Posted on 08/09/2002 3:38:13 AM PDT by GOPcapitalist
if one insists on the REAL reason for the WBTS, let it be this:
the southland was sick to death of the arrogant, intrusive,hypocrytical,self-righteous,hatefilled damnyankees and wanted to be FREE!
we still ARE! (don't go away mad, just go AWAY!)--- free dixie,sw
NO documentation of FACTS is good enough for the damnyankees, turncoats,collaborators & scalawags. they do not WANT truth.
free the south NOW,sw
free dixie and cuss us to your hearts content!
for a free and much improved dixie republic,sw
Hardly insignificant unless you want to say that Jeff Davis who was the hand-picked representative of that class was an insignificant figure. Those guys controlled the political machinery in the south and foisted the conspiracy of dis-union for over 30 years until their goals were reached. They and their opinions are what drove the south to destruction. Once the Whig Party died in the early 1850s, there was no stopping them. As early as 1858, they were preparing for war by using their influence in the Buchanan administration to move large stocks of arms and ammunition into Southern armories. They intentionally conspired to split the Democrat party into regional factions in 1860 to assure the election of a Republican. They controlled the newspapers who propagandized about the intentions of the “black Republicans” using base lies and fear to make sure the white population would not question their actions.
If you want to see how “insignificant” they were, why don’t you check and see what the popular vote for President was in South Carolina in 1860.
what DOCUMENTARY evidence do you have of ANY of that tripe being factual?
that is the biggest quantity of bilge that i've seen posted on FR, with the exception of WPs usual off-topic damnyankee apologies.
free dixie,sw
You are always trying to make your case on what Lincoln said, but a man is judged by what he did. Everybody knows Lincoln could talk a good game (though usually with words borrowed from someone else). Lincoln may have said: " With malice toward none, with charity for all..." (borrowed from John Q. Adams) but the actions he ordered against the Southern citizenry would be better characterized by: with malice toward all and charity toward none.
What should Lincoln have done differently, what actions should he have changed? Short of giving in to the southern rebellion and allowing the southern states to leave, even though he believed their actions to be wrong, what could Lincoln have done that would have changed your view of him?
As I noted earlier, a continuous theme found in the debates and publications throughout the secession period dating back well before the war suggests the anticipated destruction was physical, as was proven to be the case only a few months later. One such document may be found in an earlier excerpt that I posted. From the Franklin, Tennessee county resolution of secession passed February 25, 1861 (my emphasis added)
"That in as much as the movements now made in Congress of the United States of North America, and the incoming administration thereof, threaten to blockade our ports, force revenues, suspend postal arrangements, destroy commerce, ruin trade, depreciate currency, invade sovereign States, burn cities, butcher armies, gibbet patriots, hang veterans, oppress freemen, blot our liberty, beggar homes, widow mothers, orphan children, and desolate the peace and happiness of the nation with fire and sword, these things to do, and not to disappoint the expectation of those who have given him (Mr. Lincoln) their votes. Now, against these things we, in the name of right, the Constitution, and a just God, solemnly enter our protest; and further, when that which is manifested shall have come upon the country, we say to Tennessee: Let slip the dogs of war and cry havoc!"
But to address your comments directly: Slavery is mentioned more than any other reason given for starting the Civil War.
Considering the volume of materials on the war's causes from those who lived it, a good number of which have not seen publication since that winter, I believe this is a difficult case for you to make. There are indeed a good number of documents citing slavery in great detail, but just the same there are plenty of others that say not a word about it.
Having read a great deal of speeches on the matter, I would argue that the most frequent of more immediate causes cited in them is fear of the northern government's use of a coercive power of various forms. This is typically said about slavery, about tariffs, about monetary policy, about frontier protection, and about practically every cause for war cited during the time.
The supporting documents that you so blithely dismiss give the reasoning of the South for seceding.
Clarify you characterization if you believe I have mistaken it, but I simply don't see how my contextual correction of your severe overstatement of those documents constitutes "blithely dismissing" them.
To dismiss them out-of-hand is disengenous indeed.
