Topic: U.S. History
An Inconvenient History-War for Southern Independence-Part2 "If I have a superstition, sir, which governs my mind and holds it captive, it is a superstitious reverence for the Union. If one can inherit a sentiment, I may be said to have inherited this from my revolutionary father." Jeff Davisby Republicae
(Libertarian)
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Part 2 Continued...
Slavery was an evil institution in this country, both in the North and the South however, we fail to understand the real issues concerning the War Between the States. My suggestion is that you read: The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government by Jefferson Davis-1881, or War of the Rebellion: Official Government Records of the Union and Confederate Armies-1884, or the Slave Chronicles (a true shocker) compiled from interviews of last living former slaves during the Great Depression. Another is: The Southern States of the American Union by J.L.M. Curry-1894. Read a booklet written by a Slave named Harrison Berry in 1861 called: Slavery and Abolitionism, as Viewed by a Georgia Slave, an amazing little book that completely contradicts and flies in the face of the accepted history of the South, the Union and Slavery. Read the 1864 report called: The Conduct of Federal Troops in Louisiana it will make you sick.
Read the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, another amazing eye-opener. I could provide you will numerous others, which tell a very different story then the one most of us, have learned in school. Books, papers and newspaper editorials of that period which would shock most Americans, but we have been so well indoctrinated into a very specific view of the Union's victory that all else is forgotten, ignored and all intelligent discourse ostracized. We fail ourselves when we avoid the truth of any issue, including the so-called "Civil War" and the real reasons for that War.
The Southern States actually voted to ban the slave trade as early as 1820 however, the Northern Slave traders continued to import and smuggle slaves into the South. The first State to pass the prohibition of the importation of slaves was Virginia. In addition, a vast majority of Southern States voted to extend the Missouri Compromise to the Pacific, but that too was voted down by a majority of Northern States. A strange fact is that no law was ever passed in the North that granted freedom to a person enslaved, that came in 1865, long after the falsely called Emancipation Proclamation which, by the way, only freed slaves within in the South, but did nothing to free those within any areas actually controlled by the Union. That should be considered one of those inconvenient truths that most histories avoid. The problem was that slave-ownership was never very profitable in the North except for those who engaged in the actual importation and trade of slaves, conducted exclusively by Northern shipping companies.
In the population of the South, only 3% were large Slave owners, which begs the question as to why so many people, non-slave owners volunteered to wage a war against the North if Slavery was the real issue. Another interesting fact is that the Union leaders were extremely shocked that the Slave uprising never materialized as they expected, instead they found just the opposite.
The black population of the South was essential to the War effort, but contrary to Unionist propaganda, the black population was not forcefully induced to support that effort, the vast majority of them volunteered their time and labor. Yes, the slaves were even paid for their labors, at times more than their white counterparts. Slaves, by enlarge, remained on the plantations, without supervision, without compulsion and helped maintain the war effort. Had it not been for the black volunteers, the South could have never maintained its effort for freedom and liberty as long as it did. Sure, there were some blacks that ran away, but the vast majority of them did not, they remained, they helped. Read about Bill Yopp, former Slave and Confederate Veteran that was offered a permanent residence at the Confederate Soldier's Home. Even after the War, ex-Slaves chose to remain with their former masters and even helped sustain them during one of the most devastating impositions of Unionists misnomers called "reconstruction".
A British observer, Captain Fremantle witnessed an unusual site in a captured Northern town, he states that he saw a Confederate soldier leading a captured Union soldier down the street all alone, but the strange part of it was that the Confederate soldier was black. He went on to say: "This little episode of a Southern slave leading a white Yankee soldier through a Northern village, alone and on his own accord, would not have been gratifying to an abolitionist, nor would the sympathizers both in England and in the North feel encouraged if they could hear the language of detestation and contempt with which the numerous Negroes with Southern armies speak of their [Northern] liberators."
Another shocker is to read just how Unionist armies treated Slaves in conquered territories of the South it was, to be restrained, despicable, to say the least. Not to mention the general atrocities committed by Union armies on the general population of the South.
Read the Census data of 1860, the North repelled the possibility of free black immigration. In that year the black population in the North was 1.7%, strange that there was so little migration allowed into the North if the North was so concerned with the plight of Slaves. Do some research and find out just how the freed Slave were treated in the North, then read the Slave Chronicles and see how they were treated, for the most part, in the South.
Another amazing fact is that Robert E. Lee and others called for the immediate emancipation of all Slaves, while there were those like Jefferson Davis who believed that it was the responsibility of Slave owners to educate and prepare them for freedom. Everyone in the South knew that the economic reality of Slavery was rapidly diminishing long before Secession and the War and would have probably been completely economically unviable by 1870 due to progress in agricultural machinery. Jefferson Davis stated that no matter who won the War, that Slavery would eventually become a defunct institution. The concern of many in the South was the method of emancipation. In the writings of Jefferson Davis you will find he was of the opinion that the slaves should be well prepared for freedom; that they should be educated and made aware of the responsibility of freedom. Instead, the War of Northern Aggression released the slaves into a life filled with generational poverty, hatred and hardship. If you read the Slave Chronicles you will see that many former slaves felt that they were recklessly thrown into a freedom that was far from free.
In a Confederate soldier's journal was found the following words: "I was a soldier in Virginia in the campaigns of Lee and Jackson, and I declare I never met a Southern soldier who had drawn his sword to perpetuate slavery. What he had chiefly at heart was the preservation of the supreme and sacred right of self-government. It was a very small minority of men who fought in the Southern armies who were financially interested in the institution of slavery"
So many volunteered to fight for the Confederacy that thousands initially had to be forced to return home instead. Can you imagine anyone fighting a War for an institution such as Slavery when the vast majority of the Southern population had no connection with slavery and never owned a slave? They fought for something far more valiant, far more noble and that was the same cause that inspired the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
The Northern States pasted exclusion laws that made it hard or impossible for freed Slaves to enter or settle in their jurisdictions. Massachusetts passed laws that allowed the flogging of blacks that remained in the State over 2 months, Indiana's constitution stated, "no negro or mulatto shall come into or settle in the state. Most of the Northern States crafted similar laws and imposed harsh penalties on freed or runaway Slaves. John Sherman, William Tecumseh's brother declared in 1862 that: "We do not like the negroes. We do not disguise our dislike. As my friend from Indiana said yesterday: The whole people of the Northwestern States are opposed to having many negroes among them and that principle or prejudice has been engraved in the legislation for nearly all the Northwestern States." There were actually far more beatings and lynching in the North during that period then in the South during the "Jim Crow" period.
Former Slave and Legislator Richard Harris, elected to the Mississippi House of Representatives in 1890. On February 23, 1890 he delivered a speech on the floor:
"Mr. Speaker! I have arisen here in my place to offer a few words on the bill [raising funds for a Confederate Monument]. I have come from a sick bed, perhaps it was not prudent for me to come, but Sir, I could not rest quietly in my room without contributing a few remarks of my own. I was sorry the hear the speech of the young gentleman from Marshall County. I am sorry that any son of a soldier should go on record as opposed to the erection of a monument in honor of the brave dead. And, Sir, I am convinced that had he seen what I saw at Seven Pines and in the Seven Days' of fighting around Richmond, the battlefield covered with the mangled forms of those who fought for their country and for their country's honor, he would not have made that speech.
When the news came that the South had been invaded, those men went forth to fight for what they believed, and they made no requests for monuments. But they died, and their virtues should be remembered. Sir, I went with them. I too, wore the Gray, the same color my master wore. We stayed four long years, and if that war had gone on till now I would have been there yet. I want to honor those brave men who died for their convictions. When my mother died I was a boy. Who, Sir, then acted the part of a mother to the orphaned slave boy, but my "old missus"? Were she living now, or could speak to me from those high realms where are gathered the sainted dead, she would tell me to vote for this bill. And, Sir, I shall vote for it. I want it known to all the world that my vote is given in favor of the bill to erect a monument in honor of the Confederate dead."
On the day of the vote, former Slave John Harris was joined in equaled zeal by 6 other Black Representatives in the Mississippi Legislature to pass the bill for the Confederate Memorial. It is amazing how much history has been deliberately buried and suppressed.
So, what about this man called Lincoln and why have we, as a country, been collectively indoctrinated into thinking that he was not only a hero, but he has almost been deified through a well crafted history intent on doing just that: deification!
