What Does It Mean "The South Shall Rise Again":

The Wichita (KS) Eagle ^ | 23 May 2007 | Mark McCormick

[Non-Sequitur]

False dilemma, BA.

Why? If Carton is going to say that Lincoln knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that his actions would provoke war then why is it 'false dilemma' to ask for his evidence? And when all he can offer as proof is his opinion and his opinion only the it's hard to take him seriously.

[Non-Sequitur]

If NS is correct that no one can know what Lincoln was thinking and certainly not his friends, cabinet, and secretaries.... then how does NS know so emphatically Lincoln's motives. But that's another matter.

No, it's a current matter. You've demanded a yes or no answer, did Lincoln know his actions would provoke the war or not? When I tried to answer by saying I didn't know for sure but what I believed was...you accused me of tap-dancing around the issue. Now you accuse me of emphatically knowing? Please. Apparently I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.

Can an objective historian draw an accurate picture of what Lincoln knew and did not know.

And what objective historian has done that? David Donald has written the most definitive biography of Lincoln in the recent years and he couldn't state definitively. McPherson and Goodwin couldn't say for sure. Which objective historian has? You?

[carton253]

As I have said... I have written my last word on the issue.

In the future, I will avoid your posts. Now, you can post all you want to me, about me, about what I write and what I say, but I will not answer. I will let my argument stand as it is... and those reading it can decide what was said between us and what was not.

You are a monumental waste of time and this is the last minute I will waste on you.

[rustbucket]

No. This will have been Robert Chew -- NS.

Correct. Robert S. Chew was a State Department clerk who traveled to Charleston with Lt. Theodore Talbot. Talbot asked Governor Pickens to see Chew. Pickens wanted to give Chew a reply but Chew said he was not authorized to accept it [source: the book Days of Defiance by Maury Klein. Lincoln apparently did not want to discuss anything with the principals on the other side in a situation he knew could lead to war. Was this the action of a man of peace or the actions of someone hoping to provoke war?

Here is what Major Anderson wrote back to the army on April 8 after receiving news that the fleet was coming. Anderson could see that war would result from Lincoln's ploy and the duplicitous way it had been handled.

I had the honor to receive by yesterday's mail the letter of the honorable Secretary of War, dated April 4, and confess that what he there states surprises me very greatly, following as it does and contradicting so positively the assurance Mr. Crawford telegraphed he was authorized to make. I trust that this matter will be at once put in a correct light, as a movement made now, when the South has been erroneously informed that none such will be attempted, would produce most disastrous results throughout our country.

It is, of course, now too late for me to give any advice in reference to the proposed scheme of Captain Fox. I fear that its result cannot fail to be disastrous to all concerned. ...

... I ought to have been informed that this expedition was to come. Colonel Lamon's remark convinced me that the idea, merely hinted at to me by Captain Fox, would not be carried out. We shall strive to do our duty, though I frankly say that my heart is not in the war which I see is to be thus commenced. That God will still avert it, and cause us to resort to pacific measures to maintain our rights, is my ardent prayer.

Interestingly the April 4 letter to Anderson from the Secretary of War informing him that the expedition was coming had been placed in an envelope addressed to Captain Foster there at Fort Sumter. A security measure perhaps? Foster took it to Anderson.

[mac_truck]

You are a monumental waste of time and this is the last minute I will waste on you.

IOW - Nonsequitur, you've debated me into a corner from which I cannot logically escape. Rather than acknowledge this fact and even though I provoked the exchange , I prefer to slither away under a cloud of ambiguity pointing one last accusatory finger at you as I go.

Did that about cover it Cheswick?

[carton253]

IOW - Nonsequitur, you've debated me into a corner from which I cannot logically escape. Rather than acknowledge this fact and even though I provoked the exchange , I prefer to slither away under a cloud of ambiguity pointing one last accusatory finger at you as I go.

You've learned your lessons well. You will fit in here among the Unionist pack very well. In fact, you can play James Carville to NS's Bill Clinton.

I think that does about cover it, Cheswick.

