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Not Afraid to Fight

By on 4.12.11 @ 6:08AM

Fort Sumter’s historic place in the American tradition.


Visitors to Princeton, New Jersey, may find there the grave of a former New York state judge who died in 1919 at the advanced age of 90. Judge Roger Pryor was not from New Jersey, however, nor was he a native of New York. A Virginian by birth, as a young man Pryor had been one of the Old Dominion’s foremost secessionist “fire-eaters.” Impatient with Virginia’s reluctance to secede from the Union, Pryor traveled to South Carolina in April 1861 and gave a speech urging the newborn Confederacy to resist Abraham Lincoln’s attempt to reinforce the U.S. Army contingent holding the fort that commanded Charleston harbor.

“Strike a blow!” Pryor cried, assuring his “immense and enthusiastic audience” that if the crisis led to war, Virginia would secede immediately — “within an hour by Shrewsbury clock,” he said.

That was on Wednesday, April 10, and the crisis was by then already far gone. A U.S. Navy fleet, sent to reinforce the fort, was approaching Charleston. The Confederates demanded immediate surrender, before the fleet could come to the garrison’s relief. In the wee hours of Friday, April 12, Pryor was one member of a delegation sent to deliver the ultimatum to the U.S. commander, Major Robert Anderson. He refused to capitulate and was told that Confederate batteries commanded by General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard would open fire on the fort within an hour. When the delegation returned to the shore, a Confederate artillery officer offered Pryor the honor of pulling the lanyard to fire the first shot. Pryor declined: “I could not fire the first shot of the war.” That honor instead went to another Virginia fire-eater, 67-year-old Edmund Ruffin.

The first Confederate cannon boomed at 4:30 a.m. on April 12 — 150 years ago today — and what became known as the Battle of Fort Sumter was under way. Really, it wasn’t much of a battle. More than 3,000 Confederate shells were fired during the bombardment, pounding Sumter’s masonry walls to rubble, but without killing a single U.S. soldier. By the afternoon of April 13, Anderson offered a truce, and surrendered the next day. The only casualty of the entire battle was one of Anderson’s men, killed in an accident after the bombardment had ended.

A minor affair from a military perspective, Fort Sumter was however a decisive turning point in history, inaugurating a war that eventually claimed the lives of about 600,000 soldiers North and South. The farther Fort Sumter recedes in memory, the less its meaning is understood, as America gradually succumbs to a condition of historical amnesia. Fifty years ago, the centennial of the Civil War was a grand occasion for remembrance in a nation fully conscious of its traditions, and unabashedly proud of its place as the world’s foremost military power. Our martial prowess had twice proved decisive in world wars and, in 1961, America stood constantly on guard to battle the communist menace in what the nation’s young president — a decorated veteran of World War II — called in his inaugural speech “a long twilight struggle.” John F. Kennedy spoke of “those nations who would make themselves our adversary” and vowed: “We dare not tempt them with weakness. For only when our arms are sufficient beyond doubt can we be certain beyond doubt that they will never be employed.”

So it was that the 100th anniversary of the Civil War was celebrated as a tribute to American courage by descendants of Yankees and Confederates alike, equally proud of the role played by their ancestors in the nation’s most sanguinary war. The causes of the war, the divisions of North and South, were very much in the forefront of political debate in 1961, with the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board decision just seven years past and the resultant struggle over the fate of Jim Crow segregation pushing relentlessly toward its conclusion. Yet the centennial observance of the bloody conflict that began at Fort Sumter was not a politicized affair. The teaching of history had not yet been monopolized by left-wing revisionists rummaging through the past in search of material for politically correct sermons about America’s sins of war and racism. For a boy growing up in Douglas County, Georgia — where the ruins of the New Manchester Mill on Sweetwater Creek still stand as a silent monument to General Sherman’s destructive method of warfare — the historical reality of that war was hard to avoid, and its hyperpolitical 21st-century interpretation not even yet imagined. We were instead taught to think of the War Between the States, as most Southerners then called it, as the result of a tragic misunderstanding. The patriotic legacy of Fort Sumter our teachers imparted to us, as young inheritors of the Confederate past, was that our ancestor had been unafraid to fight, and had fought with remarkable courage long after all hope of victory was gone.

Patriotism and courage have gone long since gone out of fashion. America’s intellectual elite — “The Ruling Class,” as Professor Codevilla calls them — are nowadays the diligent disciples of draft-dodgers who once marched beneath Vietcong flags in anti-war demonstrations. In the “long twilight struggle” against communism, they were on the other side. Their philosophy requires them to inculcate in our youth an unpatriotic attitude that views American military power as a force for oppression. Today’s progressive curriculum teaches children to embrace our nation’s foreign enemies as victims of capitalist imperialism. Before Bill Ayers became mentor to a young Barack Obama, he co-authored a 1974 Weather Underground manifesto that cited communist Che Guevara as a role model and was dedicated to such “political prisoners” as Sirhan Sirhan, assassin of Robert F. Kennedy. In their “Prairie Fire” manifesto, Ayers and his terrorist comrades declared themselves a “guerrilla organization,” devoted to “the final defeat of imperialism and building of socialism [through] revolutionary war.” They utterly lacked the courage to fight, however, and so Ayers’ cowardly “war” was waged by stealthily planting bombs and hiding out until he surrendered to authorities in December 1980. “Prairie Fire” was also dedicated to John Brown, the antebellum terrorist whose murderous violence against civilians did much to bring on the crisis that led to war 150 years ago. But whereas Brown was not ashamed to hang for his crimes, Ayers never even served a day in prison.

The triumph of 1960s radicalism in academia accounts largely for the historical amnesia that has enveloped successive generations in a fog of ignorance about the American past. (With a doctorate degree from Columbia University, Ayers is typical of those radicals who, applying the theories of Marxist intellectual Antonio Gramsci, achieved cultural hegemony by a “long march through the institutions.”) History interests the radical elite only as it can be used to foment anti-capitalist passions, and they cherry-pick history to fit their own leftist interpretations, so that the past means exactly what they say it means and nothing else.

Thus, the sesquicentennial of the Civil War excites little interest among the young. Schools today teach history mainly as a relentless harangue about how oppressively evil America has always been. Such tendentious sermonizing is boring, and young people respond by learning only enough history to ace their dumbed-down coursework. The young know nothing of Fort Sumter and the U.S. Army officer entrusted with its defense. Major Anderson was a slave owner from Kentucky whose command during the Blackhawk War of 1832 had included a young Illinois militiaman named Abraham Lincoln. As an instructor at West Point, Anderson later taught gunnery to a young cadet from Louisiana: Beauregard’s two-day bombardment of Fort Sumter showed how well he had learned those lessons. Anderson’s gallant defense of the fort made him a hero to the North. He was promoted to brigadier general and appointed to lead the Union effort in Kentucky. The officers in Anderson’s Kentucky command included both U.S. Grant and W.T. Sherman, the latter of whom had once served under him as a young lieutenant and whom Anderson therefore affectionately called “one of my boys.”

As for the Confederates involved in the Sumter battle, Beauregard’s subsequent military career did little to enhance his initial reputation as the South’s hero. He co-commanded the Southern army at the first battle of Manassas, and also at the 1862 battle of Shiloh, but fell into disfavor with Confederate President Jefferson Davis and was relegated to semi-obscurity. Edmund Ruffin, the secessionist fire-eater credited with firing the first shot at Sumter (a subject of some historical dispute), played no future role of importance in the war, but was so despondent about the South’s defeat that he shot himself to death in June 1865, leaving a suicide note declaring his “unmitigated hatred” of “the perfidious, malignant and vile Yankee race.”

And what became of Roger Pryor, the Virginian who had urged the Confederates to “strike a blow” at Fort Sumter? He was appointed colonel of the 3rd Virginia Infantry and was subsequently promoted to brigadier general, commanding troops in battle during the Seven Days, Second Manassas, and Sharpsburg. Like Beauregard, Pryor made the mistake of getting on the bad side of Jefferson Davis. He resigned his general’s commission, but then enlisted as a private in Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry where he served until being captured in 1864. After the war, Pryor moved to New York, established a successful law practice, and eventually became a justice of the New York state supreme court.

Although he refused to fire the first shot of the war 150 years ago, Pryor proved himself worthy of a proud American tradition shared by North and South alike: He was not afraid to fight.

About the Author

Robert Stacy McCain is co-author (with Lynn Vincent) of Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party (Nelson Current). He blogs at The Other McCain.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (266) |

Deborah D | 4.12.11 @ 6:40AM

Thanks for this poignant reminder of our country's history and the valiant men on both sides who gave their lives for their country as they saw it. I'm reminded of my ancestor who returned to South Carolina after the war to destruction of his property and eventually died of a broken heart. God bless them all.

Ken (Old Texican)| 4.12.11 @ 7:05AM

Mr. McCain
Well written.
I have read several "alternative histories" (fictional), of the period...all tragedies.

I think it behooves each of us to realize that we are again in a "war" to preserve the Republic against enemies foreign and domestic.
See my take at
www.americaalonesaidno.com

Dee See| 4.12.11 @ 7:16AM

"Religion is the key to history.
Among ther Christians, only the Calvinists
had a faculty for self-government, and
only the Calvinists would fight."
-Lord Acton

Alas, our research reveals Fort Sumter to have
been a Freemason op. rife with symbology for
the 'innies' ----and we know what
that turned into.

Ryan| 4.12.11 @ 3:12PM

Whose research?

Herb| 4.12.11 @ 7:45AM

Honor to all the fallen brave. I am grateful to have chanced upon this article and would not have heard of this tragic anniversary in any other way. God help us, we have thrown away our own past!

Hillel| 4.12.11 @ 7:49AM

Happily you arre wrong in your assessment of the young. I can report that they are interested in the Civil War. I find that this is the only topic where I'm not contronted by sleeping tweeting sudents.

tdiinva| 4.12.11 @ 7:55AM

Among the Union officers at Fort Sumter was a Captain Abner Doubleday. Best known for invening baseball (a fiction) Captain Doubleday rose to the rank of Brigader General, and save the union position on the first day at Gettysburg after General Reynolds had been killed. Doubleday served until the very end of the war and was present at Appomattix Court House. I believe he was the only person to be at the both Fort Sumter and Appomattix. He was the Alpha and Omega of the Civil War.

Lee| 4.12.11 @ 8:32AM

Wouldn't a son of the South normally call Shiloh the Battle of Pittsburg Landing?

Quartermaster| 4.12.11 @ 5:53PM

That's what the North called it.

Occam's Tool| 4.12.11 @ 7:28PM

No. It's Shiloh. It's a battlefield well worth visiting, as I did. The Yankees are buried in individually marked graves; the Southerners are buried in group mounds. I have no brief for the South in this one, but still, that seems...inappropriate.

Alan Brooks| 4.12.11 @ 8:51AM

"I think it behooves each of us to realize that we are again in a 'war' to preserve the Republic against enemies foreign and domestic."

Tell it to the like of Red Phillips.

Red Phillips | 4.12.11 @ 4:38PM

"I think it behooves each of us to realize that we are again in a 'war' to preserve the Republic against enemies foreign and domestic."

Tell it to the like of Red Phillips.

Since we have disagreed on several issues I'm not sure what you are specifically referring to here, but I'm flattered you thought of me in particular.

Len| 4.12.11 @ 8:52AM

Strange thing that "civil war", the US constitution was an instrument created to among others provide for the defense of the states and ensure their republican governments....

provide for the common Defence

The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion

So in other words the southern states (now sovereign) were invaded and conquered so that they could be protected? What kind of logical fallacy is this? Let alone that secession is a legitimate right, what power in the US constitution allows for the use of force to keep states in the union. The argument boils down to this, that men may be compelled to submit to a government they no longer want.

The truth is Lincoln and the reconstruction congress threw aside the US constitution and that the US went from a voluntary agreement authorizing a common agent for certain mutual benefits to one where the states were subordinate to a centralized power.

Alan Brooks| 4.12.11 @ 8:52AM

...and why did you put "war" in parentheses, Tex?

LarryK| 4.12.11 @ 9:01AM

Is the nation as polarized today as it was 150 years ago? Isn't it funny how people that fight in a war (both sides) believe they are right and history is written by the victors?

It is also disheartening to see our country slide towards socialism with fewer freedoms while remembering the many sacrifices made in the past to ensure our freedom. Just some random thoughts.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 9:40AM

Alas, the Civil War was brought about because the South refused to live by the truths enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. The fatal decision of the South to regard slavery as a positive good made reconciliation with the North impossible.

Would that Andrew Jackson had been in office rather than Buchanan. He would have hanged the lot of those Southern fire-eaters, and Lincoln might not have had to fight a war.

Thom| 4.12.11 @ 4:54PM

“Alas, the Civil War was brought about because the South refused to live by the truths enunciated in the Declaration of Independence.”

The Constitution and Bill of Rights were the documents ratified into law not the Declaration of Independence which has no standing under US law. You know about as much about either as you know about Andrew Jackson it would seem also.

Butch | 4.12.11 @ 5:34PM

That's why Lincoln reverted to the Declaration--he had no constitutional basis to support his actions. "Four score and seven years ago" referred to 1776, not 1789. Also, nobody has mentioned, I don't believe, that Virginia (and other states, including NY) included the right to secession in its documents of accession.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 10:43PM

Madison said no reservations on ratification. He said in effect that a state had either to ratify it straight up or not at all.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 8:37PM

The Constitution presupposes the truths contained in the Declaration of Independence. Madison and co. were trying to preserve a more perfect union, not replace it. That's why Madison recommended the Declaration as required reading when Jefferson asked him for a list of books for his new university. It was the Articles that were being revised, not the Declaration.

Len| 4.12.11 @ 9:50AM

Didn't take long did it? The typical lie about slavery being the cause.

Strange that Lincoln and the congress said that it was to preserve the union.

Strange that Lincoln was more than willing to accept an amendment to the US constitution to make slavery permanent.

Strange that the North was busy killing Indians while at the same time supposedly liberating the slaves.

Strange that in the North men were being put in prison for using their right to voice opposition to the war.

I could go on, but alas it is the nature of man to prefer lies lest their mythology be refuted.

LarryK| 4.12.11 @ 10:08AM

Len,
History is written by the victors. Although slavery became the rallying cry, it was not the wedge issue that brought about succession. To gather the 13 colonies into a Union of Sovereign States, the delegates swallowed hard and accepted slavery so the Southern States would not sit out the revolution. Yes, Mr. Lincoln preserved the Union and it has become the oppressing behemoth that the Founding Fathers tried to avoid.

LarryK| 4.12.11 @ 10:10AM

And I forgot to say Mr. Lincoln is there facing the Capital Dome and watches over the behemoth he preserved.

Butch | 4.12.11 @ 5:37PM

The behemoth he created, Larry.
Webmaster: thanks for giving the "Reply to This" function back!

Larry| 4.13.11 @ 4:34PM

Butch,

Yes, your description is more accurate. He preserved the Union, thereby creating the Behemoth of one size fits all.

Anthony| 4.12.11 @ 10:27AM

History may well be on the way to repeating itself. Even Gov. Moombeams of California sees through the fog of his misguided leftism and sees a divided America.
Our beloved leaders in Washington had better hope that if they continue with this fiscal insanity, the history of the French Revolution doesn't repeat itself here.
Guillotines on the Washington Mall are not subject to government shutdowns, yeah!!!

Len| 4.12.11 @ 10:29AM

Lysander Spooner, a prominent abolitionist on the "civil war"............

Notwithstanding all the proclamations we have made to mankind within the last 90 years — that our government rested on consent, and that that was the only rightful basis on which any government could rest — the late war has practically demonstrated that our government rests upon force: as much so as any government that ever existed.

The North has thus virtually said to the world, "It was all very well to prate of consent, so long as the objects to be accomplished were to liberate ourselves from our connection with England, and also to coax a scattered and jealous people into a great national union. But now that those purposes have been accomplished, and the power of the North has become consolidated, it is sufficient for us — as for all governments — simply to say, Our power is our right."

In proportion to her wealth and population, the North has probably expended more money and blood to maintain her power over an unwilling people than any other government ever did. And in her estimation, it is apparently the chief glory of her success, and an adequate compensation for all her own losses, and an ample justification for all her devastation and carnage of the South, that all pretence of any necessity for consent to the perpetuity or power of the government is (as she thinks) forever expunged from the minds of the people.

In short, the North exults beyond measure in the proof she has given that a government professedly resting on consent will expend more life and treasure in crushing dissent than any government openly founded on force has ever done.

And she claims that she has done all this on behalf of liberty! On behalf of free government! On behalf of the principle that government should rest on consent!

Ryan| 4.12.11 @ 10:29AM

I'm somewhere in-between on both the War and Lincoln.

He's not the angel that his ardent supporters show him as; however, he is neither the demon his detractors commonly state.

A man's opinion can change over time. Quoting the Douglas debate must be tempered with later opinions AND the matter that Lincoln's statements were almost the least racist at the time; and we also must keep in mind that Lincoln based his ENTIRE policy as a President around a singular objective:

Preserving the Union.

Did it do undue damage to States' Rights? Absolutely. I think that we all have suffered from it.
Did the union need to be kept together? Probably.

However, we CANNOT divorce slavery from the matter. Anyone who tries HAS to answer this question:
If slavery were not an issue, would there have been a a Civil War?

I sincerely doubt it.

