“We learned with immense dismay of the mayors of Bossier City and Shreveport, Louisiana,  departing from a long- standing tradition of issuing proclama­tions honoring Confederate History and Heritage Month.

“According to local news accounts they have taken it upon themselves to change the observance to ‘Civil War History Month’.

“This is a direct act of political correctness that takes on more serious proportions as it undertakes revising or eliminating true history in America.

“Cities, counties and states annually issue proclamations honoring the vari­ous cultures and events that have made the greatness of America.  Confederate History and Heritage Month is one of the most widely known throughout the United States with hundreds of proclamations and observances each year which honor the Confederate soldiers who are recognized by the U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs with the same rights and recognition as all veterans of U. S. service.

“It is indeed disheartening to see the success of this recognition distorted and intentionally eliminated by a small element whose agenda is to impugn or eradicate the history of the Confederate military.”

“It is our hope the people of Shreveport and Bossier City will show a spirit of fairness and patriotism by effectively speaking out against censorship and historical revision.”

Contact,  J. A. Davis,  SCV PR & Media Committee,  770 297-4788.

SONS OF CONFEDERATE VETERANS PUBLIC RELATIONS AND MEDIA COMMITTEE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

History Revised by Political Correctness in Louisiana

Elm Springs, Columbia, TN

WHY IS THERE NO ORGANIZED STATE WIDE PRESERVATION ORGANIZATION IN ARKANSAS.

While there are several scattered local chapters of the SCV, UDC, Civil War Roundtables, Civil War Trails, county, or local historical preservation associations, who are trying in their own small way to preserve some Civil War Sites, there is no general statewide overall organization, as in other states, made up of people with expertise, that can assist and advise these local preservation organizations on how to go about doing the work of preservation, who know what resources are available to aid the preservation of site, or how to use those resources.

Several of us had hoped that the Civil Wars Trails organization would be the vehicle that could do this. But, alas State Government organizations are limited as to the advise and help that they can give, and the regional groups have fallen back into the same local interested persons working on their same projects again, within their own limited means. It is not that there is a lack of interest, or we would have no preservation at all. It is a lack of direction and leadership.

Leadership and purpose which generates visible results, will generates additional interest. It is the failure and hopelessness of the preservationist, who are trying, to get any help or advise at all, that is smothering us. When the diehards lose their interest, you can’t expect the halfhearted to step forward and do the job.

We have people, who are major players in the field of preservation, in this state, Politicians, Professors, Authors, Government agents and employees, Museum Directors, Teachers, and yes even the little people, that are quite interested in everything that goes on in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Georgia, but what about ARKANSAS?

Arkansas has a unique history, but we are caught in the belief that we were only a backwater action, or in the “political correctness” thinking of our day rather that the true research of history itself, or that the war in Arkansas somehow wasn’t noble enough or somehow was dirty, that prevades our thinking to the point that we do nothing.

At present there is a major study, authorized by the United States Senate in November of 2000, and being done by the National Parks Service about the Vicksburg Campaign that can directly effect the preservation efforts of several sites within Arkansas. YET there is not an organization in the State of Arkansas that could, in my opinion, handle the impact of the benefits, to the State of Arkansas, that could come from this study, once it is concluded in November of 2003. Even if we do get any of the 40 or 50 sites in Arkansas, involved in that study, reconized by the National Parks Service. Most people can’t name 10 Civil War sites in Arkansas, let alone that many involved with the Vicksburg Campaign.

It seems in Arkansas everybody is happy paddling their own little dingy, while the ocean going Cruise Ship sinks below the waves.

Lee went to West Point in 1825.
While there, he became corps adjutant, the chief post of honor for a cadet. He graduated in 1829, ranked 2 out of 46 in his class. When he graduated West Point, he had not only attained the top academic record but was the first cadet to graduate the Academy without a single demerit.

He was commisioned in the Engineers as a 2nd lieutenant and assigned to the Corps of Engineers. Lee served for 17 months at Fort Pulaski on Cockspur Island, Georgia.

In 1831, he was transferred to Fort Monroe, Virginia, as assistant engineer. While stationed there, he married Mary Anna Randolph Custis, the great-granddaughter of Martha Washington They were married at the Arlington House, her parents’ home just across from Washington, D.C. They eventually had 7 children (3 boys and 4 girls): George Washington Custis, William H. Fitzhugh, Robert Edward, Mary, Annie, Agnes, and Mildred.

Lee served as an assistant in the chief engineer’s office in Washington from 1834-37. He spent the summer of 1835 helping to lay out the state line between Ohio and Michigan. He was promoted to 1st Lieutenant in 1836. In 1837, as a first lieutenant of engineers, he supervised the engineering work for St. Louis harbor and for the upper Mississippi River and Missouri River. For his work there, he was promoted to captain. In 1841, he was transferred to Fort Hamilton in New York Harbor, where he took charge of building fortifications.

In the Mexican War, Lee was one of Gen. Winfield Scott’s chief aides in the march from Veracruz to Mexico City. Lee received the brevets of major for the Battle of Cerro Gordo, lieutenant-Colonel for the Battle of Contreras-Churubusco and Colonel for the Battle of Chapultepec. He was instrumental in several American victories through his personal reconnaissance as a staff officer; he found routes of attack that the Mexicans had not defended because they thought the terrain was impassable.
After the war, Lee was employed in engineer work at Washington and Baltimore. He spent 3 years at Fort Carroll in Baltimore Harbor. During this time, he resided on the great Arlington estate, near Washington, which had come to him through his wife.

In 1852, Lee was appointed Superintendent of West Point, and during his 3 years there, he carried out many important changes in the academy. He improved the buildings, the courses, and spent a lot of time with the cadets.

From 1855-57, Lee was appointed as lieutenant-Colonel to the 2nd U.S. Cavalry in Texas. He commanded by Col. Albert S. Johnston, with whom he served against the Indians of the Texas border. There, he helped protect settlers from attacks by the Apache and the Comanche. In 1859, while at Arlington on leave, he was summoned to command the U.S. troops sent to deal with the John Brown Raid on Harper’s Ferry. Lee was sent to arrest Brown and to restore order.

In March 1861, Lee was made Colonel of the 1st U.S. Cavalry. On April 18, 1861, President Abraham Lincoln offered him the field command of the entire Union armies. Lee was strongly averse to secession, but felt obliged to conform to the action of Virginia. Lee refused the offer and resigned his military commission. On April 23, Lee was at once made a major-general, and Commander-in-Chief, of the Virginian volunteer forces. On May 14, he became a brigadier-general in the regular Confederate Army.
On August 31, Lee was promoted to full-general and became special Military Adviser to President Jefferson Davis. He also oversaw the coastal defenses in South Carolina and Georgia. After Gen. Joseph E. Johnston was wounded at Seven Pines on June 1, 1862, Lee was assigned to the command of the Army of Northern Virginia, which for the next 3 years “carried the rebellion on its bayonets.” This was Lee’s first opportunity to lead an army in the field.

Lee’s major battle commands included the Seven Days’ Campaign, 2nd Manassas/Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Wilderness, Spotsylvania Court House, North Anna, Cold Harbor, the Siege of Petersburg, Five Forks, and Appomattox Station/ Appomattox Court House.
On January 31, 1865, Lee was promoted to be General -in-Chief of Confederate forces. In early 1865, he urged adoption of a scheme to allow slaves to join the Confederate army in exchange for their freedom. The scheme never came to fruition in the short time the Confederacy had left. He surrenderred his forces to Lieutenant Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox on April 9. Lee resisted calls by some subordinates (and indirectly by Jefferson Davis) to reject surrender and allow small units to melt away into the mountains, setting up a lengthy guerrilla war.

After the war, Lee was almost tried as a traitor, but was only left with his civil rights suspended. Lee applied for, but was never granted, the official postwar amnesty. After filling out the application form, it was delivered to the desk of Secretary of State William H. Seward, who, assuming that the matter had been dealt with by someone else and that this was just a personal copy, filed it away until it was found decades later in his desk drawer. Lee took the lack of response to mean that the government wished to retain the right to prosecute him in the future.

Lee’s example of applying for amnesty encouraged many other former members of the Confederacy’s armed forces to accept restored U.S. citizenship. In 1975, President Gerald Ford granted a posthumous pardon and the U.S. Congress restored his citizenship, following the discovery of his oath of allegiance by an employee of the National Archives in 1970.

The Custis-Lee Mansion is today part of Arlington National Cemetery. After Lee’s death, the courts ruled that the estate had been illegally seized, and that it should be returned to Lee’s son. The government offered to buy the land outright, to which he agreed.

Lee declined many prestigious job offers and became the President of Washington College. While there, he created the nation’s first departments of journalism and commerce. Over 5 years he transformed Washington College from a small, undistinguished school into one of the first American colleges to offer courses in business, journalism, and Spanish. He also imposed a sweeping and breathtakingly simple concept of honor — “We have but one rule, and it is that every student is a gentleman“. After his death, the college changed its name to Washington & Lee University in honor of Lee.

Lee is considered by many as the greatest general in American history. One of the most aggressive and pugnacious generals in history, his military successes were due primarily to an ability to determine his enemy’s strengths and dispositions, predict his movements, and to maintain the initiative. Friends and foes alike acknowledged the purity of Lee’s motives, the virtues of his private life, his earnest Christianity and the unrepining loyalty with which he accepted the ruin of his party.

On the evening of September 28, 1870, Lee fell ill, unable to speak coherently. When his doctors were called, the most they could do was help put him to bed and hope for the best. It is almost certain that Lee had suffered a stroke. The stroke damaged the frontal lobes of the brain, which made speech impossible. He was force-fed to keep up his strength, but he developed aspiration pneumonia, a common side effect of improper force feeding. Lee died from the effects of pneumonia, two weeks after the stroke on the morning of October 12, 1870, in Lexington, Virginia, and was buried underneath Lee Chapel at Washington and Lee University, where his body remains today.

By his achievements Lee won a high place amongst the great generals of history. Lee’s victories against superior Union forces in an ultimately losing cause won him enduring fame. Though hampered by lack of materials and by political necessities, his strategy was daring always, and he never hesitated to take the gravest risks.

Promotions:

• Brigadier General – May, 14, 1861
• General – August 31, 1861

Major Commands:

• Commander in-Chief of forces of Virginia
• Commander in-Chief of forces in West Virginia
• Military Adviser to President Jefferson Davis
• Army of Northern Virginia
• General -in-Chief of the Armies of the Confederate States

Thomas was the third child of Julia (Neale) and Jonathan Jackson, an attorny. He was of Scotch-Irish descent. Two years after his birth, both his father and his sister, Elizabeth, died of typhoid fever. His mother was left alone to raise her children. Ill health and hard times forced her to send her children to live with relatives. Thomas, then 6-years old, and his sister Laura, were taken in by their uncle, Cummins Jackson, who lived at Jackson’s Mill. His mother died in the fall of 1831. Jackson helped around his uncle’s farm. He attended school when and where he could. Records show that he attended classes in the community of Westfield for 39 days in 1837.

In 1839, he attended a school in the assembly room of the first Lewis County courthouse in Weston.

In his later years at Jackson’s Mill, Thomas served as a schoolteacher for 4 months during the winter of 1840-41.

In 1841, Jackson was elected a constable in Lewis County. He was only 17 at the time, a year short of the legal age of 18, necessary to hold the position. He was appointed to West Point in the summer of 1842. At West Point, Jackson struggled to maintain academic proficiency the first few months, he gradually improved his class standing. He graduated, ranked 17 out of 59 in his class, in 1846.

In the Mexican War, Jackson was a second lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Artillery. At the Battle of Vera Cruz, he won the rank of first lieutenant, and for gallant conduct at the Battles of Contreras and Chapultepec respectively he was brevetted captain and major, a rank which he attained with less than one year’s service. He received more promotions than any other officer during the war. During his stay in Mexico City, his thoughts were seriously directed towards religion, and, eventually entering the Presbyterian communion, he ruled every subsequent action of his life by his faith.

In 1848, Jackson’s command was stationed at Fort Hamilton for 2 years, then at Fort Meade, in Florida.

In 1851, he resigned from the army after being accepted for a professorship at at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Virginia. He became a professor of Natural and Experimental Philosophy and Artillery Tactics.

Jackson became a zealous and hardworking Presbyterian during his 10 years in Lexington.
Jackson’s main motive was devotion to his state of Virginia. When Virginia seceded from the Union on April 17, and the Lexington cadets were ordered to Richmond, Jackson went there in command of the corps. His close friend, Virginia Governor John Letcher, made him an infantry Colonel and sent him to Harper’s Ferry, where the first battle with the Union forces was expected.

Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, he was commissioned a Colonel in the Virginia Volunteers and dispatched to Harpers Ferry where he was active in organizing the raw recruits until relieved by Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. While there, Jackson formed the famous Confederate brigade, the “Stonewall Brigade.” He was promoted to Brigadier General on June 17. In July, he was promoted to brigadier-general. In November, he was given command of the Shenandoah Valley, in the Department of Northern Virginia.

Leaving Harpers Ferry, Jackson’s brigade moved with Johnston to join Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard at Manassas Station. At the First Battle of Bull Run, on being notified of the Union advance to break the Confederate line he called out, “We will give them the bayonet.” A few minutes later the steadiness with which the brigade received the shock of battle caused Brigadier Gen. Banard Bee to exclaim: “There stands Jackson like a stone wall.”

That fall, Jackson was given command of the Shenandoah Valley and promoted to major general on October 7. His army had to be formed out of local troops, and few modern weapons were available He commanded the Valley District, Department of Northern Virginia on November 4, 1861.

In March, Jackson launched the Shenandoah Valley Campaign into the western part of Virginia. He launched an attack on what he thought was a Union rear guard at Kernstown. Faulty intelligence from his cavalry chief, Col. Turner Ashby, led to a Confederate defeat. The Battle of Kernstown was a tactical defeat, Jackson’s only defeat in the Shenandoah Valley. Although he lost the battle, it had the desired result that Lee wanted. It halted Union reinforcements from being sent to Major Gen. George B. McClellan’s army for the Peninsula Campaign.

On May 8, Jackson defeated Brigadier Gen. John C. Fremont’s advance at the Battle of McDowell. Three weeks later, he claimed another victory at the Battle of Harper’s Ferry. He became the master of the Shenandoah Valley. Jackson was in a long feud with Brigadier Gen. William Loring and caused Jackson to submit his resignation, which he was talked out of.

Later that month, Jackson launched a brilliant campaign that kept several Union commanders in the area off balance. He won victories at the battles of Front Royal, 1st Winchester, Cross Keys, and Port Republic. This ranked with the most brilliant campaigns in history. His maneuvers in the campaign are among the best examples of excellent military strategy and deployment. Jackson was promoted to lieutenant general on October 10, and given command of the II Corps, Army of Northern Virginia.

Jackson secretly left the Shenandoah Valley to take a decisive part in Gen. Robert E. Lee’s defense around Richmond. In the Seven Days Battle, Jackson was frequently faulted for not being in position on time. As Lee’s chief and most trusted subordinate, he was charged with the execution of the more delicate and difficult operations of his Lee’s hazardous strategy. Jackson struck McClellan’s flank at the Battle of Gaines’s Mill.

Detached from Lee, Jackson swung off to the north to face Major Gen. John Pope’s army. After a slipshod fight at the Battle of Cedar Mountain, Jackson slipped behind Pope and captured his supply base at Manassas Junction. He then hid along an incomplete branch railroad and awaited Lee and Major Gen. James Longstreet. Attacked before they arrived, Jackson held on until Longstreet could launch a devastating attack which brought a victory at the Second Battle of Bull Run.

