Posted on 04/24/2002 9:33:49 AM PDT by wasp69
RICHMOND - It's only a two-hour drive from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House here on Clay Street.
It took four years and more than 600,000 lives to make that same journey during the second American Revolution, now officially known as the US Civil War.
It's odd that this nation's bloodiest war, a war between brothers, stretched from 1861 until 1865 when the capital of the COnfederate States of America in Richmond is only 100 miles south from the capital of the United States of America in Washington.
Thousands of Americans annually visit Civil War battlefields, museums and monuments.
Enthusiasts study in passionate detail the leaders, military strategy and battles of the Civil War.
My fascination with the Civil War has less to do with military engagements than with the motivations of up to 1.5 million Southern men and boys wiling to die to tear the nation in two in defense of slavery, an utterly indefedsible institution.
Had the conflict, also known as the War of the Southern Planters, been fought only by Southern slave owners, it would have been over in weeks rather than years.
As it was, brilliant and charismatic Confederate Generals such as Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson led armies of poor, non-slave-owning Southerners into battle and came dangerously close to winning the war.
My mother's and father's ancestors were Southerners who fought for the Confederacy. I'm pleased that their side lost.
As a young man I fought for passage of civil rights laws that would eliminate the vestiges of slavery and the continued denial of equal rights to black Americans. What, I wondered, could my Confederate ancestors have been thinking?
I did not find the answer during my tour of the White House of the Confederacy or in the next-door Museum of the Confederacy.
A curator at the museum understood my state of perplexity but could only tell me that it's impossible to judge the decisions of my Confederate ancestors based on todays standards.
Although slavery was central to the decision by the Southern states to break away from the Union, many causes over the years led to conflict.
Sectional rivalry developed as the North became industrialized and gained population with European immigration.
The North wanted to build roads, canals and railroads to accommodate growing industries. Without personal or corporate taxation, revenue was raised by tariffs, which protected Northern products and increased prices of imported goods needed by the nonindustrialized South.
Southerners felt they were being gouged by their Northern brethern. They also felt that the states, not the federal government, had the authority to regulate commerce and other affairs. They also felt that the states had the right under the Constitution to separate from the Union, an idea that had strong supporters in both the North and South.
Deciding whether new territories and states would be slave or nonslave became a North-South fight for power in Congress and within the federal government.
Northern abolitionists demonized the Southerners and backed them into their own regional corner. Many Americans in the early years of the nation felt stronger regional and state pride than national pride.
Lee, who did not want to break up the Union, declined an offer to command the Union Army. He chose fight for Virginia and the South.
There must be lessons to be learned from the Civil War that can be applied to current and future conflicts.
Slavery goes waaaay back in human history, and admittedly different era and locations did it differently. At some points in history the lot of your average slave was no different than the lot of your average modern day employee. When I took Latin in high school we translated a diary that had been written by the slave of one of the aquiduct architects. I remember really well him writing about the day he berated his master to find a woman and get married, his primary complaint (as explained to his diary) was that he (the slave) was being belittled by having to do "wifely chores" (cooking, cleaning, that kind of stuff) which were beneath him and his title.
Now admittedly American slavery was a bit more brutal than Roman slavery. But not much. It wasn't the world of constant beatings and mutilations as depicted in Roots. And really if you compare the average Southern slave's life with the average Northern textile worker's life in the same era it's pretty clear that the slave, even though they weren't paid, had it better.
The big problem with Southern slavery is that it was race based. I don't know of any other forms of slavery that were (or are, slavery hasn't been banished from this rock) race based. Conquest based is the standard, also many form of slavery could be entered into optionally, and could be exited if the slave managed to buy their freedom. Because it was race based Southern slavery started to have certain problems that other forms of slavery avoided. But again, when compared to the life of non-slave employees of the era slaves really didn't have it that bad. Certainly not bad enough to declare it "indefensible".
Your addendum displayed neither thought, nor the grace suitable for civil debate amongst proper gentlemen.
I've always known it as The War of Northern Aggression.
I'm no lawyer, and maybe those who know Constitutional Law better than I can find fault with it, but it makes sense to me.
