I don't care how many times the Democrats lied about their other reasons for secession or how many times you regurgitate their propaganda. They said it was about preserving slavery. As late as 1865 the arguments against allowing blacks to enlist were based on preserving slavery. Their votes against abolition were based on "states' rights", their words. They never freed the slaves until after they were defeated, and as you keep implying they wouldn't have.
And they were never offered explicit protection for slavery. Like all of the other policies you base your arguments on it was never ratified.
Repeats of Democrat lies snipped.
No. Abolition was never even brought up by Republicans in the North until very late in the war. Its not that Democrats blocked it. Its that Republicans weren't interested - as they openly said many many times.
They had only formed in 1856, and were blocked from passing abolition by the Democrats as late as 1864.
Repeats snipped.
False as usual. I have brought in facts, quotes and sources for which you have no answer. So you keep spamming the board with the same 3 quotes/links no matter how irrelevant they are to whatever specific point is being discussed.
I use the Democrats' own documents to prove my points. You use a bunch of cherry picked quotes from Confederacy Amen Corner approved sources, and policies that were never ratified.
Repeats snipped.
LOL! Everybody knew they were not a different species. Otherwise they could not have interbred with Whites.
Of course everyone knows that, but that doesn't prove the Democrats running the Confederacy saw it that way.
Was there PLANNED breeding...as in the owner selects which ones, extending over several generations? No, clearly there was not.
Were they allowed to breed outside of the plantation? No.
Were their children born free instead of treated like beasts of burden or sold as property? Maybe in a few cases, but as a rule no.
Nope! You have proven me right but don't want to admit it. They no more designed the Confederate Constitution from the ground up to protect slavery than the US Constitution was designed from the ground up to protect slavery. They simply adopted what had come before with a few modifications in the areas of protecting state's rights more explicitly and limiting the power of the central government to spend money. Those were the only areas they changed much because those were their real concerns.
What a pathetic reply that does nothing to answer my point, which was that they could have left the explicit protections out if they had intended to without abolishing slavery, but it was their intention to protect slavery.
And here's what the Democrats meant by "protecting states' rights".
Wrong. It was true. Union army desertion rates went up after the EP. Desertion was an ongoing problem in both armies. It did not go up significantly in the Confederate Army until late in the war due to the Confederate army not being adequately fed and due to soldiers wanting to go home to protect their families from attack by union army thieves, rapists, etc.
American Civil War Desertions in the Union and Confederate Armies
"Large numbers" is of course open for debate. The point is you claimed Southerners who fought for the Union did so out of a commitment to abolitionism. I find that claim extremely dubious and without any support.
You have yet to offer a viable alternative.
Yes. I stand by that.
Then you admit you did accuse me of calling you a Nazi.
That is your standard fallback. Look how many times you have desperately tried to compare Jefferson Davis to Hitler or the CSA to the Nazi regime...Answer what? Your ridiculous failed Nazi/Hitler analogies? The leaders and governments were not remotely analogous. There's your answer.
I haven't. I have only pointed out similarities in their actions. You can't answer that so you hide behind your "Mommy, TwelveOfTwenty called me a Nazi again" whining.
Well, given people like John Brown who were terrorists by any definition......Nat Turner was a terrorist and a murderer by any definition. Vesey was found to be after an investigation as well.
I see the slave owners who paid someone to kidnap humans and sell them as slaves as the real terrorists, but I guess it depends on which side you support.
How much profit did Northern political supporters of Lincoln/the Republicans make from keeping the Southern states as cash cows? Quite a lot! I've already posted numerous quotes and editorials from leading Northern papers saying exactly that.
Lincoln? None. He was assassinated by someone who was triggered by the idea that the blacks were freed.
The Republicans? I suppose you think paying for the CW, freeing the slaves, and reconstruction all came without cost.
“And slavery, you say, is no longer an element in the contest.” Union Colonel James Jaquess “No, it is not, it never was an essential element. It was only a means of bringing other conflicting elements to an earlier culmination. It fired the musket which was already capped and loaded. There are essential differences between the North and the South that will, however this war may end, make them two nations.” Jefferson Davis
More Democrat propaganda. Union Colonel James Jaquess was probably flabbergasted that JD would make such an outrageous claim after he had gone on record saying secession was the proper response to the election of abolitionists.
The rest of your Democrat propaganda snipped.
More eyewitness accounts of blacks serving in the Confederacy's military, even though I never said there weren't. What I doubt are the numbers you keep throwing at me, especially since many in the South were hesitant to allow them to enlist.
Confederate Law Authorizing the Enlistment of Black Soldiers, as Promulgated in a Military Order
Ratified in March 1865.
