Civil war refresher

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[QUOTE="toddje, post: 238236 And as if to add insult to injury, Davis and (not Lee so much as I understand it) his generals are the Democrat demons who launched things like the KKK which are a black blot on our country to this day. So demonize Lincoln if you want, but you'd better be burning the CSA generals in effigy first.[/QUOTE]


Ok can I get a citation or where you read Jefferson Davis was ever a founder or affiliated with the KKK?

In fact Davis and Lee both once the war was over were staunch supporters of the US government. Davis was in fact elected to the US Senate but couldn't be seated because of his serving as President of the CSA. That position which was one her was reluctant to accept at all.
 
toddje said:
Yes, the EP only freed slaves in states that were in rebellion. That left places (like Maryland) with slaves. He did that because he felt he only had the power to act unilaterally under war powers. That's why those places had to wait for the 13th amendment to have freedom.
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The underlined sentence is no more than part of the Lincoln myth. Section 9 of the Second Confiscation Act, adopted July 17, 1862, nearly half a year before the Emancipation Proclamation, provided specific statutory authority for freeing slaves.
 
toddje said:
You can say he was fickle or undecided, but it is not accurate at all to say he had no feelings about it until it was,"a benefit to the war."
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Lincoln's deep and abiding hatred for slavery must have made it nearly unbearable for him to lie about it so frequently for political expediency.
 
toddje said:
@Cpippen
I let Lee mostly off the hook, but Davis certainly spent some serious time in his "Rise and Fall" book justifying (among other things) slavery and secession.

Certainly it was Confederate (officer) Veterans who started the KKK. One example would be Gen. Forrest. While he finally came around near the end of his life, he was definitely part of the problem longer than he was part of the solution.
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I just asked where you found your citation for Davis ever being affiliated with the KKK.....I can answer that for you....you didn't have one because he was not. In fact he condemned it. Yes some generals were but you also have to realize the KKK that was founded by Forrest was not the same white supremacy KKK that is known today. In fact Forrest left and denounced the KKK because it started to become that group.
 
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toddje said:
@Cpippen
I let Lee mostly off the hook, but Davis certainly spent some serious time in his "Rise and Fall" book justifying (among other things) slavery and secession.

Certainly it was Confederate (officer) Veterans who started the KKK. One example would be Gen. Forrest. While he finally came around near the end of his life, he was definitely part of the problem longer than he was part of the solution.
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Nathan Bedford Forrest did not start the KKK. The Ku Klux Klan was reformed from a group known as the Kuklos Klan. They named him as their first Grand Wizzard based on some of his terrible exploits during the civil war. Bedford denied his association with the KKK in Congressional testimony in 1871. If you want to know the man behind the scene in the forming in this group, it was General Albert Christopher Pike. This is his stature...it stands in front of the Justice Building in Washington DC. Bet his statue doesn't come down.
Screenshot_20170824-185224.jpg
 
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The South did not attempt to secede...they did. They did so democratically by vote, just as our founding fathers did with GB. And they didn't start the war...Lincoln did. Let's all remember that the south seceded in December of 1860. For a while Lincoln was set to let the South leave, and then his economy started sinking, and he did what all warmongers do...pick a fight. The Civil War didn't start till April of 1861. Lincoln's war...don't forget that. He forced the South back in at the point of a gun.
 
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toddje said:
Uhh.... yeah, thats why the South fired on a fort they had been starving out that was property of the US GOVERNMENT.

EDITED TO ADD: How many slaves voted to withdraw from teh Union?
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Remember when those treasonous colonials fired on property of the crown?

Pepperidge farms remembers.
 
toddje said:
Davis spent 10 years rewriting history in his own image. I wonder what could've happened if Lincoln would've had that opportunity. Davis' history of the CSA is pretty tainted. It was, at minimum, a defense of his treason.
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This is a joke right? Revisionists have been rewriting the history of Lincoln for over a hundred years.

You actually have to dig to find anything true about the man.
 
toddje said:
Uhh.... yeah, thats why the South fired on a fort they had been starving out that was property of the US GOVERNMENT.

EDITED TO ADD: How many slaves voted to withdraw from teh Union?
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Once the South seceded, the territory should have been vacated by the US Government. Lincoln not withdrawing his troops was as an act of aggression.
 
