“It’s the war of Northern Aggression”

Posted on June 24, 2002 in Fact-Dropping Falsehoods Rage & Annoyance

“It’s the war of Northern Aggression,” said a revisionist on Dalnet #politics today.

More like the War of Southern Landholders Arrogance, I implied, pointing out that raids on US fortresses began the day before their respective states voted to secede. And in every secession document, the states named the protection of the evil institution of SLAVERY as at least one of their reasons for secession. Any neoConfederate must face up to the fact that by supporting the poor Confederates, he also stands for the following:

1. Slavery (Can’t say this too many times because they love to deny it.)
2. The first forced conscription in United States history
3. The over representation of the large, landowning slave owning minority in their respective states thanks to the 3/5ths compromise of the Constitution.
4. The outright murder of conscientious objectors at the Confederate prison in Salisbury, North Carolina.
5. The massacre of unarmed civilians at Lawrence, Kansas.
6. The ungentlemanly murder of the African American Union troops at Fort Pillow, Tennessee.
7. Andersonville.

I know that this will make some people angry, but this is the truth. I lived in the South for four years of my life, sweating with the rest of them, black and white. I know that not every white person in the South holds the Mythology of the Blameless South close to their heart. They still love their states, their land, their country. Many of their ancestors were dragged out of the Union (witness North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee among other places.) Resentment against the new government was so high that in 1862, voters sent many delegates who had opposed secession to the Confederate and State legislatives. The Lost Cause not only deserved to be Lost, but it was forced upon many innocent people, white and black, who were made to die for the Confederacy (though most blacks ran away) at the point of a bayonet.

The danger is not the stray prowler to news groups who propagandizes this myth. It’s the person who doesn’t know. As I said to a friend who lives in Texas, I know that I cannot move these people, but my concern is with those who do not know the true history and might be tempted to buy into it because rebellion is cool. When you put it to them that what they are supporting is the memory of a enslaving, vengeful oligarchy, they think twice.

Thank God for freedom of speech, even when it means that one of these people is free to spread his falsehoods about the alledgedly blameless nature of the Confederacy and its supporters. Thank God, because it means that people like me can present the true history and so save this good nation from being led to some place known but to the hearts of the mythmakers, blindfolded and, perhaps in the end, in chains.

There is no denying that Lincoln, for a few weeks while Congress was out of session and could not endorse the move, single handedly suspended habeus corpus. This was not defiance — this was necessary because Confederate spies and sympathizers were crawling all over the nation’s capital. As soon as Congress convened, he asked for and got the suspension.

Lincoln also pardoned conscientious objectors. When conditions at Elmira, New York grew bad because of a crooked contractor, the Northern Generals moved to improve them. They fired the contractor and saw that the POWs got better food. When the rants go on and on against the “tyranny of the North”, you never hear of these amendments to their distortions.

A free people deserve to know the truth. Slavery was ended in 1865. Ninety nine years later, all Americans were guaranteed basic civil rights. “If you support the confederacy, you are for reversing this,” I say to such people. “So either be honest or drop your dream and look to the future that you can spend making this country great.”

To be a Southerner does not require adherence to the neo-confederate’s politically correct litmus test. To be a real American does require rejecting the vile falsehood of the Blameless South altogether.

Comments for this article have been closed. For fairness sake, I am reprinting what has come before. The Neo-Confederates have pretty much acted as I predicted: they distorted and overlooked evidence against them, playing a game whose primary intention was to distort and distract ignorant readers from the real facts of Secession and the Civil War.

If they merely accepted that their ancestors had done wrong, there would be no need for them to defend the Confederacy. But to do so invites question of current motives and hidden bias which is what frightens them. No Southerner is responsible for slavery and the other evils committed by the Confederate States unless he defends them which is what every Neo-COnfederate has done. They are Holocaust Deniers of the 19th Century, striving to keep the Lie Alive in the 21st Century.