"IV. The enlistment of colored persons under this act will be made upon printed forms, to be furnished for the purpose, similar to those established for the regular service. They will be executed in duplicate, one copy to be returned to this office for file. No slave will be accepted as a recruit unless with his own consent and with the approbation of his master by a written instrument conferring, as far as he may, the rights of a freedman, and which will be filed with the superintendent."
and the Confederate government empowered their ambassador to agree to a treaty that would have abolished slavery. Seems that based on the undeniable facts, were perfectly willing to get rid of slavery to gain their independence.
On the formation of black regiments in the Confederate army, by promising the troops their freedom: Howell Cobb, former general in Lee's army, and prominent pre-war Georgia politician: "If slaves will make good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong." [Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 835.]
A North Carolina newspaper editorial: "it is abolition doctrine . . . the very doctrine which the war was commenced to put down." [North Carolina Standard, Jan. 17, 1865; cited in Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 835.]
Robert M.T. Hunter, Senator from Virginia, "What did we go to war for, if not to protect our property?"
Oh, about your quotes from Illinois Daily State Journal, in 1861 Illinois was technically still one of those slave holding states you like to talk about. By 1865, they became the first state to ratify the 13th Amendment.
I know you're going to say "See, I told you, they were opposed to abolition, then they voted for it.", but that only proves my point that this was what the Republicans had to work with to get abolition done. That they were overwhelmingly successful in only nine years is evidence enough of their intentions.
As has been pointed out to you before, that was the Confederate Congress. Various Confederate states allowed both free Blacks as well as slaves to serve in their forces. What was the Confederate Army composed of? State units. IOW, the Confederate Congress had no power to stop Blacks both slave and free from serving in the Confederate Army and many thousands did exactly that.....as the numerous quotes from union sources above all attest...Its deniable? You were there and can refute their eyewitness testimony?
The whole problem with the numbers game you keep playing is that during the fog of war it's almost impossible the get accurate counts until well after, and that was especially true of the Confederacy's military. They can't even say how many served, much less how many were black. Here's more.
I don't dispute that some blacks served in the Confederacy's military. I just doubt the numbers were that high, especially when the slaves needed their masters' permission to serve.
(Later) Your favorite PC Revisionist professor was there and knows that those union army eyewitnesses should believe their PC Revisionist dogma instead of their lyin' eyes?
Are you referring to a former slave who escaped, and noted with disgust that blacks would serve in the military of a nation that had written this into its constitution?
Sec. 9. (4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
Sec. 2. (I) The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.
Sec. 2. (3) The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.
I know you'll come back with "but the North also had slavery" and some states did, but the blacks who served in the Union's military understood they were fighting for their freedom, and against a regime that wanted to capture and enslave them.
Even more bandwidth well spent refuting your BS and lies.
Are these my BS and lies?
Speech of Jefferson Davis before the Mississippi Legislature, Nov. 16, 1858
The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States
Constitution of the Confederate States; March 11, 1861
Sec. 9. (4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
Sec. 2. (I) The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.
Sec. 2. (3) The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.
On the formation of black regiments in the Confederate army, by promising the troops their freedom: Howell Cobb, former general in Lee's army, and prominent pre-war Georgia politician: "If slaves will make good soldiers, then our whole theory of slavery is wrong." [Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 835.]
A North Carolina newspaper editorial: "it is abolition doctrine . . . the very doctrine which the war was commenced to put down." [North Carolina Standard, Jan. 17, 1865; cited in Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 835.]
Robert M.T. Hunter, Senator from Virginia, "What did we go to war for, if not to protect our property?"
All you have to answer this with are policies that were never ratified.
"I tried all in my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, for twelve years I worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not. The North was mad and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came, and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize the musket and fight our battle, unless you acknowledge our right to self government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence, and that, or extermination." - President Jefferson Davis The Atlantic Monthly Volume 14, Number 833
They didn't fight until extermination. On the contrary, many left to fight for the Union.
Compared to anything else in the world at the time, they were simply amazing.
That they were. Even with their own faults, they built the framework that would result in the abolition of those faults.
LOL! So you count him when its convenient for you, but discount him when his views are not convenient for you just as you try to discount the fact that President Davis and others said many many times that secession and the war were not about slavery.
I am under no obligation to accept any of this when their actions proved it was about preserving slavery.
I know you'll come back with another policy that was never ratified, so I'll answer it now. Abolition for military aid was never ratified.
Hell, even Lincoln and the US Congress said openly that the war was not about slavery.
We can see why with states like Illinois in the Union. They had to keep everyone in the fight until they had the votes to pass abolition. Both sides were talking out of both sides of their mouths, but their actions show which sides of each was telling the truth.
There you go again trying to claim the Democrats had long blocked abolition.
There you go, defending your party's actions again.
They made it clear because by all accounts, they meant it. There is nothing to support your implication/claim that they were super secretly abolitionists at heart and were just telling the Northern public what it wanted to hear. And in answer to your inevitable response, passing abolition years later does not in any way prove this is what they wanted before. Circumstances and sentiments had obviously changed by late in the war.
