Posted on 12/27/2010 10:31:54 AM PST by trumandogz
The Civil War is about to loom very large in the popular memory. We would do well to be candid about its causes and not allow the distortions of contemporary politics or long-standing myths to cloud our understanding of why the nation fell apart.
The coming year will mark the 150th anniversary of the onset of the conflict, which is usually dated to April 12, 1861, when Confederate batteries opened fire at 4:30 a.m. on federal troops occupying Fort Sumter. Union forces surrendered the next day, after 34 hours of shelling.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
This is interesting..
“Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small.
All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so.
And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also,
the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth.
I could wish their Numbers were increased.
And while we are, as I may call it, Scouring our Planet, by clearing America of Woods, and so making this Side of our Globe reflect a brighter Light to the Eyes of Inhabitants in Mars or Venus, why should we in the Sight of Superior Beings, darken its People?
why increase the Sons of Africa, by Planting them in America, where we have so fair an Opportunity, by excluding all Blacks and Tawneys, of increasing the lovely White and Red?
But perhaps I am partial to the Complexion of my Country, for such Kind of Partiality is natural to Mankind”
Ben Franklin
part of a letter from Ben Franklin to John Collins, Gov. of Rhode Island. The letter is dated 12 Jan 1788
“The Society have heard with great distress that a considerable part of the Slaves who have been sold in the Southern States since the establishment of the Peace have been imported in vessels fitted out in the State over which your Excellency presides”
And what do Franklin’s writings in 1788 have to do with the southern states leaving the Union in 1861 so that they could maintain slavery?
‘Why wasn’t ONE southerner tried for treason?’
Actually quite a few southerners were tried for treason. The irregular pro-Union troops from non-slaveholoding regions of the South, e.g. the ‘Taylor County Rangers’ of Perry. FL, when captured, were tried for treason to their confederate state governments and hanged.
Really?! First of all, the federal government was created by the several States. It only had the authority that was delegated to it. Our federal ( not National ) Constitution is a compact amongst individual Sovereign entities. Webster understood this fact when he said:
If the South were to violate any part of the Constitution intentionally and systematically, and persist in so doing, year after year, and no remedy could be had, would the North be any longer bound by the rest of it? And if the North were deliberately, habitually, and of fixed purpose to disregard one part of it, would the South be bound any longer to observe its other obligations? I have not hesitated to say, and I repeat, that if the Northern States refuse, willfully and deliberately, to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, and Congress provide no remedy, the South would no longer be bound to observe the compact. A bargain cannot be broken on one side and still bind the other side.
As did James Buchanan:
The question fairly stated is: Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coerce a state into submission which is attempting to withdraw or has actually withdrawn from the confederacy? If answered in the affirmative, it must be on the principle that the power has been conferred upon Congress to declare and to make war against a state. After much serious reflection, I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress or to any other department of the federal government. It is manifest upon an inspection of the Constitution that this is not among the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress, and it is equally apparent that its exercise is not “necessary and proper for carrying into execution” any one of these powers. So far from this power having been delegated to Congress, it was expressly refused by the Convention which framed the Constitution.
Journal of the Federal Convention, Vol. 1, May 31, 1787:
Mr. MADISON observed, that the more he reflected on the use of force, the more he doubted the practicability, the justice and the efficacy of it, when applied to people collectively, individually. Any union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to 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.
Can you provide some examples?
The fact that the people of a territory may have voted to be admitted is Constitutionally irrelevant. Colorado and Nebraska are only two examples of territories that petitioned for statehood but had to wait, in Colorado's case for years. The act that creates a state is a vote in both houses of Congress. If your point is that leaving should be through the same method as joining then wouldn't such a vote have been needed by at least 5 of the original seven Confederate states. Or all of them?
...it is under the assumption that they have read the Constitution and agree to its rules...
The Constitution is silent on how or whether a state may secede.
If the states back then weren't looked as as individual entities, then why was the expression, 'The United States are' instead of 'The United States is'? Big distinction, according to Shelby Foote and other historians.
States are still separate political entities. But that doesn't mean that they can do whatever they want. Especially when their actions may affect the other states.
You remind me of a cynical, despairing termagant. Please take a break from posting and commenting on Southern Independence threads.
Where would Davis have gotten the authority to do something like that? What clause in his Constitution gave him that power?
My contention is nothing would have changed except the Southern Army would have been a hell of a lot bigger.
What would have caused the increase? Would desertions have gone down?
You are wrong on that. Here is a link to the texts of the Reconstruction Acts. You will note that in the first one it says that when a state completes all the acts required of it then "said State shall be declared entitled to representation in Congress, and senators and representatives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking the oath prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this act shall be inoperative in said State." It does not refer to the former Confederate states as 'former states' or 'territories' but as 'rebel states'. It does not say that they are readmitted to the Union. It is clear that in the opinion of the federal government those states were never out of the Union to begin with. The idea that the former Confederate states were readmitted as states is a misnomer. They were not.
I have. Please quote the part where they talk about the Southern states being readmitted as states to the Union because I'm afraid I can't find it.
You have already been given that info
That is such a crock. Show me where Southerners committed genocide.
You obviously are a hater. Of the South at least.
From a January 1861 letter to his son Custis:
"Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended for 'perpetual union' so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution, or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession."
It's pretty clear that Lee did think it was illegal. He may have thought that Virginia had no other choice, but that's not the same as believing the actions were lawful.
The historical Industrial Revolution had been underway for a hundred years prior to the Civil War. If you're talking about industrialization in the cotton industry then that would have lasted another 70 years until the mid-1930's.
You are going somewhere you should not be going, calling Lee a “Traitor”....Lee had resigned his commission, therefore he was released from that oath.
If you take the time to examine facts, you will find that prior to the “Late UnPleasantness” Most people were loyal to their home states. Even Lee’s former enemies, such as Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, and US Grant did not consider Lee a traitor.
“f the Northern States refuse, willfully and deliberately, to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, and Congress provide no remedy, the South would no longer be bound to observe the compact”
Wait...wait! I thought it was all about taxes...
AH...ok...thought you were refering to Non-Sequitor
Your own posts notes that the unit was never accepted for duty with the Confederate military or the Louisiana militia, wasn't supported in any way with arms or equipment, and was generally ignored. That's hardly a ringing endorsement of black service in the Confederacy.
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