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IMPORTANT LETTER FROM J. WILKES BOOTH His original Purpose Was to Take Mr. Lincoln A Prisoner.---His Reasons For His Action. (From The Philadelphia Press, April 19, 1865)
We have just received the following letter, written by John Wilkes Booth, and placed by him in the hands of his brother-in-law, J.S. Clarke. It was written by him in November last, and left with J. S. Clarke in a sealed envelope, and addressed to himself, in his own handwriting. In the same envelope were some United States bonds and oil stocks. This letter was opened by Mr. Clarke for the first time on Monday last, and immediately handed by him to Marshall Milward, who has kindly placed it in our hands
Most unmistakably it proves that he must for many months have contemplated seizing the person of the late President. It is, however, doubtful whether he imagined the black deed
which has plunged the nation into the deepest gloom, and at the same time awakened it to a just and righteous indignation:-
_____ ______,1864
My Dear Sir:--You may use this as you think best. But as some may wish to know when, who, and why, and as I do not know how to direct it, I give it (in the words of your master):--
"To whom it may concern"
Right or wrong, God judge me, not man. For be my motive good or bad, of one thing I am sure, the lasting condemnation of the North.
I love peace more than life. Have loved the Union beyond expression. For four years have I waited, hoped, and prayed for the dark clouds to break, and for a restoration of our former sunshine. To wait longer would be a crime. All hope for peace is dead. My prayers have proved as idle as my hopes. God's will be done. I go to see and share the bitter end.
I have ever held that the South were right. The very nomination of Abraham Lincoln, four years ago, spoke plainly war--war upon Southern rights and institutions. His election prove it. "Await an overt act." Yes; till you are bound and plundered. What folly! The South were wise. Who thinks of argument or patience when the finger of his enemy presses on the trigger? In a foreign war, I, too, could say. "Country right or wrong." But in a struggle such as ours (where the brother tries to pierce the brother's heart), for God's sake choose the right. When a country like this spurns justice from her side, she forfeits the allegiance of every honest freeman, and should leave him, untrammeled by any fealty soever, to act as his conscience may approve.
People of the North, to hate tyranny, to love liberty and justice, to strike at wrong and oppression, was the teaching of our fathers. The study of our early history will not let me forget it, and may it never.
This country was formed for the white, not for the black man. And, looking upon African slavery from the same stand-point held by the noble framers of our Constitution, I, for one, have ever considered it one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us) that God ever bestowed upon a favored nation. Witness heretofore our wealth and power; witness their elevation and enlightenment above their race elsewhere. I have lived among it most of my life, and have seen less harsh treatment from master to man that I have beheld in the North from father to son. Yet Heaven knows, no one would be more willing to do more for the negro race than I, could I but see a way to still better their condition.
But Lincoln's policy is only preparing the way for their total annihilation . The South are not, nor have they been, fighting for the continuance of slavery. The first battle of Bull Run did away with that idea. Their causes since for war have been as noble and greater far than those that urged our fathers on. Even should we allow they were wrong at the beginning of the contest, cruelty and injustice have made the wrong become the right, and they stand now (before the wonder and admiration of the world) as a noble band of patriotic heroes. Hereafter, reading of their deeds, Thermopylae will be forgotten.
When I aided in the capture and execution of John Brown (who was a murderer on our western border, and who was fairly tried and convicted, before an impartial judge and jury, of treason, and who, by-the-way, has since been made a god), I was proud of my little share in the transaction, for I deemed it my duty, and that I was helping our common country to perform an act of justice. But what was a crime in poor John Brown is now considered (by themselves) as the greatest and only virtue of the whole Republican party.
Strange transmigration! Vice to become a virtue simply because more indulge in it!
I thought then, as now, that the abolitionist were the only traitors in the land, and that the entire party deserved the same fate as poor old Brown; not because they wish to abolish slavery, but on account of the means they have ever endeavored to use to effect that abolition. If Brown were living, I doubt whether he himself would set slavery against the Union. Most, or many in the North do, and openly, curse the Union if the South are to return and retain a single right guaranteed to them by every tie which we once revered as sacred. The South can make no choice. It is either extermination or slavery for themselves (worse than death) to draw from. I know my choice.
I have also studied hard to discover upon what grounds the right of a State to secede has been denied, when our very name, United States, and the Declaration of Independence, both provide for secession. But there is no time for words, I write in haste. I know how foolish I shall be deemed for undertaking such a step as this, where, on the one side, I have many friends and every thing to make me happy, where my profession alone has gained me an income of more than twenty thousand dollars a year, and where my great personal ambition in my profession has such a great field for labor. On the other hand, the South has never bestowed upon me one kind word; a place now where I have no friends, except beneath the sod; a place where I must either become a private soldier or a beggar. To give up all of the former for the latter, besides my mother and sisters, whom I love so dearly (although they so widely differ with me in opinion), seems insane; but God is my judge. I love justice more (Heaven pardon me if wrong), more than a happy home.
I have never been upon a battle-field; but oh! my countrymen, could you all but see the reality or effects of this horrid war as I have seen them (in every State, save Virginia), I know you would think like me, and would pray the Almighty to create in the Northern mind a sense of right and justice (even should it possess no seasoning of mercy), and that he would dry up this sea of blood between us, which is daily growing wider. Alas! poor country, is she to meet her threatened doom? Four years ago, I would have given a thousand lives to see her remain (as I had always know her) powerful and unbroken. And even now I would hold my life as naught to see her what she was. Oh! my friends, if the fearful scenes of the past four years had never been enacted, or if what has been had been but a frightful dream, from which we could now awake, with what overflowing hearts could we bless our God and pray for his continued favor! How I have loved the old flag can never now be known. A few years since, and the entire world could boast of none so pure and spotless. But I have of late been seeing and hearing of the bloody deeds, of which she has been made the emblem, and would shudder to think how changed she had grown, Oh! how I have longed to see her break from the mist of blood and death that circles round her folds, spoiling her beauty and tarnishing her honor. But no, day by day has she been dragged deeper and deeper into cruelty and oppression, till now (in my eyes) her once bright red stripes look like bloody gashes on the face of heaven. I look now upon my early admiration of her glories as a dream. My love (as things stand to-day) is for the South alone. Nor do I deem it a dishonor in attempting to make for her a prisoner of this man, to whom she owes so much of misery. If success attend me, I go penniless to her side. They say she has found that "last ditch" which the North have so long derided and that it is impolitic to goad an enemy to madness. Should I reach her in safety, and find it true, I will proudly beg permission to triumph or die in that same "ditch" by her side.
A Confederate doing duty upon his own responsibility.
J. Wilkes Booth
Wow!
Great post! Booth's letter displays the same contradictions carried on by the Confederate glorifiers today. For example, Booth claims that "The South are not, nor have they been, fighting for the continuance of slavery", yet before that he had found it necessary to state that "This country was formed for the white, not for the black man" and that African slavery was "one of the greatest blessings ... that God ever bestowed upon a favored nation", and later in the letter he trashes abolitionists.
Until he shot Lincoln, Booth apparently kept his sympathies for the Confederates a closely guarded secret, though. In fact, he had accepted an invitation to attend a party scheduled for April 15, 1865, at the headquarters of my great great grandfather's Union cavalry brigade to celebrate Lee's surrender. But the night before the scheduled party was of course the night he shot Lincoln.
This country was formed for the white, not for the black man
I guess that's why Lincoln favored Black codes which prevented blacks from living in his state of Illinois.. Because he favored an all white state.
Good gawd man... Give it up...
I've never defended Lincoln, so what is your point, that J. Wilkes Booth was a hero to you?
Boothead: thanks for the great post. I was in Washington bacin 1960 and saw this letter in the Smithsonian or the Archives. I thought at the time, how much we had been lied to....He weas characterized as a "crazed actor.... It brings to mind Ken Starr; Kathleen Willey; Linda Tripp; Judge Hale; Jim McDougal; Juanita Brodrick; and Paula ---
When I read this letter again, with today's perspective, I feel this letter could have been written as an open letter to the Liberals who defend this vicious and vile administration. So much harm has been done to our nation.. I weep with fear for my grandchildren and the many like themGod, what does the future hold for them with the way our nation is going today.
I have thought about this letter several times and wished I could find a copy...I remember parts of it...ezpecially as to what he would give kup so gladly to change the status quo. I have always thought Lincoln as a hero, but had that feeling inside that it might have been wrong. My Grandfather and his brother died from wounds in that war...He fought on the Union side. My mother was one year old when he died... Stretch in Apple Valley, Ca.
Boothead: thanks for the great post. I was in Washington bacin 1960 and saw this letter in the Smithsonian or the Archives. I thought at the time, how much we had been lied to....He weas characterized as a "crazed actor.... It brings to mind Ken Starr; Kathleen Willey; Linda Tripp; Judge Hale; Jim McDougal; Juanita Brodrick; and Paula ---
When I read this letter again, with today's perspective, I feel this letter could have been written as an open letter to the Liberals who defend this vicious and vile administration. So much harm has been done to our nation.. I weep with fear for my grandchildren and the many like themGod, what does the future hold for them with the way our nation is going today.
I have thought about this letter several times and wished I could find a copy...I remember parts of it...ezpecially as to what he would give kup so gladly to change the status quo. I have always thought Lincoln as a hero, but had that feeling inside that it might have been wrong. My Grandfather and his brother died from wounds in that war...He fought on the Union side. My mother was one year old when he died... Stretch in Apple Valley, Ca.
YIKES! FORMAT!!
When I read this letter again, with today's perspective, I feel this letter could have been written as an open letter to the Liberals who defend this vicious and vile administration.
No wonder you call yourself "Stretch".
Lincoln did NOT favor "black rights" during all the time he was in Illinois. He was emphatically anti-Abolitionist. But after being elected President, over time his views changed as he had to deal with not only the radicals in his own party, but the Southern sympathizers who were equally obnoxious (and many of them were Union officers).
The REAL change came when, because of the difficulty of the war (many forget that it was only in the last year that the Union began consistently to win battles; as a result Lincoln was not even expected to get the Republican nomination for President as late as Spring of 1864), the subsequent drop in volunteer military enrollments and the increasing resistance to conscription, led the U.S. to begin active recruitment of African-Americans to the Union Army. From that point onward, Lincoln began to have serious reservations about the notion that the African-Americans serving in the Union forces in particular, and their race in general, must at the war's conclusion be kept from full rights of citizenship. But he was never sure how enfranchisment could be practically achieved, because he couldn't fathom how the black race and the white were ever to live together.
On April 11, 1865, Lincoln made a speech from the White House, at the conclusion of which he said "It may be my duty to make some new announcement to the people of the South."
What that announcement was to be he didn't confide in anyone, and there was a great deal of conjecture, especially in that he would announce universal suffrage beginning in the reconstructed Southern states. That isn't known (and historians don't really even think it likely) but that was one of the rumors left by that cryptic remark.
When John Wilkes Booth heard the statement as he stood outside the White House that evening, he was CONVINCED that it "means nigger citizenship", as he remarked to a companion. "That is the last speech he will ever make." Consequently he assassinated the President of the United States three days later.
The account of witnesses and those close to Booth at the time indicate that Booth decided that night to kill the President, EXPRESSLY BECAUSE Lincoln intended to give the vote to the African-Americans, or so Booth thought.
Booth shot Lincoln to strike a blow against this threat, as he deemed it.
That, sir, is history.
Well stated. The missives calling you a "damned Yankee scalawag/carpetbagger" will follow shortly I'm sure.
...the subsequent drop in volunteer military enrollments and the increasing resistance to conscription, led the U.S. to begin active recruitment of African-Americans to the Union Army. From that point onward, Lincoln began to have serious reservations about the notion that the African-Americans serving in the Union forces in particular, and their race in general, must at the war's conclusion be kept from full rights of citizenship.
I understand that Frederick Douglass was very influential in this regard.
There are certain facets of this letter which make me doubt its authenticity.........
There are certain facets of this letter which make me doubt its authenticity.........
Such as?
I understand that Frederick Douglass was very influential in this regard.
He was, somewhat, but it was really the triumvirate of Sen. Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune, and Salmon P. Chase of Ohio, who served as Secretary of the Treasury during Lincoln's first term, and was "kicked upstairs" to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court just prior to his second, who were constantly at the President to act for full emancipation AND suffrage.
NOTE that these folks were hardly friends of Lincoln. Although Douglass was kindly disposed toward him, the rest of them plotted against his renomination, and Chase was the center of a ring of conspirators to place HIMSELF at the head of the Republican ticket in 1864.
The reason that I know that Lincoln was "right" in his direction at the time of the war is that he was almost UNIVERSALLY hated and villified by the extremists on both sides.
Booth's assassination of Lincoln MADE the darkness of Reconstruction what it was, because he removed the ONLY moderating influence in the Republican administration; Andrew Johnson was toast from the moment he assumed the mantle of the Presidency. Lincoln was the only real friend with power on the Union side that the South had, and Booth killed him. Sic Semper Stupidus.
Most abolitionists were in favor of eliminating slavery, but not in giving the Negro equal rights. They were more than willing to allow the black man to remain down-trodden as long as he wasn't owned by another man.
Here's a letter I found a few years ago while searching microfilmed newspapers from the Civil War. I thought you'd be interested in hearing how one Union soldier felt about the slavery issue. Note that this was written 7 months before the war ended.
The following letter was widely published in several of the newspapers of New York State in late 1864. It was discovered in the 10/15/1864 issue of the Poughkeepsie Telegraph:
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 to-day 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."
Frankly, I don't agree with his feelings on McClellan. In reality, Little Mac was a dog. What he would have done with more troops is beyond me. He never used the ones he had.
Booth's assassination of Lincoln MADE the darkness of Reconstruction what it was, because he removed the ONLY moderating influence in the Republican administration;
Not entirely. Grant fought Johnson tooth and nail to hold on to voting rights for blacks, largely because blacks had fought in the war for the North in large numbers.
After Johnson's term, Grant held two terms where these rights were actively maintained. After his second term, Grant chose not to run, and in the deal in Congress that came from that election, Northern troops were removed from the South, Southern planters and Union manufacturers walked arm in arm down the aisles of Congress and the blacks got the Jim Crow laws.
Grant is highly underrated. No one else dared to do what he did until Eisenhower. That makes him a man way ahead of his time.
That's an interesting bit of info. I'm slowly working my way OUT of the Civil War era into the era of reconstruction. Thanks for the perspective.
Little Mac put on a good show. He took good of the men. He also dreaded to use them in battle because he could not bear to see them killed. His idea of a good campaign was one of successful maneuver and overwhelming siege with few casualties. Williamsburg set the example for them with him, and until the 7 days, McClellen looked like a winner. Of course, he wasn't but he did play the part quite from viewpoint of the man in field. The first year of the war carried all the real romance of the times, and volunteers of first year of the Army of the Potomac always associated this with him. The only man with more badly botched chances to finish off Bobby Lee was Meade.
Most abolitionists were in favor of eliminating slavery, but not in giving the Negro equal rights. They were more than willing to allow the black man to remain down-trodden as long as he wasn't owned by another man.
I would like to see some documentation to back up this statement. Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison were two leading abolitionists who do not fit your description. Certainly there were anti-negro elements in the Union Army. The biographer of my Great Great Grandfather's Illinois cavalry regiment tells an interesting story about a racist surgeon's helper who was tricked into helping to bath and dress a black man in the dark who became very iritated when he lit a candle and discovered who he was working on. This suggests to me that such men in the Union Army were in the minority and thus suitable for making the butt of a prank. By the way, the soldier in this story was subsequently transfered because of his racism and he eventually was captured and died in a Conferate prison. And McClellan was of course defeated in his bid to unseat Lincoln.
That's an interesting bit of info. I'm slowly working my way OUT of the Civil War era into the era of reconstruction. Thanks for the perspective
I know the feeling. I came to realize one day that Grant never finished his memoirs. There clearly should have been a volume on his presidency, but cancer took him a year or two early.
A very important volume for historians.
Spend some time on the Slave Trade. That is a real eye opener, and it will help you see why the restoration went the way it did.
Frederick Douglass did play a big role in getting Stanton to push for organizing black units in the north. Two of his sons served in Massachusetts units. Also pushing for black recruitment was Gov. John A. Andrew of Massachusetts.
If the government was going to provide full citizenship and benefits after the war to blacks who had served the Union, they had a long way to go. Within the Union Army, a battle was going on to provide the black recruit equal pay as his white counterpart. They had been promised the same pay, rations and clothing when they had enlisted, but 6 months later, they discovered that that promise was a lie. It took 18 months for the federal government to pass legislation putting black soldiers on equal footing with the whites. And during that time, the Massachusetts units refused to accept the lesser pay. According to one officer in the 55th Massachusetts: "They have an original argument about not taking the $7.00 a month. They say that he who refuses is not so much a nigger in the world's eye as he was before, but he who takes it makes himself three times more of a nigger." Even when the state of Massachusetts passed a separate subsidy to make up the difference in the pay, the men of the 54th and 55th Massachusetts refused it. "They felt that their manhood was at stake. They were regarded as good enough to be killed and wounded, and to work in the trenches with white soldiers, so they said they would wait until they got their just dues."
Another problem of equality in the Army during the Civil War was the failure of the government to allow promotions of black officers within the ranks. Although several black soldiers had been recommended for, and received promotions to Second Lieutenant from the state, the federal Government would not recognize them as such saying that there was "no law by which they can be mustered as commissioned officers." Finally, in June of 1865, the government relented and three black Sergeants in the 55th Massachusetts were officially mustered in as 2nd Lieutenants. Five others would receive promotions, but the unit would be mustered out before they could be mustered in as commissioned officers. Within the white ranks of both units there was dissension over these promotions. Many white officers resigned or threatened to resign not wanting to serve under or alongside black officers. And when the Grand Army of the Republic marched down Pennsylvania Avenue after the war's end, there were no black troops invited to attend.
