Book Review: The Enduring Lost Cause

The Enduring Lost Cause: Afterlives of a Redeemer Nation
Edited by Edward R. Crowther
University of Tennessee Press, 2020, $70 hardcover

Reviewed by Stephen Davis

Just like The Dude in the Coen Brothers film, the Lost Cause abides. Edward Crowther reminds us of this with his collection of a dozen thoughtful essays.

Edward Pollard, the vitriolic associate editor of the wartime Richmond Examiner, coined the term in his history of the war, published in 1866. The Lost Cause Myth, developed by Southerners in the decades after Appomattox, explained Confederate defeat in a less searing way, sidelined slavery, and lionized the soldiers who fought for Southern independence. Historians may fuss over falsehoods in the LCM, but its cluster of ideas, symbols and rituals continues to tug at the emotions of countless Americans, Southerners especially. Or, to paraphrase from another great movie, “This is the South, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

That the Myth retains an allure for scholars as well is suggested in the title of Christopher Moore’s essay, “Confederate Symbology and the Prophecy of J. William Jones”—symbology, as in the study of a set of symbols. “Understanding  the roots of white Southern memory is of paramount importance,” writes Professor Moore, author of Apostle of the Lost Cause (2019). Jones edited the Southern Historical Society Papers from 1876 to 1887, indelibly putting his personal impress on the emerging myth, especially in venerating Robert E. Lee as the quintessential Confederate hero.

Another essay, by Colin Chappell, reminds us that the LCM is not just a way of looking at the past. For Southerners it helped them—us, I mean—define a place in the world today. This may seem a trifle absurd—unless you’re a Southerner.

Keith Harper explains the “Confederate catechism,” composed by Leon Tyler, son of the president, in 1920. In nearly fifty questions and answers, Tyler’s catechism offered “a decidedly Southern reading of American history”—more particularly, “justifying secession and vilifying Lincoln.”

More recently the University of Mississippi has ceased the programmed waving of the Battle Flag at football games, as Leigh McWhite explains in her essay. (Let’s see how long the team remains “The Rebels.”)

In his essay on Civil War reenacting and the Lost Cause, Bradley Keefer makes the very good point that reenactors’ appreciation of Civil War soldiers’ service and sacrifice tends to favor “a Lost Cause interpretation of the war, which emphasizes the heroic nature of the soldiers and obscures the influence of slavery on the causes, conduct, or outcome of the conflict.”

Charles Reagan Wilson, author of Baptized in Blood (1980) examines “The Modernization of the Lost Cause.” For several reasons the Myth began to weaken in the 20th Century South. World War I melded the region more into the nation; Confederate veterans and the war generation died out. On the other hand, the GWTW phenomenon, both the book (1936) and the movie (1939) led to “Dixie” being sung with renewed fervor. A few decades later, expropriation of the Battle Flag by segregationists gave it more visibility in the South—but at a cost, as we realize today.

Still, at the end of it all, the Confederate soldier remains for many Americans a figure of fame. In a Flannery O’Connor story (cited by Dr. Wilson), Sally Sash points to her grandfather, a Confederate veteran:

See him! See him! My kin, all you upstarts! Glorious

          upright old man standing for the old traditions!

Dignity! Honor! Courage! See him!



130 Responses to Book Review: The Enduring Lost Cause

  1. The “Lost Cause Myth” is itself a myth that suppresses a wealth of primary sources to support its political agenda. The agenda supporting the myth of American Exceptionalism began before war’s end as the North attempted to sanitize a war of economic conquest. This was later picked up by the Left who sought to use the war as a poster event for neo-Marxist approach to civil rights. The latter had roots in the early 20th century, but gained momentum in the 60’s when Leftists began to dominate in the universities and coined the phrase “lost cause myth” as a means of dismissing any defense of the CSA while at the same time avoiding any critical examination of anti-Confederate claims. With the influx of postmodernist ideologues in the 80’s, the universities, especially in the humanities and social sciences, became the guardians, dressed in the new skin the old Marxism began to inhabit, of the myth of the “lost cause myth.” They use the weapon of political correctness to hold in line any who might otherwise, under the influence of honest research, challenge a historiography deeply embedded with political agenda. Two retired academic historians of high standing were able to sound the warning regarding the bias that now consumes the History discipline because they were in retirement insulated from the guardians of the myth of the lost cause myth:

    The late Dr. Ludwell Johnson, Professor of History Emeritus, College of William and Mary stated: “Various theoretical “isms” arriving from Europe in the 1960’s still endanger the very existence of what has so long been thought of as history… Of all fields of scholarship, history is perhaps most attractive and vulnerable to Political Correctness. It decrees that some things should be accepted without question – otherwise the elaborate machinery of academic control and social hostility will exact their full measure of retribution on the dissenter… Readers with special interest in the period of the Civil War need to be particularly alert because the South and Southerners offer many tempting Targets to the holier-than-thou.” In the forward to his book North Against South.

    The late Dr. Eugene Genovese, Professor of History Emeritus, University of Rochester: “Rarely, these days, even on Southern campuses, is it possible to acknowledge the achievements of the white people of the South. The history of the Old South is now often taught at leading universities, when it is taught at all, as a prolonged guilt-trip, not to say a prologue to the history of Nazi Germany. . . . To speak positively about any part of this Southern tradition is to invite charges of being a racist and an apologist for slavery and segregation. We are witnessing a cultural and political atrocity, an increasing campaign by academic elites to strip young white and arguably young black Southerners of their heritage.” Massey Lectures at Harvard University.

    The tenets of the myth of the lost cause myth are so easily refuted that one has to wonder how modern historians can look at themselves in the mirror!

    1. I see you have earned the ire of “The Cut and Paste Confederacy” Steve. Whenever I see the quote from Ludwell Johnson, I know the quote from Eugene Genovese can’t be far away. Drawn from the well of Lost Cause memes and quotes.

      1. I suppose you think quotes from two highly respected historians are somehow less relevant if the technology to “cut and paste” is used? That certainly does beg some explanation!

      2. Which Genovese is the “highly respected” historian – the Lefty or the Righty? I believe that the latter version showed up for the Massey Lectures. His liberal doppelganger must have taken the week off. And we thought history involves an objective search for facts.

      1. Read your two references with great interest in hoping to find some new revelation that might uphold the myth that the CS seceded and fought to “preserve and extend” slavery as the myth of the lost cause myth claims. I am sorely disappointed to find inly the same old out of context and misunderstood sources.

        First, the cause of the war was not slavery. The man who initiated war by calling for troops to invade the Southern States, first provoked war at Sumter (as he states in a letter), and then set about engaging in a war of conquest. Why? To “preserve the Union,” a euphemism for maintaining economic exploitation of those who sought independence from the same. Lincoln chose war, he did not have to force the seceded States back into the Union. He took an oath to “uphold the Constitution,” and not to “preserve the union.” Lincoln “caused the war” by his own choice to commit what, by today’s standards, would be a crime against humanity. And given the standard set by our most basic founding principle of “government by consent of the governed,” Lincoln violated that most basic principle of liberty by building a Berlin Wall around the US.

        Second, that preserving the Constitution of the Founders was THE CAUSE for secession is made clear by the Southern statesmen, and even by the slavery issue which was a merely the most recent occasion of Constitutional infidelity. Those who make an adolescent and superficial reading of the primary sources such as the Declaration of Causes, The Cornerstone Speech or other “pro-slavery” arguments fail entirely to understand the historical context within which these primary sources occurred. They ignore the fact that from the very early years of secession the South claimed slavery was the “occasion and not the cause” of seeking independence. What did this mean? Why “occasion” or sometimes “the immediate cause” instead of “the cause” of secession? The answer is clear by both statements and actions.

        Slavery issues were merely the most recent occasions of a long history of Northern infidelity to the Constitution. Many are the primary documents that list the most egregious acts of Northern infidelity, but slavery issues were only the most recent and most blatant. The South’s purpose was not the preservation and extension of slavery. Even a Northern Unionist such as Webster admitted that Southern emancipation momentum had been quelled by the irresponsible demands of the small but vocal Northern radical abolitionists who called for immediate, uncompensated emancipation backed by terrorist threats. They gave no consideration to either the slave’s wellbeing or the damage immediate emancipation would have on the Southern economy. Backing the South further into an impossible circumstance were Northern politicians who, because of deeply engrained Northern racism as well as political motives, sought to keep all but the very few blacks already in the North bottled up in the South on an ipso facto black reservation. They did not support the demands of radical abolitionists because they did not want freed slaves migrating into Northern States, and they wanted to preserve the Western territories for whites who favored Northern political dominance.

        This was the historical context which slavery became the “immediate cause” or the “occasion” for secession. As both Lincoln and Lee admitted most people in the South believed slavery to be a violation of natural law. But when the ideal of natural law is not practicable, natural law then demands that one do what causes the most good and least harm. The South had therefore a twofold reason for taking a pro-slavery stance. First of all, slavery was protected by the supreme law of the land and the North was seeking in many ways to infringe upon Constitutionally protected property. The South’s objection was therefore a matter of Constitutional principle. If there was to be a Union, the least the South should expect is for the North to abide by its supreme law. To give in on slavery issues was to give up on all Constitutional protections and yield to what had been a long history of infidelity involving much more than just slavery. The second reason the South took a pro-slavery stance was a practical reason. Given the irresponsible call for immediate and uncompensated emancipation backed by the recent terrorist threat of John Brown, coupled with the Northern political and racist motives to keep all blacks bottled up in the South, Southerners faced the impossible humanitarian challenge of trying to accommodate a population of destitute people suddenly turned out into its society landless and penniless. It would have been both a humanitarian and economic disaster given that there were a surplus of slaves relative to jobs available to run a profitable business, and especially when the very young and very old slaves who could not work but were dependent on cradle to grave welfare of the master were considered. What would become of them? This is why the author of the Mississippi Declaration of Secession laments that the North wants to end the slaves current condition without providing a better. Slavery was considered the best solution to a bad situation given the irresponsible demands of Northern radicals coupled with Northern politicians who were unwilling to take in any freed slaves and absorb any of the social cost of emancipation.

        The above is the historical context that gives meaning to the statements of the Southern defense of slavery. This in no way means the South desired to preserve and extend slavery. This is where their actions speak louder than their words. Having seceded, the South turned down three offers by Lincoln to return to the Union and keep slavery. The first was an absolute Constitutional guarantee that slavery could never be banned by congressional action – the Corwin Amendment. The second was a promise in the EP that if the South returned to the Union before the proclamation went into effect it could keep slavery. The third was an assurance at Hampton Roads that if the South returned to the Union it could defeat the 13th Amendment banning slavery. The South turned down every offer. Why? Because its cause was not slavery, but rather independence from a section of the country that had long violated the Constitution and now stood in a position to centralize power in DC because it controlled a majority of States. Economic exploitation was now unavoidable in the Union. These actions prove the South’s purpose in secession was not the preservation or extension of slavery. But that is not all. Further proving the South’s cause was not slavery was its willingness to end it in hopes of gaining foreign support in its effort for independence. As early as July 1862, seven Northern Congressmen send corroborating testimony in a letter to Lincoln that the CS was looking to end slavery in hopes of gaining independence. These Union loyal congressmen call it a “fact now become history” that the South was seeking to end slavery:

        “We are the more emboldened to assume this position from the fact, now become history, that the leaders of the Southern rebellion have offered to abolish slavery amongst them as a condition to foreign intervention in favor of their independence as a nation. If they can give up slavery to destroy the Union; We can surely ask our people to consider the question of Emancipation to save the Union.” https://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.1713000/?r=-0.818,-0.749,2.636,3.213,0

        These men had no reason to lie to their President to whom they remained loyal. Do you see now why Lincoln suddenly surprised his cabinet with his own EP only a few weeks later? His purpose was to head off CS emancipation!

        Further corroborating the fact that the CS was willing to end slavery to gain independence is the documented mission of CS Congressman Duncan Kenner which was underway when Lee surrendered. A mission that mirrored the 1862 effort. To this the question must be asked:

        If the South’s “cause” in secession was slavery, why were they willing to end it to gain foreign support in their quest for independence from the Union? A purpose for secession would not be given up to make secession a success! That would make no sense. The CSA was willing to end slavery as difficult as that would be given the historical context to gain self-government. As a note written by Judah Benjamin explained to the CS European diplomat in the Kenner mission to end slavery:

        “The sole object for which we would ever have consented to commit our all to the hazards of this war, is the vindication of our right to self-government and independence… For that end no sacrifice is too great, save that of honour.” Judah Benjamin to John Slidell, Dec 27, 1864,

      2. First, the cause of the war was not slavery. The man who initiated war by calling for troops to invade the Southern States, first provoked war at Sumter (as he states in a letter), and then set about engaging in a war of conquest.

        This is absolutely incorrect. The cause of the war was slavery. The traitors fired the 1st shot. Thats how a war starts, with a military attack.

        Second, that preserving the Constitution of the Founders was THE CAUSE for secession is made clear by the Southern statesmen, and even by the slavery issue which was a merely the most recent occasion of Constitutional infidelity.

        The FF’s Constitution, was a document that endorsed and was written to preserve slavery. Look at the 3/5th clause. I affected all 3 branches of the Government. It gave slave States greater representation in the House so that they could stop legislation. It affected the Executive because it gave the slave states added Electoral College votes.It affected the Judicial because the President nominates the Judges to the Court. It ensured that the Slave Trade would not be legislated on for 20 years. And after 20 years, it could still be continued. It has written into it amethod for the states to return runaway slaves.

        The South’s purpose was not the preservation and extension of slavery.

        Again an incorrect statement. The 1st 7 Southern States to leave the Union, did so because the election of Lincoln and the Republican Party’s desire to prevent the extension of slavery.

        The rest of what was written is just plain wrong.

      3. The war was definitely over Slavery. Read the secession convention speeches. Everyone’s go to seems to be Stephens’ Cornerstone speech, but there is a lot more than that.

