Posted on 12/20/2001 4:01:19 AM PST by shuckmaster
Some reviewers have had a hard time with the present book. They imagine that there is a single historical thesis therein, one subject to definitive proof or refutation. In this, I believe they are mistaken. Instead, what we have here is a multifaceted critique of what must be the most central event in American history.
This is not Mr. Adams’s first book. His For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization (1999) lives up to its title and underscores the importance of a matter frequently ignored by conventional historians. Taxation and other fiscal matters certainly play a major role in Adams’s reconstruction of the War for Southern Independence.
Those who long for the simple morality play in which Father Abraham saved the Union (always capitalized) and emancipated the slaves out of his vision and kindness have complained that Adams has ignored slavery as a cause of the war. That is incorrect. Slavery and the racial issue connected with it are present; they do not, however, have the causal stage all to themselves.
In chapter one, Adams sets the American war over secession in a global context by instancing other conflicts of similar type. He plants here the first seeds of doubt that political separation is inherently immoral. Chapter two deals with Fort Sumter and Lincoln’s successful gamble to have the Confederacy “start” the war. Here one learns that the Fort was primarily a customs house – a nice bit of symbolism, especially since the South paid roughly four times as much in tariffs as the North did.
Given that, Lincoln was very concerned about his tariff revenues in the absence of the Southern states. After Fort Sumter, the (Northern) President unconstitutionally established a blockade of Southern ports on his own motion. Soon, Lincoln had robbed Maryland of self-government and was making other inroads on civil liberty – his idea of preserving the Constitution via his self-invented presidential “war powers” (of which there is not a word in the actual document).
In chapter four, Adams unfolds his revenue-based theory of the war. The shift from a pro-peace to a pro-war position by the New York press and key business interests coincided exactly with their realization that the Confederacy’s low tariffs would draw trade away from the North, especially in view of the far higher Northern tariff just instituted. There is an important point here. It did not automatically follow that secession as such had to mean war. But peace foretold the end of continental mercantilism, tariffs, internal improvements, and railroad subsidies – a program that meant more than life to a powerful Northern political coalition. That coalition, of which Lincoln was the head, wanted war for a complex of material, political, and ideological reasons.
Adams also looks at what might well be called Northern war crimes. Here he can cite any number of pro-Lincoln historians, who file such things under grim necessity. Along the way, the author has time to make justified fun of Lincoln’s official theory that he was dealing with a mere “rebellion” rather than with the decision of political majorities in eleven states.
Other chapters treat the so-called Copperheads, the “treason trial” of Jefferson Davis (which never took place, quite possibly because the unionist case could not have survived a fair trial), a comparative view of emancipation, and the problems of Reconstruction. The author’s deconstruction of the Gettysburg Address will shock Lincoln idolators. Adams underlines the gloomy pseudo-religious fatalism with which Lincoln salved his conscience in his later speeches. This supports M. E. Bradford’s division of Lincoln’s career into Whig, “artificial Puritan,” and practical “Cromwellian” phases – the last item pertaining to total war.
To address seriously the issues presented by Adams requires a serious imaginative effort, especially for those who never before heard such claims about the Constitution, about the war, or about Lincoln. Ernest Renan famously wrote that for Frenchmen to constitute a nation, they must remember certain things and were “obliged already to have forgotten” certain others. Adams focuses on those things which Northerners, at least, have long since forgotten.
What Adams’ book – with or without a single, central thesis – does, is to reveal that in 1860 and early 1861 many Americans, north and south, doubted the existence of any federal power to coerce a state and considered peaceful separation a real possibility. In the late 1790s, The Federalist Papers, for example, laughed down the notion that the federal government could coerce states in their corporate, political capacity. For much of the nineteenth century Americans saw the union as a practical arrangement instrumental to other values. That vision vanished in the killing and destruction of Mr. Lincoln’s war. Americans paid a rather high price for making a means into an end.
Reckon that's the same Opdyke who has a big monument at Chickamauga. His men were "Opdyke's Tigers", if memory serves. Must have been an interesting guy.
Walt
Well, I think the theory of flanking like that requires a numerical superiority that both Grant and Sherman had. You are exposing part of your force to defeat in detail when you flank. That part has got to be big enough to defend if the guy on overall defense counterattacks.
Davis was frustrated because Johnston kept falling back towards Atlanta when Sherman flanked him out of successive positions. But you have to give Sherman some credit too. Every one of his flanking maneuvers had to be done just right, or he could get a bad bloody nose.
I don't think you can say that Hood should have done that sort of thing, when the army in front of his is larger than his.
Walt
Sure, and a type of stupidity that dragged the south down for at least a century after the war. The south may still not be on an equal footing with the rest of the country. Probably is not.