The main reason for putting a stop to comments is simply this: these cheapskates are eating up my bandwidth. I’ve left Trackback up for those who wish to blog about it at their own sites like responsible citizens. The comments here appear unedited. Do not believe any whines to the contrary. Their stupidity and their mendacity is entirely as they wrote it:

Comments
There might not have been “aggression” by the United States if the so called Confederacy had allowed the free transport of men and goods on inland waterways. U.S. Grant built his name on a promise to free the Ohio and Mississippi. Only after 1862 did the campaign of the United States government “aggression” begin to be executed, as mandated by United States Constitutional authority.

The war was fought and won by the Army of the Tennessee, initially to restore passage of goods to the sea. Only later did people begin to revert to idealism. The economic life of the United States was threatened by the closure of those waterways. If the southern rebels had not closed the Mississippi many people would not have been so willing to fight to see that the Union be restored.

But, as the southern rebels had demonstrated that they would cause harm to the daily interests of millions of lawful Americans, there had to be a response to the closure of the rivers. The campaign to free the Mississippi didn’t begin until a year after the southern states had left the Union. If the CSS had truly wanted to avoid conflict they might not have blockaded the rivers, such was the economic lifeline for millions of Americans, this could not be tolerated.

Blockading the Mississippi in 1861 was no less an act of war than was destroying the World Trade Center in 2001, a military response by the United States was absolutely necessesary.

Posted by: Tim on November 5, 2002 06:44 PM
Well put, Tim. That’s an aspect that I had not considered before and you make perfect sense.

Posted by: Joel (Emperor Norton) on November 5, 2002 07:04 PM
The War against Northern Agression is an accurate characterization, but that does not absolve the CSA from it’s failings. The nonsense about the North not invading the CSA if they hadn’t closed rivers is clearly debunked by the documented and purposeful strategy of inciting the war at Fort Sumpter in an action which history would later be imitated by the Germans in WWII. The North (mostly Lincoln and the businessmen) wanted the war, and they made it happen.

With the fall of the CSA came the rise of the new American Empire under Lincoln and the eventual enslavement and near genocide of the American Indian, not to mention our jumping into all sort of “foreign entanglements” and occupations overseas. Love it or hate it, the USA of 1865 and later bears little resemblence to the Federation outlined in the Constitution. I for one, would rather we were poorer and more free from the oppression of massive government at the beck and call of the bankers and industrialists.

From a ten thousand foot view, I think the evil of slavery caused the fall of the United States in any meaningful sense of the expression (are sovereign States truly united if they are invaded and occupied?) I don’t mean that the war was over slavery (it clearly was not) but that the issue of slavery is what allowed the North to ultimately prevail and thereby destroy the Constitutional form of government the founders had intended.

The arguments expressed here seem simplistic, as do those of the neoconfederates – there were no white hats. Lincoln was a lying, scheming, money grubbing lawyer with big business connections and a deep seated resentment of the Constitution, while the Confederates had built a civilization on the back of slaves. That said, I would invite anyone to read “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair and explain how the Northern industralists were not enslaving their workers in a more brtual way than the Confederates ever had.

On balance, I think the world would have been a much better place with the CSA’s secession, even though it likely would have meant the continuance of slavery for another decade or so. Hundreds of thousands of lives would have been spared in the 1860’s and millions more in the decades to follow.

Posted by: Josh on December 27, 2002 05:31 PM
Oops – I had a typo in the post I didn’t catch in previewing it. It’s Fort Sumter of course (not Sumpter). Sorry for the error.

Posted by: Josh on December 27, 2002 07:35 PM
I’m just going to have to beat you for that, Josh.

Posted by: Joel on December 27, 2002 09:06 PM
I really need to start earning a living as a psychic. There’s nothing more to add: I’ve already rebutted Josh’s every point!

Posted by: Joel on December 27, 2002 09:12 PM
It seems to me like you are glossing over the failings of Lincoln and haven’t rebutted anything I’ve said with specifics or facts.

Just to give you some more specifics to rebut:

Please find an excuse for Lincoln’s imprisonment of newspaper editors who disagreed with him and the rigging of votes in Maryland in the 1862 election using the ever popular banana republic method of soldiers at the voting booths and color-coded ballots? Lincoln would have lost the congress and his war if he hadn’t subverted the elections that year. Peace Democrats would have taken over Congress and he would have had to settle for negotiation with the CSA.

