Were Confederate Generals Traitors?

[CMWinkler]

Were Confederate Generals Traitors?

By Walter E. Williams | June 27, 2017 | 8:37 AM EDT



Expired Image Removed
At the 150th anniversary of the Civil War's Battle of Chancellorsville, a Confederate re-enactor issues orders to troops to get them into position during the re-enactment of Maj. Gen. Stonewall Jackson's flank attack against the Union XI Corps. (DOD Photo/Sgt. 1st Class Raymond J. Piper, Soldiers Live)
My "Rewriting American History" column of a fortnight ago, about the dismantling of Confederate monuments, generated considerable mail.

Some argued there should not be statues honoring traitors such as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis, who fought against the Union. Victors of wars get to write the history, and the history they write often does not reflect the facts. Let's look at some of the facts and ask: Did the South have a right to secede from the Union? If it did, we can't label Confederate generals as traitors.

More: http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/walter-e-williams/were-confederate-generals-traitors#disqus_thread

 

[cash]

This is true, but neither is the DOI but yet many turn to the writers of those documents to understand their meaning and intent of the law. They shouldn't be totally discounted.

The Declaration of Independence was incorporated into our Constitution.

 

[Andersonh1]

"The Cherokee Nation is the federally-recognized government of the Cherokee people and as such has sovereign status granted by treaty and law."
http://www.cherokee.org/Our-Government

@19thGeorgia, I have to thank you for giving another angle to the oft-asserted "no nation in the world recognized the CSA". They may not be a European nation-state, but they were a federally recognized entity. It's an aspect I hadn't considered before.

The Cherokee Nation is the federally-recognized government of the Cherokee people and as such has sovereign status granted by treaty and law. Its capitol is the W.W. Keeler Complex near Tahlequah, Oklahoma the capital of the Cherokee Nation. Cherokee Nation has operated under a constitutional form of government since 1827.

 

[cash]

No, they were NOT Traitors...............they were Patriots fighting in support of the democratic Right of Self determination.
The Confederacy had the legal Right to secede !

LOL ... good joke. Thanks for the belly laugh.

 

[19thGeorgia]

Nope. We have an official legal definition of levying war, and that is an organized body of armed men in the field. Grandma wasn't levying war.

You'll have to hang grandma too-
"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."

 

[Jimklag]

Everyone from grandma that gave her wedding band to the cause, woman that pieced work for the CSA, drummer boys, aliens under the sovereignty of the CSA etc levied war in some manner.

Not quite. But close enough. They did not wage war but they adhered to and gave aid and comfort to those making war.

 

[cash]

The easy answer is to say they were "traitors" because they took up rebellion against the United States. But to be a little more objective about the matter, the confederate generals were not, in their minds, looking to overthrow the US government, but like many others in the south, believed that secession was a legitimate action. While I abhor the primary reason for secession (slavery) that is a separate issue from that of treason.

R. E. Lee sure didn't believe secession was a legitimate action. "Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it were intended to be broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It is intended for perpetual union, so expressed in the preamble, and for the establishment of a government (not a compact) which can only be dissolved by revolution, or by the consent of all the people in convention assembled." [R. E. Lee to Custis Lee, 23 Jan 1861]

Of course, there is no requirement that the individual be looking to overthrow the US government for the act to be treason. All that's required is they be levying war against the United States. The purpose of that war is not relevant to the charge.

 

[huskerblitz]

It is law. I have provided several reasons why it is; you have come back with nothing but capital letters.


What would I be using it for?

The Supreme Court used it in 1796 as the legal demarcation of the start of the country ("I have ever considered it as the established doctrine of the United States, that their independence originated from, and commenced with, the declaration of Congress, on the 4th of July, 1776") and have more recently used it as a statement of fundamental principles ("principle of inherent equality that underlies and infuses our Constitution. See Declaration of Independence" -- Judge Thomas, 1995)

You can call it a banana in a tortilla and still doesn't give it the force of law. It's a statement. That's it. You can't use it in courts because it is not a legally binding document. You can throw it together with other documents and say it helped to found the country...but that's the best you can do. The DOI was a one-trick pony that already rode off into the sunset, unless of course we get into another beef with a British prince.

 

[CSA Today]

[QUOTE="Rio Bravo, post: 1581685, member: 9574"]But as the C.S.A., they were a foreign Country, with it's own Constitution, President, Cabinet, Legislature & Army. They were NONE of the business of the U.S. After Secession ![/QUOTE]
War came because the US government refused to accept the new status quo.

 

[cash]

It was the North who were denying the wishes of the Southern States & their basic Rights of Freedom & chosen Independence.

Thanks for the comedy. It's pretty funny.

