Posted on 06/14/2004 5:16:34 AM PDT by Theodore R.
They Aren’t What They Used to Be
May 27, 2004
If I had to sum up American history in one sentence, I’d put it this way: The United States aren’t what they used to be.
That’s not nostalgia. That’s literal fact. Before the Civil War, the United States was a plural noun. The U.S. Constitution uses the plural form when, for example, it refers to enemies of the United States as “their” enemies. And this was the usage of everyone who understood that the union was a voluntary federation of sovereign states, delegating only a few specified powers, and not the monolithic, “consolidated,” all-powerful government it has since become.
Maybe Americans prefer the present megastate to the one the Constitution describes. But they ought to know the difference. They shouldn’t assume that the plural United States were essentially the same thing as today’s United State, or that the one naturally “evolved” into the other.
The change was violent, not natural. Lincoln waged war on states that tried to withdraw from the Union, denying their right to do so. This was a denial of the Declaration of Independence, which called the 13 former colonies “Free and Independent States.”
Washington and Jefferson at times expressed their fear that some states might secede, but they took for granted that this was the right of any free and independent state. They advised against exercising that right except under serious provocation, but they assumed it was a legitimate option against the threat of a centralized government that exceeded its constitutional powers.
Before the Civil War, several states considered leaving the Union, and abolitionists urged Northern states to do so in order to end their association with slave states. Congressman John Quincy Adams, a former president, wanted Massachusetts to secede if Texas was admitted to the Union. Nobody suggested that Adams didn’t understand the Constitution he was sworn to uphold.
But the danger to the states’ independence was already growing. Andrew Jackson had threatened to invade South Carolina if it seceded, shocking even so ardent a Unionist as Daniel Webster. Jackson didn’t explain where he got the power to prevent secession, a power not assigned to the president in the Constitution. Why not? For the simple reason that the Constitution doesn’t forbid secession; it presupposes that the United States are, each of them, free and independent.
Still, Lincoln used Jackson’s threat as a precedent for equating secession with “rebellion” and using force to crush it. This required him to do violence to the Constitution in several ways. He destroyed the freedoms of speech and press in the North; he arbitrarily arrested thousands, including elected officials who opposed him; he not only invaded the seceding states, but deposed their governments and imposed military dictatorships in their place.
In essence, Lincoln made it a crime — “treason,” in fact — to agree with Jefferson. Northerners who held that free and independent states had the right to leave the Union — and who therefore thought Lincoln’s war was wrong — became, in Lincoln’s mind, the enemy within. In order to win the war, and reelection, he had to shut them up. But his reign of terror in the North has received little attention.
He may have “saved the Union,” after a fashion, but the Union he saved was radically different from the one described in the Constitution. Even his defenders admit that when they praise him for creating “a new Constitution” and forging “a second American Revolution.” Lincoln would have been embarrassed by these compliments: He always insisted he was only enforcing and conserving the Constitution as it was written, though the U.S. Supreme Court, including his own appointees, later ruled many of his acts unconstitutional.
The Civil War completely changed the basic relation between the states, including the Northern states, and the Federal Government. For all practical purposes, the states ceased to be free and independent.
Sentimental myths about Lincoln and the war still obscure the nature of the fundamental rupture they brought to American history. The old federal Union was transformed into the kind of “consolidated” system the Constitution was meant to avoid. The former plurality of states became a single unit. Even our grammar reflects the change.
So the United States were no longer a “they”; they’d become an “it.” Few Americans realize the immense cost in blood, liberty, and even logic that lies behind this simple change of pronouns.
Joseph Sobran
John B. Baldwin, testimony given in Washington, D.C. on 10 February 1866; in Report of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1866)
Regarding His Interview With Abraham Lincoln on 4 April 1861
Washington, D.C., February 10, 1866
John B. Baldwin sworn and examined by Mr. Howard:
Question. Did you make a journey to Washington before the firing on Fort Sumter?
