Posted on 03/06/2010 2:27:46 PM PST by BigReb555
Who was Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne?
I'm not saying one was holier than the other concerning slavery. I'm correcting a statement made which is false. Why are you so touchy about the truth?
By the time of his murder, Lincoln had by means of the EP emancipated something upwards of 3M slaves, more than any other person in history. With possible exception of Tsar Alexander II, depending on how you define slavery. (They murdered him, too.)
Of course, the EP didn't by itself directly and instantly free any slaves. How could any proclamation do so? But the Union Army's enforcement of the EP did a dandy job.
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation freed hundreds of thousands of slaves. They just had to wait for the Union army to arrive.
Lee freed slaves off and on during his life. Lee was also a supporter of voluntary colonization of freed slaves to Africa. He paid passage for some of his, which was to their benefit since Virginia's constitution at the time said that any slave freed had to leave the state or be sold back into slavery.
Tis not a very convincing argument.
As you say, the northern states don’t have a tremendous amount of right to be all self-righteous about this issue.
When each northern state passed emancipation, the black population dropped dramatically by the time it went into effect.
Why? Because most of the slaves were sold south by their owners before the law could free them.
Lincoln himself said that both sections shared guilt for the crime and sin of slavery. The big difference (prior to the war) was that the north wanted to limit the expansion of slavery, while the south wanted to expand it. In fact, a great many in the South were planning wars of conquest in Latin America to create a great Slave Empire.
It is one thing to say a great evil is difficult to get rid of. Certainly in 1860 it’s impossible to see how, given the attitudes of those involved, slavery could have been peacefully scheduled for extinction. But it’s quite another to claim that a great evil is actually a positive good and should be expanded.
There weren't that many West Pointers in the Army of Tennessee, relative to the Army of Northern Virginia, who Cleburne had to compete with. Most of the West Pointers in that theater of the war had already fallen out with Davis. So Cleburne's failure to rise above Division Commander is inexplicable in my opinion, except for the bad impression he made within the Confederate High Command (Davis, Bragg, and Johnston) and the Confederate Congress with his written memorandum on the subject of allowing slaves to fight in exchange for their freedom.
Richard McMurray has a great book on the subject entitled Two Great Rebel Armies: An Essay in Confederate Military History
“That charge is often leveled but it probably is incorrect. Cleburne didn’t rise above division commander most likely because he wasn’t a West Pointer in an army where virtually all senior commanders were West Pointers.”
Who really knows for certain? The fact is that he took a real risk in taking that position and it did not help him. Jefferson Davis made mistake after mistake in the West. Braxton Bragg, John Bell Hood. The point is that Cleburne’s sentiments, which were well known long before he circulated the petition in early January 1864 did him a world of harm in advancing, and you can read the link below if you doubt it.
http://www.thewildgeese.com/pages/cleburne.html
The fact is that Cleburne was promoted in December 1862 to Major General (having been promoted to Brigadier General in March 1862) for his splendid efforts at Perryville and Shiloh. In January 1863, he performed brilliantly again at Stones River, superbly at Chicamauga in September and perhaps most critically in saving Bragg’s army at Missionary Ridge in November. Yet he was never promoted after December 1862. His meteoric rise stopped, and it certainly had nothing to do with his performance in battle. Maybe it was because he was not a West Pointer, but I think it had more to do with his views about black recruits for the Confederate Army becoming common knowledge at around the same time of the Emancipation Proclamation. The timing is just too coincidental.
I think it is easier to make the argument that Forrest’s lack of a West Point degree held him back, because he lacked any prior military experience whatsoever. Cleburne was a trained soldier and a veteran of the highly regarded British army. IN spite of his brilliance, Forrest rose much more slowly than Cleburne. After being promoted to Brigadier General in July 1862, it took him 18 months until December 1863 to attain the rank of Major General and another 13 months to attain the rank of LIeutenant General in January 1865.
Cleburne went from Colonel to Major General in nine months in 1862 and, for the remaining two years of his service until his death, was not promoted again. He wasn’t a West Pointer in 1862 but that did not seem to be holding him back.
From what I’ve read, many, if not most, Americans at that time considered themselves Americans, but also citizens of their states more so than citizens of the U.S.
Of course, the point was that it was carefully crafted to free no one at the time it was issued. I didn’t realize that Lee supported voluntary colonization. Lincoln also supported the colonization movement during his political career.
You trying to re-fight the Civil War?
Quite correct. That is because it was issued as a war measure against those in active rebellion at the time of issuance.
It could not have been otherwise.
You would perhaps prefer a country in which the president can confiscate the private property of law-abiding citizens whenever it pleases him to do so?
Re-fighting the War Between the States again? ;-)
It could have been otherwise.
It was a fairly mainstream position in the early 19th Century among those who found slavery distasteful but weren't ready or willing to do anything about it just then. Barely anyone except the wildest New England abolitionists were seriously talking about emancipation and integration.
Au contraire.
Section 8: "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions
Of course, when the militia is suppressing insurrections it is under the command of the President. There is nothing in the Constitution to imply the president has fewer war powers to suppress an insurrection than to repel an invasion.
After Lousiana was captured by Federal troops, slaves were not freed.
The EP freed all LA slaves except those in the city of New Orleans and in 13 named parishes at the time under federal control.
Lincoln wanted it both ways: the Southerners were "states" when he wanted them to be, and a foreign power when he didn't.
As do CSA apologists. If the CSA was a foreign government, as it claimed and fought to uphold, it had no rights under the Constitution. The EP was fully valid as a means of injuring the foreign enemy. If the states were still part of the US, they were quite obviously in insurrection. Look, the Constitution is a very flexible document, but it isn't flexible enough to stretch around a civil war. Any attempt to do so results in a variety of legal fictions.
"war powers" - is that what Licoln exercised when he placed the entire state assembly of Maryland in prison in Fort McHenry?
Reference please. My research indicates that a grand total of 26 MD state legislators were imprisones at different times during the war, not the whole body. There was discussion of doing so within the government, but it wasn't carried out.
http://www.abrahamlincolnsclassroom.org/Library/newsletter.asp?ID=108&CRLI=156
Galveston, Texas. June 19, 1865. General Gordon Granger lands with 2000 men and issues General Order Number 3, stating that, "in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free."
Celebrated to this day as Juneteenth.
That’s an excellent analysis of Cleburne’s career and the career wall that he hit in 1864. Thank you!
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