Southerners indignant at plan to rename Washington state's Jefferson Davis Highway

In hundreds of e-mails and phone calls, Southerners and history buffs across the country reacted to a proposal last week by state Rep. Hans Dunshee to remove a road marker at the Peace Arch border crossing honoring Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president.

The controversy surrounds a monument in Blaine designating old Highway 99, which runs through Snohomish County, as part of the transcontinental Jefferson Davis Highway. The United Daughters of the Confederacy erected the marker in 1940 with the support of state and Canadian officials.

Dunshee wants to pass a bill to rename the highway after William Stewart, a black man who fought for the North in the Civil War before moving to Snohomish. He also wants to get rid of the marker honoring Davis, whom he called "a guy who led the insurgency to perpetuate slavery and killed half a million Americans."

That comment is what most infuriated Southerners who heard about or saw The Herald's article about Dunshee's proposal.

"Amazing! Your Mr. Dunshee's ignorance of history is certainly letting itself be known," wrote John Salley of Belton, S.C., before launching into a history lesson.

"While I'm a believer in the traditional Southern view of states' rights, and believe that Mr. Dunshee has a right to move to change the name of the highway in his state," wrote Jeff Adams from Houston, "I don't think he should be so angry, intolerant and bigoted about it."

Others said that if state officials change the highway's name, they should also change the state's name, because George Washington was one of the biggest slave owners of his time.

And still others accused Dunshee of trying to revise history, George Orwell-style.

Dunshee's reaction seems "outrageous" to Southerners because Davis is widely revered in the South, said Dave Gass, an art director for a magazine in Atlanta.

"Jefferson Davis' birthday is a legal holiday in seven Southern states," Gass said. "That's why I was so shocked to read this fellow (Dunshee) going on about how horrible he was, when Jefferson Davis was really a great man.

"Mr. Davis had a whole career before the war started and did things that benefited the entire country from coast to coast," Gass added. "He definitely deserves to be memorialized."

Suzanne Silek, president general of the 20,000-member United Daughters of the Confederacy, said there was good reason to erect the marker here. Davis built forts in Washington and helped get roads and railways built to reach them when he served as secretary of war under President Franklin Pierce, Silek said from the group's headquarters in Richmond, Va., where Davis is buried.

"The members who were active then did the historical research and found out that Mr. Davis was instrumental in developing the roads and highways in Washington state," Silek said. "And that's why they felt that Washington needed a highway named after Jefferson Davis."

The organization used to have six Washington chapters, although there's only one left now, with 32 members.

United Daughters of the Confederacy, which originated the highway naming in 1913, placed the markers for the patchwork road, which started in Virginia at the Potomac River and goes all the way to California, then up the coast, Silek said. The Blaine marker is the last one.

The local United Daughters of the Confederacy chapter plans to fight to keep the memorial standing, Silek said. She also said she'll ask Vancouver city officials to put back their marker in a city park marking the other end of the highway in Washington. It was quietly removed four years ago by a city council members who expressed concerns similar to Dunshee's.

The Daughters of the Confederacy can expect help from the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, said Ken Richmond of Sequim, leader of the group's state chapter. He said his group would support them in their quest to keep the markers up "because of the heritage issues involved."

A Western Washington University history professor said he isn't opposed to taking down the memorial, as long as it's not done solely over the slavery issue.

"If we take away memorials to people who owned slaves, we'd have to change the name of the state of Washington," said Alan Gallay, who teaches Southern history. Gallay used to teach history in Davis' home state of Mississippi, and his third book about the South is due out next week.

Dunshee is a history buff who can quote Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and insists that slavery was the real reason the war was fought. Others loudly disagree.

"To say that the war between the states was fought over slavery is like saying the American Revolution was fought over tea," Gass said.

The plan also highlights the deep North-South divide that still separates this country.

"It just seems that more often than not, Southerners are maligned for no particular reason," said William Wells of New Orleans, where Davis died in 1889.

Wells and others threatened -- some in jest -- to boycott Washington if Dunshee's bill gets through the Legislature.

