Posted on 08/19/2013 9:27:39 AM PDT by don-o
You people do love confusing me with other posters.
Those were not the last orders Anderson received.
Yes, let's look at those. The part you seem to focus on is where Floyd said, "It is neither expected nor desired that you should expose your own life or that of your men in a hopeless conflict in defense of these forts. If they are invested or attacked by a force so superior that resistance would, in your judgment be a useless waste of life, it will be your duty to yield to necessity and make the best terms in your power." You seem to read that as meaning Anderson should take no steps at all other than stay where he is and await attack. But in those same instructions Floyd also said, "You are to exercise a sound military discretion on this subject." I would take that to mean that Anderson should take the steps necessary to safeguard his command. It's pretty apparent that Anderson took them to mean the same thing.
You say there was nothing to justify Anderson's move. That is incorrect. Accounts I've read detailed that people like James Petigru warned Anderson that the militia was gathering and that the forts would be taken by force if necessary. In his letters of December 22nd Anderson talks about reports of a steamer stationed between Moultrie and Sumter and his belief that the ship was meant to prevent him from moving there. In his letter to his superior on the same date, Captain Foster was even more specific identifying the number of steamers and the veiled threat offered by the men on one of them in respose to a challenge. Five days later, Captain Foster said he saw evidence that an attack was imminent somewhere and was told it wasn't safe to remain in Charleston.
You may not feel that this was sufficient reason for Anderson to make the move to Sumter. But it's always easy to armchair quarterback, and rather than second guess the main on the scene I feel it's more prudent to trust that Anderson did believe his command was in danger of attack and that the move to Sumter was the only logical move to prevent his men from being killed or captured.
I have often wondered if Lincoln would look at Obama , and say
” Now there’s one that should never have been freed”
You talk a good game but what rule of law details all that? Had the Southern acts of secession been legal then yes, they would not have been governed by the Constitution. But that does not automatically mean that every bit of property owned by the U.S. magically transferred title to them. That property was, and remained, the property of the U.S. and could be given up only through act of Congress.
Overrides the S.C. legislature? Well, yes, a sovereign secession act would override acts of the legislature, too, since they are taken at the highest level of sovereignty.
So when South Carolina seceded it became a totalitarian state? The state legislature no longer had any authority? Or are you saying that it was the Confederacy that was supreme, and the actions of the states were meaningless if the central government in Montgomery wanted it otherwise?
Either way it's all nonsense. The state legislature passed an act deeding the land Sumter stood on to the federal government. At the very least, it should have taken an act of the state legislature to revoke it. And they didn't do that. And even if they did, it would have taken an act of Congress, and quite possibly a formal treaty, to transfer ownership of Sumter to the Confederacy. But rather than follow the rule of law the Davis mob chose a war. And that didn't quite turn out the way they had hoped.
Those arrangements are only good as long as a) S.C. remains in the Union or b) S.C. is pleased to continue them even after seceding. Neither applied, and S.C. had the authority to demand the return of its property.
It wasn't its property.
Hi Rusty - long time no see.
You know that I’ve always had an admiration for your postings. You have crafted a careful narrative that supports the efforts of the cornfederates that is so reasonable that it almost passes the sniff-test.
A FReeper once scolded me, saying “Do you seriously think the Founders threw down less than 5000 words and expected them to restrain the government?” I can (sorta) see the point. There was a huge urgency to get an agreement inked and signed, and a great incentive to take care of the broad-strokes and rely on the reasonableness of honorable men to attend to the lingering details.
It is no secret that the theoretic breaking the bonds was a frequent, if not perilous topic of the founders. Splitting the sheets with the Brits was a herculean undertaking, as was devising and implementing a complete, self-sustaining government from whole-cloth. It seems that no one wanted to be so crass as to be the author of any escape-hatch clause. Consequently one was never included.
For authority the agreement was that congress be the place to take their complaints and plead their case.
Article 1 Section 10 outlines some of the powers prohibited the states, including forming alliances outside of the constitutional relationship of the many states. Article 4 defines conduct of the states regarding each other. And Article 5 prescribes the method of amendment to existing agreements.
Contained within those Articles is the means for remedy to whatever grievances the south may have had. Even legislation or agreement that didn’t meet their needs could have been appealed to SCOTUS. All parties knew that they were on soft ground precisely because there was no hard and fast process for leaving the union - all the more reason to tread lightly and make sure that what you were doing was right, both morally, ethically, and LEGALLY.
I submit that the insurrectionists did none of these things. Instead they took the passive-aggressive path of least resistance, framing their movement with the pretentious cloak of secession and daring anyone to object.
Costly error in judgement.
