HANG OUT YOUR BANNERS: UNION VICTORY! PEACE! Surrender of General Lee and His Whole Army (4/10/1865)

New York Times - Times Machine ^ | 4/10/1865

[Homer_J_Simpson]

[OFFICIAL.]

WAR DEPARTMENT, WASHINGTON April 9, 1865 -- 9 o'clock P.M.

To Maj.-Gen. Dix:

This department has received the official report of the SURRENDER, THIS DAY, OF GEN. LEE AND HIS ARMY TO LIEUT.- GEN. GRANT on the terms proposed by Gen. GRANT.

Details will be given as speedily as possible.

EDWIN M. STANTON,

Secretary of War.

HEADQUARTERS ARMIES OF THE UNITED STATES, 4:30 P.M., April 9.

Hon. Edwin M. Stanton, Secretary of War:

GEN. LEE SURRENDERED THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA THIS AFTERNOON, upon the terms proposed by myself. The accompanying additional correspondence will show the conditions fully.

(Signed) U.S. GRANT, Lieut-Gen'l.

SUNDAY, April 9, 1865.

GENERAL -- I received your note of this morning, on the picket line, whither I had come to meet you and ascertain definitely what terms were embraced in your proposition of yesterday with reference to the surrender of this army.

I now request an interview in accordance with the offer contained in you letter of yesterday for that purpose.

Very respectfully, your obedient servant,

R.E. LEE, General.

To Lieut.-Gen. GRANT, Commanding United States Armies.

Sunday, April 9, 1865.

Gen. R.E. Lee, Commanding Confederate States Armies.

Year note of this date is but this moment, 11:50 A.M., received.

In consequence of my having passed from the Richmond and Lynchburgh road to the Farmville and Lynchburgh road, I am at this writing about four miles West of Walter's church, and will push forward to the front for the purpose of meeting you.

Notice sent to me, on this road, where you wish the interview to take place, will meet me.

Very respectfully, your ob'd't servant,

U.S. GRANT,

Lieutenant-General.

[DiogenesLamp]

Estimates are that over 40% of households in Mississippi and South Carolina owned slaves and over 30% of households in Georgia, Alabama, and Florida owned slaves. Those are significant numbers, and those were the states that sparked the secession movement.

The relevant question here is "Did states have a right to secede?"

If the answer is "no", then their reasons for wanting to secede, don't matter.

If the answer is "yes", then their reasons for wanting to secede, don't matter.

I will wait for you to find a flaw in my logic.

[DiogenesLamp]

For many ordinary Southerners, the conflict was more about “us versus them,” but slavery was an important issue and at the root of the increasing division in the country.

How did this issue play into the secession crises of 1828?

[Pelham]

The church of Lincoln isn’t going to like that.

On Good Friday we really ought to dig up quotes equating Lincoln with Christ that you can find his contemporaries uttering.

Boston Transcendentalists, Unitarians, abolitionists, socialists were good for that kind of stuff. In some cases they said he was better than Christ. That may be popular in some quarters even today.

Someone once pointed out that the ever popular Battle Hymn of Republic is basically a gnostic celebration of a God-like federal government meting out divine judgement on the rebel heretics who richly deserve being slaughtered. You piss off that god at your own peril.

[CatHerd]

Wow. That was a courageous post. Hope you have your flame retardant suit on.

The Yankees had their ugly nasty Battle Hymn. We Southerners had catchy tunes like “Dixie” and fun little ditties like “Eatin’ Goober Peas”. :)

So who’s more fun, and who’s all dour? We Southerners know!

[x]

The relevant question here is "Did states have a right to secede?"

Not on their own. They could have arranged with Congress to negotiate their withdrawal from the union. Seizing government property and firing on federal forts closed that door.

I was responding to the idea that the split between the North and South wasn't about slavery but about tariffs. Saying that "that doesn't matter" doesn't matter so far as the actual discussion was involved.

How did this issue play into the secession crises of 1828?