"If Dunshee and his cohorts attempt to remove the marker, another will go up in its place," wrote Steven Moshlak of Longmont, Colo. And if the Legislature changes the name of the highway, "it will be a dark day before I, or others, will ever visit Washington state."

Dead for 113 years, Jefferson Davis still inspires Civil War-era feelings of reverence in the South and hatred in the North.

He was the first and only president of the Confederate United States. But he's often wrongly held up as a symbol of a pro-slavery resistance that led to war.

A U.S. senator from Mississippi, Davis tried to keep the Union together. He joined the Confederacy only when his state seceded. He sent a peace commission to Washington, D.C., after his inauguration, but Abraham Lincoln refused it.

Davis was born in Kentucky in 1808, just eight months before Lincoln and 100 miles away.

Davis was captured by federal troops in 1865 and jailed for two years. He was indicted for treason, but his case was dropped.

Nothing in there about forcing a state to be represented - in fact it states exactly the opposite. A state, if it so desires, can divest itself of representation. And the obverse is true, a state can't be forced to participate.
"[I]t is especially refreshing after bashing through the crap that appears on these confederate apolgist [sic] threads."

And you're the one spreading the manure.

Perhaps you should heed the words of a very wise man.

"Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare, which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger, natural to that solicitude, urge me on an occasion like the present, to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your frequent review, some sentiments; which are the result of much reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me all important to the permanency of your felicity as a People.

These will be offered to you with the more freedom as you can only see in them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly have no personal motive to biass his counsel. Nor can I forget, as an encouragement to it, your endulgent reception of my sentiments on a former and not dissimilar occasion.

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm the Attachment.

The Unity of Government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so; for it is a main Pillar in the Edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home; your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very Liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee, that from different causes & from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal & external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly & insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment, that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national Union to your collective & individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual & immoveable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the Palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned, and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our Country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you, in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism, more than any appellation derived from local discriminations...."

--George Washington, Farewell Address

Walt

I won't argue railroad gauges with you, I'm not any sort of expert in that field. I still think that you overestimate the trade possibilites with Mexico and Central America, but since the confederate leadership had designs in expanding southward they would have wound up as confederate territory anyway.

Second premise is that an emancipation of southern slaves would have followed Gettysburg is extremely far featched for several reasons. One, Lee wasn't that opposed to slavery and the rest of the southern political and business leadership even lest disposed to ending slavery - why do away with a large part of your wealth and the primary reason for starting the war in the first place? Two, why do something that drastic in the face of complete victory? The south didn't take the step of enlisting and arming slaves until less than a month before Lee surrendered. If they wouldn't take the step when the confederacy faced it's worst crisis then why would they do it on the brink of total victory?

The third problem is that the North did not fight the war to end slavery. Churchill is wrong on this. They fought to preserve the Union, and 9 out of 10 Union soldiers would have been highly indignant if you told them otherwise. Slavery as a political aim didn't come about until the last year or so of the war when the 13th Amendment was voted on and Lincoln made it part of the 1864 Republican platform. Freeing the slaves would have not done anything to the Northern will to fight.

Finally, nothing is said of bitter feelings after the war. Your side lost and most of you sothron supporters are still pissed about it - why do you think that the North would have been any more adult about it. A confederate victory would have inevitably lead to more fighting between the two countries, more anger and more desire for revenge on one or both sides. Like I said, it wouldn't have prevented a world war, it probably would have hastened it.

The Churchill piece, which I had never read, is interesting but the premise rides on four flights of fancy which make it impossible. One is the defeat at Gettysburg results in the collapse of the North. That wouldn't have happened. The Army of the Potomac had been routed at Chancellorsville two months prior to Gettysburg and they came back. Had Lee won the Army of the Potomac would probably have fallen back on Washington - which was heavily fortified in it's own right - and prevented Lee from taking the city. With Vicksburg fallen, Grant would have been brought east anyway and the Army would have lived to fight another day. Time, men, material, and resources were still against Lee.