Not much changed in the military until the units were integrated under Truman. It's a shame it took so long.
James,
GET a LIFE! What you posted here is an outright LIE, not "your opinion".
Grant was a SLAVEHOLDER, slavetrader, slave driver/overseer for others and, to the end of his days, a man who openly stated that had the WBTS been to perserve slavery, that he (Grant) would have fought for the south.
Grant was FORCED in 1866 to free his OWN slaves, after the effective date of the 13th and 14th amendments to the constitution!
being truthful is more important than winning an argument.
yours for dixie, sw
I said "most" abolitionists, not all. Perhaps I should have said "many." Of course Frederick Douglass wasn't your average abolitionist. He'd been a slave, had run away, educated himself and bought his own freedom. Isn't it strange that there isn't a Frederick Douglass commemorative holiday. He was too much of an Uncle Tom for the likes of Jesse Jackson and his gang. Douglass wasn't politically correct then (his 2nd wife was white), and he isn't politically correct today. Were he alive today, I'm sure he wouldn't be demanding reparations or an apology for slavery.
"A Constitutional View of the Late War between the States," Alexander Stephens , 1870, Philadelphia: National Publishing Co.:
"When asked by Confederate Vice President Alexander Stepehens at the 1865 Hampton Roads 'peace' conference what would become of the freedmen without property or education, Lincoln sarcastically recited the words to a popular minstrel song, 'root, hog or die.'"
That sir, is history.
my previous post was directed at you
Frederick Douglass was truly a brave man and way ahead of his time. The low level to which Confederate glorifiers will stoop to in order to defend the indefensible is exemplified by The League of the South, which on their website calls Douglass an "anti-Southern demagogue".
Grant never owned slaves.
The biggest problem was the political ramifications inherent in the possibility, however remote, that a black officer would be commanding white troops.
Think of it this way: In the battlefield, the "fog of war" covers everything. Although they attempted to "Segregate" the black from the white troops as much as possible, during pitched battles it became impossible and indeed whites and blacks fought alongside one another. What if during such a melee, units are decimated and lose their officers and, as often happens, units are obliged to "merge" at least temporarily during the fight. What if the only officer(s) available was black? What would be the rules? How could you maintain discipline and order?
I enjoyed the film Soldier's Story, starring the late, great Howard Rollins, very much because of the depiction of how this SAME problem was trying to be solved eighty years later, in the World War II era.
I would love to see a Douglass holiday over one for King. I have respect for Dr. King (up to a point, since in his later years he became pretty much a Marxist), but Douglass was a phenomenal figure.
No one ever said here that Lincoln was a great "champion" of blacks. For most of his public life he believed that slavery had somehow to be ended, but he wasn't sure how it could be done. He openly favored resettlement of former slaves to Africa or Costa Rica. He favored reimbursement of slave owners whose slaves were freed.
But the war threw everything into a cocked hat and, not surprisingly, his decisions were in part motivated by politics.
That, sir, is also REALITY, then as now.
Well, actually, Douglass WAS an "anti-Southern demagogue", in the strict sense.
The "South" was the rich planters, by and large, in the Antebellum period. They had the money, they had the political power. So those who criticized and villifed them and the "system" of political power in the South, were attacking the South itself, in the minds of many.
It is possible to be a "demagogue" and still be right.
Grant never owned slaves.
Wrong!
Grant owned a slave named Willie Jones. His wife owned a half dozen or so slaves.
WRONG ANSWER! the slaves Grant owned are listed by NAME in his records at the national archives in DC!
check your facts before making such an assertion which is not fact based. Furthermore, he refused to free his slaves, when ordered to do do by Stanton (secretary of war) saying: Good help is hard to get.
yours for truth and dixie liberty, sw
GET a LIFE! What you posted here is an outright LIE, not "your opinion".
SIRRAH! Get a life. Better yet, get a book and read it instead of making up what lame inaccurate comments you feel like posting without a thread of research effort.
Grant was a SLAVEHOLDER, slavetrader, slave driver/overseer for others and, to the end of his days, a man who openly stated that had the WBTS been to perserve slavery, that he (Grant) would have fought for the south.
Grant's wife Julia Dent was the daughter of a Southern slaveowner. With his marriage to Julia came a number of slaves. While Grant did effectively have charge of them, and while it is true he himself once bought onefor himself, it is also true that he was notorious among his Southern neighbors for not properly handling them. In particular, he over payed them for not doing enough work, and he did not apply enough physical stress upon them in the manner of a Southern gentleman of the time such that they would work hard enough for him. This was a point of some consternation to his slave owning neighbors.
From owning and working with slaves, Grant formed the personal opinion that they were just as capable of working hard as their white neighbors, and this opinion stayed with him.
As for Julia, Grant held the more common Northern viewpoint that folks who depended on slaves tended to be lazy and not worth a damn without slaves to do most of the hard work of everyday living for them.
Julia was accustomed to slaves, and chose to keep them as long as she could. Grant was overheard to tell his stepfather in 1858 that he would be glad to 'give his wife's slaves their freedom as soon as he could."
The one slave that Grant bought was a buck of 35 years. In 1859, this slave, named William, was worth about 1000 dollars. Grant had the choice of selling him to one of his Southern neighbors for the sum, but instead he manumitted him in the St Louis Circuit Court on March 29, 1859. This was a time in Grant's life when he sorely needed that thousand dollars.
Grant was FORCED in 1866 to free his OWN slaves, after the effective date of the 13th and 14th amendments to the constitution!
The Slaves that came with the marriage to Julia Dent were still owned by Julia's father Colonel Dent. In 1862 when Colonel Dent was facing bankruptcy, Grant told Julia "I would not give anything for you to have any of them as it is not probable that we will ever live in a slave state again but [I] would not like to see them sold under the hammer."
being truthful is more important than winning an argument.
It is very clear you have done neither, Sirrah.
Sirrah
You're an obnoxious bigot.
Re No. 14. The whole purpose of the war was reconstruction. The goal was to make the South an agricultural colony of the North forever. Slavery was an excuse.
The missives calling you a "damned Yankee scalawag/carpetbagger" will follow shortly I'm sure.
bump
You're an obnoxious bigot.
And you not only own a dictionary, but apparently you know how to use it. Congratulations and welcome.
i just went and looked up the names: Willie Jones, Jedaadiah (sic ?) Thomas and Paulus. These 4 black men were Grant's body-servants who went with him to war. NONE were freedmen;all were slaves! Paulus is mentioned in several yankee officer's memoirs by name, as he evidently was an excellent cook and scrounger of luxuries for Grant's table.
the damnyankees will stoop to anything to make their points, including intentional lies; it has ever been so!
yours for dixie, sw
you are SOOOOOOOOO right about that!
Re No. 14. The whole purpose of the war was reconstruction. The goal was to make the South an agricultural colony of the North forever. Slavery was an excuse.
The shoe is on the wrong foot. The whole purpose of secession was to make the South an independent Agricultural Nation forever. When you bet your whole stake against the house and the dice come up wrong, you lose your whole stake.
When your "fine" Grant was a slave overseer, he was well known for his "often and happy use of the whip"; evidently, based on the memoirs of a near-neighbor, he "was particuliarly fond of whipping bare-breasted comely girl-slaves"
he was HARDLY the reluctant slavemaster you depict him as!
yours for truth and dixie liberty, sw
Speaking of contradictions:
"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races - that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the negro should be denied everything." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Fourth Debate with Stephen A. Douglas at Charleston, Illinois" (September 18, 1858), pp. 145-146.
James Gunn is full of a sense of his own self worth. Unfortunately, not everyone shares his viewpoint of himself. His problem, not ours!
"A Constitutional View of the Late War between the States," Alexander Stephens , 1870, Philadelphia: National Publishing Co
A truly great book. The price is getting so high we may yet see it reprinted.
Stephens and Lincoln go back a long long way. In their early careers they were close buddies in the House in the Mexican War era, and this needs to be remembered when you consider the nature of their exchange here.
They say "nice guys finish last', and this could well be said of Stephens. He certainly held his principles much higher than Lincoln or Davis. It would be hard for people to agree on it, but I think it a fair to hold to say that on the whole he was more honorable and moral than most of his contemporaries. He also lasted longer in politics, and did eventually return to the House of Representatives in a seat from Georgia.
Ono of my favorite scenes of all in this whole period is the return of Stephens to the US Senate in 1866. He was not allowed to sit, but what an amazing event in our history!
NOPE, not a carpetbagger OR scalawag!
Scalawags are dis-loyal southern-borns (Nature is UNKIND to turncoats and traitors!); carpetbaggers are damnyankees who come south and stay, while keeping their anti-southern opinions.
Thankfully ravinson came south for law school and returned to the north(good riddence-we have enough anti-southern, anti-confederate bigots down here now.-Would that they would ALL go back north and leave us alone).
ravinson is just a DAMNYANKEE apologist, with a taste for posting quotes of the most shameful of yankee-propagandists.
You should pardon another definition. COPPERHEAD: a person born in the north, who is wise enough to cleave to the rebel cause. Our own Colonel William C. Quantrell, born in NYC,(late of the 4th MO Partisan Rangers) and the gracious lady, Betty Boopof this forum, are two excellent examples of Copperheads; as time passes, i predict more and more copperheads will be converted to the TRUE CAUSE of southern liberty!
So saith the Lord of Hosts: Let my people go!
yours for dixie freedom NOW, sw
Also true! ravinson and James Gunn are quiessential examples of damnyankkes!
i'm TRULY glad neither live in the southland!
yours for the one TRUE CAUSE, sw
was particuliarly fond of whipping bare-breasted comely girl-slaves"
Let me guess, you got that from "Sally the Slut Comix", Vol 8, Edition 12.
There is nothing that clearly defines a person's own sense of low self esteem better than their constantly attacking and demeaning others' intelligence, abilities, understanding, etc. Some on this forum are the quintessential example of that. (i.e. the comic book comment.) That's the only way they can reinforce themselves. You don't argue or discuss things with people like that. They cannnot handle it. They can only demean and attempt to condescend. Their self-imposed 'superiority' is quite revealing. I don't even respond to them any longer. It's a waste of good typing time. I'd much rather engage in debate with someone who's truly intelligent and open minded. True intelligence doesn't assume an air of superiority. In fact, the truly intelligent welcome new concepts, ideas and information and are more than willing to see different views, facets and truths.
Don't you wish!
rather it is from the book, Annals Collected of Illinois and Iowa, by Harry W. Richards, 1907, reprinted 1958, PP 216f.
yours for truth and dixie, sw
Julia was accustomed to slaves, and chose to keep them as long as she could.
So not only was he a drunken slave-owner, he was also pussy-whooped.
Also very TRUE!
in the case of ravinson, unlike some others i could name on this forum, who are both closed-minded and un-intelligent,he is intelligent BUT close-minded to the truth; i keep hoping that he will start reading some books, treatises and articles by southern, or at least neutral, authors such that he gets a balanced view of our continuing war for independence, rather than relying only on the ravings of the most shameless of damnyankee propagandists.
It is obvious to any but the most close-minded of anti-southern bigots that the WBTS was about just one MAIN CAUSE---the LUST for freedom and independence from the damnedyankees, so that we southrons could have a republic of freedom and peace AND that those who remain(ed) in the old union could have the sort of repressive, socialist, statist, self-righteous country they seem to want.
There is plenty of room for 4 independent republics in North America: Canada, Mexico,USA and the new and free Southern Republic. Who knows, there might come a time that we might form something like the common market of europe, but without the restrictions on freedom/liberty that inflict EUCOM.
As i've said before, should the Ssouthern Freedom Drums sound again, the damnyankees will be so busy killing the unborn, taking dope,burning the flag,being feminazis, rioting, committing every conceivable perversion, abusing women and children, committing US troops to conflicts where they have no national interest,banning guns and pitbull dogs,being PC and generally acting like donkeys, that they won't notice we've left, for at least 3-5 years
Maybe we can leave PEACEFULLY this time! yours for dixie freedom NOW, sw
Great post! Booth's letter displays the same contradictions carried on by the Confederate glorifiers today. For example, Booth claims that "The South are not, nor have they been, fighting for the continuance of slavery", yet before that he had found it necessary to state that "This country was formed for the white, not for the black man" and that African slavery was "one of the greatest blessings ... that God ever bestowed upon a favored nation", and later in the letter he trashes abolitionists
They were not fighting for Slavery per se. It just looks like that to you. They were fighting for the inalienable right to lead their own lives as they saw fit, to engage in profitable business practices where and when they could, and to protect their own understanding of morality.
Clearly their understanding is not yours, but neither is yours theirs.
There understanding was based on centuries of experience with their climate and with Africa and it's inhabitants, niether of which was either easy to deal with or part of the Northern domestic (home grown and nurtured) merchant's life experience.
Could somebody please repost this marvelous letter properly HTML formatted?
rather it is from the book, Annals Collected of Illinois and Iowa, by Harry W. Richards, 1907, reprinted 1958, PP 216f.
yours for truth and dixie, sw
Curiously, this book does not seem to exist. Perhaps you would give us it's Library of Congress number.
Perhaps you mis-spelled the title. Perhaps it is "Anals of Illinois and Iowa" Let me know what you find out. Matter of fact, seeing as how you botched your reference in the first place, give us the link to the Library of Congress when you find it there.
So not only was he a drunken slave-owner, he was also pussy-whooped.
And to think he beat the crap out of Lee. Lee must have really been an incompetent idiot. It only makes sense, doesn't it?
James, you are about one more stupid,hatefilled,insulting post away from being shunned! NO brag, just fact. The last person who was shunned on this forum is no longer a poster. Crude,vulgar, abusive & stupid remarks that denigrate people personally have NO PLACE on FR! Freedom of speech is not license-no right is absolute.
meanwhile, i'll look up the ISBN # for you since you can't seem to find it! BUT my PC skills are not up to doing links. SORRY about that!
FreeRepublic.com is a conservative website. And while there are many divergent views and opinions, a common philosophical theme is evident: a smaller, less powerful (de-centralized) federal government; more power and control to state and local governments and the people thereof; less taxes; less federal government voyeurism and imperialism; strict adherence to the plain language and intent of the U.S. Constitution; government free of corruption and waste; a federal government which is not morally and financially bankrupt; and, more individual responsibility.
This is the ideological glue which binds the FreeRepublic family. These, generally, are the guiding principles of present day Republicans, Conservatives, Libertarians and Constitutionalists. And, incidentally, the same are guiding principles of the Confederacy, past and present.
The out-of-control federal government won the first round when the South rose in arms against the tyrannical and dictatorial direction in which the federal government was headed and at which it has now arrived. This is the way to the New World Order. Democrats, atheists, liberals, and socialists seek American domination first and world domination second.
When ravinson and James Gunn, et.al., attack the Confederacy, they attack Republicans, Conservatives, Libertarians and Constitutionalists. They are at the forefront of the federal government/New World Order propaganda battle lines. The issue of the Confederate flag exists not because of slavery or offensiveness to blacks; it is an issue because of is offensiveness to the federal government. It is a symbol of a challenge to a federal government hell bent on an extraconsitutional expansion of scope and authority.
The spirit of the Confederacy was and remains a threat to the Washington, DC ruling elite and the Confederate spirit is held, shared and promoted by Republicans, Conservatives, Libertarians, and Consitutionalists. It is a threat which must be destroyed and discredited by the federal government. Therefore, ravinson and James Gunn, et.al., paint the Confederacy with the broad red-herring brush of slavery and racism. It is a desperate, meaningless, antiquated and transparent mission destined for failure.
Deo Vindice.
Indeed! Thank you.
Dio vindice
Send the link to me. I'll post it for you.
Well, actually, Douglass WAS an "anti-Southern demagogue", in the strict sense.
I disagree strongly. A demagogue appeals to emotion and prejudice; Douglass appealed to reason, and he was anti-slavery, not anti-South. He called slavery "the great sin and shame of America", not just the South.
I have already quit responding to James Gunn, at least regarding the Confederacyy. Not so much to shun him as that it seems pointless to discuss the WBTS with him.
I don't think he is dumb, in fact I think he is intelligent, but I have heard him make truly studid statements that are clearly meant to inflame rather than to inform.
Oddly enough I have heard him make comments on other issues which were well thought out and well stated, and that I agreed with.
The Confederacy and my kin who fought so valiently left me a priceless leagacy of courage and honor. Even in the gloom of defeat by overwhelming odds, they soldiered on to the bitter end.
My Mothers Grandfather lost 2 brothers at Chicamauga and he was wounded. (18th Alabama infantry, Co. A). I resent bitterly anyone who seeks to assassinate their character. If they were evil people I would be the first to say so but they were great people and I claim that greatness for myself and my progenyy.
The Lincoln quote you provided is the common one for Confederate glorifiers. I guess your message is "since Lincoln was something of a bigot it's OK for me to glorify Confederate bigots and slaveholders."
COPPERHEAD: a person born in the north, who is wise enough to cleave to the rebel cause.
When I was living in the South I was told that "Copperheads" were venomous snakes who hid in the grass.
ravinson is just a DAMNYANKEE apologist, with a taste for posting quotes of the most shameful of yankee-propagandists.
I have nothing to apologize for, and since the quotes you apparently find offensive came from the Confederate declarations of secession, they were the work of Confederate propogandists.
I did a search of "harry richards" in the library of congress catalogue, and my heart began racing when a Harry W. Richards popped up. Alas, the book was copyrighted in 1937 and was about radio frequency carrier currents.
