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.
What a lot of empty rhetoric you post, designed to avoid confronting what Southerners actually did in the "Winter of Secession" in 1860-61.
They seized bullion and money that did not belong to them. They seized Federal property (forts, ships, buildings, equipment, etc.) that did not belong to them. They counterfeited US money. They used armed force to do so. They threatened violence against US citizens and employees (both military and civilian) in many states. They fired upon US ships (twice, in Charleston harbor, once at a US merchant ship that simply wandered into the wrong port). They seized and threatened to auction off US merchant ships (in Georgia, twice, several ships each time -- granted in response to a seizure of a shipment of arms in New York City which was eventually released to them). They besieged every Federal post they could not seize immediately. They threatened the Federal forces assigned to protect Texas, forced them to surrender their equipment and posts and to evacuate -- and then broke that agreement and interned the forces that had not had time to evacuate yet when they started the war. They plotted to begin the war by assaulting either Ft. Pickens in Florida or Ft. Sumter in Charleston; when Bragg indicated he was unsure of success in Pensacola, they began with the assault on Fort Sumter. That assault was months in preparation, involved thousands of troops building artillery positions, and the firing of over 3,000 rounds of heavy artillery ammunition at US soldiers, with clear intent to kill.
All of this is clearly abusive behavior. The use of armed force is clear in many instances. The act of violence is clear at Fort Sumter. In doing all these things they violated US law and the Constitution. They violated their own state laws and state constitutions. They also violated (each and every elected and appointed official among them) their own personal oaths of office. Men like Roger Pryor of Virginia (a serving US Congressman and US citizen even by the standards of secessionists when he urged South Carolina people to "Strike a blow!" and then served as Beauregard's aide in the attack on Fort Sumter) committed acts that clearly meet the standard of Treason in the US Constitution.
Yes, the "North" was outraged at all this. Yes, the final straw was the attack of the Confederates upon Fort Sumter. Anyone who studies the sources comes to the conclusion that there was NO consensus for war in the "North" until the news of the attack on Ft. Sumter arrived in a particular area -- and that very day the attitude changed to outrage and anger translated into a desire to punish the ones who had struck them. Before that, the largest single attitude in the 'North" is believed to have been that there was no "right of secession", but that the rest of the nation had no right to use force to compel a state to stay (the same attitude the Supreme Court had expressed in Ohio v. Dennison before the Civil War). As the Confederacy's Secretary of State had said when he was the lone voice in Jefferson Davis' Cabinet opposing this violent start of the war, it was fatal to the hopes of the Confederacy and cost them all their friends at the "North".
Yet you indicate you know of none of this. No other conclusion is possible if this last post of yours is to be believed -- or else you are simply pretending to be ignorant for another purpose. Which is it?
Tim
No, Lincoln admits that it (Sumter) was a great excuse, and his acting under color of law, as a supposed commander in chief of seceded states, whipped up a furor of ill-mannered patriotism at the North instead of a diplomacy that was greatly needed and severely lacking...
This is DiLorenzo's contention; that Lincoln did this deliberately in order to cement his one horse wonder of a party in Washington as the new, and permanent, ruling class.
It was the North and the yankee army, which made this possible, according to DiLorenzo.
I cannot disagree with that, not from what the Northern side presents in its defense!
None of the 'crimes' you mention was possible to start a problem with the Left Winged Yankee North without the supposed provocation of Sumter, which was the worst and lamest of the excuses I have heard from the Northern side... The North fell for it, but
as an excuse to start a war, the South was much more innocent in the matter than Lincoln and his trespassers at that time! The fort was not even finished, yet! No soldiers had any business there, yet!
And reading the Cornell University dispatches, the South is completely exonerated in the matter. I don't suppose you will ever take time to peruse those, nor the WAR CONSPIRACY post I submitted some time ago?
This is DiLorenzo's contention; that Lincoln did this deliberately in order to cement his one horse wonder of a party in Washington as the new, and permanent, ruling class.
Citing DiLorenzo as any kind of authority on the Civil War will certainly diminish your credibility -- even among the legitimate southern-leaning membership. I thought you'd have noticed that by now.
Quote:
The fort was not even finished, yet! No soldiers had any business there, yet!
The skeleton garrison was in Charleston Harbor to man Fort Moultrie. You know that. Yet you keep dragging out such old, unsubstantiated, emotional, rhetorical statements.
Quote:
And reading the Cornell University dispatches, the South is completely exonerated in the matter. I don't suppose you will ever take time to peruse those, nor the WAR CONSPIRACY post I submitted some time ago?
Please link the specific dispatch that supports your contention. The WAR CONSPIRACY post has no credibility as a source of reliable information.
