Uncle Tom's Cabin

Lew Rockwell ^ | 12/16/03 | Gail Jarvis

[Non-Sequitur]

...yet somehow what Lincoln did does not impress me as being unconditional surrender, you aside your rediculous symantics games.

No semantics games, just a correction of your error. You keep claiming that President Lincoln started the war. He did not, the Davis regime did by firing on Sumter. Lincoln accepted the war that the south forced upon him and prosecuted it to the fullest extent possible, resulting in the southern defeat. Now, how hard was that?

When we abandon an embassy, it's US property, on US soil; is it your contention that whenever we do so it should be immediately followed be invasion and wholesale destruction of both military and civilian assets?

For the most part those properties seized by the southren states had not been abandoned. They were simply stolen. Sumter had not been abandoned. It was the property of the U.S., manned by representatives of the U.S. military. Attempts to deliver food to them was met by southern agression and a southern act of war. The wholesale destruction that you lament about was directly caused by those acts. The blame for them lay at the feet of Jefferson Davis, not Abraham Lincoln.

Surely you are not suggesting that our government is agianst this... Maybe you should spend some time reading about asset forfeiture over on the WOD threads.

The difference is that government seizure of propery follows a set of legal guidelines and requires actions on the part of the courts. The Davis regime just stole it. But then respect for a judiciary was never high on their list, was it?

Fourth time, Non: Why did Southern independence have to be quashed, given that the men doing it cared nothing for ending slavery.

Fourth time, G: Because the men leading the southern rebellion chose war as their vehicle for protecting slavery. When you start a war you can't always be sure how it will turn out.

[Non-Sequitur]

However, when one does the simple arithmetic on how much it costs to feed, clothe, house, and provide health care for an employee 24/7/365 versus paying a wage and letting the employee fend for themselves, the equation works out toward manumission. Contrary to tedious Northern stereotypes of Southerners, then and now, simple arithmetic was not beyond even the 'aristocracy'.

Your 'simple arithmatic' fails to include the following into the equation. First, there was no alternative available for slave labor. Immigrants provided the most ready source for inexpensive labor in the North and they were almost non-existant in the south. Second, southern society saw blacks as fit for slavery and nothing else. The suggestion that millions of slaves be freed and integrated into southern society, living where they wanted and voting and everything, was alien to everything that they believed. The southern aristocracy fought the rebellion to protect their property, and so did the poor southern white. Slavery protected their place in society as well.

Manumission was on the rise. I suggest you do further research into how many slaves were owned, including those owned by free blacks.

I have done the research. The fact is that manumission was NOT on the rise. Most southern states had laws preventing or limiting manumission. And the slave population of the south rose about 20 percent between 1850 and 1860. That does not support your claim that it was a dying institution.

I heartily reccommend sources published prior to the revisions of the 1930's, and especially prior to the 1960's, whence much has been obfusticated by political agendae, especially those of the NAACP and the Reparationists.

For example?

[Non-Sequitur]

Yep all they had to do was buy the machinery from Northerners, or import it and pay huge tarrifs.

What machinery were they importing and what was the tariff on it?

The south was industrializing, Atlanta was a railroad hub (and was later burned). Iron furnaces and foundaries existed, and it was only a matter of time until the South became self-sufficient. With that self-sufficiency would come a sharp reduction in tarrif revenue as the South imported less.

Nonsense. The south industrialized only so much as was necessary to support their agricultural industry. Louis Wigfall neatly summed up the feelings of southerners when speaking to William Russell in 1861, "We are an agrarian people; we are a primitive people. We have no cities - we don't want them. We have no literature - we don't need any yet. We have no press - we are glad of it. We have no commercial marine - no navy - we don't want them. We are better without them. Your ships carry our produce and you can protect your own vessels. As long as we have our rice, our sugar, our tobacco, and our cotton, we can command wealth to purchase all we want from those nations with which we are in amity, and to lay up money besides."

[Non-Sequitur]

But if slaves were so valuable, there would have been breeding farms which raised only food for the 'livestock' and slaves (didn't happen).

Actually it did. Virginia and North Carolina were two states which had very active industries of raising and selling slaves to the rest of the southern states, where demand far outstripped supply. In fact, the confederate leaders recognized the importance of this supply when they specifically protected imports of slaves from the slave-holding states of the U.S. in their constitution.

[mac_truck]

This desire for additional slave power would also help explain the attempts by southern filibusters to conquer Cuba and Nicaragua in the decades leading up to secession.

