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.
[quote=trice]I think the South might have had a good chance in court in 1861, if they had bothered to act legally instead of resorting to violence. But they chose to throw that opportunity away.]
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Originally Posted by hawglips
Since when is the burden on the accused to prove that he broke no law?
In Soviet Russia or Cuba maybe, but not in a free society ruled by the law.
What the secessionists wanted to do was to break an agreement. They proclaimed this loudly. In order to do that, barring an explicit clause on the subject, they needed to get the "right of secession" recognized under the rules of the agreement -- in short, through the law and the Supreme Court. This is what they had all agreed to do, and they didn't want to abide by their word.
The constitution is an agreement, entered into freely by all the parties. It has no explicit escape clause, but it does have a method for resolving any and all disputes between the parties, and it does have a single body authorized to ==DECIDE== any such issue.
That method is the law, and the body is the Supreme Court. All parties agreed to this -- or they would never have become part of the United States. Every individual official, Federal or state, swore an oath to do this Constitution when he entered office. There is not the slightest doubt about any of that -- not then, and not now.
Now the theory of secession was that any of the parties could simply quit, at any time, without agreement with the others and no obligation to the others. A nice theory, very convenient if you are looking for a way to get out of an agreement. Amazingly enough, Southerners felt this was treason and revolution when Northerners talked about doing it, and Northerners thought it was treason when Southerners talked about doing it. As an old saying goes, "It depends on whose ox is being gored".
No Northern or other state ever said they had seceded. Only the states of the Confederacy ever tried. The burden for establishing that this "right of secession" existed thus rested on them, because they could not exercise a "right" that did not exist.
But as a matter of law, no such "right of secession" was ever established. In fact, common thought is that a few Supreme Court decisions in the days after the Civil War determined that it did not exist.
The only way it ever could have been established before that would be to get the Constitution amended, or to get the Supreme Court to rule on the matter. Until that time, the "right of secession" had no more power than loose talk in a barroom. It appears that the secessionists were so unsure of their case that they plunged into a long and bitter war to avoid trying it.
They can talk about secession all they want, argue through the press, give speeches on it. None of it is a problem unless they violate the rights of others. But if they actually "secede" and then violate the laws (as they did) to seize property and attack others, then they have gone wrong and violated their oaths and responsibilities.
My point is this: if they wanted to be "honorable" men, they should have obeyed their oaths and responsibilites. They made no effort to get a Constitutional amendment passed, which certainly had a chance. It would have been easy to bring this issue before the courts -- but it was possible they might lose and have to face the emptiness of their theory. They chose violence instead of facing that risk. When they did, they tossed "honor" aside on this issue in favor of personal desire.
As noted, I can understand their doing it. Lots of nations are founded by rebels and men looking for their own star as many of these were. I just would not put out all this nonsense about having a "right of secession" as a smoke screen.
I'll take a stab here and say now it is time for your famous and familiar 'Hotel California' defense, where you will state that no state in the Union would have joined the United States if it knew it could not freely leave the Union.
I anxiously await your reply.
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
There is little evidence that the South was seceding over any "liberty" other than the liberty of having slaves -- and the North hadn't done anything to take that away when they seceded.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hawglips
How can you expect me to take you seriously when you make a statement like this?
Hmm, maybe because that is what they said?
When South Carolina seceded, the legislature passed a resolution listing the reasons they seceded. It is an interesting document. There is nothing in it but slavery, the only grievance they had.
I have read similar statements passed by the legislatures of several other original seceding states, but I haven't located all of them yet. The story is pretty much the same: they were seceding over slave property. Texas also makes an additional point of saying the US had not fulfilled its duty to protect Texans against Indian and bandit attack, although more than 1/8th of the entire US Army was in Texas attempting just that at the time.
They made no bones about it. They admitted it to themselves and were willing to put it in writing for all the world to see. Perhaps you should take a new look at the entire picture, and admit it to yourself.