Answer. I did. I came here on the night of the 3d of April, 1861; I was here on the 4th day of April, 1861.
Question. Did you have an interview with President Lincoln?
Answer. I did have a private interview with him, lasting perhaps an hour.
Question. Do you feel at liberty to state what transpired at that interview?
Answer. I do sir; I know of no reason why I should not.
Question. Have the goodness to state it.
* * *
Said I, “Sir, I beg your pardon, for I only know of you as a politician, a successful politician; and possibly I have fallen into the error of addressing you by the motives which are generally potent with politicians, the motive of gaining friends. I thank you that you have recalled to me the higher and better motive of being right; and I assure you that, from now on, I will address you only by the motives that ought to influence a gentleman.”
Question. You drew a distinction between a politician and a gentleman?
Answer. Yes, sir; he laughed a little at that. He said something about the withdrawal of the troops from Sumter on the ground of military necessity.
Said I, “That will never do, under heaven. You have been President a month to-day, and if you intended to hold that position you ought to have strengthened it, so as to make it impregnable. To hold it in the present condition of force there is an invitation to assault. Go upon higher ground than that. The better ground than that is to make a concession of an asserted right in the interest of peace.”
“Well,” said he, “what about the revenue? What would I do about the collection of duties?”
Said I, “Sir, how much do you expect to collect in a year?”
Said he, “Fifty or sixty millions.”
“Why, sir,” said I, “four times sixty is two hundred and forty. Say $250,000,000 would be the revenue of your term of the presidency; what is that but a drop in the bucket compared with the cost of such a war as we are threatened with? Let it all go, if necessary; but I do not believe that it will be necessary, because I believe that you can settle it on the basis I suggest.”
He said something or other about feeding the troops at Sumter. I told him that would not do. Said I, “You know perfectly well that the people of Charleston have been feeding them already. That is not what they are at. They are asserting a right. They will feed the troops, and fight them while they are feeding them. They are after the assertion of a right. Now, the only way that you can manage them is to withdraw from the means of making a blow until time for reflection, time for influence which can be brought to bear, can be gained, and settle the matter. If you do not take this course, if there is a gun fired at Sumter -- I do not care on which side it is fired -- the thing is gone.”
“Oh,” said he, “sir, that is impossible.”
Said I, “Sir, if there is a gun fired at Fort Sumter, as sure as there is a God in heaven the thing is gone. Virginia herself, strong as the Union majority in the convention is now, will be out in forty-eight hours.”
“Oh,” said he, “sir, that is impossible.”
Said I, “Mr. President, I did not come here to argue with you; I am here as a witness. I know the sentiments of the people of Virginia, and you do not. I understand that I was to come here to give you information of the sentiments of the people, and especially of the sentiments of the Union men of the convention. I wish to know before we go any further in this matter, for it is of too grave importance to have any doubt of it, whether I am accredited to you in such a way as that what I tell you is worthy of credence.”
LINK to 4CJ post of 7/28/2003 which provided much of the supporting documentation cited upthread and in my prior posts on other threads.
But for those who really, really feel they are not paying their fair share and need to be taxed more... you may recall that a few years ago Governor Huckabee of Arkansas created the Tax Me More Fund for just such people who felt an irresistable impulse to pay more.
Huckabee said he would not donate to the fund and added that no Arkansans he has met outside of the Capitol have asked him to raise taxes.However, "There's nothing in the law that prohibits those who believe they aren't paying enough in taxes from writing a check to the state of Arkansas," Huckabee said. "Maybe this will make them feel better."
Needless to say, few of the liberals put their money where their mouth was.
You are welcome to claim him as your hero.
LOUISIANA MEETS SHERMAN, 1860.
