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.
I'd like to begin a new thread here about Politics and Politicians.
The premise of this thread will be politics, politicians and how they conducted themselves: something that was done, whether rightly or wrongly and the end result. I would like to have others tell what they think of the same situation and, for the thread to continue, others need to present some political bombshells: what transpired and the end result. I will give the first example and if y'all are interested, we can go from there.....Thea
The 1861 military disasters of Bull Run and Ball's Bluff caused the U.S. Congress to create the Committee on the Conduct of War, a group charged with rooting out corruption and inefficiency in the Union army. In actual practice, the committee, made up of abolitionist Radical Republicans led by Senators Benjamin Franklin Wade and Zachariah Chandler and Rep. George Washington Julian, began a campaign that threatened all the conservative and Democratic generals in the army. Their main target was Gen. George B. McClellan, but they got at him by attacking his subordinate generals.
The first victim was Gen. Charles P. Stone. Although the overall commander of the force defeated in the Ball's Bluff disaster, Stone had almost nothing to do with the battle and had been nowhere near the battlefield. Hauled before a secret session of the committee, he faced an inquisition without the benefit of counsel, without being told what charges he was facing, and without knowing his accusers or their testimony. Stone was arrested on the committee's orders at midnight on February 8, 1862, and thrown into prison for 189 days. When he was released, he still didn't know what charges had been made against him, and his military career was ruined.
The next victim was Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter, one of the Union army's most successful generals on the battlefield- and an avid supporter of McClellan. He became the scapegoat for the federal defeat in the 2nd Battle of Bull Run. Charged with disloyal disobedience, and misconduct, Porter was court-martialed and cashiered from the army in disgrace.
The Committee on the Conduct of the War continued its political vendettas throughout the war. They supported Radical and abolitionist generals and attacked conservative ones, regardless of competence. The atmosphere created in the army by the committee's actions and its lack of any real military expertise proved to be detrimental to the Union war effort.
End Result: Fitz John Porter struggled for the rest of his life to clear his name. Finally, in 1878, a military board exonerated him of all charges.
__________________ Thea
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Robert A. Toombs "General And Politician" July 2, 1810 - December 15, 1885
Robert Toombs was born into a wealthy Wilkes County, GA., plantation family, and after graduating in 1828 from Union College in Schenectady, NY., he practiced law in Washington, GA., where he owned a plantation with many slaves. After serving four years in the Georgia legislature, Toombs served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1844 to 1852. A Whig and a Unionist, he worked for the passage of the Compromise of 1850 and helped organize the Constitutional Unionist party in Georgia. It was on that ticket that Toombs was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1852, but he soon changed to the Democratic party and gradually came to realize that secession was the only way the South might retain its heritage.
Toombs was a delegate to Georgia's secession convention and to the convention of seceded states in Montgomery that formed the Confederacy. He was very disappointed that he was not selected president of the new country, but he was a member of the congress and he accepted Jefferson Davis's appointment to become secretary of state. He kept this job only a few months and on July 19, 1861, was appointed brigadier general in command of a Georgia brigade. He served during the Seven Days' battles and on through to the Battle of Antietam, where he was wounded, all the time retaining the congressional seat from which he continuously criticized Confederate military policy. Not being promoted as he thought he should, Toombs resigned his commission and spent the rest of the war harassing his government.
After the war Toombs fled to London, but in 1867 he returned to Georgia, where he again became very influential in state politics, though he was never allowed to hold an elective office because he refused to apply for a pardon. Late in his life he suffered from blindness and alcoholism, dying in Washington, GA., at the age of 75.
Fact: Toombs was the front-runner to be president of the Confederate States of America at the Montgomery convention. Alexander Stephens wrote that Toombs "got quite tight at dinner and went to a party in town tighter than I ever saw him- too tight for his character and reputation by far. I think that evening's exhibition settled the Presidency where it fell."
__________________ Thea
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The slave of a U.S. Army doctor from Missouri, Dred Scott accompanied his master to different army posts in the United States and the western territories. Most Northern states had laws offering freedom to slaves who entered their states accompanied by their masters, and in the Missouri Compromise, Congress had prohibited slavery in the territories north of the southern boundary of Missouri. Because he had spent two years in a free state and a free territory, Dred Scott, backed by abolitionists, sued for his freedom in 1846. In 1856, the case reached the U.S. Supreme Court, which at this time was composed mostly of pro-Southern justices. The Chief Justice, Roger B. Taney, was was an 80-year-old Marylander who had freed his own slaves but who was still committed to the Southern way of life.
In 1857, Taney wrote the court's decision and knocked the antislavery factions on their heels. First, the court ruled that no black man, free or slave, was a U.S. citizen; therefore a black man had no right to sue in federal court and, for that matter, "had no rights which a white man was bound to respect." next, the court ruled that Congress never had the right to ban slavery in territories because the Constitution protected people from being deprived of life, liberty, or property. Slaves, like cows or goats, were property and could be taken anywhere in U.S. jurisdiction.