Other fine examples of Lincoln’s character were the prosecution of Total War against the inhabitants of the Shenendoah Valley and of course in Sherman’s March.

Slavery was (and is) evil, and its too bad that the CSA were the only line of defense against the banking/merchant uberclass that now rules us all. We are a failing civilization I fear, and moreso becuase most people don’t recognize the near total dominance of the base concerns of merchants and other money-grubbers. Lincoln won the North American continent for these people, and tried to have all blacks sent back to Africa. It’s interesting that the Emancipation Proclamation specifically excluded freeing ANY SLAVE CONTROLLED BY THE NORTH (of which there were many thousands in occupied territories alone). In fact, US Grant’s wife traveled to encampments with her slaves (“servants” that her father had bought for her) during the war, while Lee had freed his slaves prior to the war’s beginning.

As to Civil Rights and the opposition to it, I find egalitarianism (the enforcement of group rights onto the individual) as opposed to liberty (individual rights) odious and exceedingly unconstitutional. The Jim Crow laws were morally bankrupt as were the anti-black laws in New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, etc. as well as the white race-riots in New York and Boston. The laws should be totally color-blind (as well as gender-blind, etc.) The Founders were aware of egalitarian ideas in their time and wisely discarded them as being the tools of oppression of every minority and individual thought. The world cannot be “made right” and the Founders knew it, so they tried to create a government that allowed personal liberty and therefore the individual conscience to have primacy. Lincoln, both Roosevelts, etc. have eradicated any notion of liberty in this country and people like you, blind to the forces of history, advocate this destruction.

Posted by: Josh on January 2, 2003 08:19 AM
This is the worst site i have ever seen. You are a mean spirited yankeefool. The south had a great cause and still has one.

Posted by: Robert Forrester on April 4, 2003 09:47 AM
Greetings to you all. Well, I see we have strong support for the Federal Union side, so I would like to explain the other. First slavery, it was and was not a major factor in the secession of the southern states. The problem occurs that Lincoln was never against Slavery in fact he was a lawyer for slave owners that came to collect their slaves that escaped to Illinois, in his inaugural speech he made it clear that he was not an abolitionist and that during that entire war his cry to the people was “To save the Union.” The emancipation proclamation was a joke if any of you have ever read it. Let me share the first paragraph with you….

“That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts to repress such persons, or any of them, in any efforts they may make for their actual freedom…

What did that mean? Well, it meant that Lincoln’s troops were getting beat at every turn, so He decided that he as Chief Dictator would free all slaves in Confederate control states but not in boarder or Union controlled states. This was to cause uprisings at home so the Johnny Rebs would have to stop fighting and go home, but that did not work. Slavery itself was well on it’s way out mostly due to a little invention by Eli Whitney called the cotton gin. It was becoming very uncost effective to own slaves. Also only about 12% of the south land owners had slaves. So why would we fight a war based on 12% of our population? We didn’t. The North had set a deal with the south called a fugitive act which meant that if they found run away slaves they had to be returned, The north’s side of the deal was extremely high tariff’s imposed to force us to trade with them or to pay them, where the money went to “internal improvements” (payoffs to indusialist). Well, the North renigged and was not sending the slaves back. If it had all been about slavery then why didn’t Lincoln do as Dozens of other country’s had done before him and that was Compensation Emancipation? Argentina 1831, Colombia 1814, Chile 1823, Central America 1824, Mexico 1829, Bolivia 1831, Uruguay 1842, French and Dutch colonies 1848, Ecuador 1851, Peru 1854, Venezuela 1854 all compensated slave owners and freed the slaves. Napoleon III and many other European leaders of the time asked Lincoln to do this. President Jefferson Davis requested on many occasions as this to be a way to solve the slavery issue. All this fell on deaf ears of Lincoln.

My dear Mister Joel, the South was not the first to plan Secession from the union nor were we the only ones, New England for 12 years prior had in debate their leaving the Union too. In fact New York City wanted to become a country all to their own like Hong Kong and just be a business center.

Well, I will digress for now but I will be back.