Quartermaster| 4.12.11 @ 6:04PM

That might be true if the South had not been an agrarian society whose economy did not depend on exports. The industrialists of New England managed to get protectionist tariffs enacted that steadily impoverished the South. 75% of the Federal budget came from tariffs collected in Virginia and South Carolina, with almost all of the internal improvements going to the north.

The major cause of southern secession was taxation. While the south would not have been able to fight the war without teh slaves keeping the home fires burning, slavery was not the cause. Jefferson Davis, a slaveholder himself, stated, "If slavery is what we are fighting for, we aren't fighting for much."

Quartermaster| 4.12.11 @ 6:04PM

That might be true if the South had not been an agrarian society whose economy did not depend on exports. The industrialists of New England managed to get protectionist tariffs enacted that steadily impoverished the South. 75% of the Federal budget came from tariffs collected in Virginia and South Carolina, with almost all of the internal improvements going to the north.

The major cause of southern secession was taxation. While the south would not have been able to fight the war without teh slaves keeping the home fires burning, slavery was not the cause. Jefferson Davis, a slaveholder himself, stated, "If slavery is what we are fighting for, we aren't fighting for much."

Occam's Tool| 4.12.11 @ 7:31PM

Then they were fools to secede---Lincoln would have done anything except allow the expansion of slavery to preserve the Union and prevent war. They didn't give him a chance on taxation---because they were inflamed by slavery.

I don't believe Charles Sumner was caned into insensibility over an argument regarding taxation, however.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 9:39PM

In fact, before the war, Southerners had no problem at all in saying they were protecting slavery. It was only after the war that they tried to elevate it to something more noble.

Nick| 4.13.11 @ 12:18AM

Farmboys from Ohio, Michigan, and Minnesota didn't go to fight, and die, in a war for Yankee industrialists or to free the slaves or for taxes.

They did go willingly to fight when South Carolinians fired first, without provocation, on Fort Sumnter. Thanks to rabble-rousers like Roger Pryor.

Vic| 4.13.11 @ 11:24AM

Last time I checked, fort sumnter is in South Carolina. This was an attack on the north how exactly? Because they would not leave a fort not theirs anymore?

winterhawk| 4.12.11 @ 10:36AM

The 150th anniversary of the Civil War. And with obama in charge we may be on the doorstep of another. History repeating itself?

Bob Belvedere | 4.12.11 @ 10:37AM

Quoted from and Linked to at:
A Long Twilight Struggle

Len| 4.12.11 @ 10:41AM

Lincoln letter to Horace Greeley (August 22, 1862)

Hon. Horace Greeley:

Dear Sir.

I have just read yours of the 19th. addressed to myself through the New�York Tribune. If there be in it any statements, or assumptions of fact, which I may know to be erroneous, I do not, now and here, controvert them. If there be in it any inferences which I may believe to be falsely drawn, I do not now and here, argue against them. If there be perceptable [sic] in it an impatient and dictatorial tone, I waive it in deference to an old friend, whose heart I have always supposed to be right.

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt.

I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft�expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.

Yours,

A. Lincoln.

" If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it"

So in other words, who cares about the slaves, so long as the "union" is preserved?

Truth is King| 4.12.11 @ 3:42PM

You take the one part of the sentence aka out of context to use it to promote whatever you want to believe about Lincoln.

His point was to save the Union. I do not see how this is evil.

He also said his wish was to see all men could be free. I believe him.

How about when you get to Heaven, you have a little chat with Mr. Lincoln on the issue? Eternity is a long time to be able to sort these things out once and for all. :^).

Len| 4.12.11 @ 4:08PM

Mr. Lincoln may have never set foot in a church, and indeed once wrote a book against God, which was burned once he decided to enter politics.

Truth is King| 4.12.11 @ 4:17PM

Going to church, to a physical building has not one iota or scintilla as to whether or not one is able to enter into the Kingdom of God.

Church is not a building. Church is wherever two or more Christians are gathered together in His Name, according to the Bible. His church is people, not places.

Second, I have read that Lincoln loved the Bible and do not know of what you speak. And many of us when we were once in darkness spoke and or wrote against God before He saved us from our sin. The Apostle Paul persecuted Christians.

So, I do not see how your statements can be used to hold anything against him.

Len| 4.12.11 @ 4:29PM

TiK, I don't know where you read that about Lincoln, but if you think I'm lying go ahead keep your version of Lincoln, but if truth really matters, why don't you do a little digging?

Truth is King| 4.12.11 @ 4:40PM

I didn't accuse you of lying. Len.
And since you present something as matter of fact, I say it's up to you to present the evidence, no?

Butch | 4.12.11 @ 5:47PM

TiK, you need to read M.E. Bradford, Professor Mel Bradford, for a different perspective on Lincoln. If you can find it, start with a mid-80s/maybe early 90s feature article in National Review with "Dishonest Abe" on the cover. Sounds like Len has read Bradford, or someone similar. Lincoln is no hero to a lot of people; they see him as the founding father of Leviathan.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 9:41PM

No, Len is regurgitating Thomas DiLornenzo's Lincoln-hating trash talk from his book The Real Lincoln.

Quartermaster| 4.12.11 @ 6:09PM

Anyone that has done much serious research on Lincoln knows of his mockery of Christianity. The Manuscript of the book mentioned above was taken from Lincoln's hand by his law partner Herndon and burned. Lincoln did not give it up willingly, I might add.

These posts are comments, not scholarly dissertations. You owe to yourself to look into these things. Unless, of course, you expect to have your nose wiped by adults. For myself, I quit doing such when I ran across idiots like McPherson and Davis on Usenet years ago (two credentialed morons, with little education).

Truth is King| 4.12.11 @ 6:55PM

"These posts are comments, not scholarly dissertations."
~You could have fooled me. And anyhow, if someone presents something so serious as fact they are still responsible to prove it. Any "commenter" without even a high school diploma knows that.

"Unless, of course, you expect to have your nose wiped by adults."
~ All I know is that with a nasty comment like that I have no desire to consider anything your haughtiness might want to even humble himself to even cast the littlest tidbit of truth to me on the filthy ground from which you seem to think I am begging from.

In other words~ shove it, sir.

Quartermaster| 4.12.11 @ 6:09PM

Anyone that has done much serious research on Lincoln knows of his mockery of Christianity. The Manuscript of the book mentioned above was taken from Lincoln's hand by his law partner Herndon and burned. Lincoln did not give it up willingly, I might add.

These posts are comments, not scholarly dissertations. You owe to yourself to look into these things. Unless, of course, you expect to have your nose wiped by adults. For myself, I quit doing such when I ran across idiots like McPherson and Davis on Usenet years ago (two credentialed morons, with little education).

Quartermaster| 4.12.11 @ 6:10PM

I have no idea the reason for the double post.

YeloStalyn| 4.12.11 @ 4:24PM

To preserve the union at the expense of the consent of both man and the states WAS an evil thing that has directly led us, Americans, to view, wrongly, our federal government as supreme over the states rather than supplimental. If you fail to see why that is evil, then there is no point in going on. If you do understand it, then it should be obvious why Lincoln's presidency marks the beginning of the fall of man experiment to rule himself.

Granted, there are inconsistancise in the idea of man ruling himself while also ruling slaves. However, all things considered, slavery was an issue that would have resolved itself in time (technology and sensabilities were moving the world in that way... see Britian for example. They ended the institution without bloodshed). But to undermine the very fabric of self-government in the name of preserving the federal state over the local state should be a very grotesque idea to any true beleiver in the Founding.

Truth is King| 4.12.11 @ 4:37PM

I leave the Judging to God on the matter.

JimP| 4.12.11 @ 7:04PM

I sincerely doubt Mr. Lincoln is in Heaven. Look for him further South. Maybe they are playing Dixie for him there.

Truth is King| 4.13.11 @ 4:14PM

Perhaps yours will be the rudest awakening of all.

Mike W| 4.12.11 @ 10:42AM

All southern conservatives should PJ O'Rourke's latest article in the Weekly Standard. It will give you a clear idea of what Northerners, supposedly conservative think of you.

You will want to take a shower after you read this piece of trash.

Red Phillips | 4.12.11 @ 5:12PM

Do you have a link? Or is it in the magazine only? I can't find it online.

Len| 4.12.11 @ 10:45AM

Freeing the slaves, but making whores of the Southern women?

When the women of New Orleans refused to genuflect to U.S. Army troops who were occupying their city and killing their husbands, sons and brothers, General Benjamin "Beast" Butler issued an order that all the women of that city were to henceforth be treated as prostitutes. "As the officers and soldiers of the United States have been subject to repeated insults from the women . . . of New Orleans," Butler wrote in his General Order Number 28 on May 15, 1862, "it is ordered that thereafter when any female shall, by word, gesture, or movement, insult or show contempt for any officer or soldier of the United States, she shall be regarded and held liable to be treated as a woman of the town plying her avocation." Butler’s order was widely construed as a license for rape, and he was condemned by the whole world.

Rich Rostrom| 4.13.11 @ 2:06AM

"When the women of New Orleans refused to genuflect to threw garbage at and dumped chamber pots on U.S. Army troops who were occupying their city..."

Fixed that for you.

YeloStalyn| 4.13.11 @ 9:49AM

What were they supposed to do? Cheer for the men that had just killed their husbands, brothers, and fathers?

Fed Up| 4.13.11 @ 1:41PM

Gentlemen (I hope this is not overstatement), if what General Butler codified in a numbered order in New Orleans in 1862 is true, then he committed a grievous offense to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

Although not the same today -- 148 years later -- he would have been punishable under UCMJ. It would be very interesting to hear the rest of this story. If this true and if he was not punished, why not?

In this long conflict that ravaged the South, there are still to be found remarkable stories of civility and Christian behavior/ethics (despite those that are to the contrary in times of war) like many that occured in the siege of Petersburg and Richmond at the very close of the war.

CharlieEcho| 4.12.11 @ 10:54AM

The debate continues on the cause and results of "our" civil war. I see.

I know of two fifth grade classes that have and are studying the Civil War. I have taken two of those students to Fort Sumter just this past summer. I hope to take them to visit the Lincoln Library again soon, and to see the latest, and I hope fairly accurate, movie regarding President Lincoln's assassination. They can form their own opinions if they learn enough. I will answer their questions if I can. I still have my own questions.

CharlieEcho| 4.12.11 @ 10:55AM

I'd forgotten to thank the author for a good article. Thank you Mr. McCain.

Len| 4.12.11 @ 11:04AM

BTW, the disgusting action by Butler that I posted above is celebrated by Vern Crisler as a good thing.

Speaks volumes to me.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 9:37PM

How else could he deal with the trailer park trash?

Vic| 4.13.11 @ 11:30AM

Spoken like a true totalitarian!

Thomas| 4.12.11 @ 11:06AM

The American Civil War is a very confusing subject, simply because so much inaccurate information has been accepted and promulgated as fact for so many so many centuries.

The underlying conflict that led up to the the war itself, was the struggle between centralism [Federalism] and Republicanism [state's rights] for dominance. This had been going on since the Revolutionary War. The catalyst was the Abolitionist Movement. And the spark was the shelling of Fort Sumter. And, after a half a million men lay dead and a significant part of the country was totally destroyed, Federalism won.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 9:48PM

Yes, sectional interests had a lot to do with it, but slavery was the underlying problem, or more importantly, the extension of slavery to the territories combined with the positive good theory of slavery. Originally federalism meant state power vis-a-vis nationalism. They were all republicans. Madision and co deliberately set up the Constitution to be a mixture of federalism and nationalism. It's the refusal to accept this that has been at the heart of secessionist and progressive hostility to the original Constitution.

ncatty| 4.12.11 @ 11:12AM

"Knowing perfectly well that war and defeat were equivalent to not only the abolition of slavery, but to the subjugation - and all which that carries with it - of our country, when I found that by the action of my State I could not longer avert war, I thought it my duty to do everything in my power as a citizen of North Carolina and a patriot to avert defeat. For however much it was denied, and however much stress was laid upon the Union, and minor causes of irritation, the result has conclusively shown that the great desire of the North was to abolish slavery and to humiliate the slaveholders whom they had been taught to hate. I concluded therefore to go with my state and fight - not for secession - not for the Confederate States [as] an object desirable in itself - but to avert the consequences - the abolition of Slavery." Former Governor Zebulon B. Vance to Mary Bayard Clarke, 1865. As Vance's one-time ally and later political rival William Woods Holden said "We are killing off the white men to save the negro." It was a complicated time, wasn't it?

tdiinva| 4.12.11 @ 11:26AM

There is a lot of historical revisionism on display by the Confederate sympathizers in the comments. Yes, the South was all about states’ rights -- the right to hold slaves was the States' right that broke the union. There is no getting around it. Nullification of Federal authorities was not a deal a breaker but abolition was.

The biggest modern Southern revisionist tripe is that the Civil War pitted the Constitutionalists (the South) against the big government North. This is nothing more than a projection of modern sensibilities to an earlier era that is no different then what postmodern leftists do. The "big government" Republicans of 1861 would be appalled by the expansion of federal powers during the Theodore Roosevelt era let alone those of the Wilson and FDR administrations.

The Civil War political divide was between those who spoke in terms being a citizen of a state in loose confederation with other states or a true nation. The Republicans stood for one nation while the Confederates (Southern Democrats) stood for a fragmented national identity. The culture of the South never accepted the rational for the Constitution as written. They were locked into the mindset of the Articles of Confederation.

YeloStalyn| 4.12.11 @ 4:32PM

Other than its inability to facilitate a union, what was wrong according to the Founders, with the Articles? What would compel you to think that after fighting the Revolution they would quickly toss aside the founding principles that formed the Articles in favor of a central government as supreme? The Constitution is an attempt to move, begrudgingly yet necissarily, closer to a strong central government. However, the 9th and 10th Amendments clearly paint a picture where a State has far more power, control, and freedom than the federal government. And by far more... I mean (per Madison's own words) infinately more.

To claim that slaveholding was the "straw that broke the camels back" flies in the face of the many quotes and speeches by Lincoln and other figureheads of the North who said that slavery they were OK with, seccession they were not.

tdiinva| 4.12.11 @ 6:09PM

Mr. Stalyn:

You make the common mistake of confusing a weak central government with limited central government. The Constitution provides for a powerful central government in a limited number of areas. The 9th and q0th amendments spell out the supremacy of the sates in the other areas of governance. These two amendments do not make the states more powerful then Federal government.

Prior to the civil war nullification of the tariff was the principle cause of secession talk in the South. However, this an area that is clearly an enumerated power of the central government. For many years before fort Sumter the South was looking for a way out of a binding covenant. This is the only issue that was not directly connected to slavery and it provided no justification for leaving the union. Secession was rooted a fear that over time the North would gain enough political advantage to end slavery through constitutional means. You can find no other encroachment of states' rights other abolition. Secession can be seen a childish temper tantrum brought on by the election of Abraham Lincoln. Secession was not about states' rights, it was about failure to accept the validity of the Constitutional process. Do you think the North would have quit the Union if Steven Douglas won?

Quartermaster| 4.12.11 @ 6:19PM

I don't think they would have gone if Stephens had won. Stephens, however, was not a radical as Lincoln was and he was sympathetic to the problems an industrial north was placing on the south.

tdiinva| 4.12.11 @ 10:24PM

It was a rhetorical question.

Secessionist were nothing more than fleebaggers on a grand scale.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 9:34PM

It was the extension of slavery to the territories that was the issue, i.e., beyond the original states.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 9:49PM

Absolutely correct tdiinva. They were really anti-Federalists at heart.

Doctor Right| 4.12.11 @ 11:57AM

Who will be our Judge Pryor?

Louisiana Bob| 4.12.11 @ 12:02PM

Great article. Unfortunately, the received orthodoxy at most universities screams that slavery was the cause of the War Between the States. While, of course, the institution of slavery played some role, as did other issues such as the tariff, fear of encroaching central government, was it the principal cause of the war? Ask yourselves this. Since maybe no more that 4% of the Confederate soldiers owned slaves, is it reasonable that the other 96% fought to preserve slavery?!? Doesn't make sense that over 600,000 southerners left their homes and families to fight solely to preserve slavery. Other causes have to have been present that were more compelling for the non-slave owners.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 9:36PM

While few Southerners actually owned slaves, they aspired to be owners of slaves. It was the "aristocratic" ideal of the old South.

Fed Up| 4.13.11 @ 1:49PM

No, slave ownership was not an aspired to ideal by many Southerners. They weren't interested in it so much, were happy to farm their 40 acres on their own (and with real hired help), or were actually working against it.

Slavery was not the core issue for the South. No way. Read all those period diaries now being assembled (from all side and walks of life) and digitized in the Richmond museum. They're fantastic.

The Southerner then thought exactly what many think today: Washington, D.C. has over-reched. A man is no longer free.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:18AM

I couldn't let this slander go. This trash is put forth by PC revisionists without any proof whatsoever. Rather than your little "theory" let's see what Southerners said in their own words.

In his book What They Fought For, 1861-1865, historian James McPherson reported on his reading of more than 25,000 letters and more than 100 diaries of soldiers who fought on both sides of the War for Southern Independence and concluded that Confederate soldiers (very few of whom owned slaves) "fought for liberty and independence from what they regarded as a tyrannical government." The letters and diaries of many Confederate soldiers "bristled with the rhetoric of liberty and self government," writes McPherson, and spoke of a fear of being "subjugated" and "enslaved" by a tyrannical federal government. Sound familiar?

Here's a hint....did you see the word "slave" or "slavery" mentioned there? No you did not.

