Robert E. Lee's view of secession, late 1860- early 1861

[trice]

Originally Posted by Wild_Rose

I don't know what your concept of "many Southerners" is, but by my definition it would be a substantial amount of people...enough to put up a really good argument against secession. Since there were no large anti-secession rallys, no anti-secession conventions or any other means of "many Southerners" making their voices heard, I believe your position of "many Southerners" against secession is not accurate. The occasional anti-secession speech or editorial does not support your claim.

I must assume you are dissembling again because, as you have told us, you are not in the habit of acknowledging what you do not believe.

There is a very long history of Southerners being opposed to secession. As Lee noted in his family letter, Virginia statesmen were calling it treason when it was talked about in New England fifty years earlier. South Carolina's various attempts at it in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s had all been met with rejection by the South. Jefferson Davis, leaving his post in Congress to run for Governor of Mississippi in 1851 on the secessionist side is defeated. Even in 1861 we have Southern states voting against secession (like Virginia and Tennesse) and still a substantial anti-secession vote in some states that did secede early that year. In Texas, many anti-secessionists boycotted the illegal election of the representatives to the secession convention, only to find themselves betrayed by a legislature which authorized it ex post facto -- and then they found themselves the target of intimidation tactics before the referendum.

In Georgia, the vote for the secession convention was usually given as 50,243 in favor of secession to 37,123 against. In 1972 the Georgia Historical society, having noted a number of discrepancies, tried to recreate the count using all the sources they could find. Their conclusion: the January 2, 1861 vote was 42,744 in favor of co-operation and 41,717 in favor of immediate secession. North Georgia (like East Tennessee) was heavily opposed to secession. Dade County, for example, voted to secede from Georgia when Georgia voted to secede from the Union.

One of the huge difficulties with listening to secessionists argue their point is their insistence that only what they want to see existed and that any troublesome data be swept under the carpet. Clearly exactly what you treat with such derision did exist, yet you find yourself unable to acknowledge it because it conflicts with what you would like to believe.

Regards,
Tim

[trice]

Originally Posted by Wild_Rose

Taking that stand would have us negate all arguments over the legality of secession since the Constitution is silent on the matter and all we have to base our opinions on is the arguments of men.

Should we disregard the opinions of historians, also? Their opinions are, after all, formed after the war.

Rose, you should always look at the surrounding circumstances when evaluating statements -- just as you should always wonder what is hiding under those "..." spots people are so fond of using when they quote things online.

Evans was an ex-Confederate writing for ex-Confederates and their families, in a publication that catered to that audience 30 years after the war. It would be surprising to find that anyone expressing an opinion on secession in such a publication was against it; an opinion in favor of it is simply what is expected to be found there. If you went over and looked at a similar Union vet publication dedicated to the GAR market, you'd undoubtedly find lots of opinions diametrically opposite to this one. The editors who select the pieces tend to publish what their readers want to see. This is all simply normal human practice, no different than what goes on with TV ratings today.

I am sure Evans believed what he said. That has no necessary connection with his being accurate or correct. If you do not make an allowance for his bias, you cannot even begin to evaluate fairly the content of what he says.

As to historians, the same. You need to make an allowance for the times and markets they were writing in, the theories then current, the information available at the time, the historians own bias. For example, it is well known that many personal memoirs and books written by Civil War participants are filled with errors and unreliable.

Some of those (like Sheridan's, or John Bell Hood's, or Joe Johnston's) are clearly wrong on some or many of the facts and heavily biased because of personal animosities. Many believe Hood's was affected by the pain of his wounds/laundanum as well as his personal conflicts. Grant's are held up as a model, but are less than forthcoming about anything connected with Shiloh or Chattanooga. Pollard and Davis clearly had axes to grind and a need to justify themselves/the South that colors all they see. Ben Butler's autobiography is a monument to self-tribute, but not a reliable source to use alone in evaluating him.