I hate to use up more bandwidth on this, but if FreeRepublic is willing to give you a forum to defend the Democrats from their own history, then I guess I'll need to.
The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States
From Georgia.
For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slaveryin reference to that property...
In 1820 the North endeavored to overturn this wise and successful policy and demanded that the State of Missouri should not be admitted into the Union unless she first prohibited slavery within her limits by her constitution.
Mr. Jefferson condemned the restriction and foresaw its consequences and predicted that it would result in the dissolution of the Union. His prediction is now history. The North demanded the application of the principle of prohibition of slavery to all of the territory acquired from Mexico and all other parts of the public domain then and in all future time. It was the announcement of her purpose to appropriate to herself all the public domain then owned and thereafter to be acquired by the United States. The claim itself was less arrogant and insulting than the reason with which she supported it. That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists.
The Presidential election of 1852 resulted in the total overthrow of the advocates of restriction and their party friends. Immediately after this result the anti-slavery portion of the defeated party resolved to unite all the elements in the North opposed to slavery an to stake their future political fortunes upon their hostility to slavery everywhere. This is the party two whom the people of the North have committed the Government. They raised their standard in 1856 and were barely defeated. They entered the Presidential contest again in 1860 and succeeded.
The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers.
It would appear difficult to employ language freer from ambiguity, yet for above twenty years the non-slave-holding States generally have wholly refused to deliver up to us persons charged with crimes affecting slave property.
The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party.
While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then...
The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success. An anti-slavery party must necessarily look to the North alone for support, but a united North was now strong enough to control the Government in all of its departments, and a sectional party was therefore determined upon. Time and issues upon slavery were necessary to its completion and final triumph. The feeling of anti-slavery, which it was well known was very general among the people of the North, had been long dormant or passive; it needed only a question to arouse it into aggressive activity.
That reason was her fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the States where it exists. The South with great unanimity declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition to the last extremity.
From Mississippi
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.
It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.
It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.
Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery;
It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.
From Texas
They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.
By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments.
They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture...
She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.
From South Carolina
A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.
The Great Migration refers to a specific event at a specific time - that was the 1890s when Southern Blacks moved North in large numbers. They did not do so a generation earlier because the Northern states would not allow them to do so a generation earlier.
I said MIGRATION.
I know you'll keep trying to fall back on "anything that suits my argument which any Southerners said was 100% true while anything Republicans/Northerners said which runs contrary to my argument was just said for sake of expediency. They were just politicians and had to get elected. They didn't really mean it." The problem for you is that you have zero evidence to support this ridiculous claim.
Evidence? I have something you don't, which is a policy that was ratified. When the Republicans had the votes they needed, they passed abolition and sent it to the states for ratification, only nine years after the party was formed. The Democrats wrote explicit protections for slavery into their Constitution, and never abolished slavery until defeated. That's what counts, not the policies you keep citing that were never made law.
I don't care how many times the Democrats lied about their other reasons for secession or how many times you regurgitate their propaganda. They said it was about preserving slavery. As late as 1865 the arguments against allowing blacks to enlist were based on preserving slavery. Their votes against abolition were based on "states' rights", their words. They never freed the slaves until after they were defeated, and as you keep implying they wouldn't have.
and I don't care how many times you try to lie by denying that they TURNED DOWN the Corwin Amendment or that they listed their economic exploitation by the Northern states or that they offered to abolish slavery in exchange for military aid from Britain and France, it is clear they did not secede over slavery.
And they were never offered explicit protection for slavery. Like all of the other policies you base your arguments on it was never ratified.
And they were offered explicit protection for slavery. You are just lying here. The Corwin Amendment passed the Northern dominated Congress with the necessary 2/3rds supermajority and was ratified by several Northern states
They had only formed in 1856, and were blocked from passing abolition by the Democrats as late as 1864.
They openly said they were not abolitionists and did not support abolition until very late in the war. How many times do you need to read that?
I use the Democrats' own documents to prove my points. You use a bunch of cherry picked quotes from Confederacy Amen Corner approved sources, and policies that were never ratified.
I use the Republicans' own documents to prove my points. You use the same 3 cherry picked quotes that don't even apply to what is being discussed more than half the time.
Of course everyone knows that, but that doesn't prove the Democrats running the Confederacy saw it that way.
In other words you have NOTHING to back up your BS claims.
Were they allowed to breed outside of the plantation? No. Were their children born free instead of treated like beasts of burden or sold as property? Maybe in a few cases, but as a rule no.
They were property. That does not mean there was a breeding program as you falsely claimed.
What a pathetic reply that does nothing to answer my point, which was that they could have left the explicit protections out if they had intended to without abolishing slavery, but it was their intention to protect slavery.
It was their intention to carry on as before with the key changes being about limiting the power of the central government, requiring a balanced budget and specifically recognizing the sovereign rights of the states. Nobody has ever said they intended anything different - except you.
You have yet to offer a viable alternative.
