Posted on 08/25/2008 9:11:18 AM PDT by Colonel Kangaroo
That’s the official story. But in my book, great leaders, especially fighting on defense, should never consistently lose more men than their opponents. There was no excuse for Malvern Hill or Gettysburg, IMHO.
” There were some absolutely vicious mini “civil wars” in the mountain counties of North Carolina and Tennessee between Unionists and Confederates.”
.....I live in Mountains of NC and about half fought for the Union in this county...and it wasn’t for abolition either...they wouldn’t have fought to free slaves and they wouldn’t have fought to keep them in bondage....they just felt the Union was their best deal....they were a savagely independant lot....just like their patriot grandaddys who shot the British to pieces at the Battle of Kings Mountain....that bunch lived on squirrel meat and corn whiskey....they were hard men.
That is pure nonsense. Lincoln's 'distaste' for slavery was long standing and very well documented. You are correct however that the EP was issued (and could only be issued) as a "war time measure."
As President, Lincoln had no authority to end slavery. It could only be ended by individual states themselves or via Constitutional Amendment. But as Commander-in-Chief, Lincoln did have the power to end it as a military necessity in areas in rebellion. That is what the EP did.
Nor could it in those states, since it was a war measure that could only be imposed by presidential order on states in rebellion. But DC was a different matter. Congress passed, and Lincoln signed, a compensated emancipation act for the District on April 16, 1862, nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation.
oh please.... they didn't call my hometown Chimneyville 'cause we burned it to the ground
oh please.... they didn't call my hometown Chimneyville 'cause we burned it to the ground
oh please.... they didn't call my hometown Chimneyville 'cause we burned it to the ground
“I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and the black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects—certainly n ot in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man.”
Thus Lincoln's statement in 1858 is that blacks had a right to the fruitages of their labor like everyone else.
In other statements Lincoln supported laws that forbade inter-racial marriage, etc.
Lincoln was also prepared to accept a wholly slave U.S. or wholly free so his views were more pragmatic than moral.
What treatment of the opposition you say? Lincoln's order:
“EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, May 18, 1864. MAJOR-GENERAL JOHN A. DIX, Commanding at New York: Whereas there has been wickedly and traitorously printed and published this morning in the New York World and New York Journal of Commerce, newspapers printed and published in the city of New York, a false and spurious proclamation purporting to be signed by the President and to be countersigned by the Secretary of State, which publication is of a treasonable nature, designed to give aid and comfort to the enemies of the United States and to the rebels now at war against the Government and their aiders and abettors, you are therefore hereby commanded forthwith to arrest and imprison in any fort or military prison in your command, the editors, proprietors, and publishers of the aforesaid newspapers, and all such persons as, after public notice has been given of the falsehood of said publication, print and publish the same with intent to give aid and comfort to the enemy; and you will hold the persons so arrested in close custody until they can be brought to trial before a military commission for their offense. You will also take possession by military force of the printing establishments of the New York World and Journal of Commerce, and hold the same until further orders, and prohibit any further publication therefrom. A. LINCOLN.”
Then there was Clement Vallandigham whom Lincoln had sent to the South in a kind of internal exile.
You wrote:
“Some abolitionists thought the EC wasn't good enough. The vast majority recognized it as an important step forward.”
A step forward toward what? The Confederate states weren’t going to submit to the EP and it didn't apply to the Union states. Had the Confederacy won the EP would be moot and if the North won the EP would still be moot.
If anyone who considers the secession of the Southern States to have been been unconstitutional wants to be historically (and legally) accurate, maybe they should read the United States Constitution (as it then existed) instead...
Jones county Mississippi too....much of it came from a white deserter who was into black freedwomen....I have a book on that somehwere....I think he got hung eventually
it’s a common family name there
the irony was that he killed blacks too..sort of a desperado in the Leaf river swamps
Newt Knight...that’s it....there is a book written by someone associated with all that...a lefty woman...some of the south bashers here I’m sure know her...Byram or Bynam
Mythic thinking likes these big "North vs. South" abstractions. They're easier to remember and they make things tidy. When you really look closely, it's an awful lot more complicated than that. You run into ambitious politicians with their own agendas.
I suspect people are looking for a symbol of their own frustration or anger with Washington or "the Establishment" so they seize on the Confederate Battle Flag, which does make more of an impression than, say, the "Don't Tread on Me" banner. Having chosen the flag, they reinterpret history to justify their choice.
Please see my Post #90 - any 'reinterpretation' generally occurs on the side of the 'Union-at-all-costs' types...
;>)
If anyone who considers the secession of the Southern States to have been been unconstitutional wants to be historically (and legally) accurate, maybe they should read the United States Constitution (as it then existed) instead...
Why not just read the Constitution as it is and was. There is no right to secession in it. Within the sphere of federal powers, federal laws are supreme.
Some will argue that a "right to secede" is reserved by the states under the 10th Amendment. That's stupid. You can't claim to have implicitly reserved a right under the Consitution to exempt yourself from the working of the Constitution.
What's annoying here is how you guys cobble together your theory and then present it as the real or original interpretation. The Founders and most 19th century Americans didn't accept the theory of unilateral secession. Yours isn't not the original or authoritative interpretation of the Consitution.
A more humanitarian view than the average, for his day.
Lincoln was also prepared to accept a wholly slave U.S. or wholly free so his views were more pragmatic than moral.
They were both. The crisis at hand was the threat to the Union. If the Confederacy were successful in its treason, the Union would likely have been permanently divided and slavery, as far as he could tell, permanently perpetuated.
If slavery remained legal and the crisis of the Union were averted thereby, there was always the chance that slavery could be ended as more free states entered the Union and the possibility of a 13th Amendment became constitutionally more likely.
You accomplish the good that you can.
What treatment of the opposition you say? Lincoln's order:
That was a case of a newspaper fraudulently claiming, in wartime, that the President and Congress had passed controversial legislation that they had not passed.
That was clearly an act of treason and the executive order was obviously richly deserved and entirely constitutional.
Then there was Clement Vallandigham whom Lincoln had sent to the South in a kind of internal exile.
Vallandigham was a traitor who should have been summarily executed. Lincoln's treatment of him was incredibly generous - if you were implying that Lincoln treated dissenters cruelly or illegally you could not have come up with two worse examples.
A step forward toward what?
Eventual national emancipation.
The Confederate states weren’t going to submit to the EP
Of course not. As the Confederacy's Vice President declared to great acclaim, the entire Confederate government and Constitution were founded upon slavery as their one great principle.
But in the areas of the traitor states that were controlled by the US government, the legal possibility obtained that emancipation would come there too.
As it eventually did.
and it didn't apply to the Union states.
But had slavery been abolished and uprooted in the Confederacy, the remaining slave states would likely have benefitted from compensated emancipation as an earnest of their loyalty.
Had the Confederacy won the EP would be moot
The Confederacy could only have won by conquering the Union and imposing the Confederate constitutional doctrine of universal slavery upon it. Absent such a total victory by one side or the other, the Union and the Confederacy would have been at perpetual war, as the founders of the Confederacy intended.
and if the North won the EP would still be moot.
The North did win, and the Emancipation Proclamation was extended and strengthened by the Thirteenth Amendment.
I did not say we were presently in a stalemate, but that General Petraeus and the 2007 surge turned the corner for the U.S., a fact even many liberals acknowledge, if reluctantly. The analogy I was making was with the Civil War, not World War II, and this thread was about the former conflict. There are electoral and strategic elements that are in parallel. This thread discussed Southern dissatisfaction with the Confederate leadership and secession in general, especially in the Upper South, and it was pointed out by others that there was a strong movement against the war in the North, called the Copperheads. The first two years of the Civil War were indecisive, as were the first three years of the Iraq War. The Republicans lost many seats in 1862 due to public dissatisfaction with the Civil War and again in 2006 due to public dissatisfaction with the Iraqi War. American voters punished the party in power not only in those cases, but in 1942, 1952, 1966, and 1970, all over what were at the time of the elections indecisive wars. Like it or not, Americans do not support no-win wars. Generals Grant and Sherman turned the tide in 1863 and 1864, and General Petreaus turned the tide in 2007 and 2008. Republican political fortunes turned in 1864 and will hopefully do so this year.
The most successful wartime Presidents have been those who, like Lincoln and Roosevelt, were willing to fire unsuccessful generals.
Frankly, sir, you reveal yourself to be just another member of the 'lunatic fringe.' There is no such thing as "the Constitution as it is and was." The United States Constitution is written law, which has been specifically modified from time to time by amendment. Care to refer to 'the Constitution as it refers to alcohol consumption as it is and was?' Of course not - the Constitution has been repeatedly amended in that regard. In other words, you're a bull sh!t artist.
There is no right to secession in it. Within the sphere of federal powers, federal laws are supreme.
"Within the sphere of federal powers?" Tell us, sport, how those "powers" are defined, if not by the specific written terms of the Constitution. And where within those specific written terms State secession is prohibited. Please be specific.
Some will argue that a "right to secede" is reserved by the states under the 10th Amendment. That's stupid. You can't claim to have implicitly reserved a right under the Constitution to exempt yourself from the working of the Constitution.
And what specific clause do you see as the "working of the Constitution," that prohibited secession? Hmmm? Once again, please be specific.
What's annoying here is how you guys cobble together your theory and then present it as the real or original interpretation.
LOL! Why don't you quote for us the address of Senator Toombs of Georgia, upon his resignation from the Senate, on the occasion of the secession of the State of Georgia from the constitutional union. It's obviously news to you, but he cited the Tenth Amendment as reserving the right of secession to the individual States. That is historical fact, not any 'cobbled together theory presented as the real or original interpretation.'
Historical fact, sport.
Something you're obviously short on.
The Founders and most 19th century Americans didn't accept the theory of unilateral secession. Yours isn't not the original or authoritative interpretation of the Constitution.
Obviously, you have never read the ratification documents of the States of New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia. Nor have you read Thomas Jefferson's 'Kentucky Resolutions,' or his 'Declaration' of 1825. Nor are you familiar with James Madison's 'Virginia Resolutions,' or his 'Report on the Virginia Resolutions.' Nor have you read Tucker's 'Blackstones' of 1803 (still cited by the U.S. Supreme Court). In other words, as I have previously observed, you're nothing but a bull sh!t artist.
When you can 'cobble together' a rational argument with legal and historical citations, get back to us. Frankly, I won't hold my breath waiting...
The Tenth Amendment addresses only powers that are not expressly reserved to the federal government.
Supremacy of jurisdiction is a power that is explicitly and clearly reserved to the federal government.
Secession, a fancy term for states laying claim to supremacy of jurisdiction, is obviously unconstitutional.
Ok, I agree to a point. But for two years I’ve argued that the effectiveness of the surge was 50% change in tactics, and 50% pre-surge activity where we killed so many of the jihadists BEFORE the surge that those who were left were third-teamers.
I am likewise aware, "sport", that you have mentioned them purely as an exercise in namedropping without actually making a reasoned argument utilizing them as sources.
I am further aware that your inability to do so is based on the fact that there is no unitary and consistent argument to be found animating all these sources univocally. Any argument for secession using them would be cobbled together, by definition.
So spare us the empty, supercilious speechifying.
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