Facts and Myths - an examination of McPherson's "Causes of the Civil War" essay

myself

[GOPcapitalist]

Some of the pro-north activists around here have been asking for a factual refutation of McPherson. Since I'm too cheap to purchase "Battle Cry" due to the fact that its revenues go into the pocket of an avowed Democrat with marxist political affiliations, I decided to examine his positions in one of those free articles on the web. Here goes...

The following is intended as a refutation and analysis of the main arguments found in James McPherson's article "The Civil War: Causes and Results." I've broken it down by section to address his arguments in detail. His statements are selected in order as they appeared in the original essay and presented in bold below:

I. "To be sure, conflicts of interest occurred between the agricultural South and the industrializing North. But issues like tariffs, banks, and land grants divided parties and interest groups more than they did North and South."

McPherson is using a red herring when he states that tariffs et al divided parties instead of the country's two regions as the inescapable partisan situation throughout the war revolved around an exclusively sectional northern political party. The Republican party of the north was indisputably protectionist and heavily emphasized protectionism in its 1860 platform. The remaining partisan divisions during the war consisted mostly of southern Democrats and northern Democrats. The former played a dominant role in the confederacy. The latter came to encompass the anti-war copperheads, the peace Democrats, the anti-draft Democrats, the McClellanites, and a number of other similar factions generally supportive of the idea that the war should be waged in greater moderation, in a more limited capacity, or not at all.

In short this created a war/political climate consisting of one group for the war as it was being waged (the Republicans) and two disapproving of the way the war was being waged - the confederates who were obviously opposed to the invasion and the northern democrats who sought a more restrained war or an end to it all together. Accordingly it can be accurately said that the sectional proponents of war against the confederacy as it was being waged were almost exclusively from the strongly pro-tariff Republican Party. Comparatively the southern confederates expressed solid opposition to the tariff. As the war itself was conducted between the northern Republicans and the southern Confederates, McPherson's implication that the tariff issue did not break on the same lines as the war is historically inaccurate, deceptively presented, and flat out absurd.

II. "The South in the 1840s and 1850s had its advocates of industrialization and protective tariffs, just as the North had its millions of farmers and its low-tariff, antibank Democratic majority in many states."

This is another red herring on McPherson's part. On any given issue of practically any nature it is typically possible to find an advocate opinion in the midst of a crowd of opponents. So naturally there were some pro-tariff southerners and anti-tariff northerners. What McPherson fails to concede though is that both were a minority among the two dynamically opposed entities at the center of the war itself - the northern Republicans and the southern Confederates. The Republicans were very pro-tariff and openly indicated so platforms. The Confederates opposed the tariffs being pushed by the north and cited it frequently among their grievances for secession. As for the northern Democrats McPherson mentions, that is well and good except that he conveniently neglects their differing view from the Republicans on how to wage the war.

III. "The Civil War was not fought over the issue of tariff or of industrialization or of land grants."

While it cannot in any reasonable manner be said that the war was fought exclusively on tariffs or any other issue, to deny this as McPherson does above is simply dishonest. Northern advocacy of the tariff had been an issue since the Spring of 1860 when the House took up the Morrill bill. Southern opposition to it, aside from dating back decades to the nullification crisis, appeared in both Congress and the conduction of secession by the states. Witness just a small sample of the historical record on the issue of protectionism and tariff collection from 1860-61, broken down here between northern and southern sides:
 

NORTH/REPUBLICAN:

"That, while providing revenue for the support of the General Government by duties upon imposts, sound policy requires such an adjustment of the imposts as to encourage the development of the industrial interest of the whole country, and we commend that policy of national exchanges which secures to the working men liberal wages, to agriculture remunerating prices, to mechanics and manufacturers an adequate reward for their skill, labor and enterprise, and to the nation commercial prosperity and independence." - Republican Party Platform of 1860

"According to my political education, I am inclined to believe that the people in the various sections of the country should have their own views carried out through their representatives in Congress, and if the consideration of the Tariff bill should be postponed until the next session of the National Legislature, no subject should engage your representatives more closely than that of a tariff" - President-Elect Abraham Lincoln, February 15, 1861
 

SOUTH/CONFEDERATE:

"Resolved, 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 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!" - Resolution of Franklin County, Tennessee for secession, adopted unanimously at Winchester, February 25, 1861

"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. When you have lost your market; when your operatives are turned out; when your capitalists are broken, will you go to direct taxation?" - Louis T. Wigfall, United States Senate, December 1860

IV. "Nor was it a consequence of false issues invented by demagogues."

Contrary to McPherson's assertions, a strong argument may be made regarding the nature of the core issue upon which Lincoln waged his war. As Lincoln famously expressed in his letter to Horace Greeley, his public line was "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union." Lincoln was gifted with significant rhetorical skills and publicly alleged the theme of "The Union" as his basis for action throughout the war. His use of the issue of unionism is peculiar as it bears an uncanny resemblance to a thoroughly reasoned prediction made by Alexis de Tocqueville thirty years earlier regarding the event of secession itself:

"If it be supposed that among the states that are united by the federal tie there are some which exclusively enjoy the principal advantages of union, or whose prosperity entirely depends on the duration of that union, it is unquestionable that they will always be ready to support the central government in enforcing the obedience of the others. But the government would then be exerting a force not derived from itself, but from a principle contrary to its nature. States form confederations in order to derive equal advantages from their union; and in the case just alluded to, the Federal government would derive its power from the unequal distribution of those benefits among the states.