One thing I find curious is that the adherents to the Southern side in this thread war do not weave into their posts any denunciation of slavery. Nor have any to my knowledge selected from the arsenal of possible arguements available to them the contention that I have seen from time to time that slavery was on its way out in the South economically anyway, and in an independent Confederate "nation" would have been phased out within a couple of decades (portending what fate for the Black man I hesitate to speculate on).
Why is that I wonder?
ravinson, unlike some others i could name on this forum, who are both closed-minded and un-intelligent,he is intelligent BUT close-minded to the truth; i keep hoping that he will start reading some books, treatises and articles by southern, or at least neutral, authors
Here is what one of your chosen authors said about your theory that slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War:
"There were, it is true, many Southern politicians who said slavery was the reason for secession." (See "The `Other' Great Debate", by Charles Adams.)
As I have said and as you have ignored, when I began researching the Civil War several months ago I was predisposed to sympathize with the Confederates based on what some reputable libertarians had written about the war, but after conducting my research I found that, as the folks from Mississippi stated in their declaration of secession, the Confederate position was "thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery".
They were not fighting for Slavery per se. They were fighting for the inalienable right to lead their own lives as they saw fit
Then why did the Mississippi Confederates say "our position is thoroughly identified with slavery", instead of "our position is thoroughly identified with "leading our lives as we see fit"? (And by the way, no one has any right to "lead their life as they see fit" if that involves enslaving others.)
BTW, I know how to spell Confederacy, Chickamauga, Valiant, legacy, stupid, and progeny. Especially stupid.
I was so angry, I was typing faster than I am able.
>> I guess that's why Lincoln favored Black codes which prevented blacks from living in his state of Illinois.. Because he favored an all white state.
Good gawd man... Give it up... <<
As someone who actually TOOK a class on Illinois history in college last summer (and no, we do not have "revisionist" books which claim it's ALL the south's fault) , I would like to inform you that the "black codes" in Illinois were set up by DEMOCRATS in the late 1820s as retailation for Governor Coles' abolishition of slavery in 1822. The counties of southern illinois (as opposed to CENTRAL Illinois, where Lincoln lived) also set up a loophole to allow "indentered servantude" for life. Most of this provisions died out in the 1850s and ILLINOIS was the FIRST state to ratify the 13th amendment after the civil war. While Lincoln "personally" belived blacks were inferior, he ALWAYS held the belief that OPPRESSING them was WRONG. It is rumored that one of the reasons Lincoln had the state capital moved up north to Springfield (from Vandalia in Southern Illinois) in the 1830s when he served in Illinois' legislature is because he wanted the locals to be more supportive of the state legislature STOPPING black codes. Logically following that, of course, Lincoln introduced a bill in the 1850s when we was a congressman REPRESENTING Illinois to BAN permanate slavery in Washington D.C.-- so the locals in Maryland would slowly cross over to Illinois cause. In fact, to accomplish most of this during the civil war, Governor Yates (our 3rd REPUBLICAN Governor) had to work closely with President Lincoln to stop the Democratic controled legislature from overturning all the civil rights legislation.
Incidently, our FIRST Republican Governor in Illinois, Gov. Bissell (served 1857-1860), was also a NEAR victem of an assination attempt when he got into a heated arguement with one of his guests over whether or not slavery was needed to mainstain large planatations (Bissell argued it wasn't). His "guest" took offense at this and changed the Governor to a duel, and nearly shot him. Governor Bissell's guest was Jefferson Davis, name ring a bell?
I find it very disturbing that "conservatives" on this board feel they need to TRASH the midwestern states and/or the indivuals that founded the REPUBLICAN PARTY in order to preserve their "southern hertiage". I sure as heck don't need to wave a 35-star union flag from 1860 to preserve my "heritage"-- I can go a MUSEUM for that...
The out-of-control federal government won the first round when the South rose in arms against the tyrannical and dictatorial direction in which the federal government was headed
When do you think an independent Confederary would have ended its tyrannical and dictatorial policies against Blacks and given them the right to vote, after presumably at some earlier date dechattelizing them?
(de-centralized) federal government; more power and control to state and local governments and the people thereof; less taxes; less federal government voyeurism and imperialism; strict adherence to the plain language and intent of the U.S. Constitution; government free of corruption and waste; a federal government which is not morally and financially bankrupt; and, more individual responsibility...are guiding principles of the Confederacy.
Unfortunately, the facts don't support your assumption. Before seceding, the Confederates complained that the federal government was not doing enough to crack down on states that allowed aboltionists to peaceably assemble and practice free speech. After seceding, the Confederate states adopted a Constitution that forbade any state from abolitioning slavery and then proceeded to force everyone within their boundaries to accept worthless Confederate money as legal tender. Please read Jeffrey Rogers Hummels book that recounts the Confederates' love for big government. And what could be more corrupt, morally bankrupt, or irresponsible that making slavery the foundation of a nation?
And please, don't insult libertarians by suggesting that they are in favor of states that institutionalize slavery. Among the leading early libertarians were William Lloyd Garrison and Frderick Douglass. As Douglass once said: "I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery -- the great sin and shame of America."
I guess your message is "since Lincoln was something of a bigot it's OK for me to glorify Confederate bigots and slaveholders."
Well, no. My message is that perhaps you should consider just who were the bigots and slaveholders. I think you will find that there were just as many - if not more of them - up north. After all, wasn't it Massachusetts that was the first slave state?
Well stated recitation of Illinois history. Where did you take that course?
I forgot to ask if you learned in that course that famous Chicago Tribune publisher Joseph Medill is credited with giving the Republican Party its name.
Not to get too far off topic, but as a Grant scholar, what was his Order No. 11 all about?
My message is that perhaps you should consider just who were the bigots and slaveholders. I think you will find that there were just as many - if not more of them - up north. After all, wasn't it Massachusetts that was the first slave state?
I have never defended any bigots or slaveholders no matter where they came, but the Confederate glorifiers (like J. Wilkes Booth) have attempted to defend the indefensible Confederate slave state by claiming that the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, when in fact at its roots it was a conflict between Southern slaveholders and Northern abolitionists. I have no problem with people honoring their ancestors who fought for the Confederacy for their own personal reasons that may have had nothing to do with slavery, but to honor and admire the Confederacy itself is to honor and admire a slave nation.
One thing I find curious is that the adherents to the Southern side in this thread war do not weave into their posts any denunciation of slavery. Nor have any to my knowledge selected from the arsenal of possible arguements available to them the contention that I have seen from time to time that slavery was on its way out in the South economically anyway, and in an independent Confederate "nation" would have been phased out within a couple of decades (portending what fate for the Black man I hesitate to speculate on). Why is that I wonder?
They generally prefer to use the Clintonian "everybody was dirty" defense, but you'll probably see the "slavery would have died a natural death" defense here soon as well. I question that assumption, however, given the $3,000,000,000 value they put on slavery in 1860 and the fact that slavery was not only seen as economically necessary by Confederates but socially necessary, "beneficial" to negroes, and Biblically justified as well.
Does not compute! There is something so wrong about this, I don't know what, but it smells fishy.
Ravison, you and others might enjoy reading the selecton of civil war book reviews available here.
Here's a paragraph from a review of William C. Davis. The Cause Lost: Myths and Realities of the Confederacy:
"In the volume's final two sections, entitled "Excuses, Turning Points, and Defeats" and "The Confederacy in Myth and Memory," Davis tackles a host of controversial issues, and the reader is not left in doubt as to where he stands. For example, he argues vigorously and convincingly that slavery, rather than state rights, caused the war, but he makes a crucial distinction "between what led the sections to war and why men subsequently fought that war" (p. 180). Slavery, he argues, had everything to do with the former and usually had little or nothing to do with the latter. "Probably 90 percent of the men who wore the gray had never owned a slave," he writes, "and had no personal interest at all either in slavery or in the shadow issue of state rights....They fought and died because their Southern homeland was invaded and their natural instinct was to protect home and hearth" (p. 183)." [Emphasis added.]
And here is a snippet from a review of Anthony Gene Carey. Parties, Slavery and the Union in Antebellum Georgia:
"Carey stridently challenges previous interpretations of Georgia's 1860 election and its aftermath. There is little evidence, he argues, for the theory advanced by Steven Hahn, Michael P. Johnson, and William Freehling, among others, that white Georgians were deeply divided over secession. A close reading of the county resolutions and legislative debates, he says, shows widespread agreement over the soundness and equity of Georgia's domestic institutions, over the dangers of countenancing the North's failure to enforce the fugitive slave laws, and about the horrors of black citizenship and black suffrage should Lincoln's election be tolerated. In contrast to the state's once vibrant unionism and the widespread opposition to secession in the upper South, he finds few leaders in the state in open opposition to disunion as a concept. The state's cooperationists, in other words, were not simply unionists operating under a different name. The secession elections and debates were therefore contests over strategy rather than goals. [Emphasis added].
" This is an elegant and perhaps even definitive book on Georgia politics. The general reader will be grateful that much of his technical argument is buried in the footnotes. Yet this strategy is not without its shortcomings. His assertions about the growing primacy of national over state issues, in particular, would have benefited from an expanded empirical foundation. The reader is often forced to take Carey at his word when he argues that legislative coalitions on state issues shifted frequently and were then supplanted by resolutions on federal affairs. Nor, despite a chapter-length survey of Georgia's social and economic conditions, does he exhaust the possibilities for linking socio-economic variables, electoral behavior, and legislative roll-call analysis.
" This is particularly apparent in his discussion of secession, where he relies upon Michael P. Johnson's quantitative analyses. Because Johnson's statewide correlations between election returns and social variables are relatively low, Carey concludes that there was little connection between levels of slaveholding, for example, and electoral behavior. But once the data have been stratified by region, Johnson's correlations strengthen dramatically. Carey's own tables indicate a consistent relationship between high slaveholding percentages and immediatism. To answer this argument, Carey points to the seemingly random division among black belt counties between immediatism and cooperationism as proof that no clear-cut association existed. He further notes that even the north Georgia mountain counties were inconsistent in their opposition to immediatism. It is an argument that calls out for an analysis of variance or chi-square testing that unfortunately neither Johnson nor Carey performs." [Emphasis added.]
It is fascinating to watch historians and other social scientist struggle to master and use sophisticed statistical techniques of the type that have been so common in the finance academic literature for the past 30 years of so.
I have already quit responding to James Gunn, at least regarding the Confederacyy. Not so much to shun him as that it seems pointless to discuss the WBTS with him.
I hadn't noticed that you had ever tried. Anyone would be better that SW and his fake references.
The Confederacy and my kin who fought so valiently left me a priceless leagacy of courage and honor. Even in the gloom of defeat by overwhelming odds, they soldiered on to the bitter end.
Making up stories about the men who fought them is disrespectful to them. Calling them names as they lay in their graves is beneath all dignity.
My Mothers Grandfather lost 2 brothers at Chicamauga and he was wounded. (18th Alabama infantry, Co. A).
Maj J. H. Gibson, killed, replaced by Col. Samuel Adams. Part of Wood's Brigade, Prig Gen S. A. M. Wood. A brigade in P. R. Cleburne Divison in Lieut. Daniel H. Hill's Corps in Braxton Bragg's Army of the Tennessee. Killed at Chickamauga 98, wounded 680.
The following was written by Daniel H Hill:
Here was quite a senssation by Breckinridge's two thousand men. While Breckinridge was thus alarming Thomas for his left, Cleburne was having a bloody fight with the forces behind the breastworks. From want of alignment before battle, Deshler's brigade had to be taken out that it might not overlap Stewart. L. E. Polk's brigade soon encountered the enemy behind his logs, and after an obstinate contest was driven back. Wood's brigade (confederate) on the left had almost reached Poe's house (the burning house) on the Chattanooga Road when he was subjected to a heavy enfilading and direct fire, and driven back with great loss.
It goes on some more, but it is too long for the moment. After being repulsed, they engaged again in the critical movement that upset the Union position.
Taken from "Chickamauga- The Great Battle of the West" in Battles and Leaders, Vol III.
I will certainly defend slave owners. I would defend slavery but I think it was wrong. As a matter of fact I sort of wanted to defend slavery because it is so universally condemned. However I have thought about it and I do think it was wrong. BTW the most evil aspect of slavery was the slave trade which was for the most part carried on by New Englanders.
Now about slaveholders.
The only part of the WBTS which I have done any personal research regards a plantation owner. I was forced to do this by my professor in a course entitle "History of the South from 1854-1879". The professor (I can't remember his name but he was president of PHi Beta Kappa for Alabama) had obtained the Journal of a Planter. This Plantation owner was named Denton and he lived near Eufala Alabama.
The professor made copies and divided them among the students. Each student had to study about 40 pages then the entire class discussed the whole Journal.
Here are the conclusions.
First of all the accounts of whippings were true. He did whip his slaves. Other than that his treatment of them was remarkably kind.
When he went into Eufala to but supplies he would detail everything he bought. I noticed he would purchase toys, candy, trinkets, clothes, (something which I still remember and never figured out what it was, was he bought "Osnabrucks" for them) and Whiskey. He had a rule that the whiskey could not be stored. It was universally agreed that he treated them very much like children. Children that he very much loved by the way.
He was also very scientific in his farming practices. He was a man of high moral character. He mentions in his journal reading an account in a Northern newspaper about Masters sexually abusing their slaves. He abhorred the idea and thought it was laughable that yankees could have such warped ideas about the South.
We cannot fairly judge people of that day by today's standards. These people based their entire moral code on the Bible and it is true that the Bible does imply approval of slavery. I can think of two places in the Bible off hand.
The fact is this man lived by a very high moral standard. If one accepted slavery as moral, and he did, it probably was necessary to descipline them. Despite the fact that he would use a whip, he spoke out strongly against mistreatment of slaves.
I have no idea what you posted refers to. I do know the 18th Alabama or maybe just company A was commanded by a Colonel Holtzclaw.
This information was in a series of articles written in 1905 by a Dr. who was in the 18th Alabama. The Dr. did mention that it was all from memory and he couldn't be sure there were no errors. I can't remember the Dr's name off hand.
I have always heard from my family and from reading that Lincoln detested the idea of reconstruction and treating the South as if it were a captured country. He wanted the country to work together and make sure that nothing like this ever happened again.
You are right when you state that the only friend tha south had among the northerners was President Lincoln, when he was assinated all hope reconciliation was gone. Johnson, as a southerner was not trusted.
You might be interested in: Eugene Genovese. A Consuming Fire: The Fall of the Confederacy in the Mind of the White Christian South. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1998. xvi + 180 pp. Notes and index. $24.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-8203-2046-3.
Here is an except from a book review:
"For those of us who hum REM'S "Losing My Religion" a little too gleefully, it is impossible to demarcate "orthodoxy" with the precision and certainty of Genovese. Just how does he speak so surely for "the Lord"? Historically, we are on safer ground when we accuse the author of imposing himself--his thoughts and his arguments--into the nineteenth or early twentieth century. The author, like all good Biblical exegesists, counters scriptural debates from the nineteenth century debate with his own twentieth- century rejoinders. At various times, the author injects Deuteronomy 1:17 (p. 30) or Exodus 21:26-27 (p. 132) to support his contentions. In opposing the scientific racists of the postbellum North and South, Genovese insists "that any such vision could be reconciled with the Bible must be judged, to say the least, doubtful, and subsequent generations of imperialists who tried scripturally to justify their course plunged into rank bad faith" (p. 91). Just what is rank bad faith? Genovese also creates a fantasy reader who must have known, from his reading of Gibbon, that Muslims were prohibited from separating slave children from their mothers (p. 21). Ironically for such a conservative historian, authorial intrusions put him in the stylistic camp of postmodernists. "
Thanks, James. I don't have time to look up all my references. You're a far better scholar than I.
Speaking as a native Alabaman who now lives in the great and sovereign state of Texas (hint: each state was part of the confederacy at one time), I think that the Civil War was far more complex in its reasons and outcomes than most are willing to try to understand.
There were quite a few southerners who did NOT want to break with the Union, who did NOT like the Confederacy, and who were nevertheless "patriots". In particular, Kentucky (which did not secede) and east Tennessee (which did all it could to stay in the Union, and was a support to Grant's armies in the early part of the war) were solid Unionists with some exceptions.
It is true that the war was not "about" slavery, but this is another oversimplification. The slave issue was as divisive then as abortion is today, and it was PART of the reason for the divide between north and south.
Had "slave rights" been the only issue, Southerners would not have supported slavery. But there was every intention of protecting the rights of the slaveowners in the South by the Confederacy.
By the same token, there were often charges by the Democrats of the time that the war as about "abolitionism" and "freeing the niggers". If the populace had ever become convinced that this was true, the support for the war would have dropped to nothing (and it came very close in 1863).
There were "big issues" wrapped up with "smaller" ones. The causes, effects and legacy of that war are complex beyond the petty little diatribes often posted by the "Southern sympathizers" here and elsewhere.
The historical record doesn't come close to supporting this. Nor does even the history of reconstruction bear your theory out.
Slavery was not illegal in parts of the North, but where Grant was born and reared, it was. As James Gunn pointed out, Grant "owned" slaves by marriage, but was not a supporter of involuntary servitude.
As was also pointed out, his administration did more than any other for a century following, to assure Negro rights.
What's your point? That the role of blacks after slavery was undefined during this time? That it wasn't a very politically popular stance to take FOR equality for blacks outside of New England before the war?
Or that men (including political men) can and often DO change their views over time?
Or would you rather just keep it absurdly simple minded, so you don't have to actually think to much about your own preconceptions?
