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.
"...blood can not restore blood, and government should not act for revenge."
President Lincoln in a letter to Secretary of War Stanton, on his final decision not to retaliate when Confederate officials threatened to shoot captured Negro soldiers.
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
Daily Whig and Republican, Quincy, Ill., March 7, 1861.
The inaugeration [sic] of Mr. Lincoln has revived the hopes of patriotism every where. Old Imbecility is out and talent, integrity and courage are installed in his place. The new regime will soon be established and will determine in a short time who are and who are not friends of the country. And this will not be the least of the benefits produced by this crisis. It is well that the wolves be stripped of their wool. Le the line between traitors and patriots be destinctly [sis] drawn. But first let us take one more look at the grounds on which we decide, and see with whom we go.
The South are the accusers of the North. They charge us with violating their rights, and the laws. They do this in general terms and make out no case. Some of them are aware of this and of the groundlessness of the charge, and frankly indicate Northern sentiment and opinion as the sole offence. But they do not tell us by what article in the constitution "sentiment" is made criminal.
How is it with them?
Thus: They have been in open violation of the laws of our country, as well as the laws of nations, for years and make their boast of it in National Conventions and elsewhere. They have kidnapped the free citizens of other states, and reduced them to a state of slavery without pretending to justify their conduct by law. And when men go to test--in their courts, the lawfulness of their action, they are driven away by mobs. They have repeatedly violated the rights of Northern men in speech, person and property. They have insulted, maltreated, scourged, tarred and feathered, hung, shot and brutally butchered our fellow citizens without even the mockery of legal proceedings. They have headed them up in barrels with stones and rolled them into the Mississippi River, for the "crime" of differing in opinion, or even being suspected of it.
'But it is the mob that does this.' Yes, it is the mob, and it is the mob that now controls the actions of the South. It is the mob that precipitates treason, and secession; it is the mob that demands concessions of the North--that demands the surrender of principles; and it is to this very mob, insane with conceit, arrogance and fury that we are now expected to make the surrender demanded.
They have suppressed the business of the country, destroyed its credit, robbed its treasury, ruined thousands of business men, and thrown tens of thousands out of employment into want and distress; they have disrupted the Union, seized the federal property, fired into American ships, insulted the National Flag, plundered the National Mint, stolen Government vessels, interrupted commerce, threatened the country with bloodshed and civil war, and are now using the most infamous means to overthrow the Government itself. And as climax to these atrocities add the unspeakable hypocrasy [sis] of charging the responsibility upon the North!
There is not a man in the country but knows, or might know if he desired to, that this action of the South from begin[n]ing to end, from the expulsion of Hoar from Charleston to the fraud and treason of Floyd, and the seizure of the Mint in New Orleans, has been one unmitigated piece of scoundrelism--without any warrant from the laws barbarous selfishness. Yet it is with these worse than Arnolds that the Democratic leaders of the North are, by the chargrin of a political defeat, put in sympathy. It is to these pirates, ruffians, thieves, plunderers, cut-throats, traitors and political debauchees that we are required to make concessions, surrender principles, political rights, the Constitution of our Country, and with it the hopes of the oppressed in all the world. It is with such unscrupulous rebels and robbers that we are to parley about Compromises! And the corrupting tendency of the last thirty years of politics has demoralized us nearly to the point of doing it. But peradventure there be five upright men in this Sodom it shall be saved.
Let reckless and disappointed "Democrats" fly; let frightened Republicans yield, but let all true men who are not prepared to dishonor their names, their sires and their race, by pawning their souls to oppression, barbarism and slavery, stand by their principles and their rights, trusting in God for the blessings of that peace and prosperity which are the inheritances of the good and the just, and which tyrants and the abettors of tyrants can never know.
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
The New York Evening Day Book wrote on 4-17-1861, that the event at Fort Sumter was "a cunningly devised scheme" contrived "to arouse, and, if possible, exasperate the northern people against the South."
The Providence Daily Post, April 13, 1861, implored its readers: "Look at the facts," for three weeks the administration newspapers have been assuring us that Fort Sumter would be abandoned," but "Mr. Lincoln saw an opportunity to inaugurate civil war without appearing in the character of an aggressor," and so he did just that.
The Jersey City American Standard, April 12, 1861: "there is a madness and ruthlessness" in Lincoln's behavior "which is astounding....this unarmed vessell...is a mere decoy to draw the first fire from the people of the South, which act by the pre-determination of the government is to be the pretext for letting loose the horrors of war."
Lincoln's personal secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay, also concurred that Lincoln maneuvered the South into firing the first shot of the war. "Abstractly it was enough that the Government was in the right. But to make the issue sure, (Lincoln) determined that in addition the rebellion should be put in 'the wrong.'"
Lincoln had the audacity to say, with regard to the Fort Sumter incident, that "having thus chosen our course without guile and with pure purpose, let us renew our trust in God, and go forward without fear and with manly hearts."
__________________ Thea
No one has permission to use any material from any of my posts on any CWT forum, the archives, or any other forum without my express written permission.
New York Evening Post, April 10, 1861. "The telegraph last night bore to all parts of the Union the welcome revelation of the government's purpose to defend its property and maintain the laws. We know at last--what men have for four weeks cherished as their fondest hope--that we have a President who will not, like his predecessor, permit the Union to fall to pieces."
