Civil War History - "What if..." DiscussionsWhat if they had attacked instead of digging in...? What if he was in charge of the army instead...? Did you ever have a "What if..." question, and you weren't sure where to post it? Here's the place to ask these speculative questions!
Two men who supported the Confederacy, Clay and Webster, spoke against the pushing of the Cherokee out in the 1830's I believe. But the Senate failed to back them up.
Really? You think Webster and Clay supported the confederacy? Well, despite the fact that they were both dead long before the confederacy even existed, they both made their views on secession very clear.
"Peaceable secession! Peaceable secession! The concurrent agreement of all the members of this great republic to separate! A voluntary separation, with alimony on one side and on the other. Why, what would be the result? Where is the line to be drawn? What States are to secede? What is to remain American? What am I to be? An American no longer? Am I to become a sectional man, a local man, a separatist, with no country in common with the gentlemen who sit around me here, or who fill the other house of Congress? Heaven forbid! Where is the flag of the republic to remain? Where is the eagle still to tower? Or is he to cower, and shrink, and fall to the ground? Why, sir, our ancestors, our fathers and our grandfathers, those of them that are yet living amongst us with prolonged lives, would rebuke and reproach us; and our children and our grandchildren would cry out shame upon us, if we of this generation should dishonor these ensigns of the power of the government and the harmony of that Union which is every day felt among us with so much joy and gratitude." [Daniel Webster]
"You ask what is to be done if South Carolina secedes. I answer unhesitatingly that the constitution and laws of the United States must continue to be enforced there with all the power of the union, if necessary. Secession is treason" [Henry Clay]
So tell me, why on Earth do you think these men would have supported the confederacy?
Last edited by Parrott Gun; 08-08-2008 at 02:39 PM.
At the Hartford Convention he supported state's rights, but after New England went industrial and tarrifs were needed from the South to pay for it, he changed his fickle little mind.
It's too bad Hollywood destroyed the political allegory in the books THE WIZARD OF OZ. The portrayal of politicians remains devastating and largely true.
L. Frank Baum wrote speeches for William Jennings Brian who supported us staying on the gold standard and the entire story is about that argument. Dorothy is shown as wide eyed, naive and unable to see that which is in front of her. Dor-O-thee is of course the President at this time, THEE O DORE Roosevelt. The Cowardly Lion is William Jennings Brian, who backed off the demand when he feared it would lose him his party's support.
The Wizard of Oz (Oz as in ounces), is the supposed high muckity muck behind the scenes who turns out to be as indecisive and bumbling as the cowardly lion.
Politicians haven't changed much!
Too bad the ruby shoes were in the movie. The shoes in the books were silver! Silver walking on the strength of gold! I liked the film, but loved the portrayal of the politicians in the book!
At the Hartford Convention he supported state's rights, but after New England went industrial and tarrifs were needed from the South to pay for it, he changed his fickle little mind.
This is an outright lie. Webster had no part in the Hartford Convention. The worst you can accuse him of is remaining silent. Show me where Webster or Clay ever spoke out in favor of unilateral secession.
The Jefferson administration bought Louisiana from France in 1803 even though the Constitution gave Congress no explicit power to acquire new territory. On the constitutionality of the purchase Jefferson himself had serious doubts hut managed to overcome them. The administration also imposed an embargo in 1807 forbidding American ships to leave American ports, though the Constitution allowed Congress only to regulate interstate and foreign commerce, not to prohibit it. In anger against the Louisiana Purchase, a few extreme Federalists, the Essex Junto, conspired to bring about the secession of New England. In condemning the embargo, a much larger number resorted to the doctrine of state rights. The young New Hampshire Federalist Daniel Webster, for one, paraphrased the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions: "The Government of the United States is a delegated, limited Government."
During the presidency of Jefferson's friend and successor James Madison, the New England state rights men gained their largest following in opposition to the War of 1812. In Congress, Webster attacked and helped defeat a conscription bill. "The operation of measures thus unconstitutional and illegal ought to be prevented by a resort to other measures which are both constitutional and legal," he declared, hinting at nullification by New Hampshire. "It will be the solemn duty of the state governments to protect their own authority over their own militia and to interpose between their citizens and arbitrary power" In fact, some of the New England states, by refusing to support the war, virtually nullified the war effort of the Federal government. New England state-rightism and sectionalism reached a climax in the Hartford Convention (1814--1815), which demanded changes in the Constitution and threatened secession if they were not made.
You did? Where? You didn't even mention Henry Clay, except in your original post where you claimed that he supported the confederacy without offering any evidence to support your claim.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DJ Psychomike
Oh yeah and as for the political path of Webster:
The Jefferson administration bought Louisiana from France in 1803 even though the Constitution gave Congress no explicit power to acquire new territory. On the constitutionality of the purchase Jefferson himself had serious doubts hut managed to overcome them. The administration also imposed an embargo in 1807 forbidding American ships to leave American ports, though the Constitution allowed Congress only to regulate interstate and foreign commerce, not to prohibit it. In anger against the Louisiana Purchase, a few extreme Federalists, the Essex Junto, conspired to bring about the secession of New England. In condemning the embargo, a much larger number resorted to the doctrine of state rights. The young New Hampshire Federalist Daniel Webster, for one, paraphrased the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions: "The Government of the United States is a delegated, limited Government."
