Posted on 01/07/2004 2:58:42 PM PST by quidnunc
2003 was a big year for Civil War movies. Gods and Generals, based on Jeff Shaara's novel of the same name hit theaters in the spring. Gods and Generals was a paean to the Old Confederacy, reflecting the "Lost Cause" interpretation of the war. This school of Civil War historiography received its name from an 1867 book by Edward A. Pollard, who wrote that defeat on the battlefield left the south with nothing but "the war of ideas."
I know from the Lost Cause school of the Civil War. I grew up in a Lost Cause household. I took it for gospel truth that the Civil War was a noble enterprise undertaken in defense of southern rights, not slavery, that accordingly the Confederates were the legitimate heirs of the American Revolutionaries and the spirit of '76, and that resistance to the Lincoln government was no different than the Revolutionary generation's resistance to the depredations of George III. The Lost Cause school was neatly summarized in an 1893 speech by a former Confederate officer, Col. Richard Henry Lee: "As a Confederate soldier and as a Virginian, I deny the charge [that the Confederates were rebels] and denounce it as a calumny. We were not rebels, we did not fight to perpetuate human slavery, but for our rights and privileges under a government established over us by our fathers and in defense of our homes."
Cold Mountain, based on Charles Frazier's historical novel, was released on Christmas Day. It too is about the Civil War but Cold Mountain is a far cry from Gods and Generals. This is the "other war," one in which war has lost its nobility and those on the Confederate home front are in as much danger from other southerners as they are from Yankee marauders. Indeed, Cold Mountain can be viewed as the anti-Gods and Generals.
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(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Douglass worked with Lincoln for years, considered him his friend, and, according to McFeeley, was convinced Lincoln was moving consistently and steadily toward the more "radical" proposition on black/white relations. Take your quarrel up with McFeeley, merely one of the best U.S. historians out there.
Moreover, if you go back to before the war, the South had anti-personal liberty laws against FREED MEN and against whites in virtually all manifestations of race relations. Those made the antebellum South alone far less free than the North.
Seems to me you have a stake in trying to impugn the legacy of Lincoln. Another Lincoln hater? This board is full of "haters."
Seems to me I have quoted a leading Black author and editor of Ebony, and you have cited an alleged conclusion of your unknown liberal colleague and not one quote of Frederick Douglass.
It seems you have a stake in maintaining the myth of Lincoln.
Sorry, but you have not provided quotes of any of the alleged wonderful things you allege were said.
And the reason the South is winning now is because it is more free.
Take your quarrel up with McFeeley, merely one of the best U.S. historians out there.
I will take my argument up with Lincoln, his administration, his contemporaries, and the things actually said and done.
Lincoln's emigration aide, the Rev. James Mitchell, said the Proclamation "did not change Mr. Lincoln's policy of colonization, nor was it so intended." On August 18, 1863, seven months after the signing of the Proclamation and three months before the Gettysburg Address, Mitchell said he asked Lincoln if the "might say that colonization was still the policy of the Administration." Lincoln replied twice, he said, that "I have never thought so much on any subject and arrived at a conclusion so definite as I have in this case, and in after years found myself wrong." Lincoln added that "it would have been much better to separate the races than to have such scenes as those in New York [during the Draft Riots] the other day, where Negroes were hanged to lamp posts."Forced Into Glory, Lerone Bennett, Jr., p. 554
ON NOVEMBER 30, 1864 WE FIND EDWARD BATES REPLYING TO A QUESTION POSED BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN ABOUT HOW TO KEEP JAMES MITCHELL ON THE PAYROLL TO AID IN THE MATTER OF EMIGRATION OR COLONIZATION OF BLACKS.
Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress.
Transcribed and Annotated by
the Lincoln Studies Center, Knox College. Galesburg, Illinois.
From Edward Bates to Abraham Lincoln, November 30, 1864
Washington, Nov 30 1864.