[rustbucket]

Correction on my timing of Davis’s callup of troops. I just discovered that Davis called for 20,000 troops on April 8 when he learned that his commissioners in Washington were denied recognition. He might have called for some troops before then as the crisis was heating up.

[x]

If this is your criteria, I assume that you would not have been happy with the Lincoln Administration's rule over of the North and the border states during the war. All of the things you list also happened in the North and in northern controlled border states. There were bad folks in both regions during that time period. The South didn’t have a monopoly on them, nor did the North.

The things I'm talking about started before Lincoln even took office. Whether what he did was right or wrong, he didn't start it.

I’m curious. What fraudulent elections were you talking about in the South? I'm aware of election problems in Delaware, New York, and Kentucky during the war, and the overthrow of elected government in Maryland. Missouri too maybe, but I don't know the history of that state very well.

We still don't know whether Georgians voted secession up or down at the polls or whether a majority wanted secession. I don't know if the main reason was confusion, coercion, and corruption at the polls, but the results of the election are quite uncertain. Wasn't there one state that was obligated to put the secession question before the voters in a referendum, and didn't? Notice that this happened well before the things you complain about.

Seizing property and bad behavior? I suspect that you are not talking about looting by Federal troops at Fredericksburg or what occurred in Georgia and South Carolina along Sherman's path.

That has as little to do with my point as the re-enslavement of free blacks when Lee invaded the North. Once again, I'm talking about things that occurred before any of these things happened. If I recall correctly, Virginia's governor seized federal arms before the state voted for secession, maybe even after the state convention voted secession down. The saying about South Carolina in 1865 was Hosea 8:1-14 - "They Sow the Wind, and Reap the Whirlwind." Not a very Christian sentiment, perhaps, but perfectly understandable.

There were all sorts of provocations going on:

True, but Davis had an opportunity to define himself as a reasonable alternative to the hotheadedness of Pickens and the South Carolinians and he didn't take it. Maybe it was already too late, since he'd determined to become head of his own country, but Davis wasn't exactly a peacemaker.

Anderson occupying Sumter in apparent violation of the informal truce between South Carolinians and Buchanan.

Aside from the obvious nonsense of a "truce" between the federal government and one of the states, you'll have to explain what you're talking about. What "truce" was there when South Carolina was already seizing federal installations? How "informal" was it? Maybe Non-Sequitur could help with the details.

William C. Davis, Jefferson Davis's biographer, writes in his essay "Myths and Realities of the Confederacy" (The Cause Lost : Myths and Realities of the Confederacy, 1996), that a state of civil insurrection existed well before the attack on Sumter: " Jefferson Davis did not need to open fire on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861 to begin the war. Armed insurrection began on December 27, 1860, when the South Carolina forces seized Castle Pinckney and Fort Moultrie and the U.S. revenue cutter William Aitken." (p. 188). The rest of the essay and book are well worth a look.

I’m sorry. You lost me. What was unconstitutional or illegitimate? Please cite the law or part of the Constitution being violated.

I assume that Article 1, Section 10 also applies to a league or alliance or confederacy of states:

No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with a foreign Power, or engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay. Emphasis added.

[smug]

President Buchanan? Is that you?

No! it's the ghost of President Lincoln. I have learned my lesson.

[x]

It looks to me like Hamilton is talking about the deficiencies of the Articles of Confederation. The federal government relied on the states for its revenue. If a state didn't comply, what could the federal government do? Send troops in? That's the absurdity that Hamilton is dealing with and why he supports giving the federal union the ability to levy taxes itself.

Your quote is from a speech Hamilton gave at the New York State ratifying convention in Poughkeepsie. Let's look at more of what he says:

A complying State at war with a non-complying State; Congress marching the troops of one State into the bosom of another; this State collecting auxiliaries and forming perhaps a majority against its federal head. Here is a nation at war with itself! A government that can exist only by the sword! Every such war must involve the innocent with the guilty. This single consideration should be sufficient to dispose every peaceable citizen against such a government.