Chdamn said:
This is a joke right? Revisionists have been rewriting the history of Lincoln for over a hundred years.

You actually have to dig to find anything true about the man.
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Not only that, but 1 out of every 5 quotes attributed to him are false.
 
toddje said:
You know, this is just nuts. Chattel slavery is WRONG. Even if one or two blacks managed to own a slave, or even be deluded enough to fight for the CSA, that would be the very small exception, not the rule. Its ridiculous to argue otherwise.
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Just for record...somewhere around 3000 slave owners were African Americans.
And yes...slavery bad...very bad.
 
toddje said:
You can say he was fickle or undecided, but it is not accurate at all to say he had no feelings about it until it was,"a benefit to the war."

You could also argue that slavery is STILL the "norm" in parts of the world (not here) but that doesnt matter to the discussion (causes of the war). The point is that the economic system of the south depended on SLAVERY. They felt that system was threatened, ESPECIALLY in 1860 when Lincoln was elected, and not at all because Lincoln was a fellow slave owner - because he was NOT. And so the south attempted to secede and subsequently started a shooting war with the north. It was over economics (slavery-led agriculture economics) and if there is ANY doubt about it, I can expound on reconstruction.... which brings me to another point:

What's interesting to me is that 21st century proponents of the Confederacy dont give Lincoln (or Grant) any credit for what happened at the end of the war. At any other point in history, had you committed treason and waged a huge war against your fellow countrymen, you could and would expect a hanging (at best). Certainly Lee and Jefferson Davis both should have expected that, since they had pledged oaths to the United States of America and subsequently waged war against it. And as if to add insult to injury, Davis and (not Lee so much as I understand it) his generals are the Democrat demons who launched things like the KKK which are a black blot on our country to this day. So demonize Lincoln if you want, but you'd better be burning the CSA generals in effigy first.
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There are actual writings as to why slaves were freed. I've shared them before, too tired to go through it again. A higher morality wasn't the actual reason, the reason was mostly tactical and political as can be seen in private letters. Morality was the front, given their actual feelings shared privately.

Speaking of Treason, actually the federalists abolished the Articles of Confederation that were supposed to be improved. We the United States were originally intended to be a loose confederation of States. The Veterans of the Revolution / Founders spilled blood for that confederation, not for a strong powerful overruling central government. Andrew Jackson, Licoln, and many more were Tyrants simply wanting more power. They also didn't uphold that constitution, specifically the 10th amendment. Blame lies on both sides.

I've read the Federalist Papers, they had some good points. History and current events though
has proven the anti federalists were right. Look at the current situation, we can't move along because of states like NY and California, that are so large that those communists should honestly be their own separate state. The central government has grown far to big and powerful, the 10th amendment is non existent. Larger states views, states whose people are vastly different with different values, force views and their ways upon smaller states.


Again feel free to look at Lincolns view of the Black Man. I'm not saying the south was right, the institution of slavery was wrong. What I am saying is neither side had a moral high ground, and both had faults.
 
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toddje said:
Where do you see that in the Constitution?
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Is this a joke? The constitution is supposed to explicitly enumerate the roles and duties of the Federal government. If it's not mentioned in the Constitution, that means it is reserved for the states or the people. That's how you know it was recognized by every single one of the founding fathers. It's never mentioned in the constitution.
 
toddje said:
That is a HUGE legal leap. First, that the south had a right to secede unilaterally. Second, that within 4-5 months the US FedGov had some legal requirement to settle its property rights (its taken a bit longer in Cuba, for example). Third, that having a fort there was somehow worthy of shooting at. All of these things, I would expect you would appreciate under the principles of jus ad bellum - several factors of which were dubious at best when the south started its shooting.
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So ratifying the Constitution was a suicide pact?
 
toddje said:
I'd say that goes both ways, after what you thought about Mr. Lincoln this morning. Which is why we are all having this lively discussion...
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Hang on. You said that Lincoln didn't get a chance to revise himself and now it goes both ways?

He was revising himself while he was alive in his second inaugural address which is filled with flat out lies. Of course it's now engraved in marble for all to see.

I have tried to keep my research over the years to historical facts without writer slants. And if I found something that was different than other writings or accounts I tried to verify it before accepting it.

You seem to have a little bit of heroe worship with Lincoln and a disdain for all things southern at the time and it all revolves around a single issue.

