Southern Aristorcracy

[trice]

Originally Posted by OpnDownfall

The North fought the CW precisely, because of its belief that the nation of the United States of America, was greater than the sum of its parts. That the Union (the USA) was so important, that leaving the Union was a matter of decision for All the states forming the nation of the USA.

Originally Posted by Battalion

Of course this is how the North wants to portray their motives in the war....all noble and such...

Balderdash. This attitude of the United States as a single nation had been around for a long, long time.

“I speak to Cobb and he tells me he is a Georgian; to Floyd, and he tells me his a Virginian; to you, and you tell me you are a Carolinian. I am not a Michigander; I am a citizen of the United States.”
Secretary of State Lewis Cass, general in the war of 1812, Governor of the Michigan territory, US Senator, 1848 Democratic candidate for President, Buchanan's Secretary of State until his resignation in 1860 over Buchanan's policy toward secession, apparently at a Cabinet meeting in late 1860.

"[People] taken in rebellion against the Union, I will hang with less reluctance than I used in hanging deserters and spies in Mexico."
President Zachary Taylor ("Old Rough and Ready", 44 year soldier, War of 1812 and Mexican War hero) in a contentious meeting with Southern leaders who threatened secession in February 1850, about what he would do as he personally led the Army South.

"Fellow-citizens of the United States! the threat of unhallowed disunion-the names of those, once respected, by whom it is uttered--the array of military force to support it-denote the approach of a crisis in our affairs on which the continuance of our unexampled prosperity, our political existence, and perhaps that of all free governments, may depend. The conjuncture demanded a free, a full, and explicit enunciation, not only of my intentions, but of my principles of action, and as the claim was asserted of a right by a State to annul the laws of the Union, and even to secede from it at pleasure, a frank exposition of my opinions in relation to the origin and form of our government, and the construction I give to the instrument by which it was created, seemed to be proper. Having the fullest confidence in the justness of the legal and constitutional opinion of my duties which has been expressed, I rely with equal confidence on your undivided support in my determination to execute the laws-to preserve the Union by all constitutional means-to arrest, if possible, by moderate but firm measures, the necessity of a recourse to force; and, if it be the will of Heaven that the recurrence of its primeval curse on man for the shedding of a brother's blood should fall upon our land, that it be not called down by any offensive act on the part of the United States."
President Andrew Jackson, hero of the War of 1812, in his Proclamation Regarding Nullification, December 10, 1832.

Tim

[cash]

Originally Posted by trice

Balderdash. This attitude of the United States as a single nation had been around for a long, long time.

Absolutely. And we can add the following to the quotes you provided:

"It is obviously impracticable in the foederal [sic] government of these States; to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all--Individuals entering into society, must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest. The magnitude of the sacrifice must depend as well on situation and circumstance, as on the object to be obtained." [George Washington to President of Congress, 17 Sep 1787]

In other words, under the Constitution the states were not independently sovereign. They were part of a larger sovereign nation.

Regards,
Cash

[cash]

In his reply to Patrick Henry in the Virginia Ratification Convention, Henry Lee [aka Lighthorse Harry Lee, father of Robert E. Lee] said, "In the course of Saturday, and some previous harangues, from the terms in which some of the Northern States were spoken of, one would have thought that the love of an American was in some degree criminal; as being incompatible with a proper degree of affection for a Virginian. The people of America, Sir, are one people. I love the people of the North, not because they have adopted the Constitution; but, because I fought with them as my countrymen, and because I consider them as such.--Does it follow from hence, that I have forgotten my attachment to my native State? In all local matters I shall be a Virginian; In those of a general nature, I shall not forget that I am an American." [9 June 1788]

Regards,
Cash

[OpnDownfall]

On the contrary, there were not many people in the confederate gov't who favored emancipation at any time. Every attempt to raise the subject prior to late 1864, early 1865 was suppressed i.e. Cleburne et al.
As I have noted in other posts, only extreme urgency (the war was being lost) in early 1865 (barely 3 mo's of existence left) compelled the confederate congress to even discuss (officially) enlisting slaves as soldiers, to bolster the depleted southern armies, much less emancipate them.
In the end both the Va. State Legislature and the confederate congress passed legislation allowing slaves to serve in the armed forces of the confederacy. While rejecting emancipating even those who served in the armies to defend the right of their masters to own slaves (rejecting advice of the sainted Robert E. Lee, who, wanted to emancipate the soldiers and their families, at least; 'After' the south had won it's independence, of course)
Although Lee and Davis may have favored some form of emancipation to save southern independence, the leadership of the south, most definitely did not. They did not want independence at the cost of their slaves.

