We'll do a synopsis of the 1907 address of Charles Francis Adams, Jr.for other interested & more literate parties (sorry, no pictures, Spiveys!):
Charles Francis Adams, Jr., grandson of President John Quincy Adams, and great-grandson of second US President John Adams, was a Union colonel (Massachusetts) in the Civil War.
He relates in his address on Robert E. Lee in 1907 how he would have been overjoyed to hear of the death of Lee at the hands of Union troops during the war, and even more joyous if it had been at the hands of him and his troops.
Many decades after, Adams reflected that he had gained wisdom, moving out of his mother's basement (unlike the Spiveys), and re-assessing the viewpoints of pond scum like Massachusetts Senator Charles "Takes A Licking, But Keeps On Sliming" Sumner, who denigrated Lee at his passing.
He came to the conclusion that Robert E. Lee was one of the very great Americans, who did exactly as he should have when he joined the state of Virginia when she called.
Continuing with Adams' address (for the literate, not the bum-wipers - but the Spiveys can put the computer paper to what they consider to be "good use", I'm sure):
Charles Francis Adams, Jr. (May 27, 1835 – May 20, 1915) was a member of the prominent Adams family, and son of Charles Francis Adams, Sr. (son of President John Quincy Adams and grandson of President John Adams). He served as a colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
http://leearchive.wlu.edu/reference/misc/centennial/adams.html
...The technical argument—the logic of the proposition—seems plain and, to my thought, unanswerable. The original sovereignty was indisputably in the State; in order to establish a nationality certain attributes of sovereignty were ceded by the States to a common central organization; all attributes not thus specifically conceded were reserved to the States, and no attributes of moment were to be construed as conceded by implication. There is no attribute of sovereignty so important as allegiance,—citizenship. So far all is elementary. Now we come to the crux of the proposition. Not only was allegiance—the right to define and establish citizenship—not among the attributes specifically conceded by the several States to the central nationality, but, on the contrary, it was explicitly reserved, the instrument declaring that “the citizens of each State” should be entitled to “all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.” Ultimate allegiance was, therefore, due to the State which defined and created citizenship, and not to the central organization which accepted as citizens whomever the States pronounced to be such.[note]
[note] See W. H. Fleming, Slavery and the Race Problem at the South, pp. 19, 20. An authoritative definition of United States citizenship, as distinct from the citizenship of a State was first given in the fourteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution, ratified in 1868. See J. S. Wise, A Treatise on American Citizenship, pp. 6, 13, 31.
Thus far I have never been able to see where room was left for doubt. Citizenship was an attribute recognized by the Constitution as originating with, and of course be longing to, the several States. But, speaking historically and in a philosophical rather than in a legal spirit, it is little more than a commonplace to assert that one great safeguard of the Anglo-Saxon race—what might almost be termed its political palladium—has ever been that hard, if at times illogical, common sense which, recognizing established custom as a binding rule of action, found its embodiment in what we are wont with pride to term the Common Law. Now, just as there can, I think, be no question as to the source of citizenship and, consequently, as to sovereignty, when the Constitution was originally adopted, there can be equally little question that during the lives of the two succeeding generations a custom of nationality grew up which became the accepted Common Law of the land, and practically binding as such. This was true in the South as well as the North, though the custom was more hardened into accepted law in the latter than in the former; but the growth and acceptance as law of the custom of nationality even in the South was incontrovertibly shown in the very act of secession,—the seceding States at once crystallizing into a Confederacy. Nationality was assumed as a thing of course.
But the metaphysical abstraction of a divided sovereignty, none the less, bridged the chasm. As a modus vivendi it did its work. I have called it a metaphysical abstraction; but it was also a practical arrangement resulting in great advantages. It might be illogical, and fraught with possible disputes and consequent dangers; but it was an institution. And so it naturally came to pass that in many of the States a generation grew up, dating from the War of 1812, who, gravitating steadily and more and more strongly to nationality, took a wholly different view of allegiance. For them Story laid down the law; Webster was their mouthpiece; at one time it looked as if Jackson was to be their armed exponent. They were, moreover, wholly within their right. The sovereignty was confessedly divided; and it was for them to elect. The movements of both science and civilization were behind the nationalists. The railroad obliterated State lines, while it unified the nation. What did the foreign immigrants, now swarming across the ocean, care for States? They knew only the Nation. Brought up in Europe, the talk of State sovereignty was to them foolishness. Its alpha bet was incomprehensible. In a word, it too “was caviare to the general.”