Dixis Sass, you might be interested in this book:
William H. Harris. With Charity for All: Lincoln and the Restoration of the Union. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1997. x + 354 pp. Notes, bibliography and index. $37.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-8131-2007-1.
Here's a paragraph from the book review:
"Overall, the president's policies were consistent, according to Harris, with his theory that secession was impossible. It was individuals who had left the Union. States could not be destroyed, and Lincoln's ever-conservative position, even after the war began, was to restore the southern states to their "proper relation" with the Union. Always the president sought to encourage the southern unionists, whose influence he had exaggerated even during the secession crisis. From Texas to North Carolina, Lincoln depended on these unionists to bring states back into the Union. As he appointed civilian-military governors, he expected them to restore the local self-government on which his system rested. In turn, these newly-cast sovereignties would legislate for the freedmen. Harris writes that "Lincoln favored a large measure of self-reconstruction, a position that owed a great deal to the nineteenth-century American commitment to local self-government as the cornerstone of republicanism and that nation's federal system of government" (p. 9). "
Adjust your medication, please.
Another book on the subject of why individual Confederate soldiers fought is James M. McPherson's "For Cause and Comrade: Why Men Fought in the Civil War" (Oxford University Press), which is based on the reading of some 25,000 letters and 249 diaries written by Union and Confederate soldiers. According to a Southern reviewer, McPherson found no opposition to slavery in the Southerners' writings, though only 20 percent of them even mention slavery at all (12 percent from non-slave-owning families doing so). If we assume that only 10% of the soldiers' families owned slaves (which seems low to me in light of the fact that some 30% of Southern families owned slaves at that time), then that means that more than nine out of ten soldiers from slaveholding families mentioned slavery in their letters, so it must have weighed pretty heavy on their mind.
I think the most revealing thing about McPherson's research is that not one Confederate soldier mentioned any opposition to slavery in the thousands of letters he reviewed. This suggests that almost all Confederate soldiers were either very tolerant of slavery or fearful that opposing it could jeopardize their lives, careers, or social standing.
McPherson also says that hatred of Northerners provided one of the main motivations for the Confederate soldiers. Given some of the venom that emanates on this forum from Confederate glorifiers, it appears that that visceral hatred of anyone from the north is still a very strong instinct among quite a few Southerners who identify with the Confederacy. (And I bet those Georgia mountain people wouldn't appreciate being subject to "chi-square testing" either. To paraphrase David Letterman, we all know how painful that can be.)
James M. McPherson gave a speech on his book "For Cause and Comrade: Why Men Fought in the Civil War" that was broadcast on CSPAN just a couple of weeks ago. Unsurprisingly, he found that the main motivator for the troops was not letting their comrades down in battle. That was particularly true with the Southern army, where regiments and brigades were often drawn from the same community.
Pardon my spelling in my previous post. Thank you for the information. I will check with my favorite bookstore (two blocks from the house).
He did whip his slaves...It was universally agreed that he treated them very much like children. Children that he very much loved by the way.
I think this is very revealing, because it demonstrates that the roots of the "nanny state" were in the South just as much as other parts of the country. Just as the Southern slaveholders whipped their slaves and treated them like children, so to does the modern nanny state threaten us with force to keep us bound to them and claim that they are doing it for our own good because we cannot fend for ourselves. The seeming sincerity of this form of tyranny makes it the most dangerous and difficult to overcome. And it cannot be overcome with acceptance of it as the prevailing notion of the day.
We cannot fairly judge people of that day by today's standards.
I'll leave judging people up to God, but we can judge their actions, and those who particiapted and perpetuated slavery were engaged in an evil undertaking, no matter how good or biblically correct they thought they were. Moreover, there were many people long before 1860 calling for the abolition of slavery based on solid arguments that for some reason (presumably economics and blind hatred of Northerners had a lot to do with it) did not penetrate very deeply in the South too quickly.
"I find it very disturbing that "conservatives" on this board feel they need to TRASH the midwestern states and/or the indivuals that founded the REPUBLICAN PARTY in order to preserve their "southern hertiage"."
Ditto that. I have a feeling this thread is full of Klan propaganda from the 1920s when they were part and parcel of the Democrat Party recruiting in Northern Republican cities, especially in the industrial midwest.
You people are hilarious. You so desperately want all Southern Confederates to appear as the buck-toothed, incestuous, illiterate racists routinely booked on the Jerry Springer show. But, alas, such is not the case. What to do with me and most other similarly situated Southern Confederates—the anti-slavery, pro-Confederate?
If you all are true conservatives (and I am making a horrendous and powerful assumption here) and, I understand, adverse to the proposition of one human “owning” another (as am I) then you too are anti-slavery Confederates and just do not realize it..
You obsess on the past; can’t see the forest for the trees. It must be terribly frustrating. That is, unless, you are really NOT true conservatives which is the more likely explanation. Again, Confederate principles of the role of the federal government are reflected in the Republican, Conservative, Libertarian and Consitutionalist political movements of today.
Are you all sure you would not be more at home over at the New York Times chat room? Please relocate. Thank you.
IMPORTANT LETTER FROM J. WILKES BOOTH
His original Purpose Was to Take Mr. Lincoln A Prisoner.---His Reasons For His Action. (From The Philadelphia Press, April 19, 1865)
We have just received the following letter, written by John Wilkes Booth, and placed by him in the hands of his brother-in-law, J.S. Clarke. It was written by him in November last, and left with J. S. Clarke in a sealed envelope, and addressed to himself, in his own handwriting. In the same envelope were some United States bonds and oil stocks.
This letter was opened by Mr. Clarke for the first time on Monday last, and immediately handed by him to Marshall Milward, who has kindly placed it in our hands Most unmistakably it proves that he must for many months have contemplated seizing the person of the late President.
It is, however, doubtful whether he imagined the black deed which has plunged the nation into the deepest gloom, and at the same time awakened it to a just and righteous indignation:
- _____ ______,1864
My Dear Sir:--
You may use this as you think best. But as some may wish to know when, who, and why, and as I do not know how to direct it, I give it (in the words of your master):--
"To whom it may concern" Right or wrong, God judge me, not man. For be my motive good or bad, of one thing I am sure, the lasting condemnation of the North. I love peace more than life. Have loved the Union beyond expression.
For four years have I waited, hoped, and prayed for the dark clouds to break, and for a restoration of our former sunshine. To wait longer would be a crime. All hope for peace is dead. My prayers have proved as idle as my hopes. God's will be done. I go to see and share the bitter end. I have ever held that the South were right. The very nomination of Abraham Lincoln, four years ago, spoke plainly war--war upon Southern rights and institutions. His election prove it.
"Await an overt act." Yes; till you are bound and plundered. What folly! The South were wise. Who thinks of argument or patience when the finger of his enemy presses on the trigger? In a foreign war, I, too, could say.
"Country right or wrong." But in a struggle such as ours (where the brother tries to pierce the brother's heart), for God's sake choose the right. When a country like this spurns justice from her side, she forfeits the allegiance of every honest freeman, and should leave him, untrammeled by any fealty soever, to act as his conscience may approve.
People of the North, to hate tyranny, to love liberty and justice, to strike at wrong and oppression, was the teaching of our fathers. The study of our early history will not let me forget it, and may it never.
This country was formed for the white, not for the black man. And, looking upon African slavery from the same stand-point held by the noble framers of our Constitution, I, for one, have ever considered it one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us) that God ever bestowed upon a favored nation. Witness heretofore our wealth and power; witness their elevation and enlightenment above their race elsewhere.
I have lived among it most of my life, and have seen less harsh treatment from master to man that I have beheld in the North from father to son. Yet Heaven knows, no one would be more willing to do more for the negro race than I, could I but see a way to still better their condition. But Lincoln's policy is only preparing the way for their total annihilation.
The South are not, nor have they been, fighting for the continuance of slavery. The first battle of Bull Run did away with that idea. Their causes since for war have been as noble and greater far than those that urged our fathers on. Even should we allow they were wrong at the beginning of the contest, cruelty and injustice have made the wrong become the right, and they stand now (before the wonder and admiration of the world) as a noble band of patriotic heroes. Hereafter, reading of their deeds, Thermopylae will be forgotten.
When I aided in the capture and execution of John Brown (who was a murderer on our western border, and who was fairly tried and convicted, before an impartial judge and jury, of treason, and who, by-the-way, has since been made a god), I was proud of my little share in the transaction, for I deemed it my duty, and that I was helping our common country to perform an act of justice. But what was a crime in poor John Brown is now considered (by themselves) as the greatest and only virtue of the whole Republican party.
Strange transmigration! Vice to become a virtue simply because more indulge in it! I thought then, as now, that the abolitionist were the only traitors in the land, and that the entire party deserved the same fate as poor old Brown; not because they wish to abolish slavery, but on account of the means they have ever endeavored to use to effect that abolition. If Brown were living, I doubt whether he himself would set slavery against the Union.
Most, or many in the North do, and openly, curse the Union if the South are to return and retain a single right guaranteed to them by every tie which we once revered as sacred. The South can make no choice. It is either extermination or slavery for themselves (worse than death) to draw from. I know my choice. I have also studied hard to discover upon what grounds the right of a State to secede has been denied, when our very name, United States, and the Declaration of Independence, both provide for secession.
But there is no time for words, I write in haste. I know how foolish I shall be deemed for undertaking such a step as this, where, on the one side, I have many friends and every thing to make me happy, where my profession alone has gained me an income of more than twenty thousand dollars a year, and where my great personal ambition in my profession has such a great field for labor. On the other hand, the South has never bestowed upon me one kind word; a place now where I have no friends, except beneath the sod; a place where I must either become a private soldier or a beggar.
To give up all of the former for the latter, besides my mother and sisters, whom I love so dearly (although they so widely differ with me in opinion), seems insane; but God is my judge. I love justice more (Heaven pardon me if wrong), more than a happy home. I have never been upon a battle-field; but oh! my countrymen, could you all but see the reality or effects of this horrid war as I have seen them (in every State, save Virginia), I know you would think like me, and would pray the Almighty to create in the Northern mind a sense of right and justice (even should it possess no seasoning of mercy), and that he would dry up this sea of blood between us, which is daily growing wider.
Alas! poor country, is she to meet her threatened doom? Four years ago, I would have given a thousand lives to see her remain (as I had always know her) powerful and unbroken. And even now I would hold my life as naught to see her what she was.
Oh! my friends, if the fearful scenes of the past four years had never been enacted, or if what has been had been but a frightful dream, from which we could now awake, with what overflowing hearts could we bless our God and pray for his continued favor! How I have loved the old flag can never now be known.
A few years since, and the entire world could boast of none so pure and spotless. But I have of late been seeing and hearing of the bloody deeds, of which she has been made the emblem, and would shudder to think how changed she had grown, Oh! how I have longed to see her break from the mist of blood and death that circles round her folds, spoiling her beauty and tarnishing her honor. But no, day by day has she been dragged deeper and deeper into cruelty and oppression, till now (in my eyes) her once bright red stripes look like bloody gashes on the face of heaven.
I look now upon my early admiration of her glories as a dream. My love (as things stand to-day) is for the South alone. Nor do I deem it a dishonor in attempting to make for her a prisoner of this man, to whom she owes so much of misery. If success attend me, I go penniless to her side.
They say she has found that "last ditch" which the North have so long derided and that it is impolitic to goad an enemy to madness. Should I reach her in safety, and find it true, I will proudly beg permission to triumph or die in that same "ditch" by her side. A Confederate doing duty upon his own responsibility.
J. Wilkes Booth
I disagree. Mr. Gunn does not know how to refute facts. When he is cited sources, he ignores them and insults the providers of the sources. Speaking as one who knows.
You say you will leave the judging of people to God. I agree.
This is Jesus' judgement of a slaveowner. He was a Roman Centurian who asked Jesus to heal a slave that he was fond of.
"Truly I say to you. I have not found such great faith in Israel". Jesus healed his slave.
This story is told just about identically in Matthew and Luke. In Matthew the term used is servant and in Luke, slave.
I think that what people think is important is not what really is. BTW I don't doubt that Jesus was not for slavery despite his call for slaves to obey their masters. I do think that Jesus found a slave owner to have the most sincere faith of any in Israel.
The Bible neither countenances nor condemns slavery. IOW, if you find yourself a slave, the Bible says certain things to you about your behavior, dittos with being a slave owner.
Sanity at last.
See #97, thank you.
anti-slavery Confederates
It seems like a rather after-the-fact construction.
the anti-slavery, pro-Confederate
I suppose you can be pro-Nazi and anti-anti-semitic, but it is an internal contradiction in terms of official positions of the political movement. And I noticed that you utterly failed to rebut my recitation of the severe weaknesses in your theory of what the Confederacy represented.
You seem intent on starting some kind of neo-Confederacy that varies considerable from the policies of the Confederacy of 1861-1865, and that is fine, but don't expect anyone who can objectively read the original Confederate documents to buy your attempt to twist history to support your movement.
By the way, I thought I made it clear in my previous post to you that I am a libertarian, not a conservative (Although I believe that I can get along politically with the more enlightended, open minded conservatives). As a libertarian, I am probably as far away from being "obsessed with the past" as one can get. I was once accused by a law professor of wanting to do away with all American institutions, but I don't necessarily want to do away with them, just make the individuals who operate them more responsible for their actions.
I am perfectly comfotable on the FreeRepublic forums. Unlike you, I do not need to assoicate with people who agree with me on every issue. Maybe you would be more comfortable on a KKK forum if you are made uncomfortable by people who criticize the policies of the Confederacy.
I would like to inform you that the "black codes" in Illinois were set up by DEMOCRATS in the late 1820s as retailation for Governor Coles' abolishition of slavery in 1822. The counties of southern illinois (as opposed to CENTRAL Illinois, where Lincoln lived) also set up a loophole to allow "indentered servantude" for life. Most of this provisions died out in the 1850s and ILLINOIS was the FIRST state to ratify the 13th amendment after the civil war.
I don't care who set up the black codes in the Land of Lincoln. What difference does it make?? Honest Abe was a strong supporter of those codes throughout his political career.
Logically following that, of course, Lincoln introduced a bill in the 1850s when we was a congressman REPRESENTING Illinois to BAN permanate slavery in Washington D.C.-- so the locals in Maryland would slowly cross over to Illinois cause.
Really. Then after he was elected why did it take him 18 months to free the slaves in Washington DC?? Or for that matter why didn't he free the slaves in any of the border states throughout the war. You can't say he was against slavery, but when he had the power to do something about it he didn't do anything.
find it very disturbing that "conservatives" on this board feel they need to TRASH the midwestern states and/or the indivuals that founded the REPUBLICAN PARTY in order to preserve their "southern hertiage". I sure as heck don't need to wave a 35-star union flag from 1860 to preserve my "heritage"-- I can go a MUSEUM for that...
Well the facts are, after Lincoln was shot the book was closed on him. The Government decided to turn him into a hero.
IMHO, 2 of the worst Presidents we ever had, Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt are on Mt. Rushmore.
Geez guys, how far apart are your cubicles in the White House basement?
Geez guys, how far apart are your cubicles in the White House basement?
You are a master at making ridiculous assumptions. Maybe you should check out my website before crashing and burning. Please "bale" out before you burn yourself any more.
Thanks. That's usually the quote that I post.
Licoln sure had a way with words, heh?
BTW, what's snopercod? How did you arrive at that?
I'm not a libertarian (although I have certain libertarian tendencies on certain issues), and ravison and I used to fight so much that "they" had to separate us.
My most masterful and ridiculous assumption is that you are a true conservative. Anyway, you are full of it on this Confederacy issue and we are beating a dead horse. Yes, and remember this and repeat it often: I am a Confederate who thinks owning human beings is a bad idea. There. Feel better?
Anyway, how about your "Project Opt-out"? Have you thoroughly considered the ramifications of such an amendment? So, I could say I do not want to pay for this affirmative action program; that nuclear aircraft carrier; a proposed dam in New Hampshire; foreign aid for South Africa; social security, etc. ad nauseum. Do not you realize how chaotic that would be? It would be anarchy. Even I will admit that support of the federal government cannot be piecemeal. Either support it or secede. We cannot pick and choose specific programs--that would never work. It is like a true Democracy--it would not work. And BTW, if another state decides to leave the Union, my money is on Arizona.
While Lincoln "personally" belived blacks were inferior, he ALWAYS held the belief that OPPRESSING them was WRONG.
"But why should emanicpation South send free people North? And in any event cannot the North decide for itself whether to receive them?" --Abraham Lincoln, message to Congress, December 1862
In fact, to accomplish most of this during the civil war, Governor Yates (our 3rd REPUBLICAN Governor) had to work closely with President Lincoln to stop the Democratic controled legislature from overturning all the civil rights legislation.
1853 - Illinois passed a law to prevent the immigration of freed negroes into the state.
1862 - The 1853 law was upgraded to an amendment to the state constitution by popular vote. The amendment stated that "no negro or mulatto shall immigrate or settle in this state."
Most of this provisions died out in the 1850s and ILLINOIS was the FIRST state to ratify the 13th amendment after the civil war.
Hope you didn't pay a lot for your class on Illinois history.
and I am making a horrendous and powerful assumption here
Very. And thank you! :-)
Was it not as "a supporter of slavery that Grant became an overseer of slaves? Or took slaves to war to serve him as body servants? Or when he refused to free HIS body slaves, when ordered to do so saying "Good help is hard to find"?
Given these truths, which are listed but quickly bypassed as of no import by Grant's many biographers, why would you say that Grant was NOT a supporter of chattal slavery?
Other than the promotion of former soldiers of the black yankee regiments, what EXACTLY can you document that he did for black americans during his terms as president?
I have no idea what you posted refers to. I do know the 18th Alabama or maybe just company A was commanded by a Colonel Holtzclaw.