When Gen. Robert E. Lee reorganized the Confederate forces in May 1862, Jackson and his command were transferred to the Richmond area. In the Maryland Campaign, Jackson was again detached from the main army. At the Battle of Harpers Ferry, he forced 11,000 Union soldiers to surrender, and rejoined Lee just in time to oppose McClellan’s advance. This resulted in a Union victory at the Battle of Antietam. In mid-December, Jackson joined Lee at the Battle of Fredericksburg, a Confederate victory.
In Jackson’s greatest day, he led his corps around the Union right flank at the Battle of Chancellorsville and routed the Union XI Corps. This was one of the most dramatic Confederate victories of the Civil War. On the evening of May 2, Jackson was accidentally shot in the left arm and right hand by soldiers of the 18th North Carolina Regiment. His arm was amputated and he soon developed pneumonia.
On May 10, Jackson died at Guinea Station, Virginia. His last words were, “Let us cross over the river, and rest under the shade of the tress.” His death was a major blow to the Confederate military.

On May 15, Jackson was buried, according to his own wish, at Lexington, where a statue and a memorial hall commemorate his connection with the Virginia Military Institute. The first contribution towards the bronze statue of Jackson at Richmond was made by the negro Baptist congregation for which Jackson had labored so earnestly in his Lexington years.

***JACKSON FACTS***
Jackson was married two times. On August 4, 1853, he married Eleanor Junkin, daughter of George Junkin, president of Washington College, Virginia. Eleanor died in childbirth on October 22, 1854. Their child, a son, was stillborn. On July 16, 1857, he was married a second time to Mary Anna Morrison, the daughter of a North Carolina clergyman and retired President of Davidson College. Mary Anna gave birth to a daughter, Mary Graham, on April 30, 1858; the baby died less than a month later. In November 1862, Mary Anna again bore a daughter, Julia Laura, the only Jackson child to survive into adulthood.

In the spring of 1861, while he was in command at Harper’s Ferry, Jackson acquired the horse that he rode throughout the war. Although the horse was originally purchased by Jackson as a gift for his wife and initially named “Fancy,” this name was short-lived. Jackson decided to keep the horse, and it was universally known as “Little Sorrel.”

Jackson was very concerned about his health and followed a strict diet which emphasized fruits and vegetables. Although he enjoyed almost every variety of fruit, he had no special fondness for lemons; in fact, peaches were his favorite.

Being a devout Christian, Jackson always regretted having to fight on a Sunday. Next to Lee, Jackson was the most revered of all Confederate commanders. He is recognized as one of the most outstanding tacticians and one of the most gifted tactical commanders in United States military history. He was sometimes balky when in a subordinate position. His aggressive style and military ability enshrined him as a hero among the Confederates. Jackson’s death, at a critical moment of the fortunes of the Confederacy, was an irreparable loss was disputed by no one. His Christianit faith was conspicuous, even amongst deeply religious men like Lee and Major Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, and penetrated every part of his character and conduct.

Jackson is acknowledged to be one of the most gifted tactical commanders in United States history. In command, he was extremely secretive about his plans and extremely punctilious about military discipline. Whenever he made his plan for attack, he wouldn only tell his subordinates what they needed to know for the attack. This often brought criticism from the commanders from under him.

Promotions:

• Colonel – April 21, 1861
• Brigadier General – June 17, 1861
• Major General – October 7, 1861
• Lieutenant General – October 10, 1862

Major Commands:

• lst Brigade, Army of the Shenandoah ( May – July 20, 1861)
• Shenandoah Valley, in the Department of Northern Virginia (November 1861- ??)
• Valley District, Department of Northern Virginia (lst Brigade, Army of the Shenandoah ( November 4, 1861 – June 26, 1862)
• II Corps, Army of Northern Virginia (June 26, 1862-May 2, 1863)

He became commandant of cadets at West Point and taught infantry, artillery, and cavalry tactics. While teaching here, he wrote a book,”Rifle and Ligbt Infantry Tactics,” or more familiarly “Hardee’s Tactics,” became the standard textbook and was widely used by both sides during the Civil War.
While assigned as a Lieutenant Colonel in the 1st Cavalry, he resigned his U.S. Army commission on January 31, 1861, 12 days after his home state of Georgia seceded.

When he joined the Confederacy, he was commissioned as a Colonel. On June 17, he was promoted to Brigadier General. He organized and commanded the Arkansas Brigade and then transferred to Kentucky in the fall of 1861 to command his own brigade. Once in Kentucky, he was promoted to major general on October 7 and given command of a corps.

He led his corps in the battles at Shiloh (being wounded), Perryville, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, Lookout Mountain, Missionary Ridge, and the Atlanta Campaign after being promoted to lieutenant general on October 10, 1862. As one of the original lieutenant generals allowed under Confederate law, he led an official corps at Murfreesboro and during the Tullahoma Campaign.

In order to get away from the despised army commander, Gen. Braxton Bragg, he took an assignment in Mississippi under Gen. Joseph E. Johnston. He was transfered to command of the Atlantic coast and served there for the balance of the war. He was unable to stop Sherman’s “March to the Sea”, but on December 18, 1864, he successfully evacuated Savannah at the last minute. His last fight was at Bentonville, where he saw his only son killed in battle.

He surrendered his force, along with Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s command, on April 26, 1865.
Hardee would earn the nickname of “Old Reliable” by being an outstanding corps commander.
After the war, he settled on an Alabama plantation and became a planter.

Promotions:

• Lieutenant Colonel – February ??, 1861
• Brigadier General – June 17, 1861
• Major General – October 7, 1861
• Lieutenant General - October 10, 1862

Major Commands:

• Upper District of Arkansas, Department #2 (July 22 – October 1861)
• lst Division, Central Army of Kentucky, Department #2 ( October 28 – December 18, 1861, and February 23 – March 29, 1862)
• III Corps, Army of the Mississippi (March 29 – July 5, 1862)
• II Corps, Army of Tennessee (November 20, 1862 – July 14, 1863)
• Army of the Department of Mississippi and East Louisiana (July 14-November 1863)
• Department of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida (October 5, 1864 – February 16, 1865)

Appropriately, the native of County Cork was born on St. Patrick’s Day and became the only product of Ireland to become a Confederate major general. Failing the language requirements for a druggist’s degree, he served with the British 41st Regiment of Foot as an officer for a number of years before purchasing his way out.Emigrating to America, he became a druggist and then a highly successful property attorney. He joined the Confederacy in 1861.

He organized the Yell Rifles and with this unit, they seized the Little Rock Arsenal and was commissioned as a captain when Arkansas seceded. He was then sent to Company F, lst Arkansas State Troops in early 1861. He was promoted to Colonel and commanded the lst Arkansas State Troops and 15th Arkansas. Transferred with Lieutenant Gen. William J. Hardee to central Kentucky, he was promoted to Brigadier General and fought at Shiloh and Corinth. Taking part in the Kentucky Campaign, he was wounded at both Richmond and Perryville. Promoted to major general, he commanded a division at Murfreesboro, during the Tullahoma Campaign, and at Chickamauga. A favorite of Pres. Jefferson Davis, he is credited with covering the retreat from Chattanooga after his splendid defense of Tunnel Hill, where he stopped Major Gen. William T. Sherman.

That winter, he proposed that in order to reinforce the Confederate armies, slavery would have to be abolished in a “reasonable time” and blacks be recruited for military service on the promise of their freedom. The proposal was rejected by the Richmond authorities and would not be passed by the Confederate Congress until a couple of months after Cleburne’s death. He went on to command his Division, 2nd Division/Hardee’s Corps, and briefly the corps, through the Atlanta Campaign and then with Lieutenant Gen. John B. Hood into middle Tennessee.

At the battle of Franklin he became the senior of 6 Confederate generals to die in the battle, which did little more than commit mass suicide against the Union works. His death was a calamity to the Confederate cause, perhaps only exceeded by the death of Lieutenant Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. First buried near Franklin, Cleburne’s remains were later removed to Helena, Arkansas.
Cleburne was a great combat general whose career was damaged by the proposal to muster slaves as combat soldiers. He was the most popular Confederate division commander. He was known as the “Stonewall of the West”.

Promotions:

• Colonel – 1861
• Brigadier General - March ??, 1862
• Major General – December 20, 1862

Major Commands:

• 2nd Brigade, lst (Hardee’s) Division, Army of Central Kentucky (fall 1861 – March 29, 1862)
• 2nd Brigade, Hardee’s Division, Army of the Mississippi (July 2 – August 15, 1862)
• 2nd Brigade, Buckner’s Division, Army of the Mississippi (August 15-30- October 8, and October – November 20, 1862)
• 2nd Brigade, Buckner’s Division, Hardee’s-Breckinridge’s Corps, Army of Tennessee (November 20 – December 1862)
• Buckner’s Division (December 1862 – November 30, 1863)
• Division, Hardee’s- Cheatham’s Corps, Army of Tennessee (November 30, 1863 – January 1864, January-August 3 1, and September 2 – November 30, 1864)
• Hardee’s Corps (August 31 – September 2, 1864)

* Abraham Lincoln knew that an attempt to resupply Fort Sumter could provoke a hostile response from the Confederacy.

* The Confederate states seceded in a democratic, peaceful manner, and most Southerners supported secession. (This refutes the notion expressed by some writers that Southern elitists pulled the South out of the Union against the will of most Southerners.)

* Confederate forces treated Northern citizens and property considerably better than Union forces treated Southern citizens and property.

* Slavery was not the only factor that led the states of the Deep South to secede.

* Lincoln, in his first address to the country as president, threatened to invade the Confederate states if they didn’t pay federal tariffs or if they didn’t allow the federal government to occupy and maintain federal forts in Confederate territory.

* President James Buchanan, Lincoln’s predecessor in the White House, blamed the secession crisis on the North.

* Lincoln held racist views. (It’s only fair to point out that nearly all Americans in that era held racist views.)

* The North had very little moral authority to criticize the South over slavery and race relations.

* Lincoln did not start the war in order to free the slaves.

* The same Congress that imposed the harsh rule of Reconstruction on the South after the war also supported racist policies toward the American Indians.

* Lincoln and other Republicans blocked a widely popular compromise plan that may very well have prevented war, and they refused to allow the people to vote on it in a national referendum.

* Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America, suspended civil liberties less often than did Lincoln.

* The South did not want war and tried to establish peaceful relations with the North.

* Most Southerners did not believe secession would lead to war.

* The South did not always control the federal government in the three decades leading up to the Civil War. (This is an important point because some critics of the South contend that the South seceded partly over losing the control that it had supposedly held over the federal government for decades.)

* Only a fraction of Southerners owned slaves.

* The Confederate constitution was very similar to the U.S. Constitution and in fact contained several improvements, and it also banned the overseas slave trade and permitted the entrance of free states into the Confederacy.

* Some Confederate leaders criticized slavery and believed blacks should be treated with respect.

* Some Confederate leaders, including Jefferson Davis, were ready and willing to abolish slavery in order to preserve Southern independence.

I would like to note in advance that some of the quotes presented below contain offensive racial terms. These insulting terms appear in some statements from the Civil War era and are quoted in the history books themselves. Nevertheless, I apologize to anyone who is offended by them.

Abraham Lincoln knew that any attempt to resupply Fort Sumter would probably provoke an armed response from the Confederacy

“Of course, Lincoln was aware that sending provisions to Sumter might provoke hostilities. . . .” (J. G. Randall and David Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, Second Edition, Lexington, Massachusetts: D. C. Heath and Company, 1969, p. 175)

“Increasingly it became clear that any attempt to relieve these garrisons [Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens] would precipitate war. . . .” (John Hicks, The Federal Union, Third Edition, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1957, p. 558)

“By the time Lincoln took office Confederate authorities, fearing hasty action from South Carolina, had assumed control of the delicate Fort Sumter negotiations. . . . Would Lincoln pursue the dilatory course of Buchanan or would he be aggressive and forthright as the leader of the party which had condemned Buchanan’s policy? He did neither. Instead, he carried out a plan of his own which was so devious, so subtle, and perhaps so confused that it is almost as difficult for the historian to understand as it was for the men of the times. Some scholars believe that he blundered into war, overestimating the strength of the Union party in the South. It is more likely that, with a subtlety approaching the diabolical, he provoked the Confederates into firing upon Fort Sumter in order to solidify North public opinion. . . .

“Although Lincoln did not confess his part in provoking the Civil War with the cynical honesty of a Bismarck, he did speak certain revealing words. He consoled the commander of the Fort Sumter relief expedition for that officer’s failure: ‘You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it should fail, and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result.’ Shortly after the fall of the fort he was quoted by a close personal friend: ‘The plan succeeded. They attacked Sumter–it fell, and thus, did more service than it otherwise could.’ A few of his party friends congratulated him upon his masterful stroke. The New York Times believed that ‘the attempt at reinforcement was a feint–that its object was to put upon the rebels the full and clear responsibility of commencing the war. . . .’ Jefferson Davis, others exulted, ‘ran blindly into the trap.’” (Francis Simkins, A History of the South, Third Edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963, pp. 213, 215-216, emphasis added)

“After a sleepless night, Lincoln called his Cabinet together and announced that–against the recommendations of his military advisors–he was going to reinforce Fort Pickens and order a supply expedition to sail from New York to Fort Sumter. . . . If South Carolina’s artillery opened fire on Sumter or the ships, he could blame the Confederacy for starting a war.” (William Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, New York: Viking Press, 2001, p. 45)

“Lincoln immediately learned that his calculations were wrong. Major Anderson’s stock of foodstuffs was just about exhausted, and the day after delivering his inaugural address Lincoln was notified that the fort [Fort Sumter] could hold out for only a few more weeks. Unless it could be supplied at once, Anderson would have to surrender. The overt act, as a result, would have to be taken by the federal government, for its efforts to supply Fort Sumter would almost certainly be taken by Jefferson Davis as a warlike step against the new Confederacy. . . .

“The Confederates could not permit reinforcement [of the fort] without jeopardizing their claim to national independence.” (Bruce Catton, editor, The National Experience: A History of the United States, Second Edition, New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1968, pp. 337-338)

“. . . some historians have accused Lincoln of pushing the Confederacy to fire the shots that started a civil war. . . . Fort Sumter and Lincoln’s proclamation calling for volunteers prompted secession proceedings in four more states. Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee soon joined the Confederacy. . . . (Kenneth C. Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, New York: Avon Books, 1997, pp. 162, 167)

The South seceded in a democratic manner and most of the Southern people supported secession

“As the telegraph flashed news of Lincoln’s election, the South Carolina legislature called a convention to take the state out of the Union. Within six weeks the six other states of the lower South had also called conventions. Their voters elected delegates after short but intensive campaigns. Each convention voted by a substantial (in most cases an overwhelming) margin to secede.” (James McPherson, Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982, p. 127)

“. . . the South Carolina legislature called a convention to consider secession. . . . the convention by a vote of 169-0 enacted on December 20 [1860] an ‘ordinance’ dissolving ‘the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States’. . . .

“. . . this bold step triggered a chain reaction by conventions in other lower-South states. After the Christmas holidays . . . Mississippi adopted a similar ordinance on January 9, 1861, followed by Florida on January 10, Alabama on January 11, Georgia on January 19, Louisiana on January 26, and Texas on February 1. Although none of these conventions exhibited the unity of South Carolina’s, their average vote in favor of secession was 80 percent. This figure was probably a fair reflection of white opinion in those six states. Except in Texas, the conventions did not submit their ordinances to the voters for ratification. This led to charges that a disunion conspiracy acted against the will of the people. But in fact the main reason for non-submission was a desire to avoid delay. The voters had just elected delegates who had made their positions clear in public statements; another election seemed superfluous. The Constitution of 1787 had been ratified by state conventions, not by popular vote; withdrawal of that ratification by similar conventions satisfied a wish for legality and symmetry. In Texas the voters endorsed secession by a margin of three to one; there is little reason to believe that the result wold have been different in any of the other six states. (James McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, New York: Ballantine Books, 1988, p. 235)

“The outbreak of war at Fort Sumter confronted the upper South with a crisis of decision. . . .