Then the inevitable issue arose; and it arose over African slavery; and slavery was sectional. The States south of a given line were arrayed against the States north of that line. Owing largely to slavery, and the practical exclusion of immigrants because thereof, the States of the South had never undergone nationalization at all to the extent those of the North had undergone it. The growing influence and power of the national government, the sentiment inspired by the wars in which we had been engaged, the rapidly improving means of communication and intercourse, had produced their effects in the South; but in degree far less than in the North. Thus the curious result was brought about that, when, at last, the long deferred issue confronted the country, and the modus vivendi of two generations was brought to a close, those who believed in national sovereignty constituted the conservative majority, striving for the preservation of what then was,—the existing nineteenth-century Nation,—while those who passionately adhered to State sovereignty, treading in the footsteps of the fathers, had become eighteenth-century reactionists. Legally, each had right on his side. The theory of a divided Sovereignty had worked itself out to its logical consequence. “Under which King, Bezonian?”—and every man had to “speak or die.”
In the North the situation was simple. State and Nation stood together. The question of allegiance did not present itself, for the two sovereignties merged. It was otherwise in the South; and there the question became, not legal or constitutional, but practical. The life of the Nation had endured so long, the ties and ligaments had become so numerous and interwoven that, all theories to the contrary notwithstanding, a peaceable secession from the Union—a virtual exercise of State sovereignty—had become impossible. If those composing the several dissatisfied communities would only keep their tempers under restraint, and exercise an almost unlimited patience, a theoretical divided sovereignty, maintained through the agency and intervention of the Supreme Court,—in other words the perpetuation of the modus vivendi, was altogether practicable; and probably this was what the framers had in mind under such a contingency as had now arisen. But that, after seventy years of Union and nationalization, a peaceable and friendly taking to pieces was possible, is now, as then it was, scarcely thinkable. Certainly, with a most vivid recollection of the state of sectional feeling which then existed, I do not believe there was a man in the United States—I am confident there was not a woman in the South—who fostered self-delusion to the extent of believing that the change was to come about without a recourse to force. In other words practical Secession was revolution theoretically legal. Why waste time and breath in discussion!—The situation becomes manifestly impossible of continuance where the issue between heated men, with weapons handy, is over a metaphysical distinction involving vast material and moral consequences. Lee, with intuitive common sense, struck the nail squarely on the head when amidst the Babel of discordant tongues he wrote to his son—“ It is idle to talk of secession;” the national government as it then was “can only be dissolved by revolution.” That struggle of dissolution might be longer and fiercer,—as it was,—or shorter, and more wordy than blood-letting,—as the seceding States confidently believed would prove to be the case,—but a struggle there would be.
Historically, such were the conditions to which natural processes of development had brought the common country at the mid-decennium of the century. People had to elect; the modus vivendi was at an end.—Was the State sovereign; or was the Nation sovereign? And, with a shock of genuine surprise that any doubt should exist on that head, eleven States arrayed themselves on the side of the Sovereignty of the State and claimed the unquestioning allegiance of their citizens; and I think it not unsafe to assert that nowhere did the original spirit of State Sovereignty and allegiance to the State then survive in greater intensity and more unquestioning form than in Virginia,—the “Old Dominion,”—the mother of States and of Presidents. And here I approach a sociological factor in the problem more subtle and also more potent than any legal consideration. It has no standing in Court: but the historian may not ignore it; while, with the biographer of Lee, it is crucial. Upon it judgment hinges. I have not time to consider how or why such a result came about, but of the fact there can, I hold, be no question,—State pride, a sense of individuality, has immemorially entered more largely and more intensely into Virginia and Virginians than into any other section or community of the country. Only in South Carolina and among Carolinians, on this continent, was a somewhat similar pride of locality and descent to be found. There was in it a flavor of the Hidalgo,—or of the pride which the Macgregors and Campbells took in their clan and country. In other words, the Virginian and the Carolinian had in the middle of the last century not undergone nationalization to any appreciable extent.
But this, it will be replied, though true of the ordinary man and citizen, should not have been true of the graduate of the military academy, the officer of the Army of the United States. Winfield Scott and George H. Thomas did not so construe their allegiance; when the issue was presented, they remained true to their flag and to their oaths. Robert E. Lee, false to his oath and flag, was a renegade! The answer is brief and to the point:—the conditions in the several cases were not the same,—neither Scott nor Thomas was Lee. It was our Boston Dr. Holmes who long ago declared that the child's education begins about two hundred and fifty years before it is born; and it is quite impossible to separate any man—least of all, perhaps, a full-blooded Virginian—from his prenatal traditions and living environment. From them he drew his being; in them he exists. Robert E. Lee was the embodiment of those conditions, the creature of that environment,—a Virginian of Virginians. His father was “Light Horse Harry” Lee, a devoted follower of Washington; but in January, 1792, “Light Horse Harry” wrote to Mr. Madison: “No consideration on earth could induce me to act a part, however gratifying to me, which could be construed into disregard of, or faithlessness to, this Commonwealth;” and later, when in 1798 the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions were under discussion, “Light Horse Harry” exclaimed in debate, “Virginia is my country; her will I obey, however lamentable the fate to which it may subject me.” Born in this environment, nurtured in these traditions, to ask Lee to raise his hand against Virginia was like asking Montrose or the MacCallum More to head a force designed for the subjection of the Highlands and the destruction of the clans. Where such a stern election is forced upon a man as then confronted Lee, the single thing the fair-minded investigator has to take into account is the loyalty, the single-mindedness of the election. Was it devoid of selfishness,—was it free from any baser and more sordid worldly motive,—ambition, pride, jealousy, revenge or self-interest? To this question there can, in the case of Lee, be but one answer. When, after long and trying mental wrestling, he threw in his fate with Virginia, he knowingly sacrificed everything which man prizes most,—his dearly beloved home, his means of support, his professional standing, his associates, a brilliant future assured to him. Born a slaveholder in a race of slaveholders, he was himself no defender, much less an advocate of slavery; on the contrary, he did not hesitate to pronounce it in his place “a moral and political evil.” Later, he manumitted his slaves. He did not believe in secession; as a right reserved under the Constitution he pronounced it “idle talk”: but, as a Virginian, he also added, “if the Government is disrupted, I shall return to my native State and share the miseries of my people, and save in defence will draw my sword on none.” Next to his high sense of allegiance to Virginia was Lee's pride in his profession. He was a soldier; as such rank, and the possibility of high command and great achievement, were very dear to him. He quietly and silently made the greatest sacrifice a soldier can be asked to make. With war plainly impending, the foremost place in the army of which he was an officer was now tendered him; his answer was to lay down the commission he already held. Virginia had been drawn into the struggle; and, though he recognized no necessity for the state of affairs, “in my own person,” he wrote, “I had lo meet the question whether I should take part against my native State; I have not been able lo make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home.” It may have been treason to take this position; the man who look it, uttering these words and sacrificing as he sacrificed, may have been technically a renegade to his flag,—if you please, false to his allegiance; but he stands awaiting sentence at the bar of history in very respectable company. Associated with him are, for instance, William of Orange, known as The Silent, John Hampden, the original Pater Patriae, Oliver Cromwell, the Protector of the English Commonwealth, Sir Harry Vane, once a governor of Massachusetts, and George Washington, a Virginian of note. In the throng of other offenders I am also gratified to observe certain of those from whom I not unproudly claim descent. They were, one and all, in the sense referred to, false to their oaths—forsworn. As to Robert E. Lee, individually, I can only repeat what I have already said,—[“]if in all respects similarly circumstanced, I hope I should have been filial and unselfish enough to have done as Lee did.”[note] Such an utterance on my part may be “traitorous;” but I here render that homage...
read the rest @ http://leearchive.wlu.edu/reference/misc/centennial/adams.html
I'll not waste any more time with them, they're unworthy of it. Flinging verbal poop, as if they aspire to be monkeys in a zoo, destroys any reason to pay them any mind.
I don't include Partisan Gunslinger with those tragic souls.
PG thus far seems to be more interested in seeking truth, and not inclined to fling juvenile insults.
BTW, I ran across this. Any thoughts on it, kiry?
Historians have long debated the causes of the war and the Southern perspective differs greatly from the Northern perspective. Based upon the study of original documents of theWar Between The States (Civil War) era and facts and information published by Confederate Veterans, Confederate Chaplains, Southern writers and Southern Historians before, during, and after the war, I present the facts, opinions, and conclusions stated in the following article.
Technically the 10 causes listed are reasons for Southern secession. The only cause of the war was that the South was invaded and responded to Northern aggression.
I respectfully disagree with those who claim that the War Between the States was fought over slavery or that the abolition of slavery in the Revolutionary Era or early Federal period would have prevented war. It is my opinion that war was inevitable between the North and South due to complex political and cultural differences. The famous Englishman Winston Churchill stated that the war between the North and South was one of the most unpreventable wars in history. The Cause that the Confederate States of America fought for (1861-1865) was Southern Independence from the United States of America. Many parallels exist between the War for American Independence ( 1775-1783 ) and the War for Southern Independence.
There were 10 political causes of the war (causes of Southern Secession) ---one of which was slavery-- which was a scapegoat for all the differences that existed between the North and South. The Northern industrialists had wanted a war since about 1830 to get the South's resources ( land-cotton- coal-timber- minerals ) for pennies on the dollar. All wars are economic and are always between centralists and decentralists. The North would have found an excuse to invade the South even if slavery had never existed.
A war almost occurred during 1828-1832 over the tariff when South Carolina passed nullification laws. The U.S. congress had increased the tariff rate on imported products to 40% ( known as the tariff of abominations in Southern States ). This crisis had nothing to do with slavery. If slavery had never existed --period--or had been eliminated at the time the Declaration of Independence was written in 1776 or anytime prior to 1860 it is my opinion that there would still have been a war sooner or later.
On a human level there were 4 causes of the war--New England Greed--New England Fanatics--New England Zealots--and New England Hypocrites. During "So Called Reconstruction" ( 1865-1877 ) the New England Industrialists got what they had really wanted for 40 years--THE SOUTH'S RESOURCES FOR PENNIES ON THE DOLLAR. It was a political coalition between the New England economic interests and the New England fanatics and zealots that caused Southern secession to be necessary for economic survival and safety of the population.
1. TARIFF--Prior to the war about 75% of the money to operate the Federal Government was derived from the Southern States via an unfair sectional tariff on imported goods and 50% of the total 75% was from just 4 Southern states--Virginia- North Carolina--South Carolina and Georgia. Only 10%--20% of this tax money was being returned to the South. The Southern states were being treated as an agricultural colony of the North and bled dry. John Randolph of Virginia's remarks in opposition to the tariff of 1820 demonstrates that fact. The North claimed that they fought the war to preserve the Union but the New England Industrialists who were in control of the North were actually supporting preservation of the Union to maintain and increase revenue from the tariff. The industrialists wanted the South to pay for the industrialization of America at no expense to themselves. Revenue bills introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives prior to the War Between the States were biased, unfair and inflammatory to the South. Abraham Lincoln had promised the Northern industrialists that he would increase the tariff rate if he was elected president of the United States. Lincoln increased the rate to a level that exceeded even the "Tariff of Abominations" 40% rate that had so infuriated the South during the 1828-1832 era ( between 50 and 51% on iron goods). The election of a president that was Anti-Southern on all issues and politically associated with the New England industrialists, fanatics, and zealots brought about the Southern secession movement.
2. CENTRALIZATION VERSUS STATES RIGHTS---The United States of America was founded as a Constitutional Federal Republic in 1789 composed of a Limited Federal Government and Sovereign States. The North wanted to and did alter the form of Government this nation was founded upon. The Confederate States of America fought to preserve Constitutional Limited Federal Government as established by America’s founding fathers who were primarily Southern Gentlemen from Virginia. Thus Confederate soldiers were fighting for rights that had been paid for in blood by their forefathers upon the battlefields of the American Revolution. Abraham Lincoln had a blatant disregard for The Constitution of the United States of America. His War of aggression Against the South changed America from a Constitutional Federal Republic to a Democracy ( with Socialist leanings ) and broke the original Constitution. The infamous Socialist Karl Marx sent Lincoln a letter of congratulations after his reelection in 1864. A considerable number of European Socialists came to America and fought for the Union (North).
3. CHRISTIANITY VERSUS SECULAR HUMANISM--The South believed in basic Christianity as presented in the Holy Bible.The North had many Secular Humanists ( atheists, transcendentalists and non-Christians ). Southerners were afraid of what kind of country America might become if the North had its way. Secular Humanism is the belief that there is no God and that man,science and government can solve all problems. This philosophy advocates human rather than religious values. Reference : Frank Conner’s book "The South Under Siege 1830-2000."
4. CULTURAL DIFFERENCES- -Southerners and Northerners were of different Genetic Lineages. Southerners were primarily of Western English (original Britons),Scottish, and Irish linage (Celtic) whereas Northerners tended to be of Anglo-Saxon and Danish (Viking) extraction. The two cultures had been at war and at odds for over 1000 years before they arrived in America. Our ancient ancestors in Western England under King Arthur humbled the Saxon princes at the battle of Baden Hill ( circa 497 AD --516 AD ). The cultural differences that contributed to the War Between the States (1861-1865 ) had existed for 1500 years or more.
5. CONTROL OF WESTERN TERRITORIES- -The North wanted to control Western States and Territories such as Kansas and Nebraska. New England formed Immigrant Aid Societies and sent settlers to these areas that were politically attached to the North. They passed laws against slavery that Southerners considered punitive. These political actions told Southerners they were not welcome in the new states and territories. It was all about control--slavery was a scapegoat.
6. NORTHERN INDUSTRIALISTS WANTED THE SOUTH'S RESOURCES. The Northern Industrialists wanted a war to use as an excuse to get the South's resources for pennies on the dollar. They began a campaign about 1830 that would influence the common people of the North and create enmity that would allow them to go to war against the South. These Northern Industrialists brought up a morality claim against the South alleging the evils of slavery. The Northern Hypocrites conveniently neglected to publicize the fact that 5 New England States ( Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and New York ) were primarily responsible for the importation of most of the slaves from Africa to America. These states had both private and state owned fleets of ships.
7. SLANDER OF THE SOUTH BY NORTHERN NEWSPAPERS. This political cause ties in to the above listed efforts by New England Industrialists. Beginning about 1830 the Northern Newspapers began to slander the South. The Industrialists used this tool to indoctrinate the common people of the North. They used slavery as a scapegoat and brought the morality claim up to a feverish pitch. Southerners became tired of reading in the Northern Newspapers about what bad and evil people they were just because their neighbor down the road had a few slaves. This propaganda campaign created hostility between the ordinary citizens of the two regions and created the animosity necessary for war. The Northern Industrialists worked poor whites in the factories of the North under terrible conditions for 18 hours a day ( including children ). When the workers became old and infirm they were fired. It is a historical fact that during this era there were thousands of old people living homeless on the streets in the cities of the North. In the South a slave was cared for from birth to death. Also the diet and living conditions of Southern slaves was superior to that of most white Northern factory workers. Southerners deeply resented this New England hypocrisy and slander.
8. NEW ENGLANDERS ATTEMPTED TO INSTIGATE MASSIVE SLAVE REBELLIONS IN THE SOUTH. Abolitionists were a small but vocal and militant group in New England who demanded instant abolition of slavery in the South. These fanatics and zealots were calling for massive slave uprisings that would result in the murder of Southern men, women and children. Southerners were aware that such an uprising had occurred in Santa Domingo in the 1790 era and that the French (white) population had been massacred. The abolitionists published a terrorist manifesto and tried to smuggle 100,000 copies into the South showing slaves how to murder their masters at night. Then when John Brown raided Harpers Ferry,Virginia in 1859 the political situation became inflammatory. Prior to this event there had been five times as many abolition societies in the South as in the North. Lincoln and most of the Republican Party ( 64 members of congress ) had adopted a political platform in support of terrorist acts against the South. Some (allegedly including Lincoln) had contributed monetarily as supporters of John Browns terrorist activities.. Again slavery was used as a scapegoat for all differences that existed between the North and South.
9.. SLAVERY. Indirectly slavery was a cause of the war. Most Southerners did not own slaves and would not have fought for the protection of slavery. However they believed that the North had no Constitutional right to free slaves held by citizens of Sovereign Southern States. Prior to the war there were five times as many abolition societies in the South as in the North. Virtually all educated Southerners were in favor of gradual emancipation of slaves. Gradual emancipation would have allowed the economy and labor system of the South to gradually adjust to a free paid labor system without economic collapse. Furthermore, since the New England States were responsible for the development of slavery in America, Southerners saw the morality claims by the North as blatant hypocrisy. The first state to legalize slavery had been Massachusetts in 1641 and this law was directed primarily at Indians. In colonial times the economic infrastructure of the port cities of the North was dependent upon the slave trade. The first slave ship in America, "THE DESIRE", was fitted out in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Further proof that Southerners were not fighting to preserve slavery is found in the diary of an officer in the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. He stated that "he had never met a man in the Army of Northern Virginia that claimed he was fighting to preserve slavery". If the war had been over slavery, the composition of the politicians, officers, enlisted men, and even African Americans would have been different. Confederate General Robert E. Lee had freed his slaves (Custis estate) prior to 1863 whereas Union General Grant's wife Julia did not free her slaves until after the war when forced to do so by the 13th amendment to the constitution and court action. Grant even stated that if the abolitionists claimed he was fighting to free slaves that he would offer his services to the South. Mildred Lewis Rutherford ( 1852-1928 ) was for many years the historian for the United Daughters Of The Confederacy (UDC). In her book Truths Of History she stated that there were more slaveholders in the Union Army ( 315,000 ) than the Confederate Army ( 200,000 ). Statistics also show that about 300,000 blacks supported the Confederacy versus about 200,000 for the Union. Clearly the war would have been fought along different lines if it had been fought over slavery. The famous English author Charles Dickens stated " the Northern onslaught upon Southern slavery is a specious piece of humbug designed to mask their desire for the economic control of the Southern states."
10, NORTHERN AGGRESSION AGAINST SOUTHERN STATES, Proof that Abraham Lincoln wanted war may be found in the manner he handled the Fort Sumter incident. Original correspondence between Lincoln and Naval Captain G.V.Fox shows proof that Lincoln acted with deceit and willfully provoked South Carolina into firing on the fort ( A TARIFF COLLECTION FACILITY ). It was politically important that the South be provoked into firing the first shot so that Lincoln could claim the Confederacy started the war. Additional proof that Lincoln wanted war is the fact that Lincoln refused to meet with a Confederate peace delegation. They remained in Washington for 30 days and returned to Richmond only after it became apparent that Lincoln wanted war and refused to meet and discuss a peace agreement. After setting up the Fort Sumter incident for the purpose of starting a war, Lincoln called for 75,000 troops to put down what he called a rebellion. He intended to march Union troops across Virginia and North Carolina to attack South Carolina. Virginia and North Carolina were not going to allow such an unconstitutional and criminal act of aggression against a sovereign sister Southern State. Lincoln's act of aggression caused the secession of the upper Southern States.
On April 17th 1861, Governor Letcher of Virginia sent this message to Washington DC: " I have only to say that the militia of Virginia will not be furnished to the powers of Washington for any such use or purpose as they have in view. Your object is to subjugate the Southern states and the requisition made upon me for such a object-an object in my judgement not within the purview of the constitution or the act of 1795, will not be complied with. You have chosen to inaugurate civil war; having done so we will meet you in a spirit as determined as the administration has exhibited toward the South."
The WAR BETWEEN THE STATES 1861-1865 occurred due to many complex causes and factors as enumerated above. Those who make claims that "the war was over slavery" or that if slavery had been abolished in 1776 when the Declaration of Independence was signed or in 1789 when The Constitution of the United States of America was signed, that war would not have occurred between North and South are being very simplistic in their views and opinions.
The following conversation between English ship Captain Hillyar and Capt. Raphael Semmes-Confederate Ship CSS Alabama occurred during the war on August 5th, 1861. It is a summary from a well-educated Southerner who is stating his reasons for fighting.
Captain Hillyar expressed surprised at Captain Semme's contention that the people of the South were "defending ourselves against robbers with knives at our throats", and asked for further clarification as to how this was so, the exchange below occurred. I especially was impressed with Semmes' assessment of yankee motives - the creation of "Empire"!
Semmes: "Simply that the machinery of the Federal Government, under which we have lived, and which was designed for the common benefit, has been made the means of despoiling the South, to enrich the North", and I explained to him the workings of the iniquitous tariffs, under the operation of which the South had, in effect, been reduced to a dependent colonial condition, almost as abject as that of the Roman provinces, under their proconsuls; the only difference being, that smooth-faced hypocrisy had been added to robbery, inasmuch as we had been plundered under the forms of law"
Captain Hillyar: "All this is new to me", replied the captain. "I thought that your war had arisen out of the slavery question."
Semmes: "That is the common mistake of foreigners. The enemy has taken pains to impress foreign nations with this false view of the case. With the exception of a few honest zealots, the canting hypocritical Yankee cares as little for our slaves as he does for our draught animals. The war which he has been making upon slavery for the last 40 years is only an interlude, or by-play, to help on the main action of the drama, which is Empire; and it is a curious coincidence that it was commenced about the time the North began to rob the South by means of its tariffs. When a burglar designs to enter a dwelling for the purpose of robbery, he provides himself with the necessary implements. The slavery question was one of the implements employed to help on the robbery of the South. It strengthened the Northern party, and enabled them to get their tariffs through Congress; and when at length, the South, driven to the wall, turned, as even the crushed worm will turn, it was cunningly perceived by the Northern men that 'No slavery' would be a popular war-cry, and hence, they used it.
It is true that we are defending our slave property, but we are defending it no more than any other species of our property - it is all endangered, under a general system of robbery. We are in fact, fighting for independence."
The Union victory in 1865 destroyed the right of secession in America,which had been so cherished by America's founding fathers as the principle of their revolution. British historian and political philosopher Lord Acton, one of the most intellectual figures in Victorian England, understood the deeper meaning of Southern defeat. In a letter to former Confederate General Robert E. Lee dated November 4,1866, Lord Acton wrote " I saw in States Rights the only available check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy. I deemed you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization and I mourn for that which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo (defeat of Napoleon). As Illinois Governor Richard Yates stated in a message to his state assembly on January 2,1865, the war had " tended, more than any other event in the history of the country, to militate against the Jeffersonian Ideal ( Thomas Jefferson ) that the best government is that which governs least.
Years after the war former Confederate president Jefferson Davis stated " I Am saddened to Hear Southerners Apologize For Fighting To Preserve Our Inheritance" . Some years later former U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt stated " Those Who Will Not Fight For The Graves Of Their Ancestors Are Beyond Redemption".
James W. King
Commander Camp 141
Lt. Col. Thomas M. Nelson
Sons of Confederate Veterans
PO Box 70577
Albany, Georgia 31708
229-436-0397
jkingantiquearms@ bellsouth. net