Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
The secession and war was highly popular among Southerners in early 1861. Lee called secession treason, insisted the Founding Fathers had never intended such a "right" to exist, and compared secession to anarchy in the months before Sumter was attacked.
Yes, he certainly did.
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Originally Posted by trice
His belief was that he had to be loyal to VIRGINIA first, and the United States second. It was a case of VIRGINIA right-or-wrong for Lee.
Agreed again.
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Originally Posted by trice
What Lee might have done if Virginia had remained in the Union will never be known.
Quite true.
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Originally Posted by trice
But if such an unlikely thing had happened, and Virginia had sent troops in harm's way for the cause of the Union, I personally doubt Lee would have let those men march off without him. It would, once again, be a case of Virginia right-or-wrong for Lee.
Tim
Virginia, like Lee, would never have moved against a fellow slave state on behalf of the free states. We may as well postulate the famous SNL skit of Lee having a B-52 at Gettysburg. But the scenario was Virginia standing aside and not participating, but Lee leading the US Army. Again, Lee would most likely resign rather than attack a southern state.
Virginia, like Lee, would never have moved against a fellow slave state on behalf of the free states. We may as well postulate the famous SNL skit of Lee having a B-52 at Gettysburg. But the scenario was Virginia standing aside and not participating, but Lee leading the US Army. Again, Lee would most likely resign rather than attack a southern state.
We certainly agree that it would be unlikely. Virginia more than demonstrated what she would do by joining the aggressors of the Confederacy.
But I also doubt that it was possible for any state to remain neutral in the war, least of all one smack in between two rivals bent on war. Kentucky tried, an effort that we see as doomed to failure, and it became a question of which would invade her first. If Virginia had tried for neutrality, how would that work, exactly? And isn't that the least likely scenario of all?
I suppose they might have united the old colonial territory by uniting with KY and maybe NC; TN was too much driven my grasping men determined on secession to be included, IMHO, but maybe this wild scenarion would have brought them in. That sounds to me as if the whole US has fractured up, maybe into 4 or 5 or 6 groups. CA-OR might well go their own way. Anything's possible then, including an invasion of this VA association from North or South.
But Lee was not a man to toady to other Southerners, either. The Texas commissioners who tried to force him to renounce the US in February 1861 found he had a temper to show them. In the discussions of the suddenly trapped officers of the US in San Antonio, the speculation was that if R. E. Lee had still been in acting command in Texas instead of the newly-arrived Twiggs, they would not have been meekly surrendering to these Texas ruffians. Instead, they thought Lee would have led them in cutting through that pack and on a march to Kansas, smashing anything that got in their way.
Maybe, just maybe, those young soldiers had the right of it. Lee shows every indication in February 1861 of a man filled with anger at the outrage to his country. Maybe someone who pushed him too hard or just at the wrong time would have brought a whip-lash reaction from him. Maybe, just maybe, we would have seen the Lee temper if he had been in command when McCullogh moved against them.
From Freeman, on that moment in San Antonio:
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"... Lee then said: "I think it but due to myself to say that I cannot be moved by the conduct of those people from my sense of duty. I still think, as I then told you and Doctor Edwards, that my loyalty to Virginia ought to take precedence over that which is due the Federal Government. And I shall so report myself at Washington. If any stands by the old Union, so will I. But if she secedes (though I do not believe in secession as a constitutional right, nor that there is sufficient cause for revolution), then I will still follow my native state with my sword, and if need be with my life. I know you think and feel very differently, but I can't help it. These are my principles, and I must follow them."
In sad reflection on the political tragedy he was witnessing, Lee slept little that first night in San Antonio, and it must have been with some difficulty that he met curious inquiries with the statement that he was neutral in the controversy between Texas and the Union. By discretion and silence he avoided a commitment that might have had a momentous effect on his own career and on the whole course of the war. For what might not have happened if he had been in command of the department instead of Twiggs when the Texans demanded surrender? His own state had not seceded; he would have had no hesitancy in obeying the orders of the War Department; he certainly would have refused to surrender government property. Would he then have clashed with the Texans? Would he have been the first to face secession fire? The experience of Colonel Waite indicates that it might have been so. Waite was soon at odds with the Texans. They refused him transportation, and, on April 23, arrested him and several of his officers as prisoners of war, though they promptly paroled them.
