Posted on 05/13/2003 6:17:13 AM PDT by VMI70
This past weekend, my son and I went on his troop's annual father-son hike. His troop is one of many in the Robert E. Lee Council of the Boy Scouts of America, which is headquartered in Richmond, VA.
On Sunday, during the church service at the end of the hike, it was announced that the Council directors had voted to change its name from The Robert E. Lee Council, which has been in use for many decades, to something else.
This morning, the news broke on the local radio station: WRVA 1140 AM, Richmond's Morning News with Jimmy Barrett.
The Supreme Court ruled that none of the acts of secession had any force in law.
None of the rebels stopped being citizens.
Walt
Playing with words. What occurred in America was a Revolution against rule by King. What occurred in 1860s was rebellion against legitimate government duly elected. The proper place for disputes between states in our system is the Congress, or in the end, the courts.
If all of that fails, the last resort is revolution. There is no inbetween. No peaceful secession. It doesn't exist. The southern states chose to rebel, and are judged by history.
You can't show this in the record.
Walt
This is interesting.
"People who want to start wars should think seriously about where the war might be fought. It is generally unpleasant to have the war fought on your own territory. Secessionists were particularly unthinking in this respect, the ACW being fought almost entirely in the South, with few minor and short-term exceptions such as Lee's failed Maryland incursion in 1862, Morgan's failed Ohio raid in 1863, Lee's failed Pennsylvania incursion in 1863, and Early's arsonist raid on Chambersburg, PA in 1864.
Thus the Union had far greater opportunity to misbehave in Secessionist territory than the reverse. But Rebel forces, in the few opportunities available to them, violated the same rules and useages of war that were breached by the Union.
Thus, we Southerners are a bit hypocritical when we condemn the Union for depredations in the South --- because the Secessionists were the first of the belligerent parties to propose and glorify a Total War policy to be applied against enemy cities, populations and private property.
Both Jeff Davis and Louis Wigfall, before resigning from the US Senate to go south, threatened the burning of Northern cities and the plunder of their populations as punishment (US Senate, CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE,10 Jan. 1861).
Stonewall Jackson urged the adoption of this policy (Henderson, STONEWALL JACKSON AND THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, London, 1898), adding that Confederate troops should fight under the "Black Flag" - no quarter, kill all prisoners - and proposing to Virginia Governor Letcher a week after Virginia's secession that he, Jackson, should set the example (Columbia, SC, DAILY SOUTH CAROLINIAN, 6 Feb. 1864). Letcher proposed in early 1862 that the Confederacy should attack Northern civilians and their public and private property, not simply to affect the enemy's armies but to punish its population for supporting the war (Letcher to Pickens, 28 April 1862. L&D Box 5, Clements Library. U. of Mich.).
From the very beginning of the war, the Secessionists' Total War policy was triumphantly endorsed by newspapers across the South, some of which were later to howl the loudest about Sherman's jaunt through Georgia.
For example, thinking incorrectly that Lee was about to run rampant through Pennsylvania in 1862, the Richmond newspapers crowed "We hope that the (Confederate) troops will turn the whole country into a desert", (RICHMOND DISPATCH, 17 Sept. 1862). This sentiment was also widely reflected in Secessionist oratory and correspondence of the early-war period.
Lee's troops plundered and burned extensively in the 1863 invasion of Pennsylvania, committing acts of violence against civilians and personal property, including housebreaking, theft of money and food, and destruction of personal property. Lee's second order forbidding these practices was issued after the fact - and was again widely ignored by his troops (Royster, DESTRUCTIVE WAR, pg. 37; Knopf, 1991).
Early's burning of Chambersburg, PA, on 30 July 1864 predated Sherman's burning of Atlanta, GA. The main difference between the two events was that Atlanta was a fortified and strongly defended town holding a vast number of military installations, munitions factories and army supply depots, whereas Chambersburg was an unfortified, virtually undefended town holding nothing of any military use or value. Confederate troops left Chambersburg after more than 300 of its houses had been burned and many of its citizens robbed (Pauley, UNRECONSTRUCTED REBEL: THE LIFE OF GENERAL JOHN MCCAUSELAND CSA, Pictorial Histories Publ., 1992). Atlanta burned four days later.
In short, Grant and Sherman adopted the Secessionist policy of Total War, applied it more effectively than the Confederacy ever could, and thereby shortened an increasingly hateful and hated war. Yes, Sherman made Georgia and South Carolina howl, but for the second time. The first time Georgia and South Carolina (and Virginia) howled was for the same kind of violence to be applied against Northern cities, populations and private property. "
-- from the AOL ACW forum.
Walt
It's obvious that the southern people were not willing to abide by Lee's idea in the first letter that the government could not be sundered except by the whole people.
He abandoned that idea himself and took up arms against the lawful government -- the government the nature of which he correctly characterized in the 1861 letter.
Walt
The Supreme Court ruled in 1862 that the domestic rebels had the same relation to the government as if they were foreign enemies.
And as President Lincoln said, the law of war clearly allowed the seizure of enemy property. Were not slaves property in 1863 America?
Walt
Most legitimate historians agree that Lincoln bent but never broke the Constitution. He took no actions throughout the war that were not open to interpretation. So he never considered freeing any slaves by mere force of arms in the north, or in any area occupied by Union armies.
Walt
And it was sundered by the whole people of the southern states. Seconded by the attack of the northern states upon the south.
None of the rebels stopped being citizens.
A supreme court that no longer had any jurisdiction over the southern states. None of the people of the south were rebels, they were citizens of a foreign country that the north attacked and conquered, thus destroying the union that our founding fathers designed
That's not true either.
There was a great deal of "political" opposition to the EP. That was the purpose of the Conkling letter. To strike that opposition with a large dose of common sense right between the eyes.
The EP added 200,000 men to the Union ranks. In August 1864 President Lincoln said that without these men, "we should have to abandon the war in three weeks."
One of the worst legacies of American history is how the blacks who had fought so bravely and given so much to the cause of freedom had so little of it for themselves and their families after the war.
Walt
None of the rebels stopped being citizens.
A supreme court that no longer had any jurisdiction over the southern states.
Bonnie and Clyde were on the run for MUCH longer than many of the so-called seceded states were out of their proper relation to the federal government.
Walt
It was equally dishonorable for the north to invade the south when the south exercised their right to leave the union.
The cases said that the power rests entirely with the people and not with the states, well the people of the south wanted out. They should have been let leave.
Regardless of what the laws stated at that time, the OATH that REL swore to was to the states (plural) not to the nation. They should have rewritten the oath if they meant it to be national.
What country was he talking about? These United States have never been and (please God) shall never be a democracy. They have always been a Republic.
That's not what the Supreme Court said:
"By the Constitution, Congress alone has the power to declare a national or foreign war. It cannot declare was against a State, or any number of States, by virtue of any clause in the Constitution. The Constitution confers on the President the whole Executive power. He is bound to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. He is Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States when called into the actual service of the United States. He has no power to initiate or declare a war either against a foreign nation or a domestic State. But by the Acts of Congress of February 28th, 1795, and 3d of March, 1807, he is authorized to called out the militia and use the military and naval forces of the United States in case of invasion by foreign nations, and to suppress insurrection against the government of a State or of the United States.
All persons residing within this territory whose property may be used to increase the revenues of the hostile power are, in this contest, liable to be treated as enemies, though not foreigners. They have cast off their allegiance and made war on their Government, and are none the less enemies because they are traitors."
-- from the majority decision in The Prize Cases (1862)
Walt
And if the government says that all your earnings and your children are to be confiscated and you are to be sold into chattel slavery well then so be it because after all, we are bound to the government.
This is exactly what the south was trying to avoid. The end of states rights, the end of people being able to decide for themselves how to live without big brother looking over their shoulder.
With the exception of national defense and perhaps foreign relations, everything the government touches turns to crap.
I still think if a state decides to leave the union they should have the freedom to do so. Now, instead of having one sub-race being held in slavery we had the entire south held in slavery.
It was equally dishonorable for the north to invade the south when the south exercised their right to leave the union.
But George Washington said that there should be an "immovable attachment" to the national union.
Are you faulting the men who took that idea to heart?
"I do not conceive we can exist long as a nation, without having lodged somewhere a power which will pervade the whole Union in as energetic a manner, as the authority of the different state governments extends over the several states. To be fearful of vesting Congress, constituted as that body is, with ample authorities for national purposes, appears to me to be the very climax of popular absurdity and madness."
George Washington to John Jay, 15 August 1786
More Washington:
"In all our deliberations on this subject we kept steadily in our view, that which appears to us the greatest interest of every true American, the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existance. This important consideration, seriously and deeply impressed on our minds [at the constitutional convention] led each State in the convention to be less rigid on points of inferior magnitude...the constitution, which we now present, is the result of of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculularity of our political situation rendered indispensible."
George Washington to the Continental Congress September 17, 1787
To abandon the national union, you have to abandon the words of George Washington.
The loyal Union men were not ready to do that.
Walt
It was equally dishonorable for the north to invade the south when the south exercised their right to leave the union.
Nope. The judicial power of the United States rests with the Supreme Court. The rebels needed to come before that court. But they knew they didn't dare:
"It might seem, at first thought, to be of little difference whether the present movement at the south be called "secession" or "rebellion." The movers, however, well understand the difference. At the beginning, they knew they could never raise their treason to any respectable magnitude, by any name that implies violation of law. They knew their people possessed as much of moral sense, as much of devotion to law and order, as much pride in, and reverence for, the history, and government, of their common country, as any other civilized and patriotic people. They knew they could make no advancement directly in the teeth of these strong and noble sentiments. Accordingly they commenced by an insidious debauching of the public mind. They invented a sophism, which, if conceded, was followed by perfectly logical steps, through all the incidents, to the complete destruction of the Union. The sophism itself is, that any state of the Union may, consistently with the national constitution, and therefore lawfully, and peacefully, withdraw from the Union, without the consent of the Union, or of any other state.
The little disguise that the supposed right is to be exercised only for just cause, themselves to be the sole judge of its justice, is to thin to merit any notice...
What is now combatted, is the position that secession consistent with the Constitution -- is lawful, and peaceful. It is not contended that there is any express law for it; and nothing should ever be implied as law, which leads to unjust or absurd consequences. The nation purchased, with money, the countries out of which several of these states were formed. Is it just that they shall go off without leave, and without refunding? The nation paid very large sums, (in the aggregate, I believe, nearly a hundred millions) to relieve Florida of the aboriginal tribes. Is it just that she shall now be off without consent, or without making any return? The nation is now in debt for money applied to the benefit of the so-called seceding states, in common with the rest. Is it just, either that creditors shall go unpaid, or the remaining States pay for the whole? A part of the present national debt was contracted to pay the old debts of Texas. Is it just that she shall leave, pay no part of it herself?
Again, if one state may secede, so may another; and then when all shall have seceded, none is left to pay the debts. Is this quite just to creditors? Did we notify them of this sage view of ours when we borrowed their money? If we now recognize this doctrine, by allowing the seceders to go in peace, it is difficult to see what we can do, if others choose to go, or to extort terms terms upon which they will promise to remain...
If all the states, save one, should assert the power to drive that one out of the Union, it is presumed the whole class of seceder politicians would at once deny the power, and denounce the act as the greatest outrage upon State rights. But suppose that precisely the same act, instead of being called "driving the one out," should be called "the seceding of the others from that one," it would exactly what the seceders claim to do; unless, indeed, they make the point, that the one, because it is a minority, may rightfully do, what the others because they are a majority may not rightfully do. These politicians are subtle, and profound, on the rights of minorities. They are not so partial to that power, which made the Constitution, and speaks from the preamble, calling itself "We the People."
A. Lincoln 7/4/61
The rebels were no more honorable than a purse snatcher.
Walt
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