“In the eyes of southern unionists, this tragic war was mainly Lincoln’s fault. What the president described in his proclamation of April 15 calling out the militia as a necessary measure to ‘maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union’ was transmuted south of the Potomac [i.e., in the South] into an unconstitutional coercion of sovereign states. ‘In North Carolina the Union sentiment was largely in the ascendant and gaining strength until Lincoln prostrated us,’ wrote a bitter unionist. ‘He could have adopted no policy so effectual to destroy the Union. . . . I am left no other alternative but to fight for or against my section. . . . Lincoln has made us a unit to resist until we repel our invaders or die.’ John Bell, the 1860 presidential candidate of the Constitutional Union party from whom many moderates in the upper South took their cue, announced in Nashville on April 23 his support for a ‘united South’ in ‘the unnecessary, aggressive, cruel, unjust wanton war which is being forced upon us’ by Lincoln’s mobilization of militia. . . .

“The Virginia convention moved quickly to adopt an ordinance of secession. . . . the convention passed an ordinance of secession by a vote of 88 to 55. (Several delegates who voted No or were absent subsequently voted Aye [Yes], making the final tally 103 to 46.). . . .

“When Virginians went to the polls on May 23 they ratified a fait accompli by a vote of 128,884 to 32,134. . . .

“Arkansas was the next state to go. Its convention had adjourned in March without taking action, subject to recall in case of emergency. Lincoln’s call for troops [to force the Deep South states back into the Union] supplied the emergency; the convention reassembled on May 6. . . . the convention passed the ordinance of secession by a vote of 65 to 5. . . .

“North Carolina and Tennessee also went out during May. . . . The [North Carolina] legislature met on May 1 and authorized an election on May 13 for a convention to meet on May 20. . . . the delegates on May 20 unanimously enacted an ordinance of secession. Meanwhile the Tennessee legislature short-circuited the convention process by adopting a “Declaration of Independence” and submitting it to a referendum scheduled for June 8. . . . That election recorded 104,913 votes for secession and 47,238 against.” (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 276-280, 282-283)

Confederate soldiers behaved better in Northern territory than Union soldiers did in Southern territory

“. . . [Robert E.] Lee started his army splashing across the Potomac fords thirty-five miles above Washington. . . . Most of the soldiers . . . were in high spirits as they entered Frederick [Maryland] on September 6 singing ‘Maryland, My Maryland’. . . . the men behaved with more restraint toward civilian property than Union soldiers were wont to do. . . .” (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 535-536)

“While the northern press had portrayed Lee’s troops as if they were Genghis Khan’s hordes, the Army of Northern Virginia was under Lee’s strictest orders to behave like southern gentlemen. As one commander, John B. Gordon, later told it, ‘The orders from General Lee for the protection of private property and persons were of the most stringent character. . . . I resolved to leave no ruins along the line of my march through Pennsylvania; no marks of a more enduring character than the tracks of my soldiers along its superb pikes.’

“Lee had ordered that all supplies be paid for.” (Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, p. 295)

“Shortly before moving on to South Carolina, [Union general William Tecumseh] Sherman said, ‘The truth is the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina’. . . .

“Leaving Savannah on February 5, 1865, Sherman’s 60,000 men took a direct line toward Columbia, South Carolina. They faced only token resistance from any organized Confederate troops.

“Confederate cavalry officer J. P. Austin, among those trying to block Sherman:

‘He [Sherman] swept on with his army of sixty thousand men, like a full developed cyclone, leaving behind him a track of desolation and ashes fifty miles wide. In front of them was terror and dismay. . . .

‘Poor, bleeding South Carolina! . . . The protestations of her old men and the pleadings of her noble women had no effect in staying the ravages of sword, flame, and pillage.

‘Columbia’s fate could readily be foretold from the destruction along Sherman’s line of march after he left Savannah. Beautiful homes, with their tropical gardens, which had been the pride of their owners for generations, were left in ruins. . . . Everything that could not be carried off was destroyed. . . . Livestock of every description that they could not take was shot down. All farm implements, with wagons and vehicles of every description, were given to the flames.’” (Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, pp. 393-394)

“With no major Confederate army opposing him Sherman’s famous march began November 10. His forces, ‘detached from all friends,’ numbered about 60,000. . . .

“The army as it proceeded, having little or no fighting to do, devoted itself to organized plunder. A Georgia news-writer pictured the scene as follows:

‘Dead horses, cows, sheep, hogs, chickens, corn, wheat, cotton, books, paper, broken vehicles, coffee mills, and fragments of nearly every species of property that adorned the beautiful farms of this country, strew the wayside. . . . ‘The Yankees entered the house of my next door neighbor, an old man of over three score years, and tore up his wife’s clothes and bedding, trampling her bonnet on the floor, and robbing the house and pantry of nearly everything of value.’

“Along with the systematic business of foraging there was a shocking amount of downright plunder and vandalism. Dwellings were needlessly burned; family plate was seized; wine cellars were raided; property that could not be carried away was wantonly ruined.” (Randall and Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, pp. 427-429)

“[Union general Henry] Halleck had written to Sherman: ‘Should you capture Charleston, I hope that by some accident the place may be destroyed; and if a little salt should be sown upon its site, it may prevent the growth of future crops of nullification and secession.’ In answer Sherman wrote: ‘I will bear in mind your hint as to Charleston, and don’t think salt will be necessary. . . . The truth is the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina’. . . .

“After a month in Savannah, Sherman struck north for his campaign through the Carolinas. . . .

“As in Georgia, destruction marked his path in South Carolina, the following towns being burned in whole or in part: Robertsville, Grahamville, McPhersonville, Barnwell, Blackville, Orangeburg, Lexington, Winnsboro, Camden, Lancaster, Chesterfield, Cheraw, and Darlington. The worst destruction was by the disastrous fire which swept the large city of Columbia, capital of the state. Sherman explained in his memoirs that the fire was accidental and that it began with the cotton which the Confederates under General Wade Hampton had set fire to on leaving the city. He then made the damaging admission that in his official report he deliberately charged the fire to Hampton ‘to shake the faith of his people in him.’

“Hampton emphatically denied that any cotton was fired in Columbia by his order; and Sherman’s account is at various points disputed by a voluminous mass of Southern testimony. . . .” (Randall and Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, pp. 433-434, original emphasis)

“Away from home, in the enemy’s country, without any inbred sense of discipline or firm officers, many of the soldiers were, indeed, ‘awfully depraved.’ Depravity ran the gamut from drunkenness and profanity to theft, pillaging, and murder.

“Charles Wills, whose moral sense was deeply affronted by what he saw, was an Illinois boy of twenty-one when he enlisted as a private in the 8th Illinois Infantry. Before the end of the war he had been promoted to lieutenant colonel. He fought in Missouri, Tennessee, and Alabama, and was with Sherman in the March to the Sea. His letters are filled with accounts of immorality and pillaging in the army. [The editor then quotes from one of Wills' letters:]

‘Rebels, though they are, ’tis shocking and enough to make one’s blood boil to see the manner in which some of our folks have treated them. Trunks have been knocked to pieces with muskets when the women stood by, offering the keys; bureau drawers drawn out, the contents turned on the floor, and the drawer thrown threw the window; bed clothing and ladies’ clothing carried off and all manner of deviltry imaginable perpetrated. Of course the scoundrels who do this kind of work would be severely punished if caught, but the latter is almost impossible. Most of the mischief is done by the advance of the army, though, God knows, the infantry is bad enough. The d–d [sic] thieves even steal from the Negroes (which is lower business than I ever thought it possible for a white man to be guilty of) and many of the them [the Negroes] are learning to hate the Yankees as much as our Southern Brethren do.’” (Henry Steele Commager, editor, The Civil War Archive: The History of the Civil War in Documents, New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 2000, pp. 333-334)

“Robert Gould Shaw, member of a prominent Massachusetts merchant family, was a lieutenant in the 2nd Massachusetts Volunteers. . . . His regiment saw duty on the coast of Florida and Georgia. . . . [The editor then quotes from one of Shaw's letters:]

‘We arrived on the southern point of this island [St. Simon's Island, Georgia] at six in the morning. I went ashore to report to Colonel Montgomery. . . .

‘At 8 A.M. we were at the mouth of the Altamaha river, and immediately made for Darien. . . .

‘On the way up, Colonel Montgomery threw several shells among the plantations, in what seemed to me a very brutal way, for he didn’t know how many women and children there might be.

‘About noon, we came in sight of Darien, a beautiful little town. . . . The town was deserted, with exception [sic] of two white women and two Negroes.

‘Montgomery ordered all the furniture and movable property to be taken on board the boats. This occupied some time; and, after the town was pretty thoroughly disembowelled [cleaned out], he [Montgomery] said to me, “I shall burn this town”. . . . I told him “I did not want the responsibility of it”; and he was only too happy to take it all on his shoulders. So the pretty place was burned to the ground, and not a shed remained standing–Montgomery firing the last buildings with his own hand. . . . You must bear in mind, that not a shot had been fired at us from this place. . . . All the inhabitants (principally women and children) had fled on our approach, and were, no doubt, watching the scene from a distance. . . .

‘The reasons he [Montgomery] gave me for destroying Darien were, that the Southerners must be made to feel that this was a real war, and that they were to be swept away by the hand of God, like the Jews of old. . . . Then he says “We are outlawed, and, therefore, not bound by the rules of regular warfare.” But that makes it none the less revolting to wreak our vengeance on the innocent and defenseless. . . .

‘Remember not to breathe a word of what I have written about this raid, for I have not yet made up my mind what I ought to do. Besides my distaste for this barbarous sort of warfare, I am not sure that it will not harm very much the reputation [of Shaw's unit] and of those connected with them.

‘All I complain of is wanton destruction. After going through the hard campaigning and hard fighting in Virginia, this makes me very much ashamed of myself.’” (Commager, editor, The Civil War Archive, pp. 335-336)

“Here is how the March to the Sea [by General Sherman] affected its victims. Dolly Lunt was a Maine girl . . . who before the war went to Covington, Georgia, to teach school, and there married a planter. . . . At the time Sherman’s army swept through Georgia she was a widow, still managing the plantation. Her short but moving diary has been rescued from oblivion by Julian Street. [The editor then qoutes from Lunt's diary:]

‘. . . . I hastened back to my frightened servants and told them that they had better hide, and then went back to the gate to claim protection and a guard. But like demons they [Union soldiers] rush in! My yards are full. To my smoke-house, my dairy, pantry, kitchen, and cellar, like famished wolves they come, breaking locks and whatever is in their way. The thousand pounds of meat in my smoke-house is gone in a twinkling, my flour, my meat, mylard, butter, eggs, pickles of various kinds . . . wine, jars, and jugs are all gone. My eighteen fat turkeys, my hens, chickens, and fowls, my young pigs, are shot down in my yard and hunted as if they were rebels themselves. Utterly powerless I ran out and appealed to the guard. “I cannot help you, Madam, it is orders.”

‘As I stood there, from my lot I saw driven, first, old Dutch, my dear old buggy horse . . . then came old Mary, my brood mare, who for years had been too stiff for work, with her three year-old colt, my two-year-old mule, and her last baby colt. There they go! . . .

‘Alas! little did I think while trying to save my house from plunder and fire that they [the Union troops] were forcing my boys [slaves] from home at the point of the bayonet. One [slave], Newton, jumped into bed in his cabin, and declared himself sick. Another crawled under the floor–a lame boy he was–but they pulled him out, placed him on a horse, and drove him off. . . . Jack [another one of Mrs. Lunt's slaves] came crying to me, the big tears coursing down his cheeks, saying they were making him go. I said: “Stay in my room.” But a man [a Union soldier] followed in cursing him and threatening to shoot him if he did not go; so poor Jack had to yield. . . .

‘My poor boys! My poor boys! What unknown trials are before you! How you have clung to your mistress and assisted her in every way you knew. . . .

‘Their [the slaves'] cabins are rifled of every valuable, the soldiers swearing that their Sunday clothes were the white people’s and that they never had money to get such things as they had. Poor Frank’s chest was broken open, his money and tobacco taken. He had always been a money-making and saving boy; not infrequently has his crop brought him five hundred dollars and more. All of his clothes and Rachel’s clothes . . . were stolen from her. Ovens, skillets, coffee mills, of which we had three, coffee pots–not one have I left. . . .

‘Seeing that the soldiers could not be restrained, the guard ordered me to have their [the slaves'] remaining possessions brought into my house, which I did. . . .’” (Commager, editor, The Civil War Archive, pp. 675-677)

Slavery was not the only factor that led the Deep South states to secede

“Next to the demands for safety and equality, the secessionist leaders emphasized familiar economic complaints. South Carolinians in particular were convinced of the general truth of Rhett’s and Hammond’s much publicized figures upon Southern tribute to Northern interests.” (Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, Ordeal of the Union, Volume 2, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950, p. 332)

“Why were southerners willing to wreck the Union their grandfathers had put together with so much love and labor? No simple explanation is possible. . . . Lincoln had assured them that he would respect slavery where it existed. . . . The Democrats [who at the time were mostly from the South] had retained control of Congress in the election; the Supreme Court was firmly in their hands as well. If the North did try to destroy slavery, then secession was perhaps a logical tactic. . . . To leave the Union meant abandoning the very objectives for which the South had been contending for over a decade: a share of the federal territories and an enforceable fugitive slave act.

“One reason the South rejected this line of thinking was the tremendous economic energy generated in the North, which seemed to threaten the South’s independence. As one Southerner complained at a commercial convention in 1855:

‘From the rattle with which the nurse tickles the ear of the child born in the South to the shroud which covers the cold form of the dead, everything comes from the North. We rise from between sheets made in Northern looms, and pillows of Northern feathers, to wash in basins made in the North. . . . We can eat from Northern plates and dishes; our rooms are swept with Northern brooms, our gardens dug with Northern spades . . . and the very wood which feeds our fires is cut with Northern axes, helved with hickory brought from Connecticut and New York.’

“Secession, southerners argued, would ‘liberate’ the South and produce the kind of balanced economy that was proving so successful in the North and so unachievable in the South.” (John A. Garraty and Robert McCaughey, The American Nation: A History of the United States to 1877, Volume One, Sixth Edition, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1987, pp. 418-419, emphasis in original)

“But secession, Lincoln argued, would actually make it harder for the South to preserve slavery. If the Southern states tried to leave the Union, they would lose all their constitutional guarantees, and northerners would no longer be obliged to return fugitive slaves to disloyal owners. In other words, the South was safer inside the Union than without, and to prove his point Lincoln confirmed his willingness to support a recently proposed thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, which would specifically prohibit the federal government from interfering with slavery in states where it already existed.” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 32-33)

“Why did this war come? There was a widely shared feeling among many in the Confederacy that their liberty and way of life were being overpowered by northern political, industrial, and banking powers.” (Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, p. 152)

In his first inaugural address, Lincoln threatened to invade the Confederate states if they didn’t pay federal tariffs or if they refused to allow the federal government to occupy and maintain federal forts in Confederate territory

“. . . the President’s inaugural address. . . . he left the South no alternative but to return to the Union, or else fight to stay out. He declared it his intention to execute the federal laws in all states, to ‘hold, occupy, and possess the property and places’ belonging to the United States, and to collect as usual the duties and imposts.” (Hicks, The Federal Union, p. 557)

“Next, Lincoln raised his voice and, emphasizing every word distinctly, vowed that he would ‘hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government’–meaning Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, the two military strongholds in the South still under federal control–and collect import duties and taxes in the southern states. ‘But beyond what may be necessary for these objects,’ Lincoln promised, ‘there will be no invasion. . . .” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 31-32) [In other words, there would be an invasion if it were necessary for "these objects," i.e., for the holding and occupying of Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens and for the collection of import duties and taxes in the southern states.]