Barring war or other national emergency, no federal government would raise taxes as high as the 1828 Congress did (at least until Smoot-Hawley in the Depression, and maybe now). South Carolina, which was run by an oligarchy of rich planters and slaveowners objected to the high tariff. While the tariff was certainly too high, ordinary Americans, South or North weren't, so far as I'm aware, up in arms about it. Nor was there great agitation against the more modest proposed increases in 1860. Had their been, Southern politicians would have been working to fight the tariff, rather than looking for ways to leave the union.

I will wait for you to find a flaw in my logic.

Yeah, yeah, I'm not in the mood to carry this on endlessly.

[Fury]

Thanks for posting the threads. Sad they that devolve like they do but appreciate your efforts.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

What do you mean by devolve?

[Fury]

They go from discussing the Civil War to other topics and in a less that polite manner.

[DiogenesLamp]

Not on their own.

Where is your evidence?

Barring war or other national emergency, no federal government would raise taxes as high as the 1828 Congress did (at least until Smoot-Hawley in the Depression, and maybe now). South Carolina, which was run by an oligarchy of rich planters and slaveowners objected to the high tariff. While the tariff was certainly too high, ordinary Americans, South or North weren't, so far as I'm aware, up in arms about it. Nor was there great agitation against the more modest proposed increases in 1860. Had their been, Southern politicians would have been working to fight the tariff, rather than looking for ways to leave the union.

So it wasn't about slavery? It was about money? (Like I have been saying it is *ALWAYS* about money?)

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp to x: "So it wasn't about slavery?
It was about money?
(Like I have been saying it is *ALWAYS* about money?)"

As with the word "racism", which was unknown in 1860, the word "money" was almost never used in Confederates' official "Reasons for Secession" documents.

The one case where "money" was mentioned well illustrates my point.
This is from Georgia's official "Reasons for Secession" document:

"The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success.
An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party was therefore determined upon.
Time and issues upon slavery were necessary to its completion and final triumph.
The feeling of anti-slavery, which it was well known was very general among the people of the North, had been long dormant or passive; it needed only a question to arouse it into aggressive activity.
This question was before us.
We had acquired a large territory by successful war with Mexico; Congress had to govern it; how, in relation to slavery, was the question then demanding solution.
This state of facts gave form and shape to the anti-slavery sentiment throughout the North and the conflict began.
Northern anti-slavery men of all parties asserted the right to exclude slavery from the territory by Congressional legislation and demanded the prompt and efficient exercise of this power to that end.
This insulting and unconstitutional demand was met with great moderation and firmness by the South.
We had shed our blood and paid our money for its acquisition; we demanded a division of it on the line of the Missouri restriction or an equal participation in the whole of it.
These propositions were refused, the agitation became general, and the public danger was great.
The case of the South was impregnable.
The price of the acquisition was the blood and treasure of both sections -- of all, and, therefore, it belonged to all upon the principles of equity and justice.

The Constitution delegated no power to Congress to excluded either party from its free enjoyment; therefore our right was good under the Constitution."

So, yes, Georgia did mention the word "money", along with "blood and treasure", but clearly, the issue being discussed is slavery and the interests of slave-states, not "money".

Likewise, Confederate VP, Alexander Stephens' "Cornerstone Speech" does use the word "money", but that famous (or notorious) speech all rests on this argument:

"But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other—though last, not least.

The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization.
This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.
Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split."
He was right.
What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact.
But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted.
The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it [slavery] was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically.
It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away.
This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time.
The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day.
Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong.
They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races.
This was an error.
It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery — subordination to the superior race — is his natural and normal condition. [Applause]
This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.
This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science.
It has been so even amongst us.
Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day.
The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago.
Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics.
All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind—from a defect in reasoning.
It is a species of insanity.
One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics; their conclusions are right if their premises were.
They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man.
If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just — but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails...