I suppose it would be, but as I noted earlier, so is the severe overstatement of their importance you gave earlier. I simply corrected your error of context by placing them in their historical perspectives as what they were - non-binding legislative resolutions.
Also, you might notice that the Washington Peace Conference and Crittendon Compromises only addressed the slavery issue.
That's not entirely true, as various measures were taken up addressing more general concerns of constitutional processes. But I do agree that the congressional attempts to address secession, at least the viable ones, were heavily oriented around slavery related issues. It should also be noted that the lone successful one, the Corwin proposal backed by Lincoln, was a slavery related measure. It's scope was narrowly oriented around the issue, hence it did little to stop secession.
The issue of slavery's prominence in these compromise measures is a matter addressed very specifically in several accounts from the time. Most reports agree that there was some conscious effort by the north to orient the debate around the slave issue to the detriment of other disputed areas such as cabinet composition, tariffs, and the sort. The point is openly admitted by Henry Adams in March 1861 - he states in the plainest of terms as an eyewitness that Lincoln and other northerners saw secession could be managed to the benefit of the north if they framed the debate on slavery. He openly admits there were other issues including the tariff that could have been candidates for consideration but were passed over because they were less workable and less advantageous to the north from a political standpoint.
Apparently, both the south and north felt that if they could successfully address this issue, the Union would be saved.
Simply not so, save possibly a few moderates on both sides. Throughout the winter session the northern radicals who dominated the GOP especially in the senate refused to cede any ground on any issure related to much of anything. Charles Sumner made it loud and clear on behalf of the faction that he led that compromises had to be his way or none at all. The situation was so bad that several of the more sensible members of the GOP openly condemned him in terms harsher than anything they offered toward the secessionists at the time. William Seward called Sumner a "damned fool." Charles Francis Adams blamed his faction for obstructing all compromise in one of the most notable speeches (although it has been long since overlooked) of the session. Henry Adams characterized the Massachussetts senator as an immovable fool, claiming that "God almighty" could not move him to compromise.
On the other side of things, the more adamant of the secessionists had concluded either that the situation was too broad to be addressed by slavery compromises alone or that any compromise effort was futile due to the situation created by that same northern faction that was vehemently hostile to any compromise. In the House Clement Vallandigham blamed the northern radical's immovable arrogance for driving away the southern states. The senate side was met with complaint after complaint from the southern members against this same faction.
Louis Wigfall spoke at the end of February about his northern colleagues, basically saying that only a short time earlier others in his party were willing to work but had since then left after finding the situation impossible due not to any issue, but to the northern hostility. He observed that things had gotten to the point among the northern radicals that members of their faction seldom came to the floor without inserting into their speeches a string of anti-southern personal name calling and vile accusations of scandal and conspiracy. Wigfall remarked that his recently departed colleagues had left because they had found it impossible to even engage in a civilized discussion on compromise - they had tried it and were spit upon in return by the Sumner crowd. Wigfall continued noting himself to have concluded the situation to be impossible earlier than many of his colleagues who had since departed. Wigfall himself had concluded secession to be the only course back in December in a speech before the senate not on slavery but on economics. It was where he asserted the line that every school child in America has read, even though few today know anything more about the speech or its speaker - "I say that cotton is king, and that he waves his scepter not only over these thirty-three States, but over the island of Great Britain and over continental Europe." But it didn't stop at that line. He continued attacking what he described as the root of the yankee opposition, telling them "You suppose that numbers constitute the strength of government in this day. I tell you that it is not blood; it is the military chest; it is the almighty dollar." On these grounds, not slavery, he then concluded "I would save this Union if I could; but it is my deliberate impression that it cannot now be done." That was on December 6th. For the record, Wigfall was still around in late February after his colleagues who had been more open to compromise only a month earlier (Jefferson Davis among them) because the secession of his state, Texas, did not become legally official until March 2nd.
The Cherokee document does. Arizona's ordinance, albeit a brief list, does. Some of the states, such as Florida, said very little either way other than that they were seceding. Some, such as Texas, give resolutions of principles causing their secession.
