Newspaper articles, etc. of the Day

[thea_447]

Carmack's Pledge to the South

The South is a land that has known sorrows; it is a land that has broken the ashen crust and moistened it with tears; a land scarred and riven by the plowshare of war and billowed with the graves of her dead; but a land of legend, a land of song, a land of hallowed and heroic memories.

To that land every drop of my blood, every fiber of my being, every pulsation of my heart, is consecrated forever.

I was born of her womb; I was nurtured at her breast; and when my last hour shall come, I pray God that I may be pillowed upon her bosom and rocked to sleep with her tender and encircling arms.

Delivered on the floor of the US House of Representatives by Tennessee Congressman Edward Ward Carmack, 1903 (Senator 1858-1908)

(P.S. I will think of you all on Saturday when I'm again on the steps of the Capitol, Montgomery, Alabama, to stand on the star where Jefferson Davis was sworn in as President of the Confederate States of America. I will think of each of you on this Secession Day while I again sing "Dixie". I'm going to sing it so loudly and joyfully that I hope you hear it in Ohio, Neil. <grin> God speed. Thea)

[unionblue]

Dear Thea,

How I wish I were there on the steps with you to sing the song 'Dixie' right along side you.

At my reenacting units attendance in Guyandotte, WV, there is a Civil War Ball that my wife and I attend, where, after the last dance, we both call on the period band to play 'Dixie'. It is always a moving moment for me, and even though I am dressed in my blue Union frock coat, I place my hand over my heart and sing as loudly as any man in a gray uniform does (surprising a few, I might add!).

Before and since I have reenacted with a Confederate Unit, the 17th Mississippi, Company D, the 'Rough and Readies', I have always had a deep respect and awe of the Southern fighting man. Not so much the Generals and such, but the average man in the ranks. His courage, endurance and stubborn faith in his comrades and country have always produced a feeling of awe and respect for him in my mind and heart. The song 'Dixie' gives voice to this respect and hence the reason I enjoy singing it.

So sing it loud, dear friend, and know that I would enjoy being there with you and try to contribute in a very small vocal way, my respect and admiration for the men you represent so well.

YMOS,
Unionblue

[thea_447]

Thanks, Neil, I do wish you could be there. My g-grandfather also served in Mississippi, in Co K, 41st Regt Ms Infantry, the Ms. Rip Raps. My husband's great grandfather served in Co. H, Reg't 7, Mississippi Volunteers. I also have slews of other relatives stretching through Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina etc. that served in the war so when I sing I feel like I'm representing all of them.

Now back to the topics on this thread:

On the War Between the States:

"The Confederate Soldiers were our kinfolk and our heroes. We testify to the country our enduring fidelity to their memory. We commemorate their valor and devotion. There were some things that were not surrendered at Appomattox. We did not surrender our rights and history, nor was it one of the conditions of surrender that unfriendly lips should be suffered to tell the story of that war or that unfriendly hands should write the epitaths of the Confederate dead. We have a right to teach our children the true history of that war, the causes that led up to it and the principles involved."

-Senator Edward Ward Carmack, 1903

(1858-1908) from Tennessee

[thea_447]

Controversy Over the Trent Case
first published Dec. 11, 1861

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx...1861/12/11.htm

Take a moment tonight to think of General James Longstreet,CSA, who was born this date, Jan. 8, 1821.

[thea_447]

As seen in the Republican Vindicator, January 20, 1860:
From the New York Herald

We are compelled to continue the sad record of the terrible calamity at Lawrence Mass. where, through the penny wise and pound foolish meanness of a soulless corporation, nearly two hundred operatives lost their lives and another hundred or more are maimed for the remainder of their days.

