Oops, big lump of your posts....

[archieclement]

Like I said, before and after the war, the US had recognized the existence of Indian nations/tribes. How did that work out for them on the world stage? How much aid did such treaties with the Confederacy help with foreign recognition?

We both know this is not what we are discussing on this thread. It's a footnote about Indian affairs, not recognition of the CSA by a foreign government.

It still seems to me foreign recognition isn't the same as "existence" as the OP referred to in not existing at all, which seems to imply in any form.. As I said before the Continental Congress formed in 1775, declared Independence in 1776, passed Articles of Confederation in 1777, wasnt recognized by France until December 17 1777...……..yet it seems to me it still clearly did exist as a political entity well before Dec 17th 1777...….... The OP didn't specify as a recognized nation, but seemed to imply it didn't exist in any form.....which seems overreaching to me. Many revolutionary forces clearly exist even if not recognized nation states and can even enter into formal negotiations. Even being recognized a belligerent clearly indicates a form of existence...…….

 

[Waterloo50]

In his Memoirs of Service Afloat, Raphael Semmes contended that the announcement of a blockade carried de facto recognition of the Confederate States of America as an independent national entity since countries do not blockade their own ports but rather close-them.


Semmes clutching at straws perhaps but considering the Union required the recognition of foreign nations for the blockade to be legal then the belligerent status clearly identifies the confederacy as a separate entity, my argument being that the recognition of the Confederacy by foreign powers regardless of their neutrality elevates the confederacy closer to that of a sovereign nation rather than just an illegal uprising which the OP claims.

Great thread by the way.

 

[OpnCoronet]

The CSA was the self assumed title of a collection of rogue states joined in rebellion against a legally constituted authority.

IMO, this collection of rogue states(calling itself a confederacy) in active rebellion against their legitimate government, did not, in fact, ever exercise the sovereignty of an independent country(nation), complete and perfect in every detail and, could not, as a result be considered an independent country.

 

[Viper21]

Hi, UB. You could have simply said “tu quoque fallacy”. I really miss the guy.

 

[James Lutzweiler]

french revolutionary view

Very asture and useful. Thank you! --and especially for staying OP!!

 

[James Lutzweiler]

Please discuss this with General Green.

No need to do that.

 

[James Lutzweiler]

french revolutionary view ?

Many Americans North and South were divided in their opinions of the French Revolution.

Biggest problem I see running through many of these responses is the use of the words "all." We can generalize about the majority, but the country was far from one mass of homogenized people. There were ethnic, national, religious, racial, class, economic, moral, and other differences throughout the states and within different parts of the various states north and south.

Thanks for your post. Welcome to this thread. Your comment on "All" is absolutely pertinent. SC's seceshers got away with lumping the North all together --as did the North the South. "ALL" is a useful term whenever you need to conjure up an atrocity to justify whatever it is you want to do anyway. Eh? Do i hear an "Amen!"?

 

[Copperhead-mi]

In his Memoirs of Service Afloat, Raphael Semmes contended that the announcement of a blockade carried de facto recognition of the Confederate States of America as an independent national entity since countries do not blockade their own ports but rather close-them.


Semmes clutching at straws perhaps but considering the Union required the recognition of foreign nations for the blockade to be legal then the belligerent status clearly identifies the confederacy as a separate entity, my argument being that the recognition of the Confederacy by foreign powers regardless of their neutrality elevates the confederacy closer to that of a sovereign nation rather than just an illegal uprising which the OP claims.

Great thread by the way.

"On this first question, therefore, we are of the opinion that the President had a right, jure belli, to institute a blockade of ports in possession of the States in rebellion which neutrals are bound to regard"
From U. S. Supreme Court Justice Field's majority opinion in the Prize Cases

 

[demiurge]

The issue of slavery was an important topic of discussion at the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861. However, the delegates voted against secession by a 2 to 1 margin in early April 1861 when slavery was the main issue discussed at the Convention. However, the delegates also stated they were opposed to any type of federal coercion against the other southern states. Even before the convention met, the Virginia General Assembly had passed an ordinance opposing coercion. The resolution stated that the federal government did not have the authority to make war against the states and federal coercion would be opposed by any means necessary. Subsequently, after Lincoln's Proclamation Calling for Troops on April 15th, the Secession Convention went into special session the next day. The Convention then voted overwhelmingly on April 17th to secede from the Union in direct response to the proposed federal coercion against the other southern states. The Secession Convention considered Lincoln's call for troops to be a federal abuse of power that violated the Constitution. Therefore, the issue of slavery was not important enough by itself to warrant secession but the threat of federal coercion caused the Convention to reverse its original vote and withdraw from the Union.

Why was coercion even a topic? Secession. And why did the states claim they seceded? Right.