President James Buchanan blamed the secession crisis on the North

“. . . Buchanan intended no ‘coercion’ [i.e., he would not force the seceded states back into the Union]. . . .

“Buchanan’s message to Congress . . . blamed the North in general and Republicans in particular for ‘the incessant and violent agitation of the slavery question’ which had now ‘produced its natural effects’ by provoking disunion. Because of Republicans, said the president, ‘many a matron throughout the South retires at night in dread of what may befall herself and her children before morning.’” (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 250-251)

[From President Buchanan's message to Congress toward the end of 1860:] “I have long foreseen, and often forewarned my countrymen of the now impending danger. This does not proceed solely from the claim on the part of Congress or the territorial legislatures to exclude slavery from the Territories, nor from the efforts of different States to defeat the execution of the fugitive slave law. All or any of these evils might have been endured by the South without danger to the Union, (as others have been,) in the hope that time and reflection might apply the remedy. The immediate peril arises, not so much from these causes as from the fact that the incessant and violent agitation of the slavery question throughout the North for the last quarter of a century has at length produced its malign influence on the slaves, and inspired them with vague notions of freedom. Hence a sense of security no longer exists around the family altar. This feeling of peace at home has given place to apprehensions of servile insurrections. Many a matron throughout the South retires at night in dread of what may befall herself and children before the morning. Should this apprehension of domestic danger, whether real or imaginary, extend and intensify itself until it shall pervade the masses of the southern people, then disunion will become inevitable. Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and has been implanted in the heart of man by his Creator for the wisest purpose; and no political union, however fraught with blessings and benefits in all other respects, can long continue if the necessary consequence be to render the homes and the firesides of nearly half the parties to it habitually and hopelessly insecure. Sooner or later the bonds of such a Union must be severed. It is my conviction that this fatal period has not yet arrived; and my prayer to God is, that he would preserve the Constitution and the Union throughout all generations.

“But let us take warning in time, and remove the cause of danger. It cannot be denied that for five and twenty years the agitation at the North against slavery has been incessant. In 1835 pictorial handbills and inflammatory appeals were circulated extensively throughout the South, of a character to excite the passions of the slaves, and, in the language of General Jackson, ‘to stimulate them to insurrection and produce all the horrors of a servile war.’ This agitation has ever since been continued by the public press, by the proceedings of State and county conventions, and by abolition sermons and lectures. The time of Congress has been occupied in violent speeches on this never-ending subject; and appeals, in pamphlet and other forms, indorsed by distinguished names, have been sent forth from this central point and spread broadcast over the Union.

“How easy would it be for the American people to settle the slavery question forever, and to restore peace and harmony to this distracted country! They, and they alone, can do it. All that is necessary to accomplish the object, and all for which the slave States have ever contended, is to be let alone and permitted to manage their domestic institutions in their own way. As sovereign States, they, and they alone, are responsible before God and the world for the slavery existing among them. For this the people of the North are not more responsible, and have no more right to interfere, than with similar institutions in Russia or in Brazil.” (President James Buchanan, Presidential Message, read in the U.S. House of Representatives, December 4, 1860, Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, 1860-1861, pp. 10-11)

Lincoln held racist views toward blacks

“The historian David M. Potter drew a nice distinction in Lincoln’s position between ‘what he would do for the slave’ and ‘what he would do for the Negro.’ ‘All men are created equal,’ he would say, on the authority of the Declaration of Independence, only to add: ‘I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.’ He opposed allowing blacks to vote, to sit on juries, to marry whites, even to be citizens.” (Garraty and McCaughey, The American Nation, p. 413)

“Lincoln spelled out his position with clarity: ‘I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, (applause)–that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.’” (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 186)

The North had very little moral authority, if any, to criticize the South over slavery

“In the first half of the nineteenth century, state legislatures in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut took away Negroes’ right to vote; and voters in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Maine, Iowa, and Wisconsin approved new constitutions that limited suffrage [the right to vote] to whites. In Ohio, Negro males were permitted to vote only if they had “a greater visible admixture of white than colored blood.” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 54)

“The Indiana constitutional convention of 1851 adopted a provision forbidding black migration into the state. This supplemented the state’s laws barring blacks already there from voting, serving on juries or in the militia, testifying against whites in court, marrying whites, or going to school with whites. Iowa and Illinois had similar laws on the books and banned black immigration by statute in 1851 and 1853 respectively. These measures reflected the racist sentiments of most whites in those states.” (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 80)

“There can be no doubt that many blacks were sorely mistreated in the North and West. Observers like Fanny Kemble and Frederick L. Olmsted mentioned incidents in their writings. Kemble said of Northern blacks, ‘They are not slaves indeed, but they are pariahs, debarred from every fellowship save with their own despised race. . . . All hands are extended to thrust them out, all fingers point at their dusky skin, all tongues . . . have learned to turn the very name of their race into an insult and a reproach.’ Olmsted seems to have believed the Louisiana black who told him that they could associate with whites more freely in the South than in the North and that he preferred to live in the South because he was less likely to be insulted there.” (John Franklin and Alfred Moss, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, p. 185. Incidentally, Franklin and Moss are African-American scholars.)

“. . . Lincoln also knew how deep and widespread racial prejudice was in the North. ‘The colored man throughout this country was a despised man, a hated man,’ he admitted. Even many fervent opponents of slavery detested Negroes. ‘You loathe them as you would a snake or a toad, yet you are indignant at their wrongs,’ a southerner accused his New England cousin in Uncle Tom’s Cabin. ‘You would not have them abused; but you don’t want to have anything to do with them yourselves.’ A reporter in Washington once heard Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio, a leading antislavery radical, railing about too many ‘black person’ cooks in the capital; Wade complained that he had eaten meals ‘cooked by black persons until I can smell and taste the black person all over.’” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 53)

“For all the good intentions of many early white abolitionists, blacks were not especially welcome in the free states of America. Several territories and states, such as Ohio, not only refused to allow slavery but also had passed laws specifically limiting or excluding any blacks from entering its territory or owning property.” (Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, p. 54)

“So pervasive was racism in many parts of the North that no party could win if it endorsed full racial equality.” (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 81)

“. . . in 1862 white laborers erupted into mob violence against blacks in a half-dozen cities across the North. . . . The mobs sometimes surged into black neighborhoods and assaulted people on the streets and in their homes. . . .

“. . . Republicans ruefully admitted that large parts of the North were infected with racism. ‘Our people hate the Negro with a perfect if not a supreme hatred,’ said Congressman George Julian of Indiana. Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois conceded that ‘there is a very great aversion in the West–I know it to be so in my State–against having free negroes come among us. Our people want nothing to do with the negro.’ The same could be said of many soldiers. . . .” (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 275)

“. . . discouragement was deepened by the outcome of three Northern state referendums in the fall of 1865. The legislatures of Connecticut, Wisconsin, and Minnesota placed on the ballot constitutional amendments to enfranchise [allow to vote] the few black men in those states. Everyone recognized that, in some measure, the popular vote on these amendments would serve as a barometer of Northern opinion on black suffrage. . . . Republican leaders worked for passage of the amendments but fell short of success in all three states. . . . the defeat of the amendments could be seen as a mandate against black suffrage by a majority of Northern voters.” (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 501)

“Numerous [Union] army officials who advocated the use of black troops viewed Negroes as little more than cannon fodder. ‘For my part,’ announced an officer stationed in South Carolina, ‘I make bold to say that I am not so fastidious as to object to a negro being food for powder and I would arm every man of them.’ Governor Israel Washburn of Maine agreed. ‘Why have our rulers so little regard for the true and brave white men of the north?’ asked Washburn. ‘Will they continue to sacrifice them? Why will they refuse to save them by employing black men? . . . Why are our leaders unwilling that Sambo should save white boys?’” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 93)

“A more urgent situation existed in South Carolina’s Sea Islands. There, nearly 10,000 former slaves abandoned by their masters received little comfort from Union Army commanders, who generally ignored them; by January, many of the Negroes were starving or seriously ill.” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 103)

“The contrabands [escaped slaves] crowded into improvised camps, where exposure and disease took a fearful toll. Yankee soldiers sometimes ‘confiscated’ the meager worldly goods the blacks had managed to bring with them.” (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 394)

“Union conquests along the south Atlantic coast and in the lower Mississippi Valley had brought large numbers of slaves into proximity to the Yankees. Many of them escaped their owners and sought refuge–and freedom–in Union camps.

“Sometimes their welcome was less than friendly. While northern soldiers had no love for slavery, most of them had no love for slaves either. . . . While some Yanks treated contrabands with a degree of equity and benevolence, the more typical response was indifference, contempt, and cruelty. Soon after Union forces captured Port Royal, South Carolina, in November 1861, a private described an incident there that made him ‘ashamed of America’: ‘About 8-10 soldiers from the New York 47th chased some Negro women but they escaped, so they took a Negro girl about 7-9 years old, and raped her.’ From Virginia a Connecticut soldier wrote that some men of his regiment had taken ‘two black person wenches [women] . . . turned them upon their heads, and put tobacco, chips, sticks, lighted cigars and sand into their behinds.’ Even when Billy Yank welcomed the contrabands, he often did so from utilitarian rather than humanitarian motives. ‘Officers and men are having an easy time,’ wrote a Maine soldier from occupied Louisiana in 1862. ‘We have Negroes to do all fatigue work, cooking and washing clothes.’” (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 497)

Lincoln did not start the war in order to end slavery

“When the Civil War began in April 1861, President Abraham Lincoln had no intention of issuing an emancipation proclamation. Lincoln believed he lacked the constitutional authority to interfere with slavery in any state, even when the government of that state insisted it was no longer a part of the Union.” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 1)

“On August 30, General John C. Fremont, commander of Union forces in Missouri, issued a proclamation . . . freeing the slaves of all citizens who actively supported the rebellion. . . .

“Unionists in Kentucky reacted vehemently to Fremont’s proclamation. . . . Upon learning that Fremont had freed slaves in Missouri, an entire company of Union volunteers in Kentucky reportedly threw down their guns and deserted.

“Lincoln acted quickly to defuse the crisis. On September 2, he sent a message asking Fremont to modify his proclamation. . . .

“Fremont . . . sent his wife . . . to argue with the president.

“Lincoln received Mrs. Fremont shortly before midnight on the evening of September 10. It was not a pleasant meeting. . . . Lincoln abruptly cut her off. The general would have to back down. The war was being fought, Lincoln said, ‘for a great national idea, the Union, and General Fremont should not have dragged the Negro into it.’” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 72-74)

“Lincoln remained unmoved. . . . ‘I think Sumner [abolitionist Charles Sumner] and the rest of you would upset our applecart altogether if you had your way,’ he told the Radicals [the common term for hardline abolitionists]. . . . ‘We didn’t go into this war to put down slavery . . . and to act differently at this moment would, I have no doubt, not only weaken our cause, but smack of bad faith.’ Vindication of the president’s view came a few weeks later, when the Massachusetts state Republican convention–perhaps the most Radical party organization in the North–defeated a resolution endorsing Fremont’s proclamation.” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 75-76, emphasis added)

“The problem with this lofty rhetoric of dying to make men free was that in 1861 the North was fighting for the restoration of a slaveholding Union. In his July 4 message to Congress, Lincoln reiterated the inaugural pledge that he had ‘no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists.’” (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 265)

The same Congress that imposed Reconstruction on the South after the war also imposed racist policies on the American Indians

“The same Congress that devised Radical Reconstruction . . . approved strict segregation and inequality for the Indian of the West.” (Catton, editor, The National Experience, p. 416)

Lincoln and other Republican leaders killed the Crittenden Compromise and wouldn’t allow the people to vote on it in a national referendum; and the compromise measure most likely would have won had it been put to a national vote

“In the Senate, a Committee of Thirteen searched vainly for a compromise. One was submitted to the Senate by John J. Crittenden of Kentucky. . . . the impasse moved Crittenden to suggest a national referendum on his program, but the Republicans prevented that.” (Catton, editor, The National Experience, p. 336)

“The action of the Senate, delayed by much ugly wrangling, did not begin until December 18, when it voted to form a Committee of Thirteen on the crisis. Two days later, Vice-President Breckinridge named a strong group who met for the first time that day. Two men of transcendent ability represented the Lower South, Jefferson Davis and Robert Toombs. . . .

“Crittenden had consulted with colleagues North and South before offering his broad scheme, and had received hopeful assurance of support. . . .

“That Crittenden’s scheme had wide and enthusiastic public support there could be no question. John A. Dix, Edward Everett, and Robert Winthrop no sooner saw it than they wrote approbatory [approving] letters. Martin Van Buren declared that the amendments [proposed in Crittenden's plan] would certainly be ratified by three-fourths of the States. The Senator received hundreds of assurances from all over the North and the border States that his policy had reached the popular heart. It took time to hold meetings and get memorials signed, but before long resolutions and petitions were pouring in upon Congress. In New York City, sixty-three thousand people signed an endorsement of the plan; another document bore the names of fourteen thousand women, scattered from North Carolina to Vermont. From St. Louis came nearly a hundred foolscap pages of names, wrapped in the American flag. Greeley [an influential New York newspaper editor and owner], who had as good opportunities for knowing public sentiment as any man in the country, later wrote that supporters of the Crittenden Compromise could claim with good reason that a large majority of people favored it. . . .

“The first committee vote on the Crittenden Compromise was taken in Seward’s absence, and the proposal was defeated by the Republican majority. In a discussion of nearly seven hours, Douglas, Bigler, and Crittenden supported the plan. Hunter, Toombs, and Davis, speaking for Southern Democrats, declared they would accept it if the Republicans gave sincere assent, but not otherwise. On the vital point, the reestablishment of the Missouri Compromise line, [Republicans] Collamer, Doolittle, Grimes, and Wade all voted no. Thereupon Toombs and Davis cast negative votes, and the resolution failed six to six. Returning to the sessions on December 24, Seward [who was also a Republican] recorded a negative vote. Four days later, the committee reported to the Senate that it could reach no conclusion. . . .

“In rejecting the Crittenden Compromise, the Republicans had taken what history later proved to have been a fearful responsibility. . . . Some Republicans, after war came, made an effort to divest themselves of the burden by contending that the true blame for the rejection fell upon Davis and Toombs, whose votes in the affirmative would have carried the compromise eight to four–or with Seward voting, eight to five. (Even then the measure would have died under the rule requiring a majority of both parties.) Edward Everett argued that the supposed willingness of Davis and Toombs to support the compromise was purely illusory, and that if the Republicans had come out for it, the two would have gone over to the opposition. But we have unimpeachable evidence that the pair were sincere, and much additional evidence that, as Breckinridge told the Senate, ‘the leading statesmen of the lower Southern States were willing to accept the terms of settlement’ proposed. . . .

“Early in January, Crittenden rose in the Senate to make the remarkable proposal that his compromise should be submitted to the people of the entire nation for their solemn judgment, as expressed by a popular vote. . . . The proposal inspired widespread enthusiasm. . . . Because of Republican obstruction, interposing delay after delay, it never came to a vote in the Senate. . . .

“Provoking though the conduct of the six secessionists was, the fact remains that the chief responsibility for the defeat of the compromise falls upon the twenty-five Republicans [in the Senate] who voted to slay it. A combination of Republicans and Northern Democrats could easily have carried the resolutions [of the Crittenden plan].” (Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, pp. 390-393, 397-398, 401-403)

“A Senate committee of thirteen, headed by Crittenden, was at once constituted to consider . . . plans of compromise. . . . The chief bone of contention was the 36-30 dividing line between free and slave territory, a proposition that Toombs and Davis were known to be ready to accept, provided only that a majority of the Republicans would also agree to it. . . . Lincoln’s opinion [against this provision of the compromise plan] seems to have been conclusive, for the Republicans voted unanimously against the proposed dividing line, and the committee reported back to the Senate that it could not agree.