There are some shocking accidents--such as fire at sea and shipwrecks--the results of which, however painful they may be, can only be regretted. Human foresight in many of those cases could neither have prevented their occurrence at the time nor have provided against the possibility of their repetition. This Lawrence murder is not one of those cases wherein we say that men and women died by visitation of God, or through the workings of some inscrutable dispensation of divine providence. That there will not be wanting in Massachusetts people, perhaps journalists and persons to take such ground, we can readily imagine; it will be as sheer blasphemy as if it were pleaded as an excuse by a wretch who came into court with his hands died in the blood of his brother.

Let us examine the case. In the centre of a large manufacturing town there has been erected a building to be used as a manufactory, to be filled with ponderous machinery, and to be occupied during ten hours in each working day by eight hundred men and women. It is found, after the erection of the building, that it is not safe, and it is patched up with iron plates, as if they could insure the stability of a structure which was doubtless insecure from its foundation to its roof trees. The corporation makes itself secure against pecuniary loss by full insurance. The spindles are in motion, the busy fingers of the white slaves guide the magic thread whereon hang fat dividends. The President and Directors doze over their after dinner wine, its ruby color deepened with the blood of the operative. The manufactory may fall to pieces, or may be burned down. No matter. It is insured--fully insured--in good offices. Another glass of wine. And the director enjoys his port, as fine old Boston gentlemen have done before him for many a day gone by, and will for many a day to come. He has dropped into a gentle slumber, and is dreaming of two per cent per month, when their comes a crash, a shriek, a death wail. Two hundred young men and women have been crushed and burned to death since that fine old Boston gentleman ate his last almond. But he is insured. Where is the insurance for the kindred of the slain? Where the recompense for the bereaved father and hear broken mothers, and weeping sisters, and agonizing brothers, who stand over the mangles and charred remains of their kindred? Who shall pay the premium that will be demanded from the fine old Boston gentleman at the last great account--that day when the books of the rich and poor, the high and low, Dives and Lazarus, the beggar and the king, shall be squarely and evenly balanced with the golden rule? - What company will insure the fine old Boston gentleman against that risk? Not we.

But they are philanthropists, these corporators of Lawrence. Very likely they give a great deal to home and foreign missions. Without doubt they sincerely sympathize with the negro who picks, in Alabama, the cotton which their slaves weave at Lawrence. They will give money to help that cotton picker to rise and murder his master, and to make up for that expense will put the screws tighter to the cotton weaver, who is--God save the mark!--a free laborer--free as the galley slave who clanks his chains at Brester Toulou; free as the British soldier who faints under the burning sun of India--free to labor many hours at scanty pay in an insecure building, and free to be crushed to death at last! That is free white labor from a State street point of view.

Here we may be met with the old plea that the gentlemanly vice of avarice can only be curbed by legislative enactments. Well, we have a government--a federal and a State government--an extensive and costly machine, which we work, or which works us, at any expense of many millions per annum. Every year we have as many as two or three thousand new laws about one thing and another. But the moment that any act is proposed to provide against the occurrence of such massacres as that at Lawrence, capital comes in, buys Legislatures like so much merchandise; and there's the end of all. We need not go to Lawrence to see examples of this. The Greeks are at our own doors. There are hundreds of insecure building in New York, and a very large number of unsafe steam boilers hissing beneath the feet of our citizens as they pursue their daily avocations. In the matter of the boilers, the Common Council, we believe has passed an ordinance appointing an Inspector, but the man has not yet been selected, and probable (sic) will not be until after the next explosion.

It will be seen that all these dangers to which we have alluded menace more particularly the laboring classes, who are generally unfriended, living from hand to mouth and fighting the battle of life upon empty stomachs. Truly, they have the civil law to resort to. The law is open to everybody and so is the Fifth Avenue Hotel. Perhaps a bereaved father or mother might succeed in an action against the proprietors of the Pemberton Mills; but who would go security for the costs preliminary to the result? What poor devil can fight a wealthy corporation? The operative looks, then, to the journalist as his only friend--And the journalist should accept cheerfully the championship thus thrown upon him. The press should unite to demand that special laws, as in the case of railways, should be enacted for the insurance of the operatives as well as of the building wherein they labor. The law should declare in the simplest way, that proprietors of building used as manufactories must guarantee their employees against such accidents as that at Lawrence. Further, that if such building falls, the fact is prima facie evidence of culpability on the part of the owners, and legal proceedings for the relief of the sufferers should be commenced in the names of the State, and at its expense. We employ a District Attorney to bring to justice the man who takes away the life of one other, while the slaughterer of hundreds goes to his bed of down unpunished, sleep well...and "little cupids dropping on his urn their marble tears."

