Respect for the Confederacy?

Hey we do not need to engage in lying. I was in the process of posting as you posted #246 so since I did not first lay eyes on your comments, I could not have commented about the post I had not yet read.

But you admitted Abe was racist. That is a move forward. Thanks.

 

Super duper. Thanks.

 

So you didn't even wait for my answer before accusing me of not knowing the answer? And you don't see how that's even worse?

Well, now that it's over, cool, now maybe now you can admit that the South seceded over slavery!

 

I do not recall the South suing About secession at all. In fact it was common knowledge that secession was legal.

 

Actually you accused me and I had to explain why you are wrong.
Slaves = property owned or purchased or loaned to the owner. Abe declared his war was not over slavery.

 

No, I told you that Abe talked about slavery a lot and that the South seceded over slavery. You said I'd post proof if I could actually prove that. Hence, I said I assumed most educated people already knew the things you accused me of not having proof of. The offer to provide said proof still stands.

Then you tried changing the subject to whether or not Lincoln was racist. And you are still avoiding the motivations that the South had for seceding and forming a new country.

 

You are correct in a narrow sort of way. Having read some of your previous posts, you seem to rely on the 4 Declarations of Causes that were released. Those documents hardly flesh out the grievances of the South.

Primary documents that shed more light would include South Carolina's Address to the Slaveholding States, Seward's Irrepressible Conflict Speech and the Republican party's platform for the 1860 election.

Also to be considered is the fact that the Constitution was considered to be a Compact by both North and South and that the United States was a union forming a Confederacy.

The above common understanding, along with the Republican party's agitation of the slavery issue, up to the point of attempting to foment slave rebellions (Harper's Ferry), is what drove the South's decisions.

That you find only slavery in the Declarations of Causes is because slavery was a legal, federally protected institution that was being openly attacked by the Republican party. Tariffs were also an issue, not in their existence, but in their expenditure. Abrogation by the North of its obligations was also a big issue but the South settled on slavery as the one issue that had the legal clarity to justify secession. That is why you find it in all the Declarations of Causes.

As an aside, did you ever wonder why those States even issued Declarations of Causes? They were following the pattern set by the Founders when they issued the Declaration of the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms issued on July 6, 1775.

These men did not have to issue these Declarations. Secession was not addressed in the Constitution. The Constitution is a document that enumerates the powers of the Federal government. Any power not specified as belongong to the Federal government is held by the States or the People. Therefore, the Federal government had no power over something not mentioned.

The South held out on seceding until a Republican, with the Party platform, was elected. This should have surprised no one.

Btw, the Cherokee Nation sided with the Confederacy and issued a Declaration of Causes.

Declaration by the People of the Cherokee Nation of the Causes
Which Have Impelled Them to Unite Their Fortunes With Those of the
Confederate States of America

http://www.unitednativeamerica.com/cherokee.html

 

Sticking to facts and not hysteria, Woogs again you did a magnificent job. The Trail of Tears should explain why the Cherokee nation battled to support the South.

 

Slavery was well known as legal. So since that is your only spiel, the South fought to preserve what was legal at the time.

Abe wanted to export blacks. Apparently you choose to ignore that to focus on me. I am a lot more concerned by the massive losses of Americans only because Abe made a hell of a war on this nation. Abe's racism still exists in America only sold by Democrats as still the right approach.

 

You are absolutely right, and that's what sticks in my craw.

At the time of Lincoln's inauguration, Congress had adjourned but the Senate stayed in special session because of the Fort Sumter issue. There were exaggerated reports of "poor Major Anderson", so everyone was rightly concerned. After Lincoln's inauguration, the Senate asked Lincoln to give them an update on the conditions at Sumter. Lincoln refused to give them any information, even in redacted form. Due to this, the Senate saw no use in staying in session and adjourned. The next day Lincoln started making plans with Gustavus Fox for sending the fleet to Sumter.

Lincoln deliberately kept Congress in the dark. He sent a fleet of warships to Sumter while claiming it was a resupply mission. Following Sumter, Lincoln called up 75,000 troops, 4 more States seceded, Lincoln invaded Virginia and habeas corpus was suspended in the North, all without any input from Congress.

Lincoln did call for an emergency session of Congress on April 17; 5 days after Sumter. The only thing is, that emergency session wasn't to convene until July!! That gave Lincoln plenty of time to call up the troops and initiate a war. By that time, Congress felt it had no choice but to rubber stamp his actions.

This was 100% Lincoln's war. It did not have to be so and the blood of so many and the strife it caused the whole country is on his hands.

 

"The Constitution is what the judges say it is." --Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes

 

It sticks in my craw also. The time it started sticking in my craw was on my 4th trip in our East I took the time to go to Manassas to see what it was all about. I mean what it was actually about. I read the casualty list and realized had Abe been honest, he never would have dragged this country into his war. (around 1998)

Imagine walking around another combat death wall such as that one in DC and seeing not 58,000 lost lives but around 700,000 lost lives. That took my breath away.

 

Can you site any sources for this wealth of particulars, not because I doubt them-- only for my own enrichment? The Cherokee Declaration of Causes was also very interesting, especially in its speaking of the suspension of civil liberties in the North (I had heard something of Lincoln shutting down newspapers & locking up publishers).

 

Here's a link for Lincoln's proclamation calling up the 75,000 troops and for the emergency session of Congress. (I was off by 2 days ... going from memory).

https://www.visitthecapitol.gov/exh...amation-president-united-states-april-15-1861

As for Lincoln keeping Congress in the dark: President Buchanan, on March 4 (his last day in office) ordered the Senate to be kept in session in order to "receive and act upon any such communications as have been or made be made to it on the part of the Executive".

The Senate stayed in session until March 10. It adjourned with this statement: "Mr. Rice, from the committee appointed yesterday to wait on the President of the United States, to inform him that the Senate was ready to adjourn, unless he had further communication to make, reported that they had completed the duty assigned to them, and had received for answer that the President had no further communication to make, whereupon, the Senate adjourned sine die".

https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llcg&fileName=050/llcg050.db&recNum=646

This was recorded in the Congressional Globe, the predecessor to the Congressional Record. If you read between the proclamation by Buchanan and the statement to adjourn, you'll find nothing remotely relating to the crisis at Sumter; the very reason for this session. Lincoln told them nothing, even though during this time the Confederates had sent commissioners to Washington to negotiate a treaty with Lincoln. Was that not something that Congress should have at least been advised of? Beyond that, it was after the Senate adjourned that Lincoln started putting his plan for the fleet into motion, again without notifying Congress.

You can find bits and pieces of info on the web, but not as easily these days. I first found a lot of this info by reading Lincoln Takes Command by John Tilley. Some call it the work of a Confederate apologist, but the book is extensively sourced from original documents, the official records and books by some of the key players. As I read it, I cross-checked with his cited sources and found him to be accurate.

 

5 were released, plus we have Florida's unreleased draft. I do regard them as the primary go-to source for determining the causes of secession, since they were written for that purpose by the people who actually made the decision. But, no, those aren't the only sources I've consulted.

Looking at the aforementioned declarations, plus the letters and speeches of the secession commissioners, the platforms of the Republican party and both Democrat parties, the articles in Southern newspapers discussing the 1860 election, the Crittenden Compromise, the failed peace summits, the changes the CSA made to the Constitution, the Cornerstone Speech, etc. all make it very clear that slavery was center stage.

None of which actually addresses the fact that the primary concern was slavery. Did they have Constitutional concerns about slavery? Yes. But you are acting as if slavery was subset of their Constitutional concerns. You have it backwards. It's the other way around. The Constitution was a subset of their slavery concerns. Stephens made it clear that the CSA needed to add extra protections for slavery in their Constitution (the only substantial change that they made) because the original Constitution not only didn't provide enough protections, but because the original Constitution was founded on ideals that were hostile to the institution.

As for tariffs, as I've already explained, the tariffs in force at the time had been written by the South and Southern interests had control of the Senate, so things like the Morrill Tariff had no hope of passing until after secession.

Correct. Specifically because of the Republican (or, as the South called them, the "black republicans") stance on slavery. They clarify this both in the first declaration of causes and in many, many newspaper articles from the time period.

And?

 

The warships you are talking about were ordered to stay outside of the bay and do nothing unless the fort or the supply ship were attacked. Sumter was attacked before any such ship arrived, and they in fact didn't arrive. He also only suspended habeas corpus along railway lines at first, for the express purpose of making sure that Congress could still meet at all. When he suspended it nation-wide, he had approval from Congress. The South, by the way, had also suspended habeas corpus and had much more draconian policies for their citizens, who could be executed if suspected of harboring sympathies for the United States.

As for the 75,000 troops, Lincoln called for that many VOLUNTEER militiamen. There's no legal reason to require Congressional approval for that. He had to go to Congress to seek compensation for them, which they approved, and they also authorized additional troops.

By the way, this was not only after Sumter, and not only after the South had confiscated several other federal forts, but it was also after the CSA had called for its own army of 100,000 troops. The hostilities originated in the South.

 

It was currently legal in some states and not in others. Lincoln wanted to prevent it from spreading further. The South wanted slavery to be a respected "right" in all states and territories, and they wanted to continue expanding it to new states and territories.

The South made it clear in their own writings that the Constitution and the laws of the United States did not go far enough in guaranteeing their "right" to slavery.

The South started the hostilities, not Lincoln. I've never claimed Lincoln wasn't racist; it also has nothing to do with why the South seceded. They seceded over slavery.

 

The CSA was defending its sovereign territory as they had every right to do so.

 

The CSA seceded over slavery and the began taking over Federal property, including arsenals. They took over the mouth of the Mississippi. They began amassing an army of 100,000 and eventually fired the first shots. They initiated the hostilities.

 

Not sure what you mean by "arrive", but Beauregard's report in the ORs states that the fleet was at the entrance to the harbor before the Confederates began firing.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924077725913&view=1up&seq=47

That's not true at all. Following the Fort Sumter incident on April 12, Lincoln, on April 15, called for an emergency session of Congress, to begin on July 4, nearly 3 months later. In the meantime, Lincoln was left to his own devices, which included initiating a blockade of Southern ports and an invasion of Virginia (battle of Philippi June 3, 1861). There was no danger to Congress or anyone else in the North from the Confederates at that time. The suspensions of habeas corpus were to shut down dissent to Lincoln's actions.

So, without any input from Congress, Lincoln sent a fleet to Fort Sumter, called up 75,000 troops, initiated a blockade, invaded Virginia and suspended habeas corpus in the North to quell dissent. Also, four more States seceded during that period.

Lincoln himself knew he was on shaky legal ground, as is evidenced in his address to Congress on July 4, 1861.

https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/july-4-1861-july-4th-message-congress

Among the rabble that were summarily arrested and held were police chiefs, judges, mayors, legislators and newspaper editors. That is the character of Lincoln's acts.

One such notable act occurred in September, 1861 when Francis Key Howard, grandson of Francis Scott Key (who wrote the Star Spangled Banner) was arrested for an editorial he wrote critical of Lincoln's policy of suspending habeas corpus.

•••••••••••••••••••

The basis for his arrest was for writing a critical editorial in his newspaper of Lincoln's suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, and criticizing the fact that the Lincoln administration had declared martial law in Baltimore and imprisoned without charge George William Brown, the mayor of Baltimore, sitting U.S. Congressman Henry May, all the police commissioners of Baltimore, and the entire city council.[6] Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus in Maryland had already been declared unconstitutional by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney (Howard's great-uncle by marriage) in Ex parte Merryman, but Lincoln had ignored the federal court ruling.

In his book Fourteen Months in American Bastilles, Howard wrote:

When I looked out in the morning, I could not help being struck by an odd and not pleasant coincidence. On that day forty-seven years before my grandfather, Mr. Francis Scott Key, then prisoner on a British ship, had witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry. When on the following morning the hostile fleet drew off, defeated, he wrote the song so long popular throughout the country, the Star Spangled Banner. As I stood upon the very scene of that conflict, I could not but contrast my position with his, forty-seven years before. The flag which he had then so proudly hailed, I saw waving at the same place over the victims of as vulgar and brutal a despotism as modern times have witnessed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Key_Howard

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe those ships entered the harbor, but instead kept sailing for Florida.

When Lincoln suspended habeas corpus nationwide, he had approval from Congress. The initial order, the one without approval from Congress, was only for territory around railway lines between Philadelphia and Washington DC. It was an order he issued to General Scott. Merryman was arrested over it on suspicion of planning an attack, which made it to the supreme court.

https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/lincoln-and-taneys-great-writ-showdown/

As for Lincoln's treatment of his critics, that's something I've criticized in the past. But don't fool yourself into believing that the South was better in this respect. They had already suspended habeas corpus themselves, imprisoning people indefinitely, without charges, without a trial, and without legal representation. Not only had they outlawed any criticism of the CSA, but they passed a law saying you could be imprisoned for simply refusing to swear allegiance to the CSA, they confiscated the property of "disloyal" Southerners, and even loyal Southerners were forbidden from traveling without express permission from the government. Not to mention the campaign of hanging those who refused to serve conscription. That, together with the horrendous human rights abuses inherent in slavery itself, make Lincoln look like a Civil Rights leader by comparison.

 

There were 4 warships sent to Sumter. The Powhatan was the flagship. It sailed on to Pensacola, which left the other 3 warships with nothing to do as they were ordered to wait on the Powhatan.

The obvious question is how could the lead ship for the Fort Sumter mission not arrive and instead sail on to Pensacola. It left the other ships at the entrance to Charleston harbor with no mission.

Here's a good exposition on the sequence of events:

https://www.americancivilwar.com/au...ln-Instigated-War/The-Buried-Fact-Record.html

Gustavus Fox, who was in charge of the resupply aspect of the mission, had this to say:

The Powhatan had been placed under command of David D. Porter on secret orders (q.v., April 1, supra). Fox's report, April 19, 1861, on the failure of the Sumter expedition, emphasized the storm of April 12-13 and the expectation of the arrival of the Powhatan, which was to play a leading role in the attempt to relieve the fort. Fox commented with understandable bitterness, ``I learned on the 13th instant that the Powhatan was withdrawn from duty off Charleston on the 7th instant, yet I was permitted to sail on the 9th, the Pawnee on the 9th, and the Pocahontas on the 10th, without intimation that the main portion---the fighting portion---of our expedition was taken away.'' (OR, I, I, 11).

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/lincoln4/1:573?rgn=div1;view=fulltext

There's obviously some duplicity going on with the mission. Fox, along with the commanders of the other ships, were sent on a mission designed to fail, since the lead ship, from which all actions were dependent on, never arrived.

Lincoln, though, was apparently quite pleased, as he wrote this (in part) in a letter to Gustavus Fox on May 1.

"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. Very truly your friend" A. LINCOLN

As to the rest of your post, I'll not engage in whataboutism as to the Confederacy. Instead, I'll refer to Lincoln's address to Congress on July 4, where Lincoln:

lied about the condition of Anderson and his men:

"They knew--they were expressly notified--that the giving of bread to the few brave and hungry men of the garrison was all which would on that occasion be attempted"

As I showed earlier, Anderson and his men were not going hungry. They were, if fact, well provisioned by the Confederates.

Lincoln also acknowledged twice that his actions may not have been legal:

"Other calls were made for volunteers to serve three years unless sooner discharged, and also for large additions to the Regular Army and Navy. These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon under what appeared to be a popular demand and a public necessity, trusting then, as now, that Congress would readily ratify them. It is believed that nothing has been done beyond the constitutional competency of Congress."

While these acts may well have been within Congress' purview, it went beyond the Chief Executive's, and Lincoln knew it.

Also:

"Soon after the first call for militia it was considered a duty to authorize the Commanding General in proper cases, according to his discretion, to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, or, in other words, to arrest and detain without resort to the ordinary processes and forms of law such individuals as he might deem dangerous to the public safety. This authority has purposely been exercised but very sparingly. Nevertheless, the legality and propriety of what has been done under it are questioned, and the attention of the country has been called to the proposition that one who is sworn to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" should not himself violate them."

Again, Lincoln knew he went beyond his powers. He knew it and also knew a public stink had been made of it.

So, beyond not informing Congress about anything while it was in session in March, expressly for the purpose of the Fort Sumter crisis (he didn't even let them know of the Peace Commission the Confederates sent to Washington while Congress was in session), Lincoln concocted a "resupply" mission to Sumter designed to fail, with all the attendant effects already covered. He then lied (yes, provably lied) to Congress on July 4 about the condition of Anderson to justify the resupply mission designed to fail that kicked off open hostilities. He then dances around whether his subsequent actions were legal or not and then has the unmitigated gall to accuse the South of sophistry. Not bad for a day's work. Notice in his address that he failed to mention at all that Union troops had already invaded Virginia in June.

Given all the above, Lincoln closes his address with:

"And having thus chosen our course, without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God and go forward without fear and with manly hearts."

The closing line is really a LOL moment. It was Lincoln, full of guile and with his own singular purpose, that chose the course for the whole nation entirely on his own.

Here's the link again to his address to Congress on July 4.

https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/july-4-1861-july-4th-message-congress

 

so Hitler was right to murder 6 million Jews and millions of Poles and others?

 

His war was against secession which was caused by slavery. Six of one.

 

Abe never should have made war against secession.