Originally Posted by trice I note that you have very carefully skipped over the parts where Lee says exactly what I attributed to him in the quotes you provide.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hawglips
I skipped something?
You claimed Lee thought Virginia and secession were wrong. I showed that he considered secession to be the lessor of the two evils and that you misappropriated his comments regarding his longing to keep the union intact.
I think you may need to take a little time to review the posts here. Go back and look at the parts of the letter you omitted and I have provided.
As noted in the quote from Lee, he felt secession was treason and that no such right existed. I gave you his exact words -- which you somehow filled in with "..." when quoting from that letter. What reading the "entire picture" of Lee's words shows is that he simply felt he had to follow Virginia no matter what -- something he said to his close friend Charles Anderson as he left Texas in February, and also to Winfield Scott on April 18 - two days before he tendered his resignation at Scott's prodding.
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Originally Posted by hawglips
Pardon me, but I didn't realize that your claim was that Lee said anything at all.
Then you really should go back and read what I said again to enlighten yourself.
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Originally Posted by hawglips
I thought you said Lee believed secession and Virginia's decision to secede were wrong, and that he was with Lincoln on that point.
Come again? Your last two sentences contradict one another.
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Originally Posted by hawglips
I believe you made an inaccurate statement regarding Lee's beliefs about secession, and so I corrected you.
You believed that? Well, now that you have the entire passage in front of you due to my post, you can acknowledge that you were wrong? Gentlemen always acknowledge an error, and there is no shame in it.
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Originally Posted by hawglips
He felt the aggressions and oppressions of the north, and the denial of the rights of his southern brethren, and then took up arms and contended for the principles involved.
He said the south had been wronged by the north.
Yes, two sentences like that are in that paragraph. However, you quoted them completely out of context, much like the blurbs in a movie ad.
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Originally Posted by hawglips
He voiced his disgust with a union maintained by swords and bayonets, and said he would come to the defense of any state whose rights were invaded by the feds (not just Virginia). And thus he did.
Now you already know the entire forum can see his actual words in their entirety just by reading back a few messages. Why continue to distort the context of what he said and twist it this way?
Quote:
Originally Posted by hawglips
He made a long list of the wrongs perpetrated upon the southern people by the feds, and explained his army's presence among them to give them relief from those wrongs.
He explained that the south (the seceders) only contended for the supremacy of the constitution, and the just and true and pure administration of those laws was the reason for the discontent.
From a different document, of course, than his private letter to his son before Ft. Sumter, where we might expect him to reveal his beliefs more. This one is a public document, written after two years of war, to be published to the people of an area his army was moving into/invading, where he would be foraging and might expect trouble from the populace. Lee wasn't really the propaganda sort, so let's just say this is a PR piece, designed to smooth out his operations and hopefully garner support from them.
That's not surprising. Armies do such things all the time. Civil War generals did them all the time. People like Burnside and Banks did it. Braxton Bragg did it. Lee being, IMHO, a more honorable man may have had more belief in what he was saying than others did, but this is still just SOP for an army in enemy territory at that time.
But I think you need to realize that such published statements are self-serving and designed to be so. Napoleon was brilliant with them, but his soldiers had a phrase that expresses their feeling about Napoleon's broadsides and public pronouncements: "To lie like a bulletin." But Lee, of course, was not Napoleon even though he liked to study him.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hawglips
Yes, Lee's words and actions showed his feelings about secession.
Let's see. In the parts you skipped, Lee said secession was revolution, that there was no use talking about it, that the Founding Fathers never intended it to exist, and that Virginia statesmen had called it treason in the past, so what else could it be now? I'd say he let us know pretty well how he felt about it -- if you look at the "entire picture".
You should avoid the elipsis technique. Lots of people use it in online arguments as if no one will ever go and look up the entire document to see what is underneath the "..." If you leave out relevant parts of the text to make your argument sound stronger, you will always look bad when someone points it out. Once someone does, the only way to avoid digging yourself into a deeper hole is to 'fess up without dispute and acknowledge the parts you tried to hide.