Other accounts are wrong simply because the data was unavailable and men were going on distant memories of the twisted chaos of combat. One common rule used when you doubt a description in such a book is to check the publication date. If it is before the relevant section of the OR came out and conflicts with later accounts, it is probably wrong. The veterans studied those OR volumes; the historians used them as the starting point for all they wrote. Numbers and dates and positions and facts all became more correct and consistent once they could see the data directly -- and see the other side's records as well.

Regards,
Tim

[trice]

Originally Posted by trice

As proof of his sentiment, Evans statement is well and good. As proof that secession was legal in 1860-61, it has all the standing of a batter or a pitcher protesting the decision of the umpire on a called strike after the game is over.

Originally Posted by Wild_Rose

Possibly, except that when you consider that it was probably his opinion before the war also (he organized a company of militia), it matters little when he wrote the essay.

It matters little. It is still only his opinion. He was a lawyer and a talented orator/debater, so his presentation is worth listening to -- but he has no more of a vote on the issue than a lobsterman in Maine, a wheat farmer in Kansas, or a ranch-hand in Texas.

When it comes to the question of whether or not the "right of secession" did exist, the Supreme Court (and its' subordinate courts) did have a vote. Mr. Evans was not among them. If it had come to such a decision in early 1861, my guess is the Supreme Court splits about 4-4, maybe 5-3 one way or the other.

If you want to take it to Congress, the Republicans are a minority in the Senate and a minority in the House after the election of 1860 -- and even some Republicans thought the slave states should be let go at that time. Even a famous Abolitionist said they should be released. Hard to say what would have happened if the South had stayed and worked on legal means here, but these people might actually have a vote: after all, how else did Texas get in?

And, of course, there is always the Amendment route, which would get the Congress and/or the state legislatures into voting on this issue.

But the individuals like Evans only have opinions, for whatever they are worth. Their opinions can influence others, but a man like Evans had no power to decide the issue -- just the same as that lobsterman in Maine, that wheat farmer in Kansas, or that ranch-hand in Texas.

Regards,
Tim

[Wild_Rose]

Originally Posted by trice

Some did; some didn't. The counties of West Virginia remained strongly opposed to secession, as did those of East Tennessee. There was a large massacre of Unionists in Texas who were merely trying to flee North (1862 or 1863, IIRR). NC produced the largest number of Confederate soldiers -- and also the largest number of Union volunteers in the seceding states, IIRR. We have those 100,000+ USCT who came from seceding states as well.

Those numbers are negligable compared to those that supported secession. Even in Tennessee, more than 2/3 of the state were for secession. West Virginia didn't have enough to vote to stay in the Union, so they seceded the state...ironic, isn't it?

Those poor Germans you mention had organized a Union Loyal League. They eventually formed three units of about 500 "supposedly" Confederate troops that was actually formed for the explicit reason of complying with the conscription order, but never with the intention of serving the Confederacy. This was treason. When the Union Loyal League's key leaders were arrested the militia was disbanded and many fled for Mexico (not to the North). Again, this was treason with the added charge of desertion. There is more, but to claim these poor people were just caught in the middle and trying to get out of Confederate territory is not an accurate account.

Originally Posted by trice

For many of these people "getting North" wasn't an option until the Union came to them. When Confederate conscription agents are waiting to scoop you up, it isn't all that easy to pack your family up and move several hundred miles through Confederate territory, passing the lines of the rebel armies, to "get north" On this issue, you are simply dreaming when you imagine those who wanted to leave could do so with impunity.

No, actually by giving people some credit for intelligence, I believe many fled North when secession seemed to be imminent, both before and immediately after the state's secession. I do not think they sat down and waited for the last state to secede, for the Confederacy to establish a government and an army. For the ones that did do this, I take back what I said about giving them credit for intelligence.

Originally Posted by trice

Meanwhile, Jefferson Davis was suspending habeas corpus and using Confederate troops to put down the resistance and opposition that did surface in places like East Tennessee or certain areas of Alabama, and Confederate troops were moving into the counties of what became West Virginia.

Do you believe President Davis was wrong?

