Lost on 'Cold Mountain': The anti-'Gods and Generals'. (Busting the Dixie myth.)

National Review ^ | January 7, 2004 | Mackubin Thomas Owens

[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.

-snip-

[Non-Sequitur]

In some respects, it was actually more anti-slavery than the U.S. Constitution. Article I, Section 9 had an out-right ban on the importation of slaves "from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America."

So in other words the confederate constitution specifically protected slave imports? Where did the U.S. Constitution do that?

[Non-Sequitur]

Why is it important to you to establish negative feelings by Lincoln towards blacks? Does dragging him down to some particular level make you feel better? I don't get it.

It keeps them from having to defend the negative feelings towards blacks held by every single southern leader.

[Non-Sequitur]

Grant held slaves until long after the Civil war.

No he did not.

It was a sovereign power with its own constitution, legislature, executive and judicial branches. It minted and produced it's own currency.

Nobody considered it 'sovereign' except the confederates themselves. The rest of the world saw them for what they were, a rebellious part of the U.S.

[Non-Sequitur]

No, the Confed. invaded the North twice, doing EXACTLY what you say the North did, and the tables were no reveresed at all.

With respect I must disagree with you. Countries invade countries. The confederacy was only a section of the U.S. in rebellion. Their actions cannot be classified an 'invasion' any more than can the Union army's movement throughout the southern states.

[Non-Sequitur]

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.

So your contention is that the southern laws were OK because you believe the Northern laws were worse. Isn't there a term for that line of arguement? Tu quoq-something?

[Non-Sequitur]

It took a Constitutional Amendment in the Northern States, but not in the District of Columbia which was not a state. There was no legal impediment to Congress abolishing slavery in the District.

Which they did on April 16, 1862. Five months before the issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

[Leatherneck_MT]

I'm sorry but the requirement did exist.

[LS]

That is splitting hairs, and, as you know, silly. An invasion is an invasion. The threat to the North was, in the eyes of the northerners, as grave as the threat to the Union army in VA.

[LS]

The letters of these Rebel leaders make absolutely clear that slavery had to be constitutionally protected. There was no doubt about its "legal" protected status therein---ever. That's why the secesh conventions stacked the deck.

[CobaltBlue]

Please provide a link or a citation for the Winfield Scott quotation, stating that Lincoln ordered him to reinforce Fort Sumter. I've run it on google and it doesn't show up. Using "reinforce fort sumter" and "winfield scott" as search terms shows nothing like what you've quoted, and using "reinforce fort sumter" and "h.l. scott" shows nothing at all. Using "reinforce fort sumter" and "aide de camp" also fails to turn up the document you allegedly cite.

I think either you made it up or your source made it up.

[CobaltBlue]

It doesn't make that history any less valid though.

Oh, pshaw. First you tout St. George Tucker as a great legal authority, and when I demonstrate that he's almost unknown, you rail against the frailties of mankind.

You're a humbug, sir.

[CobaltBlue]

You keep saying that Lincoln was sending reinforcements to Fort Sumter, how come you can't find documents that support that allegation?

[CobaltBlue]

Upon secession, there were no duties to collect.

Ha, ha. Very funny. Nice try.

[Non-Sequitur]

I'm sorry but the requirement did exist.

If you read the texts of the Reconstruction Acts you will find that it did not.

[CobaltBlue]

Bold, italics, bigger letters, underlined, black, blue - amazing what people can do with HTML these days!

[CobaltBlue]

As I have read, the Confederate currency promised to be fully convertible once a peace treaty between the Confederacy and the United States was signed.

You call that money?

[Restorer]

The act of seceding itself was not a revolt because it was done through peaceful legislative means that were built into the previously existing system of government.

This is a lovely example of the logical fallacy known as "begging the question." The whole war was fought over the question of whether there was a right to secession built into the previously existing system of government. I realize you believe there was, and I recognize that a great many southerners agreed. I hope you have the decency to admit that a great many Union men sincerely disagreed, some of them good southerners.

There is also a good deal of question as to whether secession, preceded and followed by armed attack/threat against federal outposts is peaceful. I seriously doubt you would view similar tactics used today, say by black separatists, as "peaceful," or view armed resistance to their armed attack as aggressive rather than defensive.

Another good example of begging the question is when pro-abortionists state that a woman has the right to do whatever she wants with her own body. I don't know anybody that is arguing against this premise. The whole discussion is over whether the fetus/baby constitutes part of her body or not.