I know. Got caught myself once, long ago. I still have some of the scars.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hawglips
Yes, he said so very, very, clearly, "...I take great pride in my country, her prosperity and her institutions, and would defend any State if her rights were invaded...."
Back to the letter to his son. Again, go back and read the "entire picture". Continuing to cherry-pick words and phrases out of context this way can only discredit you if you continue with it now.
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Originally Posted by hawglips
Did he think those rights were invaded?
Yes, he said so, very, very, clearly,
"Feeling the aggression of the North, resenting their denial of the equal rights of our citizens to the common territory of the commonwealth, etc,..."
Back to the proclamation when invading Maryland again? Should we discount this just a little as self-serving PR here, do you think?
Quote:
Originally Posted by hawglips
"...I feel the aggression and am willing to take every proper step for redress. It is the principle that I contend for, not for individual or private benefit....";
Lookee, back to the letter to his son again. Just go back to reread the entire paragraph as Lee wrote it and put this in context.
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Originally Posted by hawglips
"[The Southern States] have seen with profound indignation their sister-State deprived of every right and reduced to the condition of a conquered province....."
Back to the Maryland PR piece again?
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Originally Posted by hawglips
"...the South, in my opinion has been aggrieved by the acts of the North..."
I think I am lost here. Which of the documents you are snipping from and rearranging is this from? The letter to his son?
Quote:
Originally Posted by hawglips
"...have long wished to aid you in throwing off this foreign yoke, to enable you again to enjoy the inalienable rights of freemen and restore independence and sovereignty to your State....";
Back to the Maryland PR piece again? Am I right that there are only two documents here, since you give no source? Is there some particular reason you wished to take all these pieces out of context and jumble them about?
Quote:
Originally Posted by hawglips
Yes, I'm glad you are clear on the point now. It is unbecoming to pretend Lee's ony reason for fighting against the Union was Virginia.
Amazingly enough, Lee himself said that he would do what Virginia did, and he said it more than once. I showed you the Charles Anderson quote on that, and it is pretty much what Lee told Winfield Scott on April 18 as well (although he mentioned other personal and financial reasons to Scott, too). I don't have to "pretend" anything at all.
If you think that is not so, please list your reasons for doubting Lee himself. Scott called him a fool, and I think his choice a wrong one, but I do think he was honest in telling his friends and family where he stood. Why don't you?
Quote:
Originally Posted by hawglips
Though Lee, like many Southerners, would have preferred to remain in the Union, if the laws were administered justly, he saw the wrongs perpetrated on the South, and out of an honorable desire to contend for truth and correct principles, he took up arms to defend those rights, as the lessor of two evils.
Again, that is not what Lee said in 1860-61. It appears, in fact, that you are looking everywhere else to avoid what he did say. Whatever happened to seeing the "entire picture" here?
Originally Posted by hawglips The Confederacy did not strike the first blow. The Confederacy did not draw first blood. The Confederacy didn't reject talks to discuss grievances. The Confederacy asked only to be allowed to go their own way.
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Originally Posted by hawglips
I thought the question was about striking the first blow?
You are moving the target on me!! Please, keep it still!!!
Please, please. No one is "moving the target" on you.
I gave you a number of instances that might be considered a "first blow" by the Confederacy. You seem to think none of them qualify. That opens up an opportunity for *you* to point out what you consider the "first blow". Please state whatever you think it was.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hawglips
So, the "inalienable right to self-determination" is not inalienable?
If it is inalienable, then how does the US "let" them exercise the inalienable right?
Is it inalienable, or is it not?
As far as I recall, this phrase came out of the UN, from the 1966 Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Covenant of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. No-one in 1850s America would have heard of it, or likely agreed to the meaning it is assigned today.