George Edmonds, in his Facts and Falsehoods Concerning the War on the South 1861-1865, written in 1904 is perhaps one of the most scathing accounts of the War, Lincoln and the Radical Republicans. He describes his work in the following way:
"The greater number of the facts herein laid before the reader was not drawn from Southern or Democratic sources, but from high Republican authorities. Part first of this work presents Abraham Lincoln to the people 
of this generation as his contemporaries saw and knew him. The characteristics portrayed will be a revelation to many readers. As an offset to the falsity of Republican histories of the war of the 60's, permit me to express the hope that in the 
near future our people will make more general use of those histories which are truthful and just to the South." ~Edmonds
Edmonds continues by saying that:
"Even in the South the real Lincoln is lost sight of in the rush and bustle of our modern life, and many Southerners accept 
the opinion of Lincoln that is furnished them ready made by writers who are either ignorant, or else who purposely falsify plain facts of history." ~Edmonds
Indeed, the process of indoctrination upon the People of the South by the Radical Republican Nationalists was without precedent in this country. The Northern Politicians, especially during the Reconstruction, were intent on inbreeding such a sense of shame upon the Southern People that the methods and effectiveness of their propaganda program would rival any "re-educational" program by any radical communist group such as the Khmer Rouge.
Another historian, one whose history has been effectively suppressed for decades was that of William Herndon. Herndon's Life of Lincoln is probably one of the best written because he was a personal friend and Law Partner of Lincoln. This is an extremely difficult book to find because, like most that did not slap the truth about Lincoln with a healthy coat of varnish, they either went out of press or were forced out by heavy Party suppression. You may be able to find it on Amazon, but I'm not sure. I have an original copy and it is, yet another eye-opener about Lincoln.
Herndon states the following about Lincoln and he should know:
1."Mr. Lincoln possessed inordinate desire to rise
in the world; to hold high positions in high offices."
2."Mr. Lincoln always craved office."
3."Mr. Lincoln coveted honor and was eager for power. He was impatient of any interference that delayed or obstructed his progress."
4."Mr. Lincoln was a shrewd and by no means an unselfish politician. When battling for a principle, it was after a discreet fashion. When he was running for the Legislature his speeches was calculated to make fair weather with all 
sides. When running for the United States Senate, he was willing to make a sacrifice of opinion to further his own aspirations."
5."When Lovejoy, the zealous abolitionist, came to Springfield to speak against slavery, Lincoln left town to avoid taking sides either for or against abolition. This course practically saved Lincoln, as the people did not know whether he was an abolitionist or not."
6. "Lincoln believed in protective tariff, yet when urged to write a letter for the public saying so, he refused, on the ground that it would do him no good."
7. "Until Mr. Lincoln's 'house divided against itself speech, in 1858, he was very cautious in his anti-slavery expressions. Even after the Bloomington convention he continued to pick his way to the front with wary steps. He did not take his stand' with the boldest agitators until just in time to take Seward's place on the Presidential ticket of 1860."
8."To be popular was to Lincoln the greatest good
in life." Yet Republicans call him 'The Martyr President.' Do martyrs crave popularity?"
9."Lincoln was extremely fond of discussing politics. He disliked work. He detested science and literature. No man can put his finger on any book written in the last or 
present century (Nineteenth) that Lincoln read through. He
read but little."
10."If ever" said Lincoln, "the American society of the United States are demoralized and overthrown, it will come from the voracious desire for office, the wriggle to live without work, toil or labor, from which I am not free myself."
11."Lincoln had no gratitude. He forgot the devotion of his warmest friends and partisans as soon as the occasion 
of their service had passed."
12."Lincoln seldom praised anyone; never a rival."
13."Lincoln never permitted himself to be influenced
by the claims of individual men. When he was a candidate himself he thought the whole canvass ought to be conducted with reference to his success. He would say to a man, 'Your continuance in the field injures me,' and be quite sure he
had given a perfect reason for the man's withdrawal. He would have no obstacle in his way."
14."Lincoln was intensely cautious. He revealed just enough of his plans to allure support and not enough to expose him to personal opposition."
15."When first a candidate for the United States Senate Lincoln was willing to sacrifice 'his own opinion to further his aspirations for the Presidency."
16."Notwithstanding Lincoln's over-weaning ambition, and the breathless eagerness with which he pursued the object of it, he had not a particle of sympathy with any of his fellow-citizens who were engaged in" a similar scramble for place and power."
In "American Bastile", written by John A. Marshall, originally published in 1881 and reprinted by the Crown Rights Book Co., describes (in 767 pages) the false arrests of innocent citizens during Lincoln's dictatorship, and their ordeal in the different prisons around the North."
"Were these citizens from the South? Actually, they came from the "loyal" states, and they were Democrats. These innocent citizens were judges, lawyers, doctors, U.S. Senators, U.S. Representatives, farmers, ministers, women, editors, state legislators, merchants, colonels, captains, professors, etc. There is a high probability that those mentioned in the book are only a sampling of those falsely arrested during Lincoln's reign of terror.
As is the usual pattern, these false arrests occurred by surprise for the most part, usually in the middle of the night or the early morning hours such as 4 or 5 a.m. In two cases, a lawyer was participating in a trial when he was falsely arrested, and a minister was conducting a religious service, when he was also falsely arrested.
Most of the prisoners were never told of the charges against them, never knew who their accusers were, when asked about their authority to arrest, there was none, no trials except occasionally a prisoner would be brought in front of a "military commission" which was, of course, illegal. They were imprisoned without knowing what they had done wrong, and when they were eventually released months or years later, they still did not know.
Just voicing an objection to Lincoln's administration, supporting the Constitution of the United States, voicing an opinion against the illegal draft, refusing to pray for Lincoln, discouraging enlistments, etc. could land you in prison.
Detectives and spies were placed by the Lincoln administration at religious services and conventions held by Democrats, reading local newspapers, which supported the Democrats' viewpoints, etc., and they reported their findings to the proper authorities. This they did, and false arrests ensued.
At one point, the whole Maryland legislature was imprisoned at Fort McHenry as well as the Mayor of Baltimore, Mr. Brown, and a Maryland U.S. Representative, Mr. May. One such Maryland legislator was Frank Key Howard, Esq., and the grandson of Francis Scott Key. He was awakened around midnight when several armed men entered his home, and searched the premises. He demanded to see the warrant and the nature of the accusation, but none was given.
Another unfortunate citizen, who was falsely arrested, was Senator James W. Wall from Burlington, New Jersey. On September 11, 1861, the Marshal informed him that he had a warrant for his arrest, and when Mr. Wall asked him "at what suit?" the Marshal responded by saying "at the suit of the government." Senator Wall, in turn, replied, "I do not owe the Government anything." He, too, demanded to see the affidavit and to know the nature of the accusation, but none was given. When Mr. Wall refused to be the Marshal's prisoner, several deputies entered the room at which point, Mr. Wall seized the Marshal by the throat and hurled him across the room. More deputies came forward, and Mr. Wall struck one of them. He was eventually assaulted by four deputies, and was taken to Belder's Hotel. Shortly thereafter, he boarded the train, which eventually took him to Fort Lafayette in New York Harbor.
Senator Wall's only crime was that he denounced the war and unconstitutional violations of citizens' rights. Additionally, he was never able to find out the grounds of his arrest. Upon discharge from the prison and returning home, about a thousand persons at the train depot, whereby he gave an eloquent speech regarding the cruel injustice he had experienced as well as constitutional rights, greeted him.
Furthermore, Senator Wall denounced the proposal of the Emancipation policy to "purchase" slaves from the State of Missouri by the Federal government, and also denounced the "Bill of Indemnity" which basically would protect the president and his subordinates from any legal consequences of their unconstitutional and arbitrary acts.
William Hewitt Carlin, son of Governor Carlin of Illinois, was a lawyer, post-master under President Buchanan, state senator of Illinois, and clerk of the Circuit Court of Greene County, Illinois, was also falsely arrested without ever knowing the charges against him, and additionally, he was a personal friend of Lincoln, even though they were political enemies. No charges were ever filed against him, and he died in prison.