Originally Posted by trice

Much of the ardor among military-age men in the Confederacy cooled as 1861 turned into 1862 and men began to see just what kind of mess they had landed in. The reason the Confederacy instituted conscription was that new enlistments were few and re-enlistments vanishingly small in the Winter of 1861-62. So the Confederacy decided, in the interest of the Cause, to force them to serve. The Union used a different approach, more carrot-and-stick: bonuses on one hand for volunteers, the threat of the draft looming in the distance -- but the Union had a larger population to draw from, and so could use that approach longer, while it failed early on in the Confederacy. As a result, about 6% of the total Union Army was actually drafted in 1861-65 (growing and would have been higher if the war went on) while essentially something close to 100% of the Confederate Army was conscripted at one time or another (essentially everyone who volunteered in early 1861 and lived being conscripted in 1862, followed by just about all new soldiers from 1862 on being conscripts).

I fail to see the point of your observation. If you are saying that by '62 the Confederate soldier realized that the war was more than he bargained for and would get out of it if he could, you aren't describing the majority of Southern soldiers I read about.

Originally Posted by trice

Were they angry? Sure, most people who fight in wars are angry or frightened or both; my relatives who have fought were angry at the enemy, and are today. Union soldiers were angry during the Civil War, too. By the end of any war, the reasons it started often look silly or bizarre. One great expression of this is found in the (decidely anti-war and Libertarian) movie and play Shenandoah. John Cullum, playing the father (the Jimmy Stewart part), sings a song called "What was the dying for?" at his wife's grave just before intermission, part of which goes like this:

The dream has turned to ashes
The wheat has turned to straw
And someone asks the question
“What was the dying for?”
The living can’t remember
The dead no longer care
But next time it won’t happen
Upon my soul, I swear

In real life you don't hear many Southern people say the reasons for secession were silly or bizzare, although, many of us agree the war was forced on the South and was unnecessary.

Originally Posted by trice

After a while, the men are fighting because that's what they have to do, the war is started, it is on-going, and it needs to be ended. Of course they are angry. Naturally they are angry at the people who are trying to kill them, who are making their lives so miserable and both sides are angry about that more than anything else as time goes on. So you have disasters like the Thirty Years War and the Hundred Years War, or the American Civil War.

So you believe the cause was all but forgotten or at least no longer important?

Originally Posted by trice

But the Confederacy didn't start the war because of a Union "invasion". No such claim can hold water, which is why all these secessionist arguments always try to justify the early bad behavior by the Confederates by referring to things that happened later, actions they caused by their own aggressive acts. That will not stand.

Yes, it will stand and it does stand. The North was the aggressor.

Originally Posted by trice

Rose, this thread was started because you didn't wish to see Lee as he was. I presented many specific quotes showing how he felt about secession in December 1860 to April of 1861. You said I was misinterperting him and I showed you more. Lee himself used words like treason, revolution, and anarchy to describe the idea of secession in those days. In post #13 of this very thread *you* acknowledged that was how he felt about the idea, that it was nothing but treason, and said you simply didn't share his opinion.

Ok. You are slightly misrepresenting Lee, but I won't argue the point. I've already done that.

Originally Posted by trice

Here we are 20 messages later and you are back to telling me I don't understand General Lee. I think this is merely more of the philosophy you have outlined for yourself: as you have said, you are not in the habit of acknowledging what you do not wish to believe. Every chance you get, you seem to erase the inconvenient facts from your memory.

I will address the rest of this message as soon as you show me where I ever said that I'm not in the habit of acknowledging what I do not wish to believe. On that note, I'll anxiously await your reply.

Regards,
Rose

[johan_steele]

Wild Rose, you may not be aware of the problems w/ Loyal Unionists in Texas in particular but there were issues in NC, TN & North Georgia in particular as well.

Texas had several individual incidents where US citizens were murdered simply for refusing to support the CS and there were large armed bands of draft/conscription evaders & Unionists in West Texas. For the most part they were left alone as it was too costly to go after them but any property left behind was almost universilly seized. I have a lot of respect for what Texas did do right (IMHO) w/ those who refused to support the CS against the Union but who were still willing to support Texas. Many in that group ended up in various Ranger/border companies defending territory against the Commanches.