Posted by: Scotty on June 18, 2003 09:56 AM
How adoring! Another Confederacy apologist lapsing into patronizing mode because he can’t face up to the fact that every single article of secession passed by a Southern legislature named the preservation of slavery as the principal reason why it was seceding!

Take the time to read the original documents, Scotty. Check Lincoln’s letters, too, which describe how as early as 1855 he was feeling serious moral doubts about slavery.

The pick and choose historicity of the apologists rears its ugly head again. Tell only the parts of the story that seem to let you off the hook. Leave out the damning parts. It’s the apologist’s way.

Another note to certain Southerners: you’re not responsible for the sins of your ancestors unless you defend or lie about them.

Posted by: Joel on June 18, 2003 03:41 PM
well, let’s read a few shall we ….

Missouri Secession

October 31, 1861

An act declaring the political ties heretofore existing between the State of Missouri and the United States of America dissolved.

Whereas the Government of the United States, in the possession and under the control of a sectional party, has wantonly violated the compact originally made between said Government and the State of Missouri, by invading with hostile armies the soil of the State, attacking and making prisoners the militia while legally assembled under the State laws, forcibly occupying the State capitol, and attempting through the instrumentality of domestic traitors to usurp the State government, seizing and destroying private property, and murdering with fiendish malignity peaceable citizens, men, women, and children, together with other acts of atrocity, indicating a deep-settled hostility toward the people of Missouri and their institutions; and

Whereas the present Administration of the Government of the United States has utterly ignored the Constitution, subverted the Government as constructed and intended by its makers, and established a despotic and arbitrary power instead thereof: Now, therefore,

Be it enacted by the general assembly of the State of Missouri, That all political ties of every character new existing between the Government of the United States of America and the people and government of the State of Missouri are hereby dissolved, and the State of Missouri, resuming the sovereignty granted by compact to the said United States upon admission of said State into the Federal Union, does again take its place as a free and independent republic amongst the nations of the earth.

This act to take effect and be in force from and after its passage.

Hmmm interresting not even the word slavery is even in there.well let’s read another….

Virginia Secession
May 23, 1861

AN ORDINANCE to repeal the ratification of the Constitution of the United State of America by the State of Virginia, and to resume all the rights and powers granted under said Constitution.

The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States:

Now, therefore, we, the people of Virginia, do declare and ordain, That the ordinance adopted by the people of this State in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and all acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying and adopting amendments to said Constitution, are hereby repealed and abrogated; that the union between the State of Virginia and the other States under the Constitution aforesaid is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Virginia is in the full possession and exercise of all the rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.

And they do further declare, That said Constitution of the United States of America is no longer binding on any of the citizens of this State.

This ordinance shall take effect and be an act of this day, when ratified by a majority of the voter of the people of this State cast at a poll to be taken thereon on the fourth Thursday in May next, in pursuance of a schedule hereafter to be enacted.

hmm you are right the word Slave is in there but not as to the reason for secession. here is another….

Florida Secession

January 10, 1861

ORDINANCE OF SECESSION

We, the people of the State of Florida, in convention assembled, do solemnly ordain, publish, and declare, That the State of Florida hereby withdraws herself from the confederacy of States existing under the name of the United States of America and from the existing Government of the said States; and that all political connection between her and the Government of said States ought to be, and the same is hereby, totally annulled, and said Union of States dissolved; and the State of Florida is hereby declared a sovereign and independent nation; and that all ordinances heretofore adopted, in so far as they create or recognize said Union, are rescinded; and all laws or parts of laws in force in this State, in so far as they recognize or assent to said Union, be, and they are hereby, repealed.

No words on slavery there hmmm let’s try a real southern state like Alabama….

Alabama Secession

January 11, 1861

AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of Alabama and the other States united under the compact styled “The Constitution of the United States of America”

Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of president and vice-president of the United States of America, by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions and to the peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama, preceded by many and dangerous infractions of the constitution of the United States by many of the States and people of the Northern section, is a political wrong of so insulting and menacing a character as to justify the people of the State of Alabama in the adoption of prompt and decided measures for their future peace and security, therefore:

Be it declared and ordained by the people of the State of Alabama, in Convention assembled, That the State of Alabama now withdraws, and is hereby withdrawn from the Union known as “the United States of America,” and henceforth ceases to be one of said United States, and is, and of right ought to be a Sovereign and Independent State.

