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.
Mr. Davis, in conversation with a Yankee spy, named Edward Kirk, is reported by said spy to have said, "We are not fighting for slavery; we are fighting for independence."
Georgia
The people of Georgia have ever been willing to stand by this bargain, this contract; they have never sought to evade any of its obligations; they have never hitherto sought to establish any new government; they have struggled to maintain the ancient right of themselves and the human race through and by that Constitution. But they know the value of parchment rights in treacherous hands, and therefore they refuse to commit their own to the rulers whom the North offers us. Why? Because by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union
Mississippi
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery
It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.
It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.
North Carolina
On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.
Texas
They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.
Historical documents here, written by the men in the forefront of secession themselves. A tad more reliable than a spy who is reported to have heard Mr. Davis say...
"My BFF Jill heard that Bryan said that Phil said that He overheard Mark say he liked you"... Please...
__________________ "In mortal combat, a man may and will become so infuriated by the din and dangers of a bloody fight that his heart will turn to stone and his every de sire [be] for blood."
John Hadley, 7th Indiana after the battle at Port Republic
A competent assessment of this article before posting it would begin by noting the date. After the Emancipation Proclamation, after British public opinion rallied against the side fighting for slavery. This is nothing more than a desperate, last gasp attempt to try to get British public opinion back.
Regards,
Cash
Let's see...
How many Richmond Examiners are sold in England?
None.
Don't think that would have much effect on public opinion in England.
__________________ 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 really think the politicians of England Weren't paying attention to what the newspapers coming out of the CSA Capitol city were saying?? Spare us the rhetoric. These people weren't stupid, it just took longer for information to get around. And on something this big going on across the ocean you can bet the English knew about it ASAP.
__________________ "In mortal combat, a man may and will become so infuriated by the din and dangers of a bloody fight that his heart will turn to stone and his every de sire [be] for blood."
John Hadley, 7th Indiana after the battle at Port Republic
Don't think that would have much effect on public opinion in England.
You're obviously completely ignorant of the fact that newspapers routinely printed selected stories and editorials from other newspapers, even newspapers from other countries. Copies of the _Richmond Examiner_ would be sent to England and the editorial was available to be reproduced in British newspapers. Additionally, you're obviously ignorant of the fact that the British legation in the United States would keep themselves informed by reading newspapers from several areas, including the confederacy. They would summarize what they learned in their communications back to Britain.
Anyone who challenges the Northern version of history...
...hates the United States???
No sir, any who espouse the Lost Causes tactics of willful distortion, lies, threats etc and adopt their agenda do.
I don't know of your "Northern" version of history, I'm aware of a US one, a CS one and a Lost Cause one.
As to being a moderator; I applaud credibilty. I point out a lack of it where I see it and I give my reasons for doing so when I do.
Willingly using an anti-semetic/holocaust denial/neo nazi/white suupremo etc site to further views is not credible , no matter who does it. I'm not insinuating it, I'm saying it.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
Quite a thread. I want to contribute to it, but not sure how.
__________________ Don
******************* "We Can, We Will" Website:http://www.myspace.com/dhpatrick Member of: American Legion, VFW, SCV Served with: 1st Sqdn, 9th US Cav Regt * 4th Sqdn, 9th US Cav Regt * V US Corps Ancestors with:
2d Miss Inf Regt * 2d Miss Inf State Regt * 26th Miss Inf Regt
32d Miss Inf Regt * 50th Ala Inf Regt * 58th Ala Inf Regt
8th Ga Inf Regt * 40th Ga Inf Regt * 4th Ark Inf Regt
3d Regt Arizona Bde (Tx State)
Quite a thread. I want to contribute to it, but not sure how.
DH,
Neither were any of us.
But perhaps, you might want to concentrate on the original title of the thread, the "Fury of the North Scorned."
Was the North scorned? Did it get angry enough (the "fury" part, I imagine) to begin an war and kill it's fellow countrymen in the tens of thousands? What was it "scorned" over?
Maybe then we will see this thread take off again.
Just a suggestion.
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
A competent assessment of this article before posting it would begin by noting the date. After the Emancipation Proclamation, after British public opinion rallied against the side fighting for slavery. This is nothing more than a desperate, last gasp attempt to try to get British public opinion back.
Amazingly enough, on April 29, 1861 Mr. Davis gave an address to the Provisional Congress of the Confederacy. In it, he goes on for several paragraphs, tracing the development of the crisis -- and all he talks about is slavery. Bringing it to 1861 and speaking solely of what he sees as the threat to slavery, he says: "With interests of such overwhelming magnitude imperiled, the people of the Southern States were driven by the conduct of the North to the adoption of some course of action to avert the danger with which they were openly menaced." Slavery is what he sees as the reason for secession and the war that follows.
Against this we have a report in a Richmond paper of a reputed conversation Mr. Davis had in 1864 with a "Yankee spy". Even if true, the "independence" Mr. Davis is referring to was based solely on the need to protect and grow slavery -- as he himself had said publicly.
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.
Further, I think we can trust a public statement Davis made in 1861 regarding the cause of the war being slavery more than we can trust a comment made by Davis in 1864. By 1864, the war is not going well, the Emancipation Proclamation has been issued, and Davis would be, I believe, much more interested in "selling" the war as a war for independence even to his own (by now grumbling) people.
It is much more of a rallying cry to say "We are fighting for our independence!" or "We are fighting to defend our homes against Yankee invaders!" then to admit that "We are fighting so that the wealthiest five percent (or whatever) can maintain their way of life through the peculiar institution of slavery."
When the Confederacy began the war, the arguments of independence or defense from invasion would not have rung as true, since the North had not yet done much invading and it was fresh in people's minds that the purpose of independence was to preserve slavery. Over time, however, it seems to me that the war took on a meaning of its own somewhat divorced from the reasons it started in the first place.
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
Amazingly enough, on April 29, 1861 Mr. Davis gave an address to the Provisional Congress of the Confederacy. In it, he goes on for several paragraphs, tracing the development of the crisis -- and all he talks about is slavery. Bringing it to 1861 and speaking solely of what he sees as the threat to slavery, he says: "With interests of such overwhelming magnitude imperiled, the people of the Southern States were driven by the conduct of the North to the adoption of some course of action to avert the danger with which they were openly menaced." Slavery is what he sees as the reason for secession and the war that follows.
Against this we have a report in a Richmond paper of a reputed conversation Mr. Davis had in 1864 with a "Yankee spy". Even if true, the "independence" Mr. Davis is referring to was based solely on the need to protect and grow slavery -- as he himself had said publicly.
Tim
Quote:
Originally Posted by timewalker
Further, I think we can trust a public statement Davis made in 1861 regarding the cause of the war being slavery more than we can trust a comment made by Davis in 1864. By 1864, the war is not going well, the Emancipation Proclamation has been issued, and Davis would be, I believe, much more interested in "selling" the war as a war for independence even to his own (by now grumbling) people.
It is much more of a rallying cry to say "We are fighting for our independence!" or "We are fighting to defend our homes against Yankee invaders!" then to admit that "We are fighting so that the wealthiest five percent (or whatever) can maintain their way of life through the peculiar institution of slavery."
When the Confederacy began the war, the arguments of independence or defense from invasion would not have rung as true, since the North had not yet done much invading and it was fresh in people's minds that the purpose of independence was to preserve slavery. Over time, however, it seems to me that the war took on a meaning of its own somewhat divorced from the reasons it started in the first place.
"In any case, I think our slave property will be lost eventually" -Jefferson Davis, February 1861, contemplating the possibilities of war or peace.
__________________ 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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