Or take this from the Virginia General Assembly, March 11th, 1861. Emphasis mine:

7. That the main causes of the trouble between the north and the south, are to be found in the offensive intermeddling of the former with our exclusive right to regulate our domestic institutions--in their arrogant and pharisaical ascription of sinfulness to them--and in the insulting claim to exclude us from territories of which we are part owners, except upon the condition of our parting with our slaves, and in the formation, and accession to power, of a party "founded on geographical discriminations:" All which acts we hold to be equally against the spirit and provisions of the constitution--a just equality of rights and social duty: that the first duty of the north, if it would win back the states that have gone out of the Union, or would keep in those which still remain, is to "do justice" to the south, by removing these causes of complaint. But if from prejudices they choose to indulge, or an incorrect appreciation of their obligations, they shall decide that they cannot or will not remove those causes, then they should at once concur in some proper mode of providing for the peaceable separation from another of such states as may choose to remain united on the original terms of constitutional and social equality, to be secured by proper additional guarantees, and those which refuse to continue in the Union on those terms--for continued Union on any other terms is simply impossible.

 

[Waterloo50]

The CSA was the self assumed title of a collection of rogue states joined in rebellion against a legally constituted authority.

But that’s how sovereign nations are formed, in more recent times we have 9 new sovereign states, many established after a long and bloody civil war.

 

[James Lutzweiler]

My Fellow Posters,

Relatively new to this very informative site, I have observed on numerous occasions that whenever anyone suggests an alternative to the primacy of slavery as a cause of the Civil War that such a debater is frowned upon with the stereotypical and vacuous sobriquet "Lost Causer." My own caption for those who resort to this kind of debate is "Lost Logicers." But I don't like the euphony of that response, even though I think the caption is correct. I find it intellectuallly feeble that the only argument against other causes is the simplistic, "Oh, so you are a 'Lost Causer,' are you?" which question is supposed to end all argument once and for all. It doesn't, of course, even though those who use it sail happily away, confident in their course of history.

That's not how I see it, and thus I characterize those who argue for the primacy of slavery as the cause as the true "Lost Causers." If anyone has a better neologism for responding to these advocates, I would like to find something better and more euphonic I prefer something in the 2-3 syllable range for some shorthand.

In this context let me add that those responsible for exalting slavery to a primary cause, i.e., those antebellum Seceshers who offered that sorry Saran-Wrap-thin and phony excuse for what they contemplated and then did, were actually joined in their hermeneutical gymnastics by Northerners AFTER the war. Those Northerners had to come up with something noble to explain to grieving mothers, fathers, sisters, and brother, and everybody else --like my spinster grade school teachers and other non-thinkers-- that their loved ones did not die in vain or for something as grubby as greed for western land and railroads. No, no, no! Good heavens, NO!! Gotta have a noble cause. Gotta extrapolate one! In fact, I think Northerners were probably even more responsible for the "Lost Cause of Slavery Primacy" argument, as it is so atypical for Northerners to take at face value the arguments of any Southerners, especially Southerners long since dead and their dead cause with them. Just a thought, not an argument --yet.

Will someone help me coin a useful and comprehensive neologism?

James

 

[demiurge]

Or even more to the point, what was proffered by Wyndham Robertson of Richmond City, a summary of the issues that would lead the Commonwealth to ally with the South. These are primarily a list of perceived injustices, including potential coercion. However, when he explicitly states why the injustices occur, we get this:

11. That these causes are to be mainly found in the denied equality of the rights of the slaveholder and the non-slaveholder, involved in the proposed partial exclusion of the former from the common territories--in the breach of the plighted faith of some of the non-slaveholding states and people, by acts and laws designed to obstruct the recovery of escaped slaves--by avowed designs to shape the policy, and use the machinery of the general government so as to effect, by indirection, the extinction of slavery, which it is conceded that government cannot rightfully or directly interfere with--and by other acts importing a denial of our rights of property in our slaves, and of our exclusive control over slavery as a domestic institution--and these are causes of complaint common to all the slaveholding people and states, and are in plain violation of the spirit and terms of our compact of union.

https://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/vadel61/vadel61.html

Page 292.

 

[demiurge]

Also of interest is during these deliberations, the House of Delegates had passed a resolution to remove will based manumission. They were going down the road to make it illegal to free your slaves on your death.

 

[CSA Today]

I guess one hundred plus years of terrorism to suppress black votes solved that problem.
Leftyhunter

Going through ten years of occupation and Radical Reconstruction can do that.

 

[OpnCoronet]

But that’s how sovereign nations are formed, in more recent times we have 9 new sovereign states, many established after a long and bloody civil war.

The operative word being 'established). The claim of independence was challenged from the very first moment of the formation of the confederacy, i.e., the 'fact' of independence had not and, never was, established.

