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.
The word agent is being used here as a class, not a title. As is evident in the text you are using yourself, Benjamin knows he was appointed consul to the State of Texas -- quite possibly because he sent his application asking to be appointed back to Saxe-Coburg and Gotha before there was a Confederacy.
Assumption.
He applied for his consular status on 30 July 1861...
...a full 6 months after the Secession of Texas.
Five and a half after the inauguration of Jefferson Davis.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
He would then have asked to be appointed to the State of Texas and given the vagaries of mail and the interruptions of the war and blockade, that seems likely or possible.
Again, assumption.
The only evidence is 1861.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
In addition, from Benjamin's report the application for an exequatur came from Texas, not from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. It would thus appear that Ernst Raven made the application himself, and the paperwork did not come from Europe. It is thus possible that no one back in Saxe-Coburg and Gotha knew what was going on.
All wrong.
Secretary Benjamin states clearly in his report-
"Raven...was appointed consul for the State of Texas by his highness the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and who applied to this Government [CSA] for an exequatur on the 30th of July, 1861..."
Consuls are appointed to places within a country...not the entire country.
Raven could not apply to Texas (or any other state) for an exequatur.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
New York Times, 27 September 1861
Last edited by Battalion; 09-06-2007 at 01:04 AM.
Reason: a
The word agent is being used here as a class, not a title. As is evident in the text you are using yourself, Benjamin knows he was appointed consul to the State of Texas -- quite possibly because he sent his application asking to be appointed back to Saxe-Coburg and Gotha before there was a Confederacy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
Assumption.
He applied for his consular status on 30 July 1861...
...a full 6 months after the Secession of Texas.
Five and a half after the inauguration of Jefferson Davis.
So what is your point here? Obviously we don't know when Ernst Raven contacted Saxe-Coburg-Gotha about becoming a consul for them (or when they first contacted him, if that's what happened), or what he said, or what Saxe-Coburg-Gotha said about it. That is why I used the wording "quite possibly".
Since Raven applied to the Confederate government in July 1861, he had to deal with the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha government before then. All we know about that is that it had to happen some time before he applied to the Confederate government. But we do know very clearly that he was not likely to have begun talking to Saxe-Coburg-Gotha on the same day he applied for his exequatur -- which is what you are claiming here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
He would then have asked to be appointed to the State of Texas and given the vagaries of mail and the interruptions of the war and blockade, that seems likely or possible.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
Again, assumption.
The only evidence is 1861.
Again, what is your point? My phrasing "seems likely or possible" appears to be clear enough; what is your difficulty here? Do you somehow think communication from Texas to Germany was instantaneous in that day?
We actually have no evidence about when Ernst Raven began the process of applying to Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to be a consul in Texas. It might have been in 1861, as seems likely to me, and my guess it was secession that moved him to do it. But that might have been after Texas did secede, and it might have been before Texas seceded. He might have started the negotiations with Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1859 or 1860. It is even possible Saxe-Coburg-Gotha decided for reasons having nothing to do with secession that they needed someone in Texas. But the truth is that we have no evidence at all about when it happened or what motivated it
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
In addition, from Benjamin's report the application for an exequatur came from Texas, not from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. It would thus appear that Ernst Raven made the application himself, and the paperwork did not come from Europe. It is thus possible that no one back in Saxe-Coburg and Gotha knew what was going on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
All wrong.
Secretary Benjamin states clearly in his report-
"Raven...was appointed consul for the State of Texas by his highness the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and who applied to this Government [CSA] for an exequatur on the 30th of July, 1861..."
Actually, it appears to be entirely correct.
"The one agent who is excepted from these remarks is Ernst Raven, esq., who was appointed consul for the State of Texas by his highness the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and who applied to this Government for an exequatur on the 30th of July, 1861."