Robert Elliott from Freedom, Maine, who was a member of the Maine Legislator, and also a member of the Governor's Council, was falsely arrested around midnight on September 7, 1861, at his home by Marshal Charles Clark and a dozen deputies. Mr. Elliott claimed that not one of these men resided in his county. He, too, was not told of any charges other than Secretary of War Simon Cameron ordered his arrest. About two months later, he was discharged from Fort Lafayette in NY harbor without ever learning of the nature of the accusation. On August 16, 1863, his two barns were set on fire, and after building another barn, this, too, was set on fire on December 31, 1866 while he was in Boston to arrange for its sale.
Cyrus Sergeant, a merchant, originally from Yarmouth, Maine, who lived in New Orleans and in Arkansas conducting business, returned to Maine upon hearing of his wife's death. He attended a convention at Portland, Maine, sponsored by the Democrats, and he was asked the sentiment of the Southern people to which he replied "the people of the South felt that the war was forced upon them, and all they asked was that the Government should be administered according to the Constitution, and not as Abraham Lincoln said it should be...."
When Mr. Sergeant left Portland for Boston, he was attacked by four men on the train at the South Berwick, Maine, and junction while reading a newspaper. He demanded to know what authority attacked him, and the Marshal produced a paper, but refused to let him see it. Mr. Sergeant then asked the Marshal to read it to him, but this was refused, too. He was transferred to Fort Lafayette, and never knew the nature of the charges against him."
Another historian was Ward Hill Lamon; he too was a personal friend of Lincoln's and served as a bodyguard for Lincoln. Lamon, like many of Lincoln's friends, was abhorred by the push of the Radical Republicans to varnish the truth about Lincoln and his motives. It was this abhorrence that caused many, like Herndon and Lamon, to write an accurate history of Lincoln and the events of the period.
As Lamon put it: "the press continued to teem with pretended lives of Lincoln, not one of- which deserved one particle of respect. These pretended biographies are fostered and praised and cherished by Republicans. The falser they are, the higher the praise."
"Certainly no right thinking man would erect a statue or put a portrait in their legislative hall of a self-seeking, cunning, coarse-minded politician, a man scorned by his own official family and by the most powerful and prominent of his Republican contemporaries. Amid the universal din of praise that it has become the fashion to sing of Lincoln, only the student remembers the real facts, only the student knows not only that the Lincoln of the popular imagination of today bears little
 or no resemblance to the real Lincoln, but that the deification of Lincoln was planned and carried out by the members of his
 own party, by men who but a few short hours before Booth's bullet did its deadly work at Ford's theater, were reviling him as a buffoon, a coarse, vulgar jester"-Edmonds
The pro-Radical Republican Newspaper Globe-Democrat Paper: "One thing is certain, Lincoln was apotheosized after
 his death. Had he lived 4000 years ago his name would now 
be enrolled among the gods of Greece and Rome."
"The men who bestowed that honor upon Lincoln, though of his own party, though having known him well during his Presidential life, had during that period openly disliked, despised, and distrusted him, and had persistently lavished upon him the most "venomous detractions" the English language afforded. These facts will be proved by indisputable evidence. Why the Republican leaders .who had always "venomously vituperated" the dying Lincoln, the hour after his death made frantic haste to perform the apotheosis ceremony, and hoist their dead President up to the sublime realm of the gods, it is the purpose of the writer to show. We entreat the reader not to make the mistake of supposing that the apotheosis ceremony was a mere holiday affair gotten up to amuse or astonish 
the public.
Its conception was a flash of genius. It was the last act' of the dreadful tragedy of war, and the prelude of political plans of deep and far-reaching importance. The apotheosis ceremony and its successful upholding during all the years (thirty-eight) since Lincoln's death, has done more to prolong the power of the Republican Party than its victories and conquest 
of the South. The old saying that "facts are stranger than
fiction" is as true as it is trite. The most fertile fictionist earth ever produced has never created so unique, so incongruous, so unparalleled a character as was Abraham Lincoln, mentally,
 morally and physically, nor has the most inventive ever thought out so unexampled a career as was his from cradle to coffin bed. Nor could the most ingenious romancer, delving 'in his closet, have devised so original, so daring a scheme and so successfully
 carried it out as that apotheosis ceremony, planned on the spur of the moment by the Republican leaders, confused,
confounded, alarmed as they were by the sudden taking-off of their first President.
Although the writer of this has no authentic account of any secret caucus held by the Republican 
leaders in Washington City at the time of Mr. Lincoln's death, their entire unity of action in the unexpected emergency that confronted them is presumptive evidence that a caucus was held, almost before Mr. Lincoln's body was cold; that plans were made and secret instructions sent forth to the foremost 
men of the party, advising them of the course necessary to pursue, the tone, the attitude, it was the duty of every man to assume toward their dead President. The men composing the caucus saw as by a flash of lightning the vital necessity of concealing from the world the opinions they and their whole held of the living Lincoln.
The preservation of party power was their first thought. They saw the black gulf into which their triumphant party would sink unless swift measures were taken. They realized the fact that if their President were
 known to the world as they knew him, the glory of their victory would fade; as he stood, so their party would stand. If he were 
 despised, they and their party would be despised. If made
public, every venomous word they had flung on the living 
Lincoln would rebound on their party. To exalt the dead President became the vital necessity of the hour. The passion of the Republican heart is to possess power. They had won
power through seas of blood; to lose it now would be anguish 
to their very souls. To exalt to the high realm of god-ship 
the dead man they had in life despised as the dirt under their feet, was the first thought that darted on their agitated brains.
To bury with their dead President's body every mental and physical quality which had so prominently distinguished him from his kind, and which had provoked from them so many gibes and jeers and contemptuous flings, was the first duty
they saw before them; the next was to manufacture an effigy
 of their dead President, clothe it from head to heels in attributes the very reverse of those the living President had been clothed in, and then boldly, under the wide light of the Nineteenth Century, start that effigy, that fake of their own creation, down
the ages, labeled:
" Abraham Lincoln, First President of the Republican 
party, the greatest, wisest, godliest man that has appeared
 on earth since Christ."-Edmonds
While The New York Independent was a strong Republican paper, it is interesting that in its issue of August 9th, 1862 this article on Lincoln's state papers appeared:
"Compare the state papers, messages, proclamations, orders,
 documents, which preceded or accompanied the War of 
Independence, with those of President Lincoln's papers. These are cold,' lifeless, dead. There has not been a line in 
any government paper that might not have been issued by
the Czar of Russia or by Louis Napoleon of France." The state papers of the War of Independence were inspired
by the highest, the most generous emotion of the human heart-love of freedom. The state papers of President Lincoln were inspired 
by the meanest, the most selfish the passion for conquest. 
Is it strange that in tone and spirit, Lincoln s state papers should resemble those of the Czar of Russia? Both men stood on a
despot's platform. "Our state papers," continues the New York Independent, "during this eventful period (the war of conquest on 
the South) are void of genius and enthusiasm for the great
 doctrine on which this government was founded. Faith in human rights is dead in Washington." Never spoke journal a more lamentable truth. Faith in human rights was not only dead in Washington, but the Government in Washington was using all the machinery in its power to trample down that faith deep in bloody mire on a hundred 
battlefields. The Washington Government had gone back a
hundred years to the old monarchic doctrines of George III and
was doing its utmost to quell and kill the patriotic spirit of '76, which had rescued the Colonies from kingly rule." --Dunning, President of Columbia University
At a speech at Cooper's Union in 1864, Wendell Phillips of the Republican Party said the following: I judge Mr. Lincoln by his acts, his violation of the
law, his overthrow of liberty in the Northern States. I judge Mr. Lincoln by his words and deeds, and so judging, I am unwilling to trust Abraham Lincoln with the future of this country. Mr. Lincoln is a politician; politicians are 
like the bones of a horse's fore shoulder; not a straight one 
in it. I am a citizen watchful of constitutional liberty. Are you willing to sacrifice the constitutional rights of seventy years? A man in the field (the army) said: '
The re-election of Lincoln will be a national disaster.' Another 
said: 'The re-election of Lincoln will be national 
destruction.' I want free speech. Let Abraham Lincoln
know that we are stronger than Abraham Lincoln; that he 
is the servant to obey us."
Once again, another strongly Republican paper called the Sentinel stated the following:
"The rail splitter called for more, and more, until he had over 2,000,000 armed men, and he sent 'me down to burn and pillage, to
kill, conquer or annihilate traitors to our glorious Union, the
Constitution all the while in the Capitol cellar.