Maybe so, maybe not. I expect the events at Gettysburg have been wargamed more than any other battle in history, and I saw some interesting *How I'd have done it* theses while at the Command and Staff College at Levenworth. I can think of a few variations that could well have altered the results of that day, and the possibilities are endless- but it would have been foreign military assistance to the confederate cause that might have posed the greatest threat to Washington, and after the South's loss at Gettysburg, there was no chance of that. And Vicksburg might not have fallen, had Hood not squandered his troops- and generals- at Franklin.

Though the Confederate army didn't enlist/arm slaves until the closing days of the war, Cleburne had proposed it as early as late 1863 or early 1864. There's certainly an open question as to how many troops that might have gained the army in the field, and how soon they might have been fully trained and brought to effective service, as well as what their numbers might have done to a supply system stretched to the breaking point. But as the saddest words of tongue or pen offer, *it might have been....*

Well, it's of course true that Lincoln had no particular taste for bringing the freed blacks into the American society, and considered a number of schemes to find them homes elsewhere, including the Argentine and in African Liberia. But it was certainly a part of the wartime propaganda, and at least given as some claim of the moral superiority of the north-versus-south reason for killing each other. Certainly most Southerners did not believe they were primarily fighting to preserve slavery, but hoped to maintain their way of life and their freedom from interference from Washington.

I'm not so certain that it was *my side* as I'm a fairly recent resident of the south, though admitedly an enthusiastic one; I believe I'm more Texian than purehearted Memphian, but likely I would have followed the flags of Forrest or Cleburne had the time of my birth come a few dozen years before it did to give me that opportunity, along with my neighbors and friends I might have made in that day. But my observation of the after-the-fact damage is that it was the reconstruction period that really turned most folks in the South bitter enough to pass the hatred down for generations, though Sherman's war crimes certainly didn't help much and more recent hate propaganda from the left and right coast has been producing a fine Southern backlash.

It doesn't hurt to remember that for some 227 years the United States has been an experiment in social living and governance under the constitution that's held it together for all those years. Would it not be particularly ironic if it were the governmental inheritors of that Unionist cause who finally rendered that document's meaning moot, null and void through their twisted interpretations and parsings, until no Americans paid it any account at all, abrogated to a fare-thee-well as it has been? Those Americans of that conflict who fell on its soil, and those of other wars who fell beneath its flag, have good cause to be spinning in their graves.

-archy-/-

And Vicksburg might not have fallen, had Hood not squandered his troops- and generals- at Franklin.

Ummm. Vicksburg fell on July 4, 1863 and the battle at Franklin was November 30, 1864. The two aren't related.

Cleburne had proposed it as early as late 1863 or early 1864.

And he was roundly criticized for it and lost his chance for promotion. One of his fellow division commanders described his plan as "offensive to Southern sentiment, Southern pride, and Southern honor." Another one described it as 'propositions that would ruin the efficacy of our army and involve our cause in ruin and disgrace.' Johnston recommended it be vetoed and Davis agreed. The plan went nowhere.

Lincoln became interested in the idea of colonization by a friend of his, John C. Breckenridge. Lee paid for some of his former slaves to emigrate to Liberia. Would you say that these two southern gentlemen "had no particular taste for bringing the freed blacks into the American society" either?

...that it was the reconstruction period that really turned most folks in the South bitter enough to pass the hatred down for generations...

The Black Codes passed by southern legislators prior to Reconstruction, and the Jim Crow laws passed afterwards indicate that the hatred was there from the get go. Southerners have just shifted the target of their ire from time to time.

Perhaps you should heed the words of a very wise man.

You as well:

"As long, therefore, as the existing republican forms are continued by the States, they are guaranteed by the federal Constitution. Whenever the States may choose to substitute other republican forms, they have a right to do so, and to claim the federal guaranty for the latter. The only restriction imposed on them is, that they shall not exchange republican for antirepublican Constitutions; a restriction which, it is presumed, will hardly be considered as a grievance."