As Benjamin makes very clear and explicit, Ernst Raven "applied" to the Confederate government for an exequatur on July 30, 1861. That probably means that is when he dated the application, but might mean when it was received and/or processed. Benjamin tells you nothing at all about when Raven was appointed by Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, nor of when Raven began discussions with Saxe-Coburg-Gotha about becoming a consul, nor of whether or not the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha government expected Raven to be applying to the US or Confederate government for his exequatur when it appointed him.
BTW, if you look around you will find another Confederate official said Raven's application was in September, 1861. This might be a mistake; it might mean when the application was approved; it might be something else. Until and unless we can find the actual documents of Raven's application, we can't tell.
The only actual evidence we have seen about what Saxe-Coburg-Gotha intended is a single sentence from a book by Eugene H Berwanger, The British Foreign Service and the American Civil War, page 111:"In requesting the exequatur, Raven's government made clear that its request did not imply or extend diplomatic recognition." But we don't know what Professor Berwanger based that on, and since Raven is not the subject of his book, he is only mentioned in passing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by battalion
Consuls are appointed to places within a country...not the entire country.
Actually, that's not really accurate. It often depends on the situation of both countries. Size and importance of each to the other governs these things more than anything else. A nation might very well appoint one consul for an entire country, or appoint several for sections of it.
It is also, BTW, not required for a consular agent to apply to the government of the country for an exequatur -- just as Benjamin says in his report to the Confederate Congress. It was customary and traditional for officials of a certain rank to make such an application, and Raven may or may not have been of such a rank and importance. You'd really have to see the paperwork of his appointment from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to tell, and we don't have that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by battalion
Raven could not apply to Texas (or any other state) for an exequatur.
Raven might very well have contacted Saxe-Coburg-Gotha about becoming a consul at any time in the Winter of 1860-61. He might have done it before secession and admittance to the Confederacy. He might have done it in the belief that Texas would go back to becoming an independent Republic again. Since Raven had been a citizen of the Republic of Texas in the 1840s, that would not be very surprising. Since his good friend Sam Houston, a frequent visitor to Raven's house, opposed secession but favored becoming an independent Republic again if secession did occur, that would not be surprising.
For that matter, at the time of secession, all these seceding states were insisting that they were independent and sovereign nations, remember? If Raven adhered to that secessionist line, he might very well have felt he could be consul to an independent Texas.
It is also possible that Raven in Texas did not act entirely in accord with the intent of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha's government, and that they did not know anything about Raven's application to the Confederate government until after he had submitted it. For all we know, they expected him to submit it to the US government.
Your difficulty here, Battalion, is that you want to insist that there is one and only one possible explanation (always the one that you favor) of what was going on here, when there were in fact many. The only way to resolve this would be to see the original documentation: Ernst Raven's application to the Confederacy for an exequatur, and the documentation of Raven's appointment from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (preferably along with supporting letters between Raven and his government). That last is probably in German if it still exists.
=====
BTW, it might be that Benjamin's usage of the name "Saxe-Coburg and Gotha" is wrong. Earlier in the century, the head of the ruling family of Saxe-Gotha died without an heir in 1826 and the title went to the Duke Ernst of Saxe-Coburg, who decided to style himself as Duke Ernst I of "Saxe-Coburg and Gotha". They were theoretically separate, and the Duke controlled both of them.
At some point, Duke Ernst II combined the two, I think during the 1850s when he changed the constitution, and after that it seems to have been Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. That lasted until November 18, 1918, when the Workers' and Soldiers' Council of Gotha deposed Carl Eduard and the two states split apart during the German Revolution. Carl Eduard was actually a grandson of Queen Victoria, the Duke of Albany. His participation on the German side of WWI was highly controversial in Britain, causing the British Royal Family to change their name to Windsor. In 1919, he was stripped of his British titles, and later joined the Nazi party.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
The bottom line is, the Vatican did NOT officially recognize the Confederacy. The Union, Confederacy and the Vatican acknowledge this fact.