Southerners felt they were being gouged by their Northern brethern. They also felt that the states, not the federal government, had the authority to regulate commerce and other affairs. They also felt that the states had the right under the Constitution to separate from the Union, an idea that had strong supporters in both the North and South.
Such "gouging" as there was started in earnest after the Southern states rebelled. It was more a result of the secession than a cause of it.
The last reason is particularly weak: they seceded because they felt they had the right to secede. Well sure, people make laws because they think they have the right to make laws. They go to war because they think they have the right to go to war and are right in going to war. And I suppose they secede because they think they have a right to and they fight in part for that perceived right. But why did such states wish to leave the Union? And why precisely in 1860? Why not at some other time?
As I've grown tired of saying and others have probably grown tired of hearing, the reason why ordinary soldiers fight is always different from the reason why nations and governments go to war, or the reasoning behind the policies elites follow that lead to war. Ordinary soldiers are always fighting for home and family, friends, comrades and native land. That helps to explain what sustains armies and wars, but it doesn't explain why any particular war breaks out.
If you go back and look at documents and contemporary accounts of the war and the years leading up to its outbreak, you will find it hard to ignore slavery. The expansion of slavery was the central issue of the 1850s. Nothing that happened in 1860 can be understood if one leaves that question out of the picture. It isn't the whole story, and it may not have been on your ancestors' mind when they enlisted, but it can't be ignored. And once again to repeat a tiresome truth, the fact that Northerners and the Federal Government weren't going to war in the beginning to free the slaves, does not mean that the preservation and expansion of slavery weren't important enough to Southern elites to fight for.
The source of a lot of these arguments is the assumption that our nineteenth century ancestors were the same as ourselves. We deplore slavery and racial inequality, having learned to do so over the last 140 or 40 years. We assume that they were the same. Therefore they could not have favored slavery or assumed that Blacks were inferior or natural slaves and Whites superior or justifiably masters. But understanding history and learning from it, means learning how our ancestors may have been different from ourselves, as well as how they might be similar.
And the "our ancestors" is also problematic. Ordinary people, the sort who fight the wars, usually aren't strongly motivated by ideology or the pursuit of power. Those who lead countries and causes generally are. Even if the average rebel was like you in some ways, this implies nothing about those who led the cause.
The comparison so often made between poor Johnny Reb and the evil Lincoln or Sherman is a straw man. Johnny Reb has to be compared to Billy Yank, and Lincoln or Sherman to Davis, Forrest and the other Confederate leaders.
It was a war between two governments and two governing elites. The war did come to be embraced by the peoples of each section, but portraying it as ordinary people against power or free men against government or tyranny is a distortion. There were governments on both sides and free people on both sides. One has to go further than that recognition, but one shouldn't stop short before it.
The claim of neo-Confederates, latter day secessionists or Southern nationalists that they're not bound to the historical myths taught in school has to be balanced against the fact that they spend so little time familiarizing themselves with aspects of their own history that don't fit into the sanitized picture they want to create.
Nor am I. The treatment received by blacks up north was almost as bad as the treatment received by blacks down south. If you suggested to the average Union soldier that he was fighting in 'a holy crusade to free the slaves' he would have punched your lights out. The author of this article was pondering the reason why the average southern soldier fought and I gave him the most likely one, based on the people and the newspapers of the time.
That depends on whether you place more stock in the documents of the period or your own agenda.
Johnnie Cochran came to our university last Friday to talk about reparations, and mention the suit he's a part of, in which he's suing Aetna for holding policies on slaves. That same day, there was an article in the Houston Chronicle about the fact that some convenience store chains are reacting to a recent crime wave by... taking out insurance policies on the clerks.
The article mentioned that it's been common for companies to insure high-level executives for some time, but covering lower-level employees is a relatively new thing.
Maybe I should counter sue Johnny C. My family was all in Germany until after WWI. His sueing of companies is going to drive up my cost of living, thus forcing me to pay "reparations" for stuff that no one I am related to by blood had anything to do with. Should be able to get together a couple dozen people who's ancestors didn't get to this country until after the Civil War and bring in a fun little class action suit. Any lawyers on FR want to represent us?
