Posted on 04/16/2003 5:44:44 AM PDT by Lady Eileen
Washington, DC-area Freepers interested in Lincoln and/or the War Between the States should take note of a seminar held later today on the Fairfax campus of George Mason University:
The conventional wisdom in America is that Abraham Lincoln was a great emancipator who preserved American liberties. In recent years, new research has portrayed a less-flattering Lincoln that often behaved as a self-seeking politician who catered to special interest groups. So which is the real Lincoln?
On Wednesday, April 16, Thomas DiLorenzo, a former George Mason University professor of Economics, will host a seminar on that very topic. It will highlight his controversial but influential new book, The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War. In the Real Lincoln, DiLorenzo exposes the conventional wisdom of Lincoln as based on fallacies and myths propagated by our political leaders and public education system.
The seminar, which will be held in Rooms 3&4 of the GMU Student Union II, will start at 5:00 PM. Copies of the book will be available for sale during a brief autograph session after the seminar.
He did though.
"The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.
For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.
But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the union of the whole."
-- Farewell Address, 1796
What Madison proposed and was largely adopted is the concept of dual sovereignty, whereby the states delegated certain powers to the Federal government and reserved all others for themselves.
It would be difficult for you to explain how the "rebels" went outside of the law when you admit freely that there was no prohibition, either in the Constitution or in other Federal laws, against a state withdrawing from the Union.
Quote Madison to that effect.
"It is high time that the claim to secede at will should be put down by the public opinion; and I shall be glad to see the task commenced by someone who understands the subject."
This is in a letter of 12/23/32, to Nicholas Trist, who was serving in Andrew Jackson's Cabinet.
Walt
The whole Constitution prohibits secession.
The Supreme Court ruled secession outside the law. Focus on that.
Walt
He won't touch the history. All he knows is neo-reb pablum.
Walt
Of course not. The jury would have certainly been made up of Unionists who would have voted to convict based on the evidence the government provided. Why would you find that so surprising?
Go easy on him. No doubt a product of a southern school system...or is it skule systim?
It's a direct quote, attributed to Cahse, from a man who has a few books to his credit:
1. Whisper My Name, A Novel. New York: Rinehart, 1949.
2. The Ragged Ones. New York: Rinehart, 1951.
3. Yorktown. New York: Rinehart, 1952.
4. They Called Him Stonewall: A Life of Lt. General T.J. Jackson, C.S.A. New York: Rinehart, 1954.
5. Gray Fox: Robert E. Lee and the Civil War. New York: Rinehart, 1956.
6. Roberta E. Lee: The Sad But Almost True Story of the Rabbit Who Longed to Be Prettier Than Scarlett O'Hara or Anybody Else. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1956.
7. Jeb Stuart, the Last Cavalier. New York: Rinehart, 1957.
8. To Appomattox, Nine April Days, 1865. New York: Rinehart, 1959.
9. Our Incredible Civil War. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960.
10. America's First Army. Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg, Distributed by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1962.
11. Marine! The Life of Lt. Gen. Lewis B. (Chesty) Puller, USMC (ret.). Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown, 1962.
12. The Cowpens-Guilford Courthouse Campaign. Philadelphia, Pa.: Lippincott, 1962.
13. Appomattox: Closing Struggle of the Civil War. New York, NY: Harper & Row, 1963.
14. The Summer Land. New York: Random House, 1965.
15. Rebel Raider: A Biography of Admiral Semmes. [With Evangeline Davis]. Philadelphia, Pa.: Lippincott, 1966.
16. The Billy Mitchell Affair. New York: Random House, 1967.
17. A Williamsburg Galaxy. Williamsburg, Va.: Colonial Williamsburg; distributed by Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968.
18. The World of Currier & Ives. [With Roy King]. New York: Random House, 1968.
19. Yorktown: The Winning of American Independence. New York: Harper & Row, 1969.
20. Get Yamamoto. New York: Random House, 1969.
21. The Billy Mitchell Story. Philadelphia, Pa.: Chilton Book Company, 1969.
22. The Campaign that Won America: the Story of Yorktown. New York: Dial Press, 1970.
23. Getting to Know Jamestown. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1971.
24. Getting to Know Thomas Jefferson's Virginia. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1971.
25. Heroes of the American Revolution. New York: Random House, 1971.
26. Amelia Earhart. New York: Putnam, 1972.
27. Biography of a Leaf. New York: Putnam, 1972.
28. Biography of a King Snake. New York: Putnam, 1975.
29. Three for Revolution. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975.
30. George Washington and the American Revolution. New York: Random House, 1975.
31. Black Heroes of the American Revolution. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976.
32. Runaway Balloon: The Last Flight of Confederate Air Force One. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1976.
33. Old Hickory: A Life of Andrew Jackson. New York: Dial, 1977.
34. Biography of a Fish Hawk. New York: Putnam, 1977.
35. Mr. Lincoln's Whiskers. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1978.
36. Sherman's March. New York: Random House, 1980.
37. A Fierce Personal Pride: The Story of Mount Hope Finishing Company and Its Founding Family. Butner, N.C.: Mount Hope Finishing Company, 1981.
38. Bassett Hall: The Williamsburg Home of Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller, Jr. [With Bland Blackford and Patricia A. Hurdle]. Williamsburg, VA: Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, 1984.
39. The Southern Railway: Road of the Innovators. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985.
40. The Long Surrender. New York: Random House, 1985.
41. War Bird: The Life and Times of Elliott White Springs. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987.
I have it. It's there. Too bad. Empahsis mine:
The Prisioner / 203Typo's mine. Does that help?
But there was still a clamor for the execution of Davis. Speaker
of the House of Representatives Schuyler Colfax (who was soon to
be exposed as a grafter) told the House that if justice were done,
Davis would be "hanging between heaven and earth as not fit for
either."