False. They fought for nationalism....just as the Loyalists did a couple generations earlier.
Then you admit you did accuse me of calling you a Nazi.?
I admit the fact that you made numerous completely frivolous comparisons to the Nazis and the CSA, yes. I admit you did that because.....you did.
I haven't. I have only pointed out similarities in their actions. You can't answer that so you hide behind your "Mommy, TwelveOfTwenty called me a Nazi again" whining.
You desperately tried to make laughable comparisons to the Nazis - the standard tactic of infantile Leftists.
I see the slave owners who paid someone to kidnap humans and sell them as slaves as the real terrorists, but I guess it depends on which side you support.
Those who use violence and terror to effect political change are by definition, terrorists.
Lincoln? None. He was assassinated by someone who was triggered by the idea that the blacks were freed. The Republicans? I suppose you think paying for the CW, freeing the slaves, and reconstruction all came without cost.
Who were the Republicans' main financial backers? The same corporate fatcats who were making a LOT of profit by keeping the Southern states as cash cows.
More Democrat propaganda. Union Colonel James Jaquess was probably flabbergasted that JD would make such an outrageous claim after he had gone on record saying secession was the proper response to the election of abolitionists.
It wasn't propaganda. It was said to a union officer during the war. It was entirely consistent with Davis' numerous statements that neither secession nor the war were "about" slavery made both in public and like this one, in private.
More eyewitness accounts of blacks serving in the Confederacy's military, even though I never said there weren't. What I doubt are the numbers you keep throwing at me, especially since many in the South were hesitant to allow them to enlist.
"The South" was not hesitant to allow them to enlist. The Confederate Congress was hesitant. But the Confederate Congress did not have control over the units the Confederate states sent to form the Confederate Army. Confederate states had no hesitation about enlisting Blacks and did so right from the start.
Confederate Law Authorizing the Enlistment of Black Soldiers, as Promulgated in a Military Order Ratified in March 1865. "IV. The enlistment of colored persons under this act will be made upon printed forms, to be furnished for the purpose, similar to those established for the regular service. They will be executed in duplicate, one copy to be returned to this office for file. No slave will be accepted as a recruit unless with his own consent and with the approbation of his master by a written instrument conferring, as far as he may, the rights of a freedman, and which will be filed with the superintendent."
As I've already outlined above, this was largely irrelevant. The regiments sent by states most definitely had Blacks in them and did from the start.....as all those eyewitness accounts attest.
Repeats snipped
“Wednesday, September 10--At four o'clock this morning the rebel army began to move from our town, Jackson's force taking the advance. The movement continued until eight o'clock P.M., occupying sixteen hours. The most liberal calculations could not give them more than 64,000 men. Over 3,000 negroes must be included in this number. These were clad in all kinds of uniforms, not only in cast-off or captured United States uniforms, but in coats with Southern buttons, State buttons, etc. These were shabby, but not shabbier or seedier than those worn by white men in rebel ranks. Most of the negroes had arms, rifles, muskets, sabres, bowie-knives, dirks, etc. They were supplied, in many instances, with knapsacks, haversacks, canteens, etc., and were manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederacy Army. They were seen riding on horses and mules, driving wagons, riding on caissons, in ambulances, with the staff of Generals, and promiscuously mixed up with all the rebel horde. (Report of Lewis H. Steiner, New York: Anson D. F. Randolph, 1862, pp. 10-11)
Union colonel Peter Allabach, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 131st Pennsylvania Infantry, reported that his forces encountered black Confederate soldiers during the battle of Chancellorsville:
Under this disposition of my command, I lay until 11 o'clock, when I received orders from you to throw the two left regiments perpendicular to the road, and to advance in line of battle, with skirmishers in front, as far as to the edge of the wood bordering near the Chancellor house. This movement was explained to me as intended to hold the enemy in check long enough for the corps of Major-Generals Couch and Sickles to get into another position, and not to bring on an action if it could be avoided; and, should the enemy advance in force, to fall back slowly until I arrived on the edge of the wood, there to mass in column and double-quick to the rear, that the artillery might fire in this wood. I was instructed that I was to consider myself under the command of Major-General Couch.
