Posted on 05/01/2017 7:54:06 AM PDT by C19fan
John S. Mosby, known as the “Gray Ghost,” was a Virginian who became legendary for his leadership of Mosby’s Rangers—a band of Confederate guerrilla fighters that harassed the Union Army and went toe-to-toe with George Armstrong Custer in the Shenandoah Valley.
Mosby is still highly regarded as a strategist and tactician and is studied to this day by practitioners of unconventional warfare. He lived a long life, dying early in the 20th century, and was also a lawyer, a diplomat and author who wrote about his experiences during the war.
(Excerpt) Read more at warisboring.com ...
Point of order. The Declaration does not say abuses are necessary for independence. It merely lists them in an effort to justify what they were doing, but the Declaration says the right is inherent. This is the key sentence.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
The key requirement for governmental legitimacy is "consent of the governed."
If a government no longer has that consent, the people have a right to abolish it. The reasons why the people no longer consent to it are irrelevant. What people consider Usurpations and Abuses are in the eyes of the beholder, meaning their own eyes.
Which made the slavers actions even more stupid and treasonous.
You would have to be a complete mouth-breathing imbecile to get that from what I said.
If you aren't claiming Lincoln fought to "free the slaves", why do you keep bringing up "the right to own other human beings"?
It would seem that the Union protected right to own other human beings would be irrelevant, so why do you keep bringing it up?
You are trying to talk out of both sides of your mouth.
They aren't going to give that up. It's the only "moral" reason for which they can sort of justify all the blood that was spilled.
It is their fig leaf.
No more "moral" than preserving the United Kingdom according to your proffered arguments.
I can’t help it if you possess the reasoning ability of an overripe tomato.
I saw last year where the best tally of the civil war casualties was released, and the number has been upgraded to 750,000 casualties.
As it is, Jefferson Davis does not even mention the Powhatan in his two volume published memoir and history of the Confederacy. He states the issue as being that the federal government had made clear that it would use force to resupply Fort Sumter. Any resupply being unacceptable to Davis and the Confederate cabinet, Beauregard was ordered to fire on Fort Sumter. And so the war began.
My point is that the Confederate government was wrong and foolish to initiate hostilities -- and especially so after insisting that they wanted a peaceful separation. In keeping with Davis's personality, his approach to the problem was carping and legalistic -- characteristics that helped to inspire errors and division in the Confederate government and deprive it of the clarity and focus on strategic goals that Lincoln demonstrated.
You could have used the down time to educate yourself.
Benjamin Butler was a trial lawyer and politician.
Like so many other generals in the war, he was a political appointee not a professional military man.
Why didn't you bother to figure that out before posting?
As a lawyer, Lincoln would argue one side of a case in the morning, and then argue the very opposite side of a case in the afternoon. A Judge once asked him how he could square changing his position 180 degrees from the morning to the afternoon.
He replied something to the effect that in the morning he thought he was correct, but by the afternoon he realized the other position was more correct.
Why would a lawyer switch sides in the middle of a case?
Why would any judge be surprised that lawyers do argue different sides of the same question?
Do you have a source for this highly questionable anecdote?
Or did you just pull it out of your -- well wherever you get the rest of your nonsense?
Wikipedia says:
Butler quickly gained a reputation as a dogged criminal defense lawyer who seized on every misstep of his opposition to gain victories for his clients, and also became a specialist in bankruptcy law. His trial work was so successful that it received regular press coverage, and he was able to expand his practice into Boston.
Butler's success as a lawyer enabled him to purchase shares in Lowell's Middlesex Mill Company when they were cheap. Although he generally represented workers in legal actions, he also sometimes represented mill owners.
In other words, everything you charge Lincoln with applies to Butler as well.
Butler, who saw many of his ambitions thwarted or blocked, had plenty of reason to make things up.
And we know that he did make things up in his autobiographical book.
Stop acting like he was some kind of saint because he tells you what you want to believe.
Money is fungible.
Look it up.
Hint: it doesn't mean it's a mushroom.
And there were other sources of income and wealth.
It's not like cotton was the root of all wealth.
Didn't the war prove that cotton wasn't really king?
Your argument requires the Southerners to be content to ship products without getting anything in return, because apparently the money they earned gets used by Northerners to purchase European goods.
Southerners bought products from the North. Moreover, that foreign money you're so obsessed about didn't end up in Southern pockets. What are you going to do with pounds and francs in the middle of Alabama or Mississippi?
Rather, foreign currency would have remained in accounts in New York and other cities. Maybe in Southern planter's accounts. Maybe in Northern manufacturer's accounts. Maybe on the books of banks and brokers.