TN, in particular East TN, had a very large pro US group in the East, to the point that when Longstreet moved against Burnside in Knoxville he found himself operating in what he had to consider hostile territory. And the other half of the murders @ Ft Pillow were TN men who were loyal to the US instead of the CS.

Missouri, Georgia & NC all had very large 30-50% of the population still loyal to the US. THen there was Kentucky; I often hear it bandied about that Kentucky was a pro CS state... this is incorrect as Kentucky was overwhelmingly pro US.

As Trice has shown upon further review several of the Secession votes were pro Secession by only a slim margin... proving that attitudes and loyalties were not split by the Mason Dixon line. Upwards to 250,000 Southerners served in the US military during the ACW.

That said there were areas in the north that were very pro CS in Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa etc. W/ each of these states having men head south to join the CS cause.

IMHO many of the Seccesion votes were doctored by a minority that wished a particular outcome. There was a grab for power by a vocal minority.

I do not understand how the US can be viewed as the aggressor when they were fired upon, had troops & federal employees attacked & robbed. The CS called for 100,000 troops well prior to Ft Sumter being fired upon & President Lincoln calling up 75,000 troops to put down what had become a violent insurrection.

Ft Sumter was a clear declaration of War and a similar action would be considered the same by any other nation in the world. FT Sumter identified the budding CS as the aggressor.

[trice]

Originally Posted by Wild_Rose

I will address the rest of this message as soon as you show me where I ever said that I'm not in the habit of acknowledging what I do not wish to believe. On that note, I'll anxiously await your reply.

Post 226 in JohnTaylor's "slavery was at the bottom of everything they were worried about" thread. The actual quote would be "But you are right, I don't wish to acknowledge it since I'm not in the habit of acknowledging what I do not believe in."

Regards,
Tim

[trice]

Originally Posted by trice

Rose, this thread was started because you didn't wish to see Lee as he was. I presented many specific quotes showing how he felt about secession in December 1860 to April of 1861. You said I was misinterperting him and I showed you more. Lee himself used words like treason, revolution, and anarchy to describe the idea of secession in those days. In post #13 of this very thread *you* acknowledged that was how he felt about the idea, that it was nothing but treason, and said you simply didn't share his opinion.

Originally Posted by Wild_Rose

Ok. You are slightly misrepresenting Lee, but I won't argue the point. I've already done that.

No, Rose, I have not misrepresented Lee at all. From December of 1860 to April of 1861, as the nation was being torn asunder over the issue of secession, Robert E. Lee made his view on the "right of secession" absolutely crystal clear. He thought it was revolution; he called it treason; he saw it as the equivalent of anarchy. His view is simply not what you want it to be.

At the same time, he also stated clearly what his decision in the coming days would be based on. He was a Virginian. He would follow Virginia no matter what; although he undrestood others felt differently. He said it in December; he said it in January and February; he said it in March and he said it in April. When the time came, he did what he had said he would do all along.

There is not even the slightest divergence between what he said then and what he said later. Lee would do exactly the same thing, for exactly the same reasons. However, I constantly see secessionists who do not want to accept Lee as he was, who want to claim that because he fought for Virginia and was thus a Confederate, he believed in secession. That is simply false.

Regards,
Tim

[Wild_Rose]

Originally Posted by Wild_Rose

I will address the rest of this message as soon as you show me where I ever said that I'm not in the habit of acknowledging what I do not wish to believe. On that note, I'll anxiously await your reply.

Originally Posted by trice

Post 226 in JohnTaylor's "slavery was at the bottom of everything they were worried about" thread. The actual quote would be "But you are right, I don't wish to acknowledge it since I'm not in the habit of acknowledging what I do not believe in."

Thank you for admitting that you have misquoted me (again on the same comment), but perhaps we should go just a bit further back to see what I was referring to.