Although every intelligent man in the Republican party
knows that their party despised the Constitution, still as the great 
body of the North's people had not lost love and reverence for it, few Republicans openly denounced it Wendell Philips, Lloyd Garrison, and other bold men, time and again, had publicly denounced the Constitution and shouted aloud their desire to tear it in pieces. Beecher, from his pulpit, contemptuously called the Constitution a "sheep skin" government deserving no respect."
If you read the Salmon P. Chase Paper and his diary, you will see indisputable evidence to prove the fact that before Lincoln entered on the Presidency, certainly during the first month of his incumbency, he and Seward were determined on war, and determined to make the Northern people
believe the South began it.
In his book "Constitutional Problems Under Lincoln", James G. Randall stated:
"Lincoln unconstitutionally suspended the writ of habeas corpus and had the military arrest tens of thousands of Northern political opponents, including dozens of newspaper editors and owners. Some 300 newspapers were shut down and all telegraph communication was censored. Northern elections were rigged; Democratic voters were intimidated by federal soldiers; hundreds of New York City draft protesters were gunned down by federal troops; West Virginia was unconstitutionally carved out of Virginia; and the most outspoken member of the Democratic Party opposition, Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio, was deported. Duly elected members of the Maryland legislature were imprisoned, as was the mayor of Baltimore and Congressman Henry May. The Border States were systematically disarmed in violation of the Second Amendment and private property was confiscated. Lincoln's apologists say he had "to destroy the Constitution in order to save it."
A very interesting subject is what happened after Lincoln and how his Radical Republican Party dissolved the Southern States, destroyed and replaced their State Constitutions against the wishes of the Citizens of those States and then broke up the South into 5 Military Districts each with Military Administrators. New Military Governments were erected in place of the duly appointed governments of those States. These were nothing less than a continuation of the Lincolnite Policies. New Governments were set up, not voted into office, but set up under the direction of a Northern Congress under the harsh and powerful hand of the federal Military regime.
What Constitutional Right or Authority did that Northern Controlled Congress have to remove those State governments, nullify their Constitutions that were founded prior to the ratification of our own country's Constitution?
"That no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate." Yet, that is exactly what happened after the War, those who were victorious ignored the Law of the Land once again. There was no elected Representation of the Citizens of those States and the "dogs heeled to their master's wishes" doing the bidding of those Radicals in Washington, the People of those States, including former slaves were forced at the end of Unionist Bayonets to vote in accordance to those same hard Task-Masters. Indeed, the chains of servitude were expanded; slavery was not ended only transformed into an equally insidious form.
The period called Reconstruction was no less insidious then the actual War itself, it was just as destructive, if not more so because it drastically changed the entire structure of the government of the United States and the proper relationship between the federal and State governments.
The actions of the Radicals was almost thwarted when New Jersey, Ohio and Oregon rescinded their former ratification of the 14th Amendment, or course this was ignored and each of those States were counted as ratifying the amendment, contrary to the will of the People of those States, contrary to the Consent of the People of those States.
THIS IS ONE OF THE MOST DAMNING CONDEMNATIONS AND PROOFS THAT LINCOLN AND HIS FOLLOWERS SUBVERTED THIS REPUBLIC!
Now, a very interesting point concerning the ratification of the 14th Amendment and the expansion of federal control and national citizenship, is that initially the votes came in as 22 votes yes and 12 votes no and 3 not voting there were 28 votes needed to ratify the Amendment. With the defeat of the Amendment the Northern Unionist Congress members changed rules to ensure passage by declaring the Southern States remained outside the Union, to deny majority rule in the Southern States by the disfranchisement of large voting blocks of voters. Then to put the icing on the cake, they required all the Southern States to ratify the Amendment in other to be allowed back into the Union. So, in 1861 the North refused to allow the South to leave the Union and in 1867.
The most amazing, most revealing and one of the most important pieces of Legislation to ever come out of a State came from a Northern State after the War. Suddenly, it appears they realized what the goals of Lincoln and his followers had done.
The Joint Resolution, No.1 of the State of New Jersey on the Rescission of the 14th Amendment had some harsh words for those who sought to continue Lincoln's usurpation of the Constitutional government.
In the Rescission, the Resolution states:
"The Legislature of the State of New Jersey having seriously and deliberately considered the present situation of the United States do declare and make known:
"That it being necessary, by the Constitution, that every amendment to the same should be proposed by two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, the authors of the said proposition, for the purpose of securing the assent of the requisite majority, determined to, and did, exclude from the said two Houses eighty Representatives from eleven States of the Union, upon the pretence that there were no such States in the Union; but, finding that two-thirds of the remainder of said Houses could not be brought to assent to the said proposition, they deliberately formed and carried out the design of mutilating the integrity of the United States Senate, and without any pretext or justification, other than the possession of power, without the right, and in palpable violation of the Constitution, ejected a member of their own body, representing this State, and thus practically denied to New Jersey its equal suffrage in the Senate, and thereby nominally secured the vote of two-thirds of the said House."
As you can see, the Radical and Totally Dishonest Policies of Lincoln were still wielding the usurping hand of good "ole honest Abe".
It goes on to say:
"The objective of dismembering the highest Representative Assembly in the nation, and humiliating a State of the Union, faithful at all times to all its obligations, and the object of said amendments were one to place new and unheard of powers in the hands of a faction, that it might absorb to itself all Executive, Judicial and Legislative POWER, NECESSARY TO SECURE TO ITSELF IMMUNITY FOR THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL ACTS IT HAD ALREADY COMMITTED, AND THOSE IT HAS SINCE INFLICTED ON A TOO PATIENT PEOPLE.
The subsequent usurpations of these once national assemblies in passing pretended laws for the establishment, in ten States, of martial law, which is nothing but the will of the military commander, and therefore inconsistent with the very nature of all law, FOR THE PURPOSE OF REDUCING TO SLAVERY MEN OF THEIR OWN RACE IN THOSE STATES, OR COMPELLING THEM, CONTRARY TO THEIR OWN CONVICTIONS, TO EXERCISE THE ELECTIVE FRANCHISE IN OBEDIENCE TO THE DICTATION OF A FACTION IN THOSE ASSEMBLIES; THE ATTEMPT TO COMMIT TO ONE MAN ARBITRARY AND UNCONTROLLABLE POWER, WHICH THEY HAVE FOUND NECESSARY TO EXERCISE TO FORCE THE PEOPLE OF THOSE STATES INTO COMPLIANCE WITH THEIR WILL; THE AUTHORITY GIVEN THE SECRETARY OF WAR TO USE THE NAME OF THE PRESIDENT TO COUNTERMAND THE PRESIDENT'S ORDERS AND TO CERTIFY MILITARY ORDERS TO BE THE DIRECTION OF THE PRESIDENT, WHEN THEY ARE NOTORIOUSLY KNOWN TO BE CONTRARY TO THE PRESIDENT'S DIRECTION, THUS KEEPING UP THE FORM OF THE CONSTITUTION TO WHICH THE PEOPLE ARE ACCUSTOMED, BUT PRACTICALLY DEPOSING THE PRESIDENT FROM HIS OFFICE OF COMMANDER IN CHIEF, and suppressing one of the great departments of the government that of tribunal of the nation the jurisdiction to examine and decide upon the conformity of their pretended laws to the Constitution, which was the chief function of that august tribunal as organized by the Fathers of the Republic; all are but ample explanations of the power they hoped to acquire by the adoption of the said amendment.
TO CONCEAL FROM THE PEOPLE THE IMMENSE ALTERATIONS OF THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW THEY INTENDED TO ACCOMPLISH BY THE SAID AMENDMENT, THEY GILDED THE SAME WITH PREPOSTIONS OF JUSTICE, DRAWN FROM THE STATE CONSTITUTIONS; BUT LIKE ALL THE ESSAYS OF UNLAWFUL POWER TO COMMEND ITS DESIGNS TO POPULAR FAVOR IT IS MARKED BY THE MOST ABSURD AND INCOHERENT PROVISIONS.
It proposes to make it part of the Constitution of the United States, that naturalized citizens of the United States shall be citizens of the United States; as if they were not so without such absurd declaration. It lodges with the Legislative Branch of the government the power of pardon, which properly belongs, BY OUR SYSTEM, to the Executive.