Sec 2. Be it further declared and ordained by the people of the State of Alabama in Convention assembled, That all powers over the Territory of said State, and over the people thereof, heretofore delegated to the Government of the United States of America, be and they are hereby withdrawn from said Government, and are hereby resumed and vested in the people of the State of Alabama. And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding States of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States,

Be it resolved by the people of Alabama in Convention assembled, That the people of the States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, be and are hereby invited to meet the people of the State of Alabama, by their Delegates, in Convention, on the 4th day of February, A.D., 1861, at the city of Montgomery, in the State of Alabama, for the purpose of consulting with each other as to the most effectual mode of securing concerted and harmonious action in whatever measures may be deemed most desirable for our common peace and security.

And be it further resolved, That the President of this Convention, be and is hereby instructed to transmit forthwith a copy of the foregoing Preamble, Ordinance, and Resolutions to the Governors of the several States named in said resolutions.

Done by the people of the State of Alabama, in Convention assembled, at Montgomery, on this, the eleventh day of January, A.D. 1861.

OOOooo they said slave-holding states but nothing about going secession because of slaves.I know it must be North Carolina because they are all bigots there ….

North Carolina Secession

May 20, 1861

AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of North Carolina and the other States united with her, under the compact of government entitled “The Constitution of the United States.”

We, the people of the State of North Carolina in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance adopted by the State of North Carolina in the convention of 1789, whereby the Constitution of the United States was ratified and adopted, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly ratifying and adopting amendments to the said Constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded, and abrogated.

We do further declare and ordain, That the union now subsisting between the State of North Carolina and the other States, under the title of the United States of America, is hereby dissolved, and that the State of North Carolina is in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.

Done in convention at the city of Raleigh, this the 20th day of May, in the year of our Lord 1861, and in the eighty-fifth year of the independence of said State.

nope wrong again no words of secession due to Slavery, I know it must be South Carolina I always get them confused too.

South Carolina Secession
December 20, 1860

AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of South Carolina and other States united with her under the compact entitled “The Constitution of the United States of America.”

We, the people of the State of South Carolina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain, and it is hereby declared and ordained, That the ordinance adopted by us in convention on the twenty-third day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, and also all acts and parts of acts of the General Assembly of this State ratifying amendments of the said Constitution, are hereby repealed; and that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States, under the name of the “United States of America,” is hereby dissolved.

Done at Charleston the twentieth day of December, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty.

hmmmm I am running out of states here

Mississippi Secession

January 9, 1861

AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the union between the State of Mississippi and other States united with her under the compact entitled “The Constitution of the United States of America.”

The people of the State of Mississippi, in convention assembled, do ordain and declare, and it is hereby ordained and declared, as follows, to wit:

Section 1. That all the laws and ordinances by which the said State of Mississippi became a member of the Federal Union of the United States of America be, and the same are hereby, repealed, and that all obligations on the part of the said State or the people thereof to observe the same be withdrawn, and that the said State doth hereby resume all the rights, functions, and powers which by any of said laws or ordinances were conveyed to the Government of the said United States, and is absolved from all the obligations, restraints, and duties incurred to the said Federal Union, and shall from henceforth be a free, sovereign, and independent State.

Sec. 2. That so much of the first section of the seventh article of the constitution of this State as requires members of the Legislature and all officers, executive and judicial, to take an oath or affirmation to support the Constitution of the United States be, and the same is hereby, abrogated and annulled.

Sec. 3. That all rights acquired and vested under the Constitution of the United States, or under any act of Congress passed, or treaty made, in pursuance thereof, or under any law of this State, and not incompatible with this ordinance, shall remain in force and have the same effect as if this ordinance had not been passed.

Sec. 4. That the people of the State of Mississippi hereby consent to form a federal union with such of the States as may have seceded or may secede from the Union of the United States of America, upon the basis of the present Constitution of the said United States, except such parts thereof as embrace other portions than such seceding States.

