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.
In reviewing the book The Hinton Rowan Helper at the sites you and Georgiana listed above, I was unable to find the following lines at either site contained in the books listed there:
"In the year 1857, an individual named Hinton Rowan Helper, who had been forced to leave his native State, North Carolina, in disgrace, published a book, of which he was the reputed author, entitled "The Impending Crisis." The book recommended direct warfare on Southern society, "be the consequences what they might." It was so extravagant in tone, and so diabolical in its designs, that it was at first generally supposed to be the work of a fool or a madman. No one could believe that any sane or civilized person really entertained any such devilish purposes as it professed.--What, however, was the surprise of the public when the book was actually adopted by the Republican party as a campaign document, and its atrocious principles endorsed by SIXTY-EIGHT Republican members of Congress and all the influential members of the party! Below will be found an abstract of the principles it advocated, taken from the large edition of the work, published by A.B. Burdick, No. 145 Nassau street, N.Y., 1860, and the names of their endorsers, &c:"
So, if it did not come from the original book or the publication done in New York in 1860, or from the two sites listed in this thread, where did the above quote come from? Or did I miss it when I scanned the two sites mentioned above?
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
So you either don't know or don't care to remember a specific source as you have used many sources but they all stem from Hinton so what's the point of finding out.
That about it?
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
Neil,
I have no idea why you are so obsessively hung up on this. IF you had read the post this quote you are nagging me about came from then you surely saw I clearly said it came from an ephemera, as did the rest of that section. (I have no idea who the author of the ephemera was, I have no doubt that no one knows, Show me where I said Helper wrote the emphemera) IF you remember reading this the times I posted it before you should know where I got it.
But to stop you bugging me about this single paragraph, it comes from American Memory. As does most of the other information included. And I might add, if you find a single untruth in it I will personal go hunt it down again and show it here. Other than that I’m tired of this debate. Especially since I’m still waiting for it to be proven untrue with sources and documentation to prove.
I just recently bought the book Perilous Times, Free Speech in Wartime; From the Sedition Acto of 1798 to the War on Terrorism, by Geoffrey R. Stone.
The second chapter of the book is entitled The Civil War, Mr. Lincoln's First Amendment, in which the author goes over the numerous incidents and actions concerning the principle of free speech. In this post I will list the last page in the chapter, "Even at the Darkest Moments."
"At the outset of the Civil War, the United States had had very little experience with the freedoms of speech and press in wartime. The sixty years since the Sedition Act of 1798 had seen no significant federal restrictions of political dissent, and there was thus no settled understanding of the appropriate limits of such expression. Some constitutional scholars of the era thoughtthere was something "exquisitely absurd" in the notion that a civil war could be "waged under the protection of the Bill of Rights." Others held that the Consitution should "apply as if nothing going on since Sumter was different from what obtained earlier."
"Critics have argued that Lincoln became an uncomromising tyrant during the course of the war. Certainly, there were serious abuses in the suspensions of habeas corpus. But keeping in mind the extraordinary complexities of a civil war, the well-founded anxieties about sabotage, desertion, and draft evasion, and the nation's relative immaturity in dealing with radical dissent in wartime, it can fairly be said, on balance, that the nation suffered only a very limited--and largely unsystematic--interference with free expression during the Civil War. The Lincoln administration did not enact a sedition act, it left most dissent undisturbed, and those speakers it did arrest for seditious expression were almost always quickly released."
"The greatest danger to robust political dissent during the Civil War came not from Lincoln, who exercised considerable restraint, but from his military commanders, who too often acted on the assumption that war substitutes the rule of force for the rule of law. Lincoln should have done more to keep his military commanders in check. But, on the whole, the man who once claimed the right to excoriate a sitting president for his "misguided" wartime policies (President Polk during the Mexican War) demonstrated an admirable respect for free expression--even when he was the target of attack. Moreover, the impressive public regard for free speech in this era played a critical role in keeping repression in check. Even many Republicans defended the rights of Vallandigham and other dissenters, in the belief that assaults on free expression "ultimately threatened the liberty of all."
"In his devotion to keeping "the country whole so that democracy could not be said to have failed," Lincoln charted a middle course that melded his sense of the practical with his commitment to the law. He claimed for himself--as president--powers both unprecedented and extraordinary, but he took care to root these assertions of authority in the Constitution. Even at the darkest moments of the conflict, Lincoln never asserted that the Constitution was suspended in time of war, and he never lost sight of the nation's fundamental values. Most striking was Lincoln's persistent concern for harmonizing liberty and power through constitutional discourse and his unflinching insistence that "the Constitution mattered."
I also intend in later posts on this thread excerpts from this book that show newspapers that were not closed down, in spite of the things they printed and none of them were friendly to the Lincoln administration or the Union cause. Makes for some interesting reading.
Sincerely,
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
I was hung up on this section as after I had read your post #184 as you directed, it did not answer my question.
However, I did backtrack to your post #175 and found where you began with (after a bit):
Just a little bit.
Ephemera with the header "Who endorsed the Helper book! etc.
I must confess, I looked in my copy of the Webster's dictionary and could not find the word 'ephemera.' The closest I found was the word 'ephemeral' which is defined as 1. Lasting a short time: 2. Lasting or living but a day.
Now, just what are you trying to prove with the posting of the Hinton Rowan Helper in response to Cash's previous postings? I'm confused as to what you are trying to prove with this presentation.
Pardon my confusion.
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
But to stop you bugging me about this single paragraph, it comes from American Memory.
--------------
It doesn't sound like American Memory. It sounds more like it came from a neoconfederate website.
It doesn't sound like American Memory. It sounds more like it came from a neoconfederate website.
It came from where I said it came from. Want to bet? Let us put some money on it. Please. I could use the cold cash and I just loathe being called a liar. Even by implication.
When you claimed that Helper's book was a threat to the natural rights of southerners.
So you are changing your tune, Cash? First you put emphasis on 'Southerners.' Indicating there, and other places, that I was claiming it was about northerners doing it in his book. But either way. The book itself, Helpers works AND the Republican advocation of his book was a direct attack on the South and Southern society. Their support, publication and distribution of it gave solid credence to the true purpose of their seeking power. I'm still waiting for Proof the the contrary.
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