 

[Lost Cause]

All of Va?

If the majority prevailed in support of WV branching off from Va, did all of Va get a voice in such a measure?

 

[19thGeorgia]

The Confederate States signed treaties with a number of Indian nations.

The British and French also had treaties with these nations.

 

[CSA Today]

"I really miss the guy."
He was always good for a few laughs.

 

[demiurge]

Who can help?

Primary sources.

This is why historians have rejected the Lost Cause. It cuts right through the oratory and ******** and lets you hear what the men of the time had to say.

Take the address of John Letcher to the Virginia General Assembly on Jan 7th, 1861.

"The only mode, therefore, of remedying the evil, that occurs to me, under the constitution, is provided in the fifth article thereof. Summon a convention of all the states, that a full and free conference may be had between the representatives of the people, elected for this purpose, and thus ascertain whether the questions in controversy cannot be settled upon some basis mutually satisfactory to both sections. If such a convention shall assemble, and after free and full consultation and comparison of opinions, they shall find that the differences between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding states are irreconcilable, let them consider the question of a peaceable separation, and the adjustment of all questions relating to the disposition of the common property between the two sections. If they can be reconciled, let them adjust the terms, and give them such sanctions as will render them effective."

Later in the same address:


"For the present condition of public affairs, the non-slaveholding states are chargeable; and if the Union shall be destroyed, upon them will rest the solemn responsibility. Their systematic and persistent warfare upon the institution of domestic slavery, as it exists amongst us--their fierce and unqualified denunciation of it, and all who recognize or tolerate it, have done much to create the present state of exasperation existing between the two sections of the Union. Hatred to slavery and slaveholders is instilled into the minds of their children, as part and parcel of their education, throughout the infected district of New England. The institution is constantly assailed--through the press, in the pulpit, in public meetings, in private associations, in their legislative assemblies, in their statutes, on all occasions--as morally, socially and politically wrong. The slave owner is painted as the great criminal of the age, deserving death. Money is raised and has been expended in hiring desperate and depraved men, in arming and supporting them, in order that they may make raids into southern states, and excite the slaves to insurrection and murder. Arms peculiarly suited to the use of the slave, have been fabricated, and sent into the slave states, to be placed in the hands of this class of our population, after they have been stimulated to such a degree of madness as will qualify them for the commission of murder, arson, and every species of cruelty. The results of these teachings were seen in the Harpers Ferry raid.

 

[demiurge]

What was the Virginia governor's remedy to the potential problem of disunion? Oh, look, it was all about slavery.


"What, then, is necessary to be done? The northern states must strike from their statute books their personal liberty bills, and fulfill their constitutional obligations in regard to fugitive slaves and fugitives from justice. If our slaves escape into non-slaveholding states, they must be delivered up; if abandoned, depraved and desperately wicked men come into slave states to excite insurrections, or to commit other crimes against our laws, and escape into free states, they must be given up for trial and punishment, when lawfully demanded by the constituted authorities of those states whose laws have been violated.
Second--We must have proper and effective guarantees for the protection of slavery in the district of Columbia. We can never consent to the abolition of slavery in the district, until Maryland shall emancipate her slaves; and not then, unless it shall be demanded by the citizens of the district.
Third--Our equality in the states and territories must be fully recognized, and our rights of person and property adequately protected and secured. We must have guarantees that slavery shall not be interdicted in any territory now belonging to, or which may hereafter be acquired by the general government; either by the congress of the United States or a territorial legislature: that we shall be permitted to pass through the free states and territories without molestation; and if a slave shall be abducted, that the state in which he or she shall be lost, shall pay the full value of such slave to the owner.
Fourth--Like guarantees must be given, that the transmission of slaves between the slaveholding states, either by land or water, shall not be interfered with.
Fifth--The passage and enforcement of rigid laws for the punishment of such persons in the free states as shall organize, or aid and abet in organizing, either by the contribution of money, arms, munitions of war, or in any other mode whatsoever, companies of men, with a view to assail the slaveholding states, and to excite slaves to insurrection.
Sixth--That the general government shall be deprived of the power of appointing to local offices in the slaveholding states, persons who are hostile to their institutions, or inimical to their rights--the object being to prevent the appointing power from using patronage to sow the seeds of strife and dissension between the slaveholding and non-slaveholding classes in the southern states.
These guarantees can be given without prejudice to the honor or rights, and without a sacrifice of the interests, of either of the non-slaveholding states. We ask nothing, therefore, which is not clearly right, and necessary to our protection: And surely, when so much is at stake, it will be freely, cheerfully and promptly assented to. It is the interest of the north and the south to preserve the government from destruction; and they should omit the use of no proper or honorable means to avert so great a calamity. The public safety and welfare demand instant action."

https://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/vadel61/vadel61.html