In obedience to these orders, at about 11 o'clock I advanced with these two regiments forward through the wood, under a severe fire of shell, grape, and canister. I encountered their skirmishers when near the farther edge of the wood. Allow me to state that the skirmishers of the enemy were negroes. (Report of Col. Peter H. Allabach, 131st Pennsylvania Infantry, commanding Second Brigade, in Official Records, Volume XXV, in Two Parts, 1889, Chap. 37, Part I – Reports, p. 555, emphasis added)
"It is now pretty well established, that there are at the present moment many colored men in the Confederate army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and laborers, but as real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets, ready to shoot down loyal troops, and do all that soldiers may" Frederick Douglass
A telegram from New Orleans dated November 23, 1861, notes the review by Gov. Moore of over 28,000 troops, and that one regiment comprised "1,400 colored men." The New Orleans Picayune, referring to a review held February 9, 1862, says: "We must also pay a deserved compliment to the companies of free colored men, all very well drilled and comfortably equipped." (Christian A. Fleetwood, The Negro as a Soldier, Washington, D.C.: Howard University Print, 1895, pp. 5-6)
In a Union army battle report, General David Stuart complained about the deadly effectiveness of the black Confederate soldiers whom his troops had encountered. The “armed negroes,” he said, did “serious execution upon our men”:
Col. Giles Smith commanded the First Brigade and Col. T. Kilby Smith, Fifty-fourth Ohio, the Fourth. I communicated to these officers General Sherman’s orders and charged Colonel Smith, Fifty-fourth Ohio, specially with the duty of clearing away the road to the crossing and getting it into the best condition for effecting our crossing that he possibly could. The work was vigorously pressed under his immediate supervision and orders, and he devoted himself to it with as much energy and activity as any living man could employ. It had to be prosecuted under the fire of the enemy’s sharpshooters, protected as well as the men might be by our skirmishers on the bank, who were ordered to keep up so vigorous a fire that the enemy should not dare to lift their heads above their rifle-pits; but the enemy, and especially their armed negroes, did dare to rise and fire, and did serious execution upon our men. The casualties in the brigade were 11 killed, 40 wounded, and 4 missing; aggregate, 55. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, D. STUART, Brigadier-General, Commanding. (Report of Brig. Gen. David Stuart, U. S. Army, commanding Fourth Brigade and Second Division, of operations December 26, 1862 - January 3, 1863, in Official Records, Volume XVII, in Two Parts. 1886/1887, Chap. 29, Part I - Reports, pp. 635-636)
Oh, about your quotes from Illinois Daily State Journal, in 1861 Illinois was technically still one of those slave holding states you like to talk about. By 1865, they became the first state to ratify the 13th Amendment.
uhhh, Illinois? A slaveholding state?
I know you're going to say "See, I told you, they were opposed to abolition, then they voted for it.", but that only proves my point that this was what the Republicans had to work with to get abolition done. That they were overwhelmingly successful in only nine years is evidence enough of their intentions.
No. That they later favored abolition is not evidence that they favored abolition earlier. The war changed people's minds about it.
The whole problem with the numbers game you keep playing is that during the fog of war it's almost impossible the get accurate counts until well after, and that was especially true of the Confederacy's military. They can't even say how many served, much less how many were black. I don't dispute that some blacks served in the Confederacy's military. I just doubt the numbers were that high, especially when the slaves needed their masters' permission to serve. (Later) Your favorite PC Revisionist professor was there and knows that those union army eyewitnesses should believe their PC Revisionist dogma instead of their lyin' eyes? Are you referring to a former slave who escaped, and noted with disgust that blacks would serve in the military of a nation that had written this into its constitution?
The quotes and sources - Northern sources - I posted indicated THOUSANDS. They were actually there. They saw. The PC Revisionist history Prof I was referring to is James McPherson. BTW, there were plenty of free Blacks in various Southern states. In Virginia it was about 25%. Louisiana had a fairly large free black and a fairly large mixed population.
Repeats snipped I know you'll come back with "but the North also had slavery" and some states did, but the blacks who served in the Union's military understood they were fighting for their freedom, and against a regime that wanted to capture and enslave them.
And plenty of the Black Confederates were fighting for their freedom....as well as their homes.
Are these my BS and lies? Repeats Snipped
No, those are the same 3 quotes you repeat endlessly even when they don't remotely address the points being discussed.
Plenty of other things you say are lies and BS.
Repeats Snipped
In a letter published in the Indianapolis Star in December 1861, a Union soldier stated that his unit was attacked by black Confederate soldiers:
A body of seven hundred [Confederate] Negro infantry opened fire on our men, wounding two lieutenants and two privates. The wounded men testify positively that they were shot by Negroes, and that not less than seven hundred were present, armed with muskets. This is, indeed a new feature in the war. We have heard of a regiment of [Confederate] Negroes at Manassas, and another at Memphis, and still another at New Orleans, but did not believe it till it came so near home and attacked our men. (Indianapolis Star, December 23, 1861)
Union soldier James G. Bates wrote a letter to his father that was reprinted in an Indiana newspaper in May 1863. In the letter Bates assured his father that there were black Confederate soldiers:
I can assure you [his father,] of a certainty, that the rebels have Negro soldiers in their army. One of their best sharp shooters and the boldest of them all here is a Negro. He dug himself a rifle pit last night [16 April 1863] just across the river and has been annoying our pickets opposite him very much to-day. You can see him plain enough with the naked eye, occasionally, to make sure that he is a "wooly-head," and with a spy-glass there is no mistaking him. (Winchester Journal, May 1, 1863)
A few months before the war ended, a Union soldier named James Miles of the 185th N.Y.V.I. wrote in his diary, “Saw several Negros fighting for those rebels" (Diary entry, January 8, 1865).
