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

 

[Booklady]

Not just technically, but in fact.



We can look on them as fondly as we wish.

Speaking only for myself, I don't look on them fondly. I look at them as men who had to make an agonizing choice and think there but for the grace of God go I.

 

[Will Carry]

No Confederate general was tried for treason, as posted previously. That puts a big shadow on any accusations they committed treason. Wirz was hung for Andersonville but I think the Union lost their blood lust during the war and only wanted peace, so they could conquer the west.....

 

[Copperhead-mi]

The general in charge of Andersonville POW camp , is the only one I know who went to trial, shame that they did not bother with their own commandants in charge of Northern POWs

The "general" was actually a colonel-- Colonel Henry Wirz, and he wasn't the only person that went to trial. Confederate guerilla Champ Ferguson was charged with 53 counts of murder, found guilty and hanged. Also, former Confederate major and commander of the Salisbury Prisoner of War camp in North Carolina from September 1864 until the surrender of Johnston's forces in 1865, John H. Gee, was charged with one count of "violation of the rules and customs of war" which included two specifications along with a second count of "murder in violation of the laws of war" which included seven specifications. Gee was acquitted of all specifications and counts by the military court.

edit- broke up super long sentence

 

[DaveGberg]

No Confederate general was tried for treason, as posted previously. That puts a big shadow on any accusations they committed treason. Wirz was hung for Andersonville but I think the Union lost their blood lust during the war and only wanted peace, so they could conquer the west.....

Hardly. A lot of factors went into the decision not to prosecute that had nothing to do with validity of the charge. You can find many of them on this thread if you scroll up a few screens.

 

[wausaubob]

If the United States wanted to prosecute any military person of the Confederacy, they had to overcome the objections of Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Meade and Thomas, and the rest of the United States command structure. These were people who had seen the war personally and knew its consequences in death and destruction.
Wircz and Champ Ferguson, and the Lincoln assassination conspirators, were the exceptions to the general rule that the Generals wanted peace, at almost any price. Price is deliberately chosen, because the cost of the war, by 1865 could not have been sustained by the United States much longer.

 

[Rebforever]

If the United States wanted to prosecute any military person of the Confederacy, they had to overcome the objections of Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Meade and Thomas, and the rest of the United States command structure. These were people who had seen the war personally and knew its consequences in death and destruction.
Wircz and Champ Ferguson, and the Lincoln assassination conspirators, were the exceptions to the general rule that the Generals wanted peace, at almost any price. Price is deliberately chosen, because the cost of the war, by 1865 could not have been sustained by the United States much longer.

Must not have been too much of a problem money wise. Had enough to send an occupying force to the South for 12 years.

 

[CSA Today]

Personally, I don't care whether Confederate generals were considered traitors or not. Many countries today would still be colonies or possessions of other countries had it not been the heroic commitment and sacrifice of traitors.

 

[19thGeorgia]

If the United States wanted to prosecute any military person of the Confederacy, they had to overcome the objections of Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Meade and Thomas, and the rest of the United States command structure. These were people who had seen the war personally and knew its consequences in death and destruction.
Wircz and Champ Ferguson, and the Lincoln assassination conspirators, were the exceptions to the general rule that the Generals wanted peace, at almost any price. Price is deliberately chosen, because the cost of the war, by 1865 could not have been sustained by the United States much longer.

POW camp operations, guerilla activity - but was anyone tried in court for treason?

 

[wausaubob]

POW camp operations, guerilla activity - but was anyone tried in court for treason?

No they were not. The people who put on uniforms and fought the war that the politicians arranged, for a large part were united in their disgust with the war and the politicians who declined to accept responsibility for ending what they had started.
Andrew Johnson, a non-elected President, was extremely vulnerable to having Grant resign, at which point he becomes a private citizen, that can speak out against the treason trials and rally the soldiers to the accord at Appomattox.
Soldiers of both armies were very impressed with what Lee and Grant had done at Appomattox, and the risk was substantial that Southern and Western soldiers would unite to resist the politicians.
Johnson wanted to send Grant to Mexico, and Grant refused to accept the physical risks posed by leaving the United States, at that time.

 

[OpnCoronet]

It is a classic lawyer's, all-bases-covered defense: "My client broke no law, he had to break the law, and the law does not apply, anyway." But the Constitution prescribes specific means and procedures for settling disputes over the meaning and interpretation of the Constitution, beginning with the Supreme Court. Those procedures were not followed. The seceding states simply bypassed those procedures and declared that the Constitution did not preclude their actions. The real argument for unilateral action was that the right of rebellion of a free people against alleged "tyranny" superseded a state's, or a citizen's obligations under the Constitution altogether, which made the issue of Constitutional "legality" moot. Whether or not one accepts that argument, unilateral secession was treason against the United States, just as the American Revolution was treason against the British crown.

True enough. Secessionists seemed content to accept the mantle of Revolution, but denied that the Constitution had any authority to deny secession, because it was, as a states right, outside the authority of the Constitution.

