to those Southern Unionists whose properties were damaged by Union forces.
After the War of 1812, reparations were paid by the British for slaves that had been removed by them. After the American Civil War, the estates of the Confederate estate holders were returned to them. They were not parceled out in forty acre lots with a mule. The U.S. government did not retain title to all the seized property in perpetuity.
Slave property could not be challenged in court because the 13th Amendment to the Constitution declared the slaves to be free before the federal courts reopened.
As quoted to you previously,
Lincoln wrote to Orville Browning, September 22, 1861:What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to other States. If a commanding General finds a necessity to seize the farm of a private owner, for a pasture, an encampment, or a fortification, he has the right to do so, and to so hold it, as long as the necessity lasts; and this is within military law, because within military necessity. But to say the farm shall no longer belong to the owner, or his heirs forever; and this as well when the farm is not needed for military purposes as when it is, is purely political, without the savor of military law about it. And the same is true of slaves. If the General needs them, he can seize them, and use them; but when the need is past, it is not for him to fix their permanent future condition. That must be settled according to laws made by law-makers, and not by military proclamations. The proclamation in the point in question, is simply dictatorship.'' It assumes that the general may do anything he pleases—confiscate the lands and free the slaves of loyal people, as well as of disloyal ones. And going the whole figure I have no doubt would be more popular with some thoughtless people, than that which has been done! But I cannot assume this reckless position; nor allow others to assume it on my responsibility. You speak of it as being the only means of saving the government. On the contrary it is itself the surrender of the government. Can it be pretended that it is any longer the government of the U.S.—any government of Constitution and laws,—wherein a General, or a President, may make permanent rules of property by proclamation?CW 4:531-32
Also as quoted to you previously, (here and here)
United States v. Lee, 106 U.S. 196 (1882).
woodpusher: "When invoking a speech by a radical wingnut, a disclaimer should be included."And yet... and yet, the fact remains that Massachusetts Senator Sumner called for the war to necessarily abolish slavery in November 1861, and the New York Times agreed.
And yet... and yet, the fact remains that Sumner emphatically stated that abolishing slavery was NOT an object of the war, and the war was NOT fought to abolish slavery. That someone considered that abolition would be an inevitable result of the war did not convert the object of the war to that end. Your diversionary comment on Sumner's state of mind has no effect whatever on the object of the war.
One may opine that walking down a sidewalk covered in ants will inevitably result in ants being stomped to death. And yet... and yet, stomping ants to death is not the object of walking down the sidewalk. Neither did the presence of the ants act as a cause of the walk down the sidewalk. You make up the dumbest analogies in creation.
SUMNER Speech given at Cooper Institute, November 5, 1864, "Slavery and the Rebellion, One and Inseparable," at pg 7.
Again it is said that the object of the war is to abolish Slavery. This also is a mistake, although it is generally urged by those who seek occasion to criticise the war, and, therefore, it is in the nature of a misrepresentation. At the beginning of the war and during its early stages, Slavery was left untouched in the enjoyment of a peculiar immunity, such as was accorded to no other rebel interest. If this peculiar immunity has been discontinued, it is only because Slavery is at last seen in its true character, and because its absolute identity with the Rebellion has come to be recognized.Not to restore the Constitution, not to abolish Slavery, do we now go forth to battle. For neither of these. But simply to put down the Rebellion. It is this and nothing more. Never in history was there a war where the object was so manifest; If, in the process of putting down the Rebellion, the Constitution shall be completely restored or Slavery shall be coftipletely abolished, the war will still be the same in its essential object.
So, yes, Virginia, it was indeed all about slavery, even before November 19, 1863.
It is not clear how a speechwriter's words, delivered by Lincoln on November 19, 1863, have anything to do with much of anything.
As Lerone Bennett, Jr. aptly described the speech,
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