But just because I defend Lincoln and all that doesn't mean I want any more Yankees down here. ;-)
Walt
You keep quoting these so-called 'declarations of the causes' like you want to fool someone (or have been fooled) into believing that these mostly unattributed wastebasket tossings skimmed from a virtual warehouse of contrasting evidence are some kind of official documents.
Well, I think the theory of flanking like that requires a numerical superiority that both Grant and Sherman had.
Not necessarily. Lee did not have numerical superiority at Chancellorsville when Jackson did the left flank maneuver. It was a rout.
I don't think you can say that Hood should have done that sort of thing, when the army in front of his is larger than his.
In the Valley campaign Jackson was outnumbered by all three armies pursuing him. He whipped them all one at a time and used maneuver to surprise them. Hood could have done the same thing. If a superior army attempts to trap you, you do not have to fall into the trap if you know what you are doing. Forrest was constantly outnumbered, yet won almost every battle. Tactics are always the number one deciding factor, not numbers.
you have to give Sherman some credit too. Every one of his flanking maneuvers had to be done just right, or he could get a bad bloody nose.
I give Sherman alot of credit. It was brilliant...except for that burp at Kennesaw Mtn.
Well, they were official, but they definitely belong in the garbage.
You neo-cons are pretty comical. If we say point blank: The main cause of the war was slavery, you say we are NEA drones, brainwashed by the Yankees.
If we quote the participants, you say it is unattributed.
Well, I have a question for you:
Where did you learn such a big word?
Walt
Everyone underestimated Lincoln. Truly one of the great wartime leaders of all time. He did it in spite of very bad advisors. It was true what I was taught in elementary school (no longer taught due to corrupt educ. system)- Washington and Lincoln truly were our greatest Presidents.
Good point. But Lee had Jackson and a better intel picture. Generally, I don't think it is a good idea unless you've really got your ducks in a row. I don't think Hood could have done it at Franklin, though.
Walt
You are probably right, but Hood did have Forrest with him -if he had played it right, Forrest could have done the job. Nevertheless, I tend to agree - Hood was not the brightest bulb in the chandalier. IMHO, the outcome would have been different with Forrest in charge.
So flanking when outnumbered is a good tactic if your opponent is a dolt.
Walt
lol. Who was that - Auckenleck? At any rate, Montgomery's victory at El Alamein is over-rated. He outnumbered Rommel 3 to 1 (at least) in armor, and Rommel was in Germany (ill) for the first part of the set-piece battle (not Rommel's forte). Montgomery was, as you say, a legend in his own mind (dolt?).
Your hero, war criminal Abe Lincoln in a July 4, 1848 speech said, "Any people whatsoever have the right to abolish the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right." Lincoln biographers never seem to get around to quoting this particular speech.
Most of the top military commanders in the war (on both sides) were educated at West Point, where the one course on the U.S. Constitution was taught by the Philadelphia abolitionist William Rawle, who taught from his own book, A View of the Constitution. What Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, and others were taught about secession at West Point was that to deny a state the right of secession "would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed."
At the outbreak of the War for Southern Independence in 1861 the vast majority of Northern opinion leaders still believed that a right of secession was fundamental, and that the South should be allowed to go in peace. The abolitionist Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Daily Tribune and the preeminent journalist of his day, wrote on December 17, 1860 that "if tyranny and despotism justified the American Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861" (Howard Perkins, Northern Editorials on Secession). "Nine out of ten people of the North," Greeley wrote on February 5, 1861, "were opposed to forcing South Carolina to remain in the Union," for "the great principle embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration . . . is that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed." Therefore, if the southern states wanted to secede, "they have a clear right to do so."
Aukenleck was the overall commander; he was also responsible for all of Iran and what is now called Southwest Asia. The Brits had some on-scene guys best forgotten. General Richie was one of the onsite Brit losers.
Montgomery is WITHOUT A DOUBT the most overrated General of all time. One bio of his is grandiously called "Master of the Battlefield."
He couldn't find his tallywhacker with a ten man search party. Yes, Monty had 3:1 superiority in tanks, 2:1 in men, 10:1 in arty and 5:1 in air, or something equally dominant. And then--the Germans ran out of gas!
And this is a great victory!
Pity the Brits for having to put a jerk like this up for best general of the century. He was ineffective in Normandy. Don't start me on Holland. Monty was a butcher as bad as any World War One general.
Walt
Yes, it is. It is a revolutionary right.
Just don't say that overthrowing the government, or secession, or whatever you want to call it is legal under US law and you'll have no beef with me.
Walt
Who is John Galt kicked your ass all over this forum on that one last year.
Hmmmmmmmmm.......well, obviously someone opposed it.
Thank God.
Walt
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