        Lincoln’s call for troops after the firing on Fort Sumter definitely contributed to Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee choosing to join the Confederacy, and guaranteed a wider civil war, but the Confederacy was formed with the purpose to defend Slavery.

      4. If preserving and extending slavery was their “cause” for independence, why were they willing to end slavery as early as 1861 or 62 in hopes of gaining foreign support in their war for independence? Hear the corroborated testimony of seven Union loyal congressmen in July 1862:

        “We are the more emboldened to assume this position from the fact, now become history, that the leaders of the Southern rebellion have offered to abolish slavery amongst them as a condition to foreign intervention in favor of their independence as a nation. If they can give up slavery to destroy the Union; We can surely ask our people to consider the question of Emancipation to save the Union.”

        Why would they give up their cause for seceding in hopes of gaining support to secede? That makes no sense. As one CS General famously stated at any time during the war they could have laid down their arms and kept their slaves.

      5. Sorry Rod, but you are wrong. The South left the Union , because of slavery. The South never was going to give up its slaves.

      6. Then explain the letter of the 7 Union loyal congressmen written to Lincoln in July 1862. Explain the same sort of mission still underway in ‘65. Until you have a solid explanation, your position is irrational. In other words, you cling to a myth!

        Don’t bother responding until you have a rational explanation. I have little time for myth.

      7. So, that’s a new one. 7 Union congressmen ( you forgot to mention they came form Border states), have the plans for the Confederacy.

        Fact is, Lincoln gave the South time to return, before the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.

        Don’t bother responding with more Lost Cause malarkey, until you have read a real book on the Civil War.

      8. Still no explanation eh? A myth is a hard thing to let go, especially when it approaches a blind commitment from near religious zeal!

        Why did their being from border slave States matter? Those States remained in the Union and those congressmen were loyal to the Union, and had a long history as such. If any Union congressmen were in a position to know about the South’s secret plan, it was them. After all, the seceded States were desperately trying to get those border States to join them. It was quite likely that someone spilled the beans in an attempt to bring those congressmen on board with the seceded States. And those 7 had voted for Lincoln’s offer of compensated emancipation, so they certainly were not seeking to preserve slavery. Why would they lie and call what they knew a “fact now become history.” They were quite certain of what they knew and had no reason to lie. And the fact that the same sort of mission was still underway in ‘65 shows the CS was committed to the goal of ending slavery to gain independence.

        I’m still awaiting a solid answer supported by primary source evidence. But I’m not holding my breath. You are clinging desperately to your myth in spite of the evidence. Here’s you some more evidence that the South did not secede over slavery. Twenty Union loyal BORDER SLAVE STATE congressmen also wrote a letter to Lincoln correcting his belief that secession was leveraged around slavery:

        “In both Houses of Congress we have heard doctrines subversive of the principles of the Constitution, and seen measure after measure founded in substance on those doctrines proposed and carried through, which can have no other effect than to distract and divide loyal men, and exasperate and drive still further from us and their duty the people of the rebellious States… The effect of these measures was foretold, and may now be seen in the indurated state of Southern feeling. To these causes, Mr. President, and not to our omission to vote for the resolution recommended by you, we solemnly believe we are to attribute the terrible earnestness of those in arms against the Government and the continuance of the war. Nor do we (permit us to say, Mr., President, with all respect for you) agree that the institution of Slavery is “the lever of their power,” but we are of the opinion that “the lever of their power” is the apprehension that the powers of a common Government, created for common and equal protection to the interests of all, will be wielded against the institutions of the Southern States.“

        Again, if anyone was in a position to know what motivated secession it was these Union men whose States shared in the institution of slavery.

        “Who you gonna call – Myth Busters” sung to the tune of a famous flick theme.

      9. Rod, I’m still waiting for a comment based on factual history and not the Myth of the Lost Cause.

        Please read Stephen’s Cornerstone Speech, with discernment.

        The lower 7 States left the Union because Lincoln was elected, and he did not endorse the expansion of slavery.

        Maybe you can read why the South refused compensated emancipation?

      10. Why did they refuse compensated emancipation. That’s easy. Two main reasons were the North expected the South to accommodate the freed people all on its own within Southern borders. The North had built an iron curtain around the South with laws preventing the freed slaves from migrating into Northern States, and a determination to prevent any blacks from entering the territories. Northern politicians and many abolitionists hoped that by keeping the freed slaves bottled up in the South landless and penniless, they would eventually “die out.” This was the plan of the abolitionist group led by the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson who proudly proclaimed that cut off from the welfare of the master, the slaves would not be able to survive and would be found “only in museums like the DoDo.” The Southern people who lived in an integrated society had developed familial bonds with the black folk who lived in many cases under the same roof with them. Southerners were appalled at any suggestion of such a humanitarian disaster, and a resulting economic disaster, that such a plan would lead to. Most Southerners also opposed the colonization plans that many championed in the North for the same reason. They wrote songs and poems decrying the idea of deporting those people they had known all their lives. This is why the author of the Mississippi Declaration of Secession laments that the North wants to end the slaves current condition without providing a better.

        Regarding Stephens’ Cornerstone Speech, it is you who reads it with a superficial understanding! Obviously you did not read my response to you above regarding it, else you would not continue to embarrass yourself regarding what it meant. Scroll back up and learn something about a speech that was primarily about the South’s tweaking of the US Constitution to make it more explicit in meaning so that no State or group of States can ever attempt to circumvent it again. The paragraph regarding the cornerstone doesn’t appear until well after other constitutional concerns had been addressed.

        And finally you repeat Lincoln’s myth regarding slavery’s expansion that he used to revive a moribund political career in the racist North. He played the slavery expansion card to frighten Northern voters in supporting him against a strawman version of the South that was simply a lie. Southerners stated explicitly that they did not want to expand the institution of slavery into the arid climate of the territories where it would not be profitable. What Southerners did expect was to be treated equally in the commonly owned territories regarding their property rights. Even the Mississippi Declaration of Secession states clearly the climate slavery needs. If the Southern concern was expanding slavery, there is a logical disconnect: “These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.” If by climate slavery is limited geographically, why was expansion even a concern??? It can’t go where the products will not grow! What is at contention here is the depriving of the South equal access to property rights within the jurisdiction of the US. This is why all the restrictions on slavery are summed up by, “It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.” It is all about the equal rights of the States as required by the Constitution. It was Northern infidelity to the Constitutions requirement that all States be on equal footing in the Union that drove the South to secede.

        And still no reason why the South was looking to end slavery in 1862, if slavery was their cause???

        You waste my time until you can answer that question. All the South’s statements must be understood in light of their willingness to end slavery to gain independence.

      11. I laughed out loud when you wrote that Southerners had developed familial bonds with Black families. Was that before or after they. sold their children, or raped the women, or lynched the Black men?
        That comment was so stupid, I stopped reading the rest. Pure waste of time.

      12. Obviously your image of Southern slavery is straight out of the abolitionists propaganda handbook. Particularly the fictional account of Uncle Tom’s Cabin written by someone who never witnessed slavery first hand. There’s certainly no doubt you have been indoctrinated, and view history through the political lens of Marxist style analysis wherein all of human history is reduced to oppressors vs oppressed.

        You need to spend time reading primary sources. I recommend you start with the only antebellum study of slavery. It was conducted in 1854 by Boston abolitionist Dr. Nehemiah Adams who spent three months in the South to view slavery firsthand. His conclusions are recorded in his book A Southside View of Slavery and are corroborated by other primary witnesses both foreign and domestic who saw firsthand the benevolent nature of Southern slavery and the close bonds and associations between the races. This bond was the reason the slaves did not revolt when left on Southern farms with only the women, children and elderly during the war. The vast majority remained loyal to their masters until their food and shelter were destroyed and they were displaced by Lincoln’s scorched earth war that contained no humanitarian plan for their wellbeing.

        I could quote volumes of primary witnesses but then you would just dismiss them as you have done in the past because you have no historical evidence to the contrary. Exposing primary evidence to someone committed to myth, agenda, and virtue seeking politics is a waste of time. Truth means little to someone committed to fanciful myths with no real concern for truth.

      13. The treatment of enslaved people in the United States varied by time and place, but was generally brutal, especially on plantations. Whipping and rape were routine, but usually not in front of white outsiders, or even the plantation owner’s family. (“When I whip niggers, I take them out of the sight and hearing of the house, and no one in my family knows it.”[1]:36) An enslaved person could not be a witness against a white; enslaved people were sometimes required to whip other enslaved people, even family members.[2]:54

        Nice try at revisionist history.

      14. If you are quoting, please provide a reference. You were right to say “ The treatment of enslaved people in the United States varied by time and place,” but after that you resort to myth unsupported by primary source evidence and resort to unsubstantiated speculation. Slavery evolved over time like any human endeavor, and by the 1800’s Southern law protected slaves from inhumane treatment. Southern law stipulated that the master owned only the labor but not the person of the slave. This law protected slaves and allowed them due process rights in court. This law was also the basis of the Southern argument for full representation of slaves as persons in Congress. The North forced the South to settle for the 3/5ths compromise. While it was true in the North that a black could not use the courts against a white, that was not the case in the South where the recognition of slaves as persons granted them due process rights as protection. There are court records in the South where blacks were afforded this protection. As Dr. Nehemiah Johnson’s study revealed, by1854 every effort was being made to conform the institution to the Christian ethic that dominated Southern culture. Families were not being separated except when offspring reached the age that they would normally leave the nest. Pecuniary reward had long replaced the lash as a means of motivation. When the lash was used, its use was no different than that commonly used as punishment in white only institutions such as the military. The word “whipping” also carried the same meaning as “spanking” does in our culture today. I recall in one of the slave narratives where a young black slave recalled the “whipping” she got for disobeying her master and playing in mud. She also recalled that the master gave his daughter the “same whipping I got” when he found her covered in mud also. Your assertion that plantation slavery was generally “brutal” where rape was common is pure myth based on the embellishments of political agenda both then, by abolitionists, and now by Leftists. When you read the various collections of slave narratives you get a far different picture. I took the time to read them all a few years ago and was quite surprised at how different their stories were from our modern mythical perception of slavery.

        Were there bad masters? Certainly there were, but they were the small exception and not the general rule. Many were Northerners who owned plantations in the South and had no personal connection with their slaves. Southern masters who broke the law and mistreated slaves not only stood legal jeopardy, but also were ostracized in Southern society where such behavior was not condoned. Ask yourself why the vast majority of slaves remained loyal to their masters and did not revolt during the war when under the supervision of only the women, children, and elderly? Why did many choose to remain with their masters after the war? A Northern black who had served as a member of the USCT was there, lived among the former slaves, and knew them during the war. He explains why the slaves remained loyal:

        “That the negroes did not revolt is one of the incomprehensible features of our Civil War. Every chance for success was theirs, nor were they ignorant of their opportunity for striking an effectual and crushing blow against their oppressors. Why was it not done? Several potent causes combined to render any widespread insurrection at that time impossible. There was in the first place a genuine affection for the white race, implanted in hundreds of thousands of negroes by amalgamation, there was, in no less degree, a race love created by the foster parental relations which negro women sustained toward white children; there was also a genuine desire on the part of the negro men to discharge worthy the duties with which they were entrusted by their absent masters. But the supreme and all-pervading influence which restrained them was rooted in their religious convictions; for the slave negro, unlike the modern freedman, was a being in whom religious fervor was intensely and over-whelmingly manifest.” William Hannibal Thomas, 5th United States Colored Troops. The American Negro, published 1901.

        His observation is corroborated by a French foreign dignitary who toured the US:

        “The prejudice of the race appears to be stronger in the States which have abolished slavery than in those where it still exists. In the South, where slavery still exists, the negroes are less carefully kept apart; they sometimes share the labor and the recreations of the whites; the whites consent to intermix with them. The habits of the Southern people are more tolerant and compassionate.” Alexis de Tocqueville, French Aristocrat who toured the US in 1831.

        Further corroboration comes from a Union abolitionist, architect and travel writer that was no friend of the South, but who did report what he observed as he traveled the South:

        “I am struck with the close cohabitation and association of black and white. Negro women are carrying black and white babies together in their arms; black and white children are playing together. They all talked and laughed together; and the girls munched confectionary out of the same paper, with a familiarity and closeness of intimacy that would have been noticed with astonishment, if not manifest displeasure, in almost any chance company of the North.” Frederick Olmsted

        Yet another abolitionist complained that, “Southerners have African attendants, African playmates, African recreations, African voices, African minds.” Thomas Goodwin

        And as Dr. Adams concluded in his three month study of Southern slavery:

        “The impression here made upon me…the slaves were unconscious of any feeling of restraint…they had sources of enjoyment and ways of manifesting it which suggested to a spectator no thought of involuntary servitude.” Nehemiah Adams, 1854, A Southside View of Slavery.

        This is just a sampling of the primary source evidence which clearly refutes your modern mythical notions.

      15. Oh man of many myths. General laws on the books of Southern States:

        An Act to compel owners of old or infirm slaves to maintain them. If owners refuse to care for old or infirm slaves, the Court may sue for the money needed to care for the slave(s).
        (GL 1815 Vol 1 Page 35 Sequential # 018)

        “36 . Any person, except the owner, beating, whipping, or wounding a slave, or person or persons beating, whipping or wounding a free person of color, without sufficient cause or provocation being first given by such slave or free person of color, may be indicted, and on conviction, shall be fined or imprisoned, or both, at the discretion of the court; and the owner of such slave or the guardian of such free person of color, may, notwithstanding such conviction, recover in a civil suit, damages for the injury done to such slave or free person of color.
        37. Any owner or owners of a slave or slaves, who shall cruelly beat such slave or slaves, by unnecessary and excessive whipping, by withholding proper food and sustenance, by requiring greater labor from such slave or slaves than he or she or they are able to perform, by not affording proper clothing, whereby the health of such slave or slaves may be injured and impaired, every such owner or owners, shall, upon sufficient information being laid before the Grand Jury, be, by said Grand Jury, presented, whereupon it shall be the duty of the Attorney or Solicitor General to prosecute said owner or owners, who on conviction, shall be sentenced to pay a fine or be imprisoned, or both, at the discretion of the court.”
        (GL 1817 Vol. 1 — Page: 92 Sequential #: 078

        Please do some research before you spout myth!