Rich Rostrom| 4.13.11 @ 2:45AM

Claims like this appear regularly, with no evidence to support them. In 1860, there were approximately 1M white men aged 18-45 in the "Confederate states"; there were over 300,000 slaveowners. (Data from the U.S. Census of 1860.) So about 30% of "Confederate" men owned slaves. Many others were the sons, younger brothers, or dependent cousins or nephews of slaveowners.
Still others had owned slaves in the past or intended to in the future.

Robert E. Lee owned no slaves in 1861. But he had owned slaves for many years in the past. A large part of his substantial inheritance from his mother was slave property. He was the descendant of two great slaveowning Virginia families (Lee and Carter) and was a cousin of many large slaveowners. His father-in-law, G. W. P. Custis, owned three plantations and over 100 slaves. Lee's wife and family lived on her father's Arlington plantation, as did Lee, between Army assignments. Custis died in 1857, and freed his slaves in his will. But he included a clause stating the slaves could be held until all debts of the estate were paid. These debts included large cash bequests to Lee's daughters, and loans against the three plantations (left to Lee's three sons). Lee, the executor of the estate, held the slaves and exploited their unpaid labor to pay off the loans and generate cash for the bequests.

But Lee himself owned no slaves.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:23AM

Ummm wrong Rich. Here are the numbers from teh 1860 US Census

State.........percentage of slaveowners
Alabama...........6.37%
Arkansas.......3.54%
Florida.......6.55%
Georgia......6.9%
Louisiana.....5.86^
Miss.......8.72%
NC.........5.24%
SC.....8.86%
Tenn.....4.42%
Texas.....5.19%
VA.....4.72%

Aggregate.....5.67%

ncatty| 4.12.11 @ 12:10PM

La. Bob, maybe the non-slaveholding Confederate soldier fought not for slavery, but against its abolition and a forced equality of the races. See the 11:12 am post on Zeb Vance, North Carolina's war governor.

RCV| 4.12.11 @ 12:14PM

Once again Len and the other Southern apologists try to clothe the Confederacy as a libery-loving beauty, when its whole raison d'etre was to preserve the barbaric enslavement of three million human beings. Doubt that? Read the secession resolution from South Carolina. The "states rights" secessionists even complain in that resolution that some Northern states even allow African-Americans to vote, and that others pass state laws granting freedom to slaves in transit. The civil war was about one central thing: the desire to continue to enslave other human beings.

Rights Constitutionally Viewed| 4.12.11 @ 3:38PM

RCV | 10.23.10 @ 9:30PM

"At least, skippie, I belong to a party that cares about human beings AFTER they're born."

Quartermaster| 4.12.11 @ 6:21PM

There is no such thing as an "African-American." There are Black Americans, but the only Africans that live here are recent imports and don't hold citizenship.

Len| 4.12.11 @ 12:28PM

Once again RCV lies. Disgusting really that men stoop to such tactics, but this is typical of those who don't want honest debate and who worship government as something that can actually do good.

"Once again Len and the other Southern apologists try to clothe the Confederacy as a libery-loving beauty"

RCV does this every time, put words in my mouth and others who argue not that the South was virtuous or that slavery is or was okay, but rather that secession is a legitimate right, and that Lincoln violated the US constitution by invading sovereign countries. That the congress violated the US constitution by forcing states to accept unrepublican changes in their governments and be forced to remain in a union under a constitution changed by force.

RCV also ignores the fact that Lysander Spooner, one of the prominent abolitionists of the time recognizes the fact of what the North did.

Strange that such a crusader as Spooner spoke against the conquering of the South if the war really was to end slavery.

When are you going to stop lying RCV? When are you going to apologize for putting words in my mouth?

ncatty| 4.12.11 @ 12:28PM

RCV, negro slaves were not regarded as fully human and so to consider abolition and equality was simply out of the question. This is why people who otherwise had the highest character saw no issue with slavery, even constructing a doctrine that it was benefical to the slaves. It is difficult in 2011 to understand this attitude. It may be that 150 years from now people will regard our abortion culture with equal disgust. I hope so anyway.

Derek Leaberry| 4.12.11 @ 12:38PM

A lot of ways to look at this anniversary. One way that appears truthful to me is that both North and South overreacted to the events of 1860-61. More than likely, Abraham Lincoln would have been a one-term mediocrity as president if the South had not seceded. Lincoln would have likely increased tariffs and the Democrats would have won the elections of 1862 and 1864. Lincoln would have returned to his career as a railroad lawyer. In fact, even with the Southern states out of the union, the Republicans retained the House by only an 86-72 margin after the 1862 election. The North overreacted to the original Southern secession of seven very agricultural states. The continental republic was never endangered by the appearance of a rump southern republic hugging the Gulf of Mexico.

RCV| 4.12.11 @ 12:53PM

From the December 24, 1860 South Carolina "Causes of Secession" resolution:

"For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.

The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy."

Lincoln's foremost goal surely was to preserve the Union. But South Carolina, and the South's goal was to preserve slavery. Pure and simple.

Retched Contradictory Values | 4.12.11 @ 3:59PM

RCV | 12.7.10 @ 6:27PM

"At least, skippie, I belong to a party that cares about human beings AFTER they're born."

I don't bother about silly hypocrisies like endorsing the party that truly does not care about any human being whether before, during, OR after birth on sanctimoniously emoting slavery over union preservation as root of Civil War matters.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:28AM

Had the South wanted to preserve slavery it could have done so by coming back in upon ratification of the Corwin Amendment. This is from the Address of Robert Barnwell Rhett attached to the South Carolina declaration of causes.

The Revolution of 1776, turned upon one great principle, self government, and self taxation, the criterion of self government. Where the interests of two people united together under one Government, are different, each must have the power to protect its interests by the organization of the Government, or they cannot be free. The interests of Great Britain and of the Colonies, were different and antagonistic. Great Britain was desirous of carrying out the policy of all nations toward their Colonies, of making them tributary to their wealth and power. She had vast and complicated relations with the whole world. Her policy toward her North American Colonies, was to identify them with her in all these complicated relations; and to make them bear, in common with the rest of the Empire, the full burden of her obligations and necessities. She had a vast public debt; she had a European policy and an Asiatic policy, which had occasioned the accumulation of her public debt, and which kept her in continual wars. The North American Colonies saw their interests, political and commercial, sacrificed by such a policy. Their interests required, that they should not be identified with the burdens and wars of the mother country. They had been settled under Charters, which gave them self government, at least so far as their property was concerned. They had taxed themselves, and had never been taxed by the Government of Great Britain. To make them a part of a consolidated Empire, the Parliament of Great Britain determined to assume the power of legislating for the Colonies in all cases whatsoever. Our ancestors resisted the pretension. They refused to be a part of the consolidated Government of Great Britain.
The Southern States, now stand exactly in the same position towards the Northern States, that the Colonies did towards Great Britain. The Northern States, having the majority in Congress, claim the same power of omnipotence in legislation as the British parliament. "The General Welfare," is the only limit to the legislation of either; and the majority in Congress, as in the British parliament, are the sole judges of the expediency of the legislation, this "General Welfare" requires. Thus, the Government of the United States has become a consolidated Government; and the people of the Southern State, are compelled to meet the very despotism, their fathers threw off in the Revolution of 1776.
And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress, is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures.
There is another evil, in the condition of the Southern toward the Northern States, which our ancestors refused to bear toward Great Britain. Our ancestors not only taxed themselves, but all the taxes collected from them, were expended among them. Had they submitted to the pretensions of the British Government, the taxes collected from them, would have been expended in other parts of the British Empire. They were fully aware of the effect of such a policy in impoverishing the people from whom taxes are collected, and in enriching those who receive the benefit of their expenditure. To prevent the evils of such a policy, was one of the motives which drove them on to Revolution. Yet this British policy, has been fully realized towards the Southern States, by the Northern States. The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected, three fourths of them are expended at the North. This cause, with others, connected with the operation of the General Government, has made the cities of the South provincial. Their growth is paralyzed; they are mere suburbs of Northern cities. The agricultural productions of the South are the basis of the foreign commerce of the United States; yet Southern cities do not carry it on. Our foreign trade, is almost annihilated…… To make, however, their numerical power available to rule the Union, the North must consolidate their power. It would not be united, on any matter common to the whole Union in other words, on any constitutional subject for on such subjects divisions are as likely to exist in the North as in the South. Slavery was strictly, a sectional interest. If this could be made the criterion of parties at the North, the North could be united in its power; and thus carry out its measures of sectional ambition, encroachment, and aggrandizement. To build up their sectional predominance in the Union, the Constitution must be first abolished by constructions; but that being done, the consolidation of the North to rule the South, by the tariff and slavery issues, was in the obvious course of things.

Len| 4.12.11 @ 12:57PM

Secession is either a legitimate right or not. The reason given for it does not matter, it could just as well be Northerners talk funny so we're seceding.

See Lysander Spooner quote above, as he gets it.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 9:52PM

There is no right to secession in a government originally consented to by all. The only right is the natural right of revolution. Secession is just another term for anarchy, as Lincoln pointed out.

YeloStalyn| 4.13.11 @ 9:56AM

Secession is an attempt to gain the same result as revolution without the war and destruction. And without imposing on those who don't concent to be part of it.

If I could choose secession over revolution to fix the problems we're in today... I would take secession in the blink of an eye. The problem is when those who are being left refuse to give up the power they have over those wishing to leave... often that leads to war.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:30AM

Wrong.

If states had such a right then South Carolina’s claim is entirely valid. If not, then the position of the Lincoln administration in denying such a claim is entirely valid. Let’s first examine the status of the parties prior to ratification of the Constitution.
States were sovereign. Their sovereignty was recognized as each state was specifically named and its sovereignty recognized in the 1783 treaty of Paris. The states are always referred to in the plural, not the United States as a singular entity.
Next came the Articles of Confederation which claimed to be a “perpetual union”. James Madison rejected a proposal at the convention which drafted the Articles that would have allowed the central government to suppress a seceding state. "A Union of the States containing such an ingredient seemed to provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound." James Madison
This “perpetual union” was ended when all the states which belonged to it seceded by ratifying the Constitution. The words “perpetual union” were deliberately left out of the Constitution despite the fact that many entire passages were carried over from the Articles of Confederation
Next, what did the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution under which various states claimed such a right have to say?
9th “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”
This was added after the objections of the anti-federalists so that nobody would later be able to claim that if a right did not specifically appear in the constitution then the presumption was that the states or people did not have such a right.
10th The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
This was added after the objections of the anti-federalists so that nobody would later be able to claim the federal government had been delegated powers not granted to it by the sovereign states under the constitution…..the Founders recognizing that all governments tend to attempt to increase their power over time.
Three states (New York, Rhode Island and Virginia) ratified the Constitution with the express proviso that they retained the right to resume the powers of government delegated to the newly created federal government by ratification of the Constitution at a later date if they so chose. The proviso’s follow:
"We, the delegates of the people of Virginia, duly elected in pursuance of a recommendation from the general assembly, and now met in convention, having fully and freely investigated and discussed the proceedings of the Federal Convention, and being prepared as well as the most mature deliberation hath enabled us to decide thereon, Do, in the name and in behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known that the powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their will...."

"We, the delegates of the people of New York... do declare and make known that the powers of government may be reassumed by the people whenever it shall become necessary to their happiness; that every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the department of the government thereof, remains to the people of the several States, or to their respective State governments, to whom they may have granted the same; and that those clauses in the said Constitution, which declare that Congress shall not have or exercise certain powers, do not imply that Congress is entitled to any powers not given by the said Constitution; but such clauses are to be construed either as exceptions in certain specified powers or as inserted merely for greater caution."

"We, the delegates of the people of Rhode Island and Plantations, duly elected... do declare and make known... that the powers of government may be resumed by the people whenever it shall become necessary to their happiness; that every power, jurisdiction, and right which is not by the said Constitution clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the department of the government thereof, remains to the people of the several States, or to their respective State governments, to whom they may have granted the same; that Congress shall guarantee to each State its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Constitution expressly delegated to the United States."
Under the Comity Principle by which no state enjoys a right or privilege not enjoyed by other states, all states understood themselves to have such a right. This was not then disputed by anyone and as an interesting aside, the Virginia ratification convention was chaired by a fellow by the name of George Washington.
Furthermore, here is what James Madison had to say in arguing for ratification of the Constitution in the Federalist Papers:
“...the act of the people, as forming so many independent States, not as forming one aggregate nation, is obvious from this single consideration, that it is to result neither from the decision of a majority of the people of the Union, nor from that of a majority of the States.... Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act” (Federalist 39).' James Madison
Here is what Alexander Hamilton had to say in the Federalist Papers:
“To coerce the states is one of the maddest projects that was ever devised. Can any reasonable man be well disposed toward a government which makes war and carnage the only means of supporting itself, a government that can only exist by the sword?" Alexander Hamilton
(Hamilton may have been being disingenuous…it certainly appears from his stance after ratification and his words that he did in fact favor a consolidated national government which would subsume the sovereignty of the states, but that is not what he was saying prior to ratification and not what the states agreed to).
Here is what Thomas Jefferson had to say on the subject:
"I am determined to sever ourselves from the union we so much value rather than to give up the rights of self government in which alone we see liberty, safety and happyness." Thomas Jefferson

"The future inhabitants of [both] the Atlantic and Mississippi states will be our sons. We think we see their happiness in their union, and we wish it. Events may prove otherwise; and if they see their interest in separating why should we take sides? God bless them both, and keep them in union if it be for their good, but separate them if it be better." – Thomas Jefferson

"If any State in the Union will declare that it prefers separation" over "union," "I have no hesitation in saying, 'let us separate.'" Thomas Jefferson

This was entirely consistent with what he wrote in the Declaration of Independence :

“…… That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the Consent of the Governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.” Thomas Jefferson

[The most important safeguard for the liberties of the people is] "the support of the state governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies." Thomas Jefferson
Here is what Madison had to say:
'It is indeed true that the term "states" ... means the people composing those political societies, in their highest sovereign capacity.... it follows of necessity that there can be no tribunal, above their authority, to decide, in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated; and consequently, that, as the parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition Report on the Virginia Resolutions written by James Madison
[the Constitution would be ratified by the people]"not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct independent States to which they respectively belong.."[not by the whole people] James Madison, the Federalist Papers #39
We can see nowhere in the Constitution or among the words of the Founders that states were surrendering their sovereignty by ratifying the Constitution-quite the opposite. We furthermore can see from the proviso’s passed that the state legislatures which ratified the constitution did not think they were surrendering their sovereignty thereby.
In his book Life of Webster Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge writes, "It is safe to say that there was not a man in the country, from Washington and Hamilton to Clinton and Mason, who did not regard the new system as an experiment from which each and every State had a right to peaceably withdraw."
A textbook used at West Point before the Civil War, A View of the Constitution, written by Judge William Rawle, supports this view. (Rawle was a highly respect constitutional scholar and a personal friend of George Washington)
The Union is an association of the people of republics; its preservation is calculated to depend on the preservation of those republics. The people of each pledge themselves to preserve that form of government in all. Thus each becomes responsible to the rest, that no other form of government shall prevail in it, and all are bound to preserve it in every one. ...If a faction should attempt to subvert the government of a state for the purpose of destroying its republican form, the paternal power of the Union could thus be called forth to subdue it.
Yet it is not to be understood, that its interposition would be justifiable, if the people of a state should determine to retire from the Union...
It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on 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. --William Rawle, Chapter 32, A View of the Constitution of the United States of America
The first parties to the new union to seriously consider secession were the New England states. The first time was after the Louisiana Purchase (they didn’t want the land and thought their commercial interests would be hurt by the focus on the new land) they again threatened to secede after Thomas Jefferson imposed the Embargo Act which crippled their economy by shutting down trade with Britain. They then threatened to again and more seriously during the War of 1812. Several New England states refused to send their state militia’s to help out (much of the fighting was in Maryland, New Orleans and the South). They then held the Hartford Convention where they discussed secession. They eventually decided to hold off on taking a vote and decided instead to present Washington DC with a list of demands but the war ended before they reached Washington.
Another who agreed that states did have that right was Ulysses S Grant:
“If they had foreseen it, the probabilities are they would have sanctioned the right of a State or States to withdraw rather than that there should be war between brothers.” (The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, Old Saybrook, Connecticut: Konecky & Konecky, 1992, reprint, p. 131)
“If there had been a desire on the part of any single State to withdraw from the compact at any time while the number of States was limited to the original thirteen, I do not suppose there would have been any to contest the right, no matter how much the determination might have been regretted.” (The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, p. 130)
President John Tyler likewise believed a state had the right to leave the Union. So did President John Quincy Adams who tried to organize the New England states to secede in the 1820’s.
The Northern Federalists' Hartford Convention declared in 1814 that a state had the right to secede in cases of "absolute necessity" (Alan Brinkley, Richard Current, Frank Freidel, and T. Harry Williams, American History: A Survey, Eighth Edition, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1991, p. 230).
Furthermore for a guy who held secession to be illegal and treasonous later, I find this statement to be rather umm…….curious…..
“Any people anywhere being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right - a right which we hope and believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit.” Abraham Lincoln January 12, 1848 in a speech in the US House of Representatives.
Just as I find it rather curious that a Congress which endorsed this position felt the need to try to pass an amendment justifying their position after the fact.
On March 2, 1861 a constitutional amendment was proposed that would have outlawed secession (See H. Newcomb Morse, "The Foundations and Meaning of Secession," Stetson Law Review, vol. 15, 1986, pp. 419—36). This is very telling, for it proves that Congress believed that secession was in fact constitutional under the Tenth Amendment. It would not have proposed an amendment outlawing secession if the Constitution already prohibited it.