The commissioners were incorrect. Lincoln didn’t treat with them, didn’t think they had anything useful to say, and didn’t accept them as representatives of any legal body.
That message should have been very clear to them, the opposite of perfidity.
By contrast, they falsely represented themselves as represenatives of a sovereign nation, which they were not.
Their complaint is their perfidity was not accepted.
Call the Waaahmbulance.
The problem isn’t that Obama is free. The problem is that he was elected.
I would suggest that Anderson was the opposite of a blow hard.
That would make your missive the opposite of the truth.
Article III requires that controversies between the states and the federal government be resolved before the Supreme Court as original jurisdiction.
Of course political agreement could also lead to secession by amendment, or law and there are provisions for that, referencing the representatives of the people (House) the states (Senate) and for amendment, the state legislatures.
Attempts at secession without legal resolution of the controversy, or political agreement of the states and the people... well there is a word for that: insurrection.
Blush. High praise from someone I've considered my conscience on these threads. Many thanks for your service keeping my dark side in check.
The Founders may not have put a procedure for seceding into the Constitution because they didn't want to make it too easy to separate. Some of them apparently believed though that under certain conditions (oppression, unhappiness) a state could secede and that was consistent with the Constitution. At the same time, they didn't want to prohibit secession because in all likelihood, a Constitution that outlawed secession from this new experimental form of government would not have been ratified by all states, New York and Virginia in particular. Indeed, much later on, a proposed amendment to outlaw secession went down to defeat in the Senate 28 nays to 18 ayes on March 2, 1861, even after many Southern senators had left.
With respect to your comment about Article I, Section 10, I think for the most part Confederate states did not violate that section while they were still in the Union and subject to the Constitution. Virginia did make a provisional agreement on April 24 to cooperate with the Confederacy after their secession convention voted to secede on April 17/ The agreement was temporary pending the outcome of the May 23 secession referendum by Virginians in their sovereign capacity at the ballot box. I believe the rationale for the agreement was primarily the defense of the state prior to confirmation of secession on May 23. See: Link.
On April 23, 1861 Alexander Stephens made a speech to the Virginia Secession Convention pushing this agreement or alliance. In his speech, he mentioned the number of troops the Confederacy had called out to that point in time. It is the first authoritative number I have seen, and it roughly confirms what I found in the old newspapers. Here is an excerpt from the speech pertaining to those numbers:
First, as to the ends or objects of the alliance. To me it seems very important that your military should at least be in co-operation with, if not under the direction of the Confederate States government. We will necessarily have a large amount of forces in the field. When I left Montgomery there was 50,000 troops ordered out; 15,000 of them were then under arms, and most of them are perhaps under arms by this time From information received from the Executive to-day, it appears that the President of the Confederacy has ordered out thirteen more regiments since I left. That will be about 12,000 more troops. North Carolina may be considered as co-operating with us now, though this large force [72,000] does not embrace any from that State. Tennessee also has tendered 5000, with an assurance from distinguished gentlemen from that State to our government, on Tuesday of last week, that soon after the news of the bombardment of Fort Sumter, 15,000 had tendered their services, and that, if necessary, 50,000 would be forthcoming. So large a number, however, would not be called for from there.
Lincoln calling for the invasion of the South triggered the reaction of people in those states volunteering to serve. His proclamation caused the secession of four additional states and might have caused Maryland and Missouri to secede if they hadn't been occupied by force.
Contained within those Articles is the means for remedy to whatever grievances the south may have had. Even legislation or agreement that didn’t meet their needs could have been appealed to SCOTUS.
That approach doesn't appear to have worked very well for the South. Despite long years of legislation and court battles (some even reaching SCOTUS) over the return, or lack there of, of fugitive slaves, a number of Northern states had on their books personal liberty laws that appear to violate the Constitution. Large numbers of fugitive slaves lived openly in some states where it cost more than a slave was worth to try to recover the slave through the state's legal system.
I submit that the insurrectionists did none of these things. Instead they took the passive-aggressive path of least resistance, framing their movement with the pretentious cloak of secession and daring anyone to object.
Hmmm. Insurrectionists is not the right term; too pejorative. Secession was accomplished by elected conventions and/or by referendums of the states' voters to reassume the powers they had delegated to the federal government, their agent. Pretentious? Another pejorative word. Southerners believed sincerely that they had that right under the Constitution, much like the New York ratifiers had before them.
That was true for states that remained in the Union. However, the Constitution no longer applied to states that had seceded. As John Taylor once put it:
In the creation of the federal government, the states exercised the highest act of sovereignty, and they may, if they please, repeat the proof of their sovereignty, by its annihilation. But the union possesses no innate sovereignty, like the states; it was not self-constituted; it is conventional, and of course subordinate to the sovereignties by which it was formed.