It denounces, and inflicts punishment for past offenses, by Constitutional provision, and thus would make the whole People of this great nation, in their most Solemn and Sovereign Act, guilty of violating a cardinal principle of American Liberty: that no punishment can be inflicted for any offense, unless it is provided by law before the commission of the offense.
It usurps the power of punishment, which, in any coherent system of government, belongs to the Judiciary, and commits it to the people in their Sovereign capacity.
It degrades the nation, by proclaiming to the world that no confidence can be placed in its honestly or morality.
It appeals to the fears of the public creditors by publishing a libel on the American People, and fixing it forever in the national Constitution, as a stigma upon the present generation, that there must be Constitutional guards against a reputation of the public debt; as if it were possible that a people who were so corrupt as to disregard such an obligation would be bound by any contract, Constitutional or otherwise.
It imposes new prohibitions upon the power of the Senate to pass laws, and interdicts the execution of such parts of the common law as the national Judiciary may esteem inconsistent with the vague provisions of the said amendment, MADE VAGUE FOR THE PURPOSE OF FACILITATING ENCROACHMENTS UPON THE LIVES, LIBERTIES AND PROPERTY OF THE PEOPLE.
It enlarges the Judicial power of the United States so as to bring every law passed by the State, and every principle of the common law relating to Life, Liberty or Property, within the jurisdiction of the federal tribunals, and charges those tribunals with duties, to the due performance of which they, from their nature and organization, and their distances from the People, are unequal.
IT MAKES A NEW APPOINTMENT OF REPRESENTATION IN THE NATIONAL COUNCIL, FOR NO OTHER REASON THATN THEREBY TO SECURE TO A FACTION A SUFFICIENT NUMBER OF THE VOTES OF A SERVILE AND IGNORANT RACE TO OUT WEIGH THE INTELLIGENT VOICES OF THEIR OWN [IT] WAS INTENDED TO OVERTHROW THE SYSTEM OF SELF-GOVERNMENT UNDER WHICH THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES HAVE FOR EIGHTY YEARS ENJOYED THEIR LIBETIES, AND IS UNFIT, FROM ITS ORIGIN, ITS OBJECTS AND ITS MATTER, TO BE INCORPORATED WITH THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF A FREE PEOPLE."
The Resolution by the State of New Jersey says it all, and it is still at the heart of what has happened to this country since the War of Southern Independence. Today, we still suffer from the legislative usurpations of Unionist ideology that promoted a completely centralized national government over the Constitutional Republic of the United States of America. Now that we are on the Constitution an interested read was written by William Rawle in 1825 called Views of the Constitution and another work by James Kent called Commentaries on American Law written in 1827, both are definitive works on what was considered until 1861 as the Right of the States to cede from the Union which was always considered a voluntary agreement between the States until Lincoln.
By the way, both books were used to teach Constitutional law at West Point until after the War; at that point the West Point Library was purged of any original Constitutional analysis that supported the foundation of a voluntary union between independent States. In Rawle's book he stated: "It depends on the State itself to retain or abolish the principle of representatives, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle of which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed. This right must be considered as an ingredient in the original composition of the general government, which, through not express, was mutually understood.
The secession of a State from the Union depends on the will of the People of such State. The People alone as we have already seen, hold the power to alter their Constitution. But in any manner by which secession is to take place nothing is more certain than that the act should be deliberate, clear, and unequivocal. To withdraw from the Union is a solemn, serious act. Whenever it may appear expedient to the People of a State, it must be manifested in a direct and unequivocal manner." Remember that was written in 1827. The States, all States were sovereign and independent and the Union was purely reflective of the Constitutional Authority that rest primarily within the States, reserved to the States and the People.
In my judgment, it is necessary to understand the real reasons behind the entire episode of the War, both in the decades preceding it and the decades proceeding. If we look at the subject, not from the view point of Unionist victory, but from a sober and realistic point, researching the actual history and documents of the time then an entirely different view arises from those we have been taught and are comfortable accepting.
I will leave you with these words, I find them absolutely amazing in the light of history:
"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." Abraham Lincoln-----spoken before Lincoln came under the strong influences of Northern Industrial Special Interests and before he became drunk with power normally associated with autocratic tyrants.
Did you like this article? If you did, Thumb It! 15 thumbs so far
2008 Republicae, all rights reserved.
Published: Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Last modified: Wednesday, April 16, 2008
The views expressed in this
article are those of Republicae only and do not represent
the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. Republicae is
solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an
employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
Once again, here is another idiotic article by a lost idiotic Libertarian. This is why I tell people that I am an atheist libertarian thug, I have to separate myself from the supporters of a long lost cause that is ever present and lists itself as libertarian. The south lost, get over it.
Mr. Kempson...There appears to be at least one thing that everyone on this forum can count on, no matter what the subject, you seem to be unable to offer comments of substance.
Your comment only shows that you have chosen to ignore history and it is doubtful that you even read it in the first place. Once again, if you have nothing of value to offer the subject, then why on earth are you wasting your time as well as ours...perhaps it is just a past-time hobby of yours, hey?
"Once again, here is another idiotic article by a lost idiotic Libertarian. This is why I tell people that I am an atheist libertarian thug, I have to separate myself from the supporters of a long lost cause that is ever present and lists itself as libertarian. The south lost, get over it."
After reading your comment once again, I find it odd that, of all people, you, judging from your comments on just about every subject on this forum, should have the audacity to call anyone here a "lost libertarian idiot". Your comments speak volumes, not only about the total lack of validity of your thinking processes, but in your apparent disinterest in any subject of either historical or political consequence.
So, I must ask again, it is just a hobby of yours to pour vile from your lips without offering a rebuttal of value to this forum? I think you have been totally inaccurate in your description of yourself; you may be an atheist and perhaps a thug, but it appears that you don't have a clue about libertarianism or the principles upon which this country was founded. If you had, the perhaps you would find the value of history in many of the articles posted on this forum instead of your pitiful snide remarks that contribute absolutely nothing to the discussions here.
I personally find you to be little more than a "windbag" expunging your own unwanted unpleasantness upon others simply because you have a forum to do so. Is this not true?
Go ahead and fly your Confederate flag somewhere else. If we really did not want any war, we should have never fought the British. Your examining the south in a sympathetic light is ill-informed and fails to show that state’s rights would have resulted in an increase in Statism, worse than today's.
Oh sure the Civil war was not about slavery, but rather the idea that states should be allowed to decide what violations of human right they would and would not agree to! Oh goody! Black people please vote for us, we are the Confederate State Sympathizer Libertarian party! Oh why won't you vote for us? Slavery wasn't racist! You people just don’t know history!!!! Stupid Ni-----s! Don’t know that Lincoln was a terrorist to us White Southern Folk! Damn it! Jim Crow laws are needed to keep the nig---s from ruining the country! They were constitutional! Don’t buy into what the liberal… Hey get your Cotton picking hands off me I paid my $20 to be here! Liberty or death brothers! The South will rise again damn it!….. (The racist as he is thrown out of the Libertarian Party convention.)
Do you use your head for nothing but a wig, sir? You exhibit no clearer understanding in this comment than in that last comment Mr. Kempson. Have you ever read a book in your life, read the Federalist Papers for instance, or perhaps James Madison’s Notes on the Debates in the federal Convention of 1787; apparently not! Once again you must resort to fluff commentary that seeks to incite an emotional rather than an intellectual response. Is that all you have, obviously so otherwise you would actually offer some comment of note however, once again you fail miserably and can only spatter dribble in its place.
Again, you offer nothing of any value to the discussion and simply glaze over the subject in an almost abject poverty of mind. Your decision to blatantly ignore the massive amounts of historical documents that totally and absolutely contradict the revisionist popular history is indeed admirable.
Indeed, when thinking of your comments I am reminded of a quote by Semmes: “Men do not willingly read unpalatable truths of themselves. The people like those best who fool them most by pandering to their vices and flattering their foibles”
Tell me then, in all your evident wisdom, if slavery was the cause of the War then why would Lincoln attempt to make a deal with the South by telling them that if they would simply not seceded that he would support a Constitutional Amendment that would forever protect the institution of slavery? Hmmm? It would not make any logical sense for Lincoln to do such a thing if slavery was the foundational cause of the war, now would it?
