America's greatest generation apparently did not consider them traitors when they honored them with this 1937 postage stamp, but some of the descendants of that generation are a breed apart.
Posted on 06/28/2017 11:20:43 AM PDT by Sopater
My "Rewriting American History" column of a fortnight ago, about the dismantling of Confederate monuments, generated considerable mail. Some argued there should not be statues honoring traitors such as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis, who fought against the Union. Victors of wars get to write the history, and the history they write often does not reflect the facts. Let's look at some of the facts and ask: Did the South have a right to secede from the Union? If it did, we can't label Confederate generals as traitors.
Article 1 of the Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the war between the Colonies and Great Britain, held "New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and Independent States." Representatives of these states came together in Philadelphia in 1787 to write a constitution and form a union.
During the ratification debates, Virginia's delegates said, "The powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." The ratification documents of New York and Rhode Island expressed similar sentiments.
At the Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," rejected it. The minutes from the debate paraphrased his opinion: "A union of the states containing such an ingredient (would) provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."
America's first secessionist movement started in New England after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Many were infuriated by what they saw as an unconstitutional act by President Thomas Jefferson. The movement was led by Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, George Washington's secretary of war and secretary of state. He later became a congressman and senator. "The principles of our Revolution point to the remedy — a separation," Pickering wrote to George Cabot in 1803, for "the people of the East cannot reconcile their habits, views, and interests with those of the South and West." His Senate colleague James Hillhouse of Connecticut agreed, saying, "The Eastern states must and will dissolve the union and form a separate government." This call for secession was shared by other prominent Americans, such as John Quincy Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Fisher Ames, Josiah Quincy III and Joseph Story. The call failed to garner support at the 1814-15 Hartford Convention.
The U.S. Constitution would have never been ratified — and a union never created — if the people of those 13 "free sovereign and Independent States" did not believe that they had the right to secede. Even on the eve of the War of 1861, unionist politicians saw secession as a right that states had. Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland said, "Any attempt to preserve the union between the states of this Confederacy by force would be impractical and destructive of republican liberty." The Northern Democratic and Republican parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace.
Northern newspapers editorialized in favor of the South's right to secede. New-York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): "If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." The Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19, 1861): "An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful, could produce nothing but evil — evil unmitigated in character and appalling in extent." The New-York Times (March 21, 1861): "There is a growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go."
Confederate generals were fighting for independence from the Union just as George Washington and other generals fought for independence from Great Britain. Those who'd label Gen. Robert E. Lee as a traitor might also label George Washington as a traitor. I'm sure Great Britain's King George III would have agreed.
“You’re the only one I know who says that (Lincoln and the North fought to free the slaves).”
Consider this:
“Yes, the Civil War began because the North was determined to impose its will on the South. And one of the things it wished to impose was that you can’t own human beings. But you go ahead and keep thinking that slavery had nothing to do with it....”
Critic answers critic.
OK, point taken. However, was that the behavior of some sort of hard-bitten adherent of the fictional “Slave Power” that all these marxist-educated historical illiterates prattle on about on these threads? No, it wasn’t.
Speaking of freeing slaves, let’s turn to the Union and Ulysses S. Grant. What was the disposition of his slaves? And, yes, they were his under the law of that time, not his wife’s.
This cut and dried, north good, south bad, abolitionist vs. slavers, black and white history is fiction. It was far more complicated than that and I continue to be surprised that so many FReepers continue to fall for it.
Read, for goodness sake. It’s not as if it’s difficult to access these historical materials anymore, so there’s just no excuse to remain indoctrinated.
To review: the United States constitution enshrined slavery.
If the North fought the war to overthrow slavery, the north was fighting to overthrow the U.S. constitution.
You just keep on defending the Democrats who wanted to tear the Union apart. Kind of like today’s Democrats! Are you part of “the resistance” too?
The slaves you mention did not belong to Grant or his wife. The were the property of Fredrick Dent. They were never allowed to travel with the Grants when they were in a state where slavery was against the law. Dent’s slaves were freed in January of 1865, when Missouri outlawed slavery. The one slave that Grant actually owned was given his freedom by Grant 1858. Plus what difference did it make whether Grant owned slaves or not. It was legal to do so time.
“As bad as his (Lincoln) opinions were when compared to today’s standards, they were still better than any Southern leader you care to name.”
George Washington Carver.
What Article and section of the United States Constitution specifically states slavery is legal in the United States.
What difference, indeed. Yes, it was legal at the time, and it remained legal in Union states until 1865 as you point out. Thank you.
“What Article and section of the United States Constitution specifically states slavery is legal in the United States.”
Article I.
Start with that.
Which section of article 1 specifically states slavery is legal in the United States.
No it didn't. You should stop lying.
If the North fought the war to overthrow slavery, the north was fighting to overthrow the U.S. constitution.
Puerile attempt at logic - it doesn't even qualify as a logical fallacy.
wasting your time, jeffersondem is reading the Constitution of the Confederate States of America. And he is correct, it does enshrine slavery in that Constitution.
“Which section of article 1 specifically states slavery is legal in the United States.”
Section 2.
Prediction: You will next state that the U.S. Constitution does not “specifically state” anything at all about slavery. That slavery never legally existed in the U.S.
Next you say that the Fugitive Slave Clause did not exist in the Constitution because “bound to service” was not a reference to slaves.
Next you say the Migration or Importation reference was just a guest worker program.
Next you will say 13th amendment was unnecessary because slavery was never legal.
Doesn’t that just about cover what you will say?
You are not the first person that I have spoken to that attended government schools.
I never said that the Constitution said slavery was illegal.
The Constitution of the United States does not rule on the legality or illegality of Slavery. It tacitly admits that it exists in the country. The word “slave” or “slavery” is not to be found any where in the Constitution. If it was “enshrined” as you claim, then it would have been illegal for over half the states of the Union to make slavery illegal before the Civil War began.
“The Constitution of the United States does not rule on the legality or illegality of Slavery.”
Lincoln must have thought otherwise, based on his first inaugural address:
“There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:
No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.
It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution — to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause “shall be delivered up” their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?”
Note well: “the intention of the lawgiver is the law.”
After reading several histories of the War Between the States, I came - with some reluctance - to the view that this was indeed a war fought not to free slaves, but to enslave free men.
again, if slavery was “enshrined in the Constitution”, how did more than half of the States of the Union outlaw the institution. If you read the Confederate Constitution, that is how you enshrine slavery in a Constitution. Again, our Constitution does not make slavery illegal, nor does it make it legal. It acknowledges the existence of slavery in the United States, and does make some provisions for it. The Constitution makes no pronouncement on the legality of secession. That, like the slave issue was left for later generations of Americans to decide. Those decisions have been made.
Here here
Hugs
And thanks
For being a doorgunner in indochina and standing up for Dixie
God love ya
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