“Later Crittenden and his supporters argued that the compromise in which they were interested should be submitted to the people of the country for approval or rejection at the polls. But the machinery for obtaining such a referendum did not exist, and all efforts looking toward its creation failed, largely because of Republican opposition.” (Hicks, The Federal Union, p. 555)

Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, suspended civil liberties less often than did Lincoln

“Davis . . . possessed the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for a total of only sixteen months. During most of that time he exercised this power more sparingly than did his counterpart in Washington. The rhetoric of southern libertarians about executive tyranny thus seems overblown.” (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 435)

“With the suspension of habeas corpus [the right not to be arrested without reasonable charges being presented], Lincoln authorized General Scott to make arrests without specific charges to protect secessionist Marylanders from interfering with communications between Washington and the rest of the Union. In the next few months, Baltimore’s Mayor William Brown, the police chief, and nine members of the Maryland legislature were arrested to prevent them from voting to secede from the Union. . . .

“Twice more during the war Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, including the suspension ‘throughout the United States’ on September 24, 1862. Although the records are somewhat unclear, more than thirteen thousand Americans, most of them opposition Democrats, were arrested during the war years, giving rise to the charge that Lincoln was a tyrant and a dictator.” (Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, pp. 182-183)

The South did not want war, but wanted to establish peaceful relations with the North

“Now that ‘the evil days, so dreaded by our forefathers and the early defenders of the Constitution, are upon us,’ as the Dallas Morning Herald put it, leaders of the seven Confederate states wished to depart in peace.” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 7)

“Louisiana Senator Judah Benjamin’s farewell to the Senate (New Year’s Eve, 1860):

‘We desire, we beseech you, let this parting be in peace. . . . Indulge in no vain delusion that duty or conscience, interest or honor, imposes upon you the necessity of invading our States or shedding the blood of our people. You have not the possible justification for it’. . . .

“Appointed attorney general in the Confederate Cabinet, Benjamin was considered the most brilliant of the men surrounding Jefferson Davis.” (Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, pp. 144-145)

“In the flurry of organizing a government and an army, one of Davis’s first acts was to dispatch three commissioners to Washington in an attempt to negotiate a settlement with the Union. Leading them was the Confederate vice-president, Alexander Hamilton Stephens of Georgia. . . .

“Stephens arrived in Washington, hoping to negotiate an end to the crisis. . . . But Lincoln refused to meet with Stephens. . . .” (Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, pp. 156-157)

“Cognizant of the dangerous war in which he found himself, Davis considered his country. . . . Davis would have to defend his extensive borders. . . .

“From the beginning, he emphasized that the Confederacy wanted to be left alone, but Abraham Lincoln would not grant his wish.” (William Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, New York: Vintage Books, 2000, pp. 378-379)

[In 1862, Jefferson Davis issued the following proclamation to the people of Maryland:] “First, that the Confederate Government is waging this war solely for self-defense; that it has no design of conquest, or any other purpose than to secure peace and the abandonment by the United States of their pretensions to govern a people who have never been their subjects, and who prefer self-government to a union with them.

“Second, that this Government, at the very moment of its inauguration, sent commissioners to Washington to treat for a peaceful adjustment of all differences, but that these commissioners were not received, nor even allowed to communicate the object of their mission; and that, on a subsequent occasion, a communication from the President of the Confederacy to President Lincoln remained without answer, although a reply was promised by General Scott, into whose hands the communication was delivered. . . .

“Fourth, that now, at a juncture when our arms have been successful, we restrict ourselves to the same just and moderate demand that we made at the darkest period of our reverses, the simple demand that the people of the United States should cease to war upon us, and permit us to pursue our own path to happiness, while they in peace pursue theirs.” (Proclamation of Jefferson Davis to the People of Maryland, September 7, 1862)

Most Southerners believed the South would be able to secede peacefully

“Few men in the Deep South, even among the Unionists, believed that the North would or could resist secession; fewer still thought the North would fight for union; almost none foresaw a terrible war and eventual defeat.” (Catton, editor, The National Experience, p. 335)

“Many secessionists expected their revolution to be a peaceful one. Robert Barnwel Rhett, editor of the Charleston Mercury, was quoted as saying that he would eat the bodies of all men slain as a consequence of disunion [secession], while Senator James Chesnut of South Carolina was said to have offered to drink all the blood shed in the cause. A Georgia newspaper announced: ‘So far as civil war is concerned, we have no fears of that in Atlanta.’” (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 129)

The South did not always control the federal government in the three decades leading up to the Civil War

“The House of Representatives, whose membership was based on the census returns for each state, reflected this growing disparity. Even counting three-fifths of the slave population (as the federal Constitution provided), free states increased their majority from twenty-three seats in 1830 to twenty-nine seats by 1840. The disparity expressed in total seats was 149 representatives from the free states to 88 from the slave states.” (John Niven, The Coming of the Civil War: 1837-1861, Arlington Heights, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1990, p. 21)

“. . . in August 1846, David Wilmot, a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, moved an amendment to an appropriation bill that would exclude slavery from any territory that might be gained in a peace treaty with Mexico. His measure, modeled on the antislavery provision of Thomas Jefferson’s Northwest Ordinance, passed the House of Representatives, where the free states had a clear majority.” (Niven, The Coming of the Civil War, p. 53)

“Southern Whigs . . . for the most part now went over to the Democrats, who in any case already dominated the politics of the region [the South]. . . .

“. . . the Democrats in 1854 suffered grave reversals. Perhaps most stunning was the plurality the Republicans achieved in the new House of Representatives, where they were to hold 108 seats to 83 for the Democrats and 43 for the Know-Nothings. Indeed that new House, after two months of debate, would elect a Republican Speaker. . . .” (Catton, The National Experience, pp. 322-323)

“The election of 1858. . . . Southern Democrats . . . were no longer able to shape public policy. . . .” (Catton, editor, The National Experience, pp. 328-329)

Only a small percentage of Southerners owned slaves

“In a region where ownership of slaves conferred status and wealth, less than 10 percent of the white population held slaves. And of this 10 percent only a tiny fraction could be considered large planters, i.e., those who held from fifty to five hundred slaves.” (Niven, The Coming of the Civil War, p. 34)

“. . . only one-fourth of whites in the South owned slaves. . . .” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 20)

The Confederate Constitution was very similar to the U.S. Constitution and contained several improvements; it also banned the overseas slave trade and allowed free states to join the Confederacy

“. . . delegates from the Deep South met in Montgomery, Alabama, on February 4 [1861] to establish the Confederate States of America. The convention acted as a provisional government while at the same time drafting a permanent constitution. . . . Voted down were proposals to reopen the Atlantic slave trade . . . and to prohibit the admission of free states to the new Confederacy. . . .

“The resulting constitution was surprisingly similar to that of the United States. Most of the differences merely spelled out traditional southern interpretations of the federal charter. . . .

“. . . it was clear from the actions of the Montgomery convention that the goal of the new converts to secessionism was not to establish a slaveholders’ reactionary utopia. What they really wanted was to recreate the Union as it had been before the rise of the new Republican Party, and they opted for secession only when it seemed clear that separation was the only way to achieve their aim. The decision to allow free states to join the Confederacy reflected a hope that much of the old Union could be reconstituted under southern direction.” (Robert A. Divine, T. H. Bren, George Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams, America Past and Present, Fifth Edition, New York: Longman, 1998, pp. 444-445, emphasis added)

“The . . . [Confederate] Constitution had been drawn up by a committee of two from each State. . . .

“The most remarkable features of the new instrument sprang from the purifying and reforming zeal of the delegates, who hoped to create a more guarded and virtuous government than that of Washington. The President was to hold office six years, and be ineligible for reelection. Expenditures were to be limited by a variety of careful provisions, and the President was given budgetary control over appropriations which Congress could break only by a two-thirds vote. Subordinate employees were protected against the forays of the spoils system. No bounties were ever to be paid out of the Treasury, no protective tariff was to be passed, and no post office deficit was to be permitted. The electoral college system was retained, but as a far-reaching innovation, Cabinet members were given seats in Congress for the discussion of departmental affairs. Some of these changes were unmistakable improvements, and the spirit behind all of them was an earnest desire to make government more honest and efficient.” (Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, p. 435)

“In its general pattern the [Confederate] constitution closely resembled that of the United States; indeed at most points its wording was precisely the same. . . .

“The framers of the Confederate constitution improved upon the Constitution of the United States in a number of minor ways, designed to produce ‘the elimination of political waste, the promotion of economical government, and the keeping of each echelon of complex government within its appointed orbit.’ So effective were these changes that William M. Robinson, Jr., has termed the document ‘the peak contribution of America to political science.’ The process of amendment was altered. With certain exceptions Congress was not to appropriate money except by two-thirds vote of both houses. The amount and purpose of each appropriation were to be precisely specified; and after the fulfillment of a public contract Congress was not to grant any extra compensation to the contractor. ‘Riders’ on money bills were discouraged by the provision that the President might veto a given item of an appropriation bill without vetoing the entire bill. Each law was to deal with ‘but one subject,’ to be expressed in the title.” (Randall and Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, pp. 157, 159)

Some Confederate leaders criticized slavery and believed blacks should be treated with respect

“Soon after his election, [Jefferson] Davis told a northern visitor that slavery . . . ‘has its evils and abuses’. . . .” (Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, p. 156)

“[Robert E.] Lee said he personally opposed slavery as ‘a moral and political evil’. . . .” (Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, p. 176)

“Lee . . . made clear his dislike of slavery, which he described in 1856 as ‘a moral and political evil.’” (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 281)

“There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil.” (Letter from Robert E. Lee, December 27, 1856, regarding President Pierce’s comments on slavery and abolition)

“[Confederate general] Stonewall Jackson sent off an envelope to his pastor. Expecting a battle report, the preacher discovered a contribution for his church’s ‘colored Sunday school,’ which Jackson had forgotten to send the day of the battle.” (Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, p. 192)

“General Lee directs me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 25th and to say that he much regrets the unwillingness of owners to permit their slaves to enter the service [of the Confederate army]. . . . He hopes you will endeavor to get the assistance of citizens who favor the measure, and bring every influence you can to bear. When a negro is willing, and his master objects, there would be less objection to compulsion, if the state has the authority. It is however of primary importance that the negroes should know that the service is voluntary on their part. As to the name of the troops, the general thinks you cannot do better than consult the men themselves. His only objection to calling them colored troops was that the enemy had selected that designation for theirs. But this has no weight against the choice of the troops and he recommends that they be called colored or if they prefer, they can be called simply Confederate troops or volunteers. Everything should be done to impress them with the responsibility and character of their position, and while of course due respect and subordination should be exacted, they should be so treated as to feel that their obligations are those of any other soldier and their rights and privileges dependent in law and order as obligations upon others as upon themselves. Harshness and contemptuous or offensive language or conduct to them must be forbidden and they should be made to forget as soon as possible that they were regarded as menials.” (Letter from Robert E. Lee’s assistant adjutant general, Charles Marshall, March 30, 1865, to Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell)

Many Confederate leaders, including Jefferson Davis, were willing to abolish slavery in order to preserve the South’s independence

“. . . several Confederate diplomats in London were hinting that their government would inaugurate a program of gradual emancipation after it gained its independence. British newspaper editors who sympathized with the Confederacy gave the rumor wide circulation.” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 113)

“A last-minute diplomatic initiative to secure British and French recognition in return for emancipation. . . . The impetus for this effort came from Duncan F. Kenner of Louisiana, a prominent member of the Confederate Congress and one of the South’s largest slaveholders. Convinced since 1862 that slavery was a foreign-policy millstone around the Confederacy’s neck, Kenner had long urged an emancipation diplomacy.” (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 837)

“‘Let not slavery prove a barrier to our independence,’ intoned the Jackson Mississippian. ‘Although slavery is one of the principles that we started to fight for . . . if it proves an insurmountable obstacle to the achievement of our liberty and separate nationality, away with it!’” (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 833; and note that slavery was identified only as “one of the principles,” and not the only principle, for which the South fought)

“Told Mr. Davis often and early in the war that the slaves should be emancipated, that it was the only way to remove a weakness at home and to get sympathy abroad, and divide our enemies . . .” (Memorandum of a conversation with Robert E. Lee held on February 15, 1868, in Gary Gallagher, editor, Lee the Soldier, Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1996, p. 12)

“. . . in my opinion the best means of securing the efficiency and fidelity of this auxiliary force [of slaves who would join the Confederate army] would be to accompany the measure with a well-digested plan of gradual and general emancipation.” (Letter from Robert E. Lee, January 11, 1865, to Confederate senator Andrew Hunter)

“Despite his making political capital out of Lincoln’s demands on slavery, Davis stood prepared to give up the venerable institution, if the sacrifice could secure Confederate independence.

“The sharply different approach to slavery introduced by the president in his Congressional message of November 1864 provided the background for an unprecedented initiative designed to obtain recognition from Great Britain and France. In late December 1864 Davis, with Secretary of State Judah Benjamin’s strong support, had made the momentous decision to sacrifice slavery on the altar of hope for European intervention.” (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 552-553)

“In order to save the Confederacy, Davis even led his fellow Confederates toward an abandonment of slavery.” (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 705-706)
Michael T. Griffith holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Excelsior College in Albany, New York, and two Associate in Applied Science degrees from the Community College of the Air Force. He is a two-time graduate of the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, in Arabic and Hebrew, and of the U.S. Air Force Technical Training School in San Angelo, Texas. He is the author of four books on Mormonism and ancient texts, and of one book on the John F. Kennedy assassination. He has completed advanced Hebrew programs at Haifa University in Israel and at the Spiro Institute in London, England. He is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Religious Studies from The Catholic Distance University and an Advanced Certificate of Civil War Studies from Carroll College in Wisconsin.

© 2003, Michael T. Griffith

Originally Published at: http://ourworld.cs.com/mikegriffith1/frombooks.htm

Contrary to what is now taught, slavery was not the primary issue. Sorry, Julian, Jesse, and victims of public indoctrination everywhere, but here are the inconvenient facts.

The American educational system continues perpetuating a myth regarding the War for Southern Independence [often mistakenly called 'The Civil War,' a misnomer.] Teachers using government-mandated, Northern-produced texts inform students the conflict centered solely on slavery, with Abraham Lincoln ‘The Great Emancipator’ sending Union troops to ‘make men free.’ Nothing could be more untrue. We realize the wisdom in the adages that history-books are written by the victors and that truth is war’s first casualty. Like other complex human activities, wars often have a number of underlying causes. In this article, I shall provide the reader with an overview of the primary causi belli of the War for Southern Independence, the issue of tariffs.

Far from being a mundane topic, taxation has been at the heart of the American political spirit. The original thirteen American colonies formally dissolved ties with the British Empire due to the issue of taxation without representation. Penned by that great Virginian Thomas Jefferson, the Declaration of Independence stands out as this nation’s first Article of Secession. In it, the colonies’ grievances are listed. Amongst the litany of injustices committed by King George III, Jefferson mentions ‘For imposing Taxes upon us without our Consent.’ This split over taxation is a recurring theme in American history.

