Your argument is invalid.
Posted on 03/10/2013 8:19:44 AM PDT by BroJoeK
Ten Neo-Confederate Myths (+one)
In fact, a study of the earliest secessionists documents shows, when they bother to give reasons at all, their only major concern was to protect the institution of slavery.
For example, four seceding states issued "Declarations of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify Secession from the Federal Union".
These documents use words like "slavery" and "institution" over 100 times, words like "tax" and "tariff" only once (re: a tax on slaves), "usurpation" once (re: slavery in territories), "oppression" once (re: potential future restrictions on slavery).
So secession wasn't just all about slavery, it was only about slavery.
In fact, secessionists biggest real complaint was that Washington was not doing enough to enforce fugitive slave laws in Northern states.
Mississippi's Declaration is instructive since it begins by explaining why slavery is so important:
It goes on to complain that the Federal Government is not enforcing its own Fugitive Slave laws, saying that anti-slavery feeling:
In fact, the Compromise of 1850 shifted responsibility for enforcing Fugitive Slave laws from northern states to the Federal Government, so this complaint amounts to a declaration that Washington is not powerful enough.
In fact, no where in the Founders' literature is the 10th Amendment referenced as justifying unilateral, unapproved secession "at pleasure".
Instead, secession (or "disunion") is always seen as a last resort, requiring mutual consent or material usurpations and oppression.
For example, the Virginia Ratification Statement says:
James Madison explained it this way:
"It is the nature & essence of a compact that it is equally obligatory on the parties to it, and of course that no one of them can be liberated therefrom without the consent of the others, or such a violation or abuse of it by the others, as will amount to a dissolution of the compact.
Applying this view of the subject to a single community, it results, that the compact being between the individuals composing it, no individual or set of individuals can at pleasure, break off and set up for themselves, without such a violation of the compact as absolves them from its obligations."
In fact, the 1860 Republican platform only called for restricting slavery from territories where it did not already exist.
And Lincoln repeatedly said he would not threaten slavery in states where it was already legal.
In fact, neither out-going President Buchanan nor incoming President Lincoln did anything to stop secessionists from declaring independence and forming a new Confederacy.
And Buchanan did nothing to stop secessionists from unlawfully seizing Federal properties or threatening and shooting at Federal officials.
Nor did Lincoln, until after the Confederacy started war at Fort Sumter (April 12, 1861) and then formally declared war on the United States, May 6, 1861.
In fact, no Confederate soldier was killed by any Union force, and no Confederate state was "invaded" by any Union army until after secessionists started war at Fort Sumter and formally declared war on May 6, 1861.
The first Confederate soldier was not killed directly in battle until June 10, 1861.
In fact, from Day One, Confederacy was an assault on the United States, and did many things to provoke and start, then formally declared war on the United States.
From Day One secessionists began to unlawfully seize dozens of Federal properties (i.e., forts, armories, ships, arsenals, mints, etc.), often even before they formally declared secession.
At the same time, they illegally threatened, imprisoned and fired on Federal officials -- for example, the ship Star of the West attempting to resupply Fort Sumter in January 1861 -- then launched a major assault to force Sumter's surrender, while offering military support for secessionist forces in a Union state (Missouri) .
And all of that was before formally declaring war on the United States.
After declaring war, the Confederacy sent forces into every Union state near the Confederacy, and some well beyond.
Invaded Union states & territories included:
In every state or territory outside the Confederacy proper, Confederate forces both "lived off the land" and attempted to "requisition" supplies to support Confederate forces at home.
Secessionists also assaulted the United states by claiming possession of several Union states and territories which had never, or could never, in any form vote to seceed.
So bottom line: the Confederacy threatened every Union state and territory it could reach.
In fact, there are remarkably few records of civilians murdered or raped by either side, certainly as compared to other wars in history.
But "pillaging" is a different subject, and both sides did it -- at least to some degree.
The Union army was generally self-sufficient, well supplied from its own rail-heads, and seldom in need to "live off the land."
In four years of war, the best known exceptions are Grant at Vicksburg and Sherman's "march to the sea".
In both cases, their actions were crucial to victory.
By contrast, Confederate armies were forced to "live off the land" both at home and abroad.