...The great objects of humanity are best attained when there is conformity to his laws and decrees, in the formation of governments as well as in all things else.
Our confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws.
This stone which was rejected by the first builders "is become the chief of the corner" — the real "corner-stone" — in our new edifice. [Applause.] "

Finally, how much did 1861 secessionists speak of each major topic in explaining their real "Reasons for Secession"?
Here again is the table breaking it all down:

"Reasons for Secession" Documents before Fort Sumter -- % of words devoted to each reason *

Reasons for Secession Date of Doc.	S. Carolina 12/20/1860	Mississippi 1/9/1861	Georgia 1/29/1861	Texas 2/2/1861	Rbt. Rhett 12/25/1860	A. Stephens 3/21/1861	AVERAGE OF 6
Historical context	41%	20%	23%	21%	13%	20%	24%
Slavery	20%	73%	56%	54%	44%	50%	48%
States' Rights	37%	3%	4%	15%	32%	10%	14%
Lincoln's election	2%	4%	4%	4%	1%	0	3%
Economic issues**	0	0	15%	0	10%	20%	10%
Economic "Fishing Smacks"	0	0	5%	0	0	0	3%
Economic Tariffs	0	0	5%	0	3%	10%	5%
Economic Spending in North	0	0	10%	0	7%	10%	10%
Military protection	0	0	0	6%	0	0	1%

* Alabama (1/11/1861) listed only slavery as a "whereas" in its Declaration of Secession.
** Economic issues include tariffs, "fishing smacks" and other alleged favoritism to Northerners in Federal spending.

[Homer_J_Simpson]

Me: What do you mean by "devolve"?

Fury: They go from discussing the Civil War to other topics and in a less that polite manner.

Fortunately, BroJoeK frequently comes around to get the discussion back on track.

[DiogenesLamp]

As with the word "racism", which was unknown in 1860, the word "money" was almost never used in Confederates' official "Reasons for Secession" documents.

If your actions were going to result in the potential loss of about 700 million per year from the powerful industrial interests of the North, would you talk about it?

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "If your actions were going to result in the potential loss of about 700 million per year from the powerful industrial interests of the North, would you talk about it?"

Why not?
In 1860 & 1861, several Confederate states and individuals wrote "Reasons for Secession" documents -- documents which can be compared to our own 1776 Declaration of Independence.

I have summarized those documents above (post #110) and provided links to the actual documents, if you wish to study those more carefully.
To my eyes, the documents seem entirely sincere and legitimate explanations of what secessionists believed motivated them -- why should we doubt them?
There are no other documents from the time which contradict the "Reasons for Secession" in any major way.

The sum of it is -- secessionists were concerned most about**:

1. 50% protecting slavery
2. 17% asserting their states' rights
3. 8% economic issues like "bounties" (2%) tariffs (3%) and spending in the North (3%)
4. 2% election of anti-slavery Republicans & Lincoln
5. 1% lack of military protection against "Indian savages" and "Mexican banditti"

** Corrected slightly from previous postings.

Remember, these "Reasons for Secession" documents were all written before the Battle of Fort Sumter (April 12, 1861), and even before passage of the Morrill Tariff on March 2.

So the perspectives of secessionists in early 1861 were not yet influenced by events which came later that spring.

Summary Reasons for Secession:

[DiogenesLamp]

DiogenesLamp: "If your actions were going to result in the potential loss of about 700 million per year from the powerful industrial interests of the North, would you talk about it?"

Why not?

Well firstly, it makes you look greedy, and people don't want to admit they are doing something unprincipled because they are greedy.

Secondly, making the North aware of how much money they would be losing would galvanize them to oppose your efforts. By keeping the focus on "slavery", you remind them of how much they don't want you. Telling them you are going to take control of about 700 million per year that was currently being controlled by powerful men in the North, will make them start worrying about their own money, and nothing gets a man ready to fight faster than being told you are going to take some of his income away from him.

Just as "slavery" was a smoke screen for why Lincoln wanted to invade the South, so to was it a smokescreen to disguise the monetary reasons why they wanted out.

That it was always about money becomes clear when you take into account the secession crises of 1828, which no one can deny was just about money. There was no "slavery" issue clouding up people's understanding of each other's motives during the previous secession effort.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "Telling them you are going to take control of about 700 million per year that was currently being controlled by powerful men in the North, will make them start worrying about their own money, and nothing gets a man ready to fight faster than being told you are going to take some of his income away from him."

There are several problems with your argument here, including:

1. First, your "$700 million per year" is just a figure from your own imagination, not from political discussions in 1860.
   Yes, there were concerns expressed in early 1861 about alleged Confederate "free trade", however, "free trade" was never the Confederate plan, and any tariffs Confederate did charge would mean importers paying tariffs twice if they used Confederate ports.