      16. “Any person, except the owner, beating, whipping, or wounding a slave, or person or persons beating, whipping or wounding a free person of color, without sufficient cause or provocation being first given by such slave or free person of color, may be indicted, and on conviction, shall be fined or imprisoned, or both, at the discretion of the court; and the owner of such slave or the guardian of such free person of color, may, notwithstanding such conviction, recover in a civil suit, damages for the injury done to such slave or free person of color.”

        So, the owner may beat, whip or wound a slave, without provocation.

        Thanks for making my point!

      17. You forgot to add this part: “The ostensible design of the law is to afford protection to the slave; but as the testimony of colored persons can not be received against a white person, the law is a dead letter in most cases.”

        Anything else I can explain to you regarding the civil War?

      18. I did not forget to include your quote because it was NOT part of the law. Your once again unreferenced quote is obviously a desperate attempt by an adherent of the “righteous cause myth” to prop up and rescue his own myth from the cold hard facts that destroy it.

        So let me see here… your argument is that Southern lawmakers went to the trouble of passing a law which had no possible application? That is ridiculousness on stilts. But then that is a common trait of you righteous causers. That law is written to include harsh penalties. They were not just playing statutory games! Even if your claim were true that slaves could not testify against whites, the deterrent factor of the law would have been tremendous given the risk an abusive mater would be taking that someone in the community would report him. What your myth blinds you to is the reality that Southern society was integrated which resulted in close bonds between white and blacks both slave and free. That is the testimony of numerous primary witnesses. It was a society in which the President of the CS could and did rescue a black child from being abused by a black adult, and took that child in as one of his own raising him in the same room with his own children. It was done in Southern society without raising a single eyebrow. Had Lincoln done the same in the North it would have been a matter of public scandal!

        When you have primary evidence to the contrary regarding all I’ve said, you can teach me something about the so called Civil War. Desperate quotes from modern secondary biased sources will not cut it! You righteous causers spew the same old myths to each other and call that research. Give me a break.

        Now I’m waiting for you to produce the Southern law that prohibited slaves from testifying against whites. I know the North had such laws, but I do not recall that being the case in the antebellum South in the years leading up to the war. In fact, I’ve read court cases that exonerated slaves from criminal accusations. I’ve even read one about a slave woman who poisoned the wife and children of her master because she was in love with him. The evidence was clearly against her but because of a legal technicality, the court dismissed the charges! That shows just how serious the South was about the rule of law even regarding slaves.

        There is a new book coming out this year by Political Science Professor Dr. Marshall DeRosa that examines all the court cases wherein slaves exercised their due process rights. Look for it soon. It will teach you something about the Civil War.

        And I’m still awaiting your explanation of how the South was fighting to preserve slavery when from 1862 to ‘65 they were willing to end it to gain help in winning that war??? That’s something else you can “teach me about the civil war.”

      19. As slaves had no rights, they could not bring an owner to court.

        Sorry, but that ruins your entire argument.

        Do us all a favor, and read something about the Civil War instead of presenting rubbish and Lost cause BS.

      20. Rod,

        Property has no rights. Slaves were property, and had no rights. Thats why they couldn’t testify against their owners, or any white man.

      21. Rod,

        Why didn’t the Confederacy end slavery between 1862 and 1865 if they were willing to? Why did slave owners migrate their slaves by the hundreds and thousands away from the Union occupied parts of the Confederacy, if the war wasn’t about slavery? Why did General Lee’s army enslave blacks they found in Pennsylvania?

        There is nothing wrong with your quotes or the quoting of antebellum laws, but you’re looking at it selectively. There is just overwhelming evidence that the civil war was about slavery. What you’re saying is the truth, just not the whole truth. You need to deal with the truth that you don’t like, like the secession conventions, Confederate letters and diaries, and more importantly the actions of the slavery supporting people themselves.

        And never forget Rod, Abraham Lincoln himself wasn’t man enough to emancipate slaves in his Union states, but only in the Confederate states. Think on that.

      22. Thanks for you input Lyle. I used to believe just as you do that secession was all about preserving slavery. Believe me I have perused every primary source I could get my hands on. I carefully read every collection of The Slave Narratives. I have analyzed every secession document, the Cornerstone Speech, the speeches of congressmen as they left their seats, multiple newspaper columns both domestic and foreign. The more I read the more I determined that I could no longer justify the claim that the CS was about preserving and extending slavery.

        In my research I found a wealth of primary source material that simply did not make sense if the cause was slavery. What prompted my several years of committed reading began several years ago when I happened on a Lincoln letter that was on display at the Perryville Battlefield in Ky. In it I was surprised to read some very racist remarks, and see a determination by the man to rid the US of blacks. How could this be??? He was my boyhood hero. From there on I determined to find out what I had not been taught in my education.

        I’ve since discovered a wealth of information that is obviously suppressed to make secession and war somehow “about slavery.” It is too late at this hour for me to detail what I’ve found. But if you read my prior comments on this post you will see some of the evidence that has changed my mind. Just let me say rather tersely that once you understand why the Southern statesmen always qualified slavery as the “immediate cause” or the “occasion” of secession, their actions after secession will make sense. We tend to read their words with our present day understanding of what it means to be “pro-slavery” and “anti-slavery.” But those words meant something very different to those 19th century people. There is a very real sense in which pro-slavery means a moral humanitarian commitment to the slaves, while anti-slavery meant primarily anti-black! We read those words today and apply a totally opposite moral meaning which at that time simply did not exist. It would take a lot of time to unpack all that, but if you read my prior comments you’ll get some sense of where I am coming from.

        Suffice it to say that you have to understand the words of Southern statesmen in light of the historical situation in which they found themselves, and more importantly in light of their actions after seceding. To prove they did not secede to preserve slavery all you need do is realize they turned down every offer to keep slavery if they would only return to the Union. Three specific times, once included a constitutional amendment that would have made slavery permanent and irrevocable, Lincoln promised they could keep their slaves. They turned him down. Why? Because slavery was not their ultima causa. Their ultimate cause was to gain independence from a union with a section of the country which they believed had for many years been unfaithful to the Constitution. Their ultimate cause was independence with or without slavery. They said it often, and they proved the point by beginning in 1862 to offer to end slavery in hopes of gaining foreign support in their fight for independence. You don’t give up what you are fighting for to win a war!

        You asked why didn’t they end slavery between ‘62 and ‘65. Ending slavery was going to involve great economic and humanitarian risk because of the historical situation. That situation was the North and West were determined to keep all blacks out of their States and territories. The problem for the South was then how could they accommodate within the Southern borders alone, a population almost half of the total in the South of landless and penniless people without an economic and social/humanitarian disaster? There were too many slaves to gainfully and profitably employ, not to mention all the young and old that could not work and were totally dependent on the welfare of the master. Without a national plan of integration dispersing the slave population across the country, there was no feasible way to make it happen. Therefore, they saw slavery as the best of a bad situation; a means of managing such a large destitute population until a better situation could develop. The only alternatives the North offered was repulsive to the Southerner who had grown up in close personal relationships with the slaves. Those two Northern plans were deportation to any godforsaken place but here, or to cut the slave off from the welfare of the master to “die out” as Ralph Waldo Emerson’s group of abolitionists proposed. Southern papers, letters and speeches are filled with repulsion of such treatment of the slaves. The only thing that would prompt the South to attempt an extremely risky emancipation was if that was the only way they could win independence. What kept them from being able to follow through with a risky and difficult emancipation was the reluctance of the British to get involved in the war. France was on board, but the Brits had reservations. And the South wasn’t going to risk an economic and humanitarian disaster if it didn’t mean support in their war for self-government.

        I can back everything I’ve said with primary sources but then this comment would take several hours. Suffice it to say as one CS General stated that at anytime during the war, all the South had to do to keep slavery was lay down its arms and return to the Union. They chose mot to because they wanted independence with or without slavery.

        What I have noted is suppressed by today’s academic historians because it is not PC and destroys the current politically fashionable narrative.

    2. Rod:

      At first, I thought of writing a lengthy response for your historically challenged post. But then I thought, “Responding to such tripe isn’t worth my time.”

      1. Sounds like you are thoroughly indoctrinated as the professors I quoted warned. I can defend every word of my “tripe.” I do wish you would take your best shot.

    3. When discussing the ordinances of secession, and declarations of causes a balanced assessment is required.

      None of the ORDINANCES OF SECESSION refer SPECIFICALLY to slavery. However, INDIRECT references that might possibly, at best, be interpreted as referring to the institution of slavery are included in the ordinances for Alabama (domestic institutions), Texas (interests and property of Texas and slaveholding states), and Kentucky (northern prejudice and lack of protection to the slaveholding states). The institution of slavery is not referred to in the ordinances of secession for Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Missouri.
      —————————-
      Only five Confederate States produced DECLARATIONS OF CAUSES, which were Georgia, Texas, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Florida (draft, not published). The summation of issues includes – Unconstitutional dereliction in regards acting to protect the domestic peace (causing sectional divide and inviting servile insurrection – incendiary publications, John Brown raid etc…), oppression / coercion / military subjugation of the Confederate States, unconstitutional dereliction in regards to the enforcement of the fugitive slave law (resulting in loss of property and harbouring of criminals), unconstitutional inequitable restriction on slave owners taking their slave property into the territories, financial protectionism of northern industry / interests at expense of the south, anti slavery sentiment of the Republican Party, a influential portion of whom were calling for an end to the institution of slavery immediately and without compensation (interfering with institutions of other states, and seeking not to elevate or support the slaves, but to destroy slavery, without providing a better condition). In addition to the declarations, Alabama sent a letter to the Governor of Kentucky detailing issues around slavery including fears of servile insurrection. Interestingly, Alabama’s constitution banned protectionist tariffs, so this was clearly an important issue as well. Louisiana’s address to the Texas secession convention does detail a desire to perpetuate slavery, but also cites tyrannical despotism. South Carolina’s address to other slaveholding nations, refers very unequivocally and specifically to unfair taxation, tariffs, spending to the benefit of the north at the expense of the south, and confirming state sovereignty whilst also referring to issues in regard to slavery.

      So, yes, issues in connection with slavery we’re an important component of the first states to secede, but they were hardly the only reason. Furthermore, slavery was both lawful and protected under the constitution. It was for the individual states to decide on their institutions, without interference from a sectional party, whose rise to power and sectional agitation only served to quash southern abolition efforts. The upper southern states only seceded after Lincoln’s call to arms. The issues detailed in the secession documents can all be grouped under the heading of constitutional infidelity.

      A compact broken!

      1. Sorry…wrong

        This is from the ordinance of Secession of Mississippi…”Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery”

        Nice try though.

        I can give more if you need them.

      2. Actually Kev is correct. What you are quoting is the Mississippi Declaration of Causes, not to be confused with the Ordinances of Secession none of which mention slavery.

        And while you’re reading the Mississippi Declaration, ask yourself why the author said “Our cause is thoroughly identified with slavery” instead of just saying “our cause is slavery.” There is a real difference in meaning. To be identified with something is to be a corollary and not the cause. The cause was Northern infidelity to the Constitution, the most recent occasion of that fundamental issue was constitutional infractions regarding slavery. A very real distinction.

      3. “ Sorry…there is NO difference.

        Nice try though.”

        Oh my! And you call yourself historically knowledgeable??? You really stepped in your own and then inserted your foot in your mouth. The ordinances of secession were the official forensic documents proclaiming secession submitted by the seceded States. The Declaration of Causes were announcements of the reasons for secession. Eight States drew up Declarations and Five published them. Only four mention slavery issues as one of many causes. And none state their cause to be preserving and extending slavery.

      4. Why again did you say was the reason the South sought to end slavery after seceding? I still missed your response.

      5. That’s from their Declaration of causes and not their ordinance of secession. I can’t take you seriously if you don’t know the difference. What I wrote above stands correct.

      6. But Kevin Flynn, don’t you know NYGiant1852 is the headmaster at the school of righteous cause myth, and can teach you every myth you ever wanted to know about the war??? LOL!

      7. Let’s see now…

        Georgia…The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers.

        With these principles on their banners and these utterances on their lips the majority of the people of the North demand that we shall receive them as our rulers.

        Mississippi…A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.

        In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

        Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.

        South Carolina……Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union ……The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

        Texas…..A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union……By the secession of six of the slave-holding States, and the certainty that others will speedily do likewise, Texas has no alternative but to remain in an isolated connection with the North, or unite her destinies with the South.

        Virginia..THE SECESSION ORDINANCE.
        AN ORDINANCE TO REPEAL THE RATIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY THE STATE OF VIRGINIA, AND TO RESUME ALL THE RIGHTS AND POWERS GRANTED UNDER SAID CONSTITUTION….and the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States.

        Anything else I can educate you on, regarding the Civil War?

      8. Oh my! The ignorance is doubled down!

        Why was it that the South sought to end slavery if preserving slavery was their cause? I missed your answer.

      9. You know when you have won the argument, when Rod leads with an insult.

        Learn some manners, and I’ll return.

        BTW, read a book on American History, and not revisionist American History.

      10. Still no rebuttal.
        Just a dodge.
        You are definitely a Righteous Cause Myth Maker

      11. Thanks for cherry-picking but what you shared just reinforced my points above, so thanks. I like it when others assist me I making points.

        You’re conflating “why they fought” with why they seceded. There would have been no war if Lincoln just let the seceded states depart in peace. Davis didn’t want to replace Lincoln and said all they wanted was to be left alone.

        Slavery related issues were “an” issue of secession for the first round of secession. However, Virginia, North Carolina, Arkansas, and Tennessee (2nd round) only seceded after Lincoln called on them to furnish troops to coerce the seceded states back into the union. Coercion had been vehemently repudiated in the discussions in the Constitutional Convention by James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and Edmund Randolph. The South remained true to the doctrine of the fathers on this point.

        How can it be “just slavery” when it wasn’t?

        If you read the secession ordinances and declarations of causes you’ll find that the North was violating the constitution with regards to slavery (also among numerous other things) and the South correctly saw it as a dissolution of the compact. Listing Slavery (and other issues) in the secession declarations set the legal framework for the South to leave the Union constitutionally. It is a manipulation of intent to interpret these documents as proof that the main cause of the South was to enslave African Americans. The declarations were used to showcase the violations of the Constitution. The main point of this argument was that since the U.S. Constitution, being a contract, had been violated and the southern states were no longer bound by it.These declarations only served as the legal documentation needed for the South to leave the Union Constitutionally.

        But, this deals with “secession”, not “why they fought”, as secession is not an act of war- to the contrary, it is an attempt to AVOID war by peacefully parting ways.

        The reason the South fought was very simple- because they were invaded. And they were not invaded by the North for the purpose of “freeing slaves”.
        ——————————————-
        18 February 1861, Jefferson Davis Clearly States the Reasons for Secession: In his first and second inaugural addresses, Jefferson Davis expressed the reasons for secession and the formation of the Confederate States of America. The following excerpts reveal the reasons:

        1- Perversion of the declared purpose of the Constitution.

        2- Therefore an assertion of the inalienable right to seek independence.

        3- To form a new gov’t based on the true meaning of the founder’s Constitution.

        4- Restore a voluntary union of sovereign States free of those who respect no law.

        “The declared purpose of the compact of Union from which we have withdrawn was ‘to establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity;’ and when, in the judgment of the sovereign States now composing this Confederacy, it had been perverted from the purposes for which it was ordained, and had ceased to answer the ends for which it was established…(The seceding States) merely asserted a right which the Declaration of Independence of 1776 had defined to be inalienable; of the time and occasion for its exercise, they, as sovereigns, were the final judges, each for itself…We have changed the constituent parts, but not the system of our Government. The Constitution formed by our fathers is that of these Confederate States, in their exposition of it, and in the judicial construction it has received, we have a light which reveals its true meaning…” February 18, 1861 First Inaugural Address

        “The experiment instituted by our revolutionary fathers, of a voluntary Union of sovereign States for purposes specified in a solemn compact, had been perverted by those who, feeling power and forgetting right, were determined to respect no law but their own will…” February 22, 1862 Second Inaugural Address.

      12. You can pontificate all you want. But the Rebel States said they were leaving because of slavery. And the Cornerstone Speech solidifies this

        Nice try though!

      13. Another profoundly superficial response demonstrating an out of context and misreading of the Secession documents and the Cornerstone speech. I presented you with the proper contextual reading of those documents for which you had no rebuttal at all. Yet you stubbornly cling to your mythical interpretation.

        Explain to me again why the South started as early as 1861 to end slavery if as you claim slavery was their cause for seceding? Oh, that’s right. You still haven’t explained it. Guess believing your myth demands you ignore the evidence.

        Oh, and explain why Stephens was quoting a US supreme court justice who said the exact same thing about slavery being the cornerstone of the US Constitution? A justice who was from Pennsylvania??? Explain why Stephens spends the first half of his speech listing the constitutional issues that were cleared up by the CS Constitution. Why does he close the speech explaining that the North is not really against slavery, but rather seeking to cling to the spoils that come from slave labor? Why if he believes this would he fear the North sought to end slavery? He knows better, and he knows the South’s cause is not to “preserve slavery,” preserve it from what??? The South’s cause is summed up in the last word of his speech – INDEPENDENCE! A right to a government by consent of the Southern citizenry free from the 70 years of the North ignoring the Constitution in attempt to exploit the spoils of the South.

        Oh, and explain why the Mississippi secession document addresses the “immediate causes,” note plural, instead of “the cause.” Explain why they said secession was “identified with slavery” instead of saying secession was “all about slavery.” Words do have meaning you know. Or do you??? Why does the Georgia document say in the first sentence that the purpose of it is to present to the world the “causes,” note the plural, instead of the “cause” which would be the case if they were all about slavery. Why does it spend so much time emphasizing the North’s infidelity to the Constitution, and its dependency on the Federal Government “to seek profit snd aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests?” Why does it spend so much time, not talking about a desire to expand slavery into the territories, but rather the “unconstitutional demand” that denied the “principles of equity and justice” in the territories? What was the ultimate cause – by ignoring Constitutional restraint “the people of the North demand that we shall receive them as our rulers.” Why does the South Carolina secession document begin with the foundational cause of “frequent violations (plural) of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments (plural) upon the reserved rights of the States?” Why does it spend the majority portion arguing for States sovereignty, and explaining how slavery issues violated the Constitution? Why does it spend the closing paragraphs talking about “submersion of the Constitution;” about excluding the South from the common territory, “that the judicial tribunals (congress) shall be made sectional, “and that “the equal rights of the States will be lost.” Why does the Texas Declaration begin with the first complaint to admonish the Republican controlled federal government for attempting to exclude (not slavery) but rather “the citizens of the Southern States, under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States?” Why does it complain about tariffs if tariffs had nothing to do with secession? Why does its closing paragraphs emphasize “that the federal constitution has been violated and virtually abrogated” because “the federal government is now passing under control of our enemies to be diverted from the exalted objects of its creation to those of oppression and wrong.”

        You read these documents through the prism of a modern “all about slavery lens. You miss entirely the fact that slavery issues were issues because they were the most recent violations of the Constitution, in a long list of violations for which the South had finally decided was enough.

        Every action of the Southern States upon secession clearly demonstrates that, as Lincoln had said, they did not desire slavery. Every action demonstrates that they wanted independence from union with unfaithful States, and that with or without slavery.

      14. Slavery was only lawful and constitutional as long as the slave states held enough of political power to keep it so. The Constitution provided a way for slavery to be ended, and the abolitionists were threatening such and more, and they were in the Republican political tent. Confederate VP Stephens’ Cornerstone speech expressly condemns slave owning founders like Thomas Jefferson for allowing the constitution to do such a thing. So the election of a Republican who was against slavery was enough of a reason for the deep south slave states to secede. This is why the Civil War was about slavery. The upper south slave states joined the deep south slave states, because they too wanted to maintain slavery. Small chance they would’ve kept it outnumbered politically in Washington, D.C without their deep south brethren.

        Believe what you want though.

      15. Why then did Lincoln beg the Southern governors to return and ratify the Corwin Amendment which said Congress could never amend the Constitution to touch slavery? Had the Southern States returned and joined the five Northern States who had already ratified, slavery would have been forever protected by the Constitution. The Southern States did not return because preserving slavery was not their cause.

      16. I already showed here, that in that letter, he sent to the States, he did NOT beg.

        Nice try at revisionist history. Good thing people who know history are here!

  2. Actually Rod, the tenets of the myth of the Lost Cause started to change when Alexander Stephens forgot that before the war, he wrote the Cornerstone Speech

    1. You obviously know very little about the context of Stephen’s speech and its meaning in light of the US Supreme Court justice he was quoting. Here is the original reference to “cornerstone” from Henry Baldwin’s opinion n Johnson v Tomkins, 1833. He’s saying it’s the law of the land and therefore it has to be followed, He was from PA and not a fan of slavery. This is a very interesting case, and a 31 page opinion. If you want, google it and read the whole thing. Amazing:

      “Thus you see that the foundations of the government are laid, and rest on the rights of property in slaves—the whole structure must fall by disturbing the corner stones—if federal numbers cease to be respected or held sacred in questions of property or government, the rights of the states must disappear and the government and union dissolve by the prostration of its laws before the usurped authority of individuals.”

      This was a well known quote in the South and Stephen’s use of it was understood as reinforcing his belief that the CS Constitution was doing no more than the US Constitution in affirming the constitutional protection of right to property; a fundamentally right equally shared by all the States to do with as they will. Stephens is affirming what both Constitutions uphold, but which is less ambiguous in the CS version.

      Tell me how the CS Constitution protected slavery in any significant way that differed from the US Constitution. They both left the slavery issue entirely up to the States. They both allowed free States to join their Unions. They both allowed slave States to join their Unions. They both recognized property rights in slaves, and they both recognized the equality of the States. That the North chose to break with its constitutional obligations within the Union did not in any way change the plain meaning of the Constitution.

      And tell me how Stephens view on the inferiority of blacks, which is actually what he says is the “Cornerstone,” is any different from Lincoln’s own view. The only difference I see is Lincoln believed black inferiority to be permanent, while Stephens, like most Southern statesmen, believed that through education blacks could be elevated and assimilated into American society. Lincoln did not think so and wanted them gone from America till his dying day as the book Colonization After Emancipation makes clear.

  3. Civil War Roundtable/commemoration/author talk…… will be held tonight ……….. in a phone booth.

    If they/we, or whoever, keep chipping away at books, movies monuments, men, and so on , then premium parking places at battlefields, museums, and all other places and events related to the first 350 years of American history will be very easy to find. I am already seeing it. Have you?

    I saw the great historian James Robertson give a talk in New Jersey during his last year, to just over a dozen people. I could not believe it. He was an idol to many of us.This attendance was especially troubling when I recall that during the Civil War Sesquicentennial I I had to park far away ,and sit in the back row for his Stonewall Jackson talk at Manassas Battlefield. Or, parking my car at 6:00 a.m. at the Harper’s Ferry train depot, to secure a seat on the Dennis Frye bus tour, and seeing Allen Guelzo speak. There must of been 300 people in the Sunken Road with me, in awe of Ed Bearrs.Soon, we may be able to tour Mount Vernon or Stratford Hall all alone.

    I joke to friends and some professors, and I’ve probably written it here before, that for many of the modern academics, scholars and historians and their young charges, the CIvil War begins with Thaddeus Stevens. Thousands of guys, painfully close to a million died so Thad and Abe could be revered and idolized.

    I may sound like an idiot, especially to many of the great writers, historians and readers at ECW, but I do have a graduate degree and have read, studied and observed a fair amount.

    Look Out! It could happen.

    I remember my Dad telling me that the big bands as they were known as, many of which I’ve drummed for; U.S.A.F. Airmen of Note, Harry James, Jimmy Dorsey, Ray Anthony and many others would someday be merely a footnote to World War II. I thought, no way, Dad.
    However, he was right, and then some. It could happen to you.

  4. Evidently, no one can defend Lee kidnapping Blacks as the Rebels advanced into Pennsylvania during the Gettysburg campaign, and sending then back into bondage.

    1. The Constitutional principles of property rights as well as the legal duty to return fugitives as defined by the Constitution had been violated. It was fidelity to the Constitution that motivated Southern secession from the start. To encounter confiscated constitutionally protected property in Pennsylvania and not return it to the rightful owners would be in direct violation of the Constitutional fidelity the CS was formed to uphold.

      Even so, Lee had ordered specifically that no citizens or property be confiscated other than what was needed to sustain his army, and that was to be paid for. However, in war you will have men go rogue including Generals who saw both revenge and tactical benefit in confiscation.

      Major General Lafayette McLaws, the primary command under which black captives took place, recognized a revenge motive and a tactical benefit which he mentioned in a letter to his wife:

      “It is reported that our army will not be allowed to plunder and rob in Pennsylvania, which is all very well, but it would be better not to publish it as we have received provocation enough to burn and take and destroy, property of all kids and even the men, women & children along our whole border.

      In every instance where we have even threatened retaliation, the enemy have given [way]—I am strongly in favor of trying it the very first chance we get.”

      In McLaws mind the seizure was both justified as moral retribution and as an intentional escalation of tactics. Though he certainly acknowledged that it best not be made known given it was an act of insubordination.

      Another instance of men going rogue occurred on July 1, 1863. A group of fifty calvary led by Mosby arrived in Mercersburg. While the main body rode into the countryside to forage, a detachment remained in town. This group, described by witnesses as being drunk, began looting and robbing and capturing blacks. The local newspaper stated that this group “denying connection with the regular army felt licensed to do and dare whatever Satan suggested.”

      Much speculation and embellishment surrounds the capture of blacks. At best it is pure speculation that this rogue activity was condoned by Lee or the CS Government. Lee’s specific order is evidence to the contrary.

      Pure speculation also claims that free blacks were taken South and sold into slavery. While they were initially taken captive, they were either soon after released to return home if it could be determined they were free people of color, or they were released later when it was determined that there was no owner to claim them. The Mercersburg Journal reported “several of our colored men were observed to be in their custody… They were taken along with a number of others… Some of these unfortunates were brought back, or found their way home again after six months or a year.” There is absolutely no actual documented evidence that any free black was sold into slavery.

      The attempt to somehow turn rogue acts of revenge and military tactics that occurred during war into a claim that the South “seceded to preserve and extend slavery” is at best special pleading.

      1. Sorry Rod, but wrong again!!

        The US Constitution did not apply to states in rebellion, as they had written their own Constitution, and The CSA had not been recognized by the United States. Plus, that Rebel Army in Pennsylvania, was a foreign , invading army, and was kidnapping free Blacks.

        The South, by seceding, repudiated the US Constitution. In war, they can’t try and use it to justify their actions. That’s ludicrous.

        If you study the US Constitution, you will find that it is a document written by Southerners, to protect slavery.
        1. The 3/5ths clause. Since when does property get a right to representation? Recall that the 3/5ths rule gave Southern states extra representation in Congress. It also gave Southern states extra votes in the Electoral Collage. And since the President nominates Justices to the Supreme Court, it also influenced the Supreme Court. The 3/5ths clause affected all 3 branches of the US Government.

        2. Article 1, Section 9, Clause 2-The slave trade cannot be interfered with til 1808. And even then, it does not say that it will end in 1808.

        3.Article 5- protects Article 1, Section 9 Clause 2 until 1808.

        4.Article 4, Section 3, Clause 2-Congress will make the laws respecting new Territory or other property.

        5. Article 4 Section 2, Clause 3- The Fugitive Law Law is written into he US Constitution

        6. Article 1, Section 8, Clause 15- Designs that slave revolts could be suppressed

        FYI, 171,000 slaves were imported into the United States between 1791 and 1808, and that gave slave holding states 6 new House representatives.

        Your comment..”To encounter confiscated constitutionally protected property in Pennsylvania and not return it to the rightful owners would be in direct violation of the Constitutional fidelity the CS was formed to uphold.” Only thing…Confederate law has no standing in the United States. Nice try though.

        During the Gettysburg Campaign, the order, signed by Longstreet’s assistant adjutant general, G. M. Sorrell, tells Pickett that “the captured contrabands had better be brought along with you for further disposition.”

        Aside from the paper trail is the fact that many units in Lee’s army kidnapped black people, underscores the likelihood that some policy, formal or informal, sanctioned these actions during the Gettysburg campaign.

        These confiscations revealed the object for which many Southerners had waged war: to found a government based on human slavery.

      2. You can’t have it both ways. You claim “the US Constitution did not apply to the States in rebellion,” then immediately contradict yourself and state that the “CSA was not recognized.” If the CSA was not recognized, then those States were still in the Union and under the Union’s Constitution, which Lincoln and his cohorts in the SCOTUS repeatedly stated. Which is it?

        Actually, the CSA kept the old Constitution and merely tweaked it to make clear those sections the North had so often used to infringe upon States Rights. The South believed it was defending the Constitution which the North was abandoning.

        You say “ The South, by seceding, repudiated the US Constitution. In war, they can’t try and use it to justify their actions. That’s ludicrous.” Lincoln disagreed with you and said a State could not secede. Glad to see you admit that secession was actual! You are coming around. Though you are absolutely wrong in thinking that the same principles in the IS Constitution were not carried over to the CS Constitution, and those same principles applied to the ANV even when it was in Pennsylvania.

        Your argument that because Southerners penned the Constitution, it is therefore a document to defend slavery is laughable! All the 13 States ratified the Constitution, meaning they approved it. At the time of ratification, Northern States still practiced slavery and were deeply involved in the international slave trade. Two of the three States who included in their ratification documents a right to secede were NORTHERN STATES who did so to protect the slave trade so important to them as port States! The fugitive slave clause (not slave law… that came later) was included without opposition because Northern States held slaves at that time also and sought to protect their property. Amusing you bring up the 3/5th clause because it was a compromise demanded by Northern States who viewed slaves as mere property and did not want them represented at all as human beings, especially since Southern slave numbers were much greater. Southerners on the other hand held to Southern law which acknowledged slaves as human beings deserving of full representation in congress, and declared that masters owned only the labor and not the person of the slave. This was the primary foundation for their argument that slaves should receive full representation given that they were persons and not property. Now you tell me who was morally correct in that debate?!? Frederick Douglas saw the 3/5ths compromise as favoring the North in that it limited Southern representation in congress by 2/5ths even though slaves should have been recognized by the North as persons worthy of full representation.

        I really had to chuckle when you bring up the 1808 date regarding the slave trade. Slave trading was strictly a Northern enterprise carried out on Northern ships insured by Northern agencies. That the slave trade wasn’t banned immediately (which would have greatly increased the value of Southern slaves) was because the North wanted 25 more years to benefit economically from the trade. The Confederate Constitution did not wait but immediately banned slave trading.

        Hilariously you state, “Only thing…Confederate law has no standing in the United States. Nice try though.” But both the US and CS Constitutions protected property rights. The CS military had every right according to both Constitutions to claim fugitive property. Especially in the domain of its military control. Your argument is adolescent!

        Longstreet’s order was a matter of practical necessity given the contrabands were in military custody and were property protected by the US Constitution and CS Constitution. It in no way proves CS Government or Lee’s approval. That is pure unsubstantiated speculation that fails to distinguish between assent vs practical necessity.

        You conclude, “These confiscations revealed the object for which many Southerners had waged war: to found a government based on human slavery.” That is a connection with absolutely no logic. So I ask you again, and until I get a substantive answer I will not waste time on your superficial arguments any longer:

        If the South seceded and fought to preserve slavery, or as you put it “to found a government based on human slavery,” why did they start as early as late 1861 and continue through ‘65 to offer to end slavery (as economically and humanitarianly difficult as that would be) in hopes of gaining foreign aid to win their war for independence? You simply cling desperately to your myth and refuse to acknowledge that the South was willing to end slavery to have an independent government of their own consent.

        Come back only if you have an answer to that fundamental question about Southern motive. Else do not bother me with your mythical and desperate attempts to vilify the South.

      3. Sorry Rod, you are wrong again…for the 3rd time today.

        You can’t have it both ways!! The Confederacy can’t use the laws of the US, when they are no longer part of the US.
        Nice try though.

        Please study the US Constitution. You don’t understand it at all.

        The US Constitution was a compromise.

        I have to chuckle when I read the rest of what you wrote.

        Keep writing as I can use a good laugh today

      4. nygiants1952 is a walking encyclopedia of every inaccurate and defunct myth ever told about the Confederacy. Good job, Rod, in dismantling his specious points and outright lies one by one. Especially the robot soundbites about the Cornerstone speech….

    2. This can’t be excused either:

      What Union Soldiers did to “recruit” former slaves.

      “Officers in command of colored troops are in constant habit of pressing all able-bodied slaves into the military service of the United States.

      One communication from citizens near McMinnville on that subject I have already forwarded you. Many similar complaints have been made.

      This State being excepted from the emancipation proclamation, I supposed all [these] things are against good faith and the policy of the Government. Forced enlistments I have endeavored to stop, but find it difficult if not impracticable to do so. In fact, as district commander, I am satisfied I am unable to correct the evils complained of connected with the black population”

      Source: War of the Rebellion, Official Records, Series 1, Vol. 32, Part 2. pp. 59-60.

  5. There’s nothing wrong with the “Lost Cause.” They did have a cause – Southern independence – and they did lose it. True story.

    This does not define “about slavery.” Both Union and confederate states had slavery and recognised it (Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, & the border states in play) General Grant’s wife even held onto her slaves until the passage of the 13th amendment.

    1. Congress passed the Corwin Amendment (would have been 13th, ironically) which would forever forbid Congress from interfering with slavery and Lincoln expressed his support for it in his 1st inaugural. The seceded states didn’t accept it.

    2. The Emancipation Proclamation exempted the manumission of slaves in Union territory including Confederate territory they occupied. The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation gave the seceded states 100 days to return to the union in which place it wouldn’t apply and they could keep slavery. The seceded states didn’t accept it.

    3. In the early months of 1865 Lincoln and Seward met with Confederate emissaries and Seward advised them that if they would rejoin the union and submit to federal control, they would have the votes to defeat the 13th Amendment and could retain their slaves. The seceded states didn’t accept it.

    4. Three times Lincoln offered slavery to the Confederate government in exchange for rejoining the union, and three times they refused. There’s a reason for this- they were vying for independence……not slavery and the record is absolute irrefutable of this fact.

    5. No party advocated for emancipation and no one proposed emancipating any slave anywhere if they (confederacy/state or states) would lay down their arms and submit to the “national authority.”
    ————————————————
    As to the Cornerstone speech I’ve seen thrown around this thread:

    Pennsylvania US Representative and US Supreme Court Associate Justice Henry Baldwin stated if first in his opinion in Johnson vs Tompkins in 1833, when he said, the following; quote:
    “Slavery is the Cornerstone of the Constitution. The foundations of the government are laid and rest on the rights of property in slaves, and the whole structure must fall by disturbing the corner-stone.”

    But let’s go there for just a minute with some logic from a Confederate soldier:
    “If slavery was the corner stone of the Southern Confederacy, what are we to say of the Constitution of the United States? That instrument as originally adopted by the thirteen colonies contained three sections which recognized slavery, Article 1, Sections 2 and 9, and Article 4, Section 9. And whereas the Constitution of the Southern Confederacy prohibited the slave trade, the Constitution of the United States prohibited the abolition of the slave trade for twenty years?

    …what are we to say of the revolting colonies of 1776 who rebelled against the British crown
    to achieve their liberty while slavery existed in every one of the thirteen colonies undisturbed?”
    “A SOLDIER’S RECOLLECTIONS”
    Dr. Randolph H McKim
    1910
    https://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/mckim/mckim.html

  6. The idea that secession was all about preserving and extending slavery is easily debunked. First one must ask himself, how did secession accomplish that goal? Secession removed all federal U. S. Laws that protected slavery in the states. Also, by seceding, the states gave up their Constitutional rights to the western territories. Explain how secession helped to expand slavery? Secession weakened the South’s grip on slavery.

    If Jefferson Davis’s first announcement as Confederate president had been that the Confederacy was going to abolish slavery, Lincoln and the Radicals still would have invaded the South. If the Confederacy had informed Lincoln at any point during the war that it was going to start an emancipation program, Lincoln would not have suddenly called off the federal invasion. Not once did any Republican leader offer to halt the federal invasion if the South would agree to abolish slavery. The key issue was Southern independence, not slavery.

    Issues surrounding slavery, did however, represent the lengths that the Republicans would go to facilitate their government and economic conquest of the South.

    1. The Confederate Constitution added a clause about the question of slavery in the territories, the key constitutional debate of the 1860 election, by explicitly stating slavery to be legally protected in the territories.
      Article IV Section 3(3)
      The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several states; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form states to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress, and by the territorial government: and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories, shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the states or territories of the Confederate states.

      Nice try .

      1. The Confederate Constitution was only an extension of the current Constitution. The clause was a result of the Supreme Court’s defense of the right to bring slaves into the territories. That was nothing new.

      2. “The Confederate Constitution anticipated the extension of slavery. Thats’s what they clause was inserted.”

        That clause was inserted to make clear what the US Constitution guaranteed, the equal rights of all the States in the territories. That was the ruling of the SCOTUS. The South however had no desire to extend slavery into the territories, only equal rights as made clear by a letter to Southern people signed off by 40 Southern congressmen:

        “Their object, they allege, is to prevent the extension of slavery, and ours to extend it, thus making the issue between them and us to be the naked question, shall slavery be extended or not… So far from maintaining the doctrine, which the issue implies, we hold that the Federal Government has no right to extend or restrict slavery, no more than to establish or abolish it; nor has it any right whatever to distinguish between the domestic institutions of one State, or section, and another, in order to favor one and discourage the other. As the federal representative of each and all the States, it is bound to deal out, within the sphere of its powers, equal and exact justice and favor to all. To act otherwise, to undertake to discriminate between the domestic institutions of one and another, would be to act in total subversion of the end for which it was established–to be the common protection and guardian of all. Entertaining these opinions, we ask not, as the North alleges we do, for the extension of slavery. That would make a discrimination in our favor, as unjust and unconstitutional as the discrimination they ask against us in their favor. It is not for them, nor for the Federal Government to determine, whether our domestic institution is good or bad; or whether it should be repressed or preserved. It belongs to us, and us only, to decide such questions. What then we do insist on, is, not to extend slavery, but that we shall not be prohibited from immigrating with our property, into the Territories of the United States, because we are slaveholders; or, in other words, that we shall not on that account be disfranchised of a privilege possessed by all others, citizens and foreigners, without discrimination as to character, profession, or color. All, whether savage, barbarian, or civilized, may freely enter and remain, we only being excluded.” The Address of the Southern Delegates in Congress to Their Constituents, 1849.

        Rebut that!

      3. we shall not be prohibited from immigrating with our property, into the Territories of the United States, because we are slaveholders; or, in other words, that we shall not on that account be disfranchised of a privilege possessed by all others, citizens and foreigners, without discrimination as to character, profession, or color. All, whether savage, barbarian, or civilized, may freely enter and remain, we only being excluded.” The Address of the Southern Delegates in Congress to Their Constituents, 1849.

        Thank you fro making my point!!

      4. Why did you ignore the rest of the letter which give contextual meaning to the part you so deceitfully cropped to distort the meaning?

        “ Entertaining these opinions, we ask not, as the North alleges we do, for the extension of slavery.”
        “ What then we do insist on, is, not to extend slavery, but that we shall not be prohibited from immigrating with our property, into the Territories of the United States, because we are slaveholders”

        Obviously extension is not their purpose, but rather equal access and rights in the territories.

        It really isn’t that hard to grasp if you take off your blinders that crop words out of context.

        How is it again that seceding from any claim to the territories, furthered their aim to expand slavery into the territories? I still haven’t seen your rebuttal???

      5. Which is exactly what the SCOTUS ruled the US Constitution meant. Given that the US Constitution protected the right to property, and given that the US Constitution guaranteed the equality of the States, the SCOTUS had to rule that taking slave property into the commonly owned territories of the Union was Constitutionally mandated. Only when territories became States did the right to restrict slavery exist. Again, the US and CS Constitutions mirrored each other in meaning. Only the clarity of that meaning was worded to be made clearer.

        And arguing for the equal right to take legal property into the territories is a far cry from wanting to extend the institution of slavery into the territories. The latter Southern statesmen explicitly denied. The arid climate of the mid West was not conducive to slave produced staples. The claim that the South sought to extend slavery into the territories was a lie proposed by Northern politicians (especially Lincoln) to scare and unify a racist North against the South. It had nothing at all to do with a moral line in the sand against slavery.

        So your point is moot!