The precursor to Southern secession in fact occurred 30 years before the hostilities of 1861-1865. In 1828 and again in 1832, Congress passed tariffs legislation benefitting northern mercantile interests but injuring the South’s agricultural economy. Heavy protectionist tariffs gave northern manufacturers an advantage by decreasing foreign competition, but forced the South to pay the bulk of federal taxes, as the South was a net exporter of raw goods and a net importer of manufactured products. These ‘Tariffs of Abominations’ led Senator John C. Calhoun to declare the law unjust and a convention was held in South Carolina to nullify the federal tariff law. President Andrew Jackson threatened to send troops to enforce the tariff, but eventually the Compromise of 1833 was reached and taxes were lowered over a four-year period. As Professor Charles Adams states in his book For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization, “…the South paid about three-quarters of all federal taxes, most of which were spent in the North.”

The election of 1860 was perhaps the most contentious in American history. The Democratic Party split, with the northern faction voting for Stephen Douglass and the southern faction for John Breckinridge. Additionally the Constitutional Unionist Party [the renamed Whig Party] ran John Bell as a candidate and carried three states [Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia.] Lincoln won with a mere 39% of the popular and not a single electoral vote from the South. As Salomon DeRothschild, a visitor to America at the time wrote, “This state of affairs could have continued … if the two divisions, South and North, of the Democratic party had not split at the last electoral convention. Since each of them carried a different candidate, they surrendered power to a third thief, Lincoln, the Republican choice.”

The secession of Southern States began with South Carolina, where tax issues had been at the forefront 30 years earlier. Contrary to what is now taught, slavery was not the primary issue. While it is unfortunate slavery existed, the blame cannot placed solely on the South; slavery existed in the North as well [it is interesting to note Delaware, a Northern slave state, refused to ratify the 13th Amendment abolishing the institution.] Further, New England slavers from their homeports in Massachusetts and New York brought slaves to America in the first place.

With the election of Lincoln, the South realized northern manufacturers and bankers would have their puppet in the White House. Again Professor Adams states, “…Lincoln was supported in his bid for the presidency by the rich industrialists of the North. He was their man and he had long been their lawyer… No sooner had Congress assembled in 1861 than the high tariff was passed into law and signed by Lincoln. The Morrill Tariff, as it was called, was the highest tariff in U.S. history.” Adams also notes, “Secession by the South was a reaction against Lincoln’s high-tax policy. In 1861 the slave issue was not critical… The leaders of the South believed secession would attract trade to Charleston, Savannah, and new Orleans, replacing Boston, New York, and Philadelphia as the chief trading ports of America, primarily because of low taxes.” Note the Confederacy lowered taxes! To the charge often leveled that the newly formed Confederacy started the hostilities, Adams correctly points out “…with the import taxes, he [Lincoln] was threatening. Fort Sumter was at the entrance to the Charleston Harbor, filled with federal troops to support U.S. Customs officers. It wasn’t too difficult for angry South Carolinians to fire the first shot.” Again, Rothschild writing to his cousin in London in 1861 notes, “I’ll come back later to the ‘slavery’ question, which was the first pretext for secession, but which was just a pretext and is now secondary. The true reason which impelled the Southern states to secede is the question of tariffs.”

Lincoln’s election guaranteed a return of past disastrous policies and forced the Southern States to secede. Writers of the day confirm this. In Great Britain, many intellectuals and political leaders saw Lincoln’s War for exactly what it was – a dispute over taxation. Charles thingyens writes, “The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern States.” thingyens goes on to say “…Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as of many other evils… The quarrel between the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel.” Let us quote a passage from the Northern British Review, Edinburgh, 1862, “…All Northern products are now protected: and the Morrill Tariff is a very masterpiece of folly and injustice. No wonder then that the citizens of the seceding States should feel for half a century they have sacrificed to enhance the powers and profits of the North; and should conclude, after much futile remonstrance, that only in secession could they hope to find redress.”

I shall conclude this article with a passage written by John Reagan, Postmaster General of the Confederacy. “You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you annually under the operation of our revenue laws, our navigation laws, your fishing bounties, and by making your people our manufacturers, our merchants, our shippers. You are not satisfied with the vast tribute we pay you to build up your great cities, your railroads, and your canals. You are not satisfied with the millions of tribute we have been paying you on account of the balance of exchange, which you hold against us. You are not satisfied that we of the South are almost reduced to the condition of overseers of northern capitalists. You are not satisfied with all this; but you must wage a relentless crusade against our rights.”

© 2002 by Connie Ward, 180 Degrees True South 180dts@bellsouth.net

http://www.dixieoutfitters.com/heritage/cw3.shtml

Ten days later he was hanged as a spy. The heroic part is that he never divulged the source of his information or the name of his spymaster. He was hanged in front of the college he had briefly attended and was buried in a borrowed grave.

Here’s a picture of that borrowed grave and of twenty-one guns going off in his honor at the annual observance of his execution. That eight-foot-tall obelisk to the left of the center of the photograph is his tombstone. There’s nothing on the stone to mark Dodd’s status as a folk hero. It’s just name, place of birth (Lavaca County, Texas), and dates of birth and death. The giant obelisk was put here in 1911 at a cost to the state of $3000. It also contains a grammatical error. “Here lies the remains….”

More can be found here: http://users.aristotle.net/~russjohn/warriors/dodd.html

Author: Michael T. Griffith

Recently some members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans drafted a statement to be placed on a proposed monument at a Confederate grave site in a Texas cemetery. The statement contains four claims regarding the Confederacy, the Union, and the Civil War. The purpose of this article is to examine those claims. The text of the statement is as follows:

The Confederate dead died for states rights guaranteed under the Constitution. The people of the South, animated by the spirit of 1776, to preserve their rights, withdrew from the federal compact in 1861. The North resorted to coercion. The South, against overwhelming numbers and resources, fought until exhausted.

There are four principal claims made in this statement:

1. That Confederate soldiers fought for states rights guaranteed under the Constitution.

2. That the people of the South seceded in order to preserve their rights.

3. That the North (i.e., the Union) resorted to coercion.

4. That the South fought against overwhelming odds.

Before I begin to discuss these claims, I would like to briefly introduce myself so as to give the reader some idea of where I’m coming from when I approach the subject of the Civil War. I’m not a Southerner by upbringing. I spent nearly all of my childhood in the North and in the West, and I have spent the majority of my adult life outside the South. I’ve always considered myself to be a “Northerner” or a “Yankee.” Politically, I’m an independent and a centrist who has long favored affirmative action and minority set-asides. One of the web pages that I maintain is dedicated to educating the public about the terrible abuses that African Americans have suffered in our nation, especially prior to the 1970s.

1. “The Confederate dead died for states rights guaranteed under the Constitution.”

States rights are in fact guaranteed under the Constitution. They are expressly guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which reads:

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 whole purpose of this amendment was to prevent the federal government from usurping powers that were not assigned to it, including powers that were reserved for the states. Constitutional scholar Bruce Findlay said the following:

Because of widespread fear that the new government might try to employ powers that were not granted, this amendment was added. It makes clear that the federal government was to have only those powers assigned to it, and no more. Some other powers were left to the states. (Your Rugged Constitution, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1950, pp. 216-217)

The main reason for opposition to the ratification of the Constitution was the fear that the federal government would eventually grow so large that it would destroy the states. Historians John Garraty and Robert McCaughey point out that most of the opposition to ratification only subsided after backers of the Constitution agreed to add amendments that would prevent the federal government from usurping civil liberties and states rights:

Aside from a few doctrinaires, most were ready to give the new government a chance if they could be convinced that it would not destroy the states. When backers agreed to add amendments guaranteeing the civil liberties of the people against challenge by the national government and reserving all unmentioned power to the states, much of the opposition disappeared. (Garraty and McCaughey, The American Nation: A History of the United States to 1877, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1987, p. 159)

Even Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio, a notorious “South-hater,” said in 1855 that if the states were not the ones who could ultimately decide if a law violated the Constitution, then the states would be deprived of their right to defend their citizens and the general government would become a “miserable despotism”:

Who is the judge in the last resort of the violation of the Constitution of the United States by the enactment of a law? Who is the final arbiter, the General Government or the States in their sovereignty? Why, sir, to yield that point is to yield up all the rights of the States to protect their own citizens, and to consolidate this government into a miserable despotism. (As quoted in Mildred Rutherford, Truths of History, Dahlonega, Georgia: Crown Rights Book Company, reprint of original 1920 edition, p. 4)

James Madison, one of our founding fathers, an author of The Federalist Papers, and our fourth president, said the federal government’s powers were delegated, defined, and few in number, and that the powers that were to remain with the states were “numerous and indefinite”:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. (Federalist Paper 45)

Of course, one of the states rights for which the South fought was the right of a state or a group of states to voluntarily and peacefully leave the Union. Thomas Jefferson tacitly recognized this right in his first inaugural address in 1801:

If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

In 1816 Jefferson gave a stronger endorsement of the principle that a state should be able to peacefully leave the Union:

If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation . . . to a continuance in the union. . . . I have no hesitation in saying, “Let us separate.” (Letter to William Crawford)

In 1839 President John Quincy Adams said that if sectional differences between the states became too severe it would be better for the states to go their own way in peace than to be constrained to remain together:

The indissoluble link of union between the people of the several States of this confederated nation is, after all, not in the right, but in the heart. If the day should ever come (may Heaven avert it) when the affections of the people of these States shall be alienated from each other, the bonds of political association will not long hold together parties no longer attached by the magnetism of consolidated interests and kindly sympathies; and far better will it be for the people of the disunited States to part in friendship with each other than to be held together by constraint. (Speech given at a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of George Washington, April 30, 1839, as quoted in the Hon. Joseph Wheeler, “Slavery and States Rights,” reprinted in Richmond Dispatch, July 31, 1894, emphasis added)

None other than Horace Greeley, a leading Republican and abolitionist and the owner of the then-influential New York Tribune, said the South had the right to leave the Union in peace:

We hold, with Jefferson, to the inalienable right of communities to alter or abolish forms of government that have become oppressive or injurious; and, if the Cotton States [the Deep South states] shall decide that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. . . . And, whenever a considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep her in. We hope never to live in a republic where one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets. (New York Tribune, November 9, 1860)

Numerous other Northern newspapers voiced the view that the Southern states had the right to secede and that it would be wrong to use force against them to compel them to return. The Detroit Free Press editorialized as follows:

An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful could produce nothing but evil — evil unmitigated in character and appalling in content. (Detroit Free Press, February 19, 1861)

Congressman Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland echoed this view shortly before the war broke out:

Any attempt to preserve the Union between the States of this Confederacy by force would be impractical, and destructive of republican liberty. (As quoted in Walter Williams, “Do States Have A Right of Secession?”, Capitalism Magazine, April 19, 2002; NOTE: Prior to the Civil War, many leaders and writers occasionally referred to the U.S. as a “confederacy.”)

In one of his final messages, given a few months before Lincoln was inaugurated, President James Buchanan said the government had no right to use force against a state that had seceded, and he cited founding father James Madison in support of his point:

The question fairly stated is: Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coerce a State into submission which is attempting to withdraw or has actually withdrawn from the confederacy? If answered in the affirmative, it must be on the principle that the power has been conferred upon Congress to declare and to make war against a State. After much serious reflection, I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress or to any other department of the federal government. It is manifest, upon an inspection of the Constitution, that this is not among the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress; and it is equally apparent that its exercise is not “necessary and proper for carrying into execution” any one of these powers. So far from this power having been delegated to Congress, it was expressly refused by the convention which framed the Constitution.

It appears from the proceedings of that body that on the 31st May, 1787, the clause “authorizing an exertion of the force of the whole against a delinquent State” came up for consideration. Mr. [James] Madison opposed it in a brief but powerful speech, from which I shall extract but a single sentence. He observed: “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.” Upon his motion the clause was unanimously postponed, and was never, I believe, again presented. Soon afterwards, on the 8th June, 1787, when incidentally adverting to the subject, he said: “Any government for the United States, formed on the supposed practicability of using force against the unconstitutional proceedings of the States, would prove as visionary and fallacious as the government of Congress,” evidently meaning the then existing Congress of the old confederation.

Without descending to particulars, it may be safely asserted that the power to make war against a State is at variance with the whole spirit and intent of the Constitution. . . .

The fact is, that our union rests upon public opinion, and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens in civil war. If it cannot live in the affections of the people, it must one day perish. Congress may possess many means of preserving it by conciliation, but the sword was not placed in their hand to preserve it by force. (President James Buchanan, Presidential Message, read in the U.S. House of Representatives, December 4, 1860, Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, 1860-1861, pp. 19-20)

Conservative scholar Joseph Sobran observes that the right of secession is implied in the Tenth Amendment:

The Tenth Amendment implies the right of secession, since it reserves to the states and the people “the powers not delegated to the United States [i.e., the federal government] by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states.” The Constitution doesn’t prohibit the states from seceding, so that power remains with them. . . .

During the debate over ratification of the Constitution, opponents of ratification made many dark predictions: the Constitution would enable the federal government to impose tyranny, it would lead to “consolidated” – centralized and monolithic – government, and so forth. But nobody complained that the Constitution would prevent the states from reclaiming their independence, as they certainly would have done if the Constitution had been understood to rule out secession. (Sobran, “Slavery, No; Secession, Yes,” Sobran’s, January 16, 2001, p. 1)

2. “The people of the South, animated by the spirit of 1776, to preserve their rights, withdrew from the federal compact in 1861.”

Southern leaders made it clear they believed they were following in the footsteps of the founding fathers and that they were protecting their rights. They quoted the Declaration of Independence on the right to form new governments and on the principle that governments derive their just powers “from the consent of the governed.” They also quoted the founding fathers on the sovereignty of the states.

The Southern states believed they were seceding to protect their constitutional rights, and that their rights had been violated by the North. They believed their rights had been violated in five areas, namely, tax policy, federal spending, the fugitive slave law, border security, and equal access to the territories.

For decades prior to the secession crisis, the South had complained about the imposition of tariffs. Tariffs usually had a negative impact on the South’s economy, while they tended to have a positive impact on the North’s economy. Because the South’s economy was heavily dependent on imports and exports, the South paid the majority of the tariffs. In 1832 South Carolina and the federal government nearly came to blows because South Carolina refused to pay the recently increased tariffs. Eventually a compromise was reached and the tariffs were gradually reduced. The issue of tariffs continued to be a sore point between North and South right up to the start of the Civil War. Southern leaders also objected to the misuse of tariff revenue by the federal government. They viewed as unfair and unconstitutional the use of tariff money for “internal improvements.” Admittedly, many more of these “internal improvements” went to the North than to the South. The South had a valid complaint here, and the situation only stood to get worse with the election of Lincoln, who favored higher tariffs and increased spending on internal improvements. We must bear in mind that there was no income tax back then. Tariffs were a huge source of revenue for the federal government at the time. It’s fair to say that in most cases the South favored free trade and that the North favored protectionism. The South’s desire to control its own economic destiny and to trade directly with Europe without having to pay federal tariffs was an important factor in its decision to secede.