During the presidency of Jefferson's friend and successor James Madison, the New England state rights men gained their largest following in opposition to the War of 1812. In Congress, Webster attacked and helped defeat a conscription bill. "The operation of measures thus unconstitutional and illegal ought to be prevented by a resort to other measures which are both constitutional and legal," he declared, hinting at nullification by New Hampshire. "It will be the solemn duty of the state governments to protect their own authority over their own militia and to interpose between their citizens and arbitrary power" In fact, some of the New England states, by refusing to support the war, virtually nullified the war effort of the Federal government. New England state-rightism and sectionalism reached a climax in the Hartford Convention (1814--1815), which demanded changes in the Constitution and threatened secession if they were not made.
Nice job with the coying and pasting, but interposition isn't secession. It isn't even nullification.
Madison mentions interposition in the Virginia Resolution, but in his Report on the Alien and Sedition Acts he clarifies this by clearly stating that the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions did not imply the power of a state to annul a federal statute.
"Nor can the declarations of either, whether affirming or denying the constitutionality of measures of the Federal Government; or whether made before or after judicial decisions thereon, be deemed, in any point of view, an assumption of the office of the judge. The declarations in such cases are expressions of opinion, unaccompanied with any other effect than what they may produce on opinion, by exciting reflection. The expositions of the judiciary, on the other hand, are carried into immediate effect by force. The former may lead to a change in the legislative expression of the general will; possibly to a change in the opinion of the judiciary: the latter enforces the general will whilst that will and that opinion continue unchanged."
To Madison, interposition simply meant non-acquiescence with an unconstitutional law, not nullification or secession. What it meant to Webster is unclear, but it's a huge stretch to assume that he was referring to unilateral secession, especially in light of what he said later.
And once again, Webster had absolutely no role in the Hartford Convention, so please stop trying to implicate him in it.
He is a hopeless lover of internet fable and cannot bring himself to do the real work of cracking a book upon a which HISTORY is told, and not someone's fantasy version of it.
Partly I think it is because its more fun to be on the "underdog" side of history and that it draws more attention to his posts.
It's too bad that if he continues down this path, he'll never know the real excitement, surprise and astounding actual twists that real history can, and has taken.
But I understand it's hard to get off the website couch, go outside the usual internet fast food sites and actually work at learning something, like actual, historical fact. It's a tough row to hoe, and I can see the attraction of letting someone else think for you. The cut-and-paste sirens are hard to resist. But it ain't history, in the end, it should be called exactly what it is.
Laziness.
Sorry about his loss,
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
Clay and Webster both supported states rights in their careers, and both later recanted.
As for books about the Civil War, I'm glad you brought that up. It seems the Lincoln crowd published to try and win prizes, does it not? Isn't there a contest to see who can praise Lincoln the most? ( I've heard no revisionist ever won).
In any other field, that would hardly lead to fair and objective analysis.
I read loads of books throughout my life and funny thing is, I never ran across mention of Jeff Davis' adopted black kid. Did I read that an Indian, Standwaite was the last Confederate to surrender? Nope. How about the shutting down of newspapers? The jailing of reporters without charges? Issuing an arrest warrent for the head of the Supreme Court? Zero.
Interesting, isn't it?
Maybe a mention of the Pope making a crown of thorns to free Jeff Davis? Nope.
In all the books, no mention of the rapes during the march to the sea. Nothing. This site is dedicated to the memory of all women, known and unknown, white or black, raped or illtreated during the CW, forgotten victims of a not so romantic war<http://hometown.aol.com/cwrapes/page2.htm>
QUOTE:
As a matter of fact, Honest Abe himself has undergone revisionism. His myth has been undermined not by Confederate sympathizers, but by one of his chief contemporary worshippers: Garry Wills. In his 1992 book Lincoln at Gettysburg: The Words That Remade America, Wills argues that Lincoln’s sternest critics had a point. One contemporary newspaper accused Lincoln of “misstat[ing] the cause for which [the Union soldiers] died,” namely, “to uphold [the] Constitution,” not to free slaves. Wills doesn’t disagree.
The Gettysburg Address did indeed mislead Americans about the meaning of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution; Wills argues that this “giant (if benign) swindle” was all to the good. At Gettysburg, Lincoln subtly “corrected” the Constitution. He “performed one of the most daring acts of open-air sleight-of-hand ever witnessed by the unsuspecting.”
Wills agrees with conservatives like M.E. Bradford and Willmoore Kendall, who regard the Gettysburg speech as (in his words) a “clever assault upon the constitutional past,” a “stunning verbal coup,” even “a new founding of the nation.” Indeed, he gloats that Lincoln got away with this “swindle,” which has made possible the centralization of power the Framers of the Constitution had tried to prevent. Wills acknowledges that Lincoln was “subverting the Constitution,” but he thinks it deserved to be subverted.
It’s a curious transformation — not only of Honest Abe, but also of Garry Wills, who, 30 years ago, was writing acidly about Richard Nixon’s lies. But his praise of Lincoln’s “swindle” has been warmly received by liberal opinion; it actually won a Pulitzer Prize for history! Something has changed in the American ethos, and we shouldn’t marvel that the elites are so forgiving of more recent presidential swindles. http://www.sobran.com/columns/
What does any of this have to do with the topic of the thread: If the CSA had one? Take it to another thread, please.
__________________ "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)
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