But ex-President Franklin Pierce, who was corresponding
with Varina, assured her that her husband would not be tried, since
the government's case rested upon "wicked fabrications from the
perjured lips of the lowest on earth."
Pierce referred to a bizarre "professional perjurer" by the name
of Charles A. Dunham, who, under the alias Sanford Conover, of-
204 / The Prisoner
fered in return for a handsome fee to produce witnesses who
would swear that Davis had plotted with them to have Lincoln
murdered. Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt, who was as gullible
as he was vindictive, accepted Conover's tales, and for some weeks
hoodlums and drifters were smuggled into Washington and re-
hearsed in false testimony by Conover. But their unlikely tales were
so transparently untrue that the Bureau of Military Justice exposed
them.
One witness, William Campbell (actually Joseph A. Hoare, a
New York "gas-fixer") gave away the scheme. "This is all false," he
said. "I must make a clean breast of it; I can't stand it any longer."
Campbell testified that Judge Holt, anxious for proof of Davis's
guilt after payment of the $100,000 reward, asked for any testimony
that might convict him: "Conover wrote out the evidence," Camp-
bell said, "and I learned it by heart." He was paid $625, of which
Holt had given him $500. Another "witness," Dr. James B. Merritt,
was paid $6,000.
After Campbell had confessed, Conover fled but was captured
and imprisoned. Only then was the fanatic Holt forced to abandon
his effort to send Davis to the gallows.
From the moment of Conover's exposure, Davis was no longer
in danger of prosecution for conspiracy in Lincoln's death but
Edwin Stanton, though he ceased to fill the newspapers with insinua-
tions, made no public acknowledgment of defeat, and defendants
were left in ignorance as to the status of the charges against them.
The Davis case became more vexing to Secretary Stanton and
the Radicals in other ways. The trunk full of personal and official
letters left at the David Yulee plantation in Florida by Captain dark
had arrived in Washington, where War Department officials scanned
every sheet without finding evidence to incriminate the Confederate
President. During the summer's heat, while Stanton and the Cabinet
still debated as to how the case should be tried. Chief Justice Salmon
P. Chase urged Stanton to forget the problem: "If you bring these
leaders to trial, it will condemn the North, for by the Constitution,
secession is not rebellion." He added that it was absurd to try to
prove in court that Davis had been the chief of an armed uprising,
since that had been common knowledge. "Lincoln wanted Jefferson
Davis to escape," Chase said. "And he was right. His capture was
a mistake. His trial will be a greater one. We cannot convict him of
treason. Secession is settled. Let it stay settled."Burke Davis, The Long Surrender, New York: Random House, 1985, pp. 203-204.
Sigh. Spellcheck. Chase, not Cahse.
As ususal, you need corroboration.
Walt
It does sound very different than Davis' other works, which was surprising.
As ususal, you need corroboration.
No. Walt's rules of eveidence do not apply. I provided transcibed/scanned page(s), and complete citation. It is documented, and Burke notes it himself in chapter notes. Refute it if you can.
;o) I got a 1st edition for under $5.00 - looks almost brand new.
No. Walt's rules of eveidence do not apply.
They are not my rules.
Walt
"Jon Utzman cited the oft-heard statement from Salmon Chase about "secession is not rebellion," etc., and he cited Burke Davis's book, _The Long Surrender_ as his source. I've finally gotten around to looking at this in detail.
Davis uses a very imperfect system of citation for his book. He doesn't have footnotes or endnotes (as most folks would understand them), but instead has brief discussions of his sources in an end-section titled "Bibliographical Notes." The chapter containing the Chase quote lists four items dealing with the trial in its notes section:
(1) George Shea, SHSP vol. 37, pp. 244-252;
(2) George Boutwell, SHSP vol. 38, pp. 347-349;
(3) Roy Nichols, American Historical Review, January, 1926, pp. 266 ff;
(4) "The Trials and Trial of Jefferson Davis," read before the Virginia Bar Association in 1900, and published by the VBA.
Note: Shea was associated with Davis's defense, Nichols is a highly respected historian of this period -- and Davis has the citation to his article incorrect, BTW. I don't know who Boutwell was.
We have the Nichols article on microfilm and I read it this afternoon; not only does it not contain the Chase quote, but it contains enough detailed information to make clear the reasons that Davis was never tried, and I would suggest anyone interested in the subject should start their reading there. The Shea and Boutwell pieces are readily available on CD, and neither of them contains the Chase quote, either. By elimination, that convicts the VBA article, unless Burke Davis made the whole thing up (unlikely) or failed to list his source for it (not impossible).
Given that Nicholls does not mention the statement; that the scheduling of Cabinet meetings makes it unlikely that Chase was present when he supposedly made the statement; that the Chase Papers, recently published, make it unlikely that Chase would have held the sentiments ascribed to him in this famous quote; and, finally, that the Virginia Bar Association is an unlikely (but not, I admit, impossible) source for historical nuggets like this, I am compelled to suggest that the quote is bogus.
Jim Epperson"
http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/causes.html
You need corroboration.
Walt
"Chase's papers were recently published by Kent State University Press. There was no indication in them anywhere that I could find of the statement Mr. Utzman attributes to him. It is not consistent with anything he is known to have written. For example, on Nov. 30, 1860, he wrote, "I abhor the very idea of a dissolution of the Union. If i were President I would indeed exhaust every expedient of forbearance consistent with safety. But at all hazards and against all opposition the laws of the Union should be enforced, through the Judiciary where practicable, but, against rebellion, by all necessary means."
Yet we are told that, in 1865, Chase opined that secession was NOT rebellion."
[end]
You need corroboration.
Walt
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