[hawglips]

New York Tribune, March 9, 1861
From Virginia: Effect of the Inaugural
(page 6, column 4)

The inaugural of Mr. Lincoln is received here with much disfavor. When the first few telegraphic installments of it appeared on the bulletin boards and shortly after upon narrow slips of paper, headed "Extra," the most intense curiosity was manifested by all classes to learn what had fallen from the lips of the man who was about to assume the Presidential chair--to read and know the authoritative announcement of the policy of the incoming Administration, so obnoxious to the South. I have heard but one construction of Mr. Lincoln's declaration of his intention to "hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government, and to collect the duty and imposts." It is regarded, if not as a declaration of war, as at least the expression of a determination to coerce the seceding States into compliance with the demands of the Federal Government.

There is no wisdom in attempting to disguise the fact that any effort to carry out this policy will meet with the stern and unyielding resistance of Virginia. This is what the State has unceasingly remonstrated and counseled against, and what her Union-loving men have fondly hoped would not be attempted.

The Secessionists now point the finger and tauntingly say to them, "We told you so." They hail the outspeaking of Mr. Lincoln not only as the fulfillment of their predictions, but as the sure precursor of speedy steps on the part of the authorities at Washington which will make Virginia a unit and precipitate her out of the Union, and along with her all the Southern Border States.

The Union men are ominously silent. That they are deeply disappointed in the avowal of the President, and that even they now regard the hour for some decisive step on the part of Virginia as near at hand, is no longer denied. There is but little doubt now that henceforth the Secessionists, who a few short days ago were but a small minority, will have things pretty much their own way.

The friends of the Union who have hitherto been hopeful of good results can no longer say, "Wait until the Ides of March." The day is past, and though the sun of nature never shone brighter, yet in the political sky a dark cloud gathered over Virginia.

The position of the Border States is now regarded as a most embarrassing one. Unlike the Cotton States, they stand face to face with the dangers that threaten them, and men who are not for blindly fleeing from the ills of the present to those which they know not of, are almost at a dead loss for a suggestion as to what course should be pursued for their future welfare and for the warding off the calamities which now seem to be almost inevitable.

Whether Virginia will go with the North or the South, in the event of a final and irreparable dissolution, has never been a serious question with any man or party of men, though she has patiently and dispassionately looked on the progress of events and shown but little sympathy for one section, and little hostility toward the other. But the question is seriously asked: Will Virginia join the Southern Confederacy, or will she call a Convention of Border Southern States, and unite with them in the formation of a Central Government?


(Message edited by hawglips on January 09, 2004)

[hawglips]

Tuesday, March 5, 1861

The Richmond Enquirer, The Declaration of War.
(page 2, column 1)

Mr. Lincoln's Inaugural Address is before our readers -- couched in the cool, unimpassioned, deliberate language of the fanatic, with the purpose of pursuing the promptings of fanaticism even to the dismemberment of the Government with the horrors of civil war. Virginia has long looked for and promised peace offering before her -- and she has more, she has the denial of all hope of peace. Civil war must now come. Sectional war, declared by Mr. Lincoln, awaits only this signal gun from the insulted Southern Confederacy, to light its horrid fires all along the borders of Virginia. No action of our Convention can now maintain the peace. She must fight! The liberty of choice is yet hers. She may march to the contest with her sister States of the South, or she must march to the conflict against them. There is left no middle course; There is left no peace; was must settle the conflict, and the God of battle give victory to the right!