Indianapolis Daily Journal, April 11, 1861. "But because the seceding States are determined to have war; because they believe a war will drive to their support the border slave States, and unite them all in a great Southern Confederacy. A policy of peace is to them a policy of destruction."
Daily Pittsburgh Gazette, April 18, 1861. "We were all mistaken. The administration had no intention of making a fight at Sumter. Some of the ships cast anchor--if we may believe the telegrams--in the lower part of Charleston harbor, but showed no inclination to take any part in the battle...Lincoln used Sumter to draw their fire--to put them in a position where all men could see them as they were, and thus withdraw from them the sympathy of every honest man. He uttered no threats; he only expressed a wish to be permitted peaceably to supply a starving garrison. But he made a movement in New York, which, by mistaken inference, was construed into a threat. With characteristic barbarity they resisted the peaceful and merciful mission of the unarmed provision-ship, and hastened to open a murderous cannonade upon the little garrison and inaugrurate a war. Thus to treason, barbarity and cowardice, they added the commission of an egregious blunder."
The Daily Advertiser, April 13, 1861. "After a series of bold and insulting robberies of the forts and other property of the United States, Jefferson Davis has at length consummated his audacious treason by an attack upon Fort Sumter, on of the few strongholds which the United States have been in a condition to defend. The government has hitherto been very tender, some think to a fault, of the crime of disloyalty to the authority of the United States, which has done nothing illegal or unconstitutional, but has scrupulously performed its duty toward all the members of the confederacy doing impartial justice to every member...
Why this attack? Was there ever in the records of the past so perfectly unjustifiable a commencement of a fratricidal war--how, where, and when ended, God only knows. That Omnipotent Being perhaps has never been invoked by any party to a war with a profounder consciousness of entire innocence of wrong, and a deeper desire to shun, if possible, the present conflict, and to stop the effusion of blood, and do justice, and more than justice to those now leagued against it, apparently thirsting for the blood of its loyal citizens, than by this long forbearing, patient government of the United States."
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
You have been Elected President of the United States, and accordance with the Laws and Constitution -- But by a minority of the people Had you not been Elected by a sectional party there would have been but little or no objections to your administering the affairs of the Government -- but as it is, there are many states that will not submit to your Inauguration -- rather than do so, they will withdraw from the Union In the result of the Election, You have attained all the honors that any one Ever attained, Being thus honored, are you willing now, to sacrifice the Union in order that you may retain your commission for four years? If you are you do not possess the patriotism, that a statesman should possess-- It is in your power to save the Union and perhaps a war and for Gods sake and the safty of the Country do it, Resign your the Office and save your Country and a war. If you will you will receive the thanks of millions of your fellow beings. The Government will vote you your salrey and a thousand thanks for the sacrifice
(Morning Courier and New-York Enquier, February 15, 1861)
"The position now held by Mr. Lincoln is one demanding the exercise of those qualities which make a man. Few public men have ever been placed in a position which demanded of them a more strict and conscientious adherence to principle. Between firmness and obstinacy there is a vast difference; and while in the present state of affairs the one is eminently indispensable, the other is for every reason to be avoided. While the one will produce good, the other can only lead to evil. In times like these, true lovers of their country form their opinions only after due deliberation; but having formed them, they do not change them unless convinced that they are wrong. Mr Lincoln has thus far proved that he is a man well fitted for the position in which he is placed. He is not one of your hasty men, whose opinions are formed upon the spur of the moment, and who, consequently, have to change them often. He is no mere politician, who can see nothing beyond the lines of his party. He is one who loves his country, who studies her interests, and therefore believes the welfare of the whole, and not of one part only, should be cared for. Possessing ability and a well-matured judgment; firm in his determination but never obstinate; governed at all times by an earnest desire to do his duty faithfully, he is one who, having marked out his line of conduct, does not deviate from it from any fears of the consequences. He seems to possess that which so many lack, and which is now so necessary--moral courage."
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
"DEMOCRATS ONCE MORE TO THE BREACH!
Grand Rally at Bushnell, Friday, November 4th, 1864.
Hon. L. W. Ross, Major S. P. Cummins, T. E. Morgan, Joseph C. Thompson will address the people on the above occasion, and disclose to them the whole truth of the matter.
WHITE MEN OF McDONOUGH,
Who prize the Constitution of our Fathers; who love the Union formed by their wisdom and compromise;
Brave men who hate the Rebellion of Abraham Lincoln, and are determined to destroy it;
Noble women who do not want their husbands and sons dragged to the Valley of Death by a remorseless tyrant;
Rally out to this meeting in your strength and numbers.
"Lincoln is the leanest, lankiest, most ungainly mass of legs, arms and hatchet face ever strung upon a single frame. He has most unwarrantably abused the privilege which all politicians have of being ugly."
Houston Telegraph, summer of 1860.
"A horrid looking wretch he is, sooty and scoundrely in aspect, a cross between the nutmeg dealer, the horse-swapper, and the night man, a creature fit evidently for petty treasons, small strategems and all sorts of spoils. He is a lank-sided Yankee of the unlovliest and of the dirtiest complexion."
Charleston Mercury, 1861.
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
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