I qouted an article written by Lieutenant General Daniel H. Hill C.S.A. about the Battle of Chickamauga. Hill was the Corps Commander. I listed the other active commanders on duty there. Your fellow may have been with the regiment at some point, but he was not in command that day.
Holtzclaw shows up at the Battle of Chattanooga in command of Clayton's Brigade, of which the 18th Alabama was a part in that action. As such they were part of Maj Gen Ambrose P Stewart's Division which was part of Maj Gen John C. Breckinridge's Corps at the time.
This was also hard fight as the brigade lost 21 killed, 100 wounded and 706 missing.
Stewarts Division was on Missionary Ridge on the left of the Confederate line.
You should read this stuff. It is your history written by the men of the Confederacy who made it.
Longstreet states the Chickamauga was the last action in the war in which Confederate troops showed high spirit.
In particular, Kentucky (which did not secede) and east Tennessee (which did all it could to stay in the Union, and was a support to Grant's armies in the early part of the war) were solid Unionists with some exceptions.
Sherman's Army contained many good soldiers from these states. Kilpatricks Cavalry also contained a really tough regiment from Alabama, as well as a number from Georgia.
It's too long to post tonight, but I have a story of Grant conditionally pardoning a Union soldier. The soldier had deserted his Union regiment and then was caught in Confederate uniform fighting for the Confederacy. Grant pardoned him on the condition that he go back to his original Union regiment and not desert again.
The pardon was only due to the unusual persistence and tenacity of the man's wife who hounded Grant until he gave in to her.
Thanks a lot for your advice, but i will keep my loyalty to my native southland and will continue to attack the anti-southern bigots on this and every other forum, that i frequent for their mean-spirited, self-righteous,outrageous lies about our ancestors, who were true HERO-MARTYRS to liberty and southern freedom.
If that makes me nuts, so be it! To paraphrase Senator Goldwater: Extremism in defense of freedom and one's native land is NO vice!
I believe that we southerners are NOT destined to complete the 21st century as part of the USA-we southerners as a society will not,i believe, long tolerate the continued trashing of our families, our separate culture, our religion, our freedoms and our traditional ways of life. Each and every day, more and more southrons of all colors, social stations, differing amounts of education and financial condition are discovering again the TRUE CAUSE (I refuse to call the cause, lost!); ten years ago, you would not have seen a SINGLE BLACK man wearing rebel gray & carrying the southern flag-it is getting to be so common now, that it is seldom remarked on. Just today, local radio here in DC reported that two of 12 counter-demonstraters at the naaLcp convention were black confederates in full CSA uniform, despite the high heat and humidity (wool uniforms and full battle kit are UNCOMFORTABLE in the summer!). When we held the re-dedication of the CSA monument in Howard County, MD last year, several "buffalo soldiers" (re-enactors)in Indian War-era 9th Cavalry uniforms, came to lay flowers at the memorial and fire salutes for our CSA veterans.
When and if we get a majority of black rebel-desendents (given the birthrates of families in the 19th century, there are probably about 1-1.5 MILLION black rebel-desendents in the country!)to come forward and join the SCV, watch out!
Frankly, i believe in my heart that my 9year-old niece will live to expierience living in a new and free Southern Republic; because of my age, i fear that i will not.
yours for dixie liberty, sw
One thing I find curious is that the adherents to the Southern side in this thread war do not weave into their posts any denunciation of slavery. Nor have any to my knowledge selected from the arsenal of possible arguements available to them the contention that I have seen from time to time that slavery was on its way out in the South economically anyway, and in an independent Confederate "nation" would have been phased out within a couple of decades (portending what fate for the Black man I hesitate to speculate on). Why is that I wonder?
Southern historians of the later generations are also pretty limp. If you go back to the ones alive during he war, you get some good discussion.
They generally prefer to use the Clintonian "everybody was dirty" defense, but you'll probably see the "slavery would have died a natural death" defense here soon as well. I question that assumption, however, given the $3,000,000,000 value they put on slavery in 1860 and the fact that slavery was not only seen as economically necessary by Confederates but socially necessary, "beneficial" to negroes, and Biblically justified as well.
Actually, the best years for cotton were yet to be, and the slave business could have thrived. Some Southerners predicted at the time of the Civil War that it would thrive until the year 2001. Indeed, it could have. Particularly if the South had had it's hands free to take territory in the Caribbean.
Congress ended the Slave Trade in 1808, but it was actually booming in the 1850's. A new twist on it in that time was the export of slaves from the US to Cuba, as well as between slave states. Although illegal, the common penalty in Southern states if someone was caught was for the state to sieze the illegal goods and auction them off to the highest bidder.
Anyway, how about your "Project Opt-out"? Have you thoroughly considered the ramifications of such an amendment?
Yes, I have considered the ramifications, which are that individuals would only pay for the government that they demand. It would be the ultimate in line item veto, and it would be no more chaotic than any other free market.
And please note the qualifying language that nothing therein shall be construed as any authority for any individual to evade full accountability for his/her own actions. Thus, if you decide to opt out of supporting the interstate highway program, you would still have to pay for the use of the system if you drove onto it. The ultimate effect would be to end all programs that people aren't really interested in paying the real cost of. It would be the ultimate in responsible autonomy and pure democracy (not majoritarian democracy but true maximization of self rule). I'm not saying it would be a utopia because people would still have to be eternally vigilant about holding people responsible for their actions, but it would maximize liberty given the nature of man.
By stating your opposition to my opt out proposal you are saying that you like majoritarian pet project socialism or believe that it is necessary to avoid "anarchy" (by which I assume you mean chaos). If your objection is the latter you are wrong. If it is the former then you are like most people who are comforted by the illusion than majoritarianism gives them more control over others than responsible liberty.
In any event, thanks for asking.
Kilpatricks Cavalry also contained a really tough regiment from Alabama, as well as a number from Georgia.
When was this? According to my source, General Killcavalry's forces at Gettysburg did not include any identified as from Alabama or Georgia. (There were 10 companies from West Virginia under his command.) Among his Brigade Commanders at Gettysburg was a colorful man commanding the First Brigade (General Elon Farnsworth) who Kilpatrick ordered to undertake a suicidal charge. (I am familiar with his sad story becuase he was originally the commander of my ggguncles' Eighth Illinois Company (K).) Given Killcavalry's reputation, anyone who was resourceful enough to survive his command must have been a tough soldier.
If you want your blood to boil, check this new thread out. Among the statements therein:
"`I don't think there is any doubt about it — without slavery, there would have been no Civil War,'says James I. Robertson, professor of history at Virginia Tech and a leading authority on the war."
"...Shelby Foote [says] `We could argue that kind of stuff till doomsday'."
You seem to be bigotted regarding those you call "Confederate glorifiers" (which we all know is just your code word for Southerners). But I understand. We Southerners are just about the only politically acceptable outlet left for biggotry these days.
What's your point? We were discussing "contradictions". Don't you find a contradiction (or at least ironic) that Lincoln - remembered by history as the emancipator of the slaves and the savior of the blacks - held basically the same beliefs about the negroes as did those he was fighting against.
Sure, people change. I know that my view of the South has changed from the common one (depicted in Easy Rider) now that I live here. But many people would just recite the revisionist history taught in schools today than expend the effort to actually learn anything about the South...
Or would you rather just keep it absurdly simple minded, so you don't have to actually think to much about your own preconceptions? Tell me (I'm just a po' simple country boy), just what are my preocupations?
I have no need to speak in code. Very few Southerners are silly enough to glorify the Confederacy. But if it makes you feel better to think of yourself as part of a poor, downtrodden, abused minority then there is nothing I can do to change your mind.
...true HERO-MARTYRS to liberty and southern freedom.
By that you mean WHITE southerners, and WHITE southern freedom.
Hitler was a HERO-MARTYR to the greatness of the German people. Self-proclaimed greatness is a humbug.
The Confederacy won virtually every battle for the first three years of the war--and may of those were in ostensibly "northern" territory.
The Confederate cause had sympathizers in the North. It had sympathizers in Congress.
Yet they lost. Why?
I submit it is because in the end, none of the "hero-martyrs" really believed in what they were fighting for, and quit.
They just quit.
Why don't you?
Don't you find a contradiction (or at least ironic) that Lincoln - remembered by history as the emancipator of the slaves and the savior of the blacks - held basically the same beliefs about the negroes as did those he was fighting against.
No, but then I understand the nature of politics, which is the art of creating some kind of consensus from widely disparate viewpoints.
I understand FULLY what Lincoln's views were, and I understand that his views--like my own--changed over the years as the realities of the situation presented themselves.
As I said before, outside of New England there was NO support for the idea of African-American suffrage. This was the climate of the times, and Lincoln reflected it.
Tell me (I'm just a po' simple country boy), just what are my preocupations?
1. The south was "right" in the war. They only wanted their independence. Slavery had NOTHING to do with it.
2. The southern white male is downtrodden and misunderstood; the 21st Century "nigger".
3. The south shall rise again.
you have exceeded my toloerence for silence about silliness.
in the first war for independence for the south, our HERO-MARTYRS were overwhelmed by an army at least 3 and possibly 4 times as large (depending on whose estimates you believe); they were hungry, cold, often barefoot, but none the less they shouldered their muskets and soldiered on until they were UNABLE to go farther.
Had we southrons had, i believe,another couple of regiments and more ammunition to throw at Chamberlain's 20th Maine, you and I would be living in different countries.
the war continues by other means; do not expect either surrender nor retreat this time.! yours for dixie freedom, sw
Extremely very few occurrances would be cause for my blood to boil and a discussion about WBTS history revision does not even come close--not even anywhere on the scale. Gore and/or Ms. Clinton getting elected would come close (along with some other emotions, I am sure--apprehension, disgust, frustration, and, yes, some anger) but I do not evedn think those elections results would set my blood to boiling.
...you and I would be living in different countries.
Well, since I was reared in Alabama and Georgia, and now live in Texas, that's probably not accurate.
the war continues by other means; do not expect either surrender nor retreat this time.!
OOooooookay, fine. Adjust the tinfoil in your hat, and see if the reception is any better.
...yours for dixie freedom
And "yours for free Dixie CUPS".
yeegads, a scalawag! LOL
When was this? According to my source, General Killcavalry's forces at Gettysburg did not include any identified as from Alabama or Georgia. (There were 10 companies from West Virginia under his command.) Among his Brigade Commanders at Gettysburg was a colorful man commanding the First Brigade (General Elon Farnsworth) who Kilpatrick ordered to undertake a suicidal charge. (I am familiar with his sad story becuase he was originally the commander of my ggguncles' Eighth Illinois Company (K).) Given Killcavalry's reputation, anyone who was resourceful enough to survive his command must have been a tough soldier.
I am speaking of the Sherman's Army of Georgia in 1864-1865. Kilpatrick was sent out to Sherman for his campaign there. The 8th Illinois was attached to the Army of the Potomac in 1864, but I suspect their enlistment ended that summer, for they do not show up in the Petersburg campaign. It is also possible they were disbanded and then combined into some other unit. This commonly occurred to many fine old regiments when the total of casualties got to close to the number of men who originally enlisted.
I have good news and bad news for you if you count a measure of military achievement on a scale from good to bad.
The bad news is that on the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg Farnsworth was promoted to command of a Brigade under Kilpatrick. The 8th Illinois was not with Farnsworth when he was killed.
The good news is that the 8th Illinois was in Gambles Brigade under Buford. As such, it was the Union force that held off Henry Heth (in particular, Archer's brigade) for two hours on the first day at Gettysburg while General Reynolds brought up his Ist Corps. The 8th was relieved by the Iron Brigade. Brigade losses for Gamble were 13 killed, 58 wounded and 28 missing. Not bad at all for holding 4,000 Confederates for two hours. I believe that Gamble's men had repeating rifles. If they had not held for two hours, Heth could easily have taken the heights behind town before Reynolds came up.
They were not fighting for Slavery per se. They were fighting for the inalienable right to lead their own lives as they saw fit
Then why did the Mississippi Confederates say "our position is thoroughly identified with slavery", instead of "our position is thoroughly identified with "leading our lives as we see fit"? (And by the way, no one has any right to "lead their life as they see fit" if that involves enslaving others.)
This is a hard thing to understand for people raised behind the veil of Northern liberalism. (ie - in American schools)
You must go back in the history. The Southern climate is much harder to live in than the North. In Africa, the black man was a wasted resource who was acclimatized to the South as the White man never was. In Africa, white men died of disease in 6 months just as on ships to the West, black men died of smallpox. This was a hard fact of geography.
The white man took the black man, who was already in Slavery, and brought him to a land where he lived productively and to a higher standard than he had ever known. Even today, the life expectancy of Africans is only 30 years, and their annual wages are 200 dollars.
In America, which these people would never have reached on their own, they were given a much better life, by the millions. Social engineering of this kind had never been done before.
The Cotton trade made this all possible. The Africans were essentially ignorant when brought into service. No society has ever been able to afford turning large numbers of slaves into educated citizens. Even today, this task has not been finished, although our own liberals have had 130 years to do it and have not done it yet.
The Southern way of life was inseparable from Servitude, but it did not exist for the sole purpose of servitude. It existed to provide a better life for all of it's citizens, both free and in servitude.
The North did not like black servitude, but the North's only serious solution to it was to send the blacks back to Africa. As Jefferson noted, once undertaken, it was not possible to really separate the institution from the lives of the Southerners. This was the condition the North dreaded, and this was the condition the North chose to try and eliminate. Left to the kindness of our liberal forebears, there would be no Africans in North America. This is why today you see blacks making better progress in society as a whole in the South than the North.
They were not fighting for Slavery per se. They were fighting for the inalienable right to lead their own lives as they saw fit
Then why did the Mississippi Confederates say "our position is thoroughly identified with slavery", instead of "our position is thoroughly identified with "leading our lives as we see fit"? (And by the way, no one has any right to "lead their life as they see fit" if that involves enslaving others.)
This is a hard thing to understand for people raised behind the veil of Northern liberalism. (ie - in American schools)
You must go back in the history. The Southern climate is much harder to live in than the North. In Africa, the black man was a wasted resource who was acclimatized to the South as the White man never was. In Africa, white men died of disease in 6 months just as on ships to the West, black men died of smallpox. This was a hard fact of geography.
The white man took the black man, who was already in Slavery, and brought him to a land where he lived productively and to a higher standard than he had ever known. Even today, the life expectancy of Africans is only 30 years, and their annual wages are 200 dollars.
In America, which these people would never have reached on their own, they were given a much better life, by the millions. Social engineering of this kind had never been done before.
The Cotton trade made this all possible. The Africans were essentially ignorant when brought into service. No society has ever been able to afford turning large numbers of slaves into educated citizens. Even today, this task has not been finished, although our own liberals have had 130 years to do it and have not done it yet.
The Southern way of life was inseparable from Servitude, but it did not exist for the sole purpose of servitude. It existed to provide a better life for all of it's citizens, both free and in servitude.
The North did not like black servitude, but the North's only serious solution to it was to send the blacks back to Africa. As Jefferson noted, once undertaken, it was not possible to really separate the institution from the lives of the Southerners. This was the condition the North dreaded, and this was the condition the North chose to try and eliminate. Left to the kindness of our liberal forebears, there would be no Africans in North America. This is why today you see blacks making better progress in society as a whole in the South than the North.
Cruiser, the South was fighting to, among other things, make sure that the institution of Slavery was NOT touched by the Federal Government. They were afraid with the election not only of Lincoln, but of a Republican Congress, that slavery's days were numberd.
There were far too many wealthy people whose wealth was tied up in slaves and the land and crops worked by slaves. It was a simple case of a virtue being made of what they saw as necessity.
As I've said before, the reasons for the war were complex, but the defense of the right to own and hold slaves was right in that mix. Ignoring that is the same as those who continue to insist that there was no Holocaust.
It is a simple matter to prove that there were wrongs on both sides of that war, but the fact remains that slavery was a big part of why it was fought.
I am speaking of the Sherman's Army of Georgia in 1864-1865. Kilpatrick was sent out to Sherman for his campaign there.
Thanks for answering my question.
The 8th Illinois was attached to the Army of the Potomac in 1864, but I suspect their enlistment ended that summer, for they do not show up in the Petersburg campaign.
I have their regimental history. During most of 1864 the Eighth were battling General John Singleton Mosby's guerillas near Washington and being assigned to various duties defending Washington, some of which involved pretty hot battles such as in Frederick City and Monocacy.
[Elon] Farnsworth was promoted to command of a Brigade under Kilpatrick.
Elon Farnsworth (who's uncle John Farnsworth had organized and led the 8th Ill. before returning to Congress) had been assigned to Pleasonton's staff a few months before Gettysburg and was promoted to Brigadier General at the same time as two other officers on Pleasonton's staff, Wesley Merritt and George Armstrong Custer.
The good news is that the 8th Illinois was in Gambles Brigade under Buford. As such, it was the Union force that held off Henry Heth (in particular, Archer's brigade) for two hours on the first day at Gettysburg while General Reynolds brought up his Ist Corps.
Gamble had been the commander of the 8th Ill. before being promoted to Brigadier General. The commander of the 8th Ill. at Gettysburg (Major John Beveridge) would later become the governor of Illinois. Lieutenant Marcellus Jones of the 8th Ill. is credited with firing the first shot at Gettysburg. Accoring to my sources, which seem reliable, the 8th Ill, was not armed with repeating rifles but rather single shot carbines. The only repeating weapons presentat Gettysburg were in the hands of two regiments of Custer's Brigade of Michigan cavalry and they did not see action at Gettysburg until July 3. Given the rapidity of the fire of Buford's men, the Rebels initially believed that they were facing veteran foot soldiers with repeating rifles.