But can we believe that one State will ever suffer itself to be used as an instrument of coercion? It is a dream. It is impossible. We are brought to this dilemma: Either a federal standing army is to enforce the requisitions, or the federal treasury is left without supplies, and the government without support. What is the cure for this great evil? Nothing but to enable the national laws to operate on individuals, in the same manner as those of the States do. This is the true reasoning upon the subject. Gentlemen appear to acknowledge its force, and yet, while they yield to the principle, they seem to fear its application to this government.

Well, we had a federal army to enforce the laws in 1861. Lincoln was never as much of a Hamiltonian as his modern detractors claim, but it's safe to say that in 1861, Hamilton, like Madison, would have been if not exactly a Lincolnian, then at least against the rebellion.

You can find Hamilton's argument, its context, and conclusions further developed in Federalist No. 16.

[rustbucket]

Aside from the obvious nonsense of a "truce" between the federal government and one of the states, you'll have to explain what you're talking about. What "truce" was there when South Carolina was already seizing federal installations? How "informal" was it?

I'm surprised you hadn't heard of it. There is a discussion of it in Maury Klein's well documented book Days of Defiance. Five Carolina congressmen put together a letter in December 1860 prior to secession in response from a request by Buchanan that their proposal previously presented to him be in writing. They had proposed that the status quo be maintained with regard to the forts and that the matter be resolved through negotiation.

The South Carolinians verbally explained that any shift of troops by Anderson from Fort Moultrie to Fort Sumter would violate their proposal. Buchanan said that his policy was to maintain the status quo but that he couldn't pledge anything. He said that it was a "matter of honor among gentlemen."

From Klein: "All parties went away believing a bargain had been struck, without knowing exactly what the bargain was, who the parties to it were, and what its precise terms were."

Buchanan's reaction to Anderson occupying Sumter was interesting. From Klein again:

...The next morning when Trescot was readying their credentials [the credentials of the South Carolina commissioners who had come to talk with Buchanan], Louis Wigfall burst in with a telegram that Anderson had spiked Moultrie's guns and moved to Sumter. The commissioners and Trescot were stunned. "True or not," said Trescot amid an animated discussion, "I will pledge my life that if it has been done it has been without orders from Washington.

Just then Floyd arrived. He blanched at the news and confirmed what Trescot had said, that such a move "would be not only against orders but in the face of orders." ....

Trescot informed Senators Jefferson Davis and Robert Hunter and went with them to the White House to demand an explanation. Buchanan had not heard of Anderson's action.

Buchanan slumped into a chair. "My God!" he cried wearily. "Are calamities ... never to come singly! I call God to witness -- you gentlemen better than anybody else know that this is not only without but against my orders. It is against my policy." ...

[rustbucket]

I assume that Article 1, Section 10 also applies to a league or alliance or confederacy of states:

The article would apply to states remaining in the Union. There was nothing in the Constitution prohibiting states from seceding, and the understandings of Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island at the time of ratification confirm that. Once a state seceded, constitutional restrictions no longer applied to them.

The rules of Great Britain no longer apply to us -- we seceded from them. Mexican rules no longer apply to Texas (yet) -- Texas seceded, and the US accepted that secession.

[rustbucket]

Texas seceded from Mexico, that is.

[rustbucket]

Armed insurrection began on December 27, 1860, when the South Carolina forces seized Castle Pinckney and Fort Moultrie and the U.S. revenue cutter William Aitken." (p. 188).

Armed force actually began on December 26, 1860 when Federal troops overpowered a ship's captain (he fought back at this piracy) and had him take them to Sumter, and when they arrived at Sumter Federal troops charged the civilian laborers there with bayonets.

The ship incident is described in E. Milby Burton's excellent book, The Siege of Charleston, 1861-1865."

[Non-Sequitur]

You've learned your lessons well. You will fit in here among the Unionist pack very well. In fact, you can play James Carville to NS's Bill Clinton.

Note how when peeved they resort to type and try and insult us by calling us liberals? I'm not sure which is more humerous, the attempted insult or the fact that he chose southern liberals to do it with.

