Posted on 05/16/2015 5:12:04 AM PDT by OttawaFreeper
The North rejoiced: The rebellion had been put down and the Union saved. But Northerners also breathed a sigh of relief. Many had feared that the Confederacy would not accept defeat, but instead would continue the struggle by means of guerrilla warfare. Indeed, Lee’s chief of artillery, E. Porter Alexander, had suggested this option before Lee’s surrender. The Confederate president, Jefferson Davis, also wished to continue the war in this manner. But Lee rejected the guerrilla option in favor of unifying the country. And General Joseph Johnston defied Davis’s orders to continue hostilities, instead surrendering his force to William Tecumseh Sherman at Durham Station in North Carolina in order to “save the people [and] spare the blood of the army.” But in reality, the war was not over. It would continue for nearly another decade and a half in the form of Reconstruction.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
No one but lost causers and liberals tell anyone that “the war was fought to end slavery”. I find it increasingly difficult to tell the difference between them.
It wasn't the abolitionists who needed to practice patience. It also wasn't the abolitionists who instigated, initiated, and declared war against their own neighbors and fellow countrymen.
I am of the opinion that slavery would have died out on it’s own.
The slavocracy attempted to found their "nation" upon the perpetuation of the Particular Institution. It was their dream that owning other humans would last forever.
” . . . perpetuation of the Particular Institution.”
So that’s what you’ve been writing about.
Should we not take the southern secessionists at their word when they said that they were acting to protect their slave interests?
Actually Maryland's abolition of slavery was included in the state constitution drafted in April 1864 and ratified that November. Incidentally, Maryland soldiers voting in that ratification referendum were 10 to 1 in favor of abolition.
Okay, I'll bite. What letter?
It wasn't
The reason Lincoln started the war is muddled. There is evidence Lincoln started the war to preserve the union. There is also evidence that he started the war to end the peculiar institution. Lincoln was like a politician so it's difficult to know how much of what he said to believe and how much to discount.
I don't think Robert E. Lee and like-minded southerners fought for the peculiar institution. Lee freed his s****s before the war.
Acting in the belief that one is protecting one's self interests is a non remarkable position. What were the Northern interests? They were the ones who invaded.
The Northern interests were control of and profit from Westward expansion, to include rail, resources, and assets.
Remember what came just AFTER 1865.
Monopolies.
Close enough to the point. They certainly didn't abolish it around April 12, 1861.
Incidentally, Maryland soldiers voting in that ratification referendum were 10 to 1 in favor of abolition.
I daresay it would have been an uncomfortable situation for a soldier to have any other opinion at this time. It's a wonder that it was only 10 to 1.
The alleged letter which purports Lincoln informing the commander he would be attacked, to take steps to minimize loss of life, and then surrender the fort.
That is what my friend told me. That was the evidence of his claim that the crises had been engineered by a clever Lincoln. Without such a letter, on what basis could he make the claim that the crises was engineered? The letter as he described it implied a foreknowledge of events.
Why would Lincoln warn the commander unless he expected an attack? That was his argument in claiming that Lincoln cleverly manipulated them into doing it. That Lincoln knew they would.
That letter.
I don't know if it was or wasn't. I'd rather believe it wasn't, because It is uncomfortable believing it was.
Remember what came just AFTER 1865.
Monopolies.
It's pretty cynical to assert that the entire Federal government was motivated to invade the South at huge cost in blood and treasure to protect the interests of Northern Oligarchs expanding into the West.
It implies that the Government of 1860 was for sale. I'd rather not believe that, though the evidence for our Modern government being for sale is getting harder and harder to shake every year.
While prophesying the War over a decade early, it may suggest some good arguments for you. It certainly attests to some of the things that the Virginia gentry considered significant in the growing apart that was taking place in the pre-conflict era.
“It’s pretty cynical to assert . .”
Don’t go there. The only thing our puritanical northern friends ever wanted to do was go to the chapel and pray. And the only evil was in the South where people grew food and fiber and raced horses.
To Robert AndersonNowhere does it say that Anderson WILL be attacked. The letter, incidentally, was never received by Anderson. It was intercepted by the confederates. On the same day, Robert Chew delivered the message to the Governor Pickens that read, "I am directed by the President of the United States to notify you to expect an attempt will be made to supply Fort-Sumpter with provisions only; and that, if such attempt be not resisted, no effort to throw in men, arms, or amunition, will be made, without further notice, or in case of an attack upon the Fort."
[War Department] Washington, April 4, 1861 Sir: Your letter of the 1st. inst. occasions some anxiety to the President.
On the information of Capt. Fox, he had supposed you could hold out till the 15th. inst. without any great inconvenience; and had prepared an expedition to relieve you before that period.
Hoping still that you will be able to sustain yourself till the 11th. or 12th. inst. the expedition will go forward; and, finding your flag flying, will attempt to provision you, and, in case the effort is resisted, will endeavor also to reinforce you.
You will therefore hold out if possible till the arrival of the expedition.
It is not, however, the intention of the President to subject your command to any danger or hardship beyond what, in your judgement, would be usual in military life; and he has entire confidence that you will act as becomes a patriot and a soldier, under all circumstances.
Whenever, if at all, in your judgment, to save yourself and command, a capitulation becomes a necessity, you are authorized to make it. [Respectfully SIMON CAMERON.]
Lincoln had essentially three choices. Surrender the fort, start shooting to force their way in (and then what?) or openly declare that they were going to send supply ships, which would only maintain the status quo. The confederate choices were to either allow the resupply maintaining the status quo, or forcibly oppose it, starting a war.
I'll end with three quotes from the south:
"Mr. President, at this time it is suicide, murder, and will lose us every friend at the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet's nest which extends from mountain to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in the wrong; it is fatal."-- Robert Toombs, discussing Lincoln's message to Pickens with Jefferson Davis and Davis's orders to attack Sumter
"Unless you sprinkle blood in the faces of the people, Alabama will be back in the Union in ten days"--James Gilchrist to Jefferson Davis
"I will tell you, gentlemen, what will put Virginia into the Southern Confederacy in less than an hour by Shrewsbury clock--STRIKE A BLOW! The very moment that blood is shed, old Virginia ail make common cause with her sister States of the South."--Roger Pryor, to a Charleston audience a few days before the shelling of Sumter.
No it doesn't. As a matter of fact, it does not go nearly so far as my friend had led me to believe, but I didn't know it at the time. He misrepresented quite a lot of what it said, but I couldn't check on it back then. I didn't find that letter until just a few years ago. It is not nearly the smoking gun for a theoretical Lincoln Perfidy that he seemed to believe, and I know of no other letter.
I'll end with three quotes from the south:
Robert Toombs was prophetic. It's a pity Davis heeded the words of others instead of the man who was correct. Much bloodshed might have been prevented.
Grant’s Tea Pot dome comes to mind.
Look at Lincoln’s cabinet. Oligarchs with pure lust for power, competition with Lincoln, and eyes on Western development.
Chase
Seward
Stanton
http://www.mrlincolnandfriends.org/inside.asp?pageID=7&subjectID=7
This is why I look at the Civil War as THE power play for federal-and oligarchical-control of US development. Steel magnates, rail magnates, the lot of them, came out winners. If you look, you see that the transportation-canals and rail lines-went their way only. Small farmers and resource-rich land that had been settled were almost entirely ignored.
Yes, slavery was involved. I look, however, to the Missouri Compromise as the bellweather. That vote had to foretell which way the country would go from then on, and that there would be NO MORE COMPROMISE.
New England and its magnates won, and so we have that ethos in American politics to this day.
Often US Policy appears to be just whatever helps this power block get richer.
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