Let’s refer to one of Mr. Lincoln’s most intimate apologists:
"With all their affectation of legality, formality, and present justification, some of the members [of the State secession convention] were honest enough to acknowledge the true character of the event as the culmination of a chronic conspiracy, not a spontaneous revolution. ‘The secession of South Carolina,’ said one of the chief actors, ‘is not an event of a day. It is not anything produced by Mr. Lincoln's election, or by the non-execution of the Fugitive Slave Law. It is a matter which has been gathering head for thirty years.’ This with many similar avowals, crowns and completes the otherwise abundant proof that the revolt was not only aganist right, but that it was without cause."
Interestingly enough, I must thank our friend Walt for this quote (thanks, Walt! ;>). Consider Mr. Nicolay’s words: “It is a matter which has been gathering head for thirty years.” Now let us go back “thirty years:”
The People of South Carolina
November 24, 1832
Whereas the Congress of the United States, by various acts, purporting to be acts laying duties and imposts on foreign imports, but, in reality, intended for the protection of domestic manufactures and the giving of bounties to classes and individuals engaged in particular employments at the expense and to the injury and oppression of other classes and individuals, and by wholly exempting from taxation certain foreign commodities, such as are not produced or manufactured in the United States, to afford a pretext for imposing higher and excessive duties on articles similar to those intended to be protected, hath exceeded its just powers under the Constitution, which confers on it no authority to afford such protection and hath violated the true meaning and intent of the Constitution, which provides for equality in imposing the burdens of taxation upon the several States and portions of the Confederacy... we, the People of South Carolina, to the end that it may be fully understood by the Government of the United States, and the people of the co-States, that we are determined to maintain this, our Ordinance and Declaration, at every hazard, Do further Declare that we wil not submit to the application of force, on the part of the Federal Government, to reduce this State to obedience; but that we will consider the passage, by Congress, of any act ... to coerce the State, shut up her ports, destroy or harass her commerce, or to enforce the acts hereby declared to be null and void, otherwise than through the civil tribunals of the country, as inconsistent with the longer continuance of South Carolina in the Union: and that the people of this State will thenceforth hold themselves absolved from all further obligation to maintain or preserve their political connexion with the people of the other States, and will forthwith proceed to organize a separate Government, and do all other acts and things which sovereign and independent States may of right to do.
Amazing: a written threat of secession, issued by the people of the State of South Carolina – and slavery isn’t even mentioned. “If you go back and look at documents and contemporary accounts of the war and the years leading up to its outbreak, you will find it hard to ignore” the simple fact that slavery was not the only issue.
...the fact that Northerners and the Federal Government weren't going to war in the beginning to free the slaves, does not mean that the preservation and expansion of slavery weren't important enough to Southern elites to fight for.
Barring the compromise over the tariff issue, it would seem that “Southern elites” were ready “to fight for” their constitutional rights with regard to illegal federal taxation and subsidies of Northern industries. Perhaps the foundation of the dispute was a matter of fundamental constitutional rights...
;>)
Shall I refer you (yet again) to the Articles of Confederation, the Federalist Papers, the ratification documents of the States, the resolutions of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in response to the federal government’s unconstitutional Alien & Sedition Acts, Mr. Madison’s Report of 1800, the preeminent legal references of the era, the statements of Presidents and Senators – and the Constitution itself? I place quite a bit of “stock in the documents of the period,” most especially the Constitution; and the Constitution nowhere prohibits secession. Unfortunately, some folks apparently prefer ‘unwritten law’...
What were you saying about your “agenda?”
;>)
Actually, I referred to more than just the Federalist Papers. Allow me to re-post my statement:
Shall I refer you (yet again) to the Articles of Confederation, the Federalist Papers, the ratification documents of the States, the resolutions of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in response to the federal government’s unconstitutional Alien & Sedition Acts, Mr. Madison’s Report of 1800, the preeminent legal references of the era, the statements of Presidents and Senators – and the Constitution itself?