Yes, inside the Confederacy itself, armies "paid" for their "requisitions" with nearly worthless money, but once they marched into Union states and territories, their money was absolutely worthless, and so regardless of what they called it, their "requisitions" were no better than pillaging.
Perhaps the most famous example of Confederate pillaging, it's often said, cost RE Lee victory at the Battle of Gettysburg: while Lee's "eyes and ears" -- J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry -- was out pillaging desperately needed supplies in Maryland and Pennsylvania, Lee was partially blind to Union movements and strengths.
In fact, only one crime is defined in the US Constitution, and that is "treason".
The Constitution's definition of "treason" could not be simpler and clearer:
The Constitution also provides for Federal actions against "rebellion", "insurrection", "domestic violence", "invasion" declared war and treason.
So Pro-Confederate arguments that "there was no treason" depend first of all on the legality of secession.
If their secession was lawful, then there was no "treason", except of course among those citizens of Union states (i.e., Maryland, Kentucky & Missouri) which "adhered to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort".
But the bottom line is this: in previous cases -- i.e., the Whiskey Rebellion -- once rebellion was defeated, rebels were all released or pardoned by the President of the United States.
And that pattern, first established by President Washington, was followed under Presidents Lincoln and Johnson.
In fact, lawful secession by mutual consent could be 100% constitutional, if representatives submitted and passed such a bill in Congress, signed by the President.
Alternatively, states could bring suit in the United States Supreme Court for a material breach of contract and have the Federal government declared an "oppressive" or "usurping" power justifying secession.
But Deep-South slave-holders' unilateral, unapproved declarations of secession, without any material breach of contract issues, followed by insurrection and a declaration of war on the United States -- these our Founders clearly understood were acts of rebellion and treason -- which the Constitution was designed to defeat.
That leads to the larger question of whether our Pro-Confederates actually respect the Constitution as it was intended or, do they really wish for a return to those far looser, less binding -- you might even say, 1960s style "free love" marriage contract -- for which their union was named: the Articles of Confederation?
But consider: the Confederacy's constitution was basically a carbon copy of the US Constitution, emphasizing rights of holders of human "property".
So there's no evidence that Confederate leaders were in any way more tolerant -- or "free love" advocates -- regarding secession from the Confederacy than any Union loyalist.
Then what, precisely, does the allegation of "statism" mean?
The truth is, in this context, it's simply one more spurious insult, and means nothing more than, "I don't like you because you won't agree with me."
Poor baby... ;-)
Plus, one "bonus" myth:
No, no, no way...
Yes, FDR could be the O-man's political daddy, and his political mother those 1960s radicals like, well, his mother.
And one of his grandparents is well known: his intellectual maternal grandpa is Karl Marx.
But the other grandpa is certainly not Lincoln.
Rather, it is Lincoln's evil doppelganger, the other tall thin President born in Kentucky: Jefferson Davis.
How can that be?
Well, here's my list -- both Obama and Davis are/were:
Hood’s wounds at Gettysburg, and loss of a leg at Chickamauga—really have to say he must have been driven- and reason/military logic escaped him. Terrible at Franklin, esp the loss of Patrick Cleburne.
Exciting to learn of a cache of Hood’s papers/letters has been found, giving balance:
http://www.civilwarnews.com/archive/articles/2012/nov/hood-111201.htm
Your argument is invalid.
Sorry, FRiend, but the "revisionists" are all those who taught you whatever it is you think you know about the Civil War.
Both sides were Americans and that is all that matters.
Hell, our most famous General’s family fought for the South - i.e. the Pattons of Virginia. The irony is that the South (generally speaking) has become the last bastion of freedom against the encroaching and sinister effects of socialism seeping in from the rest of the country. Folks in the midwest and Intermountain West need to stand with the Southerners on this before the left and east coast pukes have us all in serivtude. Posts likes this only serve to divide otherwise conservatively similar people on FR. Of course I do not mean this as a slight on FR's founder, who hails from California.
You’re very observant.
He also didn’t have a single vote south of the Mason-Dixon. He was president in the North, and only just barely that, winning Illinois with 53 percent, Iowa, with 54, Indiana with 51, Ohio with 51, New York with 53, etc.