Originally Posted by trice
Even following secessionist beliefs, this must be so. Virginia has not seceded. Virginia is still part of the United States. By participating in the assault upon Ft. Sumter, Pryor and Ruffin were participating in an attack on Virginia through the United States.

There really is a "hard line". You simply do not wish to acknowledge it.

Rose: Perhaps from your pov there is a hard line. But you are right, I don't wish to acknowledge it since I'm not in the habit of acknowledging what I do not believe in. These individuals had already chosen the Confederate States of America as their country. Ruffin had joined the Confederate army and Pryor had also made a choice. Had Virginia not seceded, he likely would have remained in the Confederate States.

It looks quite different when you view the statement in its original context, doesn’t it? “I don’t wish to acknowledge it…", ”it” meaning the hard line that I don’t believe in. But, you know and understand that already, don’t you? That brings up the next question. Why do you sometimes use my comment out of context, and on other occasions you simply change the words to suit your agenda at the time? For that matter, why do you continue to bring up this particular comment at all? The only way it can benefit you is to use it dishonestly and then only if no one remembers the original words and context.

Regards,
Rose

[johan_steele]

Wild Rose & Trice... play nice. Ami is watching. I am enjoying learning info on this thread and would hate to see it get shut down.

[Wild_Rose]

Originally Posted by trice

You have, however, told me that you believe all the seizures, the threats of force, the actual use of force, and the assault on Ft. Sumter were fully justified and legal because they "felt" they were.

Tim, save the spin. It's tiresome. I never said something was legal because they "felt" that it was.

Originally Posted by trice

Were they wrong to seize all that property, equipment, money, bullion, all the buildings and vessels?

No.

Originally Posted by trice

Were they wrong to use armed force first and without provocation? Were they wrong to attempt to kill the US soldiers in Ft. Sumter?

They didn't use armed force without provocation. No, they weren't wrong to fire on Anderson and his men who had been warned and given the chance to leave.

Originally Posted by trice

This is what "secession" came down to in their terms: taking what they wanted by force, without resort to the law.

Maybe they were listening to that "higher law" that the Northerners answered to instead of the Constitution.

Originally Posted by trice

If you accept it, then that is where you stand. If you reject it, you must reject them. Waffle and you are caught in the crossfire, tugged on by the flood of events -- just as men like Lee were, forced into a situation with no good choice, until you finally are forced to pick between two evils you would never agree to otherwise. Lee, like many, chose to stay with his home state. George Thomas, Winfield Scott, and other Virginian soldiers chose to stay with the Union. All must have been horrified to the bottom of their souls by what they were forced into.

Of course they were horrified. I think it is true of most all Americans that they were horrified at the notion of war. War was unnecessary and the seceeding states should have been allowed to leave in peace. There were plenty of sons of Revolutionary War veterans alive in 1860. I doubt there was a person, North or South, (unless it was an immigrant) that didn't understand what freedom meant to Americans.

Originally Posted by trice

Like sheep? No. But I do note that very few of those who drove the secession effort in the 1850s were actually entrusted with the leadership of the Confederacy after things became real. The Rhetts and Yancies largely became back-bench opposition, shunted aside for others who seem to have been regarded as more reliable. Jefferson Davis, for example, was once regarded as a secession leader, the heir to Calhoun in 1850-51, but dropped his fierce avowal of that after his defeat for Mississippi governor in 1851 which turned on secession arguments. Yet it was this man who had spent most of a decade avoiding the limelight on secession that was chosen to lead them. Rhett was bitterly disappointed at seeing his plans ignored and set aside, although he had been the leader of the Fire-Eaters.

Rhett and Yancy were important figures in the secession movement, however, it is a mistake to place too much importance on those two. They alone did not secede the states and they alone did not force anyone else into secession.

Originally Posted by trice

But I do not believe most Southerners had a realistic idea of what was coming in the aftermath of secession that winter. They didn't think it through. Jackson and Lee and Davis knew. But when Davis goes home in January 1861, he begins preaching about the coming war. Few believe him. The Governor of the state is startled by his views. As he leaves to take up the Presidency, an old political associate and foe comes to talk to him, to ask him if he really thinks war is coming. Davis says yes, and the man seems surprised. To a certain extent, all that silliness about one Southerner whipping three or ten or whatever number of Yankees really was talked about and at least half-believed.

