As opposed to southern gentlemen like Congressman Preston Brooks, who beat Charles Sumner with a cane until it broke while his friend Lawrence Keitt held off other congressmen with a pistol.
Posted on 02/13/2009 8:05:16 AM PST by Dick Bachert
I don't know what they teach in U.S. history classes today. But back in the middle of the last century, when I was in elementary school, there was absolutely no question about how we were to regard Abraham Lincoln. We were taught to feel a reverence bordering on awe for Honest Abe, the Great Emancipator, the eloquent martyr who saved the Republic.
We were required to memorize the Gettysburg Address. And if we were lucky enough to join a field trip to our nation's capitol, one of the most significant events was our visit to the Lincoln Memorial. (A few of us rapscallions spoiled the solemnity of the moment by sliding down the sides of the monument.)
That was what we were taught in the grade schools of Cleveland, Ohio. And I suspect it wasn't any different in any other school in the North. Some of you sons and daughters of the South will have to tell me what your teachers and history books said.
It wasn't until I became an adult and started reading history on my own that I began to doubt the version of events I was taught nearly six decades ago. For example, did you know that Lincoln suspended civil liberties in the North, including the writ of habeas corpus? That he filled the jails with more than 13,000 political prisoners, all incarcerated without due process? The Supreme Court protested Lincoln's disregard for our Constitutional protections, but the president replied he had a war to fight. Since he commanded the army, Lincoln won that argument.
And speaking of the war, guess who uttered these words:
"Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable — a most sacred right — a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people that can, may revolutionize, and make their own, of so much of their territory as they inhabit."
Okay, I'll admit this is a trick question. The speaker was Abraham Lincoln. But he was not talking about the southern states that tried to secede from the Union. No, these remarks were made in 1847, when Lincoln was defending the right of Texans to demand their independence from Mexico. A dozen years later, when six southern states tried to declare their independence, Lincoln's response was to wage war on them.
As a child, I never questioned the assertion that the South was wrong to secede. And that Lincoln was right to use as much force as necessary to preserve the Union. Later, as I grew to understand the strength and uniqueness of our Constitutional Republic, I began to question both assumptions.
The U.S. Constitution, I came to believe, was a contract — a contract between the various states and the federal government they created. Note that the Constitution had to be approved by the states, not a majority of the citizens. There was no "majority rule" here, no popular vote taken.
But this raises the question, if it was necessary for the states to adopt the Constitution, why wouldn't it be legal for some of those states to rescind that vote, especially if they felt the contract had been broken? More and more, I found myself thinking that the South was legally and morally right in declaring its independence. And the North, by invading those states and waging war on them, was wrong.
And what a terrible war it was. By the time it was over, nearly 625,000 Americans were dead — more American servicemen than were killed in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War combined. Fully one-fourth of the draft-age white population of the South was dead.
The devastation in the former states of the confederacy is hard to imagine. Sherman's march from Atlanta to Savannah is notorious for its savagery. But he was far from the only Northern officer who ordered his troops to lay waste to southern farms, fields, and plantations. Union troops routinely destroyed crops, sacked homes, and even stabled their horses in Southern churches.
As H.W. Crocker III puts it in The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War (Regnery Publishing, 2008), "If abiding by the law of a free republic and fighting a defensive war solely against armed combatants be flaws, the South had them and the North did not. Lincoln ignored the law, the Constitution, and the Supreme Court when it suited him. His armies waged war on the farms, livelihoods, and people of the South, not just against their armies."
Of all the big lies about the War Between the States, the biggest of all may be that it was necessary to end slavery. The truth is that many illustrious southerners, including Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, recognized that slavery had to come to an end. But it should not come by force of arms, they felt; not at the point of a gun, but rather through the free consent of the owners, with the proper preparation of the slaves. To get them ready for their own freedom, for example, Lee's wife insisted the family's slaves be taught to read and write, and the women how to sew.
Despite what most of us have been taught, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not free the slaves. It wasn't a law, but an edict. It specifically exempted the Border States and any parts of the South that were already under the control of Federal forces. It applied only to areas that were still in rebellion. So the Proclamation, of and by itself, did not free a single slave.
What it did, however, was change the nature of the conflict. Now the war was no longer about restoring the Union, or preventing Southern independence. Now it was about the morality, and the legality, of slavery. The Emancipation Proclamation did not make the war more popular in the north, but it did end the possibility of other countries, especially France and Britain, from coming to the aid of the South. They might have been willing to assist southern independence; but support a war in favor of slavery? Never.
As Crocker notes, "In Southern eyes, the Emancipation Proclamation was the ultimate in Yankee perfidy — an attempt to incite slave uprisings against Confederate women and children." Then he notes, "Happily, while the proclamation did encourage slaves to seek their freedom, there were no slave uprisings, no murders of women and children — which might say something good about Southerners too, both white and black."
Abraham Lincoln, more than any other president who came before him, changed the very nature of our government. There would never again be as many limitations on the powers of the federal government. And just as tragic, the concept of states' rights suffered a blow from which it has never recovered.
I'm told that more than 14,000 books have been written about Abraham Lincoln. Most, of course, are incredibly adulatory. The few that attempt to balance the scales are virtually ignored. While it may not be true that might makes right, it is definitely true that the winners write the history books.
Because the Runaway Slave Laws didn't apply in Canada, as you would have known had you done any reading on the subject.
The South decide to exit the union because the north decided to stop the institution of slavery from spreading into the territories that had not yet been set up as states.
Slavery was on a slow road to extinction, but the South refused to peacefully comply with that destiny.
To say the Civil war was not about the destruction of Slavery in America is naive at best. If there had not been slavery in the south, the Southern rebellion never would have occurred. Period.
Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana (except the parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James, Ascension, Assumption, Terrebone, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the city of New Orleans), Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkeley, Accomac, Northhampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Anne, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth), and which excepted parts are for the present left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.
Those above mentioned EXCEPTIONS were the areas under FEDERAL CONTROL!
That was an excellent post.
“which, BTW, was NOT about slavery”
Then exactly what was it about?
True...I was told in my history class...that there were slaves in the North (grandfathered in). This was a Virginian school and taught history at the time with a southern slant...I will look and see if this is even true.Interesting...don’t know the dates-not given...keep looking.
“In Connecticut in the 1950s, when I was growing up, the only slavery discussed in my history textbook was southern; New Englanders had marched south to end slavery. It was in Rhode Island, where I lived after 1964, that I first stumbled across an obscure reference to local slavery, but almost no one I asked knew anything about it. Members of the historical society did, but they assured me that slavery in Rhode Island had been brief and benign, involving only the best families, who behaved with genteel kindness. They pointed me in the direction of several antiquarian histories, which said about the same thing. Some of the people of color I met knew more.”[3]
"Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came."
And the rebels lost.
From the same author.
Over time, slavery flourished in the Upper South and failed to do so in the North. But there were pockets of the North on the eve of the Revolution where slaves played key roles in the economic and social order: New York City and northern New Jersey, rural Pennsylvania, and the shipping towns of Connecticut and Rhode Island. Black populations in some places were much higher than they would be during the 19th century. More than 3,000 blacks lived in Rhode Island in 1748, amounting to 9.1 percent of the population; 4,600 blacks were in New Jersey in 1745, 7.5 percent of the population; and nearly 20,000 blacks lived in New York in 1771, 12.2 percent of the population.[4] ‘
Deo vindiced in 1865 at Appomattox.
“If there had not been slavery in the south, the Southern rebellion never would have occurred. Period.”
There would not even have been a region identifying itself as “the South.” There would simply have been States who are in the Southern United States.
That's an interesting term. What were they wanting to be independent from? And just who wanted to be independent?
As opposed to southern gentlemen like Congressman Preston Brooks, who beat Charles Sumner with a cane until it broke while his friend Lawrence Keitt held off other congressmen with a pistol.
A Soldiers Letter
We have been favored by an old resident of Mabbettsville, in this county with the following interesting letter written to him by a nephew in the army, dated
Morris Island, S.C.
September 24, 1864
Dear Uncle:--Your good advice I will try and follow. I tell you, George B. McClellan is the only man, that can carry the old ship of State safely through; already we are drifting near the rock that will submerge the noble ship, and we need a man at the helm that will take her out into the broad ocean and guide her toward and into the port of Peace. I say there is too much negro about this matter; only look at the thousands of valuable lives that have been sacrificed for the black man, but my opinion is the South are not fighting for slavery now, but for their honor; but the present administration are continually harping on the negro. They say we are determined to break the bonds of every slave--or disunion. God forbid I should ever have those feelings. No, no. The Union must and shall be preserved. Let the negro go. The white man must rule and reign.
The noble and tried patriot today stands before the American people for the high position of President of these United States. His enemies will ask you what he has ever done to entitle him to occupy the presidential chair? He has done much. Why did he not do more? Simply because he was never supported by the Administration as he should have been; troops were withheld from him, when he called loudly for them. The great secret was, he was too popular with the people and soldier. The Republicans were afraid of him. But thank God he is as much beloved to-day as ever. The soldiers love him, and when their votes are counted you will find we will roll-up such a majority for General George B. McClellan that will astonish the country. He is our choice, and if you could have witnessed as I did the scene that transpired when he was relieved from command, it would have made your heart (though it were adament) melt to see the tears trickle down the cheek of the war worn veteran and the raw recruit when the news reached them, but I trust the day of deliverance is at hand.
Dear Uncle, though you may have never engaged in politics before in your life, I implore you to put your shoulder to the wheel, and every chance you have don't neglect the opportunity of urging the claim of Little Mac upon your friends. Please tell them to stand by him. I hope Old Duchess [county] will roll up a large majority for him. I must close as it is near 10 o'clock at night. Please write me a few lines.
Your nephew, Edwin A. Hoag.
“”Deo vindiced in 1865 at Appomattox.”
To your point of view, maybe.
I prefer to look at it as time out.
Oh, he was one of many! I wasn’t saying that “Northern” men were any more stupid than Southern men. Sheesh. I was commenting on the behavior of this PERSON who has been elevated to Sainthood in history books.
See, I understand where you are coming from there. My father is a Civil War history buff and has read practically every biography on Sherman. And I don’t think he was a monster or anything, but he DID effect people for generations. I mean my grandmother recalls her mother crying about watching her house burn as a little girl. That pain affected a person who I loved, you know?
It’s diluted as time goes on, but it’s still there. And history is written by the victors.
Political necessity is not the same thing as hypocrisy. The only reason the emancipation did not free slaves in the border states was because the Union could not risk their secession. Winning the war was, quite rightly, the highest priority at the time.
Holding that against Lincoln is about as stupid as holding against Churchill England's wartime alliance with the Soviet Union.
You’ve been indoctrinated by the history books or text books written after the 50’s.
Go hunt up a school textbook or a history book written in the late 19th or early 20th Century and you’ll come away better educated.
Until then, take our word for it. The War of Northern Aggression was not about slavery.
Re-read this article a bit more closely.
:)
The spirit is admirable, but I really believe it turned out best for everybody, the South most of all. When a regime lasts only four years it's easy to romanticize and overlook faults, but I don't think long term rule by that Confederate gang upon the necks of southerners would have worn well for very long.
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