We must be invaded by Davis or by Lincoln. The former can rally fifty thousand of the best and bravest sons of Virginia, who will rush with wiling hearts and ready hands to the standard that protects the rights and defends the honor of the South -- for every traitor heart that offers aid to Lincoln there will be many, many who will glory in the opportunity to avenge the treason by a sharp and certain death. Let not Virginians be arrayed against each other, and since we cannot avoid war, let us determine that together, as people of the same State, we will defend each other, and preserve the soil of the State from the polluting foot of the Black Republican invader.

The question, "where shall Virginia go?" is answered by Mr. Lincoln, She must go to war -- and she must decide with whom she wars -- whether with those who have suffered her wrongs, or with those who have inflicted her injuries.

Our ultimate destruction pales before the present emergency. To war! to arms! is now the cry, and when peace is declared, if ever, in our day, Virginia may decide where she will finally rest. But for the present she has no choice left; war with Lincoln or with Davis is the choice left us. Read the inaugural carefully, and then let every reader demand of his delegate in the Convention the prompt measures of defense which it is now apparent we must make.

[hawglips]

Republican Vindicator, March 15, 1861
Lincoln's War Policy

The Washington correspondent of the Richmond Examiner says:

In Southern circles here little doubt is entertained as to the policy and purpose of the Inaugural address. It is believed Mr. Lincoln will proceed, without delay, to adopt hostile measures against the South. A collision in less than a week is quite possible. This may grow out of an attempt to collect revenue at the South, to reinforce Forts Sumter [sic] and Pickens, or to retake other places. The words, "hold, occupy and possess," in reference to the forts and other coast points in the South, coupled with the special reservations made as to interior places where residents cannot be induced to hold offices, are full of meaning. They teach us to be prepared for war at a moment's notice, and those recreant Virginians whose base hearts throb with sympathy for the North may at once prepare their cartridges for a fight with their own neighbors.

In army circles the reinforcement of Fort Sumter is proposed to be effected in a stealthy mode at first, by sending down a ship provided with good seat boats, who are to go in by night from the sea, take advantage of bad weather, fogs and an imperfect vigilance of the South Carolina steamers posted on the look out, and thus get men enough in Fort Sumter to resist an assault. After this is done, four or five war vessels will then essay to force their way in, and Major Anderson will open fire to sustain them.

It is not unlikely this plan may be hit upon, but I am included to think a prior step will be the repudiation by the Government of agreement made at Pensacola by the late Administration. Orders will be sent to Lieut. Slemmer, commanding Fort Pickens, to take men from the slip to reinforce the garrison, to bring in the war vessels, and to demand a surrender of the Navy Yard by the officers of the Provisional Government.

Such are some of the steps likely to be taken by the Government to bring on the war they covet. They rely upon their ability to whip the South, and count extensively on help from Andrew Johnson and the men like him in your Convention. Lincoln does not know these men. Their treason lies in hatching plots, and will shrink from the open field where they will have to confront the brave and true men of the South.

[thea_447]

Joint Resolutions of the General Assembly of Alabama
Feb. 24, 1860
Source: "The History and Debates of the Convention of the People of Alabama," William R. Smith (Montgomery, Ala: White, Pfister, &amp; Co, 1861; reprint Spartanburg, SC: Reprint Company Publishers, 1975), pp. 9-10. Thanks to Justin Sanders for sending me this.

WHEREAS, anti-slavery agitation persistently continued in the non-slaveholding States of this Union, for more than a third of a century, marked at every stage of its progress by contempt for the obligations of law and the sanctity of compacts, evincing a deadly hostility to the rights and institutions of the Southern people, and a settled purpose to effect their overthrow even by subversion of the Constitution, and at the hazard of violence and bloodshed; and whereas, a sectional party calling itself Republican, committed alike by its own acts and antecedents, and the public avowals and secret machinations of its leaders to the execution of these atrocious designs, has acquired the ascendancy in nearly every Northern State, and hopes by success in the approaching Presidential election to seize the Government itself; and whereas, to permit such seizure by those whose unmistakable aim is to pervert its whole machinery to the destruction of a portion of its members would be an act of suicidal folly and madness, almost without a parallel in history; and whereas, the General Assembly of Alabama, representing a people loyally devoted to the Union of the Constitution, but scorning the Union which fanaticism would erect upon its ruins, deem it their solemn duty to provide in advance the means by which they may escape such peril and dishonor, and devise new securities for perpetuating the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity; therefore,

