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.
Well 'logically' Without slavery there would Not have been state's rights, without state's rights, there would have been No secession, without secession, there would have been No Ft. Sumter, without Ft Sumter there would have been No War, with no War there would have been No Invasion of the South, with no invasion, there would have been NO Union soldiers to bother southern sensibilities, in the first place.
The discussion will die when no one posts. I'd much rather something were settled on States' Rights or, at least, come to an agreement to disagree.
The claim of desertions directly caused by the EP was, at the outset, unsubstantiated, pointless and the expected off-topic diversion. It ended just there with the usual side-stepping inane diatribe.
(Gotta watch the blood pressure.)
ole
__________________ 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
In the esoteric realm of Theory, it is possible to separate slavery from states rights. But in the hard reality of mid-18th Century politics of the United States, it was, in practice, impossible.
The actual history of the issue of State's Rights, was as a political Problem. It only rose to national or political consciousness in relation to it's devisivenes to the social and political fabric of the Nation (the Union)
By 1850, it was seen by both sides of the secession issue as mainly (if not solely) a defense of slavery.. So to all intents and purposes, state's rights and slavery were inextricably tied to one another and neither side really cared to make any real distinction. That being the case, then the answer is; without slavery there would have been no state right to be protected, thus not an issue.
Some years ago I'd have thought your post to be self-evident. It apparently isn't.
ole
__________________ 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
Is everyone missing without proper records listed under "deserters." For instance, if a man fell ill by the side of the road on a march and was taken in by a nearby house, they would be listed as a deserter, would they not? Are all missing and unaccounted for also listed as "absent"? For instance, those missing after a battle but no one knows if they were killed or not (no body), are they listed as absent?
Good golly, this is the Army we're talking about here. Of course everyone involved had to be counted somewhere!
Seriously, I have no idea of your military experience, but military organizations tend to be pretty set on doing things that way. My own immediate family includes 3 West Point graduates, so I have met literally hundreds of their classmates, friends, and acquaintances. The Civil War variety of Army wasn't all that different in attitude.
In this case, I have seen reports dated 1865 from the Army's Provost-Marshall-General Bureau commander commenting on this specific issue. It is one of the reasons he said the number of reported "deserters" was at least 25% too high.
If you weren't with your unit and the command didn't know how else to account for you, you became "absent without leave". If thirty days passed without their being able to locate you, you moved from that to "deserter". If you showed up, they had to get you off the "deserter" list, so you showed up as "returned from desertion".
In 1864, for example, "deserters" are way up (about 3,000/month). But if you were drafted and never knew about it, then you would not show up at the assembly point, thus become "absent without leave" and then a "deserter". So a citizen of New York who was drafted but happened to be aboard ship somewhere, or in Europe or some other part of the world, would quickly become a "deserter" even if he had never received a notice to report.
The Provost-Marshal reported averaging over 2400 arrests for desertion per month from April 1863 to April 1865, so he clearly understood there was a real problem involved. It was just his experience that at least 25% of the reported number of desertions tended to end up not being "desertion" upon final evaluation of the case.
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.
Again, from the book, What This Cruel War Was Over, by Chandra Manning
....
I'll take direct quotes from the soldiers of the time from themselves.
Unionblue
Ah yes...the book with the cherry-picked quotes again...
__________________ 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."
state's rights and slavery were inextricably tied to one another and neither side really cared to make any real distinction. That being the case, then the answer is; without slavery there would have been no state right to be protected, thus not an issue.
Clear evidence of this point is in the constitution of the Confederate States of America. The only concession to the doctrine of states' rights which they allude to is a minor modification of the preamble.* If there was a genuine concern that states could freely leave the political order established by that constitution at will, one would expect a procedural clause allowing a state to leave. The only other remedies open to a state who's rights have been or are believed to be infringed are those that exist under the US Constitution: the congress or the court.
The document, of course, is far more open about slavery than the US Constitution is.
P.
* I'm excluding the prohibition on internal improvements (Article 1, section 8, part three) as I don't really understand it.
Speaking of numbers I looked at the roster of the History of the Thirty-Fifth Regiment, MA Volunteers. It lists 38 deserters out of 1,526 total soldiers, which is 2.49%. Also, 5 were listed as unaccounted for and 11 never mustered in. Gee, less than 3 per 100 bugged out! I wonder if this percentage is in the ballpark for the entire Union army?
__________________ "Those who forget to remember the past are condemned to repeat it", George Santayana.
First off, we both can find quotes and readings which tend to agree with our 'sides' in this matter. Battalion has the numbers, and you guys can chew each others ears off deciding what caused them.
But, this German is only interested in winning and nothing more. The Union Army would have cemented the negro into slavery permanently if it had meant victory!
Lincoln his-own-sorry-self said so!
But most of these guys were working stiffs, and didn't want negroes coming North into their worlds, and intermingling with their families, and taking their slave labor factory jobs, and becoming burdens to their societies. And can you blame them?
Joseph Trego is full of it! A year sooner and the North would have shot Lincoln (before they actually did!)
And yes, thieving does always interest the yankee element, and misappropriating, and 'confiscating'...
this does nothing for your premise that Sir Yankee
was ever interested in anything but doing the Southern civilian a disservice and then getting back home again!
Oh, and by the way... what about the poor old injuns out West? I don't ever see a successful Confederate government doing to those people what the yankees did to them, under 'kind and share a cracker with you' Sherman!
Had the majority of yanks been like you, Blue, we'd probably have never had a fight!
But, obviously, 'they wasn't!'
So, yeah, I can see 20,000 leaving, and I can see the Feds doctoring the numbers for 'different reasons' to throw off the full impact that had on them...
(Personally? I'd have left under the EP and screamed so, even though what I really want is to get out of these other people's homeland and get back to planting a crop! So, yeah, any excuse to tell Lincoln to shove it!)...
This argument is becoming pointless. But we do know there were a large number of them (no, I can't go back and count them all, nor even rely upon a period count of them all...) who disagreed with the EP, to the point of leaving the yankees in the field... and many more who disagreed with many other things Lincoln took it on himself to do!
Beowulf
So, you cannot provide accurate, historical proof that 20,000 Union soldiers deserted at the time the EP was announced.
We can agree that a large number, but we cannot say the majority of them, disagreed with the EP.
What we should be able to say, and it can be proven, that 80% of Union soldiers who voted in the 1864 election voted for Lincoln. Now, maybe Lincoln, in your personal opinion, took upon himself things that the soldiers may have disagreed with, but we are still left with the historical fact that 80% voted for the man.
The whole point of my challenging you over your 20,000 desertion figure is that when you make such unsubstainsiated claims you are presenting false facts and are expecting those who stumble across such posts of yours to think this is the historical 'truth.' It is irresponsible to make such claims on a public forum and they should not receive a 'free pass.'
Besides, I enjoy the challenge.
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
Ah yes...the book with the cherry-picked quotes again...
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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