We could have a whole separate discussion about the constitutional issues surrounding southern states raising private armies to unilaterally attack foreign territories, but that might confuse those on here that believe in nineteenth century southern pinnacles...

[Smokin' Joe]

To claim the South had neither Cities nor industry is ridiculous. What, pray tell, were Richmond, Charleston, Atlanta, Mobile, Vicksburg, and New Orleans? There was even a mint at Dahlonega, Georgia, which minted coins from the gold mined in the Appalachains. Most cities were developed around ports, and shipbuilding was also practised. Iron foundaries date back to the Colonial era. Otherwise, where would the south have gained the materials for tools, railroads, and even ironclads. The cities had newspapers, (Read A southern History of the War, written by a chap at the Richmond Examiner, who worked there prior to and during the war). It might add balance to your sources.

Just because the invading hordes did all in their power to destroy anything of potential use to the Confederates, does not mean it did not exist.

Speaking of sources, I still would like to know where you read that there were slave breeding farms.

Quoting Wigfall on the South would be like asking an Amish farmer for information on agriculture in Pennsylvania today. Never assume any one person can speak for an entire region.

The fact remains, that Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote a NOVEL; a work of fiction garnished with the hyperbole which, though sympathetic to her own abolitionist beliefs, presented a picture of horrors which was not so much intended as an accurate description of reality, but to sell. This novel exploited the same facet of human nature which causes people to gawk at train wrecks and automobile accidents, and was a grand commercial success. However, it is no more accurate a picture of the overall institution of slavery than the rantings of Sarah Brady are an accurate picture of gun ownership.

The misrepresentations of extremists in the Abolitionist camp may provide insight into one viewpoint of the times, but hardly into all. After all, the North was so comfortable with the idea of all those freed slaves wandering North that they tried to send them back to Africa.

[Smokin' Joe]

From the article:

Furthermore, Stowe did not condemn Southern plantation owners but rather placed the onus of slavery on the slave system itself; especially New England slave traders, New York bankers, and other Northern entrepreneurs who profited from slave commerce.

[Smokin' Joe]

How else could they be sure to prevent against importing Agents Provacatuer from the North, sent to foment rebellion and discontent among the slaves, to spy, and sabotage the Southern War effort?

[Restorer]

With Southern supplied goods paying for 70% of the imports that were taxed, Southern productivity was fundamental to Northern infrastructure improvements.

Are you attempting to claim that southerners, less than 1/3 of the country, actually purchased 70% of the imported goods? I find this highly unlikely.

What I suspect you are doing is conflating two very different things. I believe the South produced 70% or so of the country's exports, primarily cotton. This is very different from saying that they paid 70% of the tariffs, which as you noted, were paid by the purchasers of the products themselves.

BTW, large areas of the South produced little for export, notably the mountain sections and border states. Does this mean that these slaveholding areas were also subsidized by the Deep South? Or is the picture far too complex for such ridiculous over-simplifications?

15. That appropriations by Congress for River and Harbor improvements of a National character, required for the accommodation and security of an existing commerce, are authorized by the Constitution, and justified by the obligations of Government to protect the lives and property of its citizens.

Have you looked at a map recently? Something over 3/4 of the country's coastline was in slaveholding states. Much, if not most, of the money spent on these improvements was spent in, and used to provide benefits for, southern ports. It's interesting that Fort Sumter, where the war started, was built to defend Charleston Harbor and served the Confederacy well in that regard.

BTW, do you think defenses should NOT have been built for southern ports, leaving them easy prey for any European country we got into a dispute with?

16. That a Railroad to the Pacific Ocean is imperatively demanded by the interest of the whole country; that the Federal Government ought to render immediate and efficient aid in its construction; and that, as preliminary thereto, a daily Overland Mail should be promptly established.

Do you seriously argue that a railroad across the continent was NOT in the best interests of the whole country? Or that it could have been built at the time without government subsidy? BTW, most southerners were in favor of such a railroad, they just wanted it built starting in the South. Should mail service to California NOT have been provided?

[JoeSchem]

Harriet Beecher Stowe knew perfectly well that southern slaves were abused by southerners. It's just that she was trying not to antagonize the slavemasters, believing that would result in harsher treatment of the slaves. Her attempt to disentangle southern independence from the Peculiar Institution failed. This was inevitable, since the 'Southern Way of Life' -- plantations, sipping mint juleps on the porch while the darkies crooned in the fields -- was economically unsustainable without slavery.