A Union lieutenant colonel named Parkhurst, who served in the Ninth Michigan Infantry, reported that black Confederate soldiers participated in an attack on his camp:
The forces attacking my camp were the First Regiment Texas Rangers, a battalion of the First Georgia Rangers . . . and quite a number of Negroes attached to the Texas and Georgia troops, who were armed and equipped, took part in the several engagements with my forces during the day. (Lieutenant Colonel Parkhurst’s Report, Ninth Michigan Infantry, on General Forrest’s Attack at Murfreesboro, Tennessee, July 13, 1862, in Official Records, Series 1, Volume XVI, Part 1, p. 805)
In late June 1861, the Illinois Daily State Journal, a staunchly Republican newspaper, reported that the Confederate army was arming some slaves and that in some cases slaves were being organized into military units. Interestingly, the newspaper also said that the North was not fighting to abolish slavery, and that the South was not fighting to protect slavery:
Our mighty armies are gathering for no purpose of abolition. Our enemies are not in arms to protect the peculiar institution [slavery]. . . .
They [the Confederates] are using their Slave property as an instrument of warfare against the Union. Their slaves dig trenches, erect fortifications, and bear arms. Slaves, in some instances, are organized into military companies to fight against the Government. (“Slaves Contraband of War,” Illinois Daily State Journal, June 21, 1861)
After the battle of Gettysburg, Union forces took seven black Confederate soldiers as prisoners, as was noted in a Northern newspaper at the time, which said,
. . . reported among the rebel prisoners were seven blacks in Confederate uniforms fully armed as soldiers. (New York Herald, July 11, 1863)
During the battle of Gettysburg, two black Confederate soldiers took part in Pickett’s charge: Color Corporal George B. Powell (14th Tennessee) went down during the advance. Boney Smith, a Black man attached to the regiment, took the colors and carried them forward. . . . The colors of the 14th Tennessee got within fifty feet of the east wall before Boney Smith hit the dirt ---wounded. Jabbing the flagstaff in the ground, he momentarily urged the regiment forward until the intense pressure forced the men to lie down to save their lives. (John Michael Priest, Into the Fight: Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, White Mane Books, 1998, pp. 128, 130-131)
During the battle of Chickamauga, slaves serving Confederate soldiers armed themselves and asked permission to join the fight—and when they received that permission they fought commendably. Their commander, Captain J. B. Briggs, later noted that these men “filled a portion of the line of advance as well as any company of the regiment” (J. H. Segars and Charles Barrow, Black Southerners in Confederate Armies, Atlanta, GA: Southern Lion Books, 2001, p. 141)
One of the last Confederate charges of the day included the Fourth Tennessee Calvary, which participated dismounted in the assault. Among the troopers of the regiment were forty African Americans who had been serving as camp servants but who now demanded the right the participate in the last combat of the day. Captain J. B. Briggs gave his permission for them to join his command on the front line. Organized and equipped under Daniel McLemore, the personal servant of the colonel of the regiment, the black troops had collected dropped weapons from battlefields during the regiment’s campaigns. . . . (Steve Cottrell, Civil War in Tennessee, Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Company, 2001, p. 94)
After the war, hundreds of African Americans received Confederate veterans’ pensions from Southern state governments (Segars and Barrow, Black Southerners in Confederate Armies, Atlanta, GA: Southern Lion Books, pp. 73-100).
Down in Charleston, free blacks . . . declared that “our allegiance is due to South Carolina and in her defense, we will offer up our lives, and all that is dear to us.” Even slaves routinely expressed loyalty to their homeland, thousands serving the Confederate Army faithfully. (Taking A Stand: Portraits from the Southern Secession Movement, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania: White Mane Books, 2000, p. 112)
In the July 1919 issue of The Journal of Negro History, Charles S. Wesley discussed the issue of blacks in the Confederate army: The loyalty of the slave in guarding home and family during his master’s absence has long been eloquently orated. The Negroes’ loyalty extended itself even to service in the Confederate army. Believing their land invaded by hostile foes, slaves eagerly offered themselves for service in actual warfare. . . .
At the outbreak of the war, an observer in Charleston noted the war-time preparations and called particular attention to “the thousand Negroes who, so far from inclining to insurrections, were grinning from ear to ear at the prospect of shooting the Yankees.” In the same city, one of the daily papers stated in early January that 150 free colored men had offered their services to the Confederate Government, and at Memphis a recruiting office was opened. In June 1861 the Legislature of Tennessee authorized Governor Harris to receive into the state military service all male persons of color between the ages of fifteen and fifty and to provide them with eight dollars a month, clothing, and rations. . . . In the same state, under the command of Confederate officers, marched a procession of several hundred colored men carrying shovels, axes, and blankets. The observer adds, “they were brimful of patriotism, shouting for Jeff Davis and singing war songs.” A paper in Lynchburg, Virginia, commenting on the enlistment of seventy free Negroes to fight for the defense of the State, concluded with “three cheers for the patriotic Negroes of Lynchburg.”