Whoever he was, he certainly argued that states of the new union could change their republican form of government. That's stated pretty plainly.

Now let's examine the reasoning, legal or otherwise, that allowed the states to secede from the Articles of Confederation:

"The express authority of the people alone could give due validity to the Constitution. To have required the unanimous ratification of the thirteen States, would have subjected the essential interests of the whole to the caprice or corruption of a single member."

Pretty self explanatory as well. Again, whomever he was, he argued that to prevent a single state from preventing the new Constitution from being formed, the rights of the other states to determine their own form of government supersedes the Articles of Confederation. Please remember that one state did not send delegates to the Constitutional convention. Continuing he asks:

"On what principle the Confederation, which stands in the solemn form of a compact among the States, can be superseded without the unanimous consent of the parties to it?"

He's obviously struggling to rationalizing the illegal abolition of the Articles, but how can it be justified? :

"The first question is answered at once by recurring to the absolute necessity of the case; to the great principle of self-preservation; to the transcendent law of nature and of nature's God, which declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed."

I guess that the "perpetual" union of the Articles, which required unanimous consent to be modified, are not inviolate by any stretch of the imagination. He continues again to assuage his rationalization:

"[A] breach, committed by either of the parties, absolves the others, and authorizes them, if they please, to pronounce the compact violated and void. Should it unhappily be necessary to appeal to these delicate truths for a justification for dispensing with the consent of particular States to a dissolution of the federal pact, will not the complaining parties find it a difficult task to answer the MULTIPLIED and IMPORTANT infractions with which they may be confronted?"

No doubt about it. At least one person put pen to paper regarding the legality of secession and disunion. And in no uncertain words, plain enough for even you to understand. Of course, you probably think that it was Davis, Toombs, Stephens or some other confederate.

Who said it? James Madison, Federalist Papers, Federalist No. 43, "The Same Subject Continued: The Powers Conferred by the Constitution Further Considered", 23 Jan 1788.

On December 20, 1861, after decades of sectional conflict, the people of South Carolina responded to the election of the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, by voting unanimously in convention to secede from the Union. Within six weeks five other states- Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana-followed South Carolina's example. Early in February 1861 they met in Montgomery, Ala., adopted a constitution, set up a provisional government-the Confederate States of America-and elected Jefferson Davis their president. By March 2, when Texas officially joined the Confederacy, nearly all of the Federal forts and navy yards in the seven States had been seized by the new government. Fort Sumter was one of the few that remained in Federal hands.

When South Carolina seceded, there were four Federal installations around Charleston Harbor: Fort Moultrie on Sullivan's Island, Castle Pinckey on Shute's Folley island near the city, Fort Johnson on James Island across from Moultrie, and Fort Sumter at the harbor entrance. The only post garrisoned b more than a nominal number of soldiers was Fort Moultrie, where Maj. Robert Anderson commanded two companies, 85 men, of the First U.S. Artillery. Six days after the secession ordinance, Anderson concluded that Moultrie and the other works were indefensible and secretly transferred the Federal troops to Fort Sumter, a mile away. Charlestonians were angered by Anderson's move as a breach of faith and demanded that U.S. Government evacuate Charleston Harbor. President James Buchanan refused.

In January Buchanan attempted a relief expedition, but South Carolina shore batteries turned back the unarmed merchant vessel, Star of the West, carrying 200 men and several months' provisions, as it tried to enter the harbor. Early in March, Brig. Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard took command of the Confederate troops at Charleston and pushed work on fortifying the harbor. As the weeks passed, Fort Sumter gradually became the focal point of tensions between North and South. When Abraham Lincoln assumed office as President of the United States on March 4, 1861, he made it clear in a firm but conciliatory address that he would uphold the national authority. The Government, he said, would not assail anyone, but neither would it consent to a division of the Union. "The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government." Lincoln plainly meant to hold Fort Sumter. Unfortunately, circumstances were such that this could not be done without an overt act on his part.