An issue that everyone of means in the entire country profited from and was alive and well at the founding of the nation.

While I can admit, and others have, that slavery was an issue in the secession you can't seem to see any facts beyond that they may have contributed to a war.

And, IMO, I think it is absurd to think that all of the men from the south fought to keep slavery a way of life when they didn't own or profit from them.

Or to say that all of those northerners fought to free a people that they saw as genetically inferior and had discussions about shipping them all back to Africa after the war.

Most southerners fought for a free south, despite what those with means fought for.
 
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toddje said:
You know, this is just nuts. Chattel slavery is WRONG. Even if one or two blacks managed to own a slave, or even be deluded enough to fight for the CSA, that would be the very small exception, not the rule. Its ridiculous to argue otherwise.
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2017 glasses again.
I never said I endorse slavery, I don't IN ANY FORM.
I never said it wasn't an exception, but it is an inconvenient truth none the less.
 
toddje said:
If we are to look at the Constitution as a contract, there would be an exit clause - a positive right of a state to exit - and without one you dont get to. If, on the other hand, it was forming an indivisible Union of States, then the south didn't have the right to secede. John Marshall would side with Lincoln, for example.
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Here's an interesting article written by Brion McClanahan of the Abbeville Institute:

Secession for the North

In it he traces the history of many northern states that threatened secession long before it became fashionable in the south. Here are a few quotes:

"During the War of 1812, the North again dusted off secession as a possible remedy to oppose “Mr. Madison’s War.” The war disproportionately affected Northern shipping interests. This moved many Northerners, among them Daniel Webster, to suggest that a separation would be the preferable course to an unjust bondage with States that held widely differing views of political economy."

"Abolitionists into the 1840s called the Constitution a compact with the devil and considered the Union an unholy alliance with sin. In 1848 the militant abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison fervently pushed for Northern secession."

"Jefferson said in his First Inaugural Address in 1801 that if anyone should pursue secession, it was the duty of all Americans to recognize the error of the message but to peacefully let them go if necessary. The Union was a voluntary compact of States. Every American, North and South, recognized that fact."
 
toddje said:
@Chdamn I was talking about how earlier you had said you learned in school Lincoln owned slaves.
I got to go fix something at my kids house. I'll be back in an hour or two.
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Fwiw I only first learned about it in school. I went home and asked my father about it who then pulled 2 of the approximately 200 history books (mostly from that era but some are from the revolution) and showed me in both of those where it was documented.

It really wasn't until about 30 years or so ago that pretty much anything having to do with his owning slaves started either disappearing or with as the internet information grew it was replaced saying that he didn't.

To me the funniest thing is, as our federal government really began dialing back our rights during that time with the war in drugs the civil war pretty much stopped being taught in schools other than a brief overview which mainly consist of slavery bad, war fought over slavery and the south was wrong. Bad south for seceding. Treasonous to try and break away from the fed.

And here we are again in our history, the federal government far more aggressive, oppressive and intrusive than the crown was or the fed was at the beginning of the second revolution and instead of people studying the fact surrounding the issues we're still thinking the south had no right to break away from the federal governor and tearing down the statues of men who fought for that.

Cuz, you know, slavery bad.
 
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Do you know the one common denominator in all these "North vs. South, slavery, Civil War" arguments is? The yankee always seems to be in Dixie, sucking up all my Confederate air, telling me how wrong me and my folks are and have always been. Some things never change, while others are headed for Hell at light speed.
 
There are some very interesting, to me at least, hypocrisies that surround all of this.

First, The United States has supported countless other countries in their bid for secession across the world, with money, arms and even troops but when my forefathers tried to secced peacefully they were not allowed to.

Second, every emerging culture since time began practiced slavery. I'm not making that point to say it's ok, what I'm saying is, how many historians have vilified any of them for that? Not one.

We study everything else about them. We ooh and ahh at roman architecture and the pyramids and not one person says "I refuse to look at that because they owned slaves".

Part of the reason the Ronan empire fell was slavery but just like our second revolution it wasn't the main reason. So historians study all of the reasons that led up to the fall of Rome. The government corruption, fighting wars on too many fronts, the elite living lavishly and putting it in everyone's faces etc etc.

I can pick damn near any civilizations rise and fall and this exact same thing holds true.