If one of the federated states acquires a preponderance sufficiently great to enable it to take exclusive possession of the central authority, it will consider the other states as subject provinces and will cause its own supremacy to be respected under the borrowed name of the sovereignty of the Union. Great things may then be done in the name of the Federal government, but in reality that government will have ceased to exist." - Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter 18 (emphasis added)

In light of northern behavior as it occurred, Tocqueville's observation was largely proven valid. Economically, the north stood to face a competitive disadvantage in the event of southern secession. Simply speaking, secession posed to expose the northern industrial economy to european economic competition it had sought to escape by way of protectionist policies - if European goods could be purchased by southerners without tariffs their prices were often lower than northern substitutes, hence consumers shift to the cheaper European products. That situation is even further complicated if cheaper European goods brought in with low tariffs in the south make their way up north and compete on the market there with northern products. Accordingly on economic policy the north had a very clear advantage to be had from the continuance of the union as one. That is what Wigfall was referring to when he asked what the north would do when it lost its market.

It is also an evidenced very strongly in Lincoln's war policy. From the moment secession became an issue, Lincoln expressed a near obsessive desire to do one thing - enforce revenue collection in the south and seceded states. As early as December of 1860 he wrote private letters to his military commanders emphasizing the need to maintain or recapture southern forts to ensure revenue collection. When he instituted his blockage Lincoln explicitly legitimized it on the issue of revenue collection. When he spoke before safely pro-tariff northern audiences he pledged his dedication was to revenue collection. This was the sole issue of his letter to Salmon Chase on March 18, 1861 about what to do with secession:

"Sir I shall be obliged if you will inform me whether any goods, wares and merchandize, subject by law to the payment of duties, are now being imported into the United States without such duties being paid, or secured according to law. And if yea, at what place or places? and for what cause do such duties remain unpaid, or [un]secured? I will also thank you for your opinion whether, as a matter of fact, vessels off shore could be effectively used to prevent such importation, or to enforce the payment or securing of the duties." - Lincoln to Chase, March 18, 1861

In one speech to a northern audience from February 1861 Lincoln even admitted that "marching of an army into South California, for instance, without the consent of her people, and in hostility against them...would be invasion, and it would be coercion too." But he continued to argue that if he did was simply insisting on "the collection of duties upon foreign importations" among other things, it would not be "coercion." All of this differs significantly with the official line that he was acting only to preserve the union, suggesting that just as Tocqueville predicted, the use of the union's sovereignty was a "borrowed name." And if borrowing an attractive name to publicly promote as a whole while simultaneously arguing a less attractive one in private and among allies does not constitute the invention of an issue, I do not know what does. I will concede that even the degree of Lincoln's engagement in this tactic is a matter of wide debate, but for McPherson to deny its presence all together is yet another case of historical inaccuracy on his part.

V. "What lay at the root of this separation? Slavery. It was the sole institution not shared by North and South. The peculiar institution defined the South."

First off, McPherson's assertion that slavery was a solely unshared by North and South is historically inaccurate. A number of northern states on the borders openly practiced and permitted slavery until after the war and with Lincoln's full consent - Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, federal controlled regions of Kentucky and Missouri, and even New Jersey, where the slavery that had been abolished there about two decades earlier had grandfathered persons in slavery at the time of abolition.

Second, to suggest as McPherson does is to lie about the sentiments of large portions of the northern population, as the northern population was NOT an abolitionist body opposed to slavery in 1861 or anything even remotely of the sort. A majority of northerners were opponents of abolition at the time of the war, Lincoln included among them. The abolitionist crowd represented less than 10% of the northern population by most estimates. Among the remainder, divisions in treatment of slavery as it existed were widespread. Few statistics measure the exact breakdown of the population, though estimates based on candidacies, electoral data, and other sources of public sentiment were made at the time. The general range of northern opinion included a wide spectrum. Included were those who tolerated the institution entirely and those who tolerated it in a limited sense. One major division were those who favored its continuation so long as it was contained entirely to the south. Many since then have tried to claim that the non-extension belief was some sort of a principled long-term plan to kill off slavery where it existed (this interpretation of the non-extension position was popularized by Karl Marx in 1861). But evidence of the time suggests that the motives for the non-extension policy among many if not most of its proponents were much more political and economic based than principle oriented. Economically, a non-extension policy on slavery was believed to be an economic restriction on job competition for white northern laborers. That's right - the north of 1861 was full of bigots and racists who feared black people, slave or free and based solely on their skin color, to the extent that they did not even want them to labor in their company. Alexis de Tocqueville similarly noticed this about the north thirty years earlier. Lincoln had also noticed it in his 1858 senate debates where he consciously advocated racial supremacy before audiences he suspected to be composed of what have been termed "negrophobes," only to turn around and advocate racial equality to crowds perceived as more abolition-friendly. Lincoln also advocated the "white labor" position as a reason to oppose extension of slavery into the territories, including in one of the most famous speeches of his career:

"Whether slavery shall go into Nebraska, or other new Territories, is not a matter of exclusive concern to the people who may go there. The whole nation is interested that the best use shall be made of these Territories. We want them for homes of free white people. This they cannot be, to any considerable extent, if slavery shall be planted within them. Slave States are places for poor white people to remove from, not to remove to." - Abraham Lincoln, October 16, 1854, Peoria, IL

A second major reason behind the non-extension policy was purely political - control of the senate broke on sectional lines. By allowing slavery in the territories, southerners hoped to eventually create new states on the shared issue of slavery that would also vote with them on sectional disputes. By opposing slavery in the territories, northerners hoped to do the opposite and create a state that would vote with them on sectional disputes. This is evidenced repeatedly during the pre-1860 compromises pushed by Clay, Douglas, and others - they addressed the senate division by preserving an even split. To do so they simultaneously admitted a slave territory and a free territory as states.

Now, that having been said it is perfect proper to admit and consider slavery as a major and prominent issue during the war. To refuse it would be to deny history and engage in absurdity. But to do as McPherson, Marx, and other persons who advocate an historical view heavily skewered to the yankee side do and purport slavery to be the sole issue is similarly a violation of historical accuracy. Above all else the war was an inescapably complex issue with inescapably complex roots. In order to reduce the war to a single issue, one must reduce it from the complex to the simple. Since the war by its very nature consists of a point of irreducible complexity in its roots, to push beyond that point is to violate the irreducibly complex. That is McPherson's flaw as it is the flaw of the many others who share his position.

VI. "What explained the growing Northern hostility to slavery? Since 1831 the militant phase of the abolitionist movement had crusaded against bondage as unchristian, immoral, and a violation of the republican principle of equality on which the nation had been founded. The fact that this land of liberty had become the world's largest slaveholding nation seemed a shameful anomaly to an increasing number of Northerners. "The monstrous injustice of slavery," said Lincoln in 1854, "deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world - enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites." Slavery degraded not only the slaves, argued Northerners opposed to its expansion, by demeaning the dignity of labor and dragging down the wages of all workers; it also degraded free people who owned no slaves. If slavery goes into the territories, declared abolitionists, "the free labor of all the states will not.... If the free labor of the states goes there, the slave labor of the southern states will not, and in a few years the country will teem with an active and energetic population." The contest over expansion of slavery into the territories thus became a contest over the future of America, for these territories held the balance of power between slavery and freedom."

This entire passage of McPherson commits the same error of assumption made earlier about northern beliefs on slavery and non-expansion. McPherson severely overstates the size of the northern abolitionist population and illegitimately implies a shared affiliation between them and Lincoln. In reality, Lincoln was perfectly willing to permit the continuation of slavery to the point that he used his first inaugural address to endorse a recently passed but unratified constitutional amendment to protect the institution of slavery where it existed. Had it been ratified as Lincoln wanted, slavery's life would have been artificially extended in America beyond its natural decline worldwide. That is why true abolitionists including William Lloyd Garrison and Lysander Spooner publicly identified Lincoln as a fraud, even after the 13th amendment.

McPherson's statement above further neglects the presence of what has been accurately termed as northern "negrophobia" in 1861. Included are the economic motives asserted by Lincoln and others for non-extension that were noted earlier. The less than pure motives for northern opposition to slavery's expansion were well known in their day, including having been noticed by some of the greatest minds - and anti-slavery advocates - of western history. Alexis de Tocqueville readily observed that northerners did not oppose slavery for the benefit of the slaves, but rather for the benefit of themselves. Charles Dickens noticed the same was still the case thirty years later. Both men were prominent opponents of slavery.

VII. "Proslavery advocates countered that the bondage of blacks was the basis of liberty for whites.  Slavery elevated all whites to an equality of status and dignity by confining menial labor and caste subordination to blacks. "If slaves are freed," said Southerners, whites "will become menials. We will lose every right and liberty which belongs to the name of freemen."

His blatant generalizations aside, McPherson's statement above, as has been seen, perhaps better resembles the position taken by the northern "negrophobes" than any other faction in the country. Northern bigots saw the mere presence of persons of other skin colors as a threat to white livelihood and accordingly legislated blacks out of their towns, cities, and states. Many wanted blacks to be kept out of the territories for the reason Lincoln stated at Peoria in 1854 and sought to address the presence of blacks by restricting them out of white society all together through segregation, statute, and coercion - the exact type of bondage mattered little to these bigots, so long as they were "on top" and didn't perceive any economic threat posed by their labor. Lincoln took this very position in one of his debates with Stephen Douglas:

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race." - Abraham Lincoln, August 17, 1858

VIII. "A Northern antislavery party would dominate the future. Slavery was doomed if the South remained in the Union."

Untrue, and had Lincoln gotten his way and ratified his pro-slavery amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1861, the exact opposite would have been true. During his Inaugural Address, Lincoln made the following statement:

"I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution?which amendment, however, I have not seen?has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal
Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I
depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable." - Abraham Lincoln, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861

The amendment he was referring to had passed congress with a 2/3rds majority less than a week earlier, owing its passage to what eyewitness Henry Adams described as the "direct influence" of Abraham Lincoln himself (Lincoln was fibbing when he claimed in his inaugural to have "not yet seen" the amendment). The amendment Lincoln got passed read:

Article Thirteen.
"No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic
institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State."

It would have effectively made slavery untouchable by any future constitutional amendment, thereby preventing at any time in the future what became the actual 13th amendment and prolonging the existence of slavery where it existed beyond a possible future abolition by peaceful means.

IX. "If the new Lincoln administration and the Northern people had been willing to accept secession, the two halves of the former United States might have coexisted in an uneasy peace. But most Northerners were not willing to tolerate the dismemberment of the United States."

McPherson is fibbing here, pure and simple. Most honest historians recognize the presence of a significant anti-war sentiment among the northern population and even a belief in "simply letting them go." This sentiment emerged at times throughout the war, especially in the early days when the north had suffered several glaring defeats by smaller sized confederate forces. Throughout much of his presidency Lincoln consciously worked tirelessly to achieve what McPherson dishonestly purports to have already been there. He did it both by persuasion and, in certain more dubious cases, coercion. The latter occurred when he unconstitutionally suspended habeas corpus among other things. Federal forces were similarly used to impede the properly seated legislatures of Maryland and Missouri, forcing many of the former state's into prison without cause and the latter's to flee south and reconvene in a rump session.

X. "Lincoln intended to maintain the federal garrison at Fort Sumter in Charleston Bay as a symbol of national sovereignty in the Confederate states, in the hope that a reaction toward Unionism in those states would eventually bring them back."

McPherson is fibbing again. Lincoln's private correspondence to military commanders over the issue of Fort Sumter were near obsessively concerned with the collection of revenue. Surviving from Lincoln's cabinet meetings on the subject of how to address Fort Sumter also include a lengthy list of the "pros and cons" of holding the fort. Clearly identified among them as a "con" is the statement recognizing the federal presence at Charleston as having the effect of exacerbating secessionist sympathies much like a thorn in the side of South Carolina. It states that "(t)he abandonment of the Post would remove a source of irritation of the Southern people and deprive the secession movement of one of its most powerful stimulants."

XI. "To forestall this happening, the Confederate army attacked Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861"

McPherson's fibbing continues in the above statement, which immediately follows the statement he made in what I have identified as item X. The historical record shows the above statement to be bizarre, unusual, and largely fabricated out of thin air. The confederate attack was not made randomly on April 12th to stop some unknown resurgence of unionism in South Carolina. It was fired on in direct response to military maneuvers on the fort that had been launched by Lincoln earlier that week. On April 5 Lincoln notified Governor Francis Pickens of South Carolina that he would be attempting to peacefully reprovision Fort Sumter with supplies. Shortly thereafter he instructed his military to send out a fleet of federal warships containing the food as well as heavy reenforcements and weaponry. Explicit orders were to go to Sumter and if the Confederates refused to let them enter the fort, open fire and fight their way in. Confederate intelligence, knowing of Lincoln's earlier message to Pickens, caught wind of the operation by discovering the ships had been sent to sea. Beauregard was notified and opened fire on the fort to preempt the fleet's arrival, which turned out to be only a day away. Lincoln's fleet got there a day late, though just in time for Beauregard to allow the garrison safe passage to them and back up north. Needless to say, Abraham Lincoln did not consider the move in any way a failure as he had provoked the confederates into firing the first shot, even though it did not happen the way he anticipated. He openly admitted this in a personal letter to Captain Gustavus Fox, who he had tasked to lead the expedition:

"I sincerely regret that the failure of the late attempt to provision Fort-Sumpter, should be the source of any annoyance to you. The practicability of your plan was not, in fact, brought to a test. By reason of a gale, well known in advance to be possible, and not improbable, the tugs, an essential part of the plan, never reached the ground; while, by an accident, for which you were in no wise responsible, and possibly I, to some extent was, you were deprived of a war vessel with her men, which you deemed of great importance to the enterprize. I most cheerfully and truly declare that the failure of the undertaking has not lowered you a particle, while the qualities you developed in the effort, have greatly heightened you, in my estimation. For a daring and dangerous enterprize, of a similar character, you would, to-day, be the man, of all my acquaintances, whom I would select. You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort-Sumpter, even if it should fail; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result." - Abraham Lincoln, letter to Fox, May 1, 1861 (emphasis added)

XII. "The war resolved the two fundamental problems left unresolved by the Revolution of 1776, problems that had preoccupied the country for four score and nine years down to 1865. The first was the question whether this fragile republic would survive in a world of monarchs and emperors and dictators or would follow the example of most republics through history (including many in the nineteenth century) and collapse into tyranny or fragment in a dreary succession of revolutions and civil wars."

Here McPherson is exploiting the "experiment in democracy" myth to attach some legitimacy and purported good to what was an appallingly costly, brutal, and disastrous war. While he is correct to phrase the American nation's role in a world that was at the time dominated by empire and monarchy as well as to note the previous occurrence of republican failures elsewhere, he is incorrect to suggest that the fate of republican government rested on the preservation of the union. As any honest historian must concede, though it is often contrary to the Schlessingerian "experiment in democracy" and the neo-Hegelian "end of history" paradigms, the concept of republican government has been around in various forms throughout recorded history. It has had its successes, sometimes lasting for centuries, and it has also had its failures, but just the same so have empires and monarchies. On the greater spectrum of history itself I believe the evidence is clear that governments are cyclical developments and refinements. This is commonly thought of as a classical understanding of government. Alternative some hold governments to be evolutionary stage developments as McPherson does here and as some otherwise genuinely intelligent and even conservative persons believe America to be. This alternative is the Hegelian view, perhaps most famously adopted by Marx as the heart of communism. I will concede it is tempting for some conservatives to gravitate toward this latter position, but doing so entails what is ultimately an embrace of arrogance and perfectibility over all that preceded us when in reality we are the same inherently human, inherently flawed, yet readily redeemable human beings as those who came before us were. For that reason few will likely find the Hegelian position in the minds of conservatism's greatest thinkers (actually it is normally found among the left, such as McPherson demonstrates here). Therefore what some may falsely interpret to be a classical system that appears dismissive of the wisdom of the Constitution and the sorts may find themselves surprised to find it a position held by some of the Constitution's greatest defenders and conservatism's greatest minds.

[AnalogReigns]

I visited Lincoln's boyhood home yesterday, while traveling through southern Indiana. Truly God used this sinner to save (and I believe, like he did and Lee, to also CHASTEN) the United States of America. Ever pondered what North America (let alone the world...) would look like now if the South would have won?

I am the proud great-grandson of a Confederate officer, and I'm sure he personally fought for honorable reasons... but I find it sad that (still) so many southerners like to insist slavery was not the major underlying issue behind the powers that brought on the War Between the States.

Ironically, and no doubt mystifyingly to you southern partisans, while I greatly admire Lincoln...of his generation only Robert E. Lee surpasses him in my respect.

I'm glad marron is bringing some sensible clear light to the issue, maybe through the smoke of the historical battlefield, some of the South, like me, will see the light...

[Aurelius]

"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?"

"...he believed their actions to be wrong..."

There is no doubt that Hitler believed the Jews to be a threat to the possibility of the 1000 year Reich that he invisioned. We don't forgive him on that account. Neither should we forgive Lincoln for the enormous loss of life and destruction that he wreaked because he believed that it was wrong for states that had voluntarily joined a union in the belief that they would always be free to leave it to exercise the option of doing so. As for the sincerity of their beliefs, there is no great reason to believe that Hitler was insincere in his belief, however misguided it may have been. As for Lincoln, he may have been more guided by the threat that secession presented to the implementation of the "American Systen" of Henry Clay which seems to have been the guiding force and light of his political career.

[Aurelius]

"...what could Lincoln have done that would have changed your view of him?"

In short? Recognized the error of his ways and let the South go free! Error is no excuse!

"So wide his erudition's mighty span, he knew creation's origin and plan, and only came by accident to grief, he thought, poor man, 'twas right to be a thief."

Ambrose Bierce

[WhiskeyPapa]

Sherman had no control over Milroy's operations.

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.

I think most people know there were no radios in 1864.

Sherman did not control Milroy's operations. Nor does Milroy fall under any but the most tenous definition of "Sherman and his men." Sherman's men on the march through Georgia and the Carolinas were very well behavd.

Further, I find very little mention of this Milroy person on the 'net, and no corroboration for your story,and further, this supposed order of Sherman's is mentioned neither in "Battle Cry of Freedom" or in "Sherman's march" by Burke Davis.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

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.

I need sources I can check.