Two weeks after the firing on Fort Sumter, several companies of volunteers of color passed through Augusta, Georgia, on their way to Virginia to engage in actual war. . . . In November of the same year, a military review was held in New Orleans, where twenty-eight thousand troops passed before Governor Moore, General Lowell, and General Ruggles. The line of march extended beyond seven miles and included one regiment comprised of 1,400 free colored men. (In Segars and Barrow, Black Southerners in Confederate Armies, pp. 2-4)
"Negroes in the Confederate Army," Journal of Negro History, Charles Wesle, Vol. 4, #3, [1919,] 244-245 - "Seventy free blacks enlisted in the Confederate Army in Lynchburg, Virginia. Sixteen companies of free men of color marched through Augusta, Georgia on their way to fight in Virginia."
"The part of Adams' Brigade that the 42nd Indiana was facing were the 'Louisiana Tigers.' This name was given to Colonel Gibson's 13th Louisiana Infantry, which included five companies of 'Avegno Zouaves' who still were wearing their once dashing traditional blue jackets, red caps and red baggy trousers. These five Zouaves companies were made up of Irish, Dutch, Negroes, Spaniards, Mexicans, and Italians." - Noe, Kenneth W., Perryville: This Grand Havoc of Battle. The University of Kentucky Press, Lexington, KY, 2001. [page 270]
The 85th Indiana Volunteer Infantry reported to the Indianapolis Daily Evening Gazette that on 5 March 1863: "During the fight the [artillery] battery in charge of the 85th Indiana [Volunteer Infantry] was attacked by [*in italics*] two rebel negro regiments. [*end italics*]."
After the action at Missionary Ridge, Commissary Sergeant William F. Ruby forwarded a casualty list written in camp at Ringgold, Georgia about 29 November 1863, to William S. Lingle for publication. Ruby's letter was partially reprinted in the Lafayette Daily Courier for 8 December 1863: "Ruby says among the rebel dead on the [Missionary] Ridge he saw a number of negroes in the Confederate uniform." Federal Official Records, Series I, Vol XVI Part I, pg. 805: "There were also quite a number of negroes attached to the Texas and Georgia troops, who were armed and equipped, and took part in the several engagements with my forces during the day." Federal Official Records Series 1, Volume 15, Part 1, Pages 137-138
"Pickets were thrown out that night, and Captain Hennessy, Company E, of the Ninth Connecticut, having been sent out with his company, captured a colored rebel scout, well mounted, who had been sent out to watch our movements." Federal Official Records, Series I, Vol. XLIX, Part II, pg. 253
April 6, 1865: "The rebels [Forrest] are recruiting negro troops at Enterprise, Miss., and the negroes are all enrolled in the State." Federal Official Records, Series I, Vol. XIV, pg. 24, second paragraph -
In his book, Black Confederates and AfroYankees in Civil War Virginia, Ervin I. Jordan, a black historian, says that in June 1861 Tennessee became the first Confederate State to authorize the use of black soldiers. These soldiers were to be paid $18 a month and be provided with the same rations and clothing as white soldiers. Two regiments, he says, of blacks had appeared by September.
“They – the enemy – talked of having 9,000 men. They had 20 pieces of artillery, among which was the Richmond Howitzer battery manned by Negroes. Their wagons numbered sixty. Such is the information which our scouts gained from the people living on the ground where the enemy encamped. Their numbers are probably overrated, but with regard to their artillery, and its being manned in part by Negroes I think the report is probably correct.” Col John W. Phelps 1st Vermont Infantry commanding Aug. 11, 1861. The War of the Rebellion a compilation of official records of Union and Confederate Armies Series I, Vol IV page 569
“We are not likely to use one Negro where the Rebels have used a thousand. When I left Arkansas they were still enrolling negroes to fortify the Rebellion.” Major General Samuel R Curtis 2nd Iowa Infantry Sept 29, 1862 The War of the Rebellion a compilation of official records of Union and Confederate Armies Series I, Vol XIII page 688
[Excerpt from letter to Abraham Lincoln] “I do and have believed we ought to use the colored people, after the rebels commenced to use them against us.” Thomas H Hicks, Senator, Maryland Sept 1863) War of the Rebellion a compilation of official records of Union and Confederate Armies Series III, Vol 3 page 768
“We pursued them closely for 7 miles and captured 4 privates of Goldsby’s company and 3 colored men, mounted and armed, with 7 horses and 5 mules with equipments and 20 Austrian rifles.” Brigadier General Alexander Asboth US Army District of West Florida Aug 1864) War of the Rebellion a compilation of official records of Union and Confederate Armies Series I, Vol 35 page 442
“We have turned up 11 bushwhackers to dry and one rebel negro.” Captain P.L. Powers 47th Missouri Infantry, Company H November 1864) War of the Rebellion a compilation of official records of Union and Confederate Armies Series I, Vol 41 page 670
“The Rebels are recruiting negro troops at Enterprise, Mississippi, and the negroes are all enrolled in the state.” Major A.M. Jackson 10th US colored heavy artillery April 1865) War of the Rebellion a compilation of official records of Union and Confederate Armies Series I, Vol 49 page 253
All you have to answer this with are policies that were never ratified.