  7. Concerning Alexander Stephens’ statements on the equality of the races were widely held around the entire Union, even by men like Abraham Lincoln. It makes no sense that a man like Alexander Stephens, who lived among black people his entire life, is currently considered a white supremacist while Lincoln is not. Lincoln wanted the western territories to be open exclusively to white men, planned to colonize blacks in Africa up until his death, tried to free slaves where he had no power and freed none in territory he controlled, and explicitly stated his preference for white superiority in his debates with Stephen Douglas. While Alexander Stephens should be criticized for his acceptance of racist Northern pseudoscience in the Cornerstone speech, focusing only on his words about race detracts from its true purpose.

    When this speech was delivered in Savannah in late March of 1861, it was reinforcing most of the points from Georgia’s Declaration of Secession two months earlier. One of the most important things Stephens’ described is that the Confederate Constitution eliminated burdensome tariffs and forbade the federal government from spending on internal improvements.

    However, most Righteous Cause myth supporters skim right over most of Stephens’ speech and cherry pick the parts that they feel makes their argument

    1. This is what was said in the Cornerstone Speech…The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”

      Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

      1. Immediate cause of the late rupture.
      2.New government based on the moral truth that the negro is not equal tot he white man.

      Good thing Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali were never told that.

      Nice try though.

      Carry on

      1. You forgot to add the movers and shakers of the north at the time in your one sided analysis.

        “By God, sir, men born and nursed of white women are not going to be ruled by men who were brought up on the milk of some damn Negro wench!” Congressman David Wilmont of Pennsylvania. Famous for the Wilmont Proviso.

        “The dark man, the black man declines, it will happen by and by that the black man will only be destined for museums like the DoDo.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, Northern writer, abolitionist, and humanitarian. Expressing his desire that blacks “die out.”

        “Southerners have retarded progress because of the direct influence of so large a population of half barbarous Africans interspersed among them, and who had instructed them in the structures and principles of African despotism.” Thomas Goodwin, Northern author and abolitionist.

        “I’ve heard you have abolitionists here, we have a few in Illinois and we shot one the other day.” Abraham Lincoln, 9/1848. Spoken in a jocular tone revealing his disdain for abolitionists.

        “Canada is just to our North, and offers a fine market for wool.” Gov of Conn. William Alfred Buckingham. His response to the need to take in black war contrabands.

        “There is in the great masses of the people a natural and proper loathing of the negro, which forbids contact with him as with a leper.” Chicago Times.

        “Confine the negro to the smallest possible area, hem him in, coup him up, sloth him off, preserve just so much of North America as it possible for the white man and to free institutions.“ The Atlantic Monthly.

        “I went through the State of Illinois for the purpose of getting signers to a petition, asking the Legislature to repeal the Testimony Law, so as to permit colored men to testify against white men. I went to prominent Republicans, and among others to Abraham Lincoln and Lyman Trumbull, and neither of them dared to sign that petition to give me the right to testify in a court of justice! If we sent our children to school, Abraham Lincoln would kick them out, in the name of Republicanism and anti-slavery!… I care nothing about that anti-slavery which wants to make the Territories free, while it is unwilling to extend to me, as a man, in the free States, all the rights of a man.” H. Ford Douglas, free negro abolitionist in Chicago, Illinois.

        “The white man needs this continent to labor upon. His head is clear, his arm is strong, and his necessities are fixed. He must and will have it. To secure it, he will oblige the Government of the United States to abandon intervention in favor of slave labor and slave States, and go backward forty years, and resume the original policy of intervention in favor of free labor and free States…
        Mr. President, this expansion of the empire of free white men is to be conducted through the process of admitting new States, and not other- wise. The white man, whether you consent or not, will make the States to be admitted, and he will make them all free States. Sec of State William Seward, Speech before the US Senate 3/3/1858.

        “The negro is a foreign and feeble element like the Indians, incapable of assimilation, a pitiful exotic unnecessarily and unwisely transplanted into our field, and which it is unprofitable to cultivate at the cost of the desolation of the native vineyard.” William Seward, in a speech at an 1860 political rally.

        “In the State where I live we do not like Negroes. We do not disguise our dislike. As my friend from Indiana (Mr. Wright) said yesterday, ‘The whole people of the
        Northwestern States are, for reasons, whether correct or not, opposed to having many Negroes among them, and that principle or prejudice has been engraved in the legislation of nearly all the Northwestern States.’ “ Ohio Senator John Sherman, on April 2, 1862.

        “Keeping slaves out of the West will confine the negro to the South.” Abolitionist Charles Elliot of Massachusetts.

        This is just a sampling of Northern quotes, revealing that “anti-slavery” in the North meant “anti-black.” A neutral anti-slavery Englishman you may have heard of had this to say about Northern “anti-slavery” –

        “I take the facts of the American quarrel to stand thus. Slavery has in reality nothing on earth to do with it…that the North hates the negro, and until it was convenient to make a pretense that sympathy with him was the cause of the war, it hated the Abolitionists and derided them up hill and down dale.” Charles Dickens, 1862.
        ————-
        With the South having seceded, the Lincoln led Republicans (a Northern sectional party) controlled both houses of the 37th Congress. One of their select committees was the “Committee on Emancipation and Colonization.” The following resolution from that committee explains exactly what motivated Northern “anti-slavery.” Anti-slavery meant nothing more than “anti-black;” and to rid the country of an “inferior race” to prevent amalgamation. Is it any wonder that the Mississippi Declaration of Secession laments that the North “seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.”

        37th Congess.
        No. 148. REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON EMANCIPATION AND COLONIZATION,In the House of Resentatives, July 16, 1862:

        “It is useless, now, to enter upon any philosophical inquiry whether nature has or has not made the negro inferior to the Caucasian. The belief is indelibly fixed upon the public mind that such inequality does exist. There are irreconcilable differences between the two races which separate them, as with a wall of fire. The home for the African must not be within the limits of the present territory of the Union. The Anglo- American looks upon every acre of our present domain as intended for him, and not for the negro. A home, therefore, must be sought for the African beyond our own limits and in those warmer regions to which his constitution is better adapted than to our own climate,and which doubtless the Almighty intended the colored races should inhabit and cultivate.

        Much of the objection to emancipation arises from the opposition of a large portion of our people to the intermixture of the races, and from the association of white and black labor. The committee would do nothing to favor such a policy; apart from the antipathy which nature has ordained, the presence of a race among us who cannot, and ought not to be admitted to our social and political privileges, will be a perpetual source of injury and inquietude to both. This is a question of color, and is unaffected by the relation of master and slave.

        The introduction of the negro, whether bond or free, into the same field of labor with the white man, is the opprobrium of the latter… We wish to disabuse our laboring countrymen, and the whole Caucasian race who may seek a home here, of this error… The committee conclude that the highest interests of the white race, whether Anglo-Saxon, Celt, or Scandinavian, require that the whole country should be held and occupied by those races.”

        Faced with an inhumane Northern racism, that barred slaves from migrating North or to the territories and wanted them colonized out of the country or kicked to the curb landless and penniless to die out, it is no wonder General Lee exclaimed:

        “The best men in the South have long desired to do away with the institution of slavery, and are quite willing to see it abolished. UNLESS SOME HUMANE COURSE, BASED ON WISDOM AND CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES IS ADOPTED, you do them great injustice in setting them free.”(emphasis mine)

        The Committee had six participants, two Southern states that had not wanted to secede, VA and TN, two that could be considered border states, MO and KY, plus IN, PA, and DE, which, last time I looked, were Northern states. It was aimed at the border states, in an effort to set a precedent for compensated emancipation ($180 Million) followed by colonization, which they were trying to make as attractive as possible. Lincoln clearly issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation based on that report. Unfortunately, the accompanying experiment on Vache Island was a miserable and public failure, and the border states refused his emancipation plan, so he had to give it up. Lincoln had not long grown past such racist notions; he was an enthusiastic participant right up to the moment it failed. To his credit, he had far more respect for property law than the Abolitionists, and was in favor of gradual emancipation, as opposed to the Abolitionists who wanted immediate and uncompensated abolition. But neither of them had any thought of African-Americans remaining in the country. In fact, someone recently mentioned the fascinating idea that Abolitionists were actively goading the South to secede (successfully) by threatening uncompensated abolition; that way, African-Americans would be limited to the South and anywhere else outside the country they decided to go, thereby removing the problem of free African-Americans for “free white men” in the North and the New Territories.(Lincoln). With all the furor over Reconstruction and Jim Crow, no one notes that the Black Codes originated in the North, Ohio and Illinois, and there was no post-War Welcome Wagon in the North to entice 4 million newly freed blacks to diffuse into those states or the New Territories, taking the burden of economic devastation for eight million people with very few jobs off the Southern states for the next 100 years. And when they did migrate in the ’30s, they ended up in ghettos and about as segregated as anyone could possibly be without just being locked up, doing mostly menial jobs. That they survived and rose above this to the degree they have is greatly to their credit, but not to that of anybody in the North.

      2. Stephens was a constitutional attorney; he was speaking in legal terms; he was invoking judicial terminology:

        “You thus see that in protecting the rights of a master in the property of a slave, the constitution guarantees the highest rights of the respective states, of which each has a right to avail itself, and which each enjoys in proportion to the number of slaves within its boundaries. This was a concession to the southern states; but it was not without its equivalent to the other states, especially the small ones—the basis of representation in the senate of the United States was perfect equality, each being entitled to two senators—Delaware had the same weight in the senate as Virginia. Thus you see that the foundations of the government are laid, and rest on the rights of property in slaves—the whole structure must fall by disturbing the corner stones—if federal numbers cease to be respected or held sacred in questions of property or government, the rights of the states must disappear and the government and union dissolve by the prostration of its laws before the usurped authority of individuals.”
        United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Henry Baldwin (a Northerner), ‘Johnson v. Tompkins’, 1833

        Judge Baldwin has used stronger language. In Johnson vs. Tompkins, 1 Bald., 597, he says: “Slavery is the corner-stone of the Constitution; the foundations of the government are laid and rest on the right of property in slaves, and the whole structure must fall by disturbing the corner-stone.”

        Therefore, Stephens was only reiterating what the Confederate Constitution was – the U. S. Constitution in its purest form.

      3. Eric, no matter how you cut it, the Confederacy left the Union because of slavery.

        Realize that the US Constitution was written by Southerners to protect slavery. They thought that had it covered, but did not count on a Republican Party determined to stop the extension of slavery to the territories.

        So, by leaving the Union, they let others determine the fate of slavery.

      4. “ Eric, no matter how you cut it, the Confederacy left the Union because of slavery.

        Realize that the US Constitution was written by Southerners to protect slavery. They thought that had it covered, but did not count on a Republican Party determined to stop the extension of slavery to the territories.

        So, by leaving the Union, they let others determine the fate of slavery”

        That is such an ahistorical argument! Surely you jest! Else you should be profoundly embarrassed by such an adolescent remark!

        Last time I checked the historical record, the Constitution emerged from a convention of both Northern and Southern representatives who deliberated and approved the final version, and the Northern States who ratified that Constitution were up to their necks in slave trading, not to mention many still held slaves within their States.

        And why was the Republican Party determined to stop the extension of slavery? They said it loud and often that it was to preserve the territories for the white race. And they were desperately seeking to keep Southerns from settling in the territories and forming pro-Southern States that could tip the balance of power in congress to the South and its low tariff States Rights philosophy.

        As far as the South was concerned it had no intension of extending slavery into the territories and said so explicitly. But what the South did object to was being treated unequally in the Union as far as being able to take its legal property there and equally share in those commonly owned territories. It was a desire to be treated equal as the Constitution required that motivated the South, and NOT a desire to expand slavery into an environment that could not support plantation slavery.

        I’m still waiting for you to explain why the South was willing to end slavery as early as 1861 if their reason for secession wss to preserve and extend slavery??? To that I would add another question. How did secession help their cause “to expand slavery into the territories” when seceding cut them off from any claim to the US territories???

        I anxiously await your answers!

      5. Simple, the lower South left the Union because of the election of Lincoln and the Republican Party which campaigned on stopping the extension to slavery to the territories.

        Read the 3/5ths clause and the other articles of the Constitution . I wrote the explanation earlier
        The rest of your comment lacks erudite understand

        Nice try though

      6. Read my reply to your earlier comment for which you have no rebuttal. Typical of a righteous causer, you ignore evidence to prop up your myths!

        Still awaiting your answer to why the South sought to end slavery? But then, you haven’t provided a substantive answer backed by primary source evidence to anything I’ve said. You just continue to spew righteous cause myth.

      7. Nice dodge. Why was it the South sought to end slavery very early after secession if preserving slavery was their cause? I must have missed that rebuttal!

      8. You claim: “ The South NEVER tried to end slavery.
        Revisionist history.”

        You’ve read the primary evidence before, you just refuse to acknowledge it because it destroys your myth. But hear again the corroborating testimony of seven Union loyal border slave state congressmen in a letter to their President to whom they had no reason to lie about what they call a “fact, now become history” which sounds like they were certain to me:

        “We are the more emboldened to assume this position from the fact, now become history, that the leaders of the Southern rebellion have offered to abolish slavery amongst them as a condition to foreign intervention in favor of their independence as a nation. If they can give up slavery to destroy the Union; We can surely ask our people to consider the question of Emancipation to save the Union.”

        Hear some of the corroborating evidence from news reports of Confederate willingness to end slavery to gain independence:

        “Slavery is doomed, on any supposition; and the Confederate authorities are already saying publicly that the power of emancipation is one which rests in their hands; and that they will use it in the last resort.” Once A Week, London, note the date Nov. 30, 1861.

        “The rumors of interference by France and England in American affairs are received, and it is even asserted that the South, in return for the intervention, will guarantee the emancipation of her slaves.” The Daily British Colonist, note the date May 29, 1862.