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 1:06PM

No one can ever accuse me of having liberal tendencies. And as a present-day conservative I see no favors done for conservatism today if we are going to see this absolutely ridiculous notion that the Civil War (I will not use that "War Between The States" slogan) can somehow be understood in the context of what present-day conservatives are concerned about in which somehow the South can be reinvented as the good guys who had the right ideas about the Constitution, when in fact it was the South who as far as I'm concerned based their entire rationale for secession on the notion that since a Presidential election had not unfolded to their liking, they thus could manufacture a "right" to disregard the Constitution and the legitimacy of the Constitutional process as arrived at in 1787. All of this sanctimonious blather that touches on the justification of secession because Lincoln "invaded the sovereign states" conveniently has to disregard all of the ones who voted to go BEFORE any troops "invaded" the south before Lincoln took office, and all of which quite tellingly were the states in the "Deep South" where slave ownership was a much greater underlying issue.

As for Louisiana Bob's question about only 4% of the soldiers being slaveowners, that is about the most idiotically irrelevant comment imaginable. Would it matter to any of us if only 4% of the German soldiers on D-Day had ever heard of a concentration camp? No, it wouldn't. I have no qualm with acknowledging the bravery of Confederate soldiers who fought for what they perceived in their own mind was fighting for their misguided concept of "liberty", but it was a misguided concept rooted in the shredding of the Constitution that had been written in 1787 and in the desire of its political establishment to do all that was necessary to perpetuate and extend the institution of slavery. And one is not selling out one's principles as modern-day conservative to hold that view as I do unabashedly, because to me it would be the height of hypocrisy to not call out violations of the Constitution by those who misused the doctrine of states rights as surely as I do today those who misuse the use of Federal power today.

YeloStalyn| 4.12.11 @ 5:47PM

There is a big difference between the German army in WWII and the Confederacy. First, the German position in WWII was one that they felt benifited the STATE. The Confederacy fought to benifit the PARTS (the many states and inviduals). Second, the Conderate army was formed mainly from non-regular forces. It was not a standing army like the Nazis who were ordered to advance on France and Russia. The Confederate soldier was asked to leave his farm or other vocation because he believed his home was being invaded. The German's didn't ask shopkeepers to leave their store and take up arms to push the French out or the Russians.

And what reasonable argument would you make if you were not a slave owner and asked to go to war to defend the right to own slaves for the select few wealthy men in your state? You imply that there would be reason enough in that situation... so what would be that reason? I fail to see it.

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 6:25PM

Ultimately, the Confederate forces were fighting to benefit a singular state called the Confederate States Of America. Which is why that defense falls apart.

Thom| 4.12.11 @ 6:57PM

If you knew anything factual about the makeup of the Confederate Army you wouldn't make such uninformed statements........the "Confederacy" was held together mostly by a common threat of invasion by an army three times its size. Take away the threat of invasion ordered by Lincoln and the Confederacy would have likely argued among themselves endlessly and other wise been irrelevant to matters in the North.

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 8:12PM

I think when it comes to knowing things factual about American History, as one who has taught the subject for more than a decade at the college level, I'm doing quite fine, thank you. But what I find even more asinine is this notion of how we're supposed to accept the concept that what should have been done was for the President to sit back on his butt and do nothing and vainly hope that in 20 years the Southern states would bicker so much and come a crawling back, which is the essence of what this argument is about. So now in addition to hearing the use of modern day liberal arguments rooted in the "Living document" concept of the Constitution (in regards to the notion that a "right" to secession existed), or the "principled treason" defense made famous by Ellen Schrecker, we can now to that add the line of reasoning used to condemn Harry Truman for not waiting Japan out to surrender and forget about using the Atomic Bomb, which is the kind of argument easy to use from the perspective of distant hindsight, but which is irreponsible to assume that leaders of the day could consider a viable option given the circumstances of what had happened with the largest assult on the principles of Constitutional government ever undertaken. Because ultimately, the act of secession, stemming from anger over the outcome of a Presidential election decided legitimately, is at the core defiance of duly elected Constitutional government. And that's one principle I have no sympathy for, *especially* when carried with it was the South's base desire in its leadership to do what it could to preserve the institution of slavery for all time.

Thom| 4.12.11 @ 8:46PM

Killing what would be 6,000,000 men today to accomplish the same thing kind of falls in the category of killing the patient to save him don't you think EJP? The South didn’t invade the North, didn’t call up an army to invade the North, didn’t fully start the ball rolling on all 13 states succeeding until after Lincoln started calling up troops for war…. Precedent is important in such things and yes sitting on his butt would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives while economic circumstances and cooler heads had a chance to grasp the reality of the matter. Killing to “preserve the Union” is a pretty blood thirsty concept in practice and by your example would tend to make future generations less likely to volunteer to enter into such “unions” giving the downsides don’t you think? The Nation is bitterly divided again over matters of treating one citizen as a slave for others and you don’t seem to get the common ground between 1860 and now…. I can’t help you. What you don’t know won’t be found in some prepared history text book written with the political slant of today’s vision of the past.

ejp| 4.13.11 @ 12:57AM

The South spat on the Constitution with their act of secession which they engaged in because their arrogant political leaders saw it as their last best hope to preserve for the long-term a vile institution of slavery. And they were the ones who decided to engage FIRST in the act of opening fire on fellow Americans at Fort Sumter to show the lengths they were willing to go in the name of "Southern Independence." I think that speaks volumes ultimately as to which side had more "blood thirsty" instincts.

Vic| 4.13.11 @ 11:52AM

Just as the north violated the constitution by making war on their fellow Americans. First economically, then with guns. They voted for the subjugation of the states and all individuals to an all powerful wealth redistributer just like zerO and his supporters today. Their are NO innocent or morally superior parties here. The blacks were slaves to whites in the south, and the south were slaves to the big government ambitions of the north.

ejp| 4.13.11 @ 1:10PM

So now we can add the Cold War "moral equivalence" doctrine to the latest in the line of modern liberalism interpretations used to defend Southern conduct. Simply amazing.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:34AM

and what shall we defend Northern conduct with?...other than the lie that they were fighting to free the slaves or that it was "all about slavery" as PC revisionists in liberal academia endlessly spew.

Occam's Tool| 4.12.11 @ 7:39PM

Gentlemen: my wife's family lived in a county that seceded from Alabama when Alabama seceded from the Union (Winston County, AL). Their reasoning for succession from Alabama was that they weren't going to fight for slavery.

They hold a play commemorating that subject every year. Again, I think the Union should have respected the Confederate dead more than they did. But without Slavery, there would have been no Civil War. Jefferson, for one, knew that it was coming.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 9:54PM

Dittos ejp!

RCV| 4.12.11 @ 1:19PM

Len cites Lysander Spooner as an authority. Yes Spooner was an abolitionist, but to cite him as some mainstream political thinker is pure folly. Spooner was a self-described anarchist who believed, among other colorful things: (1) that the Constitution was binding only on the individuals who had signed the document; (2) that the text of the Constitution outlawed slavery, even though that was probably not the intent of its signers; (3) that all capital and property was theft - he was a member of the First Socialist International. He also was one of John Brown's co-conspirators and called for guerilla warfare to free the slaves.

Real Christian Virtue| 4.12.11 @ 3:48PM

RCV | 10.23.10 @ 9:30PM

"I abhor sanctimonious conservatism of the tea party brand, an ideology wholly lacking in intelligence or a shred of real Christian love or compassion."

I don't bother with silly labels of political thinkers while sanctimoniously labeling on political thinking matters.

YeloStalyn| 4.12.11 @ 6:01PM

None of that matters with regards to the main question posed by Len...

Is secession legitamate or not and why? Everything else is merely muddeling teh question.

Quartermaster| 4.12.11 @ 6:28PM

If secession is not a legitimate right, then we should still be a British Colony, because the U.S. is utterly illegitimate.

It is rare for idiots like RVC to really take a hard look at what they are saying and consider the fallout.

If secession is not legitimate, then there can only be force in politics, and whoever has the ability to field and supply the largest Army is right. The Union was founded as a voluntary union. Lincoln destroyed it and gave us the mess we have in D.C. to this day.

But we won't have that much longer unless both parties wake up and smell the coffee.

Thom| 4.12.11 @ 6:50PM

Time is short.....

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 9:55PM

Secession is not the same as revolution. Even Jeff Davis understood that.

Vic| 4.13.11 @ 11:55AM

Only the bloodshed.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:35AM

Bingo. What is the Declaration of Independence but a declaration of secession?

Quartermaster| 4.12.11 @ 6:28PM

If secession is not a legitimate right, then we should still be a British Colony, because the U.S. is utterly illegitimate.

It is rare for idiots like RVC to really take a hard look at what they are saying and consider the fallout.

If secession is not legitimate, then there can only be force in politics, and whoever has the ability to field and supply the largest Army is right. The Union was founded as a voluntary union. Lincoln destroyed it and gave us the mess we have in D.C. to this day.

But we won't have that much longer unless both parties wake up and smell the coffee.

Rich Rostrom| 4.13.11 @ 2:00AM

Thank you for bringing out one of the most idiotic neo-Confederate arguments.

None of the rebels of 1776 ever claimed that the colonies had a *legal* right to declare independence from Britain.

They claimed a *moral* right of revolution against Britain's lawful authority, which had become tyrannical. They did not claim that Britain was legally required to submit to their exercise of this right. Rather, they listed the reasons which morally justified their action.

The rebels of 1861 claimed a *legal* right of secession, which could be exercised at will for any reason at all. For that claim 1776 is no precedent at all.

Doctor Right| 4.12.11 @ 1:37PM

What happened to the "Reply" button ? Why can't we reply to other people's comments anymore?

Len| 4.12.11 @ 3:50PM

You must have influence Doc, note the restoration of the reply option after your question.

Steve A| 4.12.11 @ 1:56PM

The abortionists & their proponents of today, are the equivalents of the slave masters & their proponents seen through the eyes of future historians. There is no doubt.

The pro chioce crowd feels equally, if not more so, justified in putting a fetus in a blender as the slave auctioneer & plantation owners of the 18th & 18th century felt in "caring' for the slaves .

ncatty| 4.12.11 @ 3:06PM

Correct, and both were planks of the Democratic Party.

Alan Brooks| 4.12.11 @ 2:15PM

The South deserved it because their interest in expanding to the West would have meant unceasing guerrilla warfare- as in Kansas. And they were foolish to think the North would have allowed the Fugitive Slave statutes to continue.
Actually, slavery was not the #1 issue, Westward expansion was.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 10:00PM

The West was important because it's where the territories were. The North would have allowed the Fugitive slave clause to continued; how could they have changed it without a Constitutional amendment? But it confines enforcement of the clause to slaves escaping from the ORIGINAL STATES. The South wanted to extend the Constitutional provisions on slavery so that even slaves escaping from other new territories or new states had to be be brought back. IOW, it would have perpetuated slavery all across the West, despite the Northwest Ordinance's denial of slavery into the territories. So it's only a half-truth to say slavery wasn't the #1 issue. It was westward expansion that CAUSED it to become the #1 issue.

Vern Crisler | 4.13.11 @ 1:52AM

I should correct this. The Fugitive slave clause mentions enforcement between the states, but it is the Northwest Ordinance that emphasizes the original states. In either case, however, it's clear the founders wanted to exclude slavery from the territories.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:41AM

The Southern states upon their secession made no claim to the territories of the United States. Once they were out they no longer needed additional votes in Congress to protect their economic interest so expansion was not so important to them. That had been their primary motivation for wanting to expand while they were still in.

“What do you propose, gentlemen of the free soil party? Do you propose to better the condition of the slave? Not at all. What then do you propose? You say you are opposed to the expansion of slavery. Is the slave to be benefited by it? Not at all. What then do you propose? It is not humanity that influences you in the position which you now occupy before the country. It is that you may have an opportunity of cheating us that you want to limit slave territory within circumscribed bounds. It is that you may have a majority in the Congress of the United States and convert the government into an engine of Northern aggrandizement. It is that your section may grow in power and prosperity upon treasures unjustly taken from the South, like the vampire bloated and gorged with the blood which it has secretly sucked from its victim. You desire to weaken the political power of the Southern states, - and why? Because you want, by an unjust system of legislation, to promote the industry of the New England States, at the expense of the people of the South and their industry.” Jefferson Davis in debate in the US Senate 1860

RCV| 4.12.11 @ 2:45PM

Len, I have no apologies to make to you. You are a man who seems more affronted by insults to the honor of white southern women by federal troops than by the enslavement of three and a half million black human beings. The southern confederacy was a moral abomination, and the only real crime was ending reconstruction early and allowing the re-enslavement of blacks under Jim Crow for another 75 years.

Len| 4.12.11 @ 3:00PM

Rape = insult?

RCV, you can't help yourself can you? If the southern confederacy was a moral abomination, then indeed the US was one from the get go as slavery was protected under the US constitution.

You continue the charade of legitimacy by invoking the evil of slavery. The truth is that men violated their oaths and waged war against the South not to end slavery but to enlarge their empire.

Ryan| 4.12.11 @ 3:17PM

Would they have done so if slavery was not an issue?

Len| 4.12.11 @ 4:03PM

Ryan, the Northern states were willing to secede from the union due to the trade embargo and what they perceived as favoritism toward France. During the Hartford convention they voted in the positive to do so, so I would say that states were willing to secede on issues other than slavery.

Would they have seceded were it not for slavery? Probably not. Regardless, the question remains, actually questions remain, is secession a legitimate right, and does the US constitution provide for the use of force to keep states in the union? Also, by what right can the US constitution be thrown aside by a government created by and subordinate to it to force certain states to amend it?
I would also add, regardless of the war that was being waged in the South, what justification could there be for sending in the army to violently shut down protests against conscription, killing thousands in the process, shutting down newspapers and arresting their owners and workers, arresting lawfully elected state legislators, sending in thugs to intimidate voters during the 64 election, attempting to arrest a Supreme Court justice? Why make a saint out of a tyrant who even in the North threw away the US constitution?

YeloStalyn| 4.12.11 @ 4:44PM

If I understand you correctly, you are simply trying to say that regardless of the issue of slavery (which I imagine you find abhorrent and would have prefered the South not to maintain), the abolishment of it by the North does not whitewash what the North did.

You are not, necissarily, defending the South so much as pointing out the falacy to think no harm came from the North simply because they freed the slaves. And, in fact, that in the long term and in the broader sense as it affects ALL men now (black, white, brown, whatever) what the North did by using force to impose its rule rather than simply maintainign concent it effectively destroyed man's ability to rule himself.

Is that about right?

If so, I think it quite unfair the claim that RCV makes against you (although, it is, I would think, a fair assessment against many [most certainly not all] defenders of the South).

Len| 4.12.11 @ 4:54PM

Close enough for the cigar.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 10:03PM

Uh, I believe it was the SOUTH that first used force. Cf., reread the above article.

YeloStalyn| 4.13.11 @ 10:04AM

Who starts the fight? The invader in your living room or you who fires first to remove him after telling him to leave?

Truth is King| 4.13.11 @ 6:23PM

I believe Fort Sumter was already IN the living room when the south began firing. Lincoln didn't go and build it in their backyard.
Next.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:44AM

What country would have permitted a foreign power to maintain a fortress in the middle of one of its principle harbors? Would Washington have tolerated a British fort in the middle of New York Harbor?

Rancidly Contemptible Vile| 4.12.11 @ 3:43PM

RCV | 12.7.10 @ 6:27PM

"At least, skippie, I belong to a party that cares about human beings AFTER they're born."

I don't bother with silly moral abominations like abortion when sanctimoniously opining on slavery matters.

grant1863| 4.12.11 @ 2:51PM

I'm late to this but the comment about our schools is telling. At the local cigar bar I hang out at all 3 of the young waitresses there, 2 of whom are currently attending a university, had no idea when the Civil War was, one guessed 1843, another wondered what was the Civil War and the third guessed 1800's. Later in the week another young patron who is a local middle school teacher didn't know either. She said she didn't teach that subject so she didn't need to know. My older friends were not that surprised at the answers. Just food for thought.

Robert Stacy McCain | 4.12.11 @ 3:09PM

It was not my intention to stir sectional animosity, but I note here the eruption of something I first observed on Civil War UseNet discussion groups more than 15 years ago: Insofar as there is any such animosity in the postmodern era, it is fomented by latter-day Yankees who insist on "waving the bloody shirt," trying to make the South bear the whole responsibility for the "Irrepressible Conflict," and affixing the epithet "traitor" to the Confederates.

There is in such sentiments -- a desire to personally humiliate Southerners -- an unmistakable suggestion of sadistic tendencies.

As I say, this unseemly intolerant attitude was apparent in discussions on military-history forums many years ago (Mark Pitcavage's name springs immediately to mind), and I marvel at the persistence of the tendency. One hundred fifty years after the event, what benefit can these people possibly derive from inflicting insults upon those who have done them no harm?

After many years of study and contemplation, I concluded that there are some people whose self-concept is deeply rooted in pretending that they always have The Right Opinion in any controversy. Desiring to be admired for the moral rectitude of their opinions, they insist that everyone who doesn't share those opinions is guilty of some sort of mental sin.