The sovereignties which imposed the limitations upon the federal government, far from supposing that they perished by the exercise of a part of their faculties, were vindicated, by reserving powers in which their deputy, the federal government, could not participate; and the usual right of sovereigns to alter or revoke its commissions.
Texas v. White ruled that SC had been unsuccessful in retaking sovereignty.
SC had an obligation to resolve a controversy involving it peacefully, by litigation at the Supreme Court.
SC failed to keep its obligations, and also failed in its attempt to use violence to avoid its obligations.
That is called an unsuccessful insurrection.
By itself SC was too small to be a country, too large to be an asylum. They needed Virginia. They started the war to bring in Virginia. Virginia showed the bad judgement to let themselves be suckered in.
Coerce a state by armed force....
Isn’t that what Virgina did tried to do until Evacuating Lee failed? What Missouri attempted to do. What the pretended confederacy tried to do in Kentucky?
See, your real problem is that Lincoln won, that he successfully put down the insurrection in support of slavery started by the slave power. You really wish he had not done so. We know that because we have seen that you worship at the altar of DiLorenzo.
We all see it. And we all hope for your healing and forgiveness.
Magnificent begging the question.
Meaningless, but magnificent.
lol
You are gonna really get them going don.
The personal liberty laws did not violate the constitution. Rather, they described due process for state authorities, and the SCOTUS had resolved the controversy as to the role of the state official in returning fugitive slaves, to wit, there was no role.
So that controversy was settled, and as a matter of “STATES RIGHTS” slave states had no grounds to demand state officials participate in the return of those pretended to be fugitives.
Maybe, maybe not. But if you expect a declaration of war every time the US fights, you must have been disappointed over the last 70 years or so. In this case, though, you weren't going to get a formal declaration of war, because that would have meant recognition of the Confederacy as an independent state.
What you ought to do is find a neutral baseline. When domestic strife threatened -- the Whiskey Rebellion, the nullification crisis, Indian Wars, prolonged strikes, race riots, draft riots, civic unrest -- was Congress called in to session to deal with such problems or wasn't it? I suspect the answer is that it was assumed that the administrative authorities would have to deal with immediate crises, and Congress was only summoned later to change the general policies by enacting new laws.
Also, get in touch with your inner Dick Cheney. Surely, the executive does have some legitimate responsibilities and prerogatives that Congress can infringe upon and erode. Believing that doesn't make one a tyrant or supporter of tyranny, does it? Nobody expected any kind of declaration of war, and if the Senate thought it could handle the situation, it wouldn't have adjourned.
Could the South trust anything that Lincoln said?
What was he going to do? Call in an air strike? Put a nuke in with the food and medicine?
I guess you could "trust" secessionist mobs and militia to seize whatever federal property that they could within their borders and Confederate secession commissioners to foment rebellion further away, but such behavior was hardly conducive to peace and reconciliation.
Early on, the advantages on the ground were with the rebels. They had the advantages in local conflicts. They could simply seize (or demand and then seize) federal positions and property. There was some uncertainty given that state and confederate officials might not be on the same page, but I guess you could "trust" them to grab whatever they could.
Things were different with the federal government. Buchanan and Lincoln weren't of the same opinion. What Buchanan gave away Lincoln might not want to surrender. Within each administration, different officials spoke with different voices. Some of Buchanan's appointees actively supported the secessionists. And local commanders on the ground, hundreds of miles from Washington, were apt to act on their own initiative.
Lincoln wanted to maintain some symbol of federal authority in the rebel zone, but what would that be? Which fort? Moultrie, Sumter, Pickens, Jefferson, Taylor? Each had disadvantages that it may have been hard to see clearly from Washington DC. And conditions changed over time in ways that might not be foreseen.
When secessionists could simply grab whatever they wanted, unionists had to delay and rely on strategy. That shouldn't be so surprising. During the war, when the Federals had the advantage of greater strength, the Confederates had to rely on their wits and guile.
So, trust is a two-way street. Trust has to be earned. Trust is not absolute in situations where two parties are competing or struggling with each other. Trust is going to be a partial or relative thing.
Still, there were limits on what Lincoln would do. If he actually did try to trick his opponents, he would lose support both in the Upper South and in the North. If he sent troops and ammunition to Sumter instead of bread and medicine, he would be exposed as deceitful. And what would it gain him? A few weeks more time? Was it worth it? If he sent a war fleet into Charleston Harbor after declaring that he only wanted to feed the troops at Sumter wouldn't that likewise weaken his popularity and authority?