        Southern Statesmen made clear that slavery was the mere recent occasion of Northern violation of the Constitution and not their cause for secession. They are far too many to list here. Jeff Davis stated emphatically in an 1864 interview with a Northern correspondent that slavery was not what they were fighting for:

        “We are not fighting for Slavery. We are fighting for independence, and that or extermination we will have… There are some things worse than hanging or extermination. We reckon giving up the right of self-government one of those things.”
        Interviewer: “By self-government you mean disunion -Southern independence?”
        Davis: “Yes.”
        Interviewer: “And Slavery, you say, is no longer an element in the contest”
        Davis: “No it is not, it never was an essential element. It was only a means of bringing other conflicting elements to an earlier culmination. It fired the musket which was already capped and loaded. There are essential differences between the North and the South that will, however this war may end, make them two nations.” The September number of the Atlantic Monthly, entitled “Our Visit to Richmond,” by J. R. GILMORE.

        Cling to your myth all you want but the historical evidence is against you.

      9. Guys, here is a Civics Lesson for you. Recall that The US Constitution has in it, the directions to amend that Constitution.

        The Corwin Amendment did pass Congress. However, That was only one stop in the amending process. Recall from Civics 101, that in order to amend the Constitution, 3/4ths of the states have to approve the resolution. Right?

        RIGHT!

        Only 5 states approved the resolution. Therefore, it didn’t pass. Right?

        RIGHT!

        I think you guys must have been absent that day, when amending the US Constitution, was taught?

        As far as the meeting of Seward and Lincoln with the rebels, The delegation underestimated Lincoln’s resolve to make the end of slavery a necessary condition for any peace. The president also insisted on immediate reunification and the laying down of Confederate arms before anything else was discussed. In short, the Union was in such an advantageous position that Lincoln did not need to concede any issues to the Confederates. Robert M.T. Hunter,a member of the delegation, commented that Lincoln was offering little except the unconditional surrender of the South.

        There…that’s the actual history, not revisionist BS. Right?

        RIGHT!

        If you have any other questions regarding the US Constitution, or the actual history of the United Staes, feel free to ask.

      10. 1. Why do you think he called it the “immediate cause.” Why didn’t he simply say “the cause.” The reason was as Southern statesmen so often said that slavery issues were only the most recent examples of Northern failure to comply with the Constitution. There was a long history of other issues regarding that foundational problem of abiding by the Constitution. Slavery issues were only the most recent and most legally explicit as far as violating the Constitution was concerned.

        2. Absolutely nothing different here than what Lincoln himself claimed: “What then free them all and keep them among us as underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? What next, free them and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this, and even if mine would we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not. We cannot then make them equals… If all earthly power were given to me, I should not know what to do to the existing institution…. What I would most desire is a separation of the white and black races.” Abraham Lincoln, 1858.

        The only difference between Lincoln and Stephens was that Lincoln wanted all blacks deported out of the country. If they stayed here it would have to be as “underlings.”

        So your point of distinction is???

  8. To identify the cause of war it is as necessary to understand why the North chose to fight – as it is to recognize why the cotton states seceded.

    Contrary to popular belief Northerners did not decide to fight in order to end slavery. Before the shooting started, the legislatures of at least ten Northern states adopted resolutions explaining their objections to Southern secession. None stated they wanted to end slavery. Significantly, the resolutions from Northern states above show that they would fight to “preserve the Union.” The cited reasons, such as the “freedom,” “prosperity” and “happiness” allegedly enabled by the Federal Union, are vague abstractions that may be mere obfuscations designed to camouflage a real goal to avoid the economic consequences of disunion.

    Free States With General Assembly Resolutions Against Southern Secession
    (January-February 1861)
    (None wanted to end slavery)
    Indiana
    Maine
    Massachusetts
    Michigan
    Minnesota
    New Jersey
    New York
    Ohio
    Pennsylvania
    Wisconsin

    They realized that a Union separated from its Southern states would face two major economic problems:

    It could not hope to maintain a favorable balance of payments. The slave states accounted for two-thirds of America’s exports. Without the South’s export economy, America might become a perpetual debtor nation forever at the mercy of its stronger trading partners that would deplete her gold supply in order to settle persistent trade deficits.

    Since the Confederate constitution outlawed protective tariffs her lower tariffs would confront the remaining states of the Union with two consequences. First, since ninety percent of Federal taxes came from tariffs the government would lose a significant proportion of its revenue. Articles imported into the Confederacy from Europe would divert tariff revenue from the USA to the CSA. Second, and more importantly, a low Confederate tariff would cause Southerners to buy manufactured goods from Europe as opposed to the Northern states where prices were artificially inflated by protective tariffs. Consequently, the market for Northern manufactured goods in the South might nearly vanish. That market was estimated at $200 to $400 million, which was much more than America’s $54 million in tariffs collected in 1860.

    Even Eric Foner admits that most historians don’t understand why the North chose to fight. In reality, they don’t want to concede selfish motives among our Northern ancestors because that would contradict the righteous cause by the cultural elite.

    1. “To identify the cause of war it is as necessary to understand why the North chose to fight – as it is to recognize why the cotton states seceded.”

      Not really. To identify the cause of the war, it’s really just necessary to understand the motivation of the side that started shooting.

      1. The side that starts shooting isn’t necessarily the side that provokes war. Lincoln admitted he provoked the shots fired at Sumter. All the South desired was to be left alone to exercise that most basic founding American principle of government by consent of the governed. Lincoln refused because he desired economic exploitation of the entire country.

  9. These comments show how the Lost Cause lives on, and how the adherents are still trying to come up with angles to spin the war. The problem is that the country has moved on, and is no longer willing to accept falsehoods in the interest of reconciliation.

    The reputation of the confederacy has been dropping off a cliff in the last decades, and the neo-Lost-Causers are just accelerating the fall.

    1. Now that’s a sincere objective claim backed by evidence of indoctrination by the neocon Right and Neo-Marxist Left. Sheesh! In typical Righteous Cause fashion, the strategy is to resort to ad hominem attack and the convenient “lost cause” dismissal because the evidence presented can’t be refuted.

      1. It has been refuted. Over and over again. But a small group of true believers refuse to accept reality. On the bright side, their numbers grow smaller with each generation.

      2. Refuted? Simply not the case! If it has been refuted, and the South was all about preserving slavery, why did they begin as early as 1861 to seek an end to slavery to gain foreign aid in their fight to govern themselves? How can you in any way justify Lincoln’s invasion of the South in an America founded on government by consent of the governed?

      3. Rod… the Confederacy never outlawed slavery to obtain independence. This is the reason no foreign power ever joined the Confederacy in fighting the United States. By their own actions they were never willing to do it.

        Lincoln justified military action because the Confederacy fired on Ft. Sumter so to take possession of it. He was then re-elected by the American people who voted in the 1864 election. So he had the consent of the governed.

      4. The Confederacy never ended slavery because the British stated they would not help militarily as long as “the Roman Problem” was still not resolved. They were too concerned that their military would become over extended. So why didn’t the Confederacy end slavery anyway? Because the North and West were not willing to share in the social and economic cost that emancipation would require. The North was determined to keep blacks both slave and free bottled up in the South because of racist reasons. It had long sought to colonize the few remaining blacks that remained in Northern States, and passed laws forbidding any others to migrate into Northern States. This left the South with the very difficult economic and humanitarian challenge, if they freed the slaves, of absorbing nearly half the total population of the South, who were penniless and landless, within the Southern borders alone. It was going to be a humanitarian and economic disaster, one they were willing to endure only if it meant gaining foreign support in their war for independence. This is why Southern statesmen argued that slavery was a “positive good,” because it was a way of managing so large a population of destitute people until some better option became available. Southerners believed slavery a violation of natural law just as much as Northerners. But they also knew that natural law proclaimed that when the ideal cannot be achieved, you should always do what causes the most good and least harm. Given the North’s unwillingness to disperse the slaves if freed by a national plan of integration, the South was left no other choice but to maintain slavery as the best of a bad situation. Only the prospect of gaining independence by foreign military intervention would justify the humanitarian and economic disaster that emancipation within Southern borders alone would bring. This is why CS Secretary of State gave CS Congressman Duncan Kenner a note to explain to the CS foreign diplomat why the South would end slavery to gain foreign support. The note stated:

        ‘The sole object for which we would ever have consented to commit our all to the hazards of this war, is the vindication of our right to self-government and independence… For that end no sacrifice is too great, save that of honour.’ Judah Benjamin to John Slidell, Dec 27, 1864.

        You say: “Lincoln justified military action because the Confederacy fired on Ft. Sumter so to take possession of it. He was then re-elected by the American people who voted in the 1864 election. So he had the consent of the governed.”

        Why did the Confederacy fire on Sumter? Because Lincoln provoked the action by sending ships into the harbor of a sovereign seceded State. Lincoln admitted he got the results he deliberately provoked.

        As far as government by consent of the governed is concerned, the Southern States seceded from the US just as the US had seceded from Britain, and both did so to exercise their right of self-government. Lincoln denied the Southern people who seceded that most basic fundamental principle of a government of their own consent. What he did was as Lord Acton charged, “an awful crime.” Had Gorbachev sent troops into the Soviet States when they seceded from their Union, the world would have judged it a crime against humanity. Why should what Lincoln did be viewed any differently?

      5. Sorry Rod, but that is pure revisionist history.

        Lincoln warned the Governor of South Carolina,( and NOT to the new rebel government since he did not recognize it) that he was sending humanitarian aid to the soldiers in Fort Sumter, a Federal fort. Davis ordered that the fort be reduced.The South started the Civil War. Right?

        RIGHT!

        Nice try though.

      6. Wrong. Lincoln had no right to send any ships into the sovereign waters of the new nation of South Carolina. He admitted he provoked a war.

      7. You mean the new nation, the Confederate States of America, don’t you?

        And could you tell me how many foreign countries recognized “South Carolina”? LOL

        And while we are at it, how many countries recognized the Confederate States of America?

        I can wait for your response.

      8. Since when does the opinion of foreign countries bear weight concerning that fundamental and uniquely American principle of the right of any people to govern themselves. We fought a war to escape from the foreign mandate that the people are subjects of the central government. Apparently Lincoln missed that aspect of American history when he claimed sovereignty belonged to the central government and denied millions of people in the Southern States their basic right, so essential to the meaning of freedom, to govern themselves. Lincoln’s forcing those people to submit to a government they no longer felt served their pursuit of happiness was an awful crime. His killing 1/3rd of the Southern men of military age, turning war and killing thousands of citizens both black and white, and building what amounted to a Berlin Wall around the Union would by any measure today be considered a crime against humanity.

      9. Rod, you are conveniently forgetting that the Founding Fathers never intended the states to leave the Union. After all, the Northern states compromised with the South so that the US Constitution has written in it they methods to preserve slavery.

        Diplomatic recognition in international law is a unilateral declarative political act of a state that acknowledges an act or status of another state or government in control of a state (may be also a recognized state). So, no country ever acknowledged that the CSA controlled a state, nor that it even existed.

        The South already had a government in Washington, DC.

        Lincoln was defending the US Constitution, from domestic terrorists, pure and simple.

        As far as the killing of 1/3 of Southern men of military age, blame Jefferson Davis. He sent those young men to their deaths, not Lincoln.

        You don’t seem to have a basic understanding of the US Constitution, and of Lincoln.

      10. “Rod, you are conveniently forgetting that the Founding Fathers never intended the states to leave the Union. After all, the Northern states compromised with the South so that the US Constitution has written in it they methods to preserve slavery.”

        Certainly they hoped the Union would be maintained, else they would no have formed it! But they did not believe that a voluntary act of joining the Union was final. Nor did they consider Washington DC their sovereign government. The central government was a mere agent for the common benefit of the SOVEREIGN STATES. And no, the slavery related clauses were not merely a compromise with the South. At the time of ratification six Northern States still had slaves. The compromise was with all the slave holding States and not just the South.

        Again, the legitimacy of the CSA has nothing to do with international law or the opinions of foreign governments. The legitimacy of the CSA was in their exercising their reserved right to secede as the 10th Amendment to the Constitution affirms.

        Lincoln was committing the Constitutional definition of treason by attacking sovereign American States. Something the founders explicitly stated was unthinkable!

        Regarding the war deaths, there would have been NO WAR had Lincoln not CHOSE WAR. The South simply wanted to be left alone to govern themselves – the essence of a free people. Lincoln chose war to deny that fundamental right.

        Now, until you have an answer as to why the South sought to end slavery after seceding, I’m done with your myth making.

      11. Rod, wrong again!!

        While the Northern states had some slaves, they certainly never amounted to an increase in representation in the House of Representatives as they did in the South.

        The North compromised on the US Constitution for the North did not want slavery transported to the Northwest Territories.

        The CSA was never legitimate. There is no mention of secession in the Constitution because the FF never intended any states to leave the Union.

        Recall that Jefferson Davis ordered that Fort Sumter be fired on, So, in reality, Davis was a traitor. Davis chose war, pure and simple.

        Anything else I can educate you regarding?

    2. “The country has moved on.” Yes it has, but that won’t prevent me, nor many other like me, who will defend and honor the valor and sacrifices our ancestors made to prevent the government and economic conquest of the industrial machine. Moving on does not mean that the victors tell the story factually correctly. Those of us who actually pay attention, know better. We simply want to honor our ancestors, we don’t have political or economic agendas.

      1. You can honor them by placing Rebel flags at grave-sites.

        Monuments to traitors have no place in the United States. Moving on means to remind Americans that slavery was the cause.

    3. So, anyone that believes that there was more to the civil war than slavery gets called a “lost causer?”

      Fun Facts:
      The Union Congress voted to keep slaves in bondage in the south forever, “No Amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any state, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.” –Joint Resolution of Congress, Adopted March 2, 1861.

      Lincoln’s preliminary EP have the seceded states 100 days to return to the union in which place it wouldn’t apply and they could keep their slaves.

      In 1865 Lincoln and Seward met with Confederate emissaries and Seward advised them that if they would rejoin the union and submit to federal control, they would have the votes to defeat the 13th Amendment and could retain their slaves.

      The seceded states ALWAYS SAID NO?