When the states of the Deep South seceded and formed the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, in one of his first acts as president of the Confederacy, sent an official letter to Abraham Lincoln expressing a desire for peaceful relations (Letter from Jefferson Davis to Abraham Lincoln, February 27, 1861). Davis also sent a peace delegation to the city of Washington to meet with Lincoln for the purpose of establishing friendly relations. Lincoln would not even meet with the delegation. A short time later, in his first inaugural address, Lincoln threatened to invade the South if the South didn’t pay the tariffs (or if the South didn’t allow the federal government to maintain and occupy federal forts and property that were in Confederate territory). So Lincoln certainly viewed the collection of tariffs from the South as a critical issue, one over which he was willing to go to war (and it should be noted that Lincoln made no such threat over any issue relating to slavery). Jefferson Davis explained the tariff issue in these words:

Under the power of Congress to levy duties on imports, tariff laws were enacted, not merely “to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States,” as authorized by the Constitution, but, positively and primarily, for the protection against foreign competition of domestic manufactures. The effect of this was to impose the main burden of taxation upon the Southern people, who were consumers and not manufacturers, not only by the enhanced price of imports, but indirectly by the consequent depreciation in the value of exports, which were chiefly the products of Southern states. The imposition of this grievance was unaccompanied by the consolation of knowing that the tax thus borne was to be paid into the public treasury, for the increase of price accrued mainly to the benefit of the manufacturers. Nor was this all: a reference to the annual appropriations will show that the disbursements made were as unequal as the burdens borne–the inequality in both operating in the same direction [i.e., against the South in both cases]. (Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 1, New York: De Capo Press, 1990, reprint of 1881 edition, p. 28)

Southern leaders vehemently opposed the Morrill Tariff. But, the tariff was passed in the 1859-1860 session of the House of Representatives, and when Lincoln’s Republican Party gained control of the Senate, the bill passed in that chamber in 1861. The Morrill Tariff called for a drastic increase in the tariff rates. During Congressional debates on the bill, Representative G. S. Houston of Alabama voiced some of the objections that the South had to the Morrill Tariff, and he made it clear that he viewed this issue as being as important as the issue of slavery, if not more so. He pointed out that the Morrill Tariff would further benefit the manufacturing interests. Most manufacturers were in the North. Since the South’s economy was largely based on imports and exports, any increase in tariffs was of great concern to Southerners. Representative Houston, along with many other Southern members of Congress, argued that the government should cut spending rather than raise the tariff. Representative Houston:

The question is an important one. The taxing power of the Government, and its duty growing out of the exercise of that power, in view of the constitutional grant, present questions which, in my judgment, are not surpassed in importance by any ever agitated in an American Congress. I at once acknowledge the vast magnitude and importance of the questions growing out of African slavery. I am satisfied that upon its adjustment and final settlement the fate of the Government depends, and properly depends. Yet no question connected with the Government can be of more interest or importance than those growing out of the bill under consideration [the Morrill Tariff bill].

I was pleased to hear the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Sherman) admit so fully and distinctly that a duty levied upon imports is a tax upon those who consume such imports. . . . I am pleased that the protectionists are now disposed to deal more frankly and candidly with the subject, and admit that the taxes proposed in this bill–exorbitant and unjust as I know them to be–are to be paid (if the bill shall become law) by the consumers of this country for the benefit (as I am sure will be admitted by candid debaters) of the manufacturers. That is a correct statement of the case, and presents to our constituents the true and precise question, whether they are willing to be thus taxed in their necessary consumption, not because the Government needs the money, but to prosper and enrich the manufacturing interests.

The pretext presented by those who want protection is, that we are not receiving, under the existing law, sufficient revenue to meet the just and proper demands of the Government. That is a mere pretext, as I propose to show. In 1857 our receipts, under the [tariff] law of 1846, were said to be too large. I was then satisfied they were too large. I have not changed that opinion; and while the present law, passed in that year [1857], did not suit me in some of its provisions, yet I voted for it as the best I could get. It was a reduction of the receipts into the Treasury, as well as a reduction of the taxes upon the people. An effort is now being made to increase the duties to a point much higher than they were under the law of 1846, upon the alleged ground that our receipts into the Treasury are too small. . . .

If they are, if our receipts are not sufficient to meet the just demands of the Government, what is the proper remedy? . . . They should, if practicable, curtail the expenses of the Government, and in that way bring its expenditures to a point where they could be met by its income. Let us adopt that course. Let us cease to waste the money of the Government. Let us dispense with unnecessary and extravagant appropriations and see if in that way we cannot avoid an increase of taxation. . . .

The difficulty, Mr. Chairman, is not that the law does not produce revenue enough, but that Congress unnecessarily expends and wastes the money. Let us correct that abuse, and we will have ample means, not only to meet current expenses, but to pay the public debt in a few years. (Rep. G. S. Houston, U.S. House of Representatives, May 8, 1860, Appendix to the Congressional Globe, p. 449)

Another Southern member of the House of Representatives, Representative Moore of Alabama, likewise expressed strong opposition to the tariff bill. He noted that the burden of a tariff increase would fall mainly on the South, and that, on the other hand, it would benefit the manufacturers in the North. And Rep. Moore made it clear the tariff issue was a crucial topic:

Regarding the tariff bill now under consideration as the most important measure, so far as the interests of my constituents are concerned, of any which has been introduced into Congress since I have had the honor of a seat on this floor, I cannot in silence permit it to become a law. . . . I feel impelled by a sense of duty to enter my most emphatic and indignant protest against the passage of this bill. . . . From the examination I have been able to give this bill, I consider it highly objectionable; and if, unfortunately, it should become a law, my opinion is that it will prove scarcely less oppressive than did the memorable tariff act of 1828, known throughout the South as the bill of abominations.

Mr. Chairman, any material change in our revenue laws affects, in some degree, the interests of every individual. . . . It is for this reason that the question of the tariff has always been justly regarded as one of the greatest importance. . . . The public mind has of late been, and is now, absorbed by another question of more perilous import [slavery]; but let none think that this of the tariff has been overlooked or forgotten by the protectionists. . . .

Who introduces it here and now, and, as it seems to me, so unnecessarily and unseasonably? Not those upon whom the taxes are most heavily imposed by the tariff laws, and who might be expected to be weary of bearing their endless burden, but the manufacturers themselves, for whose support and profits nearly every individual and industrial interest in the country is now compelled to contribute. . . .

Mr. Chairman, the honorable gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Morrill), and all who have thus far spoken in favor of this bill, openly advocate protection for the sake of protection. It seems, indeed, strange that at this enlightened day the principles of protection should find any advocates here. I can only account for it from the fact, admitted by the honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Florence) the other day, that the tariff question was no longer a financial question, but a sectional question. The gentleman well knows that while the chief burdens will fall on the South, his constituents will be benefited by a high protective tariff. (Rep. S. Moore, U.S. House of Representatives, April 30, 1860, Appendix to the Congressional Globe, pp. 272-273)

The Declarations of Causes of Secession issued by Georgia and Texas included complaints about unfair economic policies that favored the North at the expense of the South. These were obvious references to the South’s anger over tariffs, over the misuse of tariff revenue, and over other economic policies that the South opposed. In fact, Georgia’s declaration includes a specific complaint about the protectionist policies of the North. Jefferson Davis mentioned the South’s objections to federal tariffs in his first message to the Confederate congress (he cited the North’s imposition of “burdens on commerce as a protection to their manufacturing and shipping interests”). Representative John Reagan, who would later become the Postmaster General of the Confederacy, strongly complained about unfair economic policies that hurt the South in a speech that he gave on the floor of the House on January 15, 1861. In speaking to Northern leaders in general, he said:

You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you annually under the operation of our revenue laws, our navigation laws, your fishing bounties, and by making your people our manufacturers, our merchants, our shippers. You are not satisfied with the vast tribute we pay to build up your great cities, your railroads, and your canals. You are not satisfied with the millions of tribute we have been paying you on account of the balance of exchange, which you hold against us. You are not satisfied that we of the South are almost reduced to the condition of overseers of northern capitalists. You are not satisfied with all this; but you must wage a relentless crusade against our rights and institutions. . . .

We do not intend that you shall reduce us to such a condition. But I can tell you what your folly and injustice will compel us to do. It will compel us to be free from your domination, and more self-reliant than we have been. It will compel us to assert and maintain our separate independence. It will compel us to manufacture for ourselves, to build up our own commerce, our own great cities, our own railroad and canals; and to use the tribute money we now pay you for these things for the support of a government which will be friendly to all our interests, hostile to none of them. (Rep. John Reagan, U.S. House of Representatives, January 15, 1861, as quoted in Kenneth Stampp, The Causes of the Civil War, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965, p. 74, quoting Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 2nd Session, I, p. 391)

As the secession crisis continued, it didn’t take Northern leaders long to perceive the grave economic threat that an independent South would pose to Northern business interests. They realized that if the South didn’t have to pay federal tariffs and were allowed to set its own tariffs, the Southern ports of New Orleans, Charleston, and Savannah could replace New York, Boston, and Philadelphia as the main centers for commercial trade. Weeks before any hostilities occurred, one Boston newspaper went so far as to opine that this was the South’s “controlling motive” for wanting to form a separate nation:

It does not require extraordinary sagacity to perceive that trade is perhaps the controlling motive operating to prevent the return of the seceding States of the Union, . . . it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding States are now for commercial independence. They dream that the centers of traffic can be changed from Northern to Southern ports. The merchants of New Orleans, Charleston, and Savannah are possessed with the idea that New York, Boston, and Philadelphia may be shorn [deprived], in the future, of their mercantile greatness, by a revenue system verging on free trade. If the Southern Confederation is allowed to carry out a policy by which only a nominal duty [tax] is laid upon imports, no doubt the business of the chief Northern cities will be seriously injured thereby.

The difference is so great between the tariff of the Union and that of the Confederated States, that the entire Northwest must find it to their advantage to purchase their imported goods at New Orleans rather than at New York. (Boston Transcript, March 18, 1861, from Stampp, The Causes of the Civil War, p. 80)

About two months earlier, shortly after the secession crisis began, the New Orleans Daily Crescent expressed the view that the main reason the North didn’t want the South to secede was economic in nature:

They [the Northern states] know that the South is the main prop and support of the Federal system. They know that it is Southern productions that constitute the surplus wealth of the nation, and enables us to import so largely from foreign countries. They know that it is their import trade that draws from the people’s pockets sixty or seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interests. . . . They know that the bulk of duties is paid by the Southern people . . . and that, by the iniquitous operation of the Federal Government, these duties are mainly expended among the Northern people. They know that they can plunder and pillage the South, as long as they are in the same Union with us, by other means, such as fishing bounties, navigation laws, robberies of the public lands, and every other possible mode of injustice and peculation. . . .

These are the reasons these people do not wish the South to secede from the Union. They are enraged at the prospect of being despoiled of the rich feast upon which they have so long fed and fattened, and which they were just getting ready to enjoy with still greater gout and gusto [i.e., by the Morrill Tariff]. (New Orleans Daily Crescent, January 21, 1861, from Stampp, The Causes of the Civil War, p. 75)

Garraty and McCaughey note that the South’s growing fear of being dominated economically by the North was a factor that led to secession:

Why were southerners willing to wreck the Union their grandfathers had put together with so much love and labor? No simple explanation is possible. . . . Lincoln had assured them that he would respect slavery where it existed. . . . The Democrats [who at the time were mostly from the South] had retained control of Congress in the election; the Supreme Court was firmly in their hands as well. If the North did try to destroy slavery, then secession was perhaps a logical tactic. . . . To leave the Union meant abandoning the very objectives for which the South had been contending for over a decade: a share of the federal territories and an enforceable fugitive slave act.

One reason the South rejected this line of thinking was the tremendous economic energy generated in the North, which seemed to threaten the South’s independence. As one Southerner complained at a commercial convention in 1855:

From the rattle with which the nurse tickles the ear of the child born in the South to the shroud which covers the cold form of the dead, everything comes from the North. We rise from between sheets made in Northern looms, and pillows of Northern feathers, to wash in basins made in the North. . . . We can eat from Northern plates and dishes; our rooms are swept with Northern brooms, our gardens dug with Northern spades . . . and the very wood which feeds our fires is cut with Northern axes, helved with hickory brought from Connecticut and New York.

Secession, southerners argued, would “liberate” the South and produce the kind of balanced economy that was proving so successful in the North and so unachievable in the South. (Garraty and McCaughey, The American Nation, pp. 418-419, emphasis in original)

And then there was the dispute over slavery. Before we look at the South’s disagreement with the North over slavery, I think it would be worthwhile to briefly consider why Southerners questioned the moral authority of the North to judge the South on this issue. For example, they noted that some Northern states forbade blacks from migrating into their boundaries, and that several other Northern states wouldn’t allow blacks to vote, wouldn’t allow them to testify in court, and wouldn’t allow them the right to litigate to collect a debt from whites. Lincoln biographer William Klingaman notes the following:

In the first half of the nineteenth century, state legislatures in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut took away Negroes’ right to vote; and voters in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Maine, Iowa, and Wisconsin approved new constitutions that limited suffrage [the right to vote] to whites. In Ohio, Negro males were permitted to vote only if they had “a greater visible admixture of white than colored blood.” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, New York: Viking Press, 2001, p. 54)

Historian James McPherson gives us more information on the conditions of blacks in the North:

The Indiana constitutional convention of 1851 adopted a provision forbidding black migration into the state. This supplemented the state’s laws barring blacks already there from voting, serving on juries or in the militia, testifying against whites in court, marrying whites, or going to school with whites. Iowa and Illinois had similar laws on the books and banned black immigration by statute in 1851 and 1853 respectively. These measures reflected the racist sentiments of most whites in those states. (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982, p. 80)

African-American scholars John Franklin and Alfred Moss discuss the racist atmosphere that many blacks experienced in the North during this period:

There can be no doubt that many blacks were sorely mistreated in the North and West. Observers like Fanny Kemble and Frederick L. Olmsted mentioned incidents in their writings. Kemble said of Northern blacks, “They are not slaves indeed, but they are pariahs, debarred from every fellowship save with their own despised race. . . . All hands are extended to thrust them out, all fingers point at their dusky skin, all tongues . . . have learned to turn the very name of their race into an insult and a reproach.” Olmsted seems to have believed the Louisiana black who told him that they could associate with whites more freely in the South than in the North and that he preferred to live in the South because he was less likely to be insulted there. (Franklin and Moss, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, p. 185)

Southerners also questioned the North’s moral authority because Northern states willingly allowed and profited from industrial wage slavery, under which tens of thousands of lower class, unskilled workers lived and toiled in conditions that were considerably worse than the conditions in which slaves lived. Historians Garraty and McCaughey observe that in the North “there existed a class of miserably underpaid and depressed unskilled workers, mostly immigrants, who were worse off materially than nearly any southern slave” (The American Nation, p. 385). Representative Mike Walsh expressed the feelings of many Southerners when he said on the floor of the House in 1854,

The only difference between the Negro slave of the South, and the white wage slave of the North is, that the one has a master without asking for him, and the other has to beg for the privilege of becoming a slave. . . . The one is the slave of an individual; the other is the slave of an inexorable class. (From Arthur Schlesinger, The Age of Jackson, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1945, p. 490, quoting the Congressional Globe, 33rd Congress, 1st Session, p. 1224)

After reviewing Representative Walsh’s case against Northern wage slavery, historian Arthur Schlesinger, who certainly can’t be accused of having a pro-Confederate bias, says “there was something to be said for his argument” (The Age of Jackson, p. 491). Schlesinger continues,

The Jacksonian impulse had, after all, sprung up to meet certain inadequacies of Northern society, and for all the hullabaloo over slavery, those inadequacies continued to exist. The Free Soilers might urge that the destruction of slavery was an indispensable preliminary to further reform; but the doctrinaire radicals could not but regard this as a confession of impotence, a compulsion on the part of a bankrupt reform party to escape its responsibilities at home by going on a crusade abroad. (Schlesinger, The Age of Jackson, p. 491)

The continuation of slavery as a legal institution where it already existed was not a major point of contention in the negotiations between North and South during the secession crisis. To be sure, some Southern leaders expressed the fear that Lincoln and his fellow Republicans would seek to abolish slavery. However, other Southern leaders did not share this fear. In the various negotiations during the secession crisis, Northern representatives, following Lincoln’s lead, made it clear they would support additional legal protection for slavery. Lincoln had already gone on record with the promise that he would not disturb slavery where it already existed. He even supported a constitutional amendment that guaranteed the continuation of slavery as a legal institution (Garraty and McCaughey, The American Nation, pp. 418-419). This amendment was passed by Congress and signed by President Buchanan two days before Lincoln took office. If war had not broken out shortly thereafter, it is very probable the amendment would have been ratified by more than the required majority of states.