The South rejoiced and felt relief and vindication, for at last the "Southern opinion upon the subject of Southern slavery... is now the supreme law of the land." The abolitionists in the North were outraged. William Cullen Bryant wrote that slavery was now "a Federal institution... Hereafter, wherever our... flag floats, it is the flag of slavery." The outrage against the decision helped rather than hurt the antislavery cause and contributed to the Republican victory in the 1860 presidential election. The Supreme Court had hoped the decision would end the controversy about the extension of slavery into new territories. Instead, it just fanned the flames of abolitionism.
Fact: Dred Scott and his family were bought and freed after the Court's ruling. Dred died the next year.
__________________ 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.
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.
Thea- my first thought along these lines went to General John Charles Fremont. Shane's new thread on this secession/politics page on the Marx/Engels writings on the Civil War has a chapter addressing this very subject. Though I don't necessarily agree with Marx's opinions on the dealings of Lincoln and Fremont, it is a very interesting take on inside politics and the disposition of a rival. Rather fits in the Hitler/Stalin/Saddam school of thought. Marx is a first rate Machiavellian.
Thanks, Dawna, I'm hunting for some little known political bombshells. I know Tommy, Neil, Ed, Bill T., Hal and Bill Doherty are probably sitting on a ton of them, as well as others.
Maybe they will come forth with some for our perusal and discussion. I'm sure some of the items will have "two sides to the story", like everything else we get "into" on these boards!
__________________ 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.
Last edited by thea_447; 03-04-2005 at 12:25 PM.
Reason: left out a name
In Charles Adams' "For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization" (1993), he goes into detail on this sordid episode in American history (pp. 328, 330 ):
"Lincoln was the most powerful president the United States has ever known. He was often brutal. Civilians were tried by military courts so they could be denied a jury trial and other proper judicial procedures. People who disapproved of his policies were locked up without a trial. One shocking example involved a Northern Democrat from Ohio named Clement Vallandigham. He was a 'dove'. he opposed the war and advocated peace. In March 1863, before a political meeting in Ohio, he denounced the war as 'wicked and cruel' and charged that it was undertaken to 'enthrone Republican despotism on America'. He called Lincoln a dictator and denounced his income tax policy in these words: 'Through a tax law, the like of which has never been imposed upon any but a conquered people, they [the Republicans] have possession...of the entire property of the people of the country'. Lincoln reacted with a fury. Mind you, this was a political rally for the Democratic Party. It wasn't the first time a U.S. president had been called a tyrant by the opposition. There was nothing in Vallandigham's sharp remarks that was not part of the rough-and-tumble of American politics. But Vallandigham was arrested and charged before a military court in Ohio, even though civilian courts were open and Ohio was not a war zone. The military court found him guilty of expressing 'treasonable sentiments'. Rather than have Vallandigham locked up or shot, Lincoln had him forcibly exiled to the South. He wasn't a Southerner, so Vallandigham fled to Canada and from there he was able to get the Democratic Convention in 1864 to brand the war a failure.
__________________ 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.
After the firing on Ft Sumter, patriotic fervor in the North led to massive demonstrations and volunteers pouring into the militia ranks and to regiments raised to meet President Lincoln's call for 75,000 three month volunteers to address 'combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings.' The regiments filled out immediately, indeed too many came forward to be taken, much to the chagrin of those not able to sign up. Now Lincoln had his troops, but not a number of upper slave states, who couldn't abide Lincoln looking crosseyed at the lower slave states. Lincoln needed these troops; the most immediate need being securing Washington and other exposed cities- Baltimore, Annapolis, Cincinnati, St Louis, and the Baltimore & Ohio RR running through western Maryland and western Virginia.
By the time commanders were put into place; supply, outfitting, shelter secured; organization undertaken; and some rudiments of drill instilled, three months seemed pretty short indeed. Lincoln's dilemma- what to do with these enthusiastic volunteers before he would have to send them home? He could not release them 'unbloodied.' He did not want them to lose their enthusiam or dint the fervor of the homefront. These men wanted to face the 'enemy and traitor.' And he had to show the South (also the North) that he meant business. However, no man wants to risk life and limb on the last day of his enlistment, even if he plans on reenlisting. So they would have to go forward, and soon.
Another problem- his volunteers were as green as grass, as were his leaders, as he and his adminiatration were themselves- leading to his famous quote to McDowell ('We are all green alike.') He understood one fundamental fact though, often lost on his commanders, the Southerners were just as green. Generals McDowell and Scott understandably wanted more time to firm up organization and drill and season the men, in fact strongly advised it. However, the 3 month lease on life of the 75,000 was running out. So McDowell would have to do the best he could and move South into Viriginia.
Result- McDowell and his men did quite well. So did the Southerners, who received reenforecements at just the right time, tilting the outcome of the Battle of First Bull Run in their favor. Yankee greenness then brightly manifested itself in a disorderly melting away from the field compounded by the tieup at the Cub Run bridge, precipitating wild disorder.
Thus the men were 'bloodied'. However, now they and the country had a much better idea of what lay before it, and determined to grit their teeth and get down to it. The friction between Lincoln and his top advisors and the commanders in the field over the need for action and the need for buildup and training would continue until late in the war.
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