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.

[Seydlitz]

This "rebuttal" misses the whole point. Slavery, as an institution, fundamentally shaped the political, cultural, and economic institutions of the South, in such a way as to cause them to differ sharply from those of the North. In doing so, it divided North and South in so many ways that a break was inevitable. It's that simple. It has little to do with the presence of abolitionist sentiment, pro or anti-tariff, etc. Those things are mere symptoms of the institutional differences engendered by slavery.

In addition, it was my pleasure to work closely with Prof. McPherson as an undergraduate in college, and your characterization of him is way off mark. Like most professors, he is to the left of most Freepers, but he's no Marxist or rabid ideologue. He is a very nice, personable and open-minded guy, who always treated students with great respect. Finally, you should have the intellectual honesty to read his main work, "Battle Cry of Freedom" before you aggressively mischaractize him and substitute your wishful thinking for what he actually writes.

[Non-Sequitur]

In addition, it was my pleasure to work closely with Prof. McPherson as an undergraduate in college...

I envy you. I've read several of Dr. McPherson's books and have enjoyed them all.

[GOPcapitalist]

This is substantially incorrect. More later.

Haven't you learned your lesson yet, Walt? Simply declaring something false on a whim does not make it so.

[GOPcapitalist]

If it appears in the national archives, it appears somewhere else too.

Not necessarily. The Archives have thousands upon thousands of documents in their record that are original government papers of their own posession and have never been printed elsewhere. This particular document is held in their records and I believe the state of Tennessee has a microfilmed copy of it, but other than the individuals who pull the documents themselves that's about it.

If it is online at the NA, post the link;

Unfortunately, as is the case with the overwhelming majority of their collection, it is not. I already looked. That's why I put in the records request.

otherwise you need to provide something that I can verify

I already did, Walt. Check North & South Magazine, November 1999. Unless you live in an isolated wilderness 100 miles from the nearest town, or unless the local library banned you as well, that magazine is every bit as accessable to you as a copy of McPherson's book is to me if I wanted it.

[GOPcapitalist]

Stand Watie used to say his source was the NA all the time.

Irrelevant to this discussion.

Of couse that is very convenient, as people outside D.C. might not be able to run by and check your posts

Uh, Walt. The National Archives has depositories all over the place, not just D.C. And for those who are not in the immediate vicinity of depositories, they have services to provide records by mail upon request. Give em the call number and they'll pull it. Of course if you don't want to go through the records request process, simply get off your lazy a$$, take that five minute drive down to the public library, ask for the magazine section, and go pull North & South's November 1999 issue.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

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.

The Arizona document is a very brief list.  They did not vote to secede until after they were invaded and occupied by Texas.  For such a vaunted "states rights" supporter as Texas to do this is hypocritical indeed.

As for the Cherokee document, it is very evident that the Cherokees only saw what they wished to see.  In truth, their problems came from southerners, not northerners.  It was Jackson (a southerner) who wilfully disobeyed a Supreme Court ruling and had them removed from Georgia.  They claim in their document that the south was okay, the north was evil.  They totally overlook the fact that Davis refused to appoint a southern Supreme Court (although he was supposed to) or the nasty actions of southern partisans before and throughout the war (I'm not excusing the nasty actions of some northern partisans here).  From the tone of the document, it very much appears that the only reason the 5 civilized tribes joined with the south is because the south looked like they were winning the war at the time.

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.

You will note that in "A declaration of the causes which impel the State of Texas to secede from the Federal Union" as adopted by the Texas secession convention of Feb. 2, 1861 (The actual vote of the people was Feb 23rd) has at a total of 25 paragraphs.  At least 17 of these are devoted to the slavery issue (including the fact that slaves were property).  Only 3 paragraphs can be construed to talk about the lack of protection from Indians and Banditti (Texas' history of sending raiding parties into Mexican territory did not ameliorate the situation).  Most of their grievances concerned slavery.  If I may post a representative sample from the document (Paragraphs 6 - 10) it becomes quite obvious that their main complaints by far concern slavery.

The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refused reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.

These and other wrongs we have patiently borne in the vain hope that a returning sense of justice and humanity would induce a different course of administration.

When we advert to the course of individual non-slave-holding States, and that a majority of their citizens, our grievances assume far greater magnitude.

The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holding States in their domestic institutions--a provision founded in justice and wisdom, and without the enforcement of which the compact fails to accomplish the object of its creation. Some of those States have imposed high fines and degrading penalties upon any of their citizens or officers who may carry out in good faith that provision of the compact, or the federal laws enacted in accordance therewith.

The Texans had it comparatively easy in the Indian Attack category compared to the Dakotas where Red Cloud totally kicked the tar out of the U.S. Army to such an extent, that the U.S. wasn't able to really do anything in that area until after the Civil War.  The bald knobbers of Missouri (southern partisans, most of them) terrorized Missouri and Kansas for quite a few years in a way not seen in Texas.

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.

Lessee now, the documents I quoted only have 3 paragraphs about defense related issues and 17 about slavery.  Furthermore, it is obvious from the documents that the slavery issue was of far greater magnitude.  I'm not randomly shouting slavery.  We don't need to guess.  The south says it loud and clear over and over.  For truly shoddy scolarship on this subject, we have to go to Walter Williams and Tom DiLorenzo.

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.

Sabre rattling?  The south had made a habit of blackmailing the north for at least a decade prior to the Civil War by threatening to leave if the North did not give in.  Each time the North caved in, the South demanded more.  It was the South, after all, which forced the repeal of the Missouri Compromise.  It was a southern-laced supreme court which tried to extend slavery into the North by declaring that laws restricting slavery were unconstitutional.  It was the south which passed laws which made it legal for slavers to enslave free blacks in the north - without any Habeas Corpus.  Most of the North at this time were not moving for the abolition of slavery from the south.  All they wanted to do was prevent it from moving much further.

Alexander Stephens (who eventually became the southern vice-president) answered Lincoln's letter of Dec 22, 1860 (wherein Lincoln indicates that he has no intention of interfering with state control over slavery) with the assertion that the south did not really believe for a moment that the north was going to interfere with slavery in the states.  The issue, as they saw it, was the north was preventing it from spreading to the territories.  But for the South to scream "coercion" when they had been guilty of far worse in Kansas (the infamous Lecomption constitution for example) and Missouri takes a lot of Chutzpah.

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.

Oh?  What correspondence is that?  References please.  The Buchanan administration was still in place.  Even though Major Anderson moved his detail to Ft. Sumter on Dec. 26, 1860 (since it was more defensible) and the "Star of the West" was repulsed on Jan. 9, 1861 from resupplying Ft. Sumter, it wasn't until Feb. 15, 1861 that the confederate government decided to take Ft. Sumter and Ft. Pickens both of which were Federal forts - not southern forts as you have indicated.  Also, at this time, it was Buchanan who was president, not Lincoln.  Lincoln assumed that there was no immediate problem with Ft. Sumter, but soon after he became president, he learned that they needed supplies soon.  This sort of contradicts your view that he was conspiring for months to relieve Ft. Sumter.

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.

You 'accidentally' left out the next part:

But if the United States should merely hold and retake its own forts and other property, and collect the duties on foreign importations, or even withhold the mails from places where they were habitually violated, would any or all of these things be "invasion" or "coercion"? Do our professed lovers of the Union, but who spitefully resolve that they will resist coercion and invasion, understand that such things as these on the part of the United States would be coercion or invasion of a State? If so, their idea of means to preserve the object of their great affection would seem to be exceedingly thin and airy.

When you don't tamper with the text, a whole different meaning is obtained...

[GOPcapitalist]

This "rebuttal" misses the whole point. Slavery, as an institution, fundamentally shaped the political, cultural, and economic institutions of the South, in such a way as to cause them to differ sharply from those of the North. In doing so, it divided North and South in so many ways that a break was inevitable. It's that simple.

Spare me the "irrepressable conflict" line as it's not that simple. Those who say that it is are forcing a reduction of the conflict beyond a point of irreducability. Naturally this may only be done by damaging the accuracy of that conflict's portrayal itself. If you think differently, by all means address the facts and questions raised in response to McPherson's article. Otherwise you have no grounds on which to stand.

It has little to do with the presence of abolitionist sentiment, pro or anti-tariff, etc. Those things are mere symptoms of the institutional differences engendered by slavery.

If that is your position you are perfectly free to make your case. Whereas you appear to see a dominant underlying conflict of labor systems (slavery and non slavery) I see a combination of underlying conflicts of economic systems (industry and agriculture), economic philosophy (protection and trade), federalism (centralized and localized), and a number of other similar issues in addition to a strictly labor position. The position of reducing the war to slavery and slavery alone as an institution around which all else revolves is no different than reducing history to issues and conflicts of labor systems around which all else revolve. Surely you know the danger in that, do you not?

In addition, it was my pleasure to work closely with Prof. McPherson as an undergraduate in college, and your characterization of him is way off mark. Like most professors, he is to the left of most Freepers, but he's no Marxist or rabid ideologue.

An examination of his known political activity reveals that he operates significantly out of the public mainstream and heavily skewered to the political left. The fact that they are also multiple and widespread evidences an adherence to them on his part.

Downplay them if you want, I do not believe anyone but a pretty staunch leftist or recently converted former leftist could have a political resume including interviews on the political shows of Pacifica radio, active defense of Bill Clinton during his impeachment, affiliation with the Bill Bradley campaign, publication on the official website of the international trotskyite marxist party, and advocacy of politically correct confederate flag removals among many other things.

He is a very nice, personable and open-minded guy, who always treated students with great respect.

For all I know, he could be the nicest man in the world but that doesn't free him from a known record of activism with the left. I once had a prof who was an avowed marxist in his politics who also happened to be one of the nicest, most personable members of the faculty. He was the type who would go out and have a drink with his students after class and was always around for a conversation. But he was still radical leftist in his politics who admittedly supported leftism in his writings.

Finally, you should have the intellectual honesty to read his main work, "Battle Cry of Freedom"

I make it a general policy to avoid voluntarily spending my money on the books of known political leftists as I do not wish for my own money to contribute to their bank accounts in any way. Therefore I have decided against purchasing his book at anytime in the near future. I do not mind excerpts of it being posted here for consideration by those who do have his book if they wish to do so. In such cases I have and will continue to examine and address the content provided in them.

before you aggressively mischaractize him and substitute your wishful thinking for what he actually writes.

I don't believe I've taken what he _actually wrote_ in that History Channel article on the war's causes for much of anything more than its direct and clear content. In fact each of my comments comes in response to a direct quotation of points he made in that article. I do not believe one can represent him any more accurately or directly than permitting his own words themselves. If you believe I have characterized his position in error you are free to state where and how, but arbitrary and unspecified assertions of mischaracterization and substitution simply will not carry your case.

[lentulusgracchus]

[Your Lincoln quote]"The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors."

Kinda not-true the way things turned out, wasn't it? Virginia offered no physical blows to the Union, but Lincoln blockaded Virginia anyway on May 2nd, and a Union steamer fired on a Virginia state militia battery on Chesapeake Bay on May 9th. Then, the day that Virginia's plebiscite voted to ratify the secession ordinance, Lincoln sent four regiments, totalling 13,000 men, across the river to occupy Arlington and Alexandria and capture some Virginia mounted troopers who were lawfully stationed there. The captain of the federal armed steamer Pawnee further sent a truculent note to the militia commander there, to surrender to federal troops (on what authority? if under U.S. law Virginia was still a State!) or retire. They retired from the area.

Pretty nice way to treat a state that hasn't done anything but report out a state ordinance you don't like and don't think is legal. So, how legal was it for Lincoln to make a warlike deployment into Virginia, under what authority did he do so, and how do the Union apologists square his deeds with his inaugural words?

Was Virginia Lincoln's enemy, or he theirs?

[GOPcapitalist]

The Arizona document is a very brief list.

Brief but direct. Lincoln cut off the contract for Arizona's mail stage in March 1861 without warrant and before there was even a war on hand. It effectively cut off the territory from the rest of the nation and world. They did not vote to secede until after they were invaded and occupied by Texas.

If you are implying doubt of genuine support for the confederacy by Arizona you are occupying very shaky ground. Following the loss of the mail, Arizona convened a convention in Mesilla on the New Mexico side to determine their political future and decided to secede. The secession option was then offered at a convention at Arizona's major town, Tuscon, chaired by the town's first mayor. Contrary to your implication, the territory was not immediately welcomed into the confederacy, which delayed its admittance at first fearing the burdens of a vast but unpopulated territory. Before Arizona was admitted into the confederacy the north began removing frontier emplacements of soldiers leaving the citizens there vulnerable to attack. The practical effect was to only strengthen their secessionist impulses. They joined the confederacy because the federals cut them off from the world and denied them basic defenses, not because of some unnamed Texas conspiracy orchestrated by a state government almost as far away as any city in the country with little more than uninhabited plains in between. Similarly the people of Arizona responded on their own to the confederate cause by sending men to fight in the east all the way up to the territorial governor taking up arms himself. In short, your version of history is skewed. Try again. For such a vaunted "states rights" supporter as Texas to do this is hypocritical indeed.

Only one problem - Arizona did not secede from some unnamed Texas conspiracy as you allege.

As for the Cherokee document, it is very evident that the Cherokees only saw what they wished to see.

Is it? Or did they simply happen to see what YOU wish they had not seen? Considering that they were there and you weren't, I'll have to take their word on it.

In truth, their problems came from southerners, not northerners.

Surely you don't mean to ignore Lincoln's little Indian war, do you? I hear that Sherman fellow was quite the friend of Indians as well for that matter.

It was Jackson (a southerner) who wilfully disobeyed a Supreme Court ruling and had them removed from Georgia.

I have no reservations about expelling Jackson from the southern cause. After all, was he not the president who opposed it at is earliest stages in South Carolina? Try again.

You will note that in "A declaration of the causes which impel the State of Texas to secede from the Federal Union" as adopted by the Texas secession convention of Feb. 2, 1861 (The actual vote of the people was Feb 23rd)

The declaration of causes, a non-binding legislative resolution passed at the convention after the fact of the secession ordinance, was never voted upon by the people on the 23rd. That was the secession ordinance. Try again.

Sabre rattling? The south had made a habit of blackmailing the north for at least a decade prior to the Civil War by threatening to leave if the North did not give in.

Just as the North had made a habit of doing for the 50 years before that. Regardless, threatening to secede is a far cry from plotting to invade and coerce.

Oh? What correspondence is that? References please. The Buchanan administration was still in place.

Gladly.

"Last night I received your letter giving an account of your interview with Gen. Scott, and for which I thank you. Please present my respects to the General, and tell him, confidentially, I shall be obliged to him to be as well prepared as he can to either hold , or retake , the forts, as the case may require, at, and after the inaugeration. Yours as ever A. LINCOLN" - letter to Elihu Washburne, Dec. 21, 1860, marked "confidential," emphasis is original from Lincoln's letter.

"The events at Charleston are fast making a united north. The most conservative in N. Y. now say ?no more compromises,? and that the forts and U. S. property must be returned to the possession of the Government. Even Dan Sickles says the latter, and professes to be for fight." - Washburne to Lincoln, Dec. 30, 1860

That's the earliest correspondence of Lincoln I know of on the matter where he brings up military force as an option. Over the next several months he corresponded on the matter regularly with Winfield Scott and other advisors. Within days of taking office he asked Scott to put together a plan to take _all_ forts in southern hands.

Also, at this time, it was Buchanan who was president, not Lincoln. Lincoln assumed that there was no immediate problem with Ft. Sumter, but soon after he became president, he learned that they needed supplies soon.

Nonsense. Lincoln had been plotting about Sumter all the way back in December. It was also a top issue of discussion in the White House for over a month between his inauguration and the fleet's departure. It was not some spur of the moment emergency relief force. Lincoln had been plotting the thing for months.

Also it was a southern fort insofar as it was in southern territory hundreds of miles away from any defensive interest of the north. Sumter was created as a federal fort by an act of South Carolina several years earlier but that act was rescinded during secession when South Carolina revoked all previous committments and ties to the northern government.

[GOPcapitalist]

In case you are still in doubt about Lincoln's plotting over Sumter several months before his inauguration...

Confidential
Hon. F. P. Blair, Ser. Springfield, Ills.
My dear Sir Dec. 21. 1860

Yours giving an account of an interview with Gen. Scott, is received, and for which I thank you. According to my present view, if the forts shall be given up before the inaugeration, the General must retake them afterwards. Yours truly A. LINCOLN

[Non-Sequitur]

You're amazing. Lincoln was plotting nothing. He made it clear in speeches and letters up to and including his inaugural that it was his position that the forts in the south were the property of the United States and should be held or, it already approptriated, then they should be reposessed. There was no plot. Nothing that he didn't say in the open.

[GOPcapitalist]

Well said! I've been meaning to pull up Lincoln's blockade orders again and check if they included the states that had not seceded yet. I guess that confirms what should be natural suspicions of practically anything with Lincoln.

Blockading is an act of war, and against a state that has not even participated the commonly accepted "cause" for blockading this shows Lincoln to be the agressor. Do you know if he did the same to North Carolina?

I've actually been wondering myself how to go about examining Lincoln's beliefs and positions - not just for what he did but for the true underlying beliefs.

The problem is that the many contradicted himself so thoroughly very little tangable substance may be asserted with certitude. The most I believe that can be said for even his supposed greatest issue, slavery, is that Lincoln had a very general passive moral opposition to the institution. At times he spoke and wrote positions far more solid and direct than this, but elsewhere he contradicted them completely. The sole major issue I can find that he consistently stuck with the same position on throughout his entire career was protectionism.

The only rational explanation for it all is that trying to find certitude in Lincoln's beliefs is a futile exercise. It is futile because everything he did beyond the vaguest passive underlying levels was politicized to the extreme. It all points to an ultra-modernist figure weilding power in the fashion one would expect to find in a situation unrestrained by matters of certitude, truth, constancy, and acceptance of a tangable reality.

[GOPcapitalist]

You're amazing. Lincoln was plotting nothing. He made it clear in speeches and letters up to and including his inaugural that it was his position that the forts in the south were the property of the United States and should be held or, it already approptriated, then they should be reposessed. There was no plot. Nothing that he didn't say in the open.

That's an interesting assertion, but also one that is unfortunately for you contradicted by the historical record. Look at his private letters if you doubt me. Practically every one of them on Sumter was stamped and sealed with confidentiality as part of his carefully controlled correspondence between a select group of allies who were doing his bidding at the time in Washington.

Check the letters circulated during late December and early January among Lincoln's circle of allies - William Seward, Lyman Trumbull, Hannibal Hamlin, Winfield Scott, Thurlow Weed and a few others. They are consistently sealed in strict confidentiality including many with enjoinders that Lincoln's name be kept out of the dealings of his bidders even though they were acting on his behalf.

Confidentiality was an overriding concern throughout the correspondences. That seems to be an unusual concern for somebody you allege was willing to say it all out in the open, does it not?

Publicly Lincoln did begin to make the case that the forts were his, often sugar coating it as a political argument under the guise of "preserving the union." In some cases when he had a friendly audience, he was more open about his reasons - pledging revenue collection. But his public speeches simply do not compare to the military planning he was engaged in behind the scenes.

[Non-Sequitur]

Ridiculous.

[GOPcapitalist]

Ridiculous.

You seem to suffer from the same argumentation deficiencies as Walt. Simply calling what you don't like names doesn't make it so.

[lentulusgracchus]

The Arizona document is a very brief list. They did not vote to secede until after they were invaded and occupied by Texas. For such a vaunted "states rights" supporter as Texas to do this is hypocritical indeed.

Arizona wasn't admitted as a state until 1912.

Arizona arguably didn't have the right to secede from anything, since it was part of the national territory of the United States. The citizens of Arizona must have been operating under the foolish notion that, as free Americans, they had the right to make their mind up about things, and to decide for their own polity what they wanted to do.

Like a good Marxist, you prefer that they should have waited obediently for Word to be propagated from Washington -- death to Eastasia, war is peace, love is hate, whatever.

[lentulusgracchus]

Only 3 paragraphs can be construed to talk about the lack of protection from Indians and Banditti (Texas' history of sending raiding parties into Mexican territory did not ameliorate the situation).

Your gratuitous shot at Texas is noted.

Do I infer correctly that the Texas Rangers' activities against Mexican rustlers were legitimate in 1859, but not in 1861?

How do you define "Mexican territory"? Does your definition agree with what Mexicans think is Mexican territory? Have you checked with them, or are you just being a typically arrogant gringo, and presuming to speak for them?

Do I infer correctly from your remark that rustling was a one-way street, with Texans preying mercilessly on povrecito Mexican cattle-farmers?

Do I infer correctly that Texas had no complaint vis-a-vis Mexicans on the other side of the border, because of their own poor attitudes and political incorrectness?

Oh, but wait -- the United States of America had stormed Chapultepec itself, and imposed on Mexico an unequal treaty that secured California, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Nevada for the United States forever. But I suppose that must have been Texans' fault, too.

Is there anything else you would like to say about Texans? Or would you like to go retrieve your athletic protective cup first?

[lentulusgracchus]

But for the South to scream "coercion" when they had been guilty of far worse in Kansas (the infamous Lecomption constitution for example) and Missouri takes a lot of Chutzpah.

You mean like Pottawatomie Creek. Like Harper's Ferry.

Yeah, that's chutzpah, all right.

[lentulusgracchus]

It was the South, after all, which forced the repeal of the Missouri Compromise. It was a southern-laced supreme court which tried to extend slavery into the North by declaring that laws restricting slavery were unconstitutional.

It was Chief Justice Roger Taney, reading aloud from Article IV of the Constitution. The Missouri Compromise was a good attempt at agreement, but it was unconstitutional -- like Nullification.

Did you like the Nullification idea as much as the Missouri Compromise? It was an attempt to find a compromise, too.

But I suppose Southerners shouldn't have been on the Supreme Court in the first place, so that the Court could interpret the Constitution correctly, without their polluting input. Is that it?

[lentulusgracchus]

Sabre rattling? The south had made a habit of blackmailing the north for at least a decade prior to the Civil War by threatening to leave if the North did not give in. Each time the North caved in, the South demanded more.

Oh, really? Well, to quote you again,

Oh? What [blackmail/demand/further demand] is that? References please.

Yeah, that's right, Frume. I can assign homework, too. So, what was the "more"?