The most hotly contested issues relating to slavery were the fugitive slave law, the South’s fear of further armed abolitionist raids into Southern territory, and the North’s effort to bar slavery from the territories. There can be no doubt that these were the most important factors that led the Deep South to desire secession and independence, although the economic disputes with the North also contributed to the secessionist sentiment. The election of Lincoln was the trigger event that caused the Deep South to secede. We should keep in mind, however, that the states of Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee did not secede over slavery. These states did not secede when the states of the Deep South seceded. They only seceded when, about two months later, Lincoln made it clear he was going to use force against the newly formed Confederacy. Prior to that time, these states were willing to remain in the Union, and Lincoln was willing to allow them to do so. The initial votes on secession in these states, whether in convention or by popular vote, all went against secession, in Virginia by a margin of two to one. However, after Lincoln left no doubt he was going to use force, new votes were held, and they all went heavily in favor of secession.

The South believed its legal rights were being denied by the refusal of several Northern states to honor the fugitive slave law, which at the time was established and protected by the Constitution itself and which had been reaffirmed by Congress. Although one can certainly sympathize with those Northern states that refused to enforce this law, legally speaking the South was in the right–and, legally speaking, the South’s rights were being violated in this regard. Some Northern states, appealing to a higher moral law, were in fact refusing to obey the fugitive slave law, even though it was guaranteed by the Constitution.

After the John Brown raid of 1859, many Southerners believed their borders were no longer secure, and they feared that abolitionist forces in the North would launch more armed assaults into the South for the purpose of inciting potentially deadly slave rebellions. Southerners were genuinely frightened when abolitionist John Brown led an armed incursion into Virginia in an attempt to incite a slave revolt. Southerners were mindful of the fact that a slave revolt in Haiti had resulted in a large-scale massacre of whites. Therefore, many people in the South were especially enraged and alarmed when, during the 1860 presidential election, the Republican Party distributed an abridged version of an anti-slavery book entitled The Impending Crisis, which spoke approvingly of a scenario in which slaves would rise up and kill their masters. Not only did the Republican Party distribute this book, but in the version that the party distributed, Republican editors added such captions as “The Stupid Masses of the South” and “Revolution–Peacefully if we can, Violently if we must.” With this in mind, perhaps it’s not hard to understand why so many Southerners viewed the relatively new Republican Party with so much alarm and distrust. To put this in modern terms, imagine the unrest and outrage that would be generated if a major political party in our day were to distribute a book that endorsed the shooting of abortion doctors and the bombing of abortion clinics. As much as one might oppose and detest abortion (as I do), it is legal. No responsible citizen could support a party that distributed a book that promoted violence against abortion doctors and their clinics. Similarly, although no one can defend the institution of slavery, we must keep in mind that not only was slavery legal back then, but it was permitted by the Constitution and had existed in America for over two hundred years before the secession crisis began.

Not only were some Northern states refusing to honor the fugitive slave law, but many Northern leaders was pushing to bar slavery from the vast western territories. One does not have to approve of slavery to admit that this effort was of somewhat debatable legality. What’s more, many historians have noted that the North’s drive to bar slavery from the territories was mainly motivated by a desire to prevent slave labor from competing with free white labor, and not by any strong moral objection to the extension of slavery itself. It must also be mentioned that, sadly enough, most whites in the territories simply didn’t want blacks living among them. From the South’s point of view, the North had no right to bar a legal institution from the territories, especially when the South had contributed the majority of the soldiers who had fought in the war that led to the acquisition of most of the new western territories (the Mexican War). Southerners also noted that the North showed no interest in banning Northern white wage slavery from the territories.

3. “The North resorted to coercion.”

I believe the correctness of this statement is beyond dispute. The historical record makes it clear that the North was the aggressor and that it resorted to coercion against the South. As mentioned earlier, the reason the states of the Upper South decided to secede was that Lincoln chose to use force. The four states that formed the Upper South, i.e., Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee, did not join in the first wave of secession. They made it known that they would remain in the Union if Lincoln did not use force against the newly formed Confederacy. And those states joined the Confederacy only after Lincoln announced he was going to wage war against the seceded states (see McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, pp. 137-138, 150-151).

As stated earlier, Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, tried to establish peaceful relations with the North as soon as he took office. He sent a letter to Lincoln expressing a desire for peaceful relations, and he sent a delegation to Washington to meet with Lincoln for the specific purpose of establishing peaceful ties with the Union (see, for example, Kenneth C. Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, New York: Avon Books, 1997, pp. 156-157; see also Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, pp. 212-213). Lincoln would not even meet with the delegation.

Lincoln gave his reply to the Confederacy’s peace overtures in his first inaugural address. In that speech, Lincoln threatened to invade the Confederate states if they didn’t pay the tariffs and if they didn’t allow the federal government to occupy and maintain federal installations that were in Confederate territory (see, for example, Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 31-32) . This was in spite of the fact that the Confederate states were prepared to pay compensation for the federal forts and property that were located within their boundaries.

The first large-scale battle of the Civil War took place in the South, because Lincoln sent a large military force into Virginia. For that matter, nearly all the battles of the war took place in the South. The South’s strategy was defensive. The South hoped the North would eventually grow tired of casualties and would decide to allow the Confederacy to exist in peace. Jefferson Davis did not desire to conquer the North. He said repeatedly that the South simply wanted to be allowed to go in peace, and that the Confederacy wanted peaceful relations with the Union (see William Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, New York: Vintage Books, 2000, pp. 379-380). Davis expressed this position many times. For example, he said the following in his proclamation to the people of Maryland in 1862:

First, that the Confederate Government is waging this war solely for self-defense; that it has no design of conquest, or any other purpose than to secure peace and the abandonment by the United States of their pretensions to govern a people who have never been their subjects, and who prefer self-government to a union with them.

Second, that this Government, at the very moment of its inauguration, sent commissioners to Washington to treat for a peaceful adjustment of all differences, but that these commissioners were not received, nor even allowed to communicate the object of their mission; and that, on a subsequent occasion, a communication from the President of the Confederacy to President Lincoln remained without answer, although a reply was promised by General Scott, into whose hands the communication was delivered. . . .

Fourth, that now, at a juncture when our arms have been successful, we restrict ourselves to the same just and moderate demand that we made at the darkest period of our reverses, the simple demand that the people of the United States should cease to war upon us, and permit us to pursue our own path to happiness, while they in peace pursue theirs. (Proclamation of Jefferson Davis to the People of Maryland, September 7, 1862)

Some might ask, “But didn’t the Confederacy fire the first shot by shelling Fort Sumter in South Carolina?” In point of fact, Lincoln deliberately provoked the South into firing on Fort Sumter, and then he used the attack as a pretext for invading the seceded states. Several historians have noted that Lincoln knew that if he tried to resupply Fort Sumter, the Confederacy would probably decide to use force to prevent it. The Confederacy had been trying for weeks to arrange for the peaceful evacuation of the fort. And before the Confederacy took over the Fort Sumter negotiations, South Carolina had been trying for several weeks to negotiate a peaceful resolution. As mentioned, the Confederacy was prepared to pay compensation for all federal forts and property that were in Southern territory. Furthermore, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Seward, had promised the Confederacy the fort would be evacuated, but that promise was broken. Lincoln’s own comments indicate he deliberately provoked the attack on Fort Sumter. I quote historian Francis Simkins,

By the time Lincoln took office Confederate authorities, fearing hasty action from South Carolina, had assumed control of the delicate Fort Sumter negotiations. . . . Would Lincoln pursue the dilatory course of Buchanan or would he be aggressive and forthright as the leader of the party which had condemned Buchanan’s policy? He did neither. Instead, he carried out a plan of his own which was so devious, so subtle, and perhaps so confused that it is almost as difficult for the historian to understand as it was for the men of the times. Some scholars believe that he blundered into war, overestimating the strength of the Union party in the South. It is more likely that, with a subtlety approaching the diabolical, he provoked the Confederates into firing upon Fort Sumter in order to solidify North public opinion. . . .

Although Lincoln did not confess his part in provoking the Civil War with the cynical honesty of a Bismarck, he did speak certain revealing words. He consoled the commander of the Fort Sumter relief expedition for that officer’s failure: “You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it should fail, and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result.” Shortly after the fall of the fort he was quoted by a close personal friend: “The plan succeeded. They attacked Sumter–it fell, and thus, did more service than it otherwise could.” A few of his party friends congratulated him upon his masterful stroke. The New York Times believed that “the attempt at reinforcement was a feint–that its object was to put upon the rebels the full and clear responsibility of commencing the war. . . .” Jefferson Davis, others exulted, “ran blindly into the trap.” (Simkins, A History of the South, Third Edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963, pp. 213, 215-216, emphasis added)

Just two weeks before the first shot was fired at Fort Sumter, Secretary of State Seward warned Lincoln in a memorandum that any effort to resupply the fort would provoke a hostile response, and he advised Lincoln to evacuate the facility:

The dispatch of an expedition to supply or reinforce Sumter would provoke an attack and so involve a war at that point. . . . I would instruct Maj. Anderson [the commander of the federal troops at the fort] to retire from Sumter, forthwith. (Memorandum from Seward to Lincoln, “Opinion on Fort Sumter,” March 29, 1861)

In fact, according to accounts of one of Lincoln’s cabinet meetings in which the resupply of Fort Sumter was discussed, Lincoln told his cabinet that if South Carolina’s artillery opened fire on the fort or on the resupply ship, “he could blame the Confederacy for starting a war” (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 45).

So, yes, the Confederacy did fire on Fort Sumter. But, the Confederacy did this (1) only after Lincoln’s Secretary of State had broken his promise to evacuate the fort, (2) only after the Confederacy had tried for weeks to arrange for the peaceful evacuation of the fort, (3) only after Lincoln had refused to meet with the peace delegation that Jefferson Davis had sent to Washington, (4) only after Lincoln had threatened an invasion if the Confederacy didn’t allow the federal government to occupy and maintain federal buildings in Confederate territory (even though the South had offered to pay compensation for them), and (5) only after it became known that Lincoln had sent a ship to resupply the federal troops garrisoned at the fort. It should be mentioned that Lincoln didn’t merely send a supply ship to Fort Sumter–he also sent warships. It should also be mentioned that not a single Union soldier was killed in the attack on Fort Sumter, and that the soldiers were permitted to return in peace to the North after they surrendered.

Even the attack on Fort Sumter did not have to lead to war. The Confederacy made no hostile moves against any Northern state. But, two months after the Fort Sumter incident, a large Union force marched into Virginia, which led to the first major battle of the war, the Battle of Bull Run (or Manassas).

4. “The South, against overwhelming numbers and resources, fought until exhausted.”

I don’t think anyone disputes the fact that the South faced overwhelming odds in a war with the North. The North had over twice the population of the South, and a great deal more heavy industry. McPherson’s chapter entitled “The Balance Sheet of War” in his book Ordeal By Fire shows just how great the odds were against the South (Ordeal By Fire, pp. 180-205). In nearly every important category, the North held a decided advantage. In major battles, Confederate forces were frequently outnumbered by a ratio of two or three to one. Yet, amazingly, the Confederacy won many battles, inflicted greater casualties than it suffered, came close to gaining formal recognition from England and France (and would have but for the loss of two or three battles), and managed to hold on for over four years.

Finally, I would like to list some important facts that are often omitted from most of the history textbooks used in public schools and that are rarely, if ever, mentioned in documentaries on the Civil War:

* As early as 1862, Confederate diplomats in England were indicating to British authorities that the Confederacy would be willing to abolish slavery in exchange for diplomatic recognition. In late 1864, Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders were ready and willing to abolish slavery in order to save the Confederacy, and Confederate diplomats in Europe made an offer to this effect (see Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 552-553; see also, Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 113). This shows that Confederate leaders viewed independence as being more important than the continuation of slavery.

* The Confederate constitution outlawed the slave trade, i.e., it forbade the importation of slaves from Africa and from all other continents (Article I, Section 9).

* During the secession crisis, a group of moderates in the Senate proposed the Crittenden Compromise, which may have ended up preventing war. Lincoln rejected the proposal, and Senate Republicans stalled the measure until they had enough votes to defeat it after a number of Southern senators had resigned. This led Senator Crittenden himself to suggest that the compromise be voted on by the people in a national referendum. Senate Republicans, with Lincoln’s approval, prevented this from happening (see Bruce Catton, editor, The National Experience: A History of the United States, Second Edition, New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1968, p. 336). There is little doubt the Crittenden Compromise would have been approved by a substantial majority of the people if the measure had been put to a national vote (see, for example, Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, Volume 2, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1950, pp. 401-402).

At the first committee vote on the compromise, the Southern representatives, including Robert Toombs and Jefferson Davis, said they would support the proposal if the Republicans did the same (Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, p. 397). Vice President Breckinridge, who was from Kentucky, told the Senate that “the leading statesmen of the lower Southern States were willing to accept the terms” of the compromise (Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, p. 398). But, as mentioned, the Republicans were unwilling to support it. Historian Allan Nevins noted that “the chief responsibility for the defeat of the compromise falls upon the twenty-five Republicans who voted to slay it” (The Emergence of Lincoln, p. 403).

* Four of the states that fought for the Union were slave states: Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri.

* As of 1860, just one year before the outbreak of the Civil War, roughly half of the free blacks in America lived in the South, and in the Southern cities of New Orleans and Charleston alone there were more free blacks who owned real estate than in the Northern cities of Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and Boston combined (see Franklin and Moss, From Slavery to Freedom, pp. 169-175). I again quote African-American scholars Franklin and Moss:

Free blacks in the Southern states also accumulated property. . . . Luther P. Jackson found that in Virginia in 1860 free blacks owned more than 60,000 acres of farmland and their city real estate was valued at $463,000. In North Carolina they owned $480,000 worth of real property and $564,000 worth of personal property in 1860. In Charleston, 352 blacks paid taxes in 1859 on property valued in excess of $778,000. Tennessee’s free blacks owned about $750,000 worth of real and personal property in 1860. The affluence of a large number of free blacks in New Orleans is well known. (Franklin and Moss, From Slavery to Freedom, pp. 174-175)

* French scholar Alex de Tocqueville visited America and wrote of his experiences in 1831. He found that race relations were better in the South than in the North:

The prejudice of the race appears to be stronger in the States that have abolished slavery than in the States where slavery still exists. White carpenters, white bricklayers and white painters will not work side by side with the blacks in the North but do it in almost every Southern State. . . . (de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, as quoted in Mildred R. Rutherford, Truths of History, Athens, GA: M. L. Rutherford, 1907, p. 92)

* The same Republicans who vehemently attacked the South over slavery, and who imposed harsh Reconstruction rule on the South after the war, approved official discrimination against the American Indians in the West and permitted them to be segregated from the rest of society. One textbook, edited by Civil War scholar Bruce Catton, puts it this way:

The same Congress that devised Radical Reconstruction . . . approved strict segregation and inequality for the Indian of the West. (Catton, editor, The National Experience, p. 416)

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Michael T. Griffith holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Excelsior College in Albany, New York, two Associate in Applied Science degrees from the Community College of the Air Force, and an Advanced Certificate of Civil War Studies and a Certificate of Civil War Studies from Carroll College in Wisconsin. He is a two-time graduate of the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, in Arabic and Hebrew, and of the U.S. Air Force Technical Training School in San Angelo, Texas. He is the author of four books on Mormonism and ancient texts, and of one book on the John F. Kennedy assassination. He has completed advanced Hebrew programs at Haifa University in Israel and at the Spiro Institute in London, England. He is currently pursuing a Master’s degree in Religious Studies from The Catholic Distance University in Hamilton, Virginia.

On The Web: http://ourworld.cs.com/mikegriffith1/4claims.htm