Indeed, in Lincoln’s own Emancipation Proclamation he didn’t even release those slaves within the federal territories though he had the power to do so…why?
So, that little bit of erroneous fluff is deflated, can you offer any other tid-bit of intellectual rebuttal?
I have never, nor do I believe that slavery was an institution of any moral or Constitutional value. It was, as I mentioned in the article, a horrible institution. Now, that being said, if you look at the history of those freed slaves, unprepared for such freedom, you will see that many of the problems in the African American community are a direct result of what happened during the war and during the decades that followed it during Reconstruction. While many Confederate leaders wanted to see the emancipation of the slaves from the South, they wanted to, at the very least, educate and prepare the slaves for eventual freedom. That, thanks to Lincoln, did not happen and the Black community has paid the price every since. Slavery was a dying institution, everyone in the North and South realized it for years; indeed it may have lasted another 20 years without the war. Ah, you say, that was 20 years of forced servitude and indeed you would be correct however, when you think about the decades the Northern States took to emancipate the slaves in their respective territories and the strange undulating laws associated with that emancipation then the 20 years it would have taken for the South to emancipate them in a way that would have benefited the freed slaves themselves, as well as the rest of society.
Once again, why waste bandwidth and your breath if you have absolutely nothing of value to say that directly rebuts a portion of the article itself?
All I can say is, this is why people think libertarians are kooks. They want maximum freedom for themselves, and then tell those affected by Statist regimes that they are not ready for freedom. This is an old issue and is long gone. The Republican party has lost all of its black vote simply because the Democrats figured out the best way to cover up thier racist past (throw money on it). Libertarianism is a hard topic and bringing up the past to examine why Lincoln was not a good person is stupid. There were a lot of politics and personal beliefs in the country that had to be compromised. Lincoln did not have but 39% of the vote, he was not popular. He and the Republican Party saved the nation and ended slavery. Democrats were just better at politics and figured out how to get elected. They capitalized on human error. Things such as a poor financial decisions that lead the nation to the depression in the 1930's, Socialist, and religious BS. They played upon the idiotic majority's racist feelings, economic illiteracy, and interventionist feelings that the Republicans were not doing. The Republicans were the ones responsible for the civil rights movements, they were the ones who supported Martin Luther King Jr. They were not the ones who were wire tapping Martin Luther King Jr. the Democrats were. That is the history that Libertarians should be talking about. Not some state's rights BS from the civil war.
Strange, my wife and many, many of our friends are in absolute agreement with the issues raised. By the way, my wife is African American, many of our friends are African American….so, before you accuse me of racism I think about that. They are very quick to tell you that the last 147 years of abject poverty, poor education, racism, hatred and every other social ill that the Black community has been subjected to was a direct result of the manner in which slavery was ended and the process of Reconstruction that took place in the South following the war. More and more within the Black community are waking up to the real history of the period and the real Lincoln. Their esteem of Lincoln is waning due to all the facts that are finally coming to light about him and the reasons behind the war. Lincoln could have cared less about the slaves and said as much. At least men like Jefferson Davis sought to educate the slaves and prepare them to a degree for what was ahead, that cannot be said for those of the North.
In our discussions, my wife and friends have explored what a different world it would be for both Blacks and Whites had the slave population been given the adequate tools to assimilate into white society instead of being tossed aside, expelled during those first couple of decades into homeless wanderings, starvation and the objects of scorn and rejection by both those in the North and the South. Unlike the slaves of the North, who had years to gradually be assimilated into several of the Northern States of the New England region, the freed slaves of the South were forced to live in a type of exile, outside of the actual legal protections of Citizenship, outside of the potential for opportunities, outside of society itself and it remained that way for decades.
My wife has stated that many of the issues faced by African Americans today, much of the attitude that prevails in the Black community can be traced to the 110 years between the end of the War to the Civil Rights Movement. She said, for the most part, African Americans lived a separate country, isolated from every single opportunity afforded to most Americans. She said that African Americans were never taught the same types of social skills, they were deprived of the same level of educational provisions that would have allowed them to participate in society.
Apparently you have not read anything about the Reconstruction otherwise you would readily see the types of militaristic nationalism that helped isolate the Black freemen from society, forced them, many times by bayonet to vote for the Radial Republican Party. We must face the facts of the day; racism was rampant throughout the country and based on a large part in the religious beliefs held by white chrisitians concerning the Sons of Noah.
As I said, slavery was a horrible institution and defied every single principle upon which this country was founded, and the founders were well aware of that fact. The North and South feared the sudden release of the slave population; that fear was in large part due to several events throughout the hemisphere, such as in Haiti, where slaves slaughtered every single white man, woman and child on the island. The North didn’t want any freed slaves in their respective States, and passed horrendous laws to prevent any run-away or freed slaves from settling in those States. Lynching, by the way, was far more common in the North then in the South during that period.
To say and believe that Lincoln saved the nation and free the slaves is not only erroneous, but ignores the clarity of history. In fact, Lincoln simply set the stage for the Nationalistic Centralized Government that confronts us today. The character of Lincoln is extremely pertinent to the understanding of the history of the period, to ignore that fact about any historical person is to ignore the heart of history itself and by doing so it only serves propagate a continuation of ignorance that will ultimately allow for the repeat of the mistakes of the past. To ignore such facts in history has proved to varnish over the causes of many issues and problems we now fact and will face in this country.
Your wife would have gone to Liberia had the south really had its way of ending slavery. Most people are not interested in the past if the material presented would force them to immagine an alternative history. This is exactly what you are doing here. Just because you have gotton one person to agree with you is no reason to tout it as success. The Republicans did not create this animosity towards blacks, racism did. The Democrats were all about racism up until the 1960's when they decided to throw socialism into the mix. They are still racist, just not as bad as they were. I really don't care about race to the extent that I always want to be historically acurate. There are idiot in every race and every creed. Politically articles like this do not look good on libertarians. Saying that Lincoln messed it up for blacks is just like saying that the US messed it up for Jews and that the Nazis really were against the Holocaust. Seriously there are too many varibles to determine if anything would have been handled differently.
Actually, you mean if Lincoln had had his way don't you? Lincoln was a strong proponent of deportation of all slaves either back to Africa or to other parts of South America. Read the writings of Lincoln if you want to get a true picture of history. Most people are interested in history, whether that history presents them with a truth that they have never seen before or with the potential of what life would have been like had history been different. Actually, there are best sellers that provide for alternate histories, or hadn't you noticed that people are interested in such things.
I have not attempted to get one person to agree with me, it was never in my thoughts whether you or anyone else agreed with me. However, the success of the view that history as it has been taught for decades in this county is distorted is the subject for several very good selling books, particularly about Lincoln and the War for Southern Independence. Many more people are coming to understand that the history they have been indoctrinated with for decades was just that an indoctrination devoid of actual facts. We can choose to believe what we want to either based upon facts or fallacies, I happen to choose facts over fallacies.
Once again, you have brought up several things that are totally without factual foundations and it is apparent that you have not read much in the way of either politics or history, for if you had you would have not made some of the statements over and over again without actual factual information to back up those statements. Your statements show a total blindness to the nuances of the historical record, especially when it concerns the actions of the Radical Republican Party of the later part of the 1800s. I would strongly recommend you read many of the very informative histories of the Reconstruction and how overt pressure and racism of the Radical Republicans exacerbated racial tensions in the South and why the Radical Republicans used such tensions to their advantage.
Once again, you apparently have no factual historical foundation for your opinions and yet you still maintain such views without foundation or strength of argument. In many instances your statements neither exhibit a competent understanding or logical structure to compel anyone to consider your argument and until you can provide a much stronger foundation for your arguments and base those arguments on historical content then your rebuttals continue to be of little use to anyone. For instance you state: "I really don't care about race to the extent that I always want to be historically acurate...Politically articles like this do not look good on libertarians."
Those statements follow no logical pattern of thought or mental process that I am familiar with. If you don't care about accuracy, particularly historical accuracy then why on earth are you even attempting to comment? That sir is the height of folly and exhibits a neutral ability to reason while expressing yourself so that others might attain a degree of understanding about what you are attempting to convey. As is, your statements are, to be as kind as possible, imbecilic.
Well it is an event that is too far gone for Americans to care about now. Lincoln's actions while not perfect preserved the union. There are too many varibles as to how things could have played out differently. As far as racism the Democrats were not going to change thier minds anytime soon.