In addition to 130 men killed or wounded, Buford's men also had 70 horses killed, which gives you some idea of the intensity of the fighting. As you pobably know, General Reynolds was killed shortly after his infantryman relieved the cavalry on the front lines. But even after being relieved Buford's cavalry remained in Gettysburg covering the infantry's flanks. Gamble's troopers remained in the fighting at Seminary Ridge until they fell back through town at around 4:00 p.m. to Cemetary Hill, where they were ordered to fein a charge to slow down the oncoming Rebels. Gamble, with the 8th Ill. in the lead, did so under a hail of bullets and forced Lane's brigade of advancing Confederates into a hollow square where they were picked off in large numbers by some of Gamble's men who were providing covering fire behind a stone wall. Dick Ewell, the Confederate commander, then decided to hold off on storming the high ground south of town, and as a result the Union reinforcements were allowed to arrived that night. Buford's troopers then moved south to protect the Union supply lines, and after the battle was over they harassed Lee's retreat, during which action my ggguncle was mortally wounded.
Really. Then after he was elected why did it take him 18 months to free the slaves in Washington DC?? Or for that matter why didn't he free the slaves in any of the border states throughout the war.
How should he have "freed" them, extra-constitutional Executive Orders like Bill Clinton? Lincoln had absolutely no Constitutional authority to do so. The Emancipation Proclamation only affected slaves in States in rebellion – because they were no longer States under constitutional protection, but occupied territories under Military law. Lincoln could legally, as CiC of the Armed Forces, emancipate the slaves in areas under military occupation. He could not do the same in the Border States since they were not in rebellion and still under the protection of the constitution and the laws of their states.
Cruiser, the South was fighting to, among other things, make sure that the institution of Slavery was NOT touched by the Federal Government. They were afraid with the election not only of Lincoln, but of a Republican Congress, that slavery's days were numberd
This is a hard thing to understand, but the viewpoint you voice is steeped in the Northern point of view which is also the root of modern liberalism. The fight over 'slavery' was not just a fight over the morality of Slavery. If you buy that, and it is clear to some extent that you do, then you miss the real causes. The North won the fight, in terms of history and education after the fact, by foisting a limited and artificial world view on most of our society.
The men of the South were an agrarian society. While at once they prided themselves on their thinking, they also prided themselves on their practicality. The Southern Cause is embedded in an realistic view of the world that was not the root view of the Northern Abolitionists.
The root evil for the South was a Constitution that guaranteed them rights to happiness and prosperity which the North had systematically denied over decades. It was not the elimination of slavery that was so pressing, as it was the denial of the possiblities of its growth. A minority of Southerners owned slaves, but all of them were told that aspects of their life they considered normal and good were not allowed in most of the Union, even though the Constitution said this was not the case.
The North would contend that the war was fought to free the slaves, yet history tells us this was not the result of the war. Not until the 1950's and many would contend, not even now. The war was fought to eliminate the perceived threat of the result of continued Southern growth of an economy with blacks, and to prevent such a thing from coming into existence. The root cause was fear of blacks, not a compelling desire to let them vote and be members of Congress. Fear of blacks is not slavery. How could anyone miss this point?
[That the Confederates were not fighting for slavery per se even though they said they were] is a hard thing to understand for people raised behind the veil of Northern liberalism. (ie - in American schools)
I didn't find it hard to reject leftist liberalism (as opposed to classical liberalism) at an early age in favor of libertarianism, so your explanation is quite unconvincing. Your argument seems to be that the Confederates were simply fighting for a way of life which incidentally included slavery, but slavery was more than just incidentally included in Southern culture, it was central to it, as the Mississippians I quoted explained. And while you contend that liberalism was of northern origin, your paternal attitude toward African Americans is central to liberalism (though they would disagree that chains and whippings are the tools of good parents -- they prefer welfare and affirmative action). Remember that the "Great Society" was the idea of a Southerner (LBJ)?
And your argument that blacks were better off as slaves in America than in Africa ignores the fact that black slavery may well have removed the most able-bodied blacks from Africa and made it more difficult for Africans to overcome the tremendous geographical disadvantages they had living there instead of in Europe or North America. And if the Southern slaveholders were trying to uplift the blacks, why did they make it illegal for them to become educated after the abolition movement got revved up?
I would also argue that by keeping the blacks in slavery so many generations the slaveholders encouraged the blacks to develop an attitude of satisfied dependency. Tocqueville and others have also pointed out how slavery tended to make the slaveholders lazier and less productive.
Morover, "the North's only serious solution" wasn't returning freed slaves to Africa -- it was the 13th and 14th Amendments. Had the northern abolitionists not been willing to take a stand against slavery, America today would undoubtably have a lot more racial problems like South Africa even if slavery would have somehow "died a natural death" as some Confederate glorifiers have suggested.
How should he have "freed" them, extra-constitutional Executive Orders like Bill Clinton? Lincoln had absolutely no Constitutional authority to do so
Simple. Get the necessary 2/3rds of the loyal states to amend the constitution.
Don't try and arrest the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court like Lincoln did.
Gamble's troopers remained in the fighting at Seminary Ridge until they fell back through town at around 4:00 p.m. to Cemetary Hill, where they were ordered to fein a charge to slow down the oncoming Rebels. Gamble, with the 8th Ill. in the lead, did so under a hail of bullets and forced Lane's brigade of advancing Confederates into a hollow square where they were picked off in large numbers by some of Gamble's men who were providing covering fire behind a stone wall. Dick Ewell, the Confederate commander, then decided to hold off on storming the high ground south of town, and as a result the Union reinforcements were allowed to arrived that night. Buford's troopers then moved south to protect the Union supply lines, and after the battle was over they harassed Lee's retreat, during which action my ggguncle was mortally wounded
Here is one of the great questions. Gamble's men are generally reported to have moved down to the vicinity of Emmitsburg Road and the Peach Orchard. But accounts differ as to how long they stayed. In particular, how was it possible that Lee's scouts went through this area in the late night/ pre dawn hours to get to the round tops and back and not see any troopers? This becomes extremely puzzling when you consider that the road was carrying a lot of traffic in the late night and morning.
Do you have any info on this?
My ggg was at the Army Hospital at Chestnut Hill, Phila at the time, but his cousin William and the 6th NJ came up Emmitsburg road with de Trobriand's Brigade during this time frame. Perhaps our ggguncles passed each other.
At Buford's request, the two brigades in his division at Gettysburg were sent to the rear to regroup on July 2. At 9:00 a.m. Gamble's men left for Taneytown with Devin's men following that afternoon. After spending the night there they proceeded on July 3 to Westminster where the railroad from Baltimore terminated.
They remained there until late the next day when, in order to move into position to harass Lee's retreat, they marched to Frederick, where they camped on the night of the 5th. On July 6 they marched toward Williamsport and were engaged in battle by Gen. John Imboden's cavalry and mounted infantry (3000 strong). That was the battle that mortally wounded by ggguncle and many others, including Major William Medill, the brother of Joseph Medill, the editor/publisher of the Chicago Tribune.
My sources are the regimental history of the 8th Ill.(HARD, ABNER, M.D.: History of the Eighth Cavalry Regiment, Illinois Volunteers) and Edward Longacre's The Cavalry at Gettysburg (1993 University of Nebraska Press).
At Buford's request, the two brigades in his division at Gettysburg were sent to the rear to regroup on July 2. At 9:00 a.m. Gamble's men left for Taneytown with Devin's men following that afternoon. After spending the night there they proceeded on July 3 to Westminster where the railroad from Baltimore terminated.
Do you know at what time and from whom Buford made his request? Also, what time did Devin's men leave?
I have that the 9th New York, company E, were out to the West at dawn and captured a black servant of some Confederate officer, and in later days some of these men claimed to have seen Longstreets approach.
Obviously not, but they probably saw Confederate troops along Seminary.
Later in the morning, Sgt William Bradshaw did go to Pitzers house and claimed to see a large group of men heading north. This is another matter.
At least two squadrons of the 6th NY supported Berdons men. Bufords reports do not reflect these events.
I also have Gamble at the Peach Orchard at 10 am with Calef's battery. Gambel ordered them into position. The batteries were soon withdrawn, but while they were in the Peach Orchard there was skirmishing going on in the area.
Do you have any detail on these?
The North won the fight, in terms of history and education after the fact, by foisting a limited and artificial world view on most of our society.
I continue to be amused by the fact that, with so much POWER, seemingly, in the hands of those who are said to have "foisted" their view of history on the world, there is still great variety of opinion outside their "foisting".
For instance, I have heard ALL MY LIFE from folks as varied as my 8th grade history teacher (who was born and raised in Chicago, funnily enough) and my drunken uncle Buck (yes, I really had an "uncle Buck"), that "the South was wronged, and will rise again". I mean, it's sort of a running joke here in the sunny Southland. You get the comic-book figure of the old geezer dressed in his Confederate Greys, declaring "Hell No, I Ain't Fergittin'!" It's like a cottage industry!
You'd think with all this "foisting" going on with those in power, this alternate view wouldn't be allowed to leak out!
I wonder if it ever occurs to these people that perhaps their OWN view is just as "skewed" and "preconceived" and (dare I say it?) FOISTED on them as that they contend against!
FWIW, and BTW, I don't think the war was "about" slavery, but slavery was the touch of the match to the powderkeg. It was a VITALLY important issue, as are nearly all issues related to deep pocketbooks.
According to Longacre, Buford requested and received permission to fall back from Pleasonton (who consulted with Meade) "early" in the morning of July 2. Devin's and Calef's men became engaged in battle with Rebel infantry while reconnoitering west of the Emmitsburg Road until "well past noon". Hanley's suadron (9th NY) remained until dark. Gamble's men had seen a little (unspecified) action in that area before leaving earlier.
I should have noted before that Gen. Merritt's reserve brigade was on the way up from Mechanicsburg toward Emmitsburg (staying there the night of the 2nd and leaving there at noon on the 3rd) and would eventually join the part of battle that killed Elon Farnsworth later on July 3. Along the way, Merritt sent a four squadron detachment of the 6th U.S. under Major Paddy Starr toward Fairfield in response to a Unionist citizen's tip that Rebel forage wagons were passing through there, where they ran into Grumble Jones' brigade and skirmished with the 6th and 7th Virginia, resulting in the wounding and capture of Starr (all told 242 of his detachment were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner while Jones' men suffered 44 casualties).
I continue to be amused by the fact that, with so much POWER, seemingly, in the hands of those who are said to have "foisted" their view of history on the world, there is still great variety of opinion outside their "foisting".
For instance, I have heard ALL MY LIFE from folks as varied as my 8th grade history teacher (who was born and raised in Chicago, funnily enough) and my drunken uncle Buck (yes, I really had an "uncle Buck"), that "the South was wronged, and will rise again". I mean, it's sort of a running joke here in the sunny Southland. You get the comic-book figure of the old geezer dressed in his Confederate Greys, declaring "Hell No, I Ain't Fergittin'!" It's like a cottage industry!
You'd think with all this "foisting" going on with those in power, this alternate view wouldn't be allowed to leak out!
I wonder if it ever occurs to these people that perhaps their OWN view is just as "skewed" and "preconceived" and (dare I say it?) FOISTED on them as that they contend against!
Well, you're NO different than most Americans. In fact you're NO Different than most Ivy League Educated elitist.. You are clueless.
Glance over the following links below.
Now those of us who were educated before the dumbing down of America know what the truth is.
There was a time in this country not too long ago when we proudly named nuclear class submarines after hero's like Robert E. Lee and nobody thought twice about it.
I didn't find it hard to reject leftist liberalism (as opposed to classical liberalism) at an early age in favor of libertarianism, so your explanation is quite unconvincing. Your argument seems to be that the Confederates were simply fighting for a way of life which incidentally included slavery, but slavery was more than just incidentally included in Southern culture, it was central to it, as the Mississippians I quoted explained.
Yes, it was. And so it seems you contend that when they fought for their way of life, and that the only essential thing in their way of life was Slavery. I would contend that they did not get up in the morning only to manage their slaves, but rather to build a South as best they saw fit. I would further contend that this was their business, and not the business of the likes of Charles Sumner, or for that matter, Abraham Lincoln.
And while you contend that liberalism was of northern origin, your paternal attitude toward African Americans is central to liberalism (though they would disagree that chains and whippings are the tools of good parents -- they prefer welfare and affirmative action). Remember that the "Great Society" was the idea of a Southerner (LBJ)?
Now you miss entirely the difference. The paternalism of the South was of much sterner stuff. The paternalism of Liberalism is "give the filthy man some money dear, then he will go away." The paternalism of the South is "pick up that shovel and finish that ditch if you want to eat."
The idea that the Great Society was intended only for blacks has me left a little baffled. I suspect that is not what you intended, but that is what it seems to indicate within the context of this discussion.
And your argument that blacks were better off as slaves in America than in Africa ignores the fact that black slavery may well have removed the most able-bodied blacks from Africa and made it more difficult for Africans to overcome the tremendous geographical disadvantages they had living there instead of in Europe or North America.
The flaw your line of thought here is that the slaves were the conquered ones. Hence, such as you put forward some sort of Darwinian contention here, it makes more sense to say that because whites took from Africa the less combative and dominant genes, Africa had a better chance of thriving. Yet it still did not.
And if the Southern slaveholders were trying to uplift the blacks, why did they make it illegal for them to become educated after the abolition movement got revved up?
Herein lies an oft missed point. The answer is simple. Because of the abolitionist movement. John Brown is of course a wonderful example of where this irresponsible path led. It led to his vision of large numbers of dead men, black and white. In any case, it was a case of meddling in social institutions. You should point out that before the Abolitionists fermented revolt, it was not illegal for whites to educate blacks, and, when if Southern whites chose to do so, they did so.
I would also argue that by keeping the blacks in slavery so many generations the slaveholders encouraged the blacks to develop an attitude of satisfied dependency. Tocqueville and others have also pointed out how slavery tended to make the slaveholders lazier and less productive.
Tocqueville was a tourist. True a long vacation, but still a tourist. That line is a common line from the North, yet despite the truth of it such as you wish to maintain, the South produced the major export crop which provided the country with an acceptable balance of trade when it sorely needed it.
Morover, "the North's only serious solution" wasn't returning freed slaves to Africa -- it was the 13th and 14th Amendments. Had the northern abolitionists not been willing to take a stand against slavery, America today would undoubtably have a lot more racial problems like South Africa even if slavery would have somehow "died a natural death" as some Confederate glorifiers have suggested.
More racial problems? I thought there was really one. What we would have had was more blacks. It is to be noted that the 13th and 14th amendments were largely a joke after Hayes-Tilden, and they remained that way until the 1950's, abolitionists and all. How can you blame that on the South when it was the North, even, the Republicans, who dropped the implementation of these amendments for blacks in exchange for a presidential election victory. Some true believers there, eh?
I continue to be amused by the fact that, with so much POWER, seemingly, in the hands of those who are said to have "foisted" their view of history on the world, there is still great variety of opinion outside their "foisting".
For instance, I have heard ALL MY LIFE from folks as varied as my 8th grade history teacher (who was born and raised in Chicago, funnily enough) and my drunken uncle Buck (yes, I really had an "uncle Buck"), that "the South was wronged, and will rise again". I mean, it's sort of a running joke here in the sunny Southland. You get the comic-book figure of the old geezer dressed in his Confederate Greys, declaring "Hell No, I Ain't Fergittin'!" It's like a cottage industry!
Yes, but often folk tales that are persistent and widespread draw their existence from real phenomenon.
You'd think with all this "foisting" going on with those in power, this alternate view wouldn't be allowed to leak out!
This may be due to the fact that we are not yet a police state. Yet, even in a police state, such things would probably not entirely disappear. Again, for the same reason.
I wonder if it ever occurs to these people that perhaps their OWN view is just as "skewed" and "preconceived" and (dare I say it?) FOISTED on them as that they contend against!
This is very true, particularly of the last 50 years. The old boys who started this whole business are long gone, and at this point in time, the whole business has become a joke, even though the truth remains not that far underneath. We are poking at it now.
FWIW, and BTW, I don't think the war was "about" slavery, but slavery was the touch of the match to the powderkeg. It was a VITALLY important issue, as are nearly all issues related to deep pocketbooks.
The touch of the match to the powderkeg was the pocketbook, not slavery. Slavery is a dead line and a false line to pursue for the cause of the war. After the fact, it became a wonderful feel good justification for the buther's job, that is why that myth grew in the North. The Old South was wronged financially, to some extent it has recovered, but such as it was it was denied it's real opportunities, both within the Union prior to 1861 and through the war on the Confederacy.
It is hard for me to believe that a better more permanent Union could not have been found through peaceful means.
And to think he beat the crap out of Lee
Grant was a good soldier but he was a drunk and a lousy human being.
But what the heck, we all have faults, Grant just had a lot more of them.
But . . . he won the war, and that's what really counts, right?
Ignore them . . . foolish people say foolish things!
Simple. Get the necessary 2/3rds of the loyal states to amend the constitution
It was called the 13th Amendment.
Thanx, Cruiser, at long last, somebody brought up the real issue.
It was Lincoln's lack of leadership that turned what should have been a near-miss into total war. Reminiscent of our current officeholder, Lincoln tried to triangulate and thereby marginalize his political opposition (he spent ZERO days campaigning in the South in 1860); he uttered wholly insincere platitudes (the First Inaugural is beautifully written, but completely phony; meant not to reassure the South, but to hold his coalition together - to try to position himself as Mr. Moderate and his opposition as meanies - sound familiar?); and then to employ a multitude of illegal means to suppress the opposition (unfortunately for him, no FBI files in those days!). To save the Constitution, he claimed the right to destroy it. 'To save the village, we must burn the village.'