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Tim
__________________ "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."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
More of the same empty and deliberately misleading rhetoric. I have just pointed out to you that Mississippi was the last state to repeal their Prohibition, in 1966. Now you ask me this silly question as if you have something to say, when you have already been told the answer. Stop this nonsense and stop making a spectacle of yourself.
In addition, the Temprance movement existed long before the Anti-Saloon league formed. It was very popular in the 1850s, particularly in a state like Tennessee, where a great convention on Temprance was held in Nashvile in 1853 . You will note that this is FORTY YEARS before the Anti-Saloon league was founded. Yet you want to blame it on "Northerners" You are a humbug.
Tim
My complaint is not with the North, especially, and not totally with the Liberals, entirely. But think about it;
No one has Prohibition today, except maybe a few dry counties (it was a rhetorical question; I knew the answer already...)
And a Temperance Rally in Tennessee, as I said, only affects Tennessee. This garbage in Ohio, however, evidently THROUGH THE FORCE OF VOTING in Congress, eventually brought about Federal laws which made drinking Un-American.
(This is worth an Ordinance of Session over, and easily remedied by stifling those involved with its origin!)...
I have a great problem with that... It was what the founding fathers feared, in a mob rule democracy.. for even the founding fathers liked their sauce! And I can see Jefferson giving up beer, now, for some prune-sour Totalitarian Tee-Totaler whiner in Ohio!
My complaint is not with the North, especially, and not totally with the Liberals, entirely. But think about it;
No one has Prohibition today, except maybe a few dry counties (it was a rhetorical question; I knew the answer already...)
Thus I called it as I saw it: you were ranting and posturing, and you object only to having it pointed out clearly. Stop it.
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Originally Posted by Beowulf
And a Temperance Rally in Tennessee, as I said, only affects Tennessee. This garbage in Ohio, however, evidently THROUGH THE FORCE OF VOTING in Congress, eventually brought about Federal laws which made drinking Un-American.
More empty nonsense. THIRTY-THREE States had independently voted in Prohibition within their own borders. At least THIRTY-SIX state legislatures had to ratify the XVIIIth Amendment before it could become part of the Constitution. By 1922, FORTY-FOUR states had actually ratified it. Only two rejected it, and two never acted one way or the other. Yet you rant about "FORCE OF VOTING in Congress" as the reason. Nonsense. Once again you show you care nothing for truth and accuracy, and merely wish to spread propaganda. Stop it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beowulf
(This is worth an Ordinance of Session over, and easily remedied by stifling those involved with its origin!)...
I have a great problem with that... It was what the founding fathers feared, in a mob rule democracy.. for even the founding fathers liked their sauce! And I can see Jefferson giving up beer, now, for some prune-sour Totalitarian Tee-Totaler whiner in Ohio!
In Jefferson's day, the Temprance movement was aimed at getting Americans to drink wine and beer instead of hard liquor; Jefferson was an avid supporter of growing the wine industry in America, and the first successes were in Ohio, out along the Ohio Valley. That is what you are attacking, though you know it not.
Stop all this blathering. What you should be afraid of is demagogues who speak only to spout their own fervently believed silliness instead of seeking facts and truth and understanding.
Tim
__________________ "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."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
Thus I called it as I saw it: you were ranting and posturing, and you object only to having it pointed out clearly. Stop it.
More empty nonsense. THIRTY-THREE States had independently voted in Prohibition within their own borders. At least THIRTY-SIX state legislatures had to ratify the XVIIIth Amendment before it could become part of the Constitution. By 1922, FORTY-FOUR states had actually ratified it. Only two rejected it, and two never acted one way or the other. Yet you rant about "FORCE OF VOTING in Congress" as the reason. Nonsense. Once again you show you care nothing for truth and accuracy, and merely wish to spread propaganda. Stop it.
In Jefferson's day, the Temprance movement was aimed at getting Americans to drink wine and beer instead of hard liquor; Jefferson was an avid supporter of growing the wine industry in America, and the first successes were in Ohio, out along the Ohio Valley. That is what you are attacking, though you know it not.
