Replies

rustbucket: "Perhaps our interlocutor forgets that back in those times Missouri, Kentucky, and even Maryland and Deleware were considered Southern states. See the following old map of the Southern States:"

"Interlocutor"?
The old rustbucket I remember didn't use such $2 words.
Do we now see a changed man?

Regardless, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland & Delaware all remained Union states.
So their exports cannot be considered products of the Deep Confederate South and cannot be used to justify secession.

rustbucket: "Our interlocutor has his own version of what were considered Southern states at the time, preferring to call states that were taken over or invaded by pro-union troops "Northern" states."

No, Union states are those which never voted for secession, and should include regions of states which remained loyal throughout, such as western Virginia, eastern Tennessee -- anywhere the percentage of slaves was relatively low, there Unionism dominated:

rustbucket: "The exiled state government did pass a secession document, but whether a quorum existed to pass the document is disputed."

The fact is: the lawful Missouri Convention took just one vote on secession, March 19, 1861, and it was overwhelmingly (98-1) for Union.
In October an unlawful rump assembly voted for secession, but Missouri was solidly Union as can be seen by enlistment numbers: about 100,000 Union, just 30,000 Confederates.

The key factor in Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland & Delaware was slaves & slaver-ownership: relatively few, a small minority, and non-slave holders had no interest in secession.

rustbucket: "Perhaps the poster doesn't remember Lincoln arresting members of the Maryland legislature to prevent them from voting for secession, or "Beast" Butler commanding Massachusetts troops invading and taking over Annapolis and then Baltimore. "

Rusty, your memory is very selective, consisting of only what you wish, never the whole story.
In fact, Maryland like Missouri took only one vote on secession, on April 29, 1861 53-13 against secession.
It also voted for a secession convention if Virginia seceded, however on May 6, 1861 the Confederacy formally declared war on the United States thus satisfying the Constitution's definition of treason:

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. "

On May 6, citizens of Union states who gave aid & comfort to the Confederacy were guilty of treason, and were treated accordingly.

rustbucket: "Kentucky is another Southern state whose loyalties were split.
Lincoln had only gotten 1,364 votes in Kentucky in the 1860 election.
A Kentucky group representing 68 of 110 counties adopted a secession ordinance and, like Missouri, was admitted to the Confederacy."

Rusty, I would be embarrassed and seek medical attention if my memory were as selective as yours.
In fact, like Missouri and Maryland, Kentucky never voted for secession.
In December 1860 its general assembly refused to consider secession.
In June 1861 Unionists won nine of ten Kentucky congressional seats.
The August 5 elections produced Unionist majorities of 76-24 in the House and 24-11 in the Senate, ending any lawful secessionist efforts.

Kentucky's Unionist sympathies are also seen in the numbers of troops supplied: about 100,000 Union, 30,000 Confederates.

rustbucket: "The action is perhaps roughly equivalent to the Federal Government accepting West Virginia's secession from Virginia although geographically most of the new state of West Virginia consisted of counties that had voted to secede from the Union."

Of West Virginia's 55 counties, three Northeastern counties were seriously secessionist.
However, after May 6, 1861 when the Confederacy formally declared war on the United States, those who gave aid & comfort to Confederates were constitutionally guilty of treason.
So not sure how much of a vote they would have in these matters.

Estimates of West Virginia troop numbers are disputed but do appear to be roughly equal Union & Confederate -- about 22,000 of each.
After the war, when Confederates were allowed to vote again, West Virginia became solid Democrat and has remained so ever since.

"Interlocutor"?
The old rustbucket I remember didn't use such $2 words.
Do we now see a changed man?

Interlocutor is a polite term. I'm sorry you had to look it up.

The situation was different in September. This was after Lincoln had ignored habeas corpus, thrown Marylanders in jail including newspaper editors and publishers, the Baltimore mayor, the Baltimore Marshal of Police, the Board of Police, etc., and basically taken over Baltimore and the state. The Lincoln Administration feared the Maryland Legislature was planning another secession vote in September and took steps to stop a lawfully elected state legislature from doing its business. I fear you'd have fit right in with the Federales, BJK.

See the following below regarding the Legislature and arrests: [Link]

On August 7, the General Assembly adjourned, intending to meet again on September 17. However, on that day Federal troops and Baltimore police officers arrived in Frederick with orders to arrest the pro-Confederate members of the General Assembly. Thus, the special session in Frederick ended, as did Frederick's summer as the state capital, as Maryland found itself inexorably drawn further and further into the heart of the bloodiest war in American history.

Lincoln had rebuffed the US House of Representatives when they asked for an explanations of the arrest of Baltimore officials. From the OR, Volume 2 Series 1 pages 155 and 156 beginning with part of a memorial from Baltimoreans to the House and Senate of the US Congress:

The protection afforded by constitutional guarantees of the liberty of the citizen and constitutional restraints imposed on the power of the Executive has been denied. Obedience to the courts is refused when they interfere for the protection of the citizen. Arms belonging to the city of Baltimore and rightfully in the custody of its authorities have been taken. The buildings of the city have been given into the custody of officers not known to its laws. Its court-house has been occupied by troops. Its civil authority has been disregarded, and a revolutionary government established by mere force of arms and against law.