   1859: 94% of US tariff revenues came from
   Northern & Western ports, only 6% from Southern ports.

   

2. Second, we know for certain what did happen with the 100% loss of Confederate states' trade & tariff revenues in 1861.
   Union GDP never declined -- it only went up (from $4.3 billion in 1860 to $9.9 billion in 1865).
   Even tariff revenues declined only $14 million in 1861 (to $40 million), recovered $10 million of that in 1862, before fully recovering in 1863 (to $69 million).

3. Third, remember, all those "Reasons for Secession" documents were written with the intention of persuading -- no, not Northerners, rather -- other Southerners on why secession was both necessary and desirable.
   The authors, including Rhett and Stephens, trotted out all their most compelling arguments for other Southerners, making their case on why other Southerners should follow their examples.
   Those documents were not aimed at Northerners and so Northern reactions were not their concern.

"Reasons for Secession" documents gave the best possible arguments to other Southerners on why secession was necessary.
They did not mention your "$700 million per year", or economics generally nearly as much as they did what mattered most to them: slavery and "states rights".

DiogenesLamp: "Just as "slavery" was a smoke screen for why Lincoln wanted to invade the South, so to was it a smokescreen to disguise the monetary reasons why they wanted out."

Pres. Lincoln did not "invade the South" in 1861 to "free the slaves" -- that was not his stated goal then -- even though seizing Confederate's "Contraband of War" was very much part of Union tactics from almost Day One.
Lincoln's main goal then, and throughout the war, was restoring the Union.
Confiscations (1861), emancipation (1862), abolition (1864), citizenship (1868) & voting rights (1869) for freed slaves were consequences of Lincoln's main focus, restoring the Union.

DiogenesLamp: "That it was always about money becomes clear when you take into account the secession crises of 1828, which no one can deny was just about money.
There was no "slavery" issue clouding up people's understanding of each other's motives during the previous secession effort."

What the 1828 - 1830s "Tariff of Abominations" Nullification Crisis proved was that no reasonable Southerner was willing to declare secession and war on the United States only over tariffs.
Even when, in 1830, tariffs rose to nearly four-times higher than 1860's 15%, only few of the South's most globalist elites were willing to commit treason and rebellion against Pres. Andrew Jackson.
That's why the 1830 Nullification Crisis ended relatively quickly and bloodlessly.

What did motivate a majority of Southerners was slavery, and by 1850 many Southerners ("Fire Eaters") were calling for secession over slavery issues -- issues which were then resolved (at least temporarily) by the Compromise of 1850.
But what was resolved in 1850 became unresolved again by the late 1850s, especially as a result of the 1857 SCOTUS Dred Scot ruling, 1854-1859 "Bleeding Kansas", John Brown's 1859 raid, and from 1856 on, threats from "Black Republicans" with their 1860 leader, "Ape Lincoln".

All of that was about slavery, not tariffs.

[DiogenesLamp]

First, your "$700 million per year" is just a figure from your own imagination, not from political discussions in 1860.

Don't like that number? Why? Is it so significant that it easily explains why corrupt powers in the North controlling Washington DC would want to go to war?

Well the number is easy to explain. 200 Million per year in trade with Europe, and 500 million per year in trade with Northern manufacturers.

With Southern independence, that money moves to Europe, where thanks to the elimination of the protectionist trading policies, the Southerners could afford more and cheaper products than they could get from the North.

The North had the South as a captive market, thanks to the protectionist laws put in place, but with the South becoming their own country, those laws are no longer in effect, leaving the Southerners to buy what they want from whom they want.

The only group losing economically in this situation is the powerful industrialists of the North. The South gains immensely from economic independence from the North.

And *THAT*, my dear friend, is why there was a war.

[BroJoeK]

quoting BJK: "First, your "$700 million per year" is just a figure from your own imagination, not from political discussions in 1860."

DiogenesLamp: "Well the number is easy to explain.
200 Million per year in trade with Europe, and 500 million per year in trade with Northern manufacturers."

And yet... we know exactly what actually happened when your "700 million per year" was deleted from Union GDP and tariff revenue numbers.