Thus ordained and declared in convention the 9th day of January, in the year of our Lord 1861.

Georgia Secession

January 19, 1861

We the people of the State of Georgia in Convention assembled do declare and ordain and it is hereby declared and ordained that the ordinance adopted by the State of Georgia in convention on the 2nd day of Jany. in the year of our Lord seventeen hundred and eighty-eight, whereby the constitution of the United States of America was assented to, ratified and adopted, and also all acts and parts of acts of the general assembly of this State, ratifying and adopting amendments to said constitution, are hereby repealed, rescinded and abrogated.

We do further declare and ordain that the union now existing between the State of Georgia and other States under the name of the United States of America is hereby dissolved, and that the State of Georgia is in full possession and exercise of all those rights of sovereignty which belong and appertain to a free and independent State.

Passed January 19, 1861.

and of course I save the best for last….

Texas Secession

February 23, 1861

AN ORDINANCE to dissolve the Union between the State of Texas and the other States united under the Compact styled “the Constitution of the United States of America.”

WHEREAS, The Federal Government has failed to accomplish the purposes of the compact of union between these States, in giving protection either to the persons of our people upon an exposed frontier, or to the property of our citizens, and

WHEREAS, the action of the Northern States of the Union is violative of the compact between the States and the guarantees of the Constitution; and,

WHEREAS, The recent developments in Federal affairs make it evident that the power of the Federal Government is sought to be made a weapon with which to strike down the interests and property of the people of Texas, and her sister slave-holding States, instead of permitting it to be, as was intended, our shield against outrage and aggression; THEREFORE,

SECTION 1. We, the people of the State of Texas, by delegates in convention assembled, do declare and ordain that the ordinance adopted by our convention of delegates on the 4th day of July, A.D. 1845, and afterwards ratified by us, under which the Republic of Texas was admitted into the Union with other States, and became a party to the compact styled “The Constitution of the United States of America,” be, and is hereby, repealed and annulled; that all the powers which, by the said compact, were delegated by Texas to the Federal Government are revoked and resumed; that Texas is of right absolved from all restraints and obligations incurred by said compact, and is a separate sovereign State, and that her citizens and people are absolved from all allegiance to the United States or the government thereof.

SEC. 2. This ordinance shall be submitted to the people of Texas for their ratification or rejection, by the qualified voters, on the 23rd day of February, 1861, and unless rejected by a majority of the votes cast, shall take effect and be in force on and after the 2d day of March, A.D. 1861.

PROVIDED, that in the Representative District of El Paso said election may be held on the 18th day of February, 1861.

Done by the people of the State of Texas, in convention assembled, at Austin, this 1st day of February, A.D. 1861.

[ratified 23 Feb 1861 by a vote of 46,153 for and 14,747 against]

hmmmm these are the secession papers drawn up by each state and they give reasons but none persay about slavery, but yet you wish to give everyone the impression that they do. Now another thing about your beloved dictator Lincoln please note the dates of secession and not the date of Lincoln’s first Inaugural address of March 4, 1861 “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” ahhh his own words that he was not in it for the saving of slaves in the south.I will give the full speach at the end since he is very long winded as all Dictators are.The entire reason for the south to seceed from the Union was simple it was all over Money and power like all wars are. Lincoln was a follower of Henry Clay and Alexander Hamiliton all of who wanted BIG federal Government and BIG central control over what was then sovergn states, states that had came together to be one not to be ran as one by an outsiding Dictator by the likes of your beloved Lincoln. Once again I degress

First Inaugural Address
Washington, D.C.
March 4, 1861

Fellow-citizens of the United States:
In compliance with a custom as old as the government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly, and to take, in your presence, the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, to be taken by the President “before he enters on the execution of this office.”

I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement.

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States, that by the accession of a Republican Administration, their property, and their peace, and personal security, are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed, and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this, and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them. And more than this, they placed in the platform, for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves, and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:

Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.”

I now reiterate these sentiments; and in doing so, I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause — as cheerfully to one section as to another.