 

[cash]

Did Lincoln commit treason?

I've seen some people who aren't very bright make this laughable assertion before because they can't understand what the Constitution says. The answer is no.

 

[Jimklag]

[QUOTE="Rio Bravo, post: 1581685, member: 9574"]But as the C.S.A., they were a foreign Country, with it's own Constitution, President, Cabinet, Legislature & Army. They were NONE of the business of the U.S. After Secession !

War came because the US government refused to accept the new status quo.[/QUOTE]
Which status quo would that be. Beware of terminological inexactitude.

 

[cash]

Do you find it clearly explained in the Federalist Papers?
Madison's explanation in 44 doesn't seem clear to me.
Hamilton in 33 is also not that clear, he does seem to say US Law "could not legally be opposed or controlled" by a State.
Is there some other part I missed?

Just so folks have the text in front of them, here's the relevant part of Federalist 33:

"But it is said that the laws of the Union are to be the SUPREME LAW of the land. But what inference can be drawn from this, or what would they amount to, if they were not to be supreme? It is evident they would amount to nothing. A LAW, by the very meaning of the term, includes supremacy. It is a rule which those to whom it is prescribed are bound to observe. This results from every political association. If individuals enter into a state of society, the laws of that society must be the supreme regulator of their conduct. If a number of political societies enter into a larger political society, the laws which the latter may enact, pursuant to the powers intrusted to it by its constitution, must necessarily be supreme over those societies, and the individuals of whom they are composed. It would otherwise be a mere treaty, dependent on the good faith of the parties, and not a government, which is only another word for POLITICAL POWER AND SUPREMACY. But it will not follow from this doctrine that acts of the large society which are NOT PURSUANT to its constitutional powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such. Hence we perceive that the clause which declares the supremacy of the laws of the Union, like the one we have just before considered, only declares a truth, which flows immediately and necessarily from the institution of a federal government. It will not, I presume, have escaped observation, that it EXPRESSLY confines this supremacy to laws made PURSUANT TO THE CONSTITUTION; which I mention merely as an instance of caution in the convention; since that limitation would have been to be understood, though it had not been expressed. Though a law, therefore, laying a tax for the use of the United States would be supreme in its nature, and could not legally be opposed or controlled, yet a law for abrogating or preventing the collection of a tax laid by the authority of the State, (unless upon imports and exports), would not be the supreme law of the land, but a usurpation of power not granted by the Constitution."

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed33.asp

So because of the Supremacy Clause, the laws of the United States cannot legally be opposed by states. In other words, they cannot claim the law does not apply to them. Therefore, they cannot unilaterally secede from the United States.

 

[cash]

Didn't the very U.S. Constitution give the South the Right to withdraw from the Union whenever it chose ?

Nope. The opposite, in fact.

 

[cash]

But as the C.S.A., they were a foreign Country, with it's own Constitution, President, Cabinet, Legislature & Army. They were NONE of the business of the U.S. After Secession !

A fairy tale. They were never an independent country.

 

[cash]

At the very least, he was awfully tone-deaf to the wishes of millions of people living in the southern states. A wiser man would have realized something was terribly wrong that could not be remedied by simply declaring their votes "unlawful" and then saying "we'll keep on collecting the revenue".

So we should believe a bank robber when he says, "That money in the vault belongs to me" and figure something is terribly wrong and it can't be remedied by simply declaring his actions unlawful.

 

[cash]

I'll have to remember that the next time someone gives me Madison's opinion as an authority on the Constitution.

If one can't tell the difference between a marketing paper designed to gain approval of a proposal and a letter showing a person's true opinion, then one might do that.

 

[Andersonh1]

So we should believe a bank robber when he says, "That money in the vault belongs to me" and figure something is terribly wrong and it can't be remedied by simply declaring his actions unlawful.

Not even remotely the same, not even as an analogy. You can't remove the politics and emotion from the secession crisis and just call the Confederates criminals. Lincoln tried that, and got a full scale war.

 

[cash]

Sorta agree, the Constitution was the work of a committee with various potions and intents. While the DOI was the work or Jefferson, it was approved by a committee. The history of why is important, but the future determines. For example the DOI was for a republic of white property owners in 1776 by 1863 it became the property of all.

All law is in a state of flux and the future folks determine what it is.

The DOI was approved by the entire Continental Congress, not just a committee.

 

[Jimklag]

The DOI was approved by the entire Continental Congress, not just a committee.

He was speaking of the committee of the whole.

 

[cash]

Better than the fellow with a eye ache losing his temper and starting a war.

Was there a trial to determine if he had an eye ache? If not, how do we know without that finding of fact?