Not once in history has anyone fought a war to free any slaves. They may have been freed as a result of their maters being killed but more likely would have been enslaved again by the conquering nation.

Yet, somehow, we have people believing that this one war, in all wars, started and ended with the notion of freeing a group of people from slavery.

Somehow, with the history of this time period and this time period alone, some people cannot objectively look at the entire history and just keep saying slavery bad.

So, either every nation from the beginning of time was evil to its very core and made no contributions to the advancement of this world because slavery bad or there may just be more to this whole north south thing.
 
toddje said:
Well, this is interesting. What book, where/when was it written? Is it at all possible that you had an early 1900's textbook from the south? It is even within the possibility that the post-war south may have written books that had an agenda of their own? Or is it ONLY the North who can have an agenda?
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Not even going to respond to that. Cuz you know. Slavery bad, south bad. I get it because that is your agenda.
 
SimpleMan said:
Do you know the one common denominator in all these "North vs. South, slavery, Civil War" arguments is? The yankee always seems to be in Dixie, sucking up all my Confederate air, telling me how wrong me and my folks are and have always been. Some things never change, while others are headed for Hell at light speed.
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Fedralism and the 10th died long ago. Sadly.
 
toddje said:
By definition they don't make "unconstitutional rulings". But they are WRONG from time to time. Not sure how that's "checkmate."
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Yes they do. There is no Judicial Review in the law. They are not imperfect humans nor do they have unlimited power. Just because they har 'assumed' a power does not make it just.
 
toddje said:
This would require a court to convict someone of treason first. Obviously, the EP was a bit more broad. My guess is Lincoln, who was a lawyer, probably knew that...
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You clearly fail to understand that Section 9 stands on its own, apart from previous sections, and requires no court action.
SEC. 9. And be it further enacted, That all slaves of persons who shall hereafter be engaged in rebellion against the government of the United States, or who shall in any way give aid or comfort thereto, escaping from such persons and taking refuge within the lines of the army; and all slaves captured from such persons or deserted by them and coming under the control of the government of the United States; and all slaves of such person found on [or] being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves.
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Of course, you never, ever hear about the Confiscation Act because it is at odds with the Lincoln mythology. After learning that "Lincoln freed the slaves" and then reading the Emancipation Proclamation, people nearly always ask why Lincoln only freed some of the slaves. That's when the myth is trotted out - that Lincoln would have freed all of the slaves, but law-abiding Abe did not have enough legal power, so he did all that he could possibly do unilaterally using his war powers as Commander-in-Chief. And that little legend is simply rubbish.
 
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toddje said:
Hmm... maybe. Did Lincoln also fail to understand that? Why do you suppose he had an Emancipation Proclamation if he already could free all the slaves with this law?
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Lincoln tried to use the threat of freeing slaves to persuade Confederate states to return to the Union, as shown in the part of the EP issued on September 22, 1862.
That the Executive will, on the first day of January aforesaid, by proclamation, designate the States and parts of States, if any, in which the people thereof, respectively, shall then be in rebellion against the United States; and the fact that any State, or the people thereof, shall on that day be, in good faith, represented in the Congress of the United States by members chosen thereto at elections wherein a majority of the qualified voters of such State shall have participated, shall, in the absence of strong countervailing testimony, be deemed conclusive evidence that such State, and the people thereof, are not then in rebellion against the United States.
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toddje said:
Uhh... well, I think Marbury v. Madison is pretty well settled...? I agree the court gets things 100% wrong from time to time. Like obamacare, for example.
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Judicial review is BS. Kinda like most executive orders. Just because college educated lawyers go with it doesn't make it right. And until we have a semi-educated populace there will be sometimes violent disagreements about that.

If tomorrow a branch of the gov't assumes a power for the next 100 years is it just? I will never understand the brainwashing of legal precedent. Once a poor decision is made it must live in infamy. :(
 
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toddje said:
You need to keep up with the whole thread, or I'm just not going to respond to trolling. He was discussing how he (in error) learned in school that Lincoln owned slaves.
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No sir I think you need to go back and read what @Chdamn said.

Ok I know I'm a knucklehead from your lofty perch. I've read it again three times. Maybe you need to read closer, or Chad has some grammatical errors.