You see this often, for example, among the advocates of Darwinian theory: If you merely doubt that the evidence proves what they say it proves, the Darwinian will interpret your skepticism as evidence of mental inferiority, or accuse you of superstitious bigotry against Science, comparing you to flat-earthers or other kooks.

This same phenomenon is at work in debates over the Civil War. I make no pretense that I am anything other than a special pleader in these debates: I am a Southerner, and will defend the South. But there is a certain sort of personality who, seeking to justify the Northern side of the conflict, is not content merely to defend the North because he is a Northerner. No, he insists that his intepretation of the matter must be universally acknowledged as The Right Opinion, so that anyone who disagrees is excluded from decent company -- cast into outer darkness! -- as morally and intellectual inferior, an enemy of All That Is Good, Decent, and True.

There is a totalitarian tendency evident in their arguments, and it always infuriates them when you point it out.

Ryan| 4.12.11 @ 3:19PM

Well stated. I think it can be applied to anything polarizing - evolution is one; noninterventionism is another on these boards.

Red Phillips | 4.12.11 @ 3:58PM

RSM, what you are describing is actually the quintessential Yankee attitude, Yankee being more of a mindset than a person from a particular geographic area, although that area in America had well more than its fair share of them. They are lapsed Puritians who have lost their faith but not their zeal. Everyone should read "The Yankee Problem in America" by historian Clyde Wilson.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/wilson/wilson12.html

Truth is King| 4.12.11 @ 4:07PM

Look, it isn't a matter of whether you're from the South so you defend the southern view on this, or vise-versa.

What ever happened to the truth of the matter? Or the truth of ANY matter, for that matter. :^).

What you said here about how the Northerners always casting aspersions on those who disagree could just as well be applied to the Southerners.

It also applies to Darwinism. There IS a truth of the matter. Someone is right and someone is actually wrong. In this matter~ the LORD God is always right, and He says He created man from out of the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils. (Genesis). So when everyone from the guy down the street to the Pope tries to say otherwise they are just plain WRONG.

I have a nephew who is like a confederate, except he's from the North, go figure. I know he honestly believes he is right. Is he?

I personally believe that Lincoln did what he thought was right at the time, don't think he was a racist, or was pro-slavery, and this according to the history I've read. God knows the truth and we will know it in the end when we meet (or not) in Heaven.

To say there is a totalitarian tendency in the arguments of those who side with the Northerners I also think isn't always true~ and the same could be said about the other side.

These men who fought and died for the cause I really honor them all in my heart. And I will look forward to meeting Mr. Lincoln in Heaven if God permits me entrance there. My faith speaks from my heart on the matter.

Red Phillips | 4.12.11 @ 4:51PM

"Look, it isn't a matter of whether you're from the South so you defend the southern view on this, or vise-versa.

What ever happened to the truth of the matter?"

TiK, whatever happened to loyalty? It is entirely appropriate for Southerners to defend the South because it is theirs the same way people love the home team because it is theirs and love their family, warts and all, because it is theirs. This is the natural order of things. It is a modern conceit that we are supposed to love our country because it is right or better or ideologically correct. We love our country because it is ours.

In the case of the WBTS, it was the South that was hostilely invaded, not the North who could have left well enough alone, so it is natural that Southerners would keep that flame burning longer.

Truth is King| 4.12.11 @ 6:32PM

So are you saying you'd forsake the truth for loyalty's sake?

Therein lies the entire problem with the world.

"For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show His might in behalf of those whose heart is blameless toward Him. You have done foolishly in this; for from now on you will have wars." 2 Chr. 16:19.

Occam's Tool| 4.12.11 @ 7:46PM

Might I note the following link:

www.freestateofwinston.org/factandfiction.htm.

That might give you a nice idea what "The Free State of Winston" was thinking when it seceded from the South. (Winston County, AL, home of the best Representative in the US House, Robert Aderholt---uber-Republican.)

Sorry, folks, it WAS about slavery. It is interesting to note, however, that the more obnoxious people fought for the better cause---the South is much more polite and safe than the North.

Truth is King| 4.13.11 @ 2:16PM

Thank you, Mr. OT!

Red Phillips | 4.12.11 @ 10:32PM

TiK, I am saying that nationhood is about people and place, not ideology. A patriot loves his country not because it is "right," but because it is his. Nationhood is not about "truth."

This is a fundamental conservative insight.

Truth is King| 4.13.11 @ 1:08PM

I see. So if a state wants to have slavery it's ok because it's a state.

What is a Nation of Laws, then?

Truth is King| 4.14.11 @ 1:28AM

And another thing.
So when we say, "One nation under God", it means nothing?
If loving your country doesn't mean loving it because it's right and true, then we are all just a bunch of blooming idiots.
And besides Red, you know your Bible. God is Truth.
Good night.

Reprobate Charlatan's Vomitus| 4.12.11 @ 4:13PM

RCV | 10.23.10 9:30PM

"I abhor sanctimonious conservatism of the tea party brand, an ideology wholly lacking in intelligence or a shred of real Christian love and compassion."

I don't bother with silly realities such as the likelihood that the confederates of 150 years ago possessed more integrity, character, courage, intelligence, honesty, and morality than the liberals of today and would overwhelmingly win a civil war over today's liberals if waged today while sanctimoniously providing statements like the one referenced above matters.

ncatty| 4.12.11 @ 4:29PM

I agree with your post, and yet there is a touchiness among my fellow Southerners to the word "slavery" which is sort of the opposite of the easy moralizing by Northerners/Yanks. Our ancestors (and I know this is a broad brush) were raised in an environment where the Negro/African-American was literally not viewed as a full human being. This view was widely shared in all of American society. In 2011, no one who reads AmSpec holds that view. So we should not hit the panic button over a discussion of slavery one way or the other.

Butch | 4.12.11 @ 5:59PM

As the many-greats grandson of both a Revolutionary War soldier and a Confederate soldier (and non-slaveholder, I might add), this fellow Southerner salutes you for kicking off the discussion, Mr. McCain. It's been enjoyable, and fairly civil.

Thom| 4.12.11 @ 6:13PM

Robert, the matter of Northern behavior toward the South was ever present for at least 40 years prior to the beginning of the Civil War and in many ways “slavery” was just a prop like the “race card” is today to be dragged out when the emotion of the moment was right.

There is another matter at work since the end of the ‘War between the States” that bears on this same smug attitude about people who hold life to different values than what is most often on display in the Northern half of the East Coast. By any objective measure you use the North in its conduct of the “war” was grossly incompetent, inefficient and at times morally repugnant with regard to the lives of its own soldiers. Fact.

A nominal 965 thousand Confederates and 2.8 million Unionists served during the war. The Union had complete naval supremacy but was still unable to stop war supplies from reaching the confederacy for most of the war. The Union outnumbered the South in total population by two and a half to one with slaves counted and 4.4 to 1 where Free able bodied males of military service age were concerned. Whereas other means of production and resources were concerned the odds were far worse not the least of which the North out gunned the South 32 to 1. There was no math that was going to bring Victory to the South on the Battlefield if the North just kept showing up and trying to run the Confederates out of bullets which is pretty much what Grant’s 1864 campaign in Virginia tried to the tune of 40,000 more Union dead that Spring than Confederates. Having three to one as many men serve in the war, overwhelming superiority of arms most of the time and nominally outnumbering the South in almost all battles sometimes by at least two to one and then losing 85,000 (44% more) more KIA than the South when all is said and done speaks to the gross incompetence of the Northern mindset.

Your typical Yankee mindset doesn’t want to deal with the facts of the matter because by any objective standard you use the North would have lost the “war” if it had only outnumbered the South by 2:1 rather than better than 4:1 thus “might makes right” and I strongly suspect the contempt you see from the North today rests on the fact that they know this. No one calls three Pit Bulls taking on a single dog of any breed you chose a fair fight thus the Yankee mindset has to invent a moral high ground to fall back on that simply didn’t exist when the war started. 618,000 men or proportionately the same as 6,000,000 today died because of one man’s crusade and lack of vision beyond the end of this term in office.

The legacy of Lincoln’s war is very much the foundation of the divide in this nation today. You may not see grey or blue uniforms on display but the two sides are taking form and the odds are a lot closer this time than in 1860. The Yankee mindset is quite aware of the cost of its last adventure in this regard and the shear gross incompetence of its leadership in that crusade. This is part of the foundation of the contempt on parade so often seen. The Yankee mindset speaks of “slavery” as if it only existed in the United States after the Constitution was ratified and there aren’t other forms of slavery just as hideous even today, here in the good old United States.

If another civil war comes to this land the Yankee mindset won’t have the “slavery” prop this time. For all intense purposes it is the Party of Slavery today in all its forms regardless of race, gender, religion or creed.

The Northern ideal of moral superiority back in 1860 was dealt a very rude awakening on the battlefield by people who were not only less numerous, not as well armed, not as well “educated” but for all purposes “lesser” people by Northern standards. The decay of the Northern states speaks to the moral decay that underpins their decline and gross incompetence in matters not just related to battlefield leadership and craft. They are the essence of the Ruling Class in their minds and like all elitists can’t come to grips with the whole true of most matters of history, the “War between the States” being just one example.

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 6:32PM

I reject completely the notion that as a Northerner, that my arguments are rooted in any kind of "totalitarian" mentality. Does the Academic Left resort to this sometimes when discussing the Civil War? Unquestionably. But what I keep sensing here is a desire to try to wash out the damned spot that will not out simply because there are too many present day conservatives who want to use the Civil War as the occasion to fight arguments related to present day issues and because they don't want to find themselves potentially on the same side of an issue as the Academic Left.

For me, the place to assail the Academic Left is not in regard to the Civil War, but in regard to Reconstruction where the Eric Foners of this world try to exonerate the indefensible like the Tenure Of Office Act and the Johnson Impeachment on the simplistic grounds that Johnson deserved to be removed because he was a racist. But for the Civil War itself, I have a VERY hard time understanding why anyone would try to defend a course of action by the South that like it or not, when you strip it to its core was about performing the ultimate act of disloyalty to the Constitution of the United States and all for the sake of perpetuating a truly vile institution. If that makes me "totalitarian" in my thought, then maybe I'm getting a better insight into who I should regard as the "conservatives" I should avoid.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 10:12PM

Right ejp. For me the issue with secessionism is the same as the issue involved with abolitionism or progressivism. All three movements turned their backs on the political principles of the founding fathers. It's not an issue of psychology. After all, the truths we are talking about are what Lincoln called our "ancient faith" -- the Declaration of Independence. These truths are not mere suggestions, nor are they outmoded ideas of the 18th century. They are those truths for which our forefathers gave their last full measure of devotion. So it's not psychology but a loyalty to our founding principles that motivates me to rebut the anti-Lincoln, pro-South trash talk that's coming from the Lew Rockwell types participating in this forum.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:47AM

Well stated. It is the desire on their part to cast off all "sin" exclusively onto the South and Southerners while at the same time refusing to acknowledge the North's part in any of this or to admit that its motives were anything other than pure as the driven snow.

I freely admit the South's hands were not clean. They can't bear to admit that the North's weren't either.

Jon| 4.12.11 @ 4:03PM

RSM: great article as always.
Len: great comments and info.
Yankees (and others) desperate to reassure themselves that the invasion, rape, destruction, and occupation of a country and people who freely decided to leave an oppressive government was okay since it "preserved the union" will always hang their hat on slavery - they have no other option. Hanging their hat on slavery, of course, requires them to ignore Louisiana Bob's point about the low level of slave ownership, the economic and technological realities that were (peacefully if slowly) driving slavery to extinction, the extent of slave trading in and through the North, the constitutionality of slavery, de Tocqueville's observations on the North's intolerance of blacks themselves, and on and on.
I'll always wonder how many Northern apologists truly believe what they say, versus how many know they're kidding themselves. In the end, it doesn't matter; they're too deeply invested in the North-as-savior myth to turn back now.

Steve A| 4.12.11 @ 3:41PM

I have read Shelby Foote's narrarative in its entirety & I can tell you that if you were to have the ability to go back in a time machine & ask the common Confederate soldier if he was fighting to preserve slavery he would have looked at you like you were from another planet.

The suggestion that The South & those who died for the Confederate cause were an "abomination" is a petty, shallow, oversimplification of a massively complex conflict.

The average Confederate fought for his right of self determination. Basically, to be left alone & not dictated to by a detached Federal Bureaucracy. The wealthy Southern politicians, plantation owners & slave masters were an abomination, yes.

Truth is King| 4.12.11 @ 4:25PM

See, I agree with your statement here, based on truth.
I'm a Northeasterner but I don't hold to the view that just because I'm from the North I have to agree with those on the side of the North at the time. Wouldn't that be like how some blacks think we ought to pay them reparations for past behavior of whites, or like how if a person of another ethnicity harms you once and so you choose to look at all persons of that ethnicity in a horrible way?

Isn't the truth what ought to matter?
Why do we have to re fight this war now among ourselves? Isn't the truth that Lincoln did what he thought he should do at the time, and that the men who fought in this war did so for what they thought was right?

I think we should honor them all and rightly so, by not refighting the war continually.

YeloStalyn| 4.12.11 @ 5:31PM

But the war does continue. If it didn't, there wouldn't be the likes of Communism in the world. The freedom on man would no longer need defending.

Peace is only accomplished when the victor causes the loser to succumb to that fact. That only happens when the victor is good otherwise the loser will constantly seek to overthrow the evil oppressor. Even Christ does not achieve peace without first waging war against Satan.

Truth is King| 4.12.11 @ 5:59PM

I was talking about the war of old.
As to your comment concerning the present war we are in, I fully agree.

YeloStalyn| 4.12.11 @ 6:02PM

I was commenting about the war of old because it's the same one we're in today.

Can the state use force to compel servitude, no matter the justification?

Thom| 4.12.11 @ 6:26PM

Truth is King,
The central tenet of “slavery” is denying a person the “fruit of their labor”. Regardless of what physical form it takes denying some or all of a person’s fruit from their labor is a form of slavery. 60% of my income goes to direct and indirect taxes. I get no direct or indirect benefit from most of that and about half the adults in this nation pay no income tax at all and about 30% pay no tax at all outside of sales taxes and alike. Who is the slave here, the ones that pays the bulk of the taxes or those that live off them? In truth, both are enslaved but it is my “fruit” being denied to the betterment of someone that produces nothing at all. We have a history with regard to looking upon our citizens as mere subjects for the amusement of those the benefit by spending our “fruit” to gain power and fame….

Truth is King| 4.12.11 @ 6:44PM

Yelo: Huh?

Thom: Absolutely correct. Well said.

Thom| 4.12.11 @ 7:18PM

Truth is King, if you agree then do I not have a property right in myself and have justification to "succeed" from this Union? Assuming I could just live outside this "Union" and take all my property with me.... thus there in lies the rub, "property" rights. With or without "slavery" the South couldn't take their "property" with them to another place thus they dissolved the contract that they felt was no longer binding....

The root of the problem here concerns "property" rights (not simply slaves as property) and the supremacy of the "state" over said property rights. Eleven "state" governments voted to leave the contract that was no longer being honored and the majority party declared war by calling up arms to put down a rebellion that did not exist at that time.... If the binding parts of a contract are ignored by one party this is what you get.... to the loss of everyone concerned usually.

Truth is King| 4.12.11 @ 8:16PM

Thom,

I'm not into arguing over the old war between the states. I just do not see the point. That was then, this is now.
I'm not sure what you're trying to get me to agree with about the current state of affairs~ but it seems like you want me to agree with secessionism? On that subject I do not know. It is the same thing as arguing over the old war and who was right or wrong... and I replied above as to my thoughts on the matter. I do not wish to re fight it, not now, not in the future.

May I just say that I accept our current form of government and until our Savior returns, which will be soon enough~ things are going to go according to His plan. Right now we are about to enter into the great Tribulation (Mt. 24 & 25), maybe we already are.. and each of us needs to be sorting out our own salvation with fear and trembling.
God bless you.

Butch | 4.12.11 @ 6:07PM

Prior to the War Between the States, the most important word in "United States of America" was "States." Those non-slaveholding, Scots-Irish dirt farmers, volunteers all, were defending their homeland from "foreign" invaders. Lee said as much, I believe, when he left the U.S. Army to accept the command of the Army of Northern Virginia.

Thom| 4.12.11 @ 6:28PM

If what I've read is accurate and I can't verify it, Lee said something to the effect that "a union held together at the point of a sword is no union at all".

If someone can verify this please do.....

Quartermaster| 4.12.11 @ 6:38PM

He actually left to become Adjutant General of Virginia. It wasn't until Yankee troops were knocking on Richmond's door and A.S. Johnston was wounded, did Lee take the Army of Northern Virginia.

Quartermaster| 4.12.11 @ 6:38PM

He actually left to become Adjutant General of Virginia. It wasn't until Yankee troops were knocking on Richmond's door and A.S. Johnston was wounded, did Lee take the Army of Northern Virginia.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 5:04AM

Truth,
your sentiment is a noble one but not having walked in our shoes (as a Southerner) I'm not sure you can understand. Even today 150 years later it is Southerners who are always called racist and this is especially so if they show any pride in their region or its history, heritage and culture. It is always the South the MSM and liberal academia as well as Hollywood sneer at. It is our ancestors who are called "traitors" for standing up for exactly the same values the Founders championed 2 generations before. It is our flag that is called a hate symbol and we are told it must be hauled down and can have no place of honor. The history textbooks in government run schools or so-called "documentaries" on PBS always tell only one side of the story....whatever makes the South look bad. It is us who are compared to nazis etc etc. The "cultural elite' just can't seem to insult us enough to satisfy themselves. If you are a Southerner the only way you can be deemed "acceptable" is to engage in constant self flagellation.