Against these manifold wrongs your memorialist, for themselves and the free community which they represent, do most solemnly protest.

The State of Maryland has been and is subject to the Constitution and laws of the United States, and her citizens are of right entitled to the protection of that Constitution and of those laws. The civil authorities of this city have heretofore, and do now, render fitting obedience to the requirements of both. If disaffection is believed to exist, from which danger is apprehended, the guns of Fort McHenry turned on the homes of the women and children of an unarmed city, the Federal troops encamped around its limits, would seem an adequate protection to the Government. Whether that disaffection is weakened by depriving a whole community of the protection of its laws, whether the risk of disorder is diminished by establishing a police government which fails to command the respect accorded to undoubted lawful authority, you in your wisdom will determine.

But your memorialist respectfully, yet most earnestly, demand, as a matter of right, that their city may be governed according to the Constitution and laws of the United States and of the State of Maryland. They demand as a matter of right that citizens may e secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, and that they be not deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. They demand as a matter of right that the military render obedience to the civil authority, that our municipal laws be respected, that officers be released from imprisonment and restored to the lawful exercise of their functions, that the police government established by law be no longer impeded by armed force to the injury of peace and order. These their rightful demands your memorialist submit for the consideration of your honorable bodies.

Numbers 7. Resolution of the House of Representatives and reply of the President.

RESOLUTION.

Resolved, That the President be requested immediately to communicate to this House, if in his judgment not incompatible with the public interest, the grounds, reason, and evidence upon which the police commissioners of Baltimore were arrested, and are now detained as prisoners at Fort McHenry.

Adopted, July 24, 1864.

REPLY.

WASHINGTON, July 27, 1864.

To the House of Representatives:

In answer to the resolution of the House of Representatives of the 24th instant, asking the grounds, reason, and evidence upon which the police commissioners of Baltimore were arrested and are now detained as prisoners at Fort McHenry, I have to state that it is judged to be incompatible with the public interest at this time to furnish the information called for by the resolution.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

And from your favorite source, Wikipedia:

Lincoln's dismissal of Justice Taney's ruling was criticized in an editorial by Francis Scott Key's grandson, Baltimore newspaper editor Frank Key Howard, he was himself arrested without trial. (Ironically, federal troops imprisoned the young newspaper editor in Baltimore's Fort McHenry, which, as he noted, was the same fort where the Star Spangled Banner had been waving "o'er the land of the free" in his grandfather's lyrics.[33]) In 1863 Howard wrote about his experience as a "political prisoner" at Fort McHenry in the book Fourteen Months in the American Bastille;[33] two of the publishers selling the book were then arrested.[1]

One third of the members of the Maryland General Assembly were arrested on September 17, 1861, the first day of the legislature's new session, because of intelligence suggesting that the Assembly "would aid the anticipated rebel invasion and would attempt to take the state out of the Union".[34] Sitting U.S. Congressman from Maryland Henry May was also arrested without recourse to habeas corpus on suspicion of treason and held in Fort Lafayette.[35][36]

Now I understand that reference to Howard in the Maryland, my Maryland lyrics. I knew they had arrested the grandson of Francis Scott Key, but I didn't remember that Howard was his last name nor realize the arrest was for Howard criticizing Lincoln for ignoring Chief Justice Taney's valid order against the withholding of habeas corpus from Merryman.

In my post I had said the following: "The action [part of Kentucky voting to secede and the Confederacy accepting them] is perhaps roughly equivalent to the Federal Government accepting West Virginia's secession from Virginia although geographically most of the new state of West Virginia consisted of counties that had voted to secede from the Union."

You presented a different map than the one that illustrates my point. Here's a West Virginia map that supports exactly what I said: Link

The map shows that counties that had voted to secede from the Union were incorporated into the new state of West Virginia. From what I've read the people in many of those non-voting counties didn't vote so as not to give any legitimacy to something they wished to be no part of. I'm not sure what they had in common with Wheeling anyway. Perhaps it is like the people in the bulk of Pennsylvania being dominated or outvoted by the largest city in it, Philadelphia, with its suspected voter fraud.

after May 6, 1861 when the Confederacy formally declared war on the United States, those who gave aid & comfort to Confederates were constitutionally guilty of treason.

They were no longer members of the Union, and thus could not commit treason against it. Please show me the hoards of Confederates convicted of treason. You apparently hold that the Southern states did not have the right to secede. Yeah, I know you don't think they had sufficient cause to secede, but you don't get to decide that. Those states were the ones that decided if there was sufficient reason to secede. Also, please point out where in the Constitution secession is outlawed and how secession is not a reserved right of the states under the Tenth Amendment. Where in the Constitution is the power to stop secession given to the Federal government or to states that did not secede?