Don't want to answer my question.
Call me a troll.
Duly noted.
 
I've been following this thread with interest since I had at least one family member who fought for the Confederacy. I don't know enough about the fine points that y'all are debating to respond intelligently so I'm pretty much sitting this one out.

But I would like to say that I'm proud of everyone commenting in this thread! This is a contentious subject and y'all are showing that it can be discussed civilly and with reason without resorting to the favorite tactic of the left: name calling......well not much anyway.
 
Don said:
This is a contentious subject and y'all are showing that it can be discussed civilly and with reason without resorting to the favorite tactic of the left: name calling......well not much anyway.
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Give it time. Friday is almost here. It's gotten a bit sporty for me in the last hour.
 
toddje said:
More reading: second confiscation act made them "captives" of the Union Army. EP made them free.
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You should read beyond the words that satisfy your preconceptions.
... and all slaves of such person found on [or] being within any place occupied by rebel forces and afterwards occupied by the forces of the United States, shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves.
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toddje said:
Start here, for one (1858):
http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/house.htm

Or for a simple quote:
I think slavery is wrong, morally, and politically. I desire that it should be no further spread in these United States, and I should not object if it should gradually terminate in the whole Union." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume III, "Speech at Cincinnati, Ohio" (September 17, 1859), p. 440

Again 1858," I have always hated slavery, I think as much as any abolitionist.""

1860: http://www.civilwarcauses.org/newhaven.htm

Remember, several states seceded *Before* he took office. I think much of his inauguration speech was an attempt to keep the "border states" in the union. In other words, he clearly hated slavery. He was elected as the "Radical Republian"
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I agree there is no argument that Lincoln was opposed to slavery, but the question was whether he intended to act to abolish it once elected. The links you've provided don't show that... "not object if it should gradually terminate" is not the same as "I will act to end slavery" and in your second link he actually states:

"The other policy is one that squares with the idea that Slavery is wrong, and it consists in doing everything that we ought to do if it is wrong. Now, I don't wish to be misunderstood, nor to leave a gap down to be misrepresented, even. I don't mean that we ought to attack it where it exists. To me it seems that if we were to form a government anew, in view of the actual presence of Slavery we should find it necessary to frame just such a government as our fathers did; giving to the slaveholder the entire control where the system was established, while we possessed the power to restrain it from going outside those limits. [Applause.] From the necessities of the case we should be compelled to form just such a government as our blessed fathers gave us; and, surely, if they have so made it, that adds another reason why we should let Slavery alone where it exists."

I don't mean to belabor the point, and frankly I'm nowhere near knowledgable enough about the history to debate it further, but I just don't see how you, in good faith, can stick to an argument that slave states believed that Lincoln was going to act to abolish slavery and that was the primary/only reason for their secession.

The lack of evidence for such communication from Lincoln and the wealth of evidence of economic reasons points in the opposite direction. Your argument that slavery was the basis for the economic attacks by the North is very convenient - what is the evidence for that?

Heck, even after the war started, Lincoln made no move to free slaves that he could have, e.g. those owned by Union army members like Grant or by residents of Union slave states like Maryland and Delaware. I grew up on the "Lincoln as hero of the oppressed" story, but I now find it impossible to believe anything other than that he saw slaves as mere tools for achieving victory.

To be clear I believe slavery was, is, and always will be immoral. If I'd been alive at the time I hope I would have had the courage to stand for freedom for slaves. But to accept that slavery was the primary motivation for secession and war leads to the demonizing of the typical southern soldier as fighting for slavery, which I also think is wrong.
 
toddje said:
You know, this is just nuts. Chattel slavery is WRONG. Even if one or two blacks managed to own a slave, or even be deluded enough to fight for the CSA, that would be the very small exception, not the rule. Its ridiculous to argue otherwise.
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Its ridiculous to think it was one or two when there was around 250k free blacks in the south. Some blacks would have fought for slavery being thats how they made their money. Some fought for their home just like white Americans did. It wasn't a race war. It wasn't blacks vs whites. It was the south fighting for freedom from the north.

ETA: No shit slavery is wrong. Thanks for that wonderful enlightenment. The Louisiana native guard reached 1000 black volunteers. Free black men loved the south, loved their state and killed the yankee scum. Good bless them boys. I say we put a couple statues of them as well.
 
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