Is your next important history lesson going to be about how the facts about the Holocaust are not exactly correct? Because if it is might I suggest that you visit another ideology that you can make look bad?
No matter how much "truth" or "fact" that you may have in your article it still will be hard to defend and will make libertarians look like kooks with a vision and a craving of revisionist history. The civil war was much too long ago and there were other events in which the Democrats set up a system that made the government even worse. Partisan politics aside we need to remember that throughout all of this the nation survived and it was a good thing. Would you seriously rather see a much worse situation in the South and the rest of the world had the situation been different? To a lot of Americans, that is how they would see it. There is no doubt about it, the civil war had to happen, everyone saw it coming. There was not a whole lot of political streangth to stop it. Lincoln will always be a hero, no matter how unpopular he was durring his time.
In other words Mr. Kepmson, you don't believe in the Consent of the People to determine their own form of government? In other words, you are not a libertarian, you are a Statist.
To preserve the Union while destroying the Republic is a contradiction in logic. You cannot preserve the Union by force of arms and preserve the principles upon which the Union was Founded at the same time. So, you are saying that Lincoln destroyed the Constitution in order to preserve it and thereby any actions by any President that does anything unlawful is justified as long as "he", the President does so to preserve the Union or the government?
You must be saying that for that is exactly what you are defending. There is no need for the Consent of the People to choose their own government if that is the case. If history does not matter, of it people are not interested in the events of the past [i.e."Well it is an event that is too far gone for Americans to care about now.'] then why would you concern yourself with any issue that involves the law, the Constitution or the manner in which this country was formed or how it now operates?
If the “Truth” or “Facts” cannot be defended then we are indeed a lost and sad people and the ideals of libertarianism are nothing more than the most pitiful and useless of principles. To stand upon a lie or falsehood, not matter how palatable those lies and falsehoods are, is the height of hypocrisy. To say that we will not defend the truth because it is unpopular, because it might offend, is a type of ideology that eventually causes the cankering of all Social, Legal and Moral standards.
Hypocrisy can never be justified and to support such hypocrisy, especially for political reasons, forms the type of corruption of mind that has brought this country to the place we find ourselves today. You say to ignore the facts of history, to shun the truth of history because it is not politically expedient; that sir does little but maintain the status quo and continue business as usual in this country.
Should we just ignore every single lie, every single falsehood, every single fact of our own history because to explore and expose those lies, those falsehoods and those facts simply because they might not be popular. If we are to only concern ourselves with that which is popular then this nation is doomed.
If we neglect to expose the lies of the present, the illegal actions of the government today then eventually those lies and illegal actions become a part of our history...but, by all means, let's not upset the apple-cart to expose such things because it might not be popular with the people.
Do you even realize just how ridiculous your logic really is? I mean really, do you realize the vacancy of such thinking?
Posted By: Jake, the champion of the constitution
Date: 2008-04-17 07:13:31
Republicae - thanks for posting, i hope to have time to read into a lot of what you wrote. you are right though, its not what i was taught at skool. struck by the imagery of the lincoln memorial in dc and the mao mausoleum in tiananmen - i'd have to say that the idea to deify the forefather of the party has been copied, for better or for worse.
Lloyd : The Statists would like to send you a check, sir. You do more damage to your own kind than any arguments of mine ever could.
Republicae: It would probably interest you to know one small, minor tidbit of Reconstruction Era trivia that really drives home how hypocritical Norhterners were.
After the war, a small group of rowdy ex-Confederates, including Nathan Bedford Forrest, got together and made up a sort of secret order , the Cuclux. It had nothing to do with the sound of a shotgun, it had to do, I believe, with some greek work or another. Basicaly, they acted like immature idiots on a lark -- dressing up as ghosts to scare the shit out of blacks for a laugh, or more commonly, to chase off norhterners trying to buy up land from impoverished families for riduculously low prices.
Norhtern Merchants decended in droves upon the south, atttempting to buy up properties ruined by the war, to take over and establish banks, snap up railroad lines, etc. Nathan Forrest's own railroad line was basically run out of business by such acts, and the Northn drew upon the military government forces during Reconcstruction to aid them in this. The Cuclux woudl attempt to scare these white "carpetbaggers" out of the south.
The response? The Northern media dragged up old reports of "atrocities" by Confederate soldiers, and suggested groups like the Cuclux were murdering people, and began agitating blacks to vote how the military establishment told them to, in local and state electiions, to lock up northern power.
The resulting chaos -- including the insitement of severel black ex-soldiers to shoot up former slaveholders, lead to the rearragnment and creation of the -- you guessed it -- Ku Klux Klan, one of the most murderous and evil organizations ever to come out of that period and one that still haunts us today.
So before we get all goddamened sermonistic, Mr. Kempson, about how none of this shit matters, I'd suggest you really think about what you're saying. The fundamental problems in race relations stem back to this clusterfuck of a war. I disagree quite often with Republicae, as I think he's rather too hung up on his own intellect and blind to hard realities at times. But in this instance, we're in accord.
White-washing (ha, a pun) the racist crap that came after the war is only possible because we lie to people about the Civil War and why it happened. Any concern the south felt for blacks evaporated when blacks let themselves be manipulated, and the effects are still with us today.
Oh, I am fully aware of the history of the Cuclux, the reasonings behind it and how it was later transformed into a highly racist organization. I will get into that later when I write about the actual Reconstrution period and the reasons behind the Reconstruction Act.
Let us look at some viewpoints that are accepted without question but which are simply untrue or misrepresented:
1. Lincoln preserved the Union. No, he did not. A "union" by its very nature is a voluntary association. "Union" achieved at the point of a gun is called "conquest" and the results of "conquest" are not reconciliation or reunion but "colonization". That is what happened to the South.
2. Slavery was the overriding issue that sparked the war. This is both true and false. Certainly, if one listens to the Southern firebrands of the immediate pre-war period, slavery seems very much the "cause celeb".
However, one must look at just why that is so. Northern abolitionists were not just demanding that slaves be freed (but remain in the South, of course!). They were sending disciples among the slaves in hopes of getting them to rise up in violent revolt against their "wicked Masters". At least one publication calling for such violence was affirmed by the United States Congress prior to secession. This is a very different thing from working to end the institution of slavery! The bloody revolt of Nat Turner had made many Southerners - epecially in the deep South - fearful of any such movement taking hold among their slaves. Even whites who did not own slaves were fearful of what would happen should a general uprising ensue.
This matter was made infinitely worse by the bloody invasion of John Brown. Brown had murdered a number of people on his way to Harpers Ferry (including a free black family) and he expected upon his arrival to be joined by all the local slaves who would rise up in revolt. When that didn't happen, he did not have sufficient numbers to carry on and was forced to surrender. But Brown's actions were seen to carry - and indeed did carry - the approval of radical Northern abolitionists.
As well, the matter of slavery involved the matter of private property. When Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, the three "causes" he elucidated were originally, "Life", "Liberty" and "Property", not the Pursuit of Happiness. Jefferson and the rest of the Founders knew that private property was central to a Republic of free men. Slaves were property - no different in law than a man's horse or his wife for that matter! People talking about - indeed demanding - that a man be forced to relinquish his property without any lawful reason were setting a precedent that could well lead to ownership by the Government or some elitist oligarchy of all of the fruits of a man's labors. Of course, much of that concern has come to fruition as the State confiscates more and more of our livelihoods and liberties.
3. This was a "civil war". This is nonsense. A civil war is a war in which two sides attempt to gain control over the government of a nation. The English civil war was just that - a fight between Charles I and Oliver Cromwell over who would rule England. The War of Secession was no civil war. The eleven Confederate states had no designs upon ruling the "United States" nor did they (as is so often charged in so many post war writings) intend to "destroy the government". These states wished to leave the Union, something that they had a right to do under the Constitution. And while one may dispute that claim (wrongly in my opinion and that of many others more learned than myself), one cannot dispute the fact that there is nothing in the Constitution that gives the Federal Government the right to wage war on the people in those states who were signatories of that document. So, on the one hand is a debatable right while, on the other is an undebatable wrong.