There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:

“No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it, for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the law-giver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution — to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause, “shall be delivered,” their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not, with nearly equal unanimity, frame and pass a law, by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?

There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by state authority; but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him, or to others, by which authority it is done. And should any one, in any case, be content that his oath shall go unkept, on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?

Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well, at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that “the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States”?

I take the official oath to-day, with no mental reservations, and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws, by any hypercritical rules. And while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to, and abide by, all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional.

It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our national Constitution. During that period fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens, have, in succession, administered the executive branch of the government. They have conducted it through many perils; and, generally, with great success. Yet, with all this scope for [of] precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief constitutional term of four years, under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted.

I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper, ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our national Constitution, and the Union will endure forever — it being impossible to destroy it, except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.

Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade, by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it — break it, so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?

Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that, in legal contemplation, the Union is perpetual, confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution, was “to form a more perfect Union.” But if [the] destruction of the Union, by one, or by a part only, of the States, be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.

It follows from these views that no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union, — that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence, within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.

I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it, so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner, direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion — no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States in any interior locality, shall be so great and so universal, as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable with all, that I deem it better to forego, for the time, the uses of such offices.

The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts of the Union. So far as possible, the people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought and reflection. The course here indicated will be followed, unless current events and experience shall show a modification or change to be proper; and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised according to circumstances actually existing, and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles, and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and affections.

That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to them. To those, however, who really love the Union may I not speak?

Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a step, while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to, are greater than all the real ones you fly from? Will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?

All profess to be content in the Union, if all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written in the Constitution, has been denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is so constituted, that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers, a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution — certainly would, if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities, and of individuals, are so plainly assured to them, by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them. But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.

From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the government must cease. There is no other alternative; for continuing the government, is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority, in such case, will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which, in turn, will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy, a year or two hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments, are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this.

Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a new Union, as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed secession?

Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy. A majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it, does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.

I do not forget the position assumed by some, that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case, upon the parties to a suit; as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be over-ruled, and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties, in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink, to decide cases properly brought before them; and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.

One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive slave clause of the Constitution, and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections, than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction, in one section; while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all, by the other.

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We can not remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence, and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory, after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the national Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over the whole subject to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it.

I will venture to add that to me the Convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions, originated by others, not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution, which amendment, however, I have not seen, has passed Congress, to the effect that the federal government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.

The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have referred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the States. The people themselves can do this if also they choose; but the executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present government, as it came to his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successor.

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope, in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of nations, with his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth, and that justice, will surely prevail, by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.

By the frame of the government under which we live, this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief; and have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals.

While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well, upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot haste, to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied, hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend it.”

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Posted by: Scotty on June 23, 2003 12:29 AM
Note the Neo-Confederate “cut and paste”.

Gotta love how Scotty tries to deny that this phrase doesn’t imply that slavery had anything to do with Virginia’s secession: “to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States”.

Also note that these were not quoted:

Opening paragraph, Mississippi Declaration of Secession:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.

Opening paragraph, Georgia Declaration of Secession:

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.

From the Texas Declaration of Secession:

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union…She was received into the confederacy…as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery– the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits– a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.

In all the non-slave-holding States…the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party…based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color– a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States

…all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations…

From the South Carolina Declaration of Secession:

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

Game, point, and match. Scotty, you’re a one-trick pony and a waster of my bandwidth. Intelligent readers will read through your Confederacy style Holocaust Revisionism. I’m not giving you a free platform any more. You’re just another Neo-Liar.

Get over it. The South seceded over slavery. You’re only responsible when you play the part of Holocaust revisionist. If you continue to make these claims, then you’re nothing but a traitor to the American Union. Go live in another country. Perhaps the Sudan will be more to your liking.

Posted by: Joel on June 23, 2003 12:53 AM
Comments for this are closed now. The Neo-Confederate drivel is just too boring and I’m the one paying for the bandwidth.

Go read some real history books where folks like Scotty don’t try to explain away the truth.

Posted by: Joel on June 23, 2003 12:54 AM