By April 4 Lincoln believed that a relief expedition was feasible and ordered merchant steamers, protected by ships of war, to carry "subsistence and other supplies" to Anderson. He also notified Governor Francis W. Pickens of South Carolina that an attempt would be made to resupply the fort. After debate-and some disagreement-the Confederate cabinet telegraphed Beauregard on April 10 to fire on Sumter if absolutely necessary to prevent reinforcement.

On April 11 Beauregard demanded that Anderson surrender Sumter. Anderson refused, but said he would be starved out in a few days anyway. Beauregard then asked the major precisely when he would be forced to evacuate the fort. In a carefully worded reply, Anderson said that he would leave Sumter by noon, April 15, unless before that time he should receive either instructions from Washington or additional supplies.

The Confederates rejected his answer. At 3:20 a.m., April 12, they informed Anderson that their batteries would open fire in one hour. At ten minutes past the allotted hour, Capt. George S. James, commanding Fort Johnson's East mortar battery, ordered the firing of a signal shell. Within moments Edmund Ruffin of Virginia, firebrand and hero of the secessionist movement, touched off a gun in the ironclad battery at Cummings Point. By daybreak batteries at Forts Johnson and Moultrie, Cummings Point, and elsewhere were assailing Sumter.

Major Anderson withheld his fire until 7 o'clock. Though some 60 guns stood ready for action, most never got into the fight. Nine or ten casemate guns returned fire, but by noon only six remained in action. At no time during the battle did the guns of Fort Sumter greatly damage Confederate positions. And, sheltered in Sumter's brick caverns, only five Federal soldiers suffered injuries.

The cannonade continued throughout the night. The next morning a hot shot from Fort Moultrie set fire to the officers' quarters. In early afternoon the flagstaff was shot away. About 2 p.m., Anderson agreed to a truce. That evening he surrendered his garrison. Miraculously, no one on either side had been killed during the engagement.

On Sunday, April 14, Major Anderson and his garrison marched out of the fort and boarded ship for transport to New York. They had defended Sumter for 34 hours, until "the quarters were entirely burned, the main gates destroyed by fire, the ocre walls seriously injured, the magazines surrounded by flames." Civil war, so long dreaded, had begun.

SCDogPapa

Confederate Stronghold, 1863-1865

With Fort Sumter in Confederate hands, the port of Charleston became an irritating loophole in the Federal naval blockade of the Atlantic coast. In two months of 1863, 21 Confederate vessels cleared Charleston Harbor and 15 entered. Into Charleston came needed war supplies; out went cotton in payment. To close the port- and also capture the city-it was necessary first to seize Fort Sumter, now repaired and armed with some 95 guns. after an earlier Army attempt had failed on James Island, the job fell to the U.S.Navy, and Rear Adm. Samuel F. Du Pont was ordered to take the fort.

On the afternoon of April 7, 1863, nine armored vessels steamed slowly into the harbor and headed for Fort Sumter. For 2 1/2 hours the ironclads dueled with Confederate batteries in the forts and around the harbor. The attack only scarred and battered Sumter's walls, but the far more intense and accurate Confederate fire disabled five Federal ships, one which, the Keokuk, sank the next morning.

When the ironclads failed, federal strategy changed. Du Pont was removed from command and replaced by Rear Adm. John A. Dahlgren, who planned to combine land and sea operations to seize nearby Morris Island and from there demolish Fort Sumter. At a position secured by U.S. forces on Morris Island, Union troops under Brig. Gen. Quincy A. Gilmore began to place rifled cannon powerful enough to breach Sumter's walls.

Meanwhile, Confederate laborers and slaves inside Fort Sumter worked day and night with bales of cotton and sand to buttress the walls facing the federal guns. The fort's garrison at this time consisted of five companies of the First South Carolina Artillery under Col. Alfred Rhett.

Federal troops fired a few experimental rounds at the for in late July and early August. The bombardment began in earnest on August 17, with almost 1,000 shells being fired the first day alone. Within a week, the fort's brick walls. were shattered and reduced to ruins, but the garrison refused to surrender and continued to repair and strengthen the defenses.