Honored Sir,
I beg your pardon for having overlooked, in the pressure of business, in my latter days in the office, the duty to give formal answer to your question concerning your power still to retain the Revd Mr Mitchell as your assistant or aid in the matter of executing the several acts of Congress relating to the emigration or Colonizing of the freed blacks.
It is too late for me now to give a formal opinion upon the question, as this is my last day in office. I can only say that, having examined all the acts referred to, I am satisfied that, notwithstanding the act which repeals the appropriation contingently, you still have something to do, under those acts; and therefore, that you have the same right to continue Mr Mitchell that you had to appoint him originally. And I hope it will be done, for he seems to be a good man, of zeal & capacity.
Most respectfully Sir
Your obt servt
Edwd. Bates
In April 1865, Lincoln to General Butler, corroborated and matching other statements known to have been made by Lincoln, as quoted and authenticated by multiple reputable historians.
But what shall we do with the negroes after they are free? I can hardly believe that the South and North can live in peace, unless we can get rid of the negroes. Certainly they cannot if we don’t get rid of the negroes whom we have armed and disciplined and who have fought with us. . . . I believe that it would be better to export them all to some fertile country with a good climate, which they could have to themselves.
Benjamin F. Butler, Autobiography and Personal Reminiscences of Major-General Benjamin F. Butler: A Review of His Legal, Political, and Military Career (or, Butler’s Book) (Boston: A. M. Thayer & Co. Book Publishers, 1892), p. 903.
OK
What exactly is this thing Lincoln called "the White Man's Charter of Freedom?
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865.: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 2.
Eulogy on Henry Clay
July 6, 1852
HONORS TO HENRY CLAY
But I would also, if I could, array his name, opinions, and influence against the opposite extreme---against a few, but an increasing number of men, who, for the sake of perpetuating slavery, are beginning to assail and to ridicule the white-man's charter of freedom---the declaration that ``all men are created free and equal.''
=====
Lincoln, Abraham, 1809-1865.: Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln. Volume 2.
Speech at Peoria, Illinois
October 16, 1854
In our greedy chase to make profit of the negro, let us beware, lest we ``cancel and tear to pieces'' even the white man's charter of freedom.
=====
OK, but there is a wealth of it.
What, exactly, compared to slavery, was it that Lincoln considered a greater evil, even to the cause of human liberty itself?
The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol. 2, page 130
Abraham Lincoln
July 6, 1852
HONORS TO HENRY CLAY
Having been led to allude to domestic slavery so frequently already, I am unwilling to close without referring more particularly to Mr. Clay's views and conduct in regard to it. He ever was, on principle and in feeling, opposed to slavery. The very earliest, and one of the latest public efforts of his life, separated by a period of more than fifty years, were both made in favor of gradual emancipation of the slaves in Kentucky. He did not perceive, that on a question of human right, the negroes were to be excepted from the human race. And yet Mr. Clay was the owner of slaves. Cast into life where slavery was already widely spread and deeply seated, he did not perceive, as I think no wise man has perceived, how it could be at once eradicated, without producing a greater evil, even to the cause of human liberty itself.
By placing the garrison of the fort in extremis, Davis signalled to Lincoln that he had no intention of compromising. If Davis had been negotiating in good faith, he would not have attempted to force the issue. At least, that is what an objective observer would have divined, in my opinion.
I have studied Lincoln, especially as a trial lawyer. He was a truly excellent trial lawyer, and I imagine that he drew upon those experiences when the chips were down.
One of his best strategies, which he used countless times, was jettisoning non-essentials, conceding positions that he did not need to win his case. He would carefully marshall quite a number of positions to begin with, and then, defend them for a while and then let them go. It wore out the enemy, especially when the enemy did not know what Lincoln considered to be non-essential. It took them off guard to be struggling over something and then have Lincoln simply give it to them.
Neither Lincoln nor Davis needed Fort Sumter, but Lincoln could not afford to lose face by conceding it without a fight. Davis probably could not, either, although I am not quite so sure of that. At any rate, because it wasn't miltarily essential to either, it was symbolic, a bargaining chip.
Everybody in the fort, and everybody outside the fort, was just sitting around, maintaining the status quo, waiting for the people in Washington and wherever else they were parlaying, to make up their mind whether there was going to be a war or not. For whatever reason, whether he knew what he was doing and did it deliberately, or whether he fell into Lincoln's trap, Davis started the war, or at least gave Lincoln the "bloody shirt" of armed insurrection to wave. Best case for your position, he gave Lincoln an excuse.
I imagine - I've never studied Davis in any great detail - that it was a matter of honor to him that the US flag not fly over Fort Sumter. Under the circumstances, did Davis act rationally? I think not.
IIRC, apparently some degree of communications continued as Anderson's correspondence certainly did. Beauregard did seek the fort's surrender and cease supply shipments, largely as a result of the Lincoln regime's adamant refusal to even so much as negotiate a solution to the fort issue, which easily could have contained an extension of supplies through Charleston until the dispute was resolved under further negotiations. And no, simply denying supplies was not an act of war. Anderson literally had no orders and no right to be inside of Sumter in the first place. He occupied it in defiance of the wishes of the war department back in December. He had also turned some of the forts guns towards the harbor in a clear threat to the city and, above all else, sat with an overtly hostile army in the middle of South Carolina territory against the wishes of South Carolina.
By placing the garrison of the fort in extremis, Davis signalled to Lincoln that he had no intention of compromising.
Don't be silly. By April 1861 Lincoln had long before signalled to Davis that it was he, not Davis, who adamantly refused to engage in any form of compromise whatsoever. Davis repeatedly sent representatives to Washington tasked specifically to open negotiations over the disputed forts. They arrived in march, sought out meetings with Lincoln, and when that was refused sought out meetings through intermediaries who volunteered including two sitting US senators and a US Supreme Court Justice. Lincoln would have absolutely NOTHING to do with them and would not even say so much as a word about resolving the fort disputes. After Davis' negotiators returned to Montgomery empty handed and with full expectation that Lincoln would be soon acting unilaterally to access the fort by military means, he ordered supplies cut off. A few days later when those anticipations were realized and it was learned that Lincoln intended to force his way in by ship Davis ordered a preemptive strike on the fort.
If Davis had been negotiating in good faith, he would not have attempted to force the issue.
Davis had been negotiating in good faith - he repeatedly tried to get the other side to the table and discuss the issue towards resolution. It was Lincoln who exhibited the bad faith by adamantly refusing to meet with negotiators of any form, even if through a credentialed intermediary party.
Under the circumstances, did Davis act rationally? I think not.
Davis' position is perfectly rational for any military mind. The situation he faced is effectively summarized as follows circa early April 1861:
1. Davis knew that no matter what he did, no matter how many negotiators he sent, and no matter who those negotiators were Lincoln would not even come to the table to even discuss the matter in hopes of an eventual peaceful solution. Davis had been trying this route for the last month, meeting with nothing but refusal from Lincoln.
2. This effectively meant that Lincoln intended to act unilaterally on the fort, whatever that action may be, no matter what Davis did to avert it save the unacceptable solution of completely acquiesing to Lincoln's desire to hold a hostile garrison in Charleston harbor. Thus time to force the issue was ripe.
3. When the issue was forced Lincoln initiated the action he had long since been expected to do (sending a fleet of warships in to reach the fort) and, in fact, had been planning as early as December 1860 - three months before he was even president and even had the authority to command the navy. In light of Lincoln's unwillingness to even pursue the peaceful negotiation route, that this action was the only alternative ever considered by Lincoln thus by forcing it Davis at the very most slightly hastened the inevitable.
4. When it was learned as a certainty that Lincoln's resupply would be attempted by warships whose orders included a provision that was virtually certain to result in open hostilities upon their arrival - the fight your way in order - Davis had a military decision to make. Militarily his options were three:
(a) He could completely stand down and allow hostile warships to enter the harbor and better equip the garrison for an inevitable fight at a later date. This was politically unacceptable and militarily risky because it would likely bring about greater casualties than a fight with the same garrison before resupply.
(b) He could wait for the fleet's arrival and deny it entry, in which case a battle would break out between confederate forces against not only the fort's garrison but also at least three heavily armed enemy warships. This would make for higher casualties and greater military difficulty than either taking on the fort alone before resupply or taking on the fort alone after resupply. It was therefore unacceptable as well.
(c) He could preempt the fleet's arrival by striking the garrison before they could effectively assist it. This would bring about the quickest and least damaging means of reaching military objective, which by then was a virtual inevitability at some future time. It would also result in the least casualties on either side of the three available options since the opposing force was smaller and/or less equipped than the military scenarios of the two other courses.
Acting wisely Davis chose the third. The results of choosing the third were directly seen in the success of the action: the fort was taken with relative ease and zero casualties were incurred on either side.
That comparison is a laughable stretch at best. It ranks up there with those who indulge in the tu quoque to justify the burning of Atlanta, Columbia, and several dozen other major cities and towns alike across the south upon the single confederate destruction of rural Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
The two "invasions" of the north were not territorial acquisitions or attempts to assert political control over the whole of the northern nation. They were military maneuvers designed specifically to weaken the northern war morale by defeating them on their home turf and sharing with them first hand the horrors of war that they had unleashed on a scale 1000 times more severe against their southern counterparts. "Take the war to the enemy's soil and they will withdraw from warring upon us" was their intent, NOT "let's go conquer Pennsylvania and make it one of our territories."
That is a difficult argument to make especially in light of his continued support for colonization. Nolu chan has already done a superb job of documenting key events in that continued process of administration support - the 1864 request to Bates and the 1865 conversation with Butler. By contrast, the one item that could demonstrate a genuine change by Lincoln - a written, recorded, or credibly attested account of him renouncing his previous support of colonization - is noticeably absent from any substantial surviving record.
The President has received yours of yesterday, and is kindly paying attention to it. As it is my business to assist him whenever I can, I will thank you to inform me, for his use, whether you are either a white man or black one, because in either case, you can not be regarded as an entirely impartial judge-- It may be that you belong to a third or fourth class of yellow or red men, in which case the impartiality of your judgment would be more apparant.
Abraham Lincoln to John McMahon, August 6, 1864 (Reply to McMahon's August 5 telegram), Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress
That is an interesting theory except for the absence of one key piece of information: several northern states had equally and in some cases more extreme laws against free blacks at the same time. Illinois enacted laws designed to virtually prohibit blacks from living within their state. Oregon adopted these provisions in their state constitution. Elsewhere blacks were prevented from owning land, property, marrying whites, and for all practical purposes voting. Alexis de Tocqueville went so far as to observe that the northern cultural view of blacks was far more discriminatory and segregated than the southern even with slavery in place.
Not exactly without doubt. Augustine was no believer in the right to revolution. He believed that any revolt or revolution was by definition an unjust war.
Here are some quotes from a site about his teachings on "just war."
"Augustine believed that the moral intent in the mind of a party at war helped to determine whether the war was just. If the intent is to restore justice and order, then the motivation is right, and the war might be just. On the other hand, if an army is out to get revenge, or gain territory or riches, or foment revolt, the motivation is wrong and the war cannot be just."
Most people would agree that the South revolted against the Union when it seceded. Augustine would have said this was a precipitating of an unjust war. Also I believe that Lincoln's intent was to restore justice and order. You, of course, probably disagree.
"For Augustine, only leaders of governments have the legitimate authority to wage war, so any war of rebellion or revolution is by this definition unjust."
Pretty much nails it down.
You can make a case for Lincoln's invasion of the South being unjust using Christian theology, but you'll have to cite authorities later than Augustine to do it.
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