Since I do not often refer to the words of “the confederate leadership,” I can not say whether any of them were in fact “bit...in the butt” by “the documents of the period.” But I did recently stumble across the address of President Davis to the Confederate Congress on the occasion of the ratification of the Southern Constitution, dated April 29, 1861. Allow me to post a few excerpts:
During the war waged against Great Britain by her colonies on this continent a common danger impelled them to a close alliance and to the formation of a Confederation, by the terms of which the colonies, styling themselves States, entered "severally into a firm league of friendship with each other for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other against all force offered to or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever." In order to guard against any misconstruction of their compact, the several States made explicit declaration in a distinct article - that "each State retains its Sovereignty, freedom, and - independence, and every power, jurisdiction and right which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled."
Under this contract of alliance, the war of the Revolution was successfully waged, and resulted in the treaty of peace with Great Britain in 1783, by the terms of which the several States were each by name recognized to be independent. The Articles of Confederation contained a clause whereby all alterations were prohibited unless confirmed by the Legislatures of every State after being agreed to by the Congress; and in obedience to this provision, under the resolution of Congress of the 21st of February, 1787, the several States appointed delegates who attended a convention "for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation and reporting to Congress and the several Legislatures such alterations and provisions therein as shall, when agreed to in Congress and confirmed by the States, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of Government and the preservation of the Union." It was by the delegates chosen by the several States under the resolution just quoted that - the Constitution of the United States was framed in 1787 and submitted to the several States for ratification, as shown by the seventh article, which is in these words: "The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same”...
The Constitution of 1787, having, however, omitted the clause already recited from the Articles of Confederation, which provided in explicit terms that each State retained its sovereignty and independence, some alarm was felt in the States, when invited to ratify the Constitution, lest this omission should be construed into an abandonment of their cherished principle, and they refused to be satisfied until amendments were added to the Constitution placing beyond any pretense of doubt the reservation by the States of all their sovereign rights and powers not expressly delegated to the United States by the Constitution. Strange, indeed, must it appear to the impartial observer, but it is none the less true that all these carefully worded clauses proved unavailing to prevent the rise and growth in the Northern States of a political school which has persistently claimed that the government thus formed was not a compact between States, but was in effect a national government, set up above and over the States. An organization created by the States to secure the blessings of liberty and independence against foreign aggression, has been gradually perverted into a machine for their control in their domestic affairs. The creature has been exalted above its creators; the principals have been made subordinate to the agent appointed by themselves...
Here it may be proper to observe that from a period as early as 1798 there had existed in all of the States of the Union a party almost uninterruptedly in the majority based upon the creed that each State was, in the last resort, the sole judge as well of its wrongs as of the mode and measure of redress. Indeed, it is obvious that under the law of nations this principle is an axiom as applied to the relations of independent sovereign States, such as those which had united themselves under the constitutional compact. The Democratic party of the United States repeated, in its successful canvass in 1856, the declaration made in numerous previous political contests, that it would "faithfully abide by and uphold the principles laid down in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798, and in the report of Mr. Madison to the Virginia Legislature in 1799; and that it adopts those principles as constituting one of the main foundations of its political creed." The principles thus emphatically announced embrace that to which I have already adverted - the right of each State to judge of and redress the wrongs of which it complains. These principles were maintained by overwhelming majorities of the people of all the States of the Union at different elections, especially in the elections of Mr. Jefferson in 1805, Mr. Madison in 1809, and Mr. Pierce in 1852...
Enough for now. Here we see Mr. Davis (who I suspect qualified as “confederate leadership” ;>) refer to the Articles of Confederation, the Paris Peace Treaty of 1783, Congressional resolutions, the ratification documents of the States, the resolutions of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in response to the federal government’s unconstitutional Alien & Sedition Acts, Mr. Madison’s Report of 1800, the statements of Presidents – and (repeatedly) the Constitution itself. And all in a single address.
If you are correct, one might suspect that Mr. Davis ‘would not have known the Federalist Papers if it bit him in the butt.’ The evidence seems to suggest otherwise...
;>)
Actually, the word “perpetual” appears no less than five times. Nevertheless, the union formed under the Articles essentially ceased to exist upon New Hampshire’s ratification of the new Constitution. By the way – care to tell us how many times the word “perpetual” is used in the Constitution?
;>)
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