Similarly, the whole argument over secession was about whether the Declaration of Independence, when it spoke of "We the People of the United States of America," was referring to the Peoples of the States, or to the the People of the United States. Unfortunately, the Constitution does not explicitly answer the question.

Both conclusions are logically defensible and were sincerely held by millions of men who were willing to fight and die for their beliefs. The only way to settle such a fundamental disagreement, unfortunately, was by war.

[Leatherneck_MT]

If you read this you will find that it did.

The South said it seceded and formed a new country. The US said no it never left it was only in rebellion.

Read the following. The Union gave the South their own country AFTER defeating it in war.

Whatever the Reconstruction acts said are immaterial. What HAPPENED is what is at issue here.

*In February, 1865, the XIII Amendment to the US Constitution was proposed by Congress. If ratified by at least ¾ of the state legislatures, it would become part of the Constitution. If so, it would outlaw slavery and most forms of involuntary servitude throughout the Union, even in loyal border states. This Amendment would be considered during 1865.

*With the War drawing to a close in 1865, Lincoln and the Congress considered how to deal with the South.

*Slavery had been ended legally in most of the Southern states by the Emancipation Proclamation, but some Southerners still clung to it. Furthermore, many people wondered exactly what to do with these freed slaves, who had no property and little experience outside field work.

*The North had lost 364,000 soldiers, and the South had lost 260,000. Many more men were crippled or otherwise permanently injured. There was a great deal of resentment on both sides as a result.

*The South was impoverished by the War. Southern industry, never strong, had been destroyed, fields and cities had been burnt, and Confederate paper money was worthless. The loss of their slaves alone cost the South $3 billion to rich southerners, and because blacks would work cheaper than whites (in part because whites would not pay them equally anyway) poor whites could not find work.

*The North was fairly prosperous afterwards, indeed, enjoying a new period of prosperity in many places, especially in industries that had profited from the War, such as railroads, certain factories, and food packers.

*Once back in the Union, would Southerners elect the same men back to Congress they once had, continuing the sectional crisis? Would Southern states ratify, or even accept the XIII Amendment, and even if they did, would they treat freedmen fairly? Should Southern state be allowed back in the Union at all?

*Lincoln wanted to treat the South leniently, and welcome them back as brothers. Congress was not sure Lincoln had the power to set such policy one way or the other, and many Congressmen would rather punish the South for the bloody war just ended, the evils of slavery, and years of sectional rivalries.

*As early as December, 1863, Lincoln proposed the Ten Percent Plan.
1. It offered a pardon to any Confederate who would swear an oath of allegiance to the
Union and accept the federal policy on slavery,
2. but it denied pardons to all Confederate military and government officials and anyone
who had killed black prisoners of war.
3. Most important, it allowed states to hold conventions and make new state
Constitutions as soon as 10% of the state’s population had sworn loyalty.

*Congress proposed a harsher plan, the Wade-Davis Bill in 1864. Radical Republicans believed the South needed a complete Reconstruction of its society. Among many tougher restrictions, the Wade-Davis Bill required all ex-Confederate men to take an oath of allegiance and swear that they had never borne arms against the United States. After all, they could be called traitors if they did—the Constitution defines treason as making war against the United States. Lincoln refused to sign this bill, thus using the pocket veto.

*The debate was violently re-opened on 14 April, 1865, when Lincoln was assassinated.

*President Johnson, like Lincoln, proposed a lenient plan, called Presidential Reconstruction similar to the Ten Percent Plan:
1. Pardons for Southerners who swear allegiance
2. Each state may write a new constitution without even the 10% provision.
3. States must pass laws voiding their secession acts, abolishing slavery, and
repudiating the Confederate debt.
When these provisions were met, states could hold elections and re-join the Union.

*It is early 1865. What should the Union do? How should the South be Reconstructed? What should be done about ex-Confederates, free blacks, and the rebellions states? Work alone or in groups to create a proposal.

[CobaltBlue]

The only way to settle such a fundamental disagreement, unfortunately, was by war.

How about a Constitutional Convention? How about a proposed Constitutional Amendment? How about an Act of Congress? In other words, how about using the political process?

[CobaltBlue]

The way to support an historical argument is to cite original sources - it's helpful these days when we argue on the Internet to have a link, but not necessary.

The reason original sources are cited is so that others can go back to the original document and see for themselves that what you say is, in fact, in the document you cite.

If you are using a secondary source (book, journal article that references a primary source), it will have footnotes or endnotes documenting the source.

If it doesn't have footnotes or endnotes, don't cite it. For purposes of a serious historical argument, it's garbage.