[Non-Sequitur]

There was nothing in the Constitution prohibiting states from seceding...

And nothing in it implying that they could secede unilaterally.

The rules of Great Britain no longer apply to us -- we seceded from them.

We rebelled from them. We fought for 8 years before we could say we were free from the rules of Great Britain. Our actions in 1775 were no more legal than the Southern actions in 1861.

Mexican rules no longer apply to Texas (yet)

I'd keep checking on that if I were you, gringo.

Texas seceded, and the US accepted that secession.

Again, Texas rebelled and fought a war and achieved its independence only when they won their rebellion and Santa Ana acknowledged it.

[rustbucket]

And nothing in it implying that they could secede unilaterally.

As Jefferson Davis said on the Senate Floor, January 10, 1861:

...the tenth amendment of the Constitution declared that all which had not been delegated was reserved to the States or to the people. Now, I ask where among the delegated grants to the Federal Government do you find any power to coerce a state; where among the provisions of the Constitution do you find any prohibition on the part of a State to withdraw; and if you find neither one nor the other, must not this power be in that great depository, the reserved rights of the States? How was it ever taken out of that source of all power to the Federal Government? It was not delegated to the Federal Government; it was not prohibited to the States; it necessarily remains, then, among the reserved powers of the States.

[smug]

And nothing in it implying that they could secede unilaterally.

In this article provision was deliberately made for the secession (if necessary) of a part of the States from a union(Articles of Confederation), which, when formed, had been declared "perpetual," and its terms and articles to be "inviolably observed by every State." Opposition was made to the provision on this very ground—that it was virtually a dissolution of the Union,(Articles of Confederation) and that it would furnish a precedent for future secessions. Mr. Gerry, a distinguished member from Massachusetts—afterward Vice-President of the United States—said, "If nine out of thirteen (States) can dissolve the compact,(Articles of Confederation) six out of nine will be just as able to dissolve the future one (The Constitution) hereafter." Mr. Madison, who was one of the leading members of the Convention, advocating afterward, in the "Federalist," the adoption of the new Constitution, asks the question, "On what principle the Confederation, which stands in the solemn form of a compact among the States, can be superseded without the unanimous consent of the parties to it?

" He answers this question "by recurring to the absolute necessity of the case; to the great principle of self-preservation; to the transcendent law of nature and of nature's God, which declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed." He proceeds, however, to give other grounds of justification: "It is an established doctrine on the subject of treaties, that all the articles are mutually conditions of each other; that a breach of any one article is a breach of the whole treaty; and that a breach committed by either of the parties absolves the others, and authorizes them, if they please, to pronounce the compact violated and void. .... with a recognition of the right of the recusant minority to withdraw, secede, or stand aloof.The idea of compelling any State or States to enter into or to continue in union with the others by coercion, is as absolutely excluded under the one supposition as under the other—with reference to one State or a minority of States, as well as with regard to a majority. The article declares that "the ratification of the Conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution"—not between all, but—"between the States so ratifying the same."

I think Madison implies it pretty well here.

[Non-Sequitur]

Was this the action of a man of peace or the actions of someone hoping to provoke war?

If he was hoping to provoke a war then why would he make it clear that had the South not intervened then only food and supplies would be landed? Wouldn't he have just thrown men and munitions in along with the supplies if his intent was to provoke a war? By clearly differentiating one from the other it looks more like the act of a man who is leaving the question of peace or war in the hands of Jefferson Davis.

Sumter was short of food, that is indisputable. The confederate intent was to starve it into surrender and change the balance. Lincoln's intent was to maintain the status quo. Which is more peaceful?

[Non-Sequitur]

Buchanan's reaction to Anderson occupying Sumter was interesting.

Indeed. In his letter to Barnwell, Adams and Orr on December 31 he refused to condemn Anderson's actions, pointing out that the major was under orders to take whatever steps were necessary to ensure the safety of his men and he wasn't going to second-guess him. I'm not aware of any public statement ever made by Buchanan where he condemned the move.