The sources you yourself have presented here on this thread has more than proven this fact. Others have provided more sources that confirm this beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Thank you for an interesting romp through a part of history I had not seen before.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
So this is how it stands as of now-
Formal Recognition The Papal States (aka "States of the Church," "Holy See")
Virtual Recognition Saxe-Coburg & Gotha, German Confederation
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
Formal Recognition
The Papal States (aka "States of the Church," "Holy See")
Virtual Recognition
Saxe-Coburg & Gotha, German Confederation
You can say that, but you haven't shown it. If your contention is true, what does it prove? Two nonentities say we're with you. BFD.
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Formal Recognition The Papal States (aka "States of the Church," "Holy See")
As you already know, President Davis of the Confederacy did not believe this. Secretary of State Benjamin of the Confederacy did not believe this. Cardinal Antonelli, effectively the Secretary of State for the Papal States, flatly denied it. The official US government position is that no nation ever formally recognized the Confederate States. That pretty much blows everything you just claimed out of the water -- and since you already know it, makes this yet another attempt at a deliberate deception.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
Virtual Recognition Saxe-Coburg & Gotha, German Confederation
Well, no. The most you have is that Ernst Raven (a Confederate "citizen", enlisted in the Confederate forces, serving as a consul) applied for an exequatur from the Confederate government. We have one decription of that application, from someone who might be in a position to know, that says the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha made clear in the application they were not recognizing the Confederacy. That may be right or wrong, but it is the ONLY statement we have found about the actual application.
Also, the simple fact of their being a consul in Texas, and his applying for a letter, does NOT equate with Virtual Recognition in Phillimore. You obviously know this, or should, because you have carefully omitted all the text relating to that when you presented your usual snippet of quotes from his work.
This is just another attempt by you to claim as a fact something that is not even close to established as a fact.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
As you already know, President Davis of the Confederacy did not believe this.
There is no recorded opinion by Davis.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
Secretary of State Benjamin of the Confederacy did not believe this.
He was cautious in not claiming too much.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
Cardinal Antonelli, effectively the Secretary of State for the Papal States, flatly denied it.
Hearsay from Rufus King.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
The official US government position is that no nation ever formally recognized the Confederate States.
Are we surprised?
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
You have done well to show a part of Civil War history unknown to many of us here at this board concerning the Vatican.
Don't ruin it by pretending this history was anything more than what it truely was, even according to your own sources which you provided.
You are wrong to assume, and this is exactly what you are doing at this point in spite of clear evidence to the contrary, that the Vatican ever officially recognized the CSA. You destroy your own credibility every time you assert otherwise.
In case you are not aware of it, you are, at this point, your own worse enemy when you try to establish a historical event that did not take place.
Stubborness is not a virtue. In this case, it is a dead weight dragging you down to the depths of being totally ignored, on this and future issues and threads.
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
Merely the fact that he then sent Bishop Lynch as a Special Envoy to establish a relationship which *you* say already existed. Why'd he do that if you have it right -- and why did the Papal States not meet with him officially if they had already formally "recognized" the Confederacy? But, then, if they had officially recognized the Confederacy, why did the Papal States deny it?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
He was cautious in not claiming too much.
Nope. He denied it was recognition. You already know this.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
Hearsay from Rufus King.
ROFL. This is his official report of a personal meeting with Cardinal Antonelli, the Papal States equivalent of a Secretary of State.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
Merely the fact that he then sent Bishop Lynch as a Special Envoy to establish a relationship which *you* say already existed. Why'd he do that if you have it right -- and why did the Papal States not meet with him officially if they had already formally "recognized" the Confederacy? But, then, if they had officially recognized the Confederacy, why did the Papal States deny it?
Nope. He denied it was recognition. You already know this.
ROFL. This is his official report of a personal meeting with Cardinal Antonelli, the Papal States equivalent of a Secretary of State.
Tim
I've ordered the book. I'll go with whatever it says- yea or nay.
As of now, with the information at hand, it is yea...
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
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