You seem to be incapable of holding up your side of a debate. I don't believe that. I believe you simply have no legs to stand on and just throw stuff against the wall hoping some of it will stick.
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
Citing DiLorenzo as any kind of authority on the Civil War will certainly diminish your credibility -- even among the legitimate southern-leaning membership. I thought you'd have noticed that by now.The skeleton garrison was in Charleston Harbor to man Fort Moultrie. You know that. Yet you keep dragging out such old, unsubstantiated, emotional, rhetorical statements.
Please link the specific dispatch that supports your contention. The WAR CONSPIRACY post has no credibility as a source of reliable information.
You seem to be incapable of holding up your side of a debate. I don't believe that. I believe you simply have no legs to stand on and just throw stuff against the wall hoping some of it will stick.
ole
The War Conspiracy has names, dates, and places listed in it, which have a condemning impact upon the Fort Sumter situation with regard to Abraham Lincoln. If you can prove the facts as listed do not exist, and are fiction, this should be your concern.
Your refusal to even consider the post bespeaks the blindness I see coming from those who do not wish to be swayed. If a 'reliable' source was always required, I should
always toss out anything McPherson and company had to say as being WEIGHTED in the favor of the North. Reliable to you means just that; approved by your scholars.
This, to me, is the same as an outright falsehood. I see no difference in HW Johnstone and James M. McPherson, save that they are on different sides, and one of them possesses an imagination in his delivery. Both provide facts and names and dates, and both are as deliberately one-sided in their beliefs.
There were promises made to evacuate the fort peacefully at Sumter which were handled treacherously by Mr. Lincoln, who was a treacherous man. The way that official history has been treacherously handled and presented is part of this legacy.
You need to tell the whole story, not just the 'good parts'.
Not just the parts that build your case.
As to the specific dispatches, take them together, and read them in order. A very different story presents itself from the animated version we get from 'historians'...
Anyone who believes DiLiarenzo knows nothing about what really happened.
Regards,
Cash
I did not say it was my contention, Cash. I said it was his. It is an interesting theory. Personally, I don't think Lincoln had enough sense to foment such a diabolical takeover; DiLorenzo gives him too much credit in that regard.
No, Lincoln admits that it (Sumter) was a great excuse, and his acting under color of law, as a supposed commander in chief of seceded states, whipped up a furor of ill-mannered patriotism at the North instead of a diplomacy that was greatly needed and severely lacking...
Just more of the same: empty rhetoric designed to avoid confronting what the South actually did. As noted, even the Confederacy's own Secretary of State told them it was a fatal mistake when they voted to attack Ft. Sumter. They decided to do it anyway, and four years of war proved that the Secretary of State was right. But here we are in 2008 and you can't even acknowledge the facts from almost 150 years back.
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.
There were promises made to evacuate the fort peacefully at Sumter which were handled treacherously by Mr. Lincoln, who was a treacherous man.
Cite the promises made, when, and by whom for the benefit of our lurkers who may not be as familiar with the situation as you are. Be specific.
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
Cite the promises made, when, and by whom for the benefit of our lurkers who may not be as familiar with the situation as you are. Be specific.
ole
And wonder why they are not familiar with this?
If your beloved 'historians' could have ever been 'bothered', then I would not have to do for free what they get paid to miss!
I'll think about it... The WAR CONSPIRACY site has some of it. The dispatches themselves are pretty STOP BYPASING THE SWEAR FILTER.
I'll take a little while to collect them, and after all, I believe it was you, Ole, who tried to get me into a
copyright hassle for dropping and dragging the RISE AND FALL thing across....
Have to be careful! There are spies, everywhere!
I'll think about it.
Beowulf
Ole was looking out for the site, he did not try to get you into trouble. The site has had copyright issues before. It's generally considered polite to cite where something is cut and pasted from.
Last edited by johan_steele; 03-31-2008 at 02:53 PM.
Reason: editing out swear words
Just more of the same: empty rhetoric designed to avoid confronting what the South actually did. As noted, even the Confederacy's own Secretary of State told them it was a fatal mistake when they voted to attack Ft. Sumter. They decided to do it anyway, and four years of war proved that the Secretary of State was right. But here we are in 2008 and you can't even acknowledge the facts from almost 150 years back.
Tim
Warships entering the territorial waters of another country without permission is a provocation...especially in this situation with the known intent to support and sustain a garrison of troops violating that same territory.
__________________ 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."
Warships entering the territorial waters of another country without permission is a provocation...especially in this situation with the known intent to support and sustain a garrison of troops violating that same territory.
So Cuba is within its rights to attack the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay whenever a ship is sent to bring in provisions? East Germany would have been within its rights to shoot down the planes of the Berlin Airlift?
__________________ "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)
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
Linear Mode