As the building of his house progressed, Sherman confided to [his wife's brother] Tom that moving to Louisiana would
be a trial to Ellen -- far, far harder than San Francisco or Leavenworth. ... I have no doubt one of our first troubles will be that Ellen's servants will all quit, after we have gone into debt to get them here. And then she will have to wait on herself -- or "buy a nigger." What will you think of that -- our buying niggers -- but it is inevitable. Niggers wont work unless they are owned. And white servants are not to be found in this Parish. Everybody owns their own servants.... You must be careful in your black Republican speeches not to be down on us too hard, for your own sister may be found by necessity to traffic in Human flesh.
William Sherman to Thomas Ewing Jr., Seminary of Learning, June 21, 1860, box 154, Thomas Ewing Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
SHERMAN ON RACE AND POLITICS
I see my name occasionally alluded to in conversation with some popular office. You may tell all that I would rather serve 4 years in the Sing Sing Penitentiary than in Washington & believe I could come out a better man. If that aint emphatic enough use stronger expressions and I will endorse them. Let those who love niggers better than whites follow me, and we will see who loves his Country best -- A nigger as such is a most excellent fellow, but he is not fit to marry, to associate, or vote with me, or mine.
William Sherman to William M. McPherson, Goldsboro (N.C.), March 24, 1865, Huntington Manuscripts, Henry E. Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
SHERMAN ON STANTON AND NEGRO SUFFRAGE
No amount of retraction or pusillanimous excusing will do. Mr Stanton must publicly confess himself a common libeller or -- but I wont threaten.... He seeks your life and reputaton as well as mine.... He want the vast patronage of the military governorships of the South, and the votes of the Free Negro... for political Capital, and whoever stands in his way must die.
William Sherman to Ulysses S. Grant, camp opposite Richmond, May 10, 1865, reel 9, cont. 16, William Sherman Papers, Library of Congress.
SHERMAN DURING HIS STAY IN THE SOUTHWEST
Sante Fe is the oldest town in the United States except St Augustine, but the People with a few exceptions are greasers of the commonest sort....
William Sherman to Ellen Sherman, Santa Fe (N. Mex. Terr.), June 7, 1868, roll 3, Sherman Family Papers.
SHERMAN ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
Three days after Canby's Death, Sherman names as his successor Colonel Jefferson C. Davis of the the Twenty-third Indiana, the same Jeff Davis who twice on the march to Savannah had taken up pontoon bridges and abvandoned feeling slaves to the tender mercies of Wheeler's cavalry. Characterizing his soldiers as "cowardly beef eaters," Davis relentlessly pursued the Modocs, apprehending Jack on June 3. "Davis should have killed every Modoc before taking him if possible, Sherman advised Sheridan after the capture; "then there would have been no complications."
SOURCE: Stanley P. Hirshson, The White Tecumseh: A Biography of General William T. Sherman, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1997, p. 72, 298, 315, 336, 352.
And the second ;o)
Sherman [*SPIT*] was a man after Lincoln's own heart.
Two YEARS after creation, the fund had received less than $3,000.
In a just country, equality before the law belongs to the equally responsible.
First, with a view toward moving to Louisiana, Sherman notes the lack of available white "slaves" for rent. As a result, a dilemma arises. The Shermans might have to wait on themselves. Just the thought erased any moral dilemma about slavery. As Sherman noted, it might be a "necessity to traffic in Human flesh." For some folks back then, the Law of Necessity could be invoked to justify anything and the moral imperative to eliminate slavery yielded to the elite social imperative to have servants.
Second, Sherman noted that "[Stanton] want[s] the vast patronage of the military governorships of the South, and the votes of the Free Negro... for political Capital, and whoever stands in his way must die."
Suffrage was given to Black men whom one could presume would vote Republican in overwhelming numbers. Suffrage was not given to women. Enfranching women would have created many Democrat voters. In 1868, Grant prevailed in the popular vote 2,971,851 -- 2,689,625 by 282,226 votes. |Link| There were approximately 700,000 votes by newly enfranchised Black voters.
Vote totals vary slightly from one source to the next, but it appears Grant won the popular vote by a total of about 300,000 votes while losing the popular vote of the White voters.
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