A constitutional amendment that was never ratified because the Southern states rejected it.
They didn't fight until extermination. On the contrary, many left to fight for the Union.
They fought very hard for over 4 years despite being way outnumbered and undersupplied. They managed to kill significantly more of their attackers than they lost.
Repeats snipped
On November 19, 1860 Senator Robert Toombs gave a speech to the Georgia convention in which he denounced the "infamous Morrill bill." The tariff legislation, he argued, was the product of a coalition between abolitionists and protectionists in which "the free-trade abolitionists became protectionists; the non-abolition protectionists became abolitionists." Toombs described this coalition as "the robber and the incendiary... united in joint raid against the South." Anti-tariff sentiments also appeared in Georgia's Secession Declaration of January 29, 1861:
I am under no obligation to accept any of this when their actions proved it was about preserving slavery.
Except their actions proved it was not about preserving slavery. They sent an ambassador with plenipotentiary power to agree to a treaty to abolish slavery. This was after they rejected slavery forever by express constitutional amendment.
I know you'll come back with another policy that was never ratified, so I'll answer it now. Abolition for military aid was never ratified.
and I'll point out that slavery forever by express constitutional amendment was not ratified BECAUSE THEY REJECTED IT. And of course they were willing to agree to abolish slavery in exchange for military aid. The other parties were not willing. Remember we are talking about intent here. They clearly were not fighting with the intent of preserving slavery. They could have had that without firing a shot.
We can see why with states like Illinois in the Union. They had to keep everyone in the fight until they had the votes to pass abolition. Both sides were talking out of both sides of their mouths, but their actions show which sides of each was telling the truth.
The problem for you is that no matter how desperately you want to believe that they intended to abolish slavery the whole time, they never said so. In fact they said the exact opposite. Nowhere even in their private utterances or in their diaries did prominent Republicans indicate a desire to abolish slavery until late in the war. Yours is an ex post hoc ergo propter hoc argument.
There you go, defending your party's actions again.
Not my party, I wasn't alive then. I am setting the record straight from your lies and BS though.
I hate to use up more bandwidth on this, but if FreeRepublic is willing to give you a forum to defend the Democrats from their own history, then I guess I'll need to. Repeats snipped.
Another example of you posting the same quotes you've posted tons of times before that do not remotely address the question. You have provided no evidence at all for your BS claim that Republicans intended to abolish slavery until late in the war. Their repeated utterances were directly contrary to that.
in 1861, Congress passed a resolution stating that the war "is not waged on our part...for interfering with the rights, or established institutions of these [the Confederate] States"...meaning slavery
There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that— I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so. Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this and many similar declarations and had never recanted them. - Abraham Lincoln first inaugural address.
"Lincoln remained unmoved. . . . 'I think Sumner [abolitionist Charles Sumner] and the rest of you would upset our applecart altogether if you had your way,' he told the Radicals. . . . 'We didn't go into this war to put down slavery . . . and to act differently at this moment would, I have no doubt, not only weaken our cause, but smack of bad faith.' Vindication of the president's view came a few weeks later, when the Massachusetts state Republican convention--perhaps the most Radical party organization in the North--defeated a resolution endorsing Fremont's proclamation." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 75-76, emphasis added)
“When Southern people tell us that they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said the institution exists, and it is very difficult to get rid of in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying. I surely will not blame them for not doing what I should not know what to do as to the existing institution. My first impulse would possibly be to free all slaves and send them to Liberia to their own native land. But a moment's reflection would convince me that this would not be best for them. If they were all landed there in a day they would all perish in the next ten days, and there is not surplus money enough to carry them there in many times ten days. What then? Free them all and keep them among us as underlings. Is it quite certain that this would alter their conditions? Free them and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this, and if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of whites will not. We cannot make them our equals. A system of gradual emancipation might well be adopted, and I will not undertake to judge our Southern friends for tardiness in this matter. I acknowledge the constitutional rights of the States — not grudgingly, but fairly and fully, and I will give them any legislation for reclaiming their fugitive slaves.” Abraham Lincoln
Evidence? I have something you don't, which is a policy that was ratified. When the Republicans had the votes they needed, they passed abolition and sent it to the states for ratification, only nine years after the party was formed. The Democrats wrote explicit protections for slavery into their Constitution, and never abolished slavery until defeated. That's what counts, not the policies you keep citing that were never made law.,/p>
Ex Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc.