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

Posted on 08/09/2002 3:38:13 AM PDT by 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.


TOPICS: Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: causesofthewar; civilwar; confederacy; dixie; dixielist; fff; greatestpresident; itwasslaverystupid; jamesmcpherson; marx; mcpherson; slavery; tariffs
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To: lentulusgracchus
Most of the abandonment you speak of took place before Lincoln was inaugurated, so the question should be asked why did Buchanan give them up? Lincoln did not abandon or destroy a single federal facility from the time he was inaugurated until the south started hostilities at Charleston. After that, it became a military question. The Navy abandoned and burned Norfolk on April 20 in order to keep the facilities out of the hands of the confederate forces, and at Harper's Ferry the Virginia militia were on their way to seize the facilities so they were destroyed.
461 posted on 08/21/2002 6:58:55 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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To: Twodees
you're welcome to your opinion.

free dixie NOW,sw

462 posted on 08/21/2002 8:26:16 AM PDT by stand watie
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To: Non-Sequitur
Virginia had formally declared their rebellion and North Carolina had committed acts against the United States. Both states chose their path and should accept responsiblity for the consequences.

Thank you for your candid expression of view. "You are in rebellion against my point of view. First chance I get, I'm burning your home state to the ground, every square inch of it. You chose your path and should accept responsibility for the consequences." That seems like a good policy for everyone to follow.

463 posted on 08/21/2002 4:35:50 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: lentulusgracchus
The better policy would be not to have entered into rebellion at all. In fact, the Northern strategy during the first few years of the war were designed to limit the suffering of southern people and the damage to southern property. With rare exception this policy was followed. Who knows? Had the North followed Sherman's and Sheridan's policies in 1862 then maybe the war would have been over by 1863?
464 posted on 08/21/2002 5:21:36 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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To: Non-Sequitur
Had Lincoln declared a blockade of France or Spain then you would be correct. However, Lincoln was blockading rebellious sections of his own country.

We don't have sections, bud. We have States, and you know the difference, which is why you avoided using the word. You are asserting something contrary to fact. Abraham Lincoln blockaded States of the Union then at peace. States have powers reserved to them under the Constitution as well as under their own Sovereignty rights, and one of them is self-defense.

You do not declare war on your own country.

Lincoln did.

But even if by this time a single country had recognized confederate independence, then the issue is moot because the confederacy had declared war on the United States over a week before.

Not so. The Confederacy declared war on the United States on May 6, when Jefferson Davis signed the articles of war passed by the Confederate congress -- of which neither Virginia nor North Carolina were members. Lincoln blockaded them both on April 27.

One could look at this two ways. One, Virginia and North Carolina had made their intentions known by voting rebellion and by siezing federal property and facilities so Lincoln's actions were justified.

How did they make their intentions known? Lincoln never asked or complained, he just reached for a gun, whereas the South had let it be known, that they wanted to depart the Union in peace. Can't have that.

Or two, Virginia and North Carolina were still part of the United States, as you suggest, so moving federal troops into them or by using the navy to guard their coasts and ensure no illegal materials come into the state are both within the powers vested in the president as commander in chief. Take your pick.

"Ensure no illegal materials come into the state" is just a dishonest circumlocution for blockade -- an act of war, and in peacetime unconstitutional, as I pointed out to you, under Article I.

Lincoln's actions were consistent with the powers granted by the militia act.

Show me where the Militia Act authorizes blockades of States of the Union in time of peace. Then I'll show you a section of the Militia Act that is unconstitutional.

He can move federal troops within any of the states.

As long as they're still in the Union. Which Virginia and North Carolina were. But he also fired on Militia units -- and the Militia are the People in arms. Doesn't get any more personal or more belligerent than that.

As for the 'militia units' there were none in Charleston. They considered themselves soldiers in the confederate army, and they fired first.

Fallacy of distraction. We were talking about Virginia and North Carolina, and Lincoln's blockade of them.

[You, quoting me]"As long as there is not armed violence in these areas, Lincoln's complaints about the U.S. Mint office in Raleigh and various other facilities are a matter for the marshal service and the courts."

On the contrary, the Militia Act of 1792, Section 2

"And be it further enacted, That whenever the laws of the United States shall be opposed or the execution thereof obstructed, in any state, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by this act, the same being notified to the President of the United States, by an associate justice or the district judge, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States to call forth the militia of such state to suppress such combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed."

I don't see the words "blockade" or "armed forces of the United States" or "United States Navy" in that act, and there is a good reason.

The Framers intended the Militia to be a check on the Executive. We've discussed this on other threads. We've quoted Madison and Hamilton back and forth, and I've brought in Elaine Scarry's article (139 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1257, "War and the Social Contract: Nuclear Policy, Distribution, and the Right to Bear Arms") and the concept of distribution: of arms, of permissions, and of power.

The Framers did not constitute the Executive a dictatorship. They called for the laws to be enforced through the use of the Militia, as in the Whiskey Rebellion, and they gave the President the power to summon and use the Militia........and left the People the right of the Militia not to respond, as a check on the President.

I know that, as a Lincolnian, you aren't going to like that, but there it is. The Framers absolutely intended that the President NOT become an Absolute Authority, as shocking as that thought may be to you.

They did NOT give him the right to use the United States military to coerce a People.

Can you show where a district judge or marshal wasn't consulted?

"Homework". No, sorry, your side is asserting that Lincoln acted within the laws, as it is manifest that he didn't. The onus is yours, to supply evidence that Lincoln used the civil power and went to the judiciary, before he picked up a gun. You can't do it, because he didn't. His was a war policy all along -- from before his election, I think, but that will have to await more evidence. I think I have negative evidence already, but that is an entire thread's worth of argle-bargle in itself.

There was no war, only rebellion.

And your saying it makes it so. How neat. What's my response, Big Brother? I bellyfeel plusgood prolefeed, I bellyfeel Ingsoc? Don't think so.

465 posted on 08/21/2002 5:30:58 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: stand watie
"Serious Scholars"

You sure as hell arn't talking about the fictional work of the kennedy boys are you?

466 posted on 08/21/2002 5:49:20 PM PDT by the_rightside
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To: Non-Sequitur
The Navy abandoned and burned Norfolk on April 20 in order to keep the facilities out of the hands of the confederate forces, and at Harper's Ferry the Virginia militia were on their way to seize the facilities so they were destroyed.

You just contradicted yourself. Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4th, 1861. The Union officers in charge at Norfolk and Harper's Ferry fired their facilities, then they abandoned them. Nobody shot at them. Nobody ordered them to stand down or be shot. That isn't war, which is the litmus of treason.

467 posted on 08/21/2002 5:52:56 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: lentulusgracchus
We don't have sections, bud. We have States, and you know the difference, which is why you avoided using the word.

OK. Had Lincoln declared a blockade of France or Spain then you would be correct. However, Lincoln was blockading rebellious states of his own country. Happy?

Lincoln did.

Lincoln did not.

The Confederacy declared war on the United States on May 6, when Jefferson Davis signed the articles of war passed by the Confederate congress -- of which neither Virginia nor North Carolina were members. Lincoln blockaded them both on April 27.

Davis had signed a proclamation authorizing the granting of letters of marque and reprisal, allowing them to make war on merchant ships of the United States. You seem to believe that the blockade was an act of war, well, what was this?

...whereas the South had let it be known, that they wanted to depart the Union in peace. Can't have that.

Maybe it was the bombardment of Sumter that confused him.

...blockade -- an act of war, and in peacetime unconstitutional...

So you claim. But please show where that is true.

Show me where the Militia Act authorizes blockades of States of the Union in time of peace. Then I'll show you a section of the Militia Act that is unconstitutional.

The militia act had nothing to do with that. It was within his powers as commander in chief to deploy the fleet in whatever matter he chose. In this case it was to supress rebellion in the southern states. But he also fired on Militia units -- and the Militia are the People in arms. Doesn't get any more personal or more belligerent than that.

North Carolina had already utilized her militia to sieze U.S. facilities. As for Virginia, let me quote John Imboden, who was later a confederate army brigadier. An essay of his in "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Volume 1" starts with the sentence "The movement to capture Harper's Ferry, Virginia, and the fire-arms manufactured and stored there was organized at the Exchange Hotel in Richmond on the night of April 16th, 1861." The day before the rebellion was voted on. Sorry, but your claims of poor, innocent Virginia being trampled by the Yankee horde doesn't ring true.

They did NOT give him the right to use the United States military to coerce a People.

Nor did they deny him the right to use the military to combat rebellion.

And your saying it makes it so. How neat.

I suppose I'm supposed to say, "What am I thinking? Of course the actions of the southern states was legal. letulusgracchus said it was."

468 posted on 08/21/2002 6:03:12 PM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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To: Non-Sequitur
The better policy would be not to have entered into rebellion at all. In fact, the Northern strategy during the first few years of the war were designed to limit the suffering of southern people and the damage to southern property. With rare exception this policy was followed. Who knows? Had the North followed Sherman's and Sheridan's policies in 1862 then maybe the war would have been over by 1863?

Your suggestion that the South shouldn't have seceded -- and I see that you are adhering, with totalitarian discipline, to the word "rebellion" -- is a reasonable one, since the Southern leadership, like Lincoln, left options on the table short of war. Voting as a bloc in the Congress, they could have stymied Lincoln for four years, and awaited the accession of another president before exercising their right to secede. Perhaps any Northern president would have fought as hard as Lincoln did (as Sam Houston predicted to his doubting Texas neighbors). Perhaps economic reality, operating on the movers and shakers of Northern society, would have inevitably impelled any president that they could command, to organize an army to compel the South to yield and obey.

Nevertheless, given what happened later, it's easy to second-guess the Southern leaders and say that their impetuousness was unseasonable and their preparations incomplete and careless. Texas could have exercised her treaty right to subdivide into more states -- that would have bought the South time to prepare to leave in an orderly fashion. After all, they had the right to elect a president who wouldn't oppose secession, just as the North had the right to elect a president who proposed to whip the South.

469 posted on 08/21/2002 6:07:15 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: Non-Sequitur
Davis had signed a proclamation authorizing the granting of letters of marque and reprisal, allowing them to make war on merchant ships of the United States. You seem to believe that the blockade was an act of war, well, what was this?

It was privateering -- oops, fallacy of distraction again. Davis issued his proclamation on April 17th. North Carolina wasn't out yet, Virginia was still voting in her convention that day. Which means Davis didn't speak for Virginia or North Carolina. But Lincoln blockaded them anyway -- an act of war.

Privateering is short of war, by the way. We had engaged in a campaign under letters of marque, IIRC, against the French 60 years earlier. But we never went to war with France, ever.

As to the unconstitutionality of a peacetime blockade of States, I've directed you twice before, thrice now, to Article I Section 9, to the clause forbidding requiring ships to clear duties in any one state, over another.

As for John Imboden and the people in the Exchange Hotel, then it's clear they planned to execute something illegal under U.S. law, and the leader of the expedition, btw, was Thomas Jackson.

Personally I'd have handled that all differently, and would have simply waited for the federal troops to leave and take their equipment with them. I'd have preferred political education for a few years, before attempting to secede. But that's a difference in temperament, times, and possibly hindsight working. There was a much greater bias for forthrightness and prompt, direct action in the nineteenth century.

However, Lincoln was blockading rebellious states of his own country. Happy?

I'd like to be, but you overlook the fact that a state preparing to exercise its right of secession isn't "rebellious"; rather, it's being true to its People.

And the fact that they were still making up their minds, makes it a doubtful proposition that they had yet done anything to merit the unleashing upon them of the dogs of war. Which Lincoln did, by announcing his blockade.

470 posted on 08/21/2002 6:27:26 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: GOPcapitalist
You said that President Lincoln tried to deceive Pickens. That is a lie. Untrue.

FACT: Lincoln's orders to his military forces EXPLICITLY directed them to use force to fight their way into Sumter over any and all resistance they may encounter right then and there.

I should have said I was going to be out of town for a few days.

As you admit in #394, Lincoln's meaning was plain to the leaders of the so-called CSA.

He didn't try to deceive anyone and he didn't deceive anyone.

Also, President Lincoln made it clear that Major Anderson was not to offer resistance beyond what was reasonable.

A letter went to Major Anderson in early April saying that a "complete, last-ditch-last-man resistance was not expected of him; the major was authorized to surrender if necessary to save the lives of his command and himself."

--"The Coming Fury", pp.297-98 by Bruce Catton.

That doesn't well square with your interpretation, which is grounded in fiction and not fact.

You try to discredit President Lincoln but you only discredit yourself.

Walt

471 posted on 08/21/2002 7:50:51 PM PDT by WhiskeyPapa
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To: lentulusgracchus
The onus is on the south. They started the war, not the north. The north merely ended it.

Not true. Lincoln levied war on Virginia and North Carolina both, when they had committed no act definable as treason by seating or calling for secession ordinances and occupying (or in North Carolina's case, seizing) federal facilities.

President Lincoln called for volunteers on April 15. Virginia state forces siezed Harpers' Ferry and the Gosport naval yard between April 18-20, as I recall.

What did the U.S do to Virginia between April 15 and April 17?

Secondly, traitorous North Carolinians (to your apparent surprise) had siezed federal forts early in 1861.

Your rant against President Lincoln on this score seems to be, "damn that Lincoln! He was prudent!"

It's all, "mean old Lincoln kicked our secesh butts. Wah wah wah!"

Walt

472 posted on 08/21/2002 8:13:03 PM PDT by WhiskeyPapa
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To: WhiskeyPapa
"Secondly, traitorous North Carolinians (to your apparent surprise) had siezed federal forts early in 1861."

The " 'i' before 'e' except after 'c' " rule does have exceptions; mastering the exceptions to the rule is one of the tests that separates the intelligent from the great unwashed stupid masses. You didn't make the cut Walt.

473 posted on 08/21/2002 8:33:04 PM PDT by Aurelius
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To: WhiskeyPapa
Walt -- so good to see you!

Well, let's see, the Harper's Ferry and Norfolk Navy Yard installations were abandoned by their garrisons, not seized.

Somewhere I posted that Col. Thomas Jackson was sent by Virginia to take charge of Harper's Ferry. I erred -- that didn't happen until May 1st, when he was sent with a detachment by General Lee.

And Lincoln abandoned all the U.S. Army forts in the Indian territory about the same time, ordering their garrisons back East.

474 posted on 08/21/2002 9:03:38 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: lentulusgracchus
And Lincoln abandoned all the U.S. Army forts in the Indian territory about the same time, ordering their garrisons back East.

President Lincoln was pretty canny, wasn't he?

The commander of the Gosport Naval Yard ordered the ships there scuttled on April 19.

Prior to that, Virginians had sunk ships in the channel to block their exit.

I will ask you again what the federal government did between April 15 and April 19 -- to the people of Virginia.

To suggest that "oh well, la-da-de-dah, the federal troops abandoned these facilities," is just beyond ridiculous.

You didn't seem to have a clear grasp of the sequence of events, now you are trying to backpedal.

Walt

475 posted on 08/22/2002 3:25:32 AM PDT by WhiskeyPapa
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To: lentulusgracchus
I'd like to be, but you overlook the fact that a state preparing to exercise its right of secession isn't "rebellious"; rather, it's being true to its People.

And going outside United States law.

Walt

476 posted on 08/22/2002 3:28:38 AM PDT by WhiskeyPapa
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To: lentulusgracchus
The Framers intended the Militia to be a check on the Executive. We've discussed this on other threads. We've quoted Madison and Hamilton back and forth, and I've brought in Elaine Scarry's article (139 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1257, "War and the Social Contract: Nuclear Policy, Distribution, and the Right to Bear Arms") and the concept of distribution: of arms, of permissions, and of power.

And yet the Supreme Court ruled in the Prize Cases that the blockade that President Lincoln established was constitutional.

That is sort of inconvenient for your interpretation, which, as I like to say, is not well supported in the record.

Walt

477 posted on 08/22/2002 3:33:49 AM PDT by WhiskeyPapa
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To: lentulusgracchus
I don't have any problem with your reply except, perhaps, the slight dig at my use of the term 'rebellion'. From my standpoint that is just what it was.

Had the south followed your plan I think that the next major crisis would have been if Texas had decided to divide itself. Treaty may give it that right, but the Constitution would still require Texas to obtain congressional approval befor dividing. I can't see the non-slave state congressmen sitting still for such a major increase in slave-state senators. I doubt it would have passed the House and Senate.

478 posted on 08/22/2002 3:35:13 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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To: GOPcapitalist
It was no more a _legitimate_ federal property than a british fort in Boston Harbor was legitimate English property circa 1777.

A British fort in Boston Harbor WAS legitimate English property in 1777. Why would it not be?

The Brits didn't recognize American independence in 1777. They, and the colonists, made no bones about the fact that the colonists were engaged in a revolution -- just as the secessionists in 1860-61 made a revolution.

It needs to reinforced, I suppose, that Fort Sumter was federal property, not South Carolina property. The feds wouldn't agree to complete the fort ---unless--- clear title was conveyed, which it was in 1841.

The secessionists were no better than common thugs with a gun. In fact, they were common thugs with guns.

Walt

479 posted on 08/22/2002 3:39:34 AM PDT by WhiskeyPapa
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To: lentulusgracchus
Compare the posts 469 and 470 and one would think that I'm debating Dr. lentulusgracchus and Mr. Hyde. Ah well.

I've directed you twice before, thrice now, to Article I Section 9, to the clause forbidding requiring ships to clear duties in any one state, over another.

A major fallacy in your arguement is that duties were not involved and the blockade was not limited to items going from one state to another. The blockade was not an intrument for collecting tariffs, it was an action for preventing materials from reach law-breakers. You constitutional clause does not apply, regardless of how many times you quote it.

Privateering is short of war, by the way.

THis is interesting. You're saying that privateering is short of war but blockade isn't. Can you elaborate on this?

As for John Imboden and the people in the Exchange Hotel, then it's clear they planned to execute something illegal under U.S. law, and the leader of the expedition, btw, was Thomas Jackson.

They planned an act of rebellion, and carried it out, too.

I'd like to be, but you overlook the fact that a state preparing to exercise its right of secession isn't "rebellious"; rather, it's being true to its People.

Term it any way you want, but in the end it was a rebellion. And the dogs of war were loosed by Davis at Charleston, not by Lincoln through blockade or any other action.

480 posted on 08/22/2002 3:49:08 AM PDT by Non-Sequitur
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