Certainly, many Americans of the Civil War era do not seem to have felt it applied particularly to the groups they were in close contact with: Mexico, the Indians/Native Americans, weak countries in the Gulf and Central America, etc. No one who spoke of "Manifest Destiny" (coined in 1845) would have agreed to it for someone else. This includes Jefferson Davis, for example, who in the 1850s wanted to seize Cuba and said so publicly (it was a very popular idea in the South about then -- see the Ostend Manifesto).
As to whether it is or not, I would suppose it is current official US policy -- probably US law as well if we signed a treaty that said so in 1966. Some things are more honored in the breech than in absolute real terms. Saddam Hussein would argue that we did not let his people "self-determine" rule in Iraq, Noriega would have had a few things to say about Panama, the only Native Americans I ever spoke to about such things gave me an earful, etc. I also doubt the US government would support the "inalienable right" of, oh, New York City to become an independent nation.
But in any case, no one was talking about this "right" at the time of the Civil War unless you might mean "the right of secession". Is that what you are referring to here?
There is little evidence that the South was seceding over any "liberty" other than the liberty of having slaves -- and the North hadn't done anything to take that away when they seceded.
....
When South Carolina seceded, the legislature passed a resolution listing the reasons they seceded. It is an interesting document. There is nothing in it but slavery, the only grievance they had.
I have read similar statements passed by the legislatures of several other original seceding states, but I haven't located all of them yet. The story is pretty much the same: they were seceding over slave property....
They made no bones about it. They admitted it to themselves and were willing to put it in writing for all the world to see. Perhaps you should take a new look at the entire picture, and admit it to yourself.
The issues...and how much of the document is devoted to that issue-
40%...Slavery in the Territories .....more about political power...than 'slave property'-
a new territory...begats a new state...begats two new senators...begats control of the Senate...
..and total control of the government
20%...Tariffs, Protectionism, & Subsidies to benefit Northern interests .....no slaves here
15%...Slave Insurrection .....more about self-preservation than property...
15%...Fugitive Slave Law .....only issue involving 'property'
10%...Objection to Northern Rule/Sectionalism ...a sectional party gaining total control of the gov't to advance its interests over others...in all matters.
The issues...and how much of the document is devoted to that issue-
40%...Slavery in the Territories .....more about political power...than 'slave property'- a new territory...begats a new state...begats two new senators...begats control of the Senate... ..and total control of the government
20%...Tariffs, Protectionism, & Subsidies to benefit Northern interests .....no slaves here
15%...Slave Insurrection .....more about self-preservation than property...
15%...Fugitive Slave Law .....only issue involving 'property'
10%...Objection to Northern Rule/Sectionalism ...a sectional party gaining total control of the gov't to advance its interests over others...in all matters.
40 + 15 + 15 = 70
__________________ -
"It was a very peculiar time." - Franklin D. Cossitt
Ancestors in USA Army: 6th IA Inf, 11th IL Cav, 1st AL Cav; 122nd NY Inf; 6th MI Cav; 35th MA Inf; 100th IL Inf; 1st CO Inf/Cav; 22nd IN Inf
Excellent post. My opinion on the subject is that the North did not have the moral high ground until President Lincoln seized it on January 1, 1863.
Well, I would agree with that if Lincoln had freed all of the slaves.
__________________ Chaplain Rob Stroud, USAF (Retired) Son of SgtMaj Chuck Stroud, USMC Grandson of Corporal Charles Stroud, USA Great-Grandson of Corporal Chauncey Stroud, Fifth Iowa Volunteer Cavalry
He just didn't do it fast enough for some and he went too fast for others.
But by his actions, he is definately the one man who got the ball rolling.
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
Not a bad idea, that of breaking down a states secession ordinance or declaration of secession into percentage points concerning the reasons for said secession.
Maybe we ought to do the same breakdown for all the recorded secession ordinaces, etc. Might make for some interesting viewpoints on the naming of the catagories and such also.
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
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