Southerners could hardly comprehend that the Union would use war to force them to stay in the Union. Perhaps on that point some of them were naive, but they generally held the notion that if war did come they were ready to meet it. Not many, either North or South, envisioned four years and 600,000 dead.

Originally Posted by trice

So I believe you. I think these people charged off into "secession" because of the way they "felt".

You believe me about what? How did these people feel?

Originally Posted by trice

There were plenty of people willing to whip up their fears and paint colorful pictures of the new world they would boldly go into, to play on "states' rights" and "Southern honor" and all the other catch-phrases. They'd tell you it was necessary to seize all those things, and to use force, and of course once you have done those things, it gets harder to turn back. They would say you were in the "right", no matter what you did, and they would point to any sign that the rest of the nation was irritated and outraged by your actions as "proof" that you were "threatened". This is all fairly normal practice, and it doesn't matter whether we are talking about Americans or Arabs or Israelis or Nazis or French revolutionists like Robespierre or the Japanese or anyone else. The techniques are the same; the method is the same, although there are differences of degree. Get things stirred up, stampede the mass towards your goal, and try to manage it as the chaos swirls about you.

Is that what Lincoln did?

Originally Posted by trice

But IMHO the real reason no secessionist wanted a court case or a constitutional amendment or a legislative negotiation before secession was simply that it would take too long. Too much time would pass, too many people would have second thoughts. That ugly word compromise might rear itself up again, and that was the last thing an extremist would ever want. So they tried to give their people the bum's rush to a point where there was no turning back, and to pressure the states that would not agree by putting them into an uncompromising situation. That is why you have Upper South Fire-Eaters like Pryor harranguing South Carolina crowds to "Strike a blow!" in April, because they want to crowd the people of Virginia into an irrevocable choice. Davis obliged. The South got its' war, and the secession of the Upper South, and Virginia secessionists immediately pushed for irrevocable action to ensure little choice remained.

You are right about one thing...that is most assuredly only your opinion and not fact.

Originally Posted by trice

No, not really. Secession had been discussed, and the South had been steadily rejecting it for decades. It was generally thought that people from South Carolina were not quite sane on the topic. Suddenly in 1860-61 they make a decision the other way. As I note, the governor of Mississippi in 1861 and other important Mississippi political leaders were stunned that war might be one of the consequences of what they had already done. They seem to have kept asking Davis if he really thought that.

Those poor stupid Southerners. It makes one wonder how any of the idiots ever got to be political leaders. Just imagine how stupid one must be in order to be "stunned" at the prospect of the Union forcing them to remain in the Union with no legal means to back them up. Yep, that's pretty dumb.

Originally Posted by trice

These are the same people who believed that "King Cotton" ruled the world, who were unrealistic enough to vote to embargo their own cotton exports at the start of the war -- thus creating their own financial disaster. The same people who were sure England and France would intervene in their favor. The same people who were sure a North of grubby shopkeepers and mechanics would never fight, and could never beat Southerners if they did fight. The South of 1860 surely had not thought through all the ramifications of what they were doing.

Well what do you expect from raving maniacs? They were fools, all of them down to the last man, woman and child.

Originally Posted by trice

Take the Confederate Secretary of State. In January as he resigns from the US Senate, he says in effect: "You want war? Bring it on!" To Davis and the Cabinet in April as they considered attacking Ft. Sumter he sings a vastly different tune: "War? Are you nuts? This will be fatal!" (You can have the real quotes if you insist, but they are well-known and widely available.) Bravado in January; sober thought in April. Toombs would have served his people better if he had thought of consequences more when he argued for secession in the Georgia convention.

Idiots. I agree with you. In your version of secession, war and Southern politics, they were all idiots. I don't really mind your convoluted version of history or the spin you place on events and quotes as long as it's not me you are quoting.

Regards,
Rose