Many people demand that the South "get over it". I would say that such an attitude might have been forthcoming if those presenting their version of "history" (the winner always gets to write it) were a little more truthful and factual and a little less mendacious and demagogic. Who knows? If the wrongs perpetrated against the South had been admitted to years ago, this matter might have died a peaceful death. But when society refuses to admit to wrong and "own up" to tyranny, well, the victims of that wrong and that tyranny - and their descendents - tend not to forget. Ask the Irish, the Scots, the Jews and other peoples who have been victimized in the past and you'll see that unrepented, in fact, unreported tyranny is seldom forgotten unless those who suffered from it are extinct.
In the interest of historical accuracy and credibility, I would suggest that any such article be accompanied by footnotes. Also, I disagree with villainizing Lincoln to justify a political agenda. As in most of American history, there are no pure heroes and little civilized behavior. War represents a failure of society, in this case suffered needlessly by both sides to defend institutions of greed. Sadly, one's point-of-view is colored by one's cultural upbringing. So, southerners might gravitate toward bashing Lincoln to gain some kind of moral high-ground, where none existed.
In the end, the us vs. them attitude serves no purpose. Glorification of one side over another is an unbalanced retelling of history.
Are we to applaud the southerners as patriots for defending themselves against a tyrant? Even if some took arms for this reason, it is delusional thinking that shorted many a life. Whose freedom were they fighting for? Not for their darker skinned brothers, certainly, or for any humanist principles. For the State? An abstraction that would just as soon tax you, as defend the institution of slavery?
What kind of moral society did they plan on creating by fighting the Union? Find that in your history books.
The truth is that men went to war and died for the most stupid of reasons, as men have always fought wars. They were manipulated by the politicians and special interest groups and exploited as tools of destruction, as are soldiers today.
I caution those who seek, through bluster and bombast, to revive the embers of secession. For the end result will be the same - needless bloodshed by the killing machines of the State.
So, study your history well, if for no other reason as to not be so foolish as to repeat the misguided follies of our ancestors.
So, the history that we have been submitted to for the last 147 years is not revisionist in that it not only elevated the motives behind the war to that of saintliness, but also vilified the reasons behind the Secession of the Southern States.
Actually, once again I will point out the most obvious flaw in your argument as I have with others. That is that even if slavery didn’t exist, the war would have occurred nonetheless. The historical proof of that is the facts behind the deal Lincoln attempted to make with the South concerning the passage of an Amendment to the Constitution. Once again, if slavery had been the issue on either side of the conflict the simplest and far less risky solution would have been for the South to have accepted the deal Lincoln offered when he stated that he would protect the institution of slavery forever in a Constitutional Amendment if the South would not Secede from the Union.
So, tell me how could slavery have been the cause of the war if Lincoln offered those very same Southern politicians, who you claim were just protecting the rich slave owners and their interests, with the ultimate protection for that ‘special interest” group of rich slave owners?
Logic would conclude that if slavery were the cause that no such deal would have been attempted and conversely if it were the cause or primary reason for the South’s Secession they could have simply accepted the deal, remained in the Union and life would have continued as usual. It is one of the most ridiculous arguments to place the assumption that if slavery had no existed there would have been no war since Lincoln proposed to take slavery off the table completely by offering that horrible institution perpetual Constitutional protection.
Indeed, to ignore the actual causes of both the Secession and the War by casting all blame upon the institution of slavery is not only incorrect, but also allows for the motives behind the actions of the South to be continually castigated. That preferred view continues to varnish history with a portrayal that is neither factual or logical. For it makes no sense whatsoever for the institution of slavery to be the cause for either side since it could have been removed from the equation by the actions of both Lincoln and those in the South by accepting Lincoln’s 13th Amendment deal. Lincoln stated that all the South need do is stay in the Union and slavery would be safe forever. That fact takes slavery out of the equation completely and thus, it points to the fact that the real reasons for the South’s motivations behind the Secession were not slavery at all, nor was it the motivation behind the actions of the North.
While it is true that the South fought to defend their way of life, and who wouldn’t, it was far more involved than just the institution of slavery and the rejection of Lincoln’s 13th Amendment deal proves that fact. The heavy tariffs levied against the South, along with the powerful political alliances within the North that skewed the uses of those tariffs in favor of Northern Industrial States was the cause of the war. It was seen, by the South, as nothing less than the same causes for the Secession of the 13 Colonies from Britain in 1776; burdensome taxation, unfair and unequal distribution of funds funneled by the federal government into the North and the alienation of the South by both the government and the North through such actions.
Lincoln need not be vilified or deified, Lincoln’s record is clear without the varnish that has been applied to history over the last 147 years. The article is filled with references that are relatively easy to find if one takes the time; many of those references, which are clearly noted, are from books, private writings and newspapers from the period between 1808 and 1910. One of the better histories of Lincoln can be found in the book written by his best friend and Law Partner William Herndon, who, by the way was appalled at the attempts of the Radical Republicans to deify Lincoln. There are other references from those who served in the government with Lincoln, such as Salmon P. Chase, who were there during those years, who knew Lincoln and saw the man as he was, not as history has portrayed in an attempt to gloss over reality for political reasons. Indeed, the deification of Lincoln was a concerted effort to affect a political history other than that which is factual.
To say that the events of that fateful War and the events that lead up to that War is no longer of consequence, that we should get over it, is to ignore the fact that every single American still lives with the results of that War. The way the government now operates is a direct result of the events of the 1860s, indeed, the way we view the government is a direct result of those same events.
Do not confuse conjecture with facts. You may postulate the idea that war might have occured anyway, but no one can say with certainty that war was inevitable. It is logically impossible to prove and as an argument invalid.
As to Lincoln's own views of slavery, the Oakes book I referenced discusses Lincoln's personal view that slavery was abhorrent. As a politician he made popular concessions where he had to, but he will be remembered mostly for the Emancipation Proclamation, which did happen, rather than the Constitutional provision to keep slavery in perpetuity, which never happened.
This executive order paved the way for the 13th amendment, which I could argue might not have occured so quickly had he not issued it.
So, history rightly positions Lincoln as a liberator of an entire class of human beings held in subjugation by an institution motivated by force and greed.
The way of life that the southerners were defending was immoral, inhumane, bigotted, racist, exploitive, abusive, inhumane and cruel. Who wouldn't defend this? - Any man of conscience.
While it may be true that the power of the State expanded because of this conflict, it is also true that the racism that has long divided our people, and still infects and affects many, stems from the practice of slavery.
While we should make every attempt to understand history, we also should transcend our own cultural indoctrination that divides us and view things from an impartial, human perspective.
So, while it is not inaccurate to acknowledge that Lincoln freed the slaves, we must also define slavery, and if such a definition includes the subjugation of the individual by force and fraud to control his life and the product of his labor, then we must realize that the 13th Amendment did little to provide freedom to the general public, because today we are still enslaved.
Now, the only pertinent question becomes: How do we achieve true freedom? I suspect the answer will not be found in stirring up the hubris and resentment of the defeated, but by understanding the profound and moral principles that Lincoln enacted and Frederick Douglass advocated and Harriet Tubman exercised.
There can be no conjecture can there if the cause of the War was not indeed slavery then the War was caused by other factors, that is not conjecture but logical assent to the facts as they are presented by the historical record.
Constitutional Amendment effectively took slavery off the table as a cause of the War when Lincoln proposed the deal with the Southern political leaders to perpetually protect that institution. Once again, it is also obvious that the South did not consider slavery the root cause of the conflict when it was in their power to save that institution by simply remaining in the Union, Such an act would have protected the economic viability for the large slave owners and avoided the destruction of the South; if it had been the cause, but it wasn’t. Therefore, since slavery was not the cause of the War, the War would have occurred despite the issue of slavery. You logic is flawed since it depends solely upon slavery as the cause of the War. For if the War was caused by something else, and it was, then it would have taken place regardless of the institution of slavery which was not a cause otherwise Lincoln would have never attempted to make such a deal with the South. The cause of the War remained the usurpation of power by both the federal government and a majority interest of powerful Northern Industrial States wielding power within Congress. That would not have changed with the offer Lincoln made to the Southern States about slavery, therefore that cause continued to be the pressing issue that caused Secession and War.
The blight of slavery equally stained the Northern States as it did the Southern, but the fact that the same institution prevailed in the North seems to have slipped the minds of many. That Northern institution was gradually eliminated; the same could have been affected in the South. Indeed, many in both the North and the South recog
2008 Republicae, all rights reserved.