Money is fungible. Money circulates. If you are a Southern slave owning cotton planter and you use money to buy things, you give up the money. You can't spend it and keep it. You can't use it and argue that morally it still belongs to you.
Call me silly ...
That would be letting you off way too easily.
From our backseat drivers position, we can all see that they would likely have been better off had they handled it in that manner, but from their perspective at that period of time, I have to conclude they made what seemed to be the best decisions they could under the circumstances.
The public information was that Lincoln had ordered an attack. If the Warships had done exactly what they had been ordered to do, everyone on the Confederate side would have been rebuked as "D@mn fools" for letting those ships and that fortress open up on their forces simultaneously.
People would have asked them "How could you have allowed this to happen? What is wrong with you that you did not see the danger of this and take steps to prevent it?"
It does not so much beggar the question why the Confederates did what they did, they believed themselves trapped in a no-win situation because they thought those ships were going to do what Lincoln ordered them to do.
As it is, Jefferson Davis does not even mention the Powhatan in his two volume published memoir and history of the Confederacy.
Why should he mention it? It didn't show up. He might not have known that it was the trigger for the attack which was never pulled. It was the dog that didn't bark.
He states the issue as being that the federal government had made clear that it would use force to resupply Fort Sumter.
They did make it clear. The Navy orders explicitly said that's what they were going to do.
My point is that the Confederate government was wrong and foolish to initiate hostilities -- and especially so after insisting that they wanted a peaceful separation.
You keep saying *THEY* initiated hostilities, when their efforts to peacefully eject unwanted "guests" were met with a flotilla of warships with orders to attack them.
I will also point out that when the Powhatan left New York, it had been disguised so it couldn't be recognized by people who knew it well. It's name was painted out, and the ship flew British Colors as it sneaked past the flotilla of ships waiting at Charleston harbor to begin their attack.
From whom was Lincoln hiding the ship? He was hiding it from everybody. He didn't want the Union ships to know that their biggest cannon platform was sailing away from the potential conflict, because the word would have gotten out that the whole thing was a feint.
He didn't want the Confederates to realize one of the Ships that was the main part of the flotilla was not going to lend it's guns to the attack, because the Confederates would immediately realize something was amiss and they therefore might not do anything foolish.
This business of deliberately disguising the Powhatan and having it fly a British flag while it was sailing around the other ships makes it clear that Lincoln was making a calculated play. This was no accident. Lincoln wanted a war, and he wanted it to look like the Confederates started it, and he engaged in machinations to make it happen.
Which it did.
And why did he do this? Money and power.
He replied something to the effect that in the morning he thought he was correct, but by the afternoon he realized the other position was more correct.
Still making things up as you go along I see.
So he was of the same cut as Lincoln?
Like so many other generals in the war, he was a political appointee not a professional military man.
Why didn't you bother to figure that out before posting?
I fail to see how this impugns his character.
Why would a lawyer switch sides in the middle of a case?
He didn't. He argued one side of a case for a Client in the morning, and he argued the opposite side of a similar case for a different client in the afternoon.
The Judge was not angry, he was mirthful about the fact that Lincoln had to represent clients in two different cases on opposite side of the same legal issue, and he jokingly pointed out to Lincoln how unprincipled this made Lincoln seem.
Do you have a source for this highly questionable anecdote?
One of the several books on Lincoln I have read many years ago. So far as I can help you find it, no, I do not have a source for it.
In other words, everything you charge Lincoln with applies to Butler as well.
So if Butler fabricates, it's safe to conclude that Lincoln did so as well?
And we know that he did make things up in his autobiographical book.
I do not know such things, but I see that they are alleged. I dare say that anyone who attacks the hero of a large portion of the population will find that his own history is going to be scavenged for material to use against him.
And the sky is blue. The fact that money is fungible does not explain how the Southern Produced Money did not get spent by the Southerners who produced it.
Again, the Southerners make the money, and someone else spends it for them? How does that work? Are the Southerners content to never receive a return in value for those valuable things that were shipped off to Europe?
I know what you are trying to say. You are trying to say the Southerners earned money from their sales in Europe, and the Northerners acquired this Southern earned money by selling the Southerners products manufactured by the North, and the Northerners kept the European money that the Southerners earned.
But you aren't grasping the bigger point with this scenario. The Southerners were the natural base for the European products, but they didn't get them directly because of the protectionist nature of the whole system. They didn't have to buy Northern produced products if they weren't forced to do so. They could have bought European produced products instead, but for the laws preventing or making it ruinously expensive to do so.
And there were other sources of income and wealth.
There were not other sources of European money. Are you going to argue that the North traded gold or silver for those European products? If they didn't use the money earned by Southerners, how else would they recompense the Europeans for their products except by gold or silver?
As it happens, specie is listed in one of the Charts from that book I post from time to time, and my recollection is that it didn't amount to much compared to the Southern export trade.
There are two sources for the North to buy European import goods. Northern trade exports, (25% of the total) and Specie. (Gold amd Silver)
All of it together was dwarfed by the Southern produced income. So again, I ask, who was the trade base for European Trade?
It was the South.
Southerners bought products from the North. Moreover, that foreign money you're so obsessed about didn't end up in Southern pockets.
Not 40% of it anyway. That portion ended up in the North East to pay all the middlemen involved in the protectionist transactions.
What are you going to do with pounds and francs in the middle of Alabama or Mississippi?
Buy European products without the interference of the North East. They could have bought ships and crews and ran their own trade without the need to use North Eastern shippers, or Bankers, or Insurance, or Warehousing.
The could have bought locomotives from England, or Rail Track, or Steam Engines, or finished Textiles, or paper, or any number of things, and at a far lower price which would make their money go even further.
Rather, foreign currency would have remained in accounts in New York and other cities.
Exactly the status quo which the War was started to maintain.
Still engaging in pointless ad hominems I see.
I have come to realize that when you interject yourself into this discussion it is always to deliver some trivial comment that provides no benefit or enlightenment to anyone.
Davis could and should have avoided hostilities by ordering that a peaceful resupply of Fort Sumter be permitted. Union warships need not even have been allowed into Charleston harbor. Resupply could have been permitted via inspected merchant ships, or by harbor boats, or by allowing the garrison to purchase supplies in Charleston, as they had formerly done.
Instead, Davis ordered that the fort be fired upon and reduced. This touched off the Civil War through the beginning of hostilities, Lincoln's call for troops, and the final wave of secessions that completed the Confederacy. Notably, these events also relieved the pressure on Davis to do more to realize the plans of the secessionists. With Virginia hanging back before Sumter, Davis had clear political reasons at the time to have the Confederacy fire first.
The Powhatan's flying of false British colors at Pensacola has no bearing on Ft. Sumter. In keeping with the rules and practices of the era, the Confederate and Union navies both flew false flags during the Civil War. Indeed, even today, false flags are permitted at sea by international law, even though not on land.
That would be one of your posts. Filled with falsehoods, half-truths, misquotes and out and out fairy tales. Like your Lincoln story.
He ordered an attack on anyone who would prevent them from landing supplies. That meant attacking the Confederate force there that was siegeing Sumter.
His orders said bloodshed, and so they took him at his word.
Davis could and should have avoided hostilities by ordering that a peaceful resupply of Fort Sumter be permitted.
You say that, but I believe that is completely wrong. Lincoln was intent on starting hostilities, and he had a separate mission attempting to start hostilities at Ft. Pickens, but it is not much discussed because the Sumter incident sucked up all the oxygen.
Instead, Davis ordered that the fort be fired upon and reduced.
Davis did not order it, the Secretary of War ordered it, and it was not open ended the way you portray it. The order was that if Beauregard believed the agent with whom he was speaking regarding the hostile intent of the flotilla of warships then off the coast of Charleston, he was to proceed to reduce the fort.
The "agent" was presumably a spy for the South who had brought word of Lincoln's orders regarding the fleet, and obviously Beauregard believed the agent about the hostile intent of these ships, because he opened fire in accordance with the directive he had been given.
If you have no doubt of the authorized character of the agent who communicated to you the intention of the Washington Government to supply Fort Sumter by force you will at once demand its evacuation, and if this is refused proceed, in such manner as you may determine, to reduce it. Answer.
The Powhatan's flying of false British colors at Pensacola has no bearing on Ft. Sumter. In keeping with the rules and practices of the era, the Confederate and Union navies both flew false flags during the Civil War.
The war had not yet started so far as the Powhatan knew at that point. Why would they be engaging in War subterfuge unless they thought they were at war?
Why would they think that prior to the fact?
“Suppose the expedition successful, we have then a garrison in Ft. Sumter that can defy assault for six months. What is it to do then? Is it to make war by opening its batteries and attempting to demolish the defenses of Charleston? …..I would not initiate war to regain a useless and unnecessary position on the soil of the seceding States.”
http://www.tulane.edu/~sumter/InitialProb/Seward.FullAd.html
What is it to do then?
Well Lincoln said it did more service by falling than it could have ever done otherwise.
In other words, the fort was useless for everything but a cause of war, and that is exactly what Lincoln used it to accomplish.
If Fort Sumter had remained in Union hands, it would have been useful as an observation post reporting on Confederate port activity, especially blockade runners. As it was, holding Fort Sumter caused the new Confederate government to manifest its intentions as other than peaceful.
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