The same nitwits over at Lewrockwell.com (we're in Year 3 of the Y2K crisis, according to them) also insist that Lincoln was pro-slavery because he pledged to keep the Union intact rather than abolish slavery. Lincoln made that pledge because he knew that he couldn't get elected otherwise, and if the South left the Union, then all hope of freeing the slaves would be lost for generations to come.

[Hacksaw]

That sounds like some [a priori] name-calling to me, especially since your side brought Lincoln up in the first place.

No, if he had said "it will upset the Ass-Clowns", then it would have been name calling. More accurate, but name calling.

Ha-ha, just kidding.

[Restorer]

the 'Southern Way of Life' -- plantations, sipping mint juleps on the porch while the darkies crooned in the fields -- was economically unsustainable without slavery.

Not really. The most profitable decades of cotton-growing were in the later 1900s, long after the war. Share-cropping was actually a more profitable (from an income vs. expenses standpoint) way to exploit the land.

The real trouble was that southerners had for decades been investing their capital in slaves, till their total value exceeded that of all the land (not including buildings) in the South. At abolition, all this capital just vanished. How do you think Americans today would react to the notion that some group was planning to confiscate something like 1/3 of its accumulated wealth?

The other two big contributors to southern resistance to abolition were an often sincere belief that it was really in the best interests of the slaves themselves, and a repugnance for the social equality abolition would have implied. Southerners had no problem with close, even intimate contact with blacks. No objection to blacks cooking and serving their food. Many had no trouble sleeping with blacks. But most would have objected violently if a black had sat down to table with them.

[Restorer]

Just curious. Based on your tagline, you support loyalty oaths.

Why?

Communists, the most numerous group of traitors in American history, would have had no trouble taking such an oath.

I suspect Islamists would be willing to do so, on the theory that oath-breaking is OK in the service of Allah.

So what's the point? It seems to me that all you would do is alienate the small percentage of Americans who have religious or ethical objections to taking an oath, and darn few of this group are really a danger to the country.

[SoCal Pubbie]

Of all the pro-Confederacy kooks on FR, you must be the most childish and annoying poster yet. You know full well that the Federal government responded to an armed rebellion by certain southern states because they wanted to keep the Union intact. The quote from Lincloln himself said exactly that. Yet you insist on repeatedly badgering others to answer your silly question why.

Saying that the Confederacy DIDN'T start the Civil War is like saying the colonists didn't start the American Revolution.

[mac_truck]

Your account of your family's history in this country is quite interesting. To obtain a land grant here usually required a royal order of some sort, although parts of Maryland were also considered part of William Penn's colony. You said your family lost most of its holdings as a result of the WBTS, yet Maryland did not secede. Was the property abandoned, or was it destroyed in battle?

[4CJ]

They better be set to digging their subsistence out of the ground.

Oh the humanity!!! </sarcasm>

[4CJ]

... To obtain a land grant here usually required a royal order of some sort...

Most land grants in the South were received as payment for military service in the Revolutionary War depending upon legth of service & rank. Privates recieved up to 640 acres, a major could expect 4,000 acres, a Brigadier General could receive up to 12,500 acres.

[nolu chan]

March 28, 1861 the Senate adjourned.

THE NEXT DAY LINCOLN GOT BUSY INITIATING WAR. Lincoln did not fail to obtain Congressional approval because Congress was not in session, he waited until Congress adjourned and commenced to initiate a war.

March 29, 1861
To the Secretary of the Navy

I desire that an expedition, to move by sea be go ready to sail as early as the 6th of April next, the whole according to memorandum attached: and that you co-operate with the Secretary of War for that object.

Signed: Abraham Lincoln

The memorandum attached called for:

From the Navy, three ships of war, the Pocahontas, the Pawnee and the Harriet Lane; and 300 seamen, and one month's stores.

From the War Department, 200 men, ready to leave garrison; and one year's stores.

April 1, 1861 by General Scott
April 2, 1861 approved by Abraham Lincoln
To: Brevet Colonel Harvey Brown, U.S. Army

You have been designated to take command of an expedition to reinforce and hold Fort Pickens in the harbor of Pensacola. You will proceed to New York where steam transportation for four companies will be engaged; -- and putting on board such supplies as you can ship without delay proceed at once to your destination. The object and destination of this expedition will be communicated to no one to whom it is not already known. Signed: Winfield Scott
Signed approved: Abraham Lincoln

April 4, 1861
To: Lieut. Col. H.L. Scott, Aide de Camp

This will be handed to you by Captain G.V. Fox, an ex-officer of the Navy. He is charged by authority here, with the command of an expedition (under cover of certain ships of war) whose object is, to reinforce Fort Sumter.