Firing on Ft. Sumter was a provocative act, but no one was killed. A true leader would have seized that fortunate outcome to appeal to calm - to urge moderates on both sides to realize just how close to the brink they'd come.
Instead, what did he do. He played macho man. If someone wants to argue that slavery brought us to the brink of war, that's fine. But no one can convince me that war was inevitable or necessary.
It has always struck me as funny that these Abolitionist hero-worshipers (murder, mayhem, anarchy are OK in support of a good cause - you know, like the libs and the press saying the Unabomber had some good points) see slavery as the be-all and end-all event in U.S. history and from that vilify the South. Yet none of them can come up with an alternative scenario whereby slavery would have ended as early as the mid-1860s. According to their great 'love' of the Constitution, if the South had been good little boys and agreed with the North about secession, emancipation would have been delayed for who knows how long. Which side are they on? Their bitterness is so great they can't see the Secessionists as their unwilling allies. Far be it for them to imagine that anyone who disagrees from them may be acting out of principle.
At this point, the old 'those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it' warning is in order. My own opinion is that Lincoln's illegal actions provided the philosophical foundation for FDR/LBJ/Big Government of today. By assigning Lincoln secular sainthood status instead of looking at his actions with the skepticism appropriate for citizens of a free society to direct toward ALL politicians, we guaranteed the abuses of the 20th Century.
When you ignore the fundamentals you upset a delicate balance and inevitably bring on unintended consequences. It is said that commies are just liberals in a hurry. Well, by their unwillingness to wait on a consensus to develop and by Lincoln embracing them, the Abolitionists got the bloodbath they wanted. Combine liberal guilt, a willingness to vilify and deny the rights of the opposition, and the appearance of an opportunistic politician and what do you get? You get what we got in the mid-19th Century and you get what we have now.
(Thanx, too, for declining to take the bait of the self-righteous respondents - not referring to all- who take the other view. It helped me stay calm.)
"There are certain facets of this letter which make me doubt its authenticity........."
You think cover-ups are a recent invention?
Children are taught that Booth was a "crazed lone nut" (registered trademark US government). Few indeed are the histoy classes which remind folks that 6 other people were hanged for the conspiracy against Lincoln, including the first woman sentanced to death by a federal court, Mary Surratt.
Oddly enough, there was a 7th conspirator who escaped the hangman's noose, aided by no less than the Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, who provided money and lawyers only to this one defendant. Stanton also confiscated all the photos taken of Lincoln ater the assasination and had them destroyed, with the only known surviving photo of Lincoln lying in state having been found in Stanton's own papers by his descendents. Stanton also ordered the destruction of several pages from Booth's diary.
Brigadier General Lafayette C. Baker, in charge of Union Counter-intelligence during the civil war, was murdered in 1868, but left behind a journal which also implicated Stanton in the assassination plot.
History repeats itself. (That's what's wrong with history).
I would contend that they did not get up in the morning only to manage their slaves, but rather to build a South as best they saw fit. I would further contend that this was their business...
Castro probably gets up in the morning to build Cuba as best he sees fit. Is the fact that he does so at the expense of the liberty of other Cubans just his business and not anything you and I should try to change?
The paternalism of the South is "pick up that shovel and finish that ditch if you want to eat."
That sounds like the paternalism of Castro.
The idea that the Great Society was intended only for blacks has me left a little baffled.
I implied no such thing. I used it as an example of a Southerner's paternalistic liberalism.
The flaw your line of thought here is that the slaves were the conquered ones.
You can't assume that people are less able-bodied just because they are captured and enslaved. They may have simply been not as ruthless and hell bent on domination as their captors.
You should point out that before the Abolitionists fermented revolt, it was not illegal for whites to educate blacks, and, when if Southern whites chose to do so, they did so.
Tocqueville, who "toured" America in 1831-2 (before the abolitionist movement amounted to much) notes that "the Amerians of the South ... have forbidden [slaves], under severe penalties, to be taught to read or write..." The abolition movement certainly gave the slaveholders more of an justification for keeping their slaves illiterate, but it appears that even before then ignorance was imposed upon the slaves to (as Tocqueville put it) "sink them as nearly as possible to that of the brutes".
Tocqueville was a tourist.
Maybe so, but he wrote one hell of a guidebook.
the South produced the major export crop which provided the country with an acceptable balance of trade when it sorely needed it.
By "the South", I assume you are including the 4,000,000 slaves that made that possible, not just their lazy masters.
How can you blame that on the South when it was the North, even, the Republicans, who dropped the implementation of these amendments [13th and 14th] for blacks in exchange for a presidential election victory. Some true believers there, eh?
I said they had a plan, I didn't say they implemented it adequately. I have no great affection for Republicans who have failed to recognize that involuntary servitude, in whatever form it takes, is wrong.
these Abolitionist hero-worshipers (murder, mayhem, anarchy are OK in support of a good cause - you know, like the libs and the press saying the Unabomber had some good points) see slavery as the be-all and end-all event in U.S. history and from that vilify the South
This looks like typical Confederate glorifier strawman building. I would hazard to guess that the vast majority of people who admire the abolition movement do not admire John Brown or the Unabomber. Nor are there many people around who "vilify the South". What people of good conscience vilify is slavery, and given the loyalty of the Confederacy to that institution, if some of that vilification seems to rub off on the Confederates it is hardly surprising.
I agree with you that the stubborness of the slaveholding secessionists hastened the end of slavery, but it came at a great price. Like you, though, I do not see how slavery would have ended any time soon under the circumstances absent the war, so in the long run it may have been a price that was well worth paying. And I don't doubt that the Confederates were acting out of principle -- albeit a wrongheaded one.
My own opinion is that Lincoln's illegal actions provided the philosophical foundation for FDR/LBJ/Big Government of today.
What formed the foundation of big government were profound internal and external threats to liberty that made big government look benign to the majority of Americans in comparison.
Well, by their unwillingness to wait on a consensus to develop and by Lincoln embracing them, the Abolitionists got the bloodbath they wanted.
It was the Confederates who were unwilling to "wait on a consensus". They didn't even wait for Lincoln to take office before seceding, and then they attacked a federal fort. If anyone in this scenario was comparable to the Unabomber it was the Confederates.
Combine liberal guilt, a willingness to vilify and deny the rights of the opposition, and the appearance of an opportunistic politician and what do you get? You get what we got in the mid-19th Century and you get what we have now.
You forgot to add slaveholders, Nazi's, Communists, and a Constitution that permits tyranny by the majority into the recipe for big government. Ronald Reagan, for example, thought fighting Communism was more important than fighting American socialism and so what he cooked up with Congressional Democrats was bigger government everywhere. More recently, Congressional Republicans have decided that getting votes from moderates is more important that tax cuts and so they have helped build big government even bigger. It's hard to blame all of this on a man who was shot dead 115 years before any of it happened.
BTW, what's snopercod? How did you arrive at that?
What my brother and I called "copperhead" snakes when we were toddlers. Also a unique word that nobody else has. Think of it as the "Exxon" of Free Republic...
...if it makes you feel better to think of yourself as part of a poor, downtrodden, abused minority then there is nothing I can do to change your mind.
Actually, I have gone too far already. We Southerners usually like to reinforce the myths about the South - that we are all toothless imbeciles who just cruise around in our beat up pickup trucks drinking beer and looking for blacks to harass.
It keeps the dumb yankees from moving down here and wrecking what we have. Ask youself this about where you live:
Ooops...I'm doing it again...
Ask youself this about where you live: Can you leave the door to your home unlocked whether you are there or not? Can you leave your car unlocked in your driveway with the keys in it for days at a time? Do you have any businesses in your area that leave the store unattended with a sign, "We're not here right now. Take what you want and leave the money in the can on the counter. Don't forget to add 6% sales tax." Can you shoot guns in your driveway without anybody thinking anything about it?
My parents used to leave the keys in their cars and the doors unlocked all the time in small town Illinois, so I don't think you have to live in the deep South to do that, just any small town. And there used to be a 5% sales tax there. Shooting guns in the driveway may have attracted attention depending on the weapon involved, but I know someone who shot his buddy accidentally in the mouth with a pellet gun without his parents or any other adults around to prevent it from happening.
Here in California I could probably leave the keys in the cars outside and the house unlocked and get away with it, and my two neighbors shoot bb guns in their backyard without attracting any attention. I haven't ever seen the sign that you described at Safeway, though, but their prices are probably a lot more reasonable than your local store and the choices a little more extensive. Our dentists are a little more proficient around here, too, based on your description of your area, but one of my kids has knocked two teeth out getting rowdy so he would probably fit in down there pretty well if he could learn to drink beer and drive a pick-up without spilling anything.
And to think he beat the crap out of Lee
Grant was a good soldier but he was a drunk and a lousy human being. But what the heck, we all have faults, Grant just had a lot more of them. But . . . he won the war, and that's what really counts, right?
If go back up the thread you will see I posted this comment to Stand Watie after he lied about his sources and got caught at it while trying to defame Grant. That was really dumb of Stand.
Welcome to the club.
Apparently you can't tell old wives tales from research either.
Pity. It's a dirty bird fouls his own nest.
Any fool should know that there is no honor in being beaten by cowards and drunks, but according to you and Stand, this is indeed what happened. The rest is the obvious conclusion.
and got caught at it while trying to defame Grant. That was really dumb of Stand.
Look, Grant was a bum.!!
When asked early 1865 if his family still owned slaves he replied..."Good help is hard to come buy"
He was a drunk! and one of behind the scenes Generals who had Lincoln's ear that pushed total war! War which broke all Western rules against civilians. In other words. War against women and children.
Nobody needs to slander Grant. He did a good enough job himself... His Administration was one of the most corrupt in History. As bad as Bill Clinton's
This thread is way too long already, but this one takes a look at another aspect of the War of Northern Agression that has not been discussed here. Exerpt:
Here we are, still in the middle of tedious debate over the Confederate battle flag, and along comes a Yankee historian who knocks the wind out of those who say the war was about slavery.Charles Adams is best known for his books about the history of taxation, but his latest work, When in the Course of Human Events, (published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers Inc.) takes on the subject of what really caused secession and the war that followed.
Adams amasses considerable evidence that the war was about the usual -- control of territory, resources and revenue.
Among many others, Adams cites the English novelist Charles Dickens, an astute observer of human affairs, who said in 1861, "Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this, as of many other evils. The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel."
Adams is no romantic neo-Confederate. He has harsh words for politicians both North and South whom he accuses of deceiving their people. He argues, for example, that secession to protect slavery made no sense at all, even though some Southerners said so, because slavery was secured by the Constitution, by the Supreme Court and even by Abe Lincoln's public promises that he had neither plans nor desire to interfere with it.
The quarrel was, Adams argues, about money. Northern manufacturers had demanded protective tariffs that were a double blow against Southerners, many of whom exchanged cotton for European manufactured goods. This meant that they would pay twice -- once to get the goods and the second time the high tax levied by the federal government.
Look, Grant was a bum.!!
When asked early 1865 if his family still owned slaves he replied..."Good help is hard to come buy"
He was a drunk!
Let me guess, this is from the Stand watie's famous "Anals of Illinois and Ohio". Got the page number? Anyone will do.
Grant had the wherewithall to win the war. You still haven't found the energy to get to the library.
[Adams] argues, for example, that secession to protect slavery made no sense at all, even though some Southerners said so, because slavery was secured by the Constitution, by the Supreme Court and even by Abe Lincoln's public promises that he had neither plans nor desire to interfere with it.
I discussed the theories of Charles Adams at some length in an article on my website, since Lew Rockwell, whom I admire but think is wrong on the Civil War, relies on Adams so heavily. In short, what the Confederates feared, and rightly so, was the rising tide of abolitionism, because it was "inciting servile insurrection", encouraging slaves to flee, and making it clear that eventually there would be enough new free states in the Union to allow the abolition of slavery through a Constitutional amendment. The conciliatory words of Lincoln that Adams relies so heavily upon were spoken at his inauguration (after the first seven Southern states had seceded) and represented an obvious attempt to keep Virginia and the other border states in the Union. He succeeded in keeping some of them in the Union, and some argue that allowed the Union to win the war, though there were certainly many slaveholders in Maryland and the other nonseceding slave states that were doing what they could to aid the Confederate forces and thwart the Union forces.
In addition to Charles Dickens (whom I have never respected for stereotyping all capitalists as evil), he relies heavily on the analysis of Karl Marx and on editorials in various papers. If the Southerners were really that upset about an 18% per cent import tax, what does not make sense is keeping that a closely guarded secret motivation while openly claiming that they were seceding to perpetuate slavery, since their embrace of slavery kept them from obtaining European support for their cause. Among Charles Adams' documentation is an editorial in a New Orleans paper claiming that the import tax would cost the South $60-70 million a year, which is peanuts compared to losing a $3 billion institution (slavery), particularly since they would get some of the tax money back in government services, and northerners would be paying it as well.
Charles Adams seems to be the only historian who has advanced this theory, but it has gained a lot of popularity because it encourages conservatives and libertarians to scapegoat Lincoln for every bad thing that government has done since then, rather than face the hard fact that, as Alexis de Tocqueville explained, the American Constition, by permitting tyranny by the majority, made the big, bureaucratic government of today totally predictable 160 years ago.
Good response. Thanks. I would love to explore these ideas further, but this thread is too dang long - it takes over a minute to load it up on my computer here in the woods.
I checked out your website, too. Very interesting. I still remain unconvinced that slavery caused the War of Northern Agression, for the simple fact that only...what...2% of Southerners at the time owned Slaves - a smaller percentage than in the North if I am not mistaken.
Anyway, these confederate-bashing threads come up about once a month here on FR, so we can continue the discussion then. FReegards--
Let me guess, this is from the Stand watie's famous "Anals of Illinois and Ohio". Got the page number? Anyone will do.
Grant had the wherewithall to win the war. You still haven't found the energy to get to the library.
Nope. I got it from this guy
encourages conservatives and libertarians to scapegoat Lincoln for every bad thing that government has done since then, rather than face the hard fact that, as Alexis de Tocqueville explained, the American Constition, by permitting tyranny by the majority, made the big, bureaucratic government of today totally predictable 160 years ago.
Hell fool, that's what the south was trying to escape from. The tyranny of the majority. And no one puts it better than Tom DiLorenzo
And no one puts it better than Tom DiLorenzo and award winning author Neil Smith
They generally prefer to use the Clintonian "everybody was dirty" defense...
Is that what you call the rational, truthful, and historical acknowledgment that slavery remained completely legal under Federal law until eight months after the war ended? You seem to prefer ‘the-Union-army-was-on-a-crusade-to-free-the-slaves' defense - which speaks volumes regarding your willingness to ignore the facts as you defend your one-dimensional "thesis"...
You seem intent on starting some kind of neo-Confederacy that varies considerable from the policies of the Confederacy of 1861-1865, and that is fine, but don't expect anyone who can objectively read the original Confederate documents to buy your attempt to twist history to support your movement.
And you seem to be intent on locating a ‘battle flag of the Grand Army of the Republic,' and flying it boldly as you proclaim that those who fought for it were all abolitionists. All the while ignoring, of course, the willingness of Northerners to permanently enshrine slavery in the US Constitution (via the Northern pro-slavery amendment of March 1861), the policy of the Union in 1861 and 1862 regarding the disposition of escaped slaves (returning them to their ‘owners'), the hypocrisy embodied in Lincoln's one-sided "Emancipation Proclamation" (which supposedly ‘freed' the slaves, but only in areas where he had no legal authority), the complete and utter defeat of the abolition amendment in the Northern Congress in June 1864 (by a vote of 95 to 66 - ouch!), and the simple fact that slavery was legal under Federal law until after the war ended (December 18, 1865). In other words, "don't expect anyone who can objectively read the original...documents to buy your attempt to twist history to support your movement."
(By the way, Mr. Vinson, how many slaves did your "Big Abolition Regiment" free in 1861 and 1862? If the war was truly a war for the abolition of slavery, that one regiment of yours must have freed hundreds, if not thousands. Perhaps even tens of thousands - after all, they were the "Big Abolition Regiment," not the 'Little Abolition Regiment.' Surely you can provide a well-researched answer to the question. One hopes you won't (yet again) resort to vague generalities...)
You are a master at making ridiculous assumptions. Maybe you should check out my website before crashing and burning.
"(M)aster at making ridiculous assumptions?" Actually, I believe you hold that title. We have addressed many of your assumptions before, but let us refer back to them, once again. You are the one who has advised us that 'hundreds of thousands of abolitionists died' during the war. And the one who implied that not one, single Southron fought for State's Rights. And the one who advised us that, according to Dr. Keyes, "...all of the Confederate soldiers were fighting for slavery." Assumptions? You are the reigning king of ridiculous assumptions.
Perhaps you would care to address a matter that is somewhat more foundational in nature. You have declined to answer the following questions on two separate occasions: will you take the time to answer now?
Should the actions of the government be based on law, or morality? If morality, then who specifically decides what is moral?
You are cordially invited to answer...
Apparently you can't tell old wives tales from research either.
"(C)an't tell old wives tales from research?" You do indeed have first-hand experience in that regard. Consider:
All of the state governors in term at the start of the war were in term at the end of the war.
Surely, one would have come up for election and lost? How could there not be elections and
campaigns you could so easily find?
115 Posted on 03/23/2000 19:55:31 PST by James Gunn
All of the State governors? "Let me guess, you got that from "Sally the Slut Comix", Vol 8, Edition 12." ("Got the page number? Anyone will do.")