Stop all this blathering. What you should be afraid of is demagogues who speak only to spout their own fervently believed silliness instead of seeking facts and truth and understanding.
Tim
I had heard something of the kind, I think, about the wine and beer movement, but had Prohibition been on that wise, we would not be having this exchange!
What amuses me is that none of you of the North ever want to talk about the blatant force with which you all address each and every issue, and especially in the way you demand that I STOP this, or that, because you demand it of me...
(And in your last paragraph, you are actually describing Abolitionists to a T!).
And as for my 'Ranting', have I ever demanded you STOP anything? To my gentle Jeffersonian sensitivities, that would surely be your jurisdiction!
What amuses me is that none of you of the North ever want to talk about the blatant force with which you all address each and every issue, and especially in the way you demand that I STOP this, or that, because you demand it of me...
People who spread falsehoods deliberately should expect to be told to stop it. When they clearly intend to ignore the facts -- as you have shown -- they should expect to be told bluntly to stop.
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Originally Posted by Beowulf
(And in your last paragraph, you are actually describing Abolitionists to a T!).
Possibly some. Beyond a doubt, though, I am describing you.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beowulf
(And as for my 'Ranting', have I ever demanded you STOP anything? To my gentle Jeffersonian sensitivities, that would surely be your jurisdiction!
Mr. Jefferson would be shamed to have you associating your behavior with his name.
Tim
__________________ "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."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
To have digressed would mean that you would have went off on an entirely different topic or subject.
You have yet to really do so. Your rants and raves have been rather consistant and fairly repetitive.
So I will ask you a question straight out so that perhaps you may digress.
Why are you here?
You are certainly not here to discuss the history of the Civil War. Not its causes nor its history. This can be plainly seen from the contents of your posts here and on other threads on this board.
You get caught in mistakes and try to laugh them off as jokes or some such, you have yet to refer to a source that does not push a modern-day agenda or skewed political view. You present misinformation and then claim to know that it was such when others call you on it.
You constantly rave about liberals, conservatives, loss of this, destruction of that, loss of, etc., etc.
So the question remains.
Why are you here?
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
We certainly agree that it would be unlikely. Virginia more than demonstrated what she would do by joining the aggressors of the Confederacy.
But I also doubt that it was possible for any state to remain neutral in the war, least of all one smack in between two rivals bent on war. Kentucky tried, an effort that we see as doomed to failure, and it became a question of which would invade her first. If Virginia had tried for neutrality, how would that work, exactly? And isn't that the least likely scenario of all?
You and I agree again.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
But Lee was not a man to toady to other Southerners, either. The Texas commissioners who tried to force him to renounce the US in February 1861 found he had a temper to show them. In the discussions of the suddenly trapped officers of the US in San Antonio, the speculation was that if R. E. Lee had still been in acting command in Texas instead of the newly-arrived Twiggs, they would not have been meekly surrendering to these Texas ruffians. Instead, they thought Lee would have led them in cutting through that pack and on a march to Kansas, smashing anything that got in their way.
That was a situation where Lee had already accepted an assignment in good faith and therefore had a duty to perform. In the hypothetical, Lee had not yet accepted such an assignment. I frankly can't see him accepting it, and therefore in my opinion he resigns. He would remain loyal to the Union as long as Virginia remained loyal to the Union, but he wouldn't lead an invasion of the south.
A lot of threads are losing focus, as big dollops of irrelevant gunk is dropped on them. This thread is about how, why and to what extend slavery caused the Civil War. I suggest a topic on how the Yankees are to blame for Prohibition is an excellent new thread!
No, he did not have 200 slaves in 1840 according to the source I was working from. The number in the passage in Time on the Cross is extrapolated from numbers in the 1850s, working backwards from the appendices in the Davis book, while the 129 is the number actually shown in the Census. The reference is to personal research by Professor William Scarborough of the University of Southern Mississippi into the 1840 Census manuscripts.
Tim
Looked up ToTC it says 129 on the plantaion 200 in all, and is from 1840 LA census data, your punishment work out is also wrong, 365 days a year, 160 incidents over 2 years is 4.5 days rate of incidence, not what you posted, a small difference but not dependednt on the number of hands subject to punishment, 65% of which never recieved any punishment in the 2 years.
Do you have a link to the source you used?.
__________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
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