Walt

[GOPcapitalist]

I need sources I can check.

Probably the easiest one for you to look in is the issue of North & South magazine from November 1999. Most libraries carry it in their magazine sections and good ones normally have back issues for a couple if not several years.

Other than that you can wait on the national archives to send me copies, but I don't know exactly when to expect them and you know how long the government takes.

[WhiskeyPapa]

O.K. My reference is: "Göring" by David Irving, 1989 paperback (a reference without a date of publication is pretty useless - I would have thought someone so enamoured of the "historical record" would recognize that.

You don't have Catton's book? Any used book store will have several of these "The Army of the Potomac" books. The three volume set is very well known. They are "Mr. Lincoln's Army", "Glory Road" and "A Stillness at Appomatox."

Walt

[Non-Sequitur]

But in Lincoln's view he wasn't in error, the south was. That view is shared by a great many other people. It seems that the only way Lincoln could have redeemed himself in your eyes was to do the one thing that he believed was wrong. Had he done that the south would no doubt still be blaming him for all their problems to this very day.

[Non-Sequitur]

Lincoln violated nothing. There is no coercion in moving troops from the United States Army from one part of the country to another. Or applying tariffs in all the ports of the United States. Or collecting and distributing the mail. Coercion occured when the southern leadership seized federal forts and facilities, intimidated customs and postal officials, and closed down courts and then said that they wanted to 'negotiate' a settlement.

[GOPcapitalist]

I think most people know there were no radios in 1864.

Irrelevant. Sherman gave the order to patrol his supply lines. He is therefore ultimately responsible as a commanding officer for what his men did while patrolling his supply lines.

Sherman did not control Milroy's operations.

Sure he did. Milroy's operations were being conducted as a direct result of Sherman's orders to patrol his supply lines. Had Sherman not ordered his supply lines patrolled, Milroy would not have been there and would not have committed the murders that happened.

Nor does Milroy fall under any but the most tenous definition of "Sherman and his men."

Sure he does. He was acting under Sherman's orders as a part of a dispatch sent by Sherman himself to patrol Sherman's supply lines that were very much a part of Sherman's operations throughout the south.

Sherman's men on the march through Georgia and the Carolinas were very well behavd.

The documented incidents of city burning, looting, and raping suggest otherwise, as does the conduct of Sherman's men on his supply lines.

Further, I find very little mention of this Milroy person on the 'net

Brig. Gen. Robert H. Milroy - fought at McDowell, VA, and 2nd Manassas. He was overrun with heavy casualties at Winchester and removed from his command in the east. By 1864 he was reassigned to Sherman's supply lines under Sherman's dispatch of Thomas and engaged in confederates along the lines in various battles and skirmishes through December 1864. He spent the next few months operating along Sherman's lines in southern Tennessee and northern Alabama and Georgia, which is where the murders of the civilians took place.

A brief web search pulled up a photo and short bio of Milroy online at http://stonewall.hut.ru/leaders/milroy.htm

and no corroboration for your story

As I previously noted you should not expect to find it online. The murders have been neglected by history and only recently appeared in published record beyond the original military records themselves. One of the published accounts is easily accessable in a widely circulated magazine about the war. You may find it documented in the issue of North & South magazine from November 1999.

this supposed order of Sherman's is mentioned neither in "Battle Cry of Freedom" or in "Sherman's march" by Burke Davis.

Then either you are not looking hard enough or both authors ignored a major event in the western campaign. You may find it on the October 26, 1864 at the chronology here where it mentions Sherman dispatching a chunk of his army under Thomas to deal with Hood along the supply lines: http://americancivilwar.com/authors/bobredmond/cumberland_chronology.htm

[WhiskeyPapa]

Here's another partof BCF you'll want to discount:

"The North had a potential manpower superiority of more than three to one (counting only white men) and Union armed forces had an actual superiority of two to one during most of the war. In economic resources and logistical capacity the northern advantage was even greater. Thus, in this explanation, the Confederacy fought against overwhelming odds; its defeat was inevitable. But this explanation has not satisfied a good many analysts. History is replete with examples of peoples who have won or defended their independence against greater odds: the Netherlands against the Spain of Philip II; Switzerland against the Hapsburg empire; the American rebels of 1776 against mighty Britain; North Vietnam against the United States of 1970. Given the advantages of fighting on the defensive in its own territory with interior lines in which stalemate would be victory against a foe who must invade, conquer, occupy, and destroy the capacity to resist, the odds faced by the South were not formidable.