He remains the only president elected with only 30 percent of the total vote, since South carolina was excluded from the election.
Make it decafe ‘’mom’’,folks are already rilled up!
I’m more than that pal but I try always to be a gentleman which refrains me from telling you what you can do with that treasonous rag.
Bless your heart.
He also didn’t earn a single vote south of the Mason Dixon. He may have been president of the North, but not of the South.
What the American Navy did to the Japanese Imperial Navy at Midway in 1942 is war as an art form. The South in the Civil War conducted itself as little more than an illiterate mob with guns.
From a page called "Defending the Heritage" on FB:
DÉJÀ VU…?
TYRANNY…When someone in the Executive Branch says they can kill you without due process……….I’d be a little concerned when they begin comparing the current resident of the White House with the 16th who...
... disarmed the Border States, suspended habeas Corpus, declared Martial Law, engaged the military without Congressional approval, threatened the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, imprisoned almost an entire state legislature, deported his most vocal opponent in Congress, shut down hundreds of newspapers and jailed the editors, made total war on civilians, sat by while his minions set fire to and looted whole towns, freed slaves only where he couldn’t reach them and held them in bondage where he could have set them free, stationed armed guards at polling places to intimidate voters, recruited foreign immigrants to use as cannon fodder, promoted his generals after they executed innocent citizens, started a war to collect taxes on demand of his political and corporate cronies.
The latest research places the number of dead soldiers from his war at 750,000, add to that tens of thousands of Southern civilians and millions maimed or disfigured for life.
His law partner states that, he “coveted honor and was eager for power. He was impatient of any interference that delayed or obstructed his progress."
Sound familiar, about the only thing he didn’t do regularly was play golf and shoot hoops…
~Robert~
Photo: Two fast talking lanky lawyers from Illinois…
My mentor on this subject is James Madison, whose words I quoted immediately after the Virginia ratification.
In Madison's formulation, "mutual consent" to disunion is the moral equivalent of "oppression" or "usurpations" which are a "violation of the compact as absolves them from its obligations."
But there were no -- zero, zip, nada, none -- "usurpations" "oppression" or "injuries" in November 1860, just days after Lincoln's election and four months before his inauguration, when South Carolina slave-holders first began organizing to declare their secession.
That made their declarations neither "mutual consent" nor from "violations of the compact" of which Madison approved, but rather disunion "at pleasure" of which he did not.
I think your view that the war was only about slavery is as incorrect as the war had nothing to do with slavery. Virginia voted against secession in April 1861 and did not seceded until Lincoln called up troops for an invasion of the South.
My great-grandfather (4 of my great-grandfathers served in the Confederate army) served as a private in the 10th Virginia and was not a slave-owner, 95% of the population of Virginia were not slave-owners. Yet after the war he apparently raised two black teenagers for they are listed as part of his household in the 1870 census.
Union troops invoked total war against the citizens of Virginia— they burned farms, killed livestock, and destroyed mills. Sheridan’s destruction of the Shenandoah Valley and “The Burning” conducted in Fauquier, Prince William, Loudoun, etc. are well documented.
Oh, I feel the same toward my fellow Virginians who voted for Obama, believe me. "All y'all", though, doesn't apply to my county and the surrounding ones, which stayed reliably red. This is redneck country, and we're proud of it.
Besides, making fun of conservatives because they live in blue states doesn't make much sense, does it?
“Both sides were Americans and that is all that matters.”
Precisely!
General Ely S. Parker, a member of the Seneca tribe,
drew up the articles of surrender
which General Robert E. Lee
signed at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865.
Gen. Parker, who served as Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s
military secretary was an educated attorney who was once
rejected for Union military service because of his race.
At the meeting, Gen. Lee was at first taken aback
at the presence of an Indian being in such a position.
After he got to know Parker,
Lee is said to have remarked to him,
“I am glad to see one real American here.”
Parker replied, “We are all Americans.”
From Chapter 13, Jesus Wept, An American Story
http://jesusweptanamericanstory.blogspot.com/
Dude. Think.
"Y'all" is a contraction of "you all." When you use it in the singular sense, as Yankees sometimes do when they think they're being hilarious, it looks, well...dumb.
Exactly - just like “All y’all”
I didn’t realize it was a requirement.
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