To embark with Captain Fox, you will cause a detachment of recruits, say about 200, to be immediately organized at fort Columbus, with competent number of officers, arms, ammunition, and subsistence, with other necessaries needed for the augmented garrison at Fort Sumter.

Signed: Winfield Scott

April 1, 1861
To Captain H.A. Adams
Commanding Naval Forces off Pensacola

Herewith I send you a copy of an order received by me last night. You will see by it that I am directed to land my command at the earliest opportunity. I have therefore to request that you will place at my disposal such boats and other means as will enable me to carry into effect the enclosed order.

Signed: I. Vogdes, Capt. 1st Artly. Comdg.

Captain Adams REFUSED TO OBEY THE ORDER and reported to the Secretary of the Navy as follows:

It would be considered not only a declaration but an act of war; and would be resisted to the utmost.

Both sides are faithfully observing the agreement (armistice) entered into by the United States Government and Mr. Mallory and Colonel Chase, which binds us not to reinforce Fort Pickens unless it shall be attacked or threatened. It binds them not to attack it unless we should attempt to reinforce it.

The Secretary of the Navy issued a CLASSIFIED response to Capt. Adams:

April 6, 1861

Your dispatch of April 1st is received. The Department regrets that you did not comply with the request of Capt. Vogdes. You will immediately on the first favorable opportunity after receipt of this order, afford every facility to Capt. Vogdes to enable him to land the troops under his command, it being the wish and intention of the Navy Department to co-operate with the War Department, in that object.

Signed: Gideon Welles, Secty. of the Navy

April 11, 1861 (USS Supply, official ship's log)

"April 11th at 9 P.M. the Brooklyn got under way and stood in toward the harbor; and during the night landed troops and marines on board, to reinforce Fort Pickens."

April 1, 1861 To: Lt. D.D. Porter, USN

You will proceed to New York and with least possible delay assume command of any steamer available.

Proceed to Pensacola Harbor, and, at any cost or risk, prevent any expedition from the main land reaching Fort Pickens, or Santa Rosa.

You will exhibit this order to any Naval Officer at Pensacola, if you deem it necessary, after you have established yourself within the harbor.

This order, its object, and your destination will be communicated to no person whatever, until you reach the harbor of Pensacola.

Signed: Abraham Lincoln
Recommended signed: Wm. H. Seward

April 1, 1861
Telegram
To: Commandant, Brooklyn Navy Yard

Fit out Powhatan to go to sea at the earliest possible moment, under sealed orders. Orders by confidential messenger go forward tomorrow.

Signed: Abraham Lincoln

April 1, 1861
To: Commandant, Brooklyn Navy Yard

You will fit out the Powhatan without delay. Lieutenant Porter will relieve Captain Mercer in command of her. She is bound on secret service; and you will under no circumstances communicate to the Navy Department the fact that she is fitting out.

Signed: Abraham Lincoln

The Secretary of the Navy was unaware that President Lincoln had relieved Captain Mercer and was "borrowing" the Powhatan. It was a real secret mission.

April 1, 1861
Telegram
To: Commandant, Brooklyn Navy Yard

Fit out Powhatan to go to sea at earliest possible moment.

April 5, 1861
To: Captain Mercer, Commanding Officer, USS Powhatan

The U.S. Steamers, Powhatan, Pawnee, Pocahontas, and Harriet Lane, will compose a naval force under your command, to be sent to the vicinity of Charleston, S.C., for the purpose of aiding in carrying out the object of an expedition of which the war Department has charge. The expedition has been intrusted to Captain G.V. Fox.

You will leave New York with the Powhatan in time to be off Charleston bar, 10 miles distant from and due east of the light house on the morning of the 11th instant, there to await the arrival of the transports with troops and stores. The Pawnee and Pocahontas will be ordered to join you there, at the time mentioned, and also the Harriet Lane, etc.

Signed: Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy

April 6, 1861

Lt. Porter took the Powhatan and sailed.

Seward sent a telegram to Porter: "Give the Powhatan up to Captain Mercer."

A dispatch boat caught up with Powhatan and delivered Seward's message.

Lt. Porter responded to Seward: "I received my orders from the President, and shall proceed and execute them.

Before leaving, Lt. Porter instructed the Navy Yard officials, "Detain all letters for five days."

Storms and boiler problems delayed Powhatan, but she arrived disguised and flying English colors.

Porter filed this report:

I had disguised the ship, so that she deceived those who had known her, and was standing in (unnoticed), when the Wyandotte commenced making signals, which I did not answer, but stood on.

The steamer then put herself in my way and Captain Meigs, who was aboard, hailed me and I stopped.

In twenty minutes more I should have been inside (Pensacola harbor) or sunk.

Signed: D.D. Porter

[nolu chan]

DELIVERING THE GROCERIES
per Honest Abe and Co.

|Page 368|

OFFICIAL RECORDS: Series 1, vol 1, Part 1, page 368

APRIL 3, 1861.

Honorable WM. H. SEWARD, Secretary of State:

DEAR SIR: We expect to touch at Key West, and will be able to set things in order there and give the first check to the secession movement by firmly establishing the authority of the United States in that most ungrateful island and city. Thence we propose to send dispatches under cover to you. The officers will write to their friends,

|Page 369|

OFFICIAL RECORDS: Series 1, vol 1, Part 1, page 369

understanding that the package will not be broken until after the public has notice through the newspapers of our success or defeat. Our object is yet unknown on board, and if I read the papers of the eve of our departure aright our secret is still a secret in New York. No communication with the shore, however, will be allowed.

Your dispatch arrived as I was on my away to the Atlantic, just before the hour at which she was to sail, and two or three hours after that appointed for the Powhatan. When the arrow has sped from the bow it may glance aside, but who shall reclaim it before its flight is finished?

A violent gale compelled us to lay head to wind for twenty-four hours. We ran one hundred miles out of our course. The Powhatan having taken this gale earlier may have got through it with less delay, so that it is not now likely that we will overtake her. She had orders to call off Key West, and by boat or signal ascertain whether we had passed. It is important that she should reach the port before us.

* * *

The dispatch and the secrecy with which this expedition has been fitted out will strike terror into the ranks of rebellion. All New York saw, all the United States knew, that the Atlantic was filling with stores and troops. But now this nameless vessel, her name is painted out, speeds out of the track of commerce to an unknown destination. Mysterious, unseen, where will the powerful bolt fall? What thousands of men, spending the means of the Confederate States, vainly beat the air amid the swamps of the southern coast, and, filling the dank forts, curse secession and the mosquitoes!

* * *

God promised to send before his chosen people and advance-guard of hornets. Our constant allies are the more efficient mosquitoes and sand-flies. At this time the republic has need of all her sons, of all their knowledge, zeal, and courage.

Major Hunt is with us, somewhat depressed at going into the field without his horses. His battery of Napoleon guns, probably the best field guns in our service, is to follow in the Illinois; but the traitor Twiggs surrendered his horses to the rebels of Texas, and the company

|Page 370|

of well-trained artillerists finds itself, after eight years of practice in that highest and most efficient arm, the light artillery, going into active service as footmen. They, too, feel, the change deeply.

* * *

I am, most respectfully, your obedient servant,

M. C. MEIG,

Captain of Engineers.

[Smokin' Joe]

The Family is from Southern Maryland, the land grant was by royal decree.

Maryland was an occupied state. With Habeas Corpus suspended, the Legislature was held under house arrest in Fort McHenry and not allowed to vote on a Bill of Secession. Had Virginia been quicker to sedeede, chances are good that Maryland would have also.

The property was neither abandoned nor destroyed in battle, but instead lost to taxes when a combination of Yankee pillaging and increased taxes forced the sale of most to save some. C'est la guerre.

The Missouri branch fared far less well, lost lumber mills, 600 brood mares and the stud stable, and the substantial farm. They were sent away by Union troops in a freight wagon with only the clothes on their backs. All combatants from our family fought for the Confederacy.

Any who doubt the occupied status of the State should read the words to the state song, Maryland, My Maryland. They were written by an expatriate Marylander during the war in Louisiana.

The despot's heel applies to the invasion of Northern State Militia troops which sparked rioting in Baltimore; civillians were killed. ("Avenge the patriotic gore/that flecked the streets of Baltimore")

As for parts of Maryland being considered part of Penn's Colony, the Mason-Dixon survey more or less settled that, although many will contend that a large slice of Maryland was given to Pennsylvania as a result.