      Let’s examine why:

      This took place on July 12, 1862 between Lincoln and the border slave States that did not secede. He is admonishing the congressmen in those States for not supporting a resolution of a gradual compensated emancipation. In Lincoln’s mind, had these border slave States accepted his offer of compensated emancipation and given up Slavery, it would have ended the war because, “Let the states which are in rebellion see, definitely and certainly, that, in no event, will the states you represent ever join their proposed Confederacy, and they can not, much longer maintain the contest.” Here, as in the EP, he had turned to emancipation as a war measure. Then he adds, “But you can not divest them of their hope to ultimately have you with them so long as you show a determination to perpetuate the institution within your own states… – You and I know what the lever of their power is – Break that lever before their faces, and they can shake you no more forever –“ Lincoln was convinced that secession was about slavery, and that the “lever of power” used to rally the South around secession was slavery.

      The loyal border slave States congressmen had rejected Lincoln’s offer by a 20 – 8 margin. On July 14, the 20 legislators wrote Lincoln a letter explaining why, none of which were a desire to keep slavery: 1- the resolution was rushed through congress without a social plan. 2- they felt the federal gov’t was exceeding its Constitutional bounds and infringing on States rights. 3- they questioned the Constitutionality of a law to appropriate the funds. 4- they were concerned about the financial debt. 5- they were concerned about the constitutionality of causing one section of States to make sacrifices that other loyal States were not having to make… It was an issue regarding the Constitutionally required equity of the States. This is why these pro-Union congressmen turned down Lincoln’s offer.

      After covering these reasons for voting no, they took Lincoln to task as to why his plan would not have ended the war. They did not agree that slavery was the “lever of their power” around which the Confederacy did secede and fight. They pointed out that it was NOT SLAVERY, but NORTHERN INFIDELITY to the Constitution which generated a fear that the common gov’t would be wielded against the rights of the States:

      “In both Houses of Congress we have heard doctrines subversive of the principles of the Constitution… To these causes, Mr. President, and not to our omission to vote for the resolution recommended by you, we solemnly believe we are to attribute the terrible earnestness of those in arms against the Government and the continuance of the war. Nor do we (permit us to say, Mr., President, with all respect for you) agree that the institution of Slavery is “the lever of their power,” but we are of the opinion that “the lever of their power” is the apprehension that the powers of a common Government, created for common and equal protection to the interests of all, will be wielded against the institutions of the Southern States.”

      That concern was “the lever of their power” by which the Southern States rallied around secession. These border slave State congressmen were still loyal to the Union, they had no reason to deceive Lincoln. But they were also keenly aware of why their sister slave States left the Union.
      —————————————-
      Library of Congress link to the letter by the 20 congressmen saying slavery was not the cause of secession:
      https://www.loc.gov/resource/mal.1708800/?sp=10&r=-0.163,-0.775,1.272,1.55,0

  10. Guys, here is a Civics Lesson for you. Recall that The US Constitution has in it, the directions to amend that Constitution.

    The Corwin Amendment did pass Congress. However, That was only one stop in the amending process. Recall from Civics 101, that in order to amend the Constitution, 3/4ths of the states have to approve the resolution. Right?

    RIGHT!

    Only 5 states approved the resolution. Therefore, it didn’t pass. Right?

    RIGHT!

    I think you guys must have been absent that day, when amending the US Constitution, was taught?

    As far as the meeting of Seward and Lincoln with the rebels, The delegation underestimated Lincoln’s resolve to make the end of slavery a necessary condition for any peace. The president also insisted on immediate reunification and the laying down of Confederate arms before anything else was discussed. In short, the Union was in such an advantageous position that Lincoln did not need to concede any issues to the Confederates. Robert M.T. Hunter,a member of the delegation, commented that Lincoln was offering little except the unconditional surrender of the South.

    There…that’s the actual history, not revisionist BS. Right?

    RIGHT!

    If you have any other questions regarding the US Constitution, or the actual history of the United Staes, feel free to ask.

    1. Boy do you have history dead wrong. A Northern Congress passed the Corwin Amendment by a supermajority and Five Northern States ratified it. Lincoln then lobbied the seceded States to return to the Union and assure the amendment’s ratification but the Southern States refused because preserving slavery was not their cause (neither was extending slavery in the territories because by seceding they ended any claim they had to the territories). The Corwin Amendment passed Congress and it remains today as an amendment pending ratification by the States. Geez, where do you get your history???

      As far as the Hampton Road’s Peace Conference is concerned, Lincoln was sitting right there and made absolutely no objection to the suggestion that if the Southern States laid down their arms and returned to the Union, they would be able to defeat the 13th Amendment. An amendment which, contrary to the popular myth, Lincoln was not enthused to support. As the evidence in the book Colonization After Emancipation reveals, Lincoln never wanted emancipation if not connected with a plan to colonize all blacks out of America. He was therefore reluctant to set any slave free and it is only a myth made Lincoln worshipping righteous causers that he whole heartedly endorsed the 13th Amendment.

      1. Rod, more revisionist history. Lincoln did NOT lobby the seceded states to turn tot he Union. The letter he sentient to all the Staes, since he did not recognize the South leaving the Union.

        On March 16 Lincoln, acting through his secretary of state, William Henry Seward, transmitted the proposed amendment to the states for ratification. This administrative procedure became news several years ago when ill-informed individuals proclaimed that they had uncovered a Lincoln letter endorsing the amendment. “A rare document signed by Abraham Lincoln calling on states to approve a slavery amendment has been uncovered at the State Archives and is on display in downtown Raleigh,” announced one North Carolina newspaper.

        In fact, as the text of the same letter sent to the governor of California reveals, there was no endorsement of the amendment within the letter.

        To His Excellency
        The Governor of the State of California
        Sacramento.
        Washington, March 16, 1861.
        Sir:
        I transmit an authenticated copy of a Joint Resolution to amend the Constitution of the United States, adopted by Congress and approved on the 2d of March, 1861, by James Buchanan, President.
        I have the honor to be,
        Your Excellency’s obedient servant,
        Abraham Lincoln
        By the President: William H. Seward. Secretary of State.

        Pesky thing, those pesky facts.

        Regarding Hampton Road Peace Conference, The Hampton Roads Conference, which took place aboard a steamboat near Hampton, Virginia, was a failure, as Confederate officials were not authorized to accept any settlement other than Southern independence, which Lincoln refused to consider. The war continued for another two months. What were the conditions of peace offered by Lincoln at Hampton Roads? withdrawal of all Southern troops from the North reunion of the states. trial of the major Confederate leaders for treason. payment to the North for their losses.

        Right?

        RIGHT!

      2. Interesting how you ignore the fact that he sent letters to each seceded Governor regarding the Corwin Amendment. He did not have to do that as Presidents were not even required to sign off on an Amendment. So I guess he sent those letters for the fun of it? For the practice of mailing letters?? Of course he was lobbying for its passage! And he most certainly endorsed the Corwin Amendment in his first inaugural speech. Pro-Lincoln biographer Doris Kearns Goodwin in her book Team Of Rivals says he lobbied hard for its passage before he took office. Your desperate spin is laughable!

      3. Rod,

        Sorry but you are off base, again!! If you knew your history of the US Constitution, you would know that the last time a proposed amendment had passed Congress and been sent to the states was 1810, so it’s understandable that whatever standard operating procedure existed was difficult to discern. In short, the letter really has no bearing on the substance of the discussion.

        Lincoln’s position during the years leading to his presidency is actually rather simple to summarize. He thought slavery was wrong and immoral; he opposed its territorial expansion; he favored gradual, compensated emancipation with voluntary colonization (relocation) for American blacks; he admitted to holding to racial prejudices when it came to social equality, but believed in civil equality before the law for African Americans (although that did not include political rights).

        Some things Lincoln moved , handsome things, his attitudes evolved.

      4. Sorry but you are desperately spinning again. You can’t dismiss the fact that Lincoln lobbied for passage of the Corwin Amendment before he was President, promoted its ratification in his first inaugural saying he was not opposed to making it “permanent and irrevocable,” and sent letters to each of the seceded governments lobbying for its passage. Your attempted spin about the rarity of amendments is laughable!

        Your summary of Abe Lincoln is also mostly fiction. He did think slavery wrong in the abstract, but held no moral concern for the slaves whatsoever. To oppose something as a moral abstraction, but do absolutely nothing out of concern for the slaves, is not morality. As Aristotle said, “morality attaches not to what one says, but to what one does.” Every action Lincoln took regarding slaves was as a “war measure” with a disdain for the humanitarian outcome of his actions. His saying “let them root hog or die” speaks volumes about a man morality, and the slaves did die by the hundreds of thousands because of the displacement by Lincolns war that had no concern for their well being at all (see Sick From Freedom by Dr. Jim Downs). He was perfectly content to allow slavery to continue where it already existed, and pushed the passage of an amendment that would have made slavery PERMANENT in those States. And while Lincoln publicly called for a “voluntarily colonization” to appease the radicals in his Party, privately he expressed a determination to deport all blacks out of the country to any place but here as the research in the book Colonization After Emancipation makes clear. He was working diligently up to the week he died to find a place to send them all. So much for the idea that Lincoln “evolved.” That myth went up in smoke with the documents discovered overseas presented in the book just mentioned. Finally, regarding Lincoln’s position on black “civil equality.” You really should study Lincoln’s words before you spout myths. Here is his position on black equality:

        “ “Negro equality. Fudge! How long in the Government of a God great enough to make and maintain this universe, shall there continue knaves to vend and fools to gulp, so low a piece of demagoguism as this?”

        Note next his opposition to not just political equality as you claim, but also “social equality” which he believed which he believed to be “forever” permanent:

        “I have said that I do not understand the Declaration of Independence to mean that all men were created equal in all respects. I will say that 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. There is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe, will forever forbid the two races from living together on terms of social and political equality.”

        Next he says that a black has no “natural rights” in America, and can only enjoy rights by being deported to “his own soil”:

        “Negroes have Natural Rights, although they cannot enjoy them here, and even Taney once said that ‘though it does not declare that all men are equal in their attainments and social position, yet no sane man will attempt to deny that the African upon his own soil has all the rights that instrument vouchsafes to all mankind.’”

        Even Lincoln’s opposition to slavery in the territories had no moral meaning. His concern there line most all Republicans was to keep blacks out of the territories slave or free because he was a racist:

        “Is it not rather our duty to make labor more respectable by preventing all black competition, especially in the territories. Keeping all blacks out of the territories would free society from the troublesome presence of free negroes.”

        “There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation (mixing) of the white and black races. A Separation of the races is the only perfect preventative of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together.”

        That Lincoln believed slavery wrong is a sentiment also shared by most all in the South:

        Even Lincoln believed this…
        “I have no prejudice against the Southern people. They are just what we would be in their situation. If slavery did not now exist among them, they would not introduce it.”

        Robert E. Lee said it:
        “There are few I believe in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery is a moral and political evil.“ Lee also said, “ “The best men in the South have long desired to do away with the institution of slavery, and were quite willing to see it abolished.” Then Lee added, and here is the major distinction between North and South, “ But unless some humane course, based on wisdom and Christian principles, is adopted, you do them great injustice in setting them free.” The North “despised the negro” as Republican Senator John Sherman exclaimed, and just wanted rid of them all. Southerners on the other hand knew they could be assimilated into the Christian society of America as Alexander Stephens proclaimed in his Cornerstone Speech, “by first teaching them the lesson taught to Adam, that ‘in the sweat of his brow he should eat his bread,’ and teaching them to work, feed, and clothe themselves.” Stephens did not believe slavery right. In a Texas speech, in 1845, he said:” I am no defender of slavery in the abstract —liberty always had charms for me, and I would prefer to see all the sons and daughters of Adam’s family in the full enjoyment of all the rights set forth in the Declaration of American Independence…” Jeff Davis felt the same way and penned a manual for slave masters to use to educate their slave for eventual freedom and assimilation into society. Slavery was not something the South wanted, but it was what they inherited and they therefore had to make the best of a bad situation as long as the North was unwilling to allow freed slaves to integrate North or West.

        So tell me now who held the moral high ground regarding the black race? You really need to study primary sources instead of just repeating righteous causer talking points that have no basis in fact.

        I said I was no longer going to respond to your adolescent claims until you answered my question as to why the South was willing to end slavery in 1861 if their purpose in seceding was to “preserve and extend slavery?” I still have no substantive and cogent answer from you. Until I do, I’m done responding to nonsense.

      5. Rod…here is the letter Lincoln sent tot he Governors. Show me where ehe lobbied.
        In fact, as the text of the same letter sent to the governor of California reveals, there was no endorsement of the amendment within the letter.

        To His Excellency
        The Governor of the State of California
        Sacramento.
        Washington, March 16, 1861.
        Sir:
        I transmit an authenticated copy of a Joint Resolution to amend the Constitution of the United States, adopted by Congress and approved on the 2d of March, 1861, by James Buchanan, President.
        I have the honor to be,
        Your Excellency’s obedient servant,
        Abraham Lincoln
        By the President: William H. Seward. Secretary of State.

        The rest of your comment is irrelevant.

      6. Oh, and your attempt to rebut the fact that Lincoln sat in conversation where his own cohort assured the Southern delegation that if they quit the fight, they would have more than enough votes to defeat the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery. This 13th Amendment Lincoln was not enthused to endorse, but did so under pressure from radical abolitionists, and even then he did so because he thought it would end the war and provide legal grounds to his EP. Otherwise he expressed no concern for the slaves in regard to that second 13th Amendment. As Lincoln scholar University Professor David H. Donald, the recipient of several Pulitzer prizes for his historical writings, including a biography of Lincoln stated, Lincoln did discuss the Thirteenth Amendment with two members of Congress – James M. Ashley of Ohio and James S. Rollins of Missouri. But if he used “means of persuading congressmen to vote for the Thirteeth Amendment, