House drops Confederate Flag ban for veterans cemeteries

A measure to bar confederate flags from cemeteries run by the Department of Veterans Affairs was removed from legislation passed by the House early Thursday.

The flag ban was added to the VA funding bill in May by a vote of 265-159, with most Republicans voting against the ban. But Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) both supported the measure. Ryan was commended for allowing a vote on the controversial measure, but has since limited what amendments can be offered on the floor.

01/04/1861 — Alabama militia sieze the U.S. arsenal at Mt. Vernon, AL. Alabama has not yet seceded.
01/05/1861 — Alabama militia sieze Ft. Morgan and Ft. Gaines in Mobile Bay.
01/07/1861 — Florida militia sieze the Federal fort at St. Augustine. Florida has not yet seceded.
01/08/1861 — Florida militia attempting to sieze Ft. Barrancas are driven off by Federal troops.
01/09/1861 — South Carolina militia fire on US merchant vessel Star of the West, preventing reinforcement and resupply of Ft. Sumter garrison.
Mississippi secedes.
01/10/1861 — Louisiana militia sieze all Federal forts and arsenals in the state. Louisiana has not yet seceded.
Florida (belatedly) secedes. Federal troops abandon Ft. Barrancas.
North Carolina militia capture Ft. Johnson and Ft. Caswell. North Carolina has not yet seceded.
01/11/1861 — Alabama (belatedly) secedes.
01/12/1861 — Florida militia demands the surrender of Federal troops in Ft. Pickens. The demand is refused.
Mississippi fortifies Vicksburg and closes the Mississippi River to all traffic. Mississippi is the only state on the river, at this point, which has seceded.
01/19/1861 — Georgia secedes.
01/21/1861 — Mississippi militia sieze Ft. Massachussetts and Ship Island.
01/25/1861 — Georgia militia sieze the federal arsenal at Augusta. North Carolina calls for a referendum on secession.
01/26/1861 — Georgia militia sieze Ft. Jackson and Oglethorpe Barracks.
Louisiana (belatedly) secedes.
01/31/1861 — The U.S. Mint in New Orleans is siezed by Louisiana militia.
02/09/1861 — Tennessee rejects secession in popular referendum by a large margin.
02/16/1861 — Texas militia sieze the federal arsenal at San Antonio. Texas has not yet seceded.
02/18/1861 — Texas militia besiege Federal army headquarters for Texas in San Antonio and force the surrender of over 3,000 troops. Texas has -still- not seceded.
Jefferson Davis inaugurated as President of the Confederacy.
02/21/1861 — The Confederate Provisional Congress orders Mississippi to end the blockade at Vicksburg.
02/23/1861 — Texas voters approve secession by a 75% majority, secession to take effect March 2 (Texas Independence Day).
02/28/1861 — North Carolina voters narrowly reject secession (by fewer than 1,000 votes).
03/01/1861 — Texas submits an article of secession to popular referendum for February 23.
03/02/1861 — Texas’s secession takes effect; that same day, Texas is admitted into the Confederacy.
03/03/1861 — The militia units in Charleston Harbor are taken under Confederate authority.
03/04/1861 — Lincoln inaugurated.

I hope you are feeling better now and will recover well.

From the Lincoln-supporting Philadelphia Press on March 18, 1861

The publisher of the Press supported Buchanan and gradually shifted over to the Republicans. It shouldn't be assumed that he was staunchly "Lincoln-supporting" at that point. The Philadelphia Public Ledger was very much a Copperhead paper and looking for anything that could undermine the unionist cause.

The General Government, … to prevent the serious diminution of its revenues, will be compelled to blockade the Southern ports … and prevent the importation of foreign goods into them, or to put another expensive guard upon the frontiers to prevent smuggling into the United States.

In the same way that the Confederate government would be forced to "blockade" its Northern border to keep its labor force from running off? In both cases, mass smuggling and mass runaways were things that might happen further on in time, not the pressing concerns of the present moment.

From the New Orleans Daily Crescent newspaper of May 15, 1861 quoting the New York Day Book newspaper [again, my emphasis below]:

All New York is failing. The suspensions and failures of the past few days have been fearful, and the war promises to bankrupt every merchant in New York. The retail business is as bad off as the wholesale. Nobody is purchasing anything, and trade is killed.

The famous New York Day-Book Weekly? "Acknowledged the Best of the Democratic Weeklies ... Having the best circulation of any Democratic Weekly in the country ..."? They even put "Caucasian" in the masthead in the 1860s. And added the slogan "White Men Must Rule." Not exactly an unbiased source of information. New York's economy in ruins! Mass bankruptcy! Okay, if you want to believe that. In the mean time, you might want look up the publisher, John H. Van Evrie. If his paper is evidence that the war was all about tariffs, it really is a lost cause.

I hope you are feeling better now and will recover well.

Yes, I am. Thank you.

The publisher of the Press supported Buchanan and gradually shifted over to the Republicans. It shouldn't be assumed that he was staunchly "Lincoln-supporting" at that point.

Ah, but yes he was. John W. Forney was an open supporter of Lincoln at the time. See: Link [My emphasis below]:

Meanwhile, Senator Douglas won the 1858 Senate election but lost the 1860 presidential election. Forney’s private allegiances switched before the votes were counted. He played an important role in keeping Democrats divided and helping elect Mr. Lincoln president. According to Robert S. Harper: “When, in December of 1860, The Press endorsed John Hickman, a former slavery-advocating Democrat turned Republican, to fill a vacancy in the United States Senate, it was open admission that Forney had joined the new party. When Lincoln took office, The Press made a public announcement of adherence to his administration by lauding the inaugural address and giving its editorial word ‘to strengthen Mr. Lincoln in all honorable endeavors to promote the general welfare.’ After Fort Sumter, The Press, called the secessionists ‘envenomed and implacable enemies’ and praised preparations for war made by the Union.”4

Sorry, but I have an advantage on you perhaps. Years ago, I purchased a copy of the old book quoted above, Lincoln and the Press" by Robert S. Harper. It cost me $50. Best book by far about Lincoln and the press that I have found. I recommend it to you. It has far more information than what you provided about the Press in your post, which looked roughly similar to what is in Wikipedia.

I also quoted the New York Times. I haven't made an in depth study of the Times during the March April time period, although I have a disk of all their war-time articles. The Times was effusive in its praise of Lincoln's first inaugural speech [Link], but fairly quickly became frustrated with Lincoln over his apparent lack of a policy to deal with the Confederacy and the tariff problem. My March 30 quote from the Times is fairly similar to what the Democrat papers were saying at this time. So, all the papers I quoted that pointed out the situation we were in (including the Times) biased in your view? Obviously all of them had their biases and slant.

The Day Book was one of the New York and Brooklyn papers banned from the mails by the Postmaster-General later in 1861 (part of Lincoln Administration's war on the opposition press, I think). Do you have any indication that the Day Book was misrepresenting New York City business failings in my quote from it above? I'd be very interested in hearing about it if you did.

The rapid fall of the tariff revenue surely would have had serious consequences on NYC import related businesses.

PeaRidge, you are the whiz about Civil War economics. Are there other sources about what was happening to New York businesses in this time period?

He played an important role in keeping Democrats divided and helping elect Mr. Lincoln president.

So did all the other Democrats that year.

That in itself didn't mean they firmly were on Lincoln's side.

Do you have any indication that the Day Book was misrepresenting New York City business failings in my quote from it above?

We know about the Panic of 1837, the Panic of 1857, and the Panic of 1873.

If there'd been a Panic of 1861 wouldn't the news have gotten out by now?

It’s interesting to listen to the lost causers bleating about blockaded ports and notice that they fail to mention that on January 12th of 1861 the insurrectionists blockaded the Mississippi River.

Or, perhaps it is interesting to listen to our Northern friends on these threads "bleat" (that is your word; I would be more polite) about something and get it wrong. Again.

Umm ... it wasn't actually a blockade, rockrr, though Northern papers called it a blockade (biased journalism, anyone?). It was an inspection of boats traversing the Mississippi River right after Mississippi seceded to make sure the boats didn't contain federal soldiers and munitions to be used against the newly seceded Mississippi.

Given Buchanan's attempt shortly before to smuggle into Fort Sumter 200 armed soldiers hiding below decks in the commercial ship, Star of the West, and concerns that the feds might similarly try to stop Mississippi, the governor set up a battery on the river and a place for boats to pull over to be inspected. Boats pulled over, and their cargos were inspected. Then the boats were allowed to proceed. No soldiers or munitions were found and the battery was removed after a few days.

One boat, the A. O. Tyler, did not stop and a warning shot was fired. Then it pulled over to a wharf-boat. Here is a link to the story the captain of the A. O. Tyler told in a Cleveland newspaper: [Link- scroll down to an article below the red mark].

If that is a blockade, then I have been stopped by a customs blockade every time I return to the states from overseas. They let me proceed after a brief stop and rarely even inspect my stuff.

From The Weekly Whig of Vicksburg on January 30, 1861:

Navigation of the Mississippi -- ... The navigation of the Mississippi is not and has never been obstructed by this State, and the State Convention has unanimously decided that it shall not be, except for purposes of absolute self defence.

PeaRidge: "Without the 'currency' of Southern produced goods, Northern businessmen would not have enough specie on deposit to buy more than half the goods they had been purchasing."

Giving credit where it's due: I think that is exactly correct.
Cotton exports alone accounted for more than half of total US exports in 1860 -- that is neither exaggerating nor minimizing.
But other exports, including "specie" (gold & silver) from new mines out west, were not insignificant, and were growing.

PeaRidge quoting New York Herald 3/28/1861: "... imports here will be cut down to an insignificant figure; and the manufactures in the New England States will be seriously damaged; both business houses and factories will be transferred to the South; and, in fact, the northern tariff adopted to protect the manufacturing interests of the North will have no interests left to protect.
The actual effect of the tariff, then, will be to reduce the revenues of the Government at Washington and increase the revenues of the Southern Government..."

This assumes that, in a normal course of events, Congress would do nothing to improve competitiveness of Northern ports.
Matching Confederate rates would be a simple step.

still quoting New York Herald: "...Thus we find the country involved in a fearful commercial revolution through the policy of a fanatical party, which, for thirty years, has been endeavoring to overthrow all the best interests of the Republic for the sake of an abstraction."

So, what does that mean?
Well, in 1861 the New York Herald was New York's most popular newspaper -- pro-Democrat.
That means they were very friendly to their Southern Democrat allies and staunchly opposed to Republicans.
In that effort, we might expect the Herald to exaggerate Republican dangers and minimize Southern Democrat threats.

So in this case the "fanatical party" they refer to is not Fire Eating Southern Democrat secessionists, but rather Northern Republicans, which the Herald claims has been "...for thirty years... endeavoring to overthrow all the best interests of the Republic for the sake of an abstraction."

In 1860 the Republican Party was about seven years old, had only run in two presidential elections.
So who was that party "for thirty years"?
Pre-Republican Whigs were not anti-slavery, far from it.
Both elected Whig presidents (Harrison & Taylor) were Southern slave-holders.

And Republicans were not opposed to "an abstraction", far from it.
In 1860, Republicans were opposed to expanding slavery into those territories which didn't want it.
That's hardly an "abstraction".

Dozens upon dozens of forts across the south were revolutionary era structures built by the states or colonies. Others were built before the states in which they existed were acquired by the United States itself. In many cases this included the primary defensive fort for major harbors and inlets.

None of these various operations resulted in the loss of life due to the fact that these facilities were not defended, and the officials at each either resigned their employment, or in the case of military personnel, they returned north by boat or train.

Many of the properties were simply abandoned as the union army consolidated its troops from outlying posts.

Others were claimed by the states themselves for the simple reason that they had rightful ownership of the properties. Several of the coastal forts in the south dated back to the revolution and were built and paid for by the individual states, not the federal government, which acted only as conditional tenants to garrison them in defense.

PeaRidge: "Have you realized yet that the "Harriet Lane" was not in Florida when you said she was?"

So, you went to all the trouble to save, recover and post a seven year old quote, without bothering to note the back & forth which followed?
And you think that's a sign of something other than a feeble mind?

In that back & forth, rustbucket pointed out sources which said Harriot Lane was elsewhere at the time.
So I reasonably concluded that my source, a Civil War Timeline book, was likely mistaken.
But there were several Union ships involved, and I did not then take the time to chart out exactly where each ship was, and when, so as to discover exactly where the error occurred.

So once again, it's you who've posted falsehoods.

DiogenesLamp to PeaRidge: "And that right there is the cause of the war in a nutshell.
A free South would be a grave financial threat to the financial interests of the monied men of New England. "

Nobody claims that Southern secession would have no negative affects on Northern economic interests.
But that is far from claiming that such interests were the cause of Civil War.
They were not.

The cause of war, pure and simple, was the Confederate military assault on Union troops in Union Fort Sumter.
Absent that Confederate assault, there would be no war, no "Anaconda Plan", no blockade of Confederate ports, none of it.
There would also be no secession declarations by Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee & Arkansas.
Reason: from Virginians' perspective war was necessary for them to declare secession, and that's what Fort Sumter gave Virginians.
Other Upper South states had decided to follow Virginia's lead in first refusing to secede and then declaring secession after war began at Fort Sumter.

DiogenesLamp: "The act of attempting to land those men to reinforce Sumter, after assuring everyone that he would not, was an act of War."

Rubbish.
First of all, Lincoln assured nobody he would abandon Fort Sumter.
Yes, he did offer in negotiations with Virginia Unionists to swap "a fort for a state" -- if Virginia agreed to adjourn its secession convention and remain in the Union, then Lincoln would withdraw from Fort Sumter.
But Virginians refused Lincoln's offer, and so it was withdrawn.

Second, Lincoln announced his resupply mission to Fort Sumter directly to South Carolina Governor Pickens.
He promised Pickens (and ordered his own commander) there would be no reinforcement if the resupply mission was met with no force from Confederates.

Third, the analogy with Guantanamo Bay applies here: regardless of what the Communist Cuban government may say about Gitmo, no US mission to resupply or reinforce US troops on that US base can be considered an act of war.

But any Communist or Confederate assault of US forces is an act of war, period.

DiogenesLamp misquoting x post #323 as from BJK #329: "There was a stand-off, a war of nerves.
That could have lasted longer.
Confederates could have waited until Lincoln fired the first shot...."

DiogenesLamp responding to x, but directed to BJK: "No it wasn't, and you have to be six kinds of stupid to assert that it is even remotely comparable.
We lost 3,000 lives in Peal Harbor, and Zero at Ft. Sumter."

No, in fact, two Union troops died and four more seriously wounded as a result of Confederate actions.
That's of a total force of 85, about 7%, which is roughly the same percent of casualties at Pearl Harbor & Hawaii, December 7, 1941.

DiogenesLamp: "The Japanese did many Billions of Dollars of damage to our ships and harbor, and the Confederates did little to no damage to anything that belonged to the USA."

More nonsense.
In fact, Fort Sumter in 1861 was as relatively significant to the entire Union Army of about 17,000 troops as was Pearl Harbor in 1941 to the entire American military of around two million.
Fort Sumter was more significant in 1861 than is Gitmo today, and just like Guantanamo, a government's dispute of its ownership has no bearing on US military dispositions.
If that government were to attack US troops, it would be a certain act of war.

DiogenesLamp: "The Japanese attack was unprovoked, but the Sumter attack was provoked by an Act of War committed by Lincoln in sending men and arms to reinforce a fort which no longer belonged to the Union because Independence had restored it back to it's original owners."

Total bunk.
No law in any country has ever decreed that a change in government (self declared or otherwise) automatically changes any ownership of any US military property.
This is precisely the argument of Communist Cubans regarding Guantanamo, and it is just as wrong with them as it was in 1861 with the Confederacy's claims to Fort Sumter.

DiogenesLamp: "The closer analogy to the Japanese attack was when Lincoln sent 35,000 men to invade the South.
It was unprovoked, many died, and much damage was done."

Totally laughable.

After the Confederacy provoked war (December 1860 through April 1861) dozens of times through armed seizures of major Federal properties -- forts, ships, arsenals, mints, etc.
After the Confederacy started war (April 12, 1861) by its military assault on Union troops in Union Fort Sumter.
After the Confederacy formally declared war (May 6, 1861) on the United States.
After the Confederacy sent military aid to pro-Confederates fighting in Union Missouri (May 1, 1861).
Then the Union government had no choice except to defeat the Confederate military force which represented an existential threat to the United States.

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