Oh really? Please show that Texas was getting less Federal protection than, say, Kansas or Missouri.
Absent a library at the present, I cannot speak for Kansas or Missouri. I can speak for Texas. Washington was well aware of an ongoing problem of Indian attacks on frontier settlements in Texas dating back to annexation. It was one of the reason's Texas sought to be annexed - they hoped the United States could help protect the frontiers. What happened after the Mexican war was a period of off and on assistance dominated frequently by neglect including some intentionally caused by the south-hating radicals in the north. They cut funding off for political reasons back then just like they do today, only back then frontier defense was often a life or death issue. Nevertheless the northern faction of Sumner played political games with it. By 1850 President Fillmore brought attention to the Indian attacks in Texas in what was an equivalent of a state of the union message. The problem emerged repeatedly throughout the decade and, according to the state, had worsened. As of 1860 the Texas' senators and representatives had reported the problem of Indian raids on the frontier repeatedly to the Congress with the complaint that defenses were being denied for strictly political reasons. Such a situation was a violation of the terms on which Texas entered the union, therefore they considered the contract broken.
Uh huh. From a slave-holding perspective, you are right.
No. Strictly speaking on the frontier defense issue itself - Texas entered the union with frontier defenses against Indian raids being among the terms of entry. Those defenses were not being adequitely provided despite Washington's awareness of the problem for the previous decade. Therefore the compact between the Texas and the union was violated. Randomly shouting "slavery" as you do in response to everything southern is shoddy scholarship to say the least.
This argument is totally bogus. When did the North invade Texas prior to the Civil War?
To the contrary. Northern sabre rattling was well known throughout the secession crisis and provided an underlying fuel for the southern secessionist cause. Southerners saw a northern-run government basically telling them "You listen to us now and we can do this the easy way or the hard way." The south saw this for what it was, coercion, and cited it prominently as a cause for secession months before a shot was even fired. Jefferson Davis appealed to peace in the face of a coming war in his January farewell speech. Louis Wigfall had openly called the north on it back in the first week of December. Resolutions of secession, such as that one from Franklin TN in February, saw it as well and cited it as their cause.
Even Lincoln knew what was going on. From December forward he was secretly corresponding with northern commanders to prepare plans for taking the southern forts and reinforcing the ones in union hands. The action that sparked Fort Sumter was one of such plan that had been months in the making.
Going 3 for 3 aren't you? Lincoln and other northerners pledged to *not* interfere with any southern instituions.
Public political pledges are a far cry from actions. Lincoln also publicly stated in February 1861 the following:
"What, then, is ``coercion''? What is ``invasion''? Would the marching of an army into South California, for instance, without the consent of her people, and in hostility against them, be coercion or invasion? I very frankly say, I think it would be invasion, and it would be coercion too, if the people of that country were forced to submit."
The president elect then pledged that his intention was for neither.
He sure didn't live up to that little fib.
But if the Government, for instance, but simply insists on holding its own forts, or retaking those forts which belong to it, or the enforcement of the laws of the United States in the collection of duties upon foreign importations, or even the withdrawl of the mails from those portions of the country where the mails themselves are habitually violated; would any or all of these things be coercion? Do the lovers of the Union contend that they will resist coercion or invasion of any state, understanding that any or all of these would be coercing or invading a state? If they do, then it occurs to me that the means for the preservation of the Union they so greatly love, in their own estimation, is of a very thin and airy character."
See "A Stillness at Appomattox" p. 333 by Bruce Catton.
Walt
If you wish to finish it, I'm in no place to stop you nor do I really care. Either way Lincoln violated it.
Sure he did. Milroy was an underling of the attachment Sherman sent to guard his supply lines by Thomas. You said Sherman's orders and his men. Sherman's supply lines were being patrolled by his orders and those patrolling it were ordered there by him as his men.
This does appear to be new information. We'll see if it holds up.
Check it out if you like. I gave you all the sources. And as I said, I'll gladly transcribe the documents once I get them from the national archives.
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