[larry_cockerham]

You lads certainly love to talk about slavery. It's a shame there isn't more interest in Southern and Northern perspective for why the soldiers who didn't own slaves nor were connected to any went to war. Many of you are convinced that slavery had something to do with it. I'm not convinced.

[matthew mckeon]

Dear Larry,
These is an interesting book just out, Chandra Manning's "What this cruel War was Over," about how average soldiers, north and south, mostly non slaveowners, saw slavery and its influence on the Civil War.

Another interesting book is Edmund Morgan's "American Freedom, American Slavery" about Virginia during the colonial period, arguing that African slavery stabilized society, for slaveowners and non slaveowner alike.

[trice]

Originally Posted by trice

To Battalion: "Balderdash. This attitude of the United States as a single nation had been around for a long, long time."

Originally Posted by cash

Absolutely. ...

Here's another quote on the issue of the United States as a sovereign Union. It is from Charles Pinckney (famed lawyer, one of those writing the US Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787 and so a "Founding Father", soldier in the Revolutionary War, a native of South Carolina -- his Father was the Royal attorney for the colony and he went to law school in London). This is him, speaking in rebuttal to another delegate in the South Carolina Ratifying Convention over the Constitution in 1788:
=====
... I mean the Declaration of Independence, made in Congress the 4th of July, 1776. This admirable manifesto, which, for importance of matter and elegance of composition, stands unrivalled, sufficiently confutes the honorable gentleman's doctrine of the individual sovereignty and independence of the several states.

In that Declaration the several states are not even enumerated; but after reciting, in nervous language, and with convincing arguments, our right to independence, and the tyranny which compelled us to assert it, the declaration is made in the following words: "We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES." The separate independence and individual sovereignty of the several states were never thought of by the enlightened band of patriots who framed this Declaration; the several states are not even mentioned by name in any part of it,--as if it was intended to impress this maxim on America, that our freedom and independence arose from our union, and that without it we could neither be free nor independent. Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses.
=====

Regards,
Tim

[OpnDownfall]

Whatever the motivations of the avg. soldiers, their political and military leaders were almost unanimous in supporting and declaring that the 'state right' they were protecting ,by disrupting the union, was, slavery.
There would have been no war for the avg. southern soldier to fight, if not for the actions of their leaders.
If the south won the war, slavery survived, if the north won, slavery died. The northern troops were aware of that fact and, unlike a few on this thread, I do not suppose the avg. southern soldier, understood that ramification of the war, any less than the avg. Union soldier.

[larry_cockerham]

Originally Posted by OpnDownfall

Whatever the motivations of the avg. soldiers, their political and military leaders were almost unanimous in supporting and declaring that the 'state right' they were protecting ,by disrupting the union, was, slavery.
There would have been no war for the avg. southern soldier to fight, if not for the actions of their leaders.
If the south won the war, slavery survived, if the north won, slavery died. The northern troops were aware of that fact and, unlike a few on this thread, I do not suppose the avg. southern soldier, understood that ramification of the war, any less than the avg. Union soldier.

One thought here, please. The civil war from a Southern perspective was essentially fought by two "waves" of soldiers. After the first couple of years many were simply dead, or had taken their furlough and tried to vanish before being called back and the conscript law being enacted by the Confederacy. (Furlough may be an innacurate term but that is not my point).

The "second" part of the war after about the time of Chickamauga at the end of 1863 began an era when new recruits, soldiers who had finally come of age, were brought into the ranks. These weren't the same men who listened and responded to the rhetoric prior to and at the beginning of the war. Non slave owning and non slave caring men fighting as a response to the fact the war was already around them. I think that better reflects the Southern soldier. Was he racially bigotted? Yep. Plently of those still running about the south and north today. That's the rub that caused the sore.

Remember also please that slavery was protected by the Constitution. That didn't change until 1867, as a political move, the 13th Amendment. The less wealthy southern soldier wasn't about to lose anything except possibly and probably, his life.

[cash]

Originally Posted by larry_cockerham

You lads certainly love to talk about slavery. It's a shame there isn't more interest in Southern and Northern perspective for why the soldiers who didn't own slaves nor were connected to any went to war. Many of you are convinced that slavery had something to do with it. I'm not convinced.

The soldiers themselves were convinced that slavery had most to do with it.

"We must never despair, for death is preferable to a life spent under the gaulling yoke of abolition rule." [Pvt Jonathan Doyle, 4th Louisiana, to his sister, Maggie, 27 May 1863]

Regards,
Cash