Confederate guns at Fort Moultrie and other points now took up the defense of Sumter. Another Federal assault on September 9 fell short; this time the attackers lost five boats and 124 men trying to take the fort from Maj. Stephen Elliott and fresh Confederate troops under his command. Except for ten-day period of heavy firing, the bombardment continued intermittently until the end of December. By then, Sumter's cannon were severely damaged and dismounted and its defenders could respond with only "harmless musketry."

In the summer of 1864, after Maj. Gen. John G. Foster replaced Gillmore as commander of land operations, the Federals made one last attempt to take Sumter. Foster, a member of Anderson's 1861 garrison, believed that "with proper arrangements" the fort could be taken "at any time." A sustained two month Union bombardment, however, failed to dislodge the 300-man Confederate garrison and Foster was ordered to send most of his remaining ammunition and several regiments of troops north to aid Grant's Campaign against Richmond.

Desultory fire against the fort continued through January 1865. For 22 months Fort Sumter had withstood Federal siege and bombardment, and it no longer resembled a fort at all. But defensively it was stronger than ever. Big Federal guns had hurled seven million pounds of metal at it, yet the Confederate losses during this period had been only 52 killed and 267 wounded.

Gen. William T. Sherman's troops advancing north from Savannah, however caused the Confederate troops to be withdrawn, and Fort Sumter was evacuated on February 17, 1865.

SCDogPapa

We have gotten off the real subject of this thread.

Jefferson Davis 1808-1889

President of the Confederate States of America

We feel that our cause is just and holy; we protest solemnly in the face of mankind that we desire peace at any sacrifice save that of honour and independence; we ask no conquest, no aggrandizement, no concession of any kind from the States with which we were lately confederated; all we ask is to be let alone; that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms. 'President Jefferson Davis - 29 April 1861'

Jefferson Davis was born on June 3, 1808, in Christian (now Todd) County, Kentucky, and educated at Transylvania University, Lexington, Kentucky.

Military History

U.S. Military Academy Graduated 1828. Afterwards was in the frountier service. Health forced him to resign from the army in 1835 Fought in the Mexican War at Monterrey and Buena Vista Wounded at Buena Vista.

Political History

US senator from Mississippi from 1835 to 1845. US Congressman from 1845 to 1846 US Congressman from 1857 to 1861 Withdrew from the Senate in 1861 when Mississippi seceded. On February 18, 1861, the provisional Congress of the Confederate States made him provisional president . He was elected to the office by popular vote the same year for a 6-year term and was inauguratedin Richmond, Virginia, the capital of the Confederacy, on February 22, 1862.

During the War

Davis failed to raise sufficient money to fight the American Civil War and could not obtain recognition and help for the Confederacy from foreign governments. He was in constant conflict with extreme exponents of the doctrine of states' rights, and his attempts to have high military officers appointed by the president were opposed by the governors of the states. The judges of state courts constantly interfered in military matters through judicial decisions.

Davis was nevertheless responsible for the raising of the formidable Confederate armies, the notable appointment of General Robert E. Lee as commander of the Army of Virginia, and the encouragement of industrial enterprise throughout the South. His zeal, energy, and faith in the cause of the South were a source of much of the tenacity with which the Confederacy fought the Civil War. Even in 1865 Davis still hoped the South would be able to achieve its independence, but at last he realized defeat was imminent and fled from Richmond.

On May 10, 1865, federal troops captured him at Irwinville, Georgia. From 1865 to 1867 he was imprisoned at Fortress Monroe, Virginia. Davis was indicted for treason in 1866 but the next year was released on a bond of $100,000 signed by the American newspaper publisher Horace Greeley and other influential Northerners. In 1868 the federal government dropped the case against him.

From 1870 to 1878 he engaged in a number of unsuccessful business enterprises; and from 1878 until his death in New Orleans, on December 6, 1889, he lived near Biloxi, Mississippi. His grave is in Richmond, Virginia. He wrote The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881).

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