So I don't buy the argument that some suspected Lincoln ruse justified beginning the war. This was a situation in which much maneuver and jockeying and a certain amount of cleverness was required. It was also one in which outright, planned deceit wouldn't be rewarded. To say that not trusting Lincoln justified the attack, is to say that because you didn't get what you wanted when you wanted it you were justified in firing the first shot.
Lincoln spelled it out in his inaugural: he wouldn't attack, and if Davis wanted a war, he would have to start it himself. Lincoln put his reputation on the line, and made it clear to Davis that any war was Davis's to start or not. That doesn't look like much of a trick.
Lincoln said the Union couldn't stand half free, half slave, yet he supported a constitutional amendment leaving slavery alone in those states that wanted it. Which Lincoln was president?
If you've never had to do something tactically that you might not have approved of in your larger theoretical scheme of things, then you've never been in politics. In any case, Davis and Lee pledged themselves even more solemnly to things that they abandoned when circumstances changed. I guess they also weren't to be trusted either.
There is an interesting footnote that addresses this in the book "Abraham Lincoln: A History, Volume 3" by Lincoln's two secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John Hay. It says that the personal liberty laws of Vermont, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Wisconsin interfere with the federal law and are thus unconstitutional. Here is a link to the page with the footnote: Nicolay and Hay
Some distinguished lawyers and judges from Massachusetts agreed in the case of Massachusetts. From the Philadelphia Public Ledger of December 20, 1860:
THE CITIZENS OF MASSACHUSETTS AND THE PERSONAL LIBERTY BILLS
Chief Justice Shaw, B. R. Curtis, Joel Parker, and other citizens of Massachusetts equally distinguished, have addressed a letter to the people of that State on the Personal Liberty Bills, which they declare to be unconstitutional. They urge strongly the repeal of them and say:
... We would repeal them under our own love of right; under our own sense of sacredness of compacts; ...
... we firmly believe that the men from whom the worst consequences to our country and ourselves are likely to proceed, have no wish that these laws should be repealed, and no disposition to use any threats in reference to them. On the contrary, they desire to have them stand as conspicuous and palpable breaches of the national compact by ourselves ...
Shaw was Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Curtis was a former Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court who resigned in protest of the Dred Scott decision. Parker was professor of constitutional law at Harvard and former Chief Justice of the New Hampshire Supreme Court.
The last slave returned to its owner from Massachusetts was in 1854.
Here is what the Michigan legislature and the Detroit Free Press said about Michigan's personal liberty law. From March 2, 1861, issue of the State Gazette of Austin, Texas quoting an article from the Detroit Free Press [italics theirs, paragraph break and emphasis mine]:
Absurd and Impudent Action by the Michigan Legislature
We can conceive of nothing more absurd than the passage by either house of the Legislature, at Lansing, of the resolutions which are reported to have passed concerning national affairs, while the personal liberty bill still stands. The personal liberty law -- so the legislature of 1859 construed it, and such is the only construction which it will bear -- "was designed to and if faithfully executed will prevent the delivering up of fugitive slaves." It is therefore plain, palpable, unadulterated nullification of the fugitive slave law.
Michigan, for six years past, has stood in the attitude of open and avowed hostility to the authority of the Constitution of the United States. Until she has changed this attitude -- until she has hauled down the flag of rebellion -- until she is fully within the line of her constitutional duty -- how absurd is it, how impudent is it, in her to pass resolutions that the Constitution of the United States, and all laws in pursuance thereof, "are the supreme law of the land" -- that "there is no method for a State, or the citizens of a State, to escape the obligations imposed by the Constitution except by and through an amendment of that instrument" -- that "Michigan is now, as she has always been, entirely loyal to the Constitution;"
... We know of nothing better calculated to stimulate secession than this action, especially as it is the action of a State whose professions of loyalty to the Constitution are a lie. -- Detroit Free Press
Politicians, like the rest of us, live in a sea of all kinds of ideas and influences many of which are in the back of our minds (if even there) most of the time. The idea that you can identify one influence from that multitude and make it someone's governing passion doesn't seem very realistic. The influence you choose is bound to be one that's more important to you, though it may not have been central to your subject's existence. Something similar happened with Lincoln's Lyceum Address -- a warning against overweening ambition and political passion -- which was taken to be a sign of his own intense, but unconscious striving for power. The problem is that there are so many dots that the one's you choose to connect say more about you than about Lincoln.
Except the SCOTUS held that fugitive slave law enforcement was a federal responsibility, and performed through the US Marshall. State officials had no role to play.
The personal liberty law only affected state officials.
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