As I've said before...our hands were not clean. I wish they were...but the truth is they weren't. Of course...it was New England which was the center of the slave trade and which profited enormously from it. The Northern states, when they abolished slavery did so slowly giving their citizens plenty of time to sell off their slaves so they would take no financial loss. They then passed black codes and engaged in vicious discrimination to drive out the few blacks they had and/or made it impossible for them to earn a living there so as to get rid of them. They used their majority to vote themselves the huge majority of the federal budget for infrastructure as well as industry subsidies paid for mostly with slave-generated Southern export commodities...in addition to the cheaper cotton generated by slave labor and sent off to their mills to generate huge profits for them. In short....the North PROFITED ENORMOUSLY from slavery.......yet they refuse to acknowledge any of this....just as they refuse to acknowledge that racism was hardly exclusive to the South. They paint themselves as being the lily-white champions of liberty and tolerance against those "evil" Southerners who grew tired of being demonized by sanctimonious Yankees while being forced to line their pockets with the very thing the Yankees demonized them for having and sold to them in the first place!

Are you starting to "get it" why it doesn't just go away for Southerners and why many of us give the collective middle finger to those who engage in that sort of thing?

Derek Leaberry| 4.12.11 @ 4:22PM

Sad to see so many "conservatives" endorsing a universalist, egalitarian world view. The world has never been perfect and only a leftie would try to perfect it. We know how those escapades went.

For those who made it out of college freshman history indoctrination in the public schools, the writer of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, did not consider women of any color or men of color as equals to white men. Don't slit your wrists when you contemplate that. Or weep.

I am a 20th Century man for whom slavery is foreign and distant, an institution that I am glad is gone with the wind. Yet I must say that to see the black squalor in scores of Yankee cities forces me to at least contemplate that most plantations must have been more civilized.

Clint| 4.12.11 @ 4:44PM

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

YeloStalyn| 4.12.11 @ 5:01PM

I would like to ask those who defend the North as emancipators a question:

What is the difference between a man (the slave holder) using force (the whip) to compel service of another (the slave) with...
A group of men (the Union) using force (the army) to compel service of another (the South, and in this case, service and obedience to the Union)?

And what is worse? The one who holds to an institution that does not respect the rights of another or one who undermines the rights of all?

In no way should this be read as a defense of slavery. Just trying to point out that regardless of how bad slavery was, the solution provided was equally (and could be argued worse) bad.

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 6:38PM

I submit that ANY state that decides it's not going to respect the outcome of a Presidential election decided fairly at the ballot box, which is what the South did, shames the Constitution of the United States as surely as those Federalists who gathered in Hartford during the War of 1812 did and do not deserve to be regarded as those who are having their "rights" undermined.

Frankly, this defense of the South and their motives is reminding me a good deal of the Ellen Schrecker defense of the Rosenbergs. Treason in the name of a "noble" principle.

Thom| 4.12.11 @ 6:43PM

Your entitled to your opinion but not your own facts.....
You can not be guilty of a law that is not enumerated unless you just think the law is what men with arms say it is when you have no choice.

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 7:24PM

I think when it comes the side who thinks it's entitled to their own "facts", the one that defends the Roe vs. Wade style judicial activism of the Dred Scott decision and then further compound that by suggesting a "right" to secession that does not exist in the Constitution are the ones who need to take a look in the mirror.

Thom| 4.12.11 @ 7:32PM

Did you miss that part in the Bill of Rights that says those rights not enumerated in the Federal Constitution are reserved for the States or the People there EJP? The powers, not rights in the Federal Constitution are few and limited. Your belief that succession by the “several States” is not allowed simply because it isn’t in there is ass backwards. The “several States” created the Federal government and ratified what powers (not rights) it has over them for the common defense. Try reading the Constitution, Bill of Rights, Federalist Papers and then get back when you know what the difference is between an enumerated power and right is……

Then look in a mirror at the deer in the headlights expression.

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 8:01PM

Except that nowhere in that phrase is the word"secession" to be found. And might I suggest having the guts to take a look at what triggered the initial act of secession, because it wasn't the imposition of troops, it was the South throwing a temper tantrum over an election result (shades of the Wisconsin teachers union!) and then deciding to nullify the outcome through a course of action not guaranteed by the Constitution. When it comes to looking in the mirror, I've taught US history enough over the decades (with a doctorate in American History) I am quite confident in regards to my own view of events.

Thom| 4.12.11 @ 8:22PM

You've taught your interpretation of what you call history while ignoring the vast body of evidence that what you believe now was not the commonly understood version in practice right up to the 1860. Teaching a lie for decades out of a text book someone writes does not make it the truth.

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 9:00PM

Oh, please. I think if there's any lie being taught here, it's the notion that slavery really wasn't front and center the big reason behind why events happened when they did.

I suggest that those who are so quick to see the South as the embodiment of all that is right in regards to the interpretation of the Constitution re-read the "Cornerstone Speech" sometime. Alexander Stephens was honest enough to admit that "This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and the present revolution." And maybe then, conservatives who wonder why we still have trouble making inroads in the black community despite their natural inclinations to support many conservative ideas will get a cold lesson in reality.

Thom| 4.12.11 @ 9:30PM

Conservatives can't make inroads into the "black community" because most “blacks” think (and are taught) they are owed someone else’s fruits of their labor while most Conservatives think each individual is the master of his own labor….. These two concepts cannot be reconciled.

There are no living black African “slaves” in this nation and haven’t been any legal slaves since 1865 thus what does the “war between the States” really have to do with the plight of the black African decedents of slaves? Nothing. They’ve been “free” for over 145 years and outside the “South” I'm told have lived in blissful utopian prosperity among the ancestors that fought to end “slavery” for them. Take Harlem for example, Watts, South Side Chicago, Detroit, and Washington DC within sight of the great Emancipator himself….. Killing hundreds of thousands on behalf of a people who aren’t real appreciative of the “gift” of freedom won by the sacrifice of others in mass is one matter; not being able to assimilate into this society in any of the “several States” after 145 years is another matter entirely and outside the scope of the “war between the States”.

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 9:38PM

My point is that if conservatives continue to try and wrap themselves up in the notion that the South had somehow the "stronger" argument in regards the Constitution in 1861, then that plays right into the hands of the black racists of today who try to insist they need to keep voting for the Democratic party for their own good. I consider it as bad as Barry Goldwater's vote against the Civil Rights Act which I know was not for racist reasons but to this day it too is used as a roadblock by black elite racists to paint conservatism in general as "racist" philosophy.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:09PM

Stephens also said this:
“Their ( the Yankees) philanthropy yields to their interests. Notwithstanding their professions of humanity, they are disinclined to give up the benefits they derive from slave labor…The idea of enforcing the laws, has but one object, and that is collection of the taxes, raised by slave labor to swell the fund necessary to meet their heavy appropriations. The spoils is what they are after – though they come from the labor of the slave.”

While Jefferson Davis said this:
"I tried all in my power to avert this war. I saw it coming, for twelve years I worked night and day to prevent it, but I could not. The North was mad and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came, and now it must go on till the last man of this generation falls in his tracks, and his children seize the musket and fight our battle, unless you acknowledge our right to self government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence, and that, or extermination." - President Jefferson Davis

Clint | 4.12.11 @ 7:34PM

" Historian Kenneth M. Stampp, in his book The Imperiled Union, maintains that it is impossible to say that secession was illegal because of the ambiguity of the original Constitution as to state sovereignty and the right of secession. He points out that "the case for state sovereignty and the constitutional right of secession had flourished for forty years before a comparable case for a perpetual Union had been devised," and even then its logic was "far from perfect because the Constitution and the debates over ratification were fraught with ambiguity." It appears that the original intent of an unquestioned right of secession was established by the Founders, took root and "flourished for forty years," then later a "perpetual Union" counter-argument developed out of political necessity when Northern states began realizing their wealth and power was dependent on the Union and its exploitation of the South."

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 7:56PM

Show me where the word "secession" is to be found in the Constitution and you have a case. Absent that, what I'm hearing is the same crocked argument used to justify the imposition of gay marriage and abortion. Put another way, the South was the first practitioners of the "living document" concept it would seem.

Len | 4.12.11 @ 8:12PM

You're still missing it, the US constitution is about what the federal government can do on behalf of the states AS THEY GRANTED IT. It is not a permission list for the states or the people.

Why don't you show us where the states are prohibited from withdrawing their grants of power to the federal government?

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 8:17PM

I reiterate: Shew me the word "secession" in the document arrived at in 1787 in Philadelphia in explaining the nature of how our government is to function.

I am for a LIMITED Federal government. But to be in favor of a limited Federal government is not to be in favor of the notion that states have this right endanger the maintenance of our basic framework of Constitutional government which is what the act of secession, ESPECIALLY when the motive behind secession is rooted in discontent over how the legitimate process has unfolded. And I hold that view equally for those in the South in 1861 as I do for those in New England in 1814, two regions which of course had diametrically opposite views about the nature of the size of the Federal government, so at the very least, I can't be accused of inconsistency on the subject.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:10PM

Show me where secession is forbidden in the Constitution. What the Founders created was a VOLUNTARY union with limited powers. What Lincoln created was a centralized Leviathan.

Len | 4.12.11 @ 8:15PM

BTW, the US constitution was created as an act of secession, in defiance of the "perpetual union" that the A of C spoke of. Where did the Articles of Confederation say it could be voided by 9 of the 13 states?

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 8:19PM

The Union as a whole came to an agreement ultimately on the Constitution by the actions of their popularly elected assemblies who chose to ratify the document and who then ratified all subsequent amendments which was the decision they made as a whole that the Articles no longer applied. Your grasping at straws is becoming even more amazing.

Len | 4.12.11 @ 8:23PM

Grasping at straws? Seriously? Mr. Doctorate you are aware that the first congress met with only 11 states in the union at the time, and that during the debates over the Bill of Rights, they pled necessity to get the remaining states to join? No one spoke of waiting for unanimity before getting under way.

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 8:31PM

I am aware of it. I am also aware of how not having the matter of ratification be a totally unanimous thing is also one of the beauties of Mr. Madison's concept of checks and balances that we believe today are so important. That one of the thirteen should have a veto over the sentiments of what 12 of 13 is a concept of tyranny of the minority that I personally have no use for in that context any more than I would from a single judge.

Thom| 4.12.11 @ 8:16PM

EJP, you continue to make the asinine argument that the “several States” have no powers in and of themselves and are merely “slaves” to what the Federal Constitution says (and doesn’t say) while simultaneously ignoring what the 9th and 10th amendments say regarding reserved powers (too numerous to list in the Constitution/Bill of Rights) with a large dose of common sense thrown out the window regarding the whole argument during the ratification process between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists with regard to a too powerful central government….. The facts as they existed in 1860 and with over 70 years of practice simply aren’t on your side in this matter. You are making the case whether you are willing to accept this or not that the “several States” and the peoples within are mere pawns in whatever power play the Federal government wants to give chase to visa simply majority rule…. Which is the exact reason the Bill of Rights was crafted and contains the 9th and 10th Amendment. In effect, there are no Federal people, citizens per say. We are all members of a State even today and are subject to State laws not reserved to the Federal government. If you can’t grasp the nature of Federalism as established during the ratification process no one can help you.

The Second Amendment speaks to the rights of the "several States" or the people to protect themselves from who there EJP?

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 8:25PM

I have not made the argument that the states are the slaves of the Federal government. I have made the argument that the states have no right of secession because a document that is specific enough to explain the nature of the government the states agreed to enter into would, if there was to be any 'escape hatch' to be made available for a state to decide not to be part of that system agreed to any longer, then such provisions would have been made in 1787 and spelt out. They were not, and thus I have no problem holding the view entirely consistent with my conservatism of today that secession from the Union is an "implied power" to be granted to the states, which is how it is being framed here. Powers to be reserved for the states and not for the Federal goverment, refer to what the states can carry out, and not a "right" to seceed. Especially not for the reasons rooted in slavery.

Len | 4.12.11 @ 8:30PM

And now it's clear..sorry EJP, the states are not granted powers by the federal government, but the other way around, and that as the people of the states determine(d).

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 8:36PM

The Federal government's powers were granted in the drafting of the Constitution agreed to and ratified by the states creating the system of government all agreed to, and which the South, because of their refusal to accept an election result won by Mr. Lincoln, decided that they could then somehow tear up the system for reasons that do not pass muster with me on a Constitutional level, and even less so on a moral level. Because you still find yourself in the position of defending the side that at its core in its political leadership was about the maintenance of slavery.

Now the latest I hear is that the average Confederate soldier would be bewildered by the argument he was defending slavery. But we keep hearing it noted how most Americans who fought in the Revolution likely never heard of the Stamp Act or any of the other reasons spelt out in the Declaration of Independence. I'm not sure I get how that argument is supposed to impress me because the rank and file Confederate soldier wasn't the one who was going to determine the future policy of the South in regards to slavery, that was going to be entirely in the hands of those in political leadership who believed first and foremost in the maintenance of their "peculiar institution".

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:15PM

The Southern states were not going to "tear up the system" as you allege. They were simply leaving. Those who wished to remain could have whatever system they wanted. This is as absurd as Lincoln's argument that they were trying to "save the Union". The Union was never imperiled. It simply would have controlled less territory....specifically that territory inhabited by those people who did not consent to be ruled by it.

Thom| 4.12.11 @ 8:32PM

Yes you have in effect. You are making the majority rule argument which in effect voids the whole purpose of the "several States" and the 9th and 10th amendments. Your argument is that no State has any say so with regard to the enumerated powers of the Federal government if they simply have majority support which turns the whole concept of the Bill of Rights on its head. As I said, the 2nd Amendment speaks to the rights reserved to the "seveal States" or the People which is kind of hard to wiggle around the ultimate outcome of that right if exercised. Succession by any name you dress it up with is ratified in the 2nd Amendment.

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 8:41PM

Uh, let me see now just what under the Bill of Rights was being threatened by the election of Abraham Lincoln? Not freedom of speech, not freedom of the press, not right to trial by jury, not the right to bear arms (that's what the Second Amendment is about. Your discovery that secession is included in that is the kind of reasoning that would have done Justice Blackmun proud) and at that point in time not even the right to own slaves. No, they just decided that they figured that Lincoln as president was unacceptable so time for them to make their exit and then decide with the firing on Fort Sumter that they, the South were prepared to spill blood for the sake of "southern Independence". That's not a course of action in keeping with my concept of what embodies the spirit of what America represents, and if that makes me "totalitarian" so be it. At least I'm not the one resorting to ideas from the handbook of modern-day liberalism to try and let the South off the hook.

Thom| 4.12.11 @ 9:13PM

EJP, like today the President is the last link to majority rule and running over the Constitution at numerous levels. Lincoln would have opened the flood gates on even more measures that put the squeeze on the South through more taxation schemes. You deny this? Men by the hundreds of thousands don’t take up arms to defend against an invasion for mere sport. They understood Lincoln would have been a flag for the Abolitionist’s movement in Congress. The agreements between the Northern colonies and the Southern ones were in all purposes dead letter. The majority in Congress would have quickly created new “states” out of the territories free of slavery and stacked the house in favor of amendments to void what had been agreed to during the ratification process.

I believe Fort Sumter belonged to South Carolina and the Union garrison that positioned itself there was given the chance to leave unharmed and refused. If someone takes up residence on your property and interdicts your commerce under the threat of lethal fire you might react badly too but you don’t endeavor to kill over 600,000 men over such an incident unless you have complete disregard for the views of the other side.

No one is letting the South “off the hook” here. Their actions didn’t set the precedents in place and the legacy we have to deal with today. Institutional slavery as it was practiced then was dying out in the civilized world and the industrial revolution was going to hasten its death. It’s the Crusade at that moment in time by one man to do violence on a large scale that concerns those of us who what to live in a nation laws, not men.

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 9:26PM

"They understood Lincoln would have been a flag for the Abolitionist’s movement in Congress."

I rest my case on why I find the defense of the South repugnant on a base moral argument.

"The majority in Congress would have quickly created new “states” out of the territories free of slavery"

And this is supposed to be wrong? Seems to me that what I'm reading here is a crass defense of the Dred Scott decision, not to mention a bizarre notion that slavery should have been extended into the territories.

The idea that slavery should have been seen as something bound to die out eventually is a notion that is easy for a Monday morning quarterback to assume with hindsight a century later, but it is impossible to sense that attitude within the Confederacy and more importantly its leaders during that time, especially when one reads the chlling Cornerstone Speech and Alexander Stephens' defense of slavery and a lot more. It is perhaps one of the most disgusting things I have ever read in my life and is enough to make me wonder just what kind of sick mentality filled the minds of southerners who believed in such a concept, just as I find sick and repulsive those who justify legalized mass murder in something called abortion.

As for who bears responsibility for the 600,000 killed in the conflict, I take the view that the South bore that responsibility the day the first gun was fired at Sumter. Lincoln could have sent in troops into the South the day after he was Inaugurated. He prudently chose to wait and see if the South was really prepared to engage in that course of action of opening fire on fellow Americans. The South was the one who could have made Lincoln's position far more difficult on that subject but once they opened fire it is interesting how every Northerner who might a few months earlier have been willing to say "good riddance to the South, let them go" was then prepared to volunteer for the defense of the Union.

Len | 4.12.11 @ 9:38PM

So Lincoln who refused to treat with South Carolina for the return of Ft. Sumter is not responsible? Ft. Sumter which sits in South Carolina's waters, 500 miles from the nearest northern border.

All Lincoln had to do was say goodby and fare thee well, but he refused to and did so due to his refusal to acknowledge the right of the states to withdraw the very same powers they had granted to be exercised on their behalf. If the exercise of these rights were dependent on the other states allowing them to used, they were no rights at all and the very act of ratification a fraud.

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 9:57PM

Ah yes, Lincoln should have allowed us to be permanently divided and the South should have been allowed to perpetuate for all time that which Stephens called a government founded on the premise that the Negro is inferior.

No thank you.

axbucxdu| 4.12.11 @ 9:59PM

"...they were no rights at all and the very act of ratification a fraud".

Bingo. The moral crusade made serfs of US all.

Thom| 4.12.11 @ 9:50PM

“And this is supposed to be wrong? Seems to me that what I'm reading here is a crass defense of the Dred Scott decision, not to mention a bizarre notion that slavery should have been extended into the territories.”

I make no argument that slavery in any form is right or moral. I simply point out that the agreements made during the Revolution, Articles of Confederation and ratification of the Constitution left “slavery” a state matter and what I described is merely the mechanism to voiding the agreements made. You don’t have to like the moral issue but if social contracts are to be dismissed by parliamentarian procedures such as creating new “states” out of thin air in order to stack the deck against a minority then in essence the contracts that bond us in a Republic aren’t worth the paper they are written on. I never have nor have any reason to defend the “South” 150 years ago but I do condemn the North for voiding the Constitution and the social contract upon which that was based in the late 1780s. The North’s transgressions aren’t limited to the South by any means either. Invading Maryland, shutting down newspapers in the North that were on board with Lincoln and suspending specific Bill of Rights are just a good start on an out of control government that would do anything to maintain power, the Constitution be damned. I will also point out that all the post Civil War amendments were passed without the participation of the 13 Southern “states” thus making a mockery of the whole process. They could only “reenter” the Union held together at the point of a sword by agreeing to them after the fact or face perpetual occupation. If this is your idea of a Union, well get used to the one that is about to overwhelm us in the name of preserving the Union again…..

ejp| 4.12.11 @ 10:08PM

"I simply point out that the agreements made during the Revolution, Articles of Confederation and ratification of the Constitution left “slavery” a state matter"

Which Lincoln wasn't touching at that point in time and that the South well knew.

"You don’t have to like the moral issue but if social contracts are to be dismissed by parliamentarian procedures such as creating new “states” out of thin air in order to stack the deck against a minority then in essence the contracts that bond us in a Republic aren’t worth the paper they are written on."

Huh? In order to uphold the Constitution, you are saying slavery HAD to extend to the new territories for the sake of preserving permanent balance? This is really amazing. We're supposed to believe that extension of a vile institution was the lynchpin holding us together.

As for making the contracts not worth the paper they were printed on, the act of secession by itself by the South, expressing their anger over the outcome of an election decided fairly (I guess to keep the peace no Republican should EVER have been elected and the outcome rigged to placate Southern attitudes!) under the process of the Constitution is what sticks out far more for me.

Lincoln's actions in Maryland? Lincoln saw those borne by an extraordinary circumstance caused by the unique case of Maryland itself. By contrast, Lincoln exercised restraint in Kentucky where the same risk existed for secession by a slave state that ultimately did not go. I do not see Lincoln as one who believed in usurping due process for loyal Americans, but I certainly do relate to the notion that those seeking the destruction of the Constitution through acts of disloyalty in the sundering the nation are not automatically entitled to protection of habaes corpus any more than I would regard detainees at Guantanamo to be entitled to its protection.

"If this is your idea of a Union, well get used to the one that is about to overwhelm us in the name of preserving the Union again….."

The only problem is that it was the South that borrowed all the ideas out of the handbook of contemporary liberalism. Judicial activism in Dred Scott denying the right of the elected legislature to decide and regulate slavery in the territories (not to mention its repelling definition of the legal standing of slaves); "Living history document" notions about secession; pushing for nullification of duly legitimate elections (in the tradition of Wisconsin teachers) and on it goes. I for one as a conservative for today's America have no desire to EVER find my philsophy and values on the same side of those who were only interested in preserving a repugnant institution called slavery.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 10:28PM

ejp, I agree with everything you've said so far -- eloquently and with an obvious background of deep knowledge of the subject -- but there's one point I disagree with you on: that the Dred Scot decision was an example of judicial activism.

This was Bork's argument but he was soundly criticized for it by Jaffa (see his book Storm Over the Constitution). Judicial activism didn't really start until the late 1940s with the incorporation doctrine. Dred Scot was just an ignorant decision, not a judicially activist decision.

YeloStalyn| 4.13.11 @ 10:29AM

"I for one as a conservative for today's America have no desire to EVER find my philsophy and values on the same side of those who were only interested in preserving a repugnant institution called slavery."

Yet you will find your values on the same side as the North given all their transgressions? I have a hard time seeing how the two sides are all that different morally. So... pot... meet kettle.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:17PM

There is nothing morally repugnant about the South not wanted to be economically exploited or plundered by the Northern states.

“What do you propose, gentlemen of the free soil party? Do you propose to better the condition of the slave? Not at all. What then do you propose? You say you are opposed to the expansion of slavery. Is the slave to be benefited by it? Not at all. What then do you propose? It is not humanity that influences you in the position which you now occupy before the country. It is that you may have an opportunity of cheating us that you want to limit slave territory within circumscribed bounds. It is that you may have a majority in the Congress of the United States and convert the government into an engine of Northern aggrandizement. It is that your section may grow in power and prosperity upon treasures unjustly taken from the South, like the vampire bloated and gorged with the blood which it has secretly sucked from its victim. You desire to weaken the political power of the Southern states, - and why? Because you want, by an unjust system of legislation, to promote the industry of the New England States, at the expense of the people of the South and their industry.” Jefferson Davis in the US Senate 1860

Clint | 4.12.11 @ 11:02PM

" There had to be a specific constitutional prohibition on secession for it to be illegal. Conversely, there did not have to be a specific constitutional affirmation of the right of secession for it to be legal. Why? Because the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

YeloStalyn| 4.13.11 @ 10:24AM

"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights, SHAL NOT BE CONSTRUED TO DENY OR DISPARAGE OTHERS retained by the people."
Amendment IX

THAT is where the Constitution mentions secession.

ejp| 4.13.11 @ 12:04PM

Funny, I don't see the word "secession" there. Could you point it out, please?

It takes reasoning rooted in judicial activism, not original intent to come up with that notion.

YeloStalyn| 4.13.11 @ 1:41PM

The Constitution is NOT a list of rights or powers of the states and/or people. While it does list SOME, the 9th and 10th Amendments clarify that unless it is a power or right given specifically to the federal government, then it does lie with the states. Madison himself said that there is an infinate power of the State on all issues EXCEPT the few spelled out for the fed. How do you fail to realize that includes secession.

The onus is NOT on the state to cite their authority... it is on the fed to cite theirs. And if they can't, then it DOES reside with the states and people. Every imaginable power that is not granted to the feds. The only thing that would limit that all-inclusive list would be a later act of the people to specifically regulate or otherwise affect a specific power or right.

Original intent backs up exactly what I just said. And so does Madison. Where do you see that secession is NOT a power of the state in the Constitution?

ejp| 4.13.11 @ 2:06PM

You keep alas repeating a circular argument that avoids the fact that the word "secession" is not there. To seceed in effect means rendering asunder the government as described in the Constitution and freeing the state of any obligation to be part of any Federal government arrangement. I seriously doubt that Madison had an escape hatch rooted in anarchy in mind.

YeloStalyn| 4.13.11 @ 4:34PM

I don't have to quote secession to prove it's backing in the Constitution. Where does it say states can make speed limits? Where can they make it illegal to jay walk? Those powers are not listed so, according to your logic, they must not be true jurisdiction of the states.

That is my point... it is precisely because it is NOT there... listed and regulated... that it is a right and power retained to the states and people via the 9 and 10.

Do you have anything to back up an understanding of the Constitution that would indicate that unless it is granted to the states specifically, they do not have ANY power or right?

YeloStalyn| 4.13.11 @ 4:34PM

I don't have to quote secession to prove it's backing in the Constitution. Where does it say states can make speed limits? Where can they make it illegal to jay walk? Those powers are not listed so, according to your logic, they must not be true jurisdiction of the states.

That is my point... it is precisely because it is NOT there... listed and regulated... that it is a right and power retained to the states and people via the 9 and 10.

Do you have anything to back up an understanding of the Constitution that would indicate that unless it is granted to the states specifically, they do not have ANY power or right?

ejp| 4.13.11 @ 5:13PM

"I don't have to quote secession to prove it's backing in the Constitution."

Oh yes you do. Just as I believe the basis for the right to bear arms is because it SAYS so in the text, and the basis for a limited Federal government is based on what it SAYS in the text, I also believe the Constitution does not grant a "right" to do something that is not so stated, whether it's gay marriage or abortion or secession.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:19PM

Talk about circular arguments! Look in a mirror lately?

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 10:32PM

Because the states originally agreed to the social compact to form a mixed government. (sovereignty divided between the federal and state governments). From that point on, elections would decide issues rather than guns, and change and revolution could be carried out by way of Amendments.

Africans were never a party to a social contract with their masters. They were captured (often by other Africans) and sold into slavery against their will.

That's a pretty radical difference.

Clint | 4.12.11 @ 11:06PM

The arguments for the right of secession are unequivocal. There is the constitutional right based on the Compact Theory, and the revolutionary right based on the idea that a free people have the right to change their government anytime they see fit. The Compact Theory views the Constitution as a legal agreement between the states - a compact - and if any one state violates the compact, then the entire agreement becomes null and void. Northern states unquestionably violated the Constitution on a number of grounds including unconstitutional Personal Liberty Laws on their books, as well as by deliberately harboring fugitives from justice by protecting the sons of John Brown who were wanted by Virginia for murder at Harpers Ferry.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 11:32PM

A social compact is one in which the parties unanimously agree to allow future political decisions to be made by majority vote (the results not violating the original laws of the contract, or natural law). There is no unilateral right of secession. A "state" violating the compact would simply be in rebellion. It does not render the compact null and void. Such a view is just plain anarchy.

Truth is King| 4.13.11 @ 1:23PM

Well said.
Looks like the Libertarian anarchists have their "views" of what they want and it isn't according to the rule of Law.
To me, from reading these posts and using reason it looks like secession is rebellion but NOT according to the Constitution which is the rule of Law, the governing document of the U.S.
If the nasty Clint/Tim*s of the country don't like it here they are more than invited to leave it, and I'll help them pack their bags.
We have elections here. We have the rule of law.
Abide by it, or suffer the consequences.

YeloStalyn| 4.13.11 @ 4:39PM

But one can just as easily say that we have elections and... THEREFORE... suffer the consequences (current state of affairs for example). An election is simply to denote a certain person as the retainer of powers freely granted by the states and people until such a time as they see it necissary, to maintain the right to rule one's self (yes, I do see the hypocracy here because we're talking about slave owners... but I mention else where that these two things do not serve to justify or defeat eachother and must be seperate arguments) to revoke those powers.

Secession is a state saying that it is taking it's voluntarily given, and therefore voluntarilly taken back, sovriegnty from a union that has transgressed the trust between the two institutions.

A far better option than bloody revolution... but Lincoln had none of it 600,000 bodies later.

Truth is King| 4.13.11 @ 5:09PM

We suffer the consequences of our elections, yes. But that doesn't give us the "Right" to Anarchy.

And you're blaming Lincoln for the deaths but the South caused the war by their rebellion.
That's what it looks like to me.
Either way, God will be the Judge on the Last Day when all are resurrected~to face either eternal damnation or eternal life.
The thing that I notice here is that Libertarians and Paleo-cons seem to try and sell Secessionism (Anarchy) as a viable option, even today, when just as we had then we have now~ a Constitution and the rule of law. A Republic, which I wish to try and keep.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:24PM

That is not entirely accurate. They may allow future decisions to be made by majority vote....within certain boundaries while at the same time protecting the rights of the minority. What you advocate is untrammeled power for the majority. That is not what the Constitution was. The Union was voluntary which means there was a unilateral right of secession as provided for in the 9th and 10th Amendments and as publicly stated by several of the Founders and others. The secession of this or that state from the United States would no more result in "anarchy" than the secession of the 13 colonies from the British Empire resulted in "anarchy". I'll tell you what it would do though. It would tend to limit the power of the federal government. With the threat that any state whose interests were abused or rights infringed could simply depart, the federal government would have to tread lightly and could not become too oppressive or too dominated by sectional interests.

victor| 4.13.11 @ 1:39PM

Clint/Tim*:
"The POWERS not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

The Tenth governs POWERS and who has them.

"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain RIGHTS, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."

The Ninth Amendment governs RIGHTS and who has them.

Clint:
"The arguments for the RIGHT of secession are unequivocal."

So says Clint's unnamed source.

So, which is it, Clint/Tim*?

Is Secession a Right or a Power?

Or is it merely an action that is not governed by any amendment?

Maybe you should cite a Founding Father as to the intent or meaning of Secession.

Madison, Jefferson or Adams would be a good start.
Not one of your unnamed spooks.
Or modern day "interpreters" of the Constitution.

That seems to be your forte, citing questionable sources and not going to THE source: The Founding Fathers.

PS. speaking of questionable sources, why did you ever change your name to Clint?

YeloStalyn| 4.13.11 @ 1:44PM

Weither it is a right or a power is irrelavant... if it's one, it's covered by the 9th. The other, the 10th. Either way, since it is not prohibited to the states, or granted to the feds, it lies by default with the states and people. As I've mentioned before, Madison clarified that that does in fact mean there is an unlimited list of rights and powers resereved for the states and people... everything not otherwise restricted or granted to the feds.

Truth is King| 4.13.11 @ 1:54PM

How is it a "Right" to rise up against your own country? (Anarchism) outside of the election process?(The Rule of Law).

Oh, that's right. They didn't like who got elected.

YeloStalyn| 4.13.11 @ 2:02PM

No... they didn't like a government that began to stack the deck against them thus creating a tyranny of the majority. It was not the election... that was just the catalyst for an already long standing disagreement. To point to one single event is rather elementry in this complex situation.

And if it isn't a right to rise up against your own country when suffering under tyranny... then we are still, justly, Englishmen who simply call ourselves American's.

Truth is King| 4.13.11 @ 2:12PM

If they wanted to LEAVE, then they should have just left. But they started the war~ they fired the first shot, did they not?

Oh so elementary I know, my dear Watson.

YeloStalyn| 4.13.11 @ 2:46PM

Who fired the first shot and who caused the war are not the same.

If a man breaks into your home and you tell him to leave and he doesn't so you shoot at him because he has arms and you feel threatened and beleive he means you harm... who started the altercation?

ejp| 4.13.11 @ 4:17PM

"Stack the deck?" What in the world is this supposed to mean? If this gets back to the fact that long-term the potential existed for more free states than slave states based on the more moderate Lincolnian concept of keeping it out of the territories, then by default that makes you a defender of the "peculiar institution's" importance to the South whether you like to admit it or not.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:25PM

They did not "rise up against". They merely left. They were quite content to leave in peace. It was the Federal government that chose to make war of it.

Len| 4.12.11 @ 5:20PM

Just as an aside, the funny thing is I too once took the naive view that the South by seceding was essentially kidnapping the slaves and the north doing no wrong by waging war, but then a black man, Walter Williams, helped me to reconsider the facts. This was during my initial foray into political forums and I have since done more and more research and learned that really most of what is put out as truth by both progressives and conservatives is hardly that.

Thom| 4.12.11 @ 6:40PM

Len,
if one takes the view that a nation of laws is preferable to a nation of men then the “war between the states” boils down to just 2.8 million Union men under arms beating the shit out of 965 thousand Confederates over four years in the worst display of military incompetence up to that point in time. Lincoln lied repeatedly about his intentions. If he had had the wisdom of Reagan he would have sent Jefferson Davis a note asking if they needed any help in succession…. And then waited. The South was like Iran, a one product economy with a shrinking market for slave labor produced produces and almost no way to industrialize. It would not have been viable beyond 10-20 years alone. Of course Lincoln was a crusader and had no wisdom with regard to what was forged in the ratification process and he just shit on the whole concept to feed his guilt complex….. He got the great monument, we got the Master.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 10:34PM

I like Walter Williams, but on this issue he is dead wrong. He is viewing it from a purely libertarian, economic perspective, which is a myopic view.

Len | 4.12.11 @ 8:43PM

EJP at 8:19 you claim that the union as a whole came to an agreement, then acknowledge that the first congress was in session without all 13 states. You are absolving these states who voided the A of C merely because they had a majority. However, these states had no right (according to your reasoning) to do so without unanimity per the A of C. You are merely claiming some sort of majoritarian right regardless of contract.

skip| 4.12.11 @ 8:45PM

What an illuminating thread.

Note the quantity and quality of compelling arguments for state secession.

Note the quantity and quality of compelling arguments for union preservation.

Note how little information of this thread is ever covered in our colleges and universities much less public schools.

Note when the Declaration and the Constitution are contemplated in a debate between conservative and conservative the liberal trolls are mysteriously quiet (with the exception of the token idiot of course).