Rather, as another category of interpretations has it, internal divisions fatally weakened the Confederacy: the state-rights conflict between certain govern on and the Richmond government; the disaffection of non-slaveholders from a rich man's war and poor man's fight; libertarian opposition to necessary measures such as conscription and the suspension of habeas corpus; the lukewarm commitment to the Confederacy by quondam Whigs and unionists; the disloyalty of slaves who defected to the enemy whenever they had a chance; growing doubts among slaveowners themselves about the justice of their peculiar institution and their cause. "So the Confederacy succumbed to internal rather than external causes," according to numerous historians. The South suffered from a "weakness in morale," a "loss of the will to fight." The Confederacy did not lack "the means to continue the struggle," but "the will to do so." --BCF, P. 855

His sources:

Richard E. Beringer, Herman Hattaway, Archer Jones, and William N. Stilll jr., Why the South Lost the Civil War (Athens, Ga., 1986), 439, 5S; Kenneth M. Stampp, The Imperiled Union: Essays on the Background of the Civil War (New York, 1980),255 Clement Eaton, A History of the Southern Confederacy (Collier Books ed., New York, 1961), 250

My emphasis throughout.

Walt

[WhiskeyPapa]

If you wish to finish it, I'm in no place to stop you nor do I really care.

Of course not. Objectivity and fairness are not your goals.

Walt

[GOPcapitalist]

Lincoln violated nothing.

Sure he did. According to his OWN DEFINITIONS the "marching of an army into" a region "without the consent of her people, and in hostility against them" constituted invasion, and forcing them to submit once they got there constituted coercion.

Lincoln marched an army into the south without the consent of the southern people. He marched that army there in hostility against them as is evidenced by bloody battlefields and plundered cities alike. And when he got there he forced them to submit to the union. Therefore he both invaded and coerced.

There is no coercion in moving troops from the United States Army from one part of the country to another.

But there is in moving troops there against the wishes of the people and in hostility against them for the purpose of making them submit. Lincoln did all of that, therefore he coerced.

Or applying tariffs in all the ports of the United States.

As I have noted before, ensuring those taxes were collected was a frequently referenced priority of Lincoln in his military orders.

Or collecting and distributing the mail.

Actually Lincoln cut off the mail, especially to the west. That is one of the main reasons why Arizona territory seceded.

[WhiskeyPapa]

There is no coercion in moving troops from the United States Army from one part of the country to another.

The neo-rebs conveniently forget that U.S. troops were never completely -out- of the so-called CSA. Fortress Monroe in Virginia was held throughout the war.

Hradly an invasion, is it?

Walt

[GOPcapitalist]

Of course not. Objectivity and fairness are not your goals.

As if either of those words meant a thing to you?

BTW, care demonstrating exactly where I have been "unfair" in this debate?

[Non-Sequitur]

Sure he did.

No he did not. Look at the quote in it's entirity:

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. 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."

Lincoln clearly did not consider his actions as invasion, he believed the second half of the quote, merely moving troops from one part of the United States to another. He did not view it as coercion, you did. He did not believe it was invasion, you do. He was not sending an army to make them submit, he was sending a few hundred men to make a point, that Sumter was and would remain a federal fort.

You continue to make an issue of tariffs as if they were the sole purpose behind Lincoln's actions. The federal government realized fraction of one percent of its total revenue from Charleston's imports, less that 5% or 6% from the entire south. It wasn't the money, it was the message. Outside of federal courts and the military, tariff collection and the mail were about all the federal government did. If the tariff was collected and the mail went through and the forts were maintained then it proved to the world that the United States was in control of all its territory, regardless of what the mob in Montgomery claimed.

[GOPcapitalist]

Uh, Walt, isn't that the same thing you've reposted about three times already on this thread during your continued evasion of the thread's article itself?

Here's another partof BCF you'll want to discount:

"The North had a potential manpower superiority of more than three to one (counting only white men) and Union armed forces had an actual superiority of two to one during most of the war...blah blah blah blah"

Uh, Walt - why would I want to discount that? I have no problem with the fact that the north had superior sizes in population and in fact this was a critical factor to their victory.

In economic resources and logistical capacity the northern advantage was even greater. Thus, in this explanation, the Confederacy fought against overwhelming odds; its defeat was inevitable. But this explanation has not satisfied a good many analysts. History is replete with examples of peoples who have won or defended their independence against greater odds: the Netherlands against the Spain of Philip II; Switzerland against the Hapsburg empire; the American rebels of 1776 against mighty Britain; North Vietnam against the United States of 1970.

That's nice and all, but whether or not the Netherlands was successful against the odds in a fight with Spain bears no relevance to the confederate fight. I might also add that while McPherson cites a number of against the odds victories, more often than not they are simply not the case. Normally the big and powerful army wins, or advances at least temporarily. In the course of world history far more peoples have been conquered than have survived as underdog challengers to a more powerful force, though often the underdogs do put up valiant, honorable, and temporarily successful efforts before the inevitable happens.

Given the advantages of fighting on the defensive in its own territory with interior lines in which stalemate would be victory against a foe who must invade, conquer, occupy, and destroy the capacity to resist, the odds faced by the South were not formidable.

Nonsense. Every conquered people in history has had those same advantages when fighting to preserve their homes from invaders. If those advantages were as great as McPherson purports them to be, every invaded nation in history should have won. But that is simply not the case of reality - most invaded places fighting off a bigger and more powerful enemy are overrrun. Kuwait had the advantage of home territory to defend simply to a stalemate, did it not? But that didn't stop Iraq. Chaing Kai-shek had the advantage of home territory to defend in China, but that didn't stop first Japan and then the communists. South Vietnam had the home territory to defend but that didn't stop Ho Chi Minh. The same goes for the bad guys as well as the good guys - Germany had home territory to defend but that didn't stop America and Russia. Do you believe otherwise and maintain that it should have, Walt? McPherson seems to think so. Rather, as another category of interpretations has it, internal divisions fatally weakened the Confederacy: the state-rights conflict between certain govern on and the Richmond government; the disaffection of non-slaveholders from a rich man's war and poor man's fight; libertarian opposition...blah blah blah"

That's nice and all, but similarly flawed reasoning. Every country has its own internal struggles. They were there in the south, but to suggest as McPherson does that they somehow turned the tide of the war from a sure victory to a lose is silly and unfounded. The fact of the matter is that southerners fought to the bitter end at the cost of 250,000 lives and for the course of four long bloody years. In the process they killed 350,000 yankees before being overrun. If the confederacy were compromised by McPherson suggestions the north could have overrun them with ease as was the original plan. Before first Mannassas the northerners were convinced it would be a quick march to Richmond and then it would all be over. This belief was largely shared by the northern leaders. Seward remarked back in February of that year that the secessionists would self destruct before summer and everything would be back to normal. Lincoln thought that anti-secessionist sympathies would emerge at the sight of the union flag and shortly thereafter the southern states would come back. But all of this was simply not so with no surer proof of the error in those suggestions being the war itself.

As usual it appears that McPherson's editorializing is much like the rest of his beliefs on the war including those I exposed at the beginning of this thread. He pushes a heavily slanted and historically fraudulent brand of 100% yankee produced pure unadulterated bullsh*t, slaps the label "history" on the can, and markets it to suckers such as yourself for consumption. Sadly his loyal clientel lines up begging for more without a clue in the world as to what they are actually eating, and this even though those who have picked up on the McPherson scam attempt to warn the rest with readily available evidence.

[GOPcapitalist]

Lincoln clearly did not consider his actions as invasion, he believed the second half of the quote, merely moving troops from one part of the United States to another.

It isn't my fault if the man fibs about his actions as according to his own definition what he did was coercion and invasion.

He did not view it as coercion, you did. He did not believe it was invasion, you do.

Tell me - do the actions of the yankees during the war constitute invasion as specifically defined by Lincoln? His definition was "marching of an army into" an area "without the consent of her people, and in hostility against them." In that light the war was a clear cut case of invasion.

Whether Lincoln purports it to be something else or not does not change this and at most only demonstrates sophistry and dishonesty on Lincoln's part.

You continue to make an issue of tariffs as if they were the sole purpose behind Lincoln's actions.

Nonsense. I have long recognized them as an issue but never the sole issue as to do so would be as ignorant as persons such as McPherson who purport slavery to be the sole issue. My contention with tariffs is simply that they were a prominent and major issue occupying a central place among the controversies that led to the war.

The federal government realized fraction of one percent of its total revenue from Charleston's imports, less that 5% or 6% from the entire south.

Even if your stats were right you are missing the entire point of protectionist tariffs. Raising money is only a side benefit of tariffs. The real issue, as any person with even the slightest background in economics will tell you, is controlling competition. The north made their products competitive on the market by forcing the prices of european substitutes higher. Hence it is called "protectionism," as in protecting the home industry from being undercut by the competition from abroad. Outside of federal courts and the military, tariff collection and the mail were about all the federal government did.

Nonsense. Though it is nothing like today, the federal government at the time was becoming increasingly meddlesome in industry by way of subside and economic intervention. A few of the biggies included the railroad and steamship industries. I'll dig up specifics on both if you are interested.

[marron]

Thanks for your kind remark.

My ancestors also fought for the South. They were also minor slave-holders. They apparently lost most everything, and then migrated to Texas where they became, mostly, cowboys.

It mystifies me that people who believe in liberty, and free economies, are still trying to defend a slave economy, still complaining about the war that ended it.

I feel no guilt about my ancestors, they were men of their time, and salt of the earth. They grew up in a culture that tolerated, or even celebrated, slavery. Prior to the civil war, they may never have questioned it. I know from my research that they were active church members, it is likely that they treated their workers well, but it didn't occur to them to reject the system that fed them.

This is something that I have drawn from our history. The greatest evils are not committed by evil people. The evil ones we can all recognize, and deal with. The greatest evil is committed by otherwise good people, who don't know better, or are afraid to act on their conscience.

[stand watie]

who cares!