Union GDP rose from:

1. $4.4 billion in 1860, then rose 5% to
2. $4.7 billion in 1861, then rose 29% to
3. $5.9 billion in 1862, rose 31% to
4. $7.7 billion in 1863, rose 25% to
5. $9.6 billion in 1864, rose 4% to
6. $10.0 billion in 1865

Union tariff revenues fell 25% in 1861, but then rose (rounded):

1. $53 million in 1860, fell 25% to
2. $40 million in 1861, rose $9 million to
3. $49 million in 1862, rose $20 million to
4. $69 million in 1863, rose $33 million to
5. $102 million in 1864, fell $17 million to
6. $85 million in 1865

In the meantime, US cotton production/exports also fell but then rose after the war:

1. 4.9 million bales (~460# each) exported in 1860
2. 3.1 million bales in 1861,
3. 0.6 million bales in 1862, to
4. 0.01 million bales in 1863, to
5. 0.03 million bales in 1864, to
6. 0.02 million bales in 1865, to
7. 2.3 million bales in 1866, to
8. 3.1 million bales in 1870, to
9. 5.8 million bales in 1880, to
10. 7.3 million bales in 1890

So, there is no doubt that the loss of the Confederate states' economy, especially cotton, was a blow to Union GDP & tariff revenues, but it was nowhere near the disaster your "$700 million per year" suggests.

This 1880 map is from the last link above, showing US cotton production, exports and imports through 1880, in dollars, not bales.
If you go to the last link above you can zoom in to see those actual numbers.
For numbers of cotton bales, I've used the figures from the second to last link.

[DiogenesLamp]

And yet... we know exactly what actually happened when your "700 million per year" was deleted from Union GDP and tariff revenue numbers.

Beside the point. The *FEAR* of losing that money is the *CAUSE* of the North invading the South.

Also, they started faking financial data during the Civil War. Greenbacks were just fake money.

[BroJoeK]

DiogenesLamp: "The *FEAR* of losing that money is the *CAUSE* of the North invading the South."

Friend, you're a typical Democrat, projecting your own feelings onto your political opponents, regardless of what they themselves had to say about it.

DiogenesLamp: "Also, they started faking financial data during the Civil War.
Greenbacks were just fake money."

On Civil War inflation:

1. During the Civil War the Union suffered roughly 75% inflation, meaning the 1860 GDP of $4.3 billion would be $7.6 billion in 1865.
   The Union's actual 1865 GDP was $10 billion meaning its actual GDP grew at 8% per year, more than inflation, during the war.

2. During the Civil War, Confederates suffered some 9,200% inflation, meaning that by the war's end, their money was virtually worthless.

[DiogenesLamp]

Friend, you're a typical Democrat, projecting your own feelings onto your political opponents, regardless of what they themselves had to say about it.

I don't care what they had to say about it. Show me the money. People lie. Money always tells the truth.

If you want to get to the truth, follow the money. It is exactly what DOGE is doing right now.

The *LIBERALS* (Republicans in 1860, Democrats today) have *ALWAYS* used government power to make themselves wealthy, and usually at the expense of others.

Modern Liberals pretend to care about illegals in the same way 1860 Liberals pretended to care about slaves.

What they really care about is having government power so it can impose laws that put money into their pockets.

It is what Washington DC has always done since the 1820s, and it is how the original secession crises of 1828 occurred.

During the Civil War the Union suffered roughly 75% inflation, meaning the 1860 GDP of $4.3 billion would be $7.6 billion in 1865. The Union's actual 1865 GDP was $10 billion meaning its actual GDP grew at 8% per year, more than inflation, during the war.

I wouldn't just accept what historians claim on the issue. You can't trust anyone to tell you the truth because they are all trying to "help" their side look virtuous. The same way liberals manipulate economic numbers today was the same way they manipulated them in the 1860s and 1870s.

During the Civil War, Confederates suffered some 9,200% inflation, meaning that by the war's end, their money was virtually worthless.

A meaningless point. They lost the war, so of course their currency is worthless. This speaks not at all to what it would have been worth if the Union had simply stayed on it's side of the border instead of invading people trying to get away from it.