Note neither the Declaration nor the Constitution can easily be cited in clear cut victorious debate, unlike the ease with which this can be done when the debate is with a liberal.

Very illuminating indeed.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 10:40PM

Some good books on the subject:

Harry Jaffa's A New Birth of Freedom, and Storm Over the Constitution.

Also, for a good book on the changing views of historians on the Civil War see,

Thomas Pressly, Americans Interpret Their Civil War, 1962

Also good is M. M. McPherson, This Mighty Scourge: Perspectives on the Civil War, 2007.

If you want secessionist, Lost Cause, Old South, anti-Lincoln arguments, see:

Thomas DiLorenzo's The Real Lincoln.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 10:50PM

J. M. McPherson....

Red Phillips | 4.12.11 @ 10:56PM

Harry Jaffa's books are not history or even an honest attempt at analysis. They are propaganda for a predetermined conclusion, pure and simple. Jaffa is a Straussian. That is what Straussians do. They tell noble lies.

Vern Crisler | 4.12.11 @ 11:25PM

Have you actually read any of Jaffa's books? They are filled with history and Constitutional principles. As for Strauss, I don't really care about him, as he dissed John Locke.

skip| 4.13.11 @ 1:40PM

Vern / Red

I will check these out, with each of your prospectives, among many others, in mind when I do. Thanks.

Kind of humorous to note my observations in the above post are relevant concerning even recommended reading posts.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:29PM

Here is a better list of books to read on the subject....note: these will give you a decidedly different perspective than the "it was all about slavery" propaganda put forth by Liberal Academia and the MSM.

American Bastille: A History of the Illegal Arrests and Imprisonment of American Citizens in the Northern and Border States on Account of Their Political Opinions During - John A. Marshall
States' Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio, 1776-1876 (American Political Thought) - Forrest McDonald;
Was Jefferson Davis Right? - Walter Kennedy
The Uncivil War: Union Army And Navy Excesses In The Official Records - Thomas Bland Keys
Merchant of Terror General Sherman and Total War - John B. Walters
Complicity: How the North Promoted, Prolonged, and Profited from Slavery - Anne Farrow
Southern Nation, The: The New Rise of the Old South - R. Thornton
Southern by the Grace of God - Michael Grissom
Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War - Jeffrey Rogers Hummel
Glittering Illusion: English Sympathy for the Southern Confederacy - Sheldon Vanauken
The Confederate Nation 1861-1865 (The new American nation series) - Emory M. Thomas
A Small but Spartan Band: The Florida Brigade in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia Zack C. Waters
To Die in Chicago: Confederate Prisoners at Camp Douglas 1862-65 - George Levy
Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe - Thomas DiLorenzo
A Constitutional History of Secession - John Remington Graham
The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War - Thomas DiLorenzo
War Crimes Against Southern Civilians - Walter Cisco
When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession - Charles Adams
John Denson's The Costs of War (1998), David Gordon's Secession, State, and Liberty (1998),
Marshall de Rosa's The Confederate Constitution

axbucxdu| 4.12.11 @ 9:00PM

That's it then. I have it from the authorities assembled on the PBS News Hour this evening, that professional historians, tut, tut, overwhelmingly consider slavery the cause of the Civil War. Oh, there may be a few lunatics out there, like the citizens that Pew polled that think otherwise, but they're just misinformed. That's nothing that can't be overcome with thorough rightminding and reeducation, provided of course by those very same professional historians. You know, the ones with absolutely no modern axe to grind...

bobmontgomery| 4.12.11 @ 11:04PM

I rarely read his columns anymore because they are largely uneducated rants, but Leonard Pitts had one up today and the title blared across the top was this:
THE CIVIL WAR WAS ABOUT SLAVERY, PERIOD.
Leonard Pitts was born in 1957. Leonard Pitts used to be a music critic. What was Frank Rich's area of expertise? i forget. Anyway, Tom Friedman, the global warming guy, used to write about foreign policy for the NYT. And of course the greatest newscasters of this generation are the comedians Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. We will soon probably be saved one more time by testimony in front of Congress and the United Nations by Barbra Streisand, Sharon Stone and Tim Robbins. Experts all.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:32PM

I read the same thing in this week's Time Magazine. It seems that all the historians before this past generation got it wrong and/or were motivated by their political biases. Then in the last generation or so the hardcore Lefties who came to dominate Academia after their careful analysis discovered the Platonic "Capital T" Truth that it was all about slavery. Those who disagree are just sorely deluded ignoramuses or racists.

The fact that this just happens to perfectly suit their politics and worldview is entirely a coincidence.

Dee See| 4.12.11 @ 11:04PM

As a side note.

It seems Lincoln and the Tsar of Russia were
mutual admirers as far as the matter of private
central banks were concerned.

Lincoln, remember, was the 'Greenback' President. The Tsar refused to allow such an
institution generating debt and directing
policy.

The Tsar freed the serfs in Russia at about the
same time, maybe slightly before, inspired
by Lincoln.

Their personal fates are well known...

SEE "The Money Masters' on Youtube --a s a p

axbucxdu| 4.12.11 @ 11:36PM

I disagree: Fiat money isn't a side note. Section 4 of the 14th amendment set Lincoln's financing methods in stone. If there's ever a remake of the Civil War, it may very well be over the problems caused by central banking.

Those that are confident of the Union's cause, would do well to consider what that war continues to cost us as a result of the banking precedents imposed by Lincoln.

Bawney Fwank| 4.13.11 @ 1:49PM

Yeth, itths awl a consthpiwathy. It gothz back to the beginning of time immemowial.
Pluth, it juthst wubs me the wong way.

Cincinnatius| 4.13.11 @ 12:04PM

In my opinion, those who fought in the Civil War on both sides deserve the title of: The Greatest, Greatest Generation. At no time have more Americans suffered and given more than during this struggle. They deserve to be remembered and honored greatly.

ejp| 4.13.11 @ 1:15PM

I have never had any qualm with honoring Confederate war dead and the struggle they went through and the need to understand those who fought as more than one-dimensional figures. To me, that does not mean that one then extends that principle to an "understanding" of the motive of Confederate politicians and their mindset rooted in why they chose secesion and attempting to justify their course of action as somehow legitimate.

This does not mean at the same time that Northern conduct is to be seen as "perfect". But just as I have long agreed with the conservative need to teach the history of the 20th century as positive but nuanced, especially when it relates to the Cold War struggle, so too must it be said of the 19th century and the Civil War. If we take seriously the belief that our waging the Cold War struggle was just on behalf of the principle of freedom for the oppressed, then ultimately I see no reason how amidst the tragedy of the Civil War itself, we can not take similar satisfaction in that ultimately we saw the need to eliminate a brutal evil that was slavery. Those who suggest that the south was somehow as much a "slave" to the north are engaging in the same kind of reasoning rooted in apologias for Soviet conduct at the end of WW2 in which their actions were to be seen in a purely "defensive" light as Cold War revisionist historians postulated.

YeloStalyn| 4.13.11 @ 1:58PM

I have real trouble subscribing to the beliefe that the North waged war for the purpose of saving the slaves. There are too many instances of Lincoln and others saying otherwise. In fact, it is rather common knowledge that Lincoln's desire was simply to maitain the Union rather than freeing slaves. I have no doubt that many Notherners did wish to see the end of slavery, any maybe this was the reason many Union soldiers fought. But I do not think it was the reason the war was waged on the national level.

Given that, I can't see the similarity between the US in the Cold War stopping the spread of Communism and the Union maitaining the nation. The goals are not the same, and therefore, can not use the same justification.

Although, being an honest man, I will admit that this comparisson does raise questions about the righteousness of the North. I still believe that the South's arguments of state's rights is valid and superior, it would not protec them from a truely honest war to end slavery... at least I don't think it would. I am still mulling this over as it's the first time I've heard of this comparrison.

I guess I'm just trying to say I don't think it's an apples to apples comparisson, even if the end result is the same (liberation)... but if one at least assumes that it is, then you may very well be right that the North was just. But I still don't think that would negate the state's rights arguments from being just as just and worth defense if only on principle rather than as a defense of the South itself.

tdiinva| 4.13.11 @ 2:06PM

Here is a question for the defenders of secession to consider. If States' rights are absolute then wouldn't it be true that a slave traveling through a free state would fall under that state's jurisdiction and immediately become a free man?

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:40PM

It certainly should have! It is a shame a fugitive slave law was built into the Constitution. Furthermore, I think Taney did the cause of liberty and his own country a huge disservice in rendering the Dred Scott decision. Fugitive slave laws are not just odious things which force every man to essentially become a slave catcher-though they are that. They are an ESSENTIAL support for the entire rotten system. Take them away and the whole system is weakened dramatically.

Had Lincoln allowed the 7 seceding states to depart in peace, they would have been owed NO protection under the fugitive slave laws then in place in the US...."hey you wanted to be a separate country....." The border from South Carolina to the west of Texas is about 1500 miles. There is NO WAY they could have policed that border. Slaves would have poured over in droves dramatically weakening the whole system and leading to its collapse. Think that is unrealistic? Think that couldn't happen? That is exactly what DID happen in Brazil. The whole rotten structure came crashing down in just 8 years WITHOUT a bloodbath.....but there was always much more to this than slavery despite what the PC revisionists try to tell you.

ejp| 4.13.11 @ 2:14PM

"I have real trouble subscribing to the beliefe that the North waged war for the purpose of saving the slaves."

No one's been making that argument. More than once I have acknowledged how Lincoln was not an abolitionist on the issue (which of itself totally undermines the Southern justification, which was to decide to engage in rebellion based on dissastifaction with an election result because Lincoln might bring in abolitionism). Every historian worth his salt knows that Lincoln only changed this in late 1862, and in the process realized that it was important to finally make this a war beyond the simple need of reunion.

If the ultimate end result of eliminating a way of life and a treatment of a people that was brutal and inhumane is not something that we can view in a positive light, then we render ourselves eternal hypocrites with regards our pride in defeating the moral evil of Communism and Soviet totalitarianism in the Cold War.

Those who want to obsess on the notion that the South was "right" in regards to their view of the Constitution and state power IMO are guilty of being too detached from the reality of what was in that era, and that it requires them to bury their heads in the sand regarding how the South maintained their "peculiar institution" and also the torrent of racist rhetoric as personified by the Cornerstone Speech, I have repeatedly cited. How can any person read that entire document and read the words of Alexander Stephens in which he openly boasts of how the Confederate government is based on a fundamental principle that the Negro is inferior? Ultimately for the likes of Stephens, this is a matter that for him was even greater than an esoteric concept about "government power" and gets back to the inconvenient truth that if you don't have the fact that slavery is at the lynchpin of southern anger with the north, then you don't have a Civil War.

I could never look at myself in the mirror and contemplate any justice in the Southern cause. To me it would make everything I stand for as a conservative in the modern era a hypocritical sham.

YeloStalyn| 4.13.11 @ 2:32PM

If the Noth didn't wage war to save the slaves, then where is the moral highground for them comming from? The atrocities they committed where horrendous. Especially when on consideres the long standing effects on the freedom of states.

That is in no way a defense of slavery. But be it slavery, or economics, or any other issue... they can be severed from the idea of secession when considering if the South was right in not what they ment to maitain (slavery) but what they did to do it (leave the Union).

I guess it often feels as though Northern sympathizers link slavery to the idea of state's rights and therefore because one is obviously bad, they both must be. And that the North ended slavey which was good (even if it was just an outcome rather than the goal), it must also be good to squelch those same rights. I feel the Southern advocate seems to have a better grasp of this... that while slavery was wrong, that did not justify the ideology that secession was also wrong.
And maybe that's my problem with the argument that we must accept the North if we also accept the Cold Warriors. The Cold War liberated (or attempted to prevent subjegation in some cases) people, but never compelled them or their state to join ours. The North did just that. Which I have, as a conservative, a real hard time accepting as right.

ejp| 4.13.11 @ 4:13PM

Because I start first from the perspective that secession as practiced by the South was not only Constitutionally wrong and immoral, it was also a blatant case of their deciding to seceed and rendering asunder the nation for the sake of slavery, and that the North had every right to preserve the Union on that basis alone initially. It seems to me that what your side is consistently trying to do is understate deliberately the Southern mindset about slavery and act as it the Jefferson Davis's and Alexander Stephens' of this world were driven into a frenzy over the fine points of an esoteric concept of states rights rather than the fear that their "peculiar institution" was going to be put at long-term risk if ANY Republican were ever elected President. So in short, the South decided that unless they had a veto power over who the next President was going to be, they were going to then pack up and leave. That's not standing up for the Constitution, that's anarchy of the kind I see modern left-wing demonstrators in Wisconsin try to practice.

If you as a conservative are more troubled by the notion of the Union being restored than I can only presume that the perpetual existence of a divided America in which slavery would have continued for many more decades at minimum somehow less troubles your conscience. That is the end-logic of what your position represents to me.

YeloStalyn| 4.13.11 @ 4:56PM

A defense of the states against a violent cohersion by the federal government does not transition into a defense of slavery. I wish the Civil War had a) not happened, but b) if it had to happen would have occured over a much less egregious topic. The nation is surely stronger being unified... no one doubts that. But we are also much weaker because we set in motion the things necissary for an established tyranny by the central government. If it were not for Lincoln using blood and steel forcing compliance to the Union by the South... regardless of the reason... then the power of the federal government, today, may very well still be in check. However, the result of the war was a freeing of the slaves and a forced Union but at the cost of the idea of a federated system. We are a unified system with only one government now. States are, for the most part, all for show and distiction of geography. They are no longer autonomous. Men are no longer able to rule themselves. Instead, each group of men are now bound by precedent written in blood, for good or bad, to the will of a few people in that swamp in northern Virginia. As a conservative... it is THAT result that detests me. And unfortunately, it happened to be that the South was to be the whipping boy weither they wanted to be or not... and weither they were worthy of it or not (which I would say, because of slavery, they were not... but they are still in that position none the less).

ejp| 4.13.11 @ 5:10PM

There is no violent coercion when the South engaged in something illegal and anarchichal, and then decided that to further justify their illegal action (secession) they would then open fire on fellow Americans and a Federal installation created for the housing of Federal troops.

Saying that we lost a Federated system as a result of this when it was the South that spat on the concept of a Federated system in the first place is what I find even more odd. But maybe what I should ask is if you have the guts to give me an answer on just how do we then get a society where there is no more slavery? Does this matter at all to you amidst your pining for the days of a permanently divided Union to uphold your notion of what "Federalism" really is?

This shocking inability of sum to recognize the moral depravity of slavery in America and treat it like an afterthought is truly amazing. As I've said the place to assail northern politicians is in their acts AFTER the war in the Tenure Of Office Act and the Johnson Impeachment, which raise areas of Constitutional impropriety that I believe are legitimate. That is not the case here with the War itself.

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 4:49PM

Except that secession was not illegal nor anarchical. What the federal government and Northern states did was Tyrannical and Imperial though.

Far from the spitting on the idea of a federal system and limits on the power of Washington, it was the South which defended them the overwhelming majority of the time. You've got it bass ackwards.

How do we get to a society in which there is no more slavery? How did 2 dozen other western countries do it without a bloodbath? How did the Northern states themselves do it? Firstly resistance, jury nullification, state nullification of fugitive slave laws would weaken the system greatly. Next, a compensated emancipation scheme which everybody else used as well as the steady progress of industrialization in the Southern states would have done the rest.

Whenever a compensated emancipation scheme was brought up it was Northern politicians who said "hell no". They were not about to cough up any of their money to deal with the problem....that they had a big hand in creating as New England was the hub of the slave trade, the Northern states grandfathered in emancipation giving their citizens plenty of time to sell their slaves on to other states where it was still legal and they continued to profit from slavery both directly (cheap cotton for their mills) and indirectly (tariff revenue derived mostly from cotton produced by slave labor used to pay for subsidies for Northern industry as well as infrastructure). THAT is something you're not supposed to talk about today. You see, slavery is supposed to be entirely a Southern thing. Its all those evil wicked Southerners alone who are responsible! Bullcrap. The North was complicit in it up to its freaking eyeballs and profited enormously from it.

ejp| 4.13.11 @ 4:32PM

Hell, do I need further proof of how this posturing on behalf of the South's "right" to secession doesn't help conservatism in the present day and age?

http://www.newsbusters.org/blo.....rate-conse

Some of the comments I've been seeing in this forum would be manna from heaven for the likes of Meacham and the MSNBC crowd.

YeloStalyn| 4.13.11 @ 4:59PM

Having the media dislike conservatives and/or the GOP is nothing new. It is their intellectual dishonesty (or maybe inability) that fuels it... not the comments made by people here.

Connie Chastain | 4.14.11 @ 5:04PM

Thomas Jefferson declared that governments are instituted to secure the rights of the people. One of the rights he specifically identified is the right of the people to alter or abolish their government and create one that suits them better. How grotesque, then, that the only time Americans have attempted to exercise this right, the government that was supposed to secure it made brutal war on them instead.

Truth is King| 4.14.11 @ 5:08PM

Abolish one and create another one that suits them. How was the action of the south by beginning a war on the north that of doing that?

Dave Evans| 4.14.11 @ 7:45PM

They didn't. It was Lincoln who was determined to force war. Do I need to link Newspapers in the North saying the whole thing was done to force the Confederates to fire first in defense of their own land? Do I need to link Lincoln's personal secretaries saying the same thing? Do I need to link various historians saying the same thing?

Creative Recreation | 8.10.11 @ 10:26PM

is good

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