 

[cash]

It sounds like the supreme court was of the opinion that participating in the rebellion was treason.

"The pardon produced by the petitioner is a full pardon 'for all offences by him committed, arising from participation, direct or implied, in the Rebellion,' and is subject to certain conditions which have been complied with. The effect of this pardon is to relieve the petitioner from all penalties and disabilities attached to the offence of treason, committed by his participation in the Rebellion. So far as that offence is concerned, he is thus placed beyond the reach of punishment of any kind. But to exclude him, by reason of that offence, from continuing in the enjoyment of a previously acquired right, is to enforce a punishment for that offence notwithstanding the pardon. If such exclusion can be effected by the exaction of an expurgatory oath covering the offence, the pardon may be avoided, and that accomplished indirectly which cannot be reached by direct legislation. It is not within the constitutional power of Congress thus to inflict punishment beyond the reach of executive clemency. From the petitioner, therefore, the oath required by the act of January 24th, 1865, could not be exacted, even if that act were not subject to any other objection than the one thus stated."​

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/71/333.html

And in this case, Garland wasn't even a member of the confederate military. He was a confederate congressman.

For those looking for a further explanation of this case:

https://studycivilwar.wordpress.com/2017/05/26/ex-parte-garland/

 

[cash]

They were not prosecuted in the usual manner but rather through the 14th Amendment,

"Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State."
​

It refers to them as having committed a crime and this was something they were later given or had to request pardon for.
And a pardon can only be given if a crime was committed.

As far as I know none of them ever tried to argue that this was an unfair punishment as no crime was ever committed by them. They asked for a pardon which is an admission of guilt.

"Gentlemen present themselves here who were once practitioners before this court, but who confess in form that they have been traitors, and virtually confess that they have forfeited the privileges which they had under the rules of this court. Confessing all this, they maintain their right to take the original oath again, and to come back to practise before this court because they have been pardoned by the President."
​

Rather than try everyone they held them to an oath that questioned whether they were a traitor. If they wanted a privilege they had to swear that they were never traitors, or say they were and be pardoned.

"The act prescribing the oath does not say, that when a man comes here and admits that he has committed the offence, the court shall try and punish him for that offence. It says, that in order to practise he shall take an oath that he has never committed treason, that he has never joined the Rebellion. That is all. He may take the oath or not as he pleases. No one compels him to take it. Is it a penalty, when he must invoke the penalty on his own head if there is penalty? That oath does not punish him, nor authorize anybody to punish him, nor say that he has done anything heretofore that is punishable in the sense of crime or delict. He may stay away; no one can touch him."
​

Here's all the legal stuff for our lawyers.

http://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/71/333.html

The oath was found to be unconstitutional.

 

[cash]

No Confederate general was tried for treason, as posted previously. That puts a big shadow on any accusations they committed treason.

Not if we understand what a pardon is.

 

[cash]

If the United States wanted to prosecute any military person of the Confederacy, they had to overcome the objections of Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Meade and Thomas, and the rest of the United States command structure. These were people who had seen the war personally and knew its consequences in death and destruction.
Wircz and Champ Ferguson, and the Lincoln assassination conspirators, were the exceptions to the general rule that the Generals wanted peace, at almost any price. Price is deliberately chosen, because the cost of the war, by 1865 could not have been sustained by the United States much longer.

Grant was of the opinion that their paroles protected them from being tried for treason. Legally speaking, he was incorrect, but he was a general, not a lawyer, and he made his opinion stick.

 

[suzenatale]

The oath was found to be unconstitutional.

Yes by the court case that I showed that said they were already pardoned for their crime of treason and cannot be punished again for it.

 

[suzenatale]

And in this case, Garland wasn't even a member of the confederate military. He was a confederate congressman.

For those looking for a further explanation of this case:

https://studycivilwar.wordpress.com/2017/05/26/ex-parte-garland/

Are you suggesting that when the court spoke of traitors they only meant people in the confedeate government not the military? By "participation direct or implied in the rebellion" I would think that includes the military.

 

[cash]

Are you suggesting that when the court spoke of traitors they only meant people in the confedeate government not the military? By "participation direct or implied in the rebellion" I would think that includes the military.

I am suggesting there is a misconception of some that only people in the military or connected to the military could commit treason, as suggested by the title of this thread.

 

[suzenatale]

I am suggesting there is a misconception of some that only people in the military or connected to the military could commit treason, as suggested by the title of this thread.

Oh, my mistake. Thank you for clarifying.

 

[suzenatale]

The oath was found to be unconstitutional.

Oh, but I must add just to clairify, it was only unconstitutional to those pardoned, not everyone in the war was pardoned, and the 14th Amendments words still prevent criminals from voting to this day, unless pardoned.

 

[cash]

Oh, but I must add just to clairify, it was only unconstitutional to those pardoned, not everyone in the war was pardoned, and the 14th Amendments words still prevent criminals from voting to this day, unless pardoned.

On Christmas Day, 1868, every confederate was pardoned.