1. Be it resolved, That upon the happening of the contingency contemplated in the foregoing Preamble, namely, the election of a President advocating the principles and action of the party in the Northern States calling itself the Republican Party, it shall be the duty of the Governor, and he is hereby required, forthwith to issue his Proclamation, calling upon the qualified voters of this State to assemble on Monday not more than forty days after the date of said Proclamation, at the several places of voting in their respective counties, to elect delegates to a Convention of the State, to consider, determine and do whatever in the opinion of said Convention, the rights, interests, and honor of the State of Alabama requires to be done for their protection.

2. Be it further resolved, That said Convention shall assemble at the State Capitol on the second Monday following said election.

3. Be it further resolved, That it shall be the duty of the Governor as soon as possible to issue writs of election to the Sheriffs of the several counties, commanding them to hold an election on the said Monday so designated by the Governor, provided for in these Joint Resolutions, for the choosing of as many delegates from each county to said Convention as the several counties shall be entitled to members in the House of Representatives of the General Assembly; and said election shall be held at the usual places of voting in the respective counties, and the polls shall be opened under the rules and regulations now governing the election of members to the General Assembly of this State, and said election shall be governed in all respects by the laws then in existence, regulating the election of members of the House of Representatives of the General Assembly, and the persons elected thereat as delegates, shall be returned in like manner, and the pay, both mileage and per diem, of the delegates to said Convention, and the several officers thereof, shall be the same as that fixed by law for the members and officers of said House of Representatives.

5. Be it further resolved, That copies of the foregoing Preamble and Resolutions be forwarded by the Governor as soon as possible to our Senators and Representatives in Congress, and to each of the Governors of our sister States of the South.

[thea_447]

From the Montgomery Advertiser, January 8, 1911

<u>Alabama's Military Resources, 1861</u>

When the state of Alabama seceded on the 11th of January, 1861, it had a white population of 526,271. Its military resources consisted of a "militia system," which had practically been without efficiency for more than ten years, and also an organization popularly known as the "Alabama Volunteer Corps." The latter was intended to be the nucleus of any perfected military force which the State might be called upon to bring into active service. An act of the Legislature of February 24, 1860, regulated and controlled the Corps, which was not to exceed eight thousand men. Careful provision was made for the organization of volunteer companies, and also for the affiliation of companies already long organized. While details are not available, a news item in "The Weekly Confederation," under date of January 4, 1861 says:

"There are now seventy companies belonging to the volunteer corps of the State, created by the last legislature. No company is admitted without having forty-four men on its roll which would make three thousand and eighty men, but some of the companies have as many as eighty men. Making the average at fifty men in each company, the corps now numbers three thousand five hundred men."

<u>Sentiment of the People</u>

The sentiment of the people throughout the State is thus described by Gov. Thomas Hill Watts, in his inaugural address of December 1, 1863, and although spoken more than two years later, it accurately reflects the heart of Alabama in 1861.

"And when the first tocsin of war sounded co-operationists and secessionists marched shoulder to shoulder, heart to heart, hand to hand to the arbitrament of battle. From the Gulf to our northern border, from the mountains, valleys and plains, from the east and from the west, the stalwart sons of Alabama rushed to the standard of the new-born Republic; and with dauntless bravery and heroism they have crimsoned with their blood every battlefield from Manassas to Chickamauga. An imperishable monument of glorious renown has been erected for the state. The name 'Alabamian' has become immortal in our history."