And now for the facts:
Then how is it that John Willis Ellis was Governor of NC from 1859 to 1862, and Zebulon Baird Vance was ELECTED in 1862 and served until 1865.
In South Carolina: Francis Wilkinson Pickens 1860-1862; Milledge Luke Bonham 1862-1864; Andrew Gordon Magrath 1864-1865
Alabama: Andrew B. Moore 1857-1861, John G. Shorter 1861-1863; Thomas H. Watts 1863-1865
Georgia: Joseph E. Brown - 1857-1865 (reelected in 1858, 1860, 1862, and 1864)
Now, tell me again how your exhaustive research led to your belief that there were no
elections in the South during the Civil War. I knew from the start you were wrong about North
Carolina, but I checked 3 other states for the names and dates of service. Wanna make a bet
about the whether the other states of the Confederacy held elections? ...
122 Posted on 03/24/2000 07:10:20 PST by wattsmag2
There is something known as ‘common courtesy.' Someone with your track record, JG, would do well to study it. But then, maybe you "haven't found the energy to get to the library." Perhaps, if you spoke to your parents, they could give you a few tips...
Hell fool, that's what the south was trying to escape from. The tyranny of the majority. And no one puts it better than Tom DiLorenzo
No, they just wanted to be the tyrannizing majority. Take a look at the Confederate Constituion -- it certainly did not eliminate tyranny by the majority. And I guess 4,000,000 slaves didn't count as part of "the south" to you, since the Confederacy did nothing to allow them to escape tyranny by the majority.
I'll check out your link when time permits.
...they just wanted to be the tyrannizing majority.
Congratulations - you have provided an accurate description of the Union, and its 'Grand Army' as well...
Neil Smith is very good at producing dramatic writing but he plays pretty fast and loose with the facts in trying to paint Lincoln as "the American Lenin". For example, he vigorously glorifies the founding fathers while ignoring the fact that they instititionalized slavery in America and set in motion the chain of events that resulted in the mess Lincoln inherited from them.
Lincoln didn't fire fifty cannons at Fort Sumter, the South Carolinian secessionists did. What do you think Ronald Reagan or any other American President would have done if someone fired fifty cannons at a federal fort while they were in office? If the Confederates wanted to secede peacefully, they could have sued to establish their assumed right to secede instead of firing cannons amd igniting a war.
Smith also ignores all of the people in the Confederate states who desired to remain Americans. Southerners were not of one mind on the issue of secession as he would have you believe, and requiring people to be subject to the whims of a majority (whether a state one or a national one) is not a libertarian sentiment.
Smith also seems confused about the tariffs in place at the time of the Civil War. As I understand it, these were tariffs put in place before Lincoln assumed office of around 18% on imports and were put in place partially to retaliate for import taxes imposed by the British. While I think that those tariffs were a bad idea, I question whether they were designed to hurt Southerners since they were being hurt by British tariffs on cotton exported to Great Britain. And Midwestern and Northwestern farmers would be hurt by import tariffs as much as Southern farmers.
Smith also overstates Union wartime attrocities and ignores the wartime abuses of the Confederates against their own citizens and their Union enemies. He also ignores the fact that the 13th Amendment was clearly a result of the war and that perpetuating slavery was a primary Confederate motive for seceding.
In summary, Smith is part of the "Lincoln ruined everything" crowd. Woulnd't life for libertarians be much simpler if we could ignore the fact that the U.S. Constitution has always had some profoundly illibertarian aspects to it and we can't make them go away by simply demonizing one American political leader.
Thomas DiLorenzo's article is more reasonable but ignores the fact that neither "states' rights" nor secession would necessarily promote liberty, as the Confederacy proved. He also ignores the fact that evils such as slavery and people willing to go to war to defend slavery make big government look benign in comparison. Without Communism and Hitler posing similar threats in the 20th Century, it would have been much easier to keep government from getting as big as it has. DiLorenzo also ignores the fact that Tocqueville accurately predicted the growth of the tyrannical bureaucratic state decades before the Civil War based on his analysis of the U.S. Constitution and the desire of the masses for economic equality over liberty.
slavery was legal under Federal law until after the war ended (December 18, 1865).
You seem to be ignoring the fact that the 13th Amendment was passed by Congress in January 1865 and then submitted to the states for ratification. As a "states' rights" zealot you seem to have little patience for the state ratification requirements for amendments to the Constitution.
Should the actions of the government be based on law, or morality? If morality, then who specifically decides what is moral?
I've answered that question before but as usual you ignored my answer. To refresh your failing memory, I have set forth my prescription for ethical government on my website (that you claim to have reviewed).
"slavery was legal under Federal law until after the war ended (December 18, 1865)."
You seem to be ignoring the fact that the 13th Amendment was passed by Congress in January 1865 and then submitted to the states for ratification. As a "states' rights" zealot you seem to have little patience for the state ratification requirements for amendments to the Constitution.
Why do you suggest that I am ignoring "the fact?" Amendments do not become law until ratification is completed. Slavery was therefore not abolished in the Union until December 1865. (Or would you have us believe otherwise?) Perhaps you would care to explain why the Union waited until 1865 to do so - the lengthy delay hardly supports the claim that the war was waged to abolish slavery...
"Should the actions of the government be based on law, or morality? If morality, then who specifically decides what is moral?"
I've answered that question before but as usual you ignored my answer.
Frankly, you have yet to answer the question. In response to my comment ("And here we have Mr. Vinson's own version of ‘political correctness:' it matters not one bit whether the actions of the Southern States were legal - it is their motivation which should concern us"), you stated "I'll take morality over legality any day." When I then posed the questions above, you responded with another of your many links to your home page.
Funny thing, though - while you mention "law" repeatedly, the article you linked to makes no specific mention of "morality," the apparent keystone of your position. Perhaps you would care to provide a simple, straightforward answer to my simple, straightforward questions. (Hopefully without any more links to your home page. How many did you provide on your first thread? 20? 30?)
The quotes from Democracy in America were (as always) of great interest. The author may have foreseen the rising power of the populous Northern States when he penned the following:
"If ever the free institutions of America are destroyed., that event may be attributed to the omnipotence of the majority, which may at some future time urge the minorities to desperation and oblige them to have recourse to physical force. Anarchy will then be the result, but it will have been brought about by despotism."
Funny thing, though - while you mention "law" repeatedly, the article you linked to makes no specific mention of "morality,"
I primarily use the term "ethics" in my articles rather than "morality", since I believe that the former should be the primary focus of political discussions while the latter are more properly the subject of a discussion of religion, though some people seem to use these two terms somewhat interchangeably.
Law should be based on sound ethical principles, as I discussed, and there is no reason to abide by unethical laws except perhaps survival. I don't generally discuss the issue of whether a government is ethical since ethics are an individual matter. Unlike you, I do not believe that the construction of a government should shield the people who operate it from being subject to the application of sound ethical principles just like everyone else. Unlike you, I do not believe that states have any "rights", but rather than individuals have liberties that should generally be respected.
So the short answer to your question is the actions of governmental officials should be based on the sound ethical principles that I have proposed. Forming a government based on preserving the institution of slavery is an example of a profoundly unethical decision.
I estimate you have about 11 responses that you have used 1200 times. Why not add a 12th one?
Nope. I got it from this guy
I suggest you have it checked by a physician. Your condition may have long term and detrimental effects. Does your wife know? If she finds out and divorces you, will she still be your sister?
Thank you for the reply.
Law should be based on sound ethical principles...
True. If I remember correctly, Peikoff defines politics as the application of ethics to the problems of society. Law must obviously be based on some system of ethics.
Unlike you, I do not believe that the construction of a government should shield the people who operate it from being subject to the application of sound ethical principles just like everyone else.
I do not believe that "the people who operate" government should be shielded from personal responsibility. But it can not therefore be said that they have no responsibility to those they represent. Does a contract exist between the people of a country (or state, or city) and "the people who operate" their government? Are the citizens entitled to know what "the people who operate" government may do, and what they may not do, while acting in their official capacities? (As you well know, the more limited the government, the more free the people.)
I would suggest that a contract does exist, and that the people have a right to know what their government may, or may not, do. With regard to our central government, the Constitution is the contract: it defines the expectations of the people, and it binds those acting for the government.
Furthermore, I suggest that Americans in 1860 had a right to expect their government to abide by the contract as it then existed. If the citizens of the day considered the contract to be ethically flawed, they were certainly entitled to amend it. If ‘the people who operated' the government considered the contract to be flawed, if their ethics prohibited them from performing their duties under that contract, they were certainly entitled to resign from public office. And if the people of the country chose to overthrow their government, and establish a new one, they certainly had the right to do so. But the contract did not cease to exist, just because many of the citizens and ‘public servants' took exception to its terms.
Let's address two issues specifically: secession and slavery. It is my understanding (as detailed previously) that the secession of States from the Union is legal. It is therefore my contention that the Federal government violated the contract (as well as the basic right of free people to form their own government), when it pursued hostilities against the seceding States.
With regard to slavery, I would once again point out that slavery was legal under the Federal constitution. The people were entitled to amend their contract: if they were unable to establish a satisfactory government under the terms of the contract, they were certainly free to secede (if the people of the State should so decide). They also retained the right to revolt, throw off their current government, and establish one that suited them better. But under no circumstances were the ‘the people who operated' the government empowered to act beyond the terms of the contract.
Unlike you, I do not believe that states have any "rights", but rather than individuals have liberties that should generally be respected.
Let us, then, discard the term State's Rights. It is clear from any reasonable examination of our history that the people of the States retain rights distinct from those of the people of the nation as a whole. For example, the people of New York have no right to select the Representatives or Senators for the State of Arizona, or to elect a governor for Florida. With regard to secession, the issue is clear: the Constitution was ratified by the citizens of the several States. The people of any State not ratifying the contract were not bound by the actions of the people of the other States, and no State was bound by the actions of any other State, or group of States. Furthermore, the people of several States (including New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia) reserved unto themselves the right to secede, when they ratified the contract. And the Constitution itself reserves that right to the States and the people under the 10th Amendment. Whether included under "State's Rights," or ‘the compact theory,' or any other label, the people of the States clearly retain the right to secede.
So the short answer to your question is the actions of governmental officials should be based on the sound ethical principles that I have proposed. Forming a government based on preserving the institution of slavery is an example of a profoundly unethical decision.
I would suggest that "the actions of governmental officials should be based on" laws, and that laws should be based on "sound ethical principles." There is a difference.
I estimate you have about 11 responses that you have used 1200 times. Why not add a 12th one?
Perhaps because I don't consider it moral (or ethical) to create responses from 'whole cloth.' But don't let that hinder you: care to expound further upon the supposed lack of gubernatorial elections in Confederate States?
I suggest you have it checked by a physician. Your condition may have long term and detrimental effects. Does your wife know? If she finds out and divorces you, will she still be your sister?
Having an extensive repertoire of insults clearly does wonders for the number of responses you have available...
The actual quote reads as follows:
"The branch of philosophy that applies ethics to social questions is politics…"
Leonard Peikoff
The Ominous Parallels
A marvelous book (I assume you've read it). He also notes:
"The genius of the Founding Fathers was their ability not only to grasp the revolutionary ideas of the period, but to devise a means of implementing those ideas in practice, a means of translating them from the realm of philosophic abstraction into that of sociopolitical reality. By defining in detail the division of powers within the government and the ruling procedures, including the brilliant mechanism of checks and balances, they established a system whose operation and integrity were independent, so far as possible, of the moral character of any of its temporary officials - a system impervious, so far as possible, to subversion by an aspiring dictator or by the public mood of the moment."
"(T)hey established a system whose operation and integrity were independent…of the moral character of any of its temporary officials… " The strength of our system is founded on the law - the United States Constitution. Obviously, the system is not perfect: the "division of powers" is not what it once was, nor does the "brilliant mechanism of checks and balances" function as it was originally intended. The Constitution can be violated, as it was when the central government waged war on the seceded States…
If you can get ahold of the July 2000 issue of Liberty Magazine, you may want to check out an article written by Timothy Sandefur entitled "Elian Gonzalez and Dred Scott". Among his insightful observations about the chasm between "states' rights" and individual liberties are the following quotes:
"Whether a slave society was conquered or chose to be enslaved, it can claim no national rights, and no recognition of such `rights' by civilized countries -- just as a mob of gangsters cannot demand a recognition of its `rights'..." - Ayn Rand, The Virtue of Selfishness, page 104.
"Our new government is founded upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man. That slavery -- the subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition...[The founding fathers] rested upon the assumption of the equality of the races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the idea of government built upon it." - Andrew Stephens, as quoted in McPherson, ed., The Political History of the Great Rebellion (1865), page 103.
Rave, Are you that mentally impaired or just a Democrap? Booth was referring to the obvious about the plight of the blacks. The blacks were already slaves living in cages all along the west coast of Africa. The Yankee slave ships did not round them up over there as the Hollyweirdos would like you to believe, they were had been already captured by another stronger tribe. The Yankee slavers just traded some trinkets for the existing slaves and brought them over here. Now Booth makes the point that the slaves once over here were much better off, not only in living standards, but with opportunity. As once they learned to speak English, read and write, learn math, and trade skills, each successive generation improved. In fact by the time of the Civil War, the majority of blacks possessed trade skills that the South depended on. Many blacks worked off their bond and became free,some of these became successful businessmen, and in turn owned slaves of their own. On another note, the CSA did not import slaves, in fact importation of slaves will illegal in the South, before and during the war. And unlike the the USA constitution, the CSA's constitution had a provision for the unwinding of slavery entirely. No slaves were brought here under the CSA's flag, the"flag of hate" then really being "old glory" not the CSA battle flag.
Some nations abolished human slavery before the US, others after - were the 'late-comers' truly no better than gangsters? If they had been attacked by their non-slaveholding neighbors, perhaps including neighbors that had abolished the institution only weeks or months before, would the use of force have been justified? And what of a war between two slaveholding nations? That was the unfortunate situation in America: slavery was legal under Federal law until after the war ended.
...unlike the the [sic] USA constitution,the CSA's constitution had a provision for the unwinding of slavery entirely.
Most of what you say is irrelevent to my comments, but this is just flat out wrong, and I challenge you to try to back it up. The U.S. Constitution had a way to abolish slavery which was utiltized when the 13th Amendment was passed. The Confederate Constitution forbade anyone in the Confederacy from abolishing slavery (even individual states). Their prohibition on importing slaves from abroad was just a means to protect slaveholders from competition for their captive breeding program so as to maintain the value of domestically produced slaves.
As once they learned to speak English, read and write, learn math, and trade skills, each successive generation improved.
Here's what Alexis de Tocqueville obeserved about that issue in the 1830's:
"...the Americans of the South, who do not admit that the Negroes can ever be commingled with themselves have forbidden them, under severe penalties, to be taught to read or write; and as they will not raise them to their own level, they sink them as nearly as possible to that of the brutes."
Confederate glorifiers make much of a few free blacks in the South, but almost all of them were living in New Orleans, where interracial mixing was much more socially acceptable than anywhere else in the South. And as for your argument that American slaves were better off than African slaves, that is hardly a justification for the Confederates forming a slave nation to perpetuate slavery as long as possible. By your argument, if you went over to Russia or China right now and returned with millions of slaves, you would be doing them all a favor and should be praised and allowed to form your own slave nation to keep them and their offspring in perpetual slavery.
You are the one who is obviously either mentally impaired or a "Democrap" (which must be someone who believes in rule by people like you who are full of it).
Some nations abolished human slavery before the US, others after - were the 'late-comers' truly no better than gangsters?
According to Ayn Rand, yes. Some gangsters are better than others, of course, and I would submit that "gangsters" fighting to free slaves held by more heinous "gangsters" are worthy of more respect than the slaveholding gangsters. I prefer to evaluate each person's actions individually, though.
I would submit that "gangsters" fighting to free slaves...
I think this may be the root of our disagreement. As another poster has noted, nations that engage in warfare often do so for very different reasons. You have termed slavery the "primary motivating force" behind the war; Walt has called it the ‘catalyst' that produced secession. I suggest that the controversy over slavery contributed to the secession of the Confederate States, but that the cause of secession was largely irrelevant to the Union government. It was the act of secession that prompted Federal intervention. Federal forces invaded and subdued the seceded States to restore the Union, not to abolish slavery.
When South Carolina threatened secession over the tariff issue in 1832, President Jackson threatened in turn to respond as Mr. Lincoln did some 29 years later - with an invasion of the seceding State by Federal forces. Again, the issue was tariffs, not slavery, yet if South Carolina had seceded in the 1830's, Federal troops would most assuredly have occupied the State. Their mission? Not the abolition of slavery, but the restoration of Union.
And what do the actions of the Federal government a generation later indicate? The 36th US Congress passed the pro-slavery amendment in 1861; Union troops routinely returned escaped slaves to their ‘owners' during 1861 and 1862; Mr. Lincoln waited until 1863 to proclaim the emancipation of slaves (but only in Confederate States); the Northern Congress resoundingly defeated the abolition amendment in mid-1864; and slavery was not abolished within the Union until a few short weeks before New Years Day, 1866. In short, history indicates that the abolition of slavery was not the "primary motivating force" behind the actions of the Federal government.
It might well be said that this debate has dragged on for as long as it has, primarily because the 36th Congress did not pass an abolition amendment in 1861; Mr. Lincoln did not issue the Emancipation Proclamation the day after Fort Sumter was bombarded, and he did not thereby free the slaves in Union States; the Union army did not send escaped slaves North to freedom in 1861 and 1862; and the Northern States did not ratify an amendment to abolish slavery in the first, or second, or third, or fourth year of the war. The Union clearly did not go to war to abolish slavery...
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