Posted on 04/05/2005 11:27:48 AM PDT by Crackingham
Confederate heritage groups got excited when Gov. Bob Riley's annual proclamation designating April as Confederate History and Heritage Month dropped a paragraph saying slavery was the cause of the Civil War. The groups were pleased because they consider that description of slavery historically inaccurate. Their excitement, however, was short lived.
"It was a mistake," said Jeff Emerson, the governor's communications director, on Monday. He said he did not know how the mistake was made.
Emerson said the governor was unaware of the deletion until The Associated Press contacted his office. The governor quickly reissued the proclamation with the paragraph on slavery restored, and posted it on his Web site.
"That makes Bob Riley look very inconsistent and inept," said Roger Broxton, president of the Confederate Heritage Fund.
State Rep. Oliver Robinson, House chairman of the Legislative Black Caucus, was pleased that Riley withdrew the version of the proclamation that makes no mention of slavery.
"To me, the members of the Black Caucus, and the majority of black citizens of Alabama that would be a disgrace," he said.
For many years, Alabama governors have signed proclamations designating April as Confederate History and Heritage Month. When Riley became governor in January 2003, he used the same proclamation as his predecessor, Democratic Gov. Don Siegelman.
It contained a paragraph that says "Our recognition of Confederate history also recognizes that slavery was one of the causes of the war, an issue in the war, was ended by the war, and slavery is hereby condemned... "
The Republican Party was founded as the antislavery party and as soon as Lincoln was elected, Secession was assured
when in fact he was not an abolitionist. Slavery mattered little to him in 1860 and you know that. In my eyes, the Republican party was just a facelift of Clay's big government Whig party and nothing more. At least you can say one thing about the Republican party 140 years later. They haven't forgotten their big government roots...
BTW, been awhile. Good to see you.
"Please, think about this just a little. If England was offering a "higher price", why would the southern planters sell any to Northern mills?"
Exactly... perhaps you should think about it. The North needed raw material, the South sold it elsewhere, hence, a source of conflict.
You are really stretching brownsfan. Are you saying that somehow the "North" simply wanted to steal the cotton from the South? Was it "blood for cotton"? Or something in the law allowed the North to force the south to stop selling cotton to England?
The North bought all the cotton they needed from the south and they paid the going price for it. In fact, some of the biggest opposition to the war aside from the New York bankers who held millions in notes on plantations and slaves, was the the New England textile industry afrade they would be cut off from raw materials. It turned out they never were because plenty of Southerners were more than willing to sell it "up river" and for "Yankee dollars", instead of Confederate script. If there was a bitch back then, (and the reality is it wasn't much of a bitch until the Lost Cause school of historical revision started pumping out excuses as early as the 1870s that avoided the slavery issue) it was some in the South complaining they had to pay too much for manufactured good because of protective tariffs --- ON IMPORTS! But the fact remains they imposed their own protective tariffs as one of their first acts and what they invisioned to be their main source of government revenue.
There were plenty of people who were anti-slavery, who were not abolitionists. Lincoln was one of them, as was Jefferson, Washington, Clay, Madison, even Robert E. Lee.
The differences between the two were subtle in some ways but fundamental. Abolitionists demanded an immediate, unconditional end of slavery regardless of the costs or consequences. It was a matter of morality and religion faith to them.
The less radical "anti-slavery" elements sought to end slavery gradually through such means as compensated emancipation, and colonization. They wanted to do it over time within the existing legal order. Most of them strongly resisted the expansion of slavery to the territories and from that resistance to expansion a "Free Soil" movement developed which in 1854 became the Republican Party. Blocking expansion, for a variety of reasons, was the one common thread of Republican Party of 1860.
A point most don't understand today is that the abolitionists, who were considered to be very radical by virtually all Americans, made up a very small percentage of the much larger anti-slavery movement.
The obvious point that you are trying to cover is that the garrison was actively buying food in Charleston. The city was ready to feed them as long as they did not attack the people of the city. That is documented and was also the statement of fact made to Lincoln by Virginia statesman, Col. John Baldwin.
But what interrupted the flow of provisions?
On April 5, 1861, one of Anderson’s junior officers had returned from a session with South Carolina Governor Pickens, during which the lieutenant was read a dispatch from Confederate Commissioner Crawford in Washington. This information was conveyed to the Fort Sumter garrison’s officers.
J. G. Foster, Captain of Engineers at Fort Sumter, in his daily update dispatch to his superior in Washington, General Totten, Chief Engineer of the US, spoke of the information given to the lieutenant, which had caused much mortification for Major Anderson. In his dispatch, he said the following:
“Commissioner (Confederate) Crawford in Washington said, ‘I am authorized to say that this government will not undertake to supply Ft. Sumter without notice to (the Governor of South Carolina).
"My opinion is that the President has not the courage to execute the order agreed on in the Cabinet for the evacuation of the fort, but that he intends to shift the responsibility upon Major Anderson by suffering him to be starved out.”
Captain Foster stated that the consequence of Lincoln’s position, as reported by Crawford was “that no more supplies of food could come from the city.”
Thus he was stating that he, as an officer of the fort, believed that conditions at Ft. Sumter were worsening specifically due to the intentional actions of the Federal government. This cessation of food supplies would provide cover for Washington, enable the Naval expedition to appear to be humanitarian in nature, and protect the military in case Anderson surrendered.
As the document shows, the garrison had been able to buy food on a regular basis. There was a federal quartermaster in Charleston, with a funded account for provisions. After the government had announced its intentions, the following publication added more information:
4/5/1861 The New York Tribune reported:
“Many rumors are in circulation today. They appear to have originated from movements on the part of the United States troops, the reasons for which have not been communicated to the reporters at Washington as freely as the late administration was in the habit of imparting Cabinet secrets. There can be no doubt that serious movements are on foot”.
It was the next day that the garrison was notified that their food shipments would be stopped.
"Still does not change the basic misconception that Brownsfan has."
And your post does nothing to change that.
That is useless, speculative commentary. There was no armed rebellion. There was an armed invasion of Charleston Harbor in April of 1861, and Northern Virginia in the Spring of the same year to overthrow the Confederate government.
Sure I did, and the other correspondence as well. Sumter was running out of food, and Anderson's report that he would be forced to surrender if not resupplied quickly were accurate.
The obvious point that you are trying to cover is that the garrison was actively buying food in Charleston. The city was ready to feed them as long as they did not attack the people of the city. That is documented and was also the statement of fact made to Lincoln by Virginia statesman, Col. John Baldwin.
Baldwin's statement of fact was out of date. The Davis regime had ordered no more contact with Sumter on April 2nd. That specifically included food.
As the document shows, the garrison had been able to buy food on a regular basis. There was a federal quartermaster in Charleston, with a funded account for provisions.
As the document also showed, those provisions had been consumed by others and were not, and had never been available to the Sumter garrison. Reread the document in full.
It was the next day that the garrison was notified that their food shipments would be stopped.
Food had been ordered stopped on April 2nd.
Which is PeaRidge-speak for "Crap, I don't have an answer for that!"
There was no armed rebellion.
Sure there was, from 1861 to 1865. What, you haven't heard of it?
There was an armed invasion of Charleston Harbor in April of 1861, and Northern Virginia in the Spring of the same year to overthrow the Confederate government.
There were actions on the part of the Federal government to put down the rebellion.
The census of 1860 revealed that there were precisely two slaves in Kansas, and only a handful more in all the remaining territories.
Garrison? Can you post any documentation that Garrison was a party that bonded President Davis.
Read it again...or for the first time as the case may be. Ditto said, "Congress would never again accept an application for statehood from a territory whose constitution did not expressly forbid slavery." So please point out which of those territories - Colorado, Nevada, or Dakota - was admitted with a pro-slavery Constitution.
LOL.
How about this ---- from YOUR President.
He assumes as facts things which are mere matters of opinion, and I think of erroneous and injurious opinion. But, deferring the discussion to another occasion, I desire at present merely to notice the assertion of the honorable Senator that slavery would never, under any circumstances, be established in California. This, though stated as a fact, is but a mere opinion-- an opinion with which I do not accord. It was to work the gold mines on this continent that the Spaniards first brought Africans to the country. The European races now engaged in working the mines of California sink under the burning heat and sudden changes of the climate, to which the African race are altogether better adapted. The production of rice, sugar, and cotton is no better adapted to slave labor than the digging, washing, and quarrying of the gold mines.
Jefferson Davis --- January 1850
He could have added Colorado, Nevada, Montana, the Dakotas, Arizona, New Mexico --- all states founded around mining.
Because of the issues of military control of Davis' imprisonment, Chase refused to issue a writ of habeas corpus in June 1866, but almost a year later, in conjuction with an order to the military authorities from the president, a writ of habeas corpus brought Davis to Richmond to be transferred to the authority of the federal courts. He appeared before Underwood on May 13, 1867, bail was set at $100,000, and the bond was immediately posted. "Deafening applause" broke out in the courtroom when Davis was freed. Horace Greeley, one of a growing number of northerners who wanted the case settled so the country could get on with the healing process, had secured backing for the bond and personally guaranteed a quarter of it. He was in the courtroom that day and met Davis after his release.
Source: http://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/faqs.cfm
"Food had been ordered stopped on April 2nd"
FOOD WAS SUPPLIED TO FORT SUMTER UNTIL APRIL 7, 1861
UNION CORRESPONDENCE
[247]
No; 96.
FORT SUMTER, S. C., April 7, 1861.
Col. L. THOMAS,
Adjutant- General U. S. Army:
COLONEL:
You will see by the inclosed letter, just received from Brigadier-General Beauregard that we shall not get any more supplies from the city of Charleston.
I am, colonel, very respectfully, your obedient servant,
ROBERT ANDERSON,
Major, First Artillery, Commanding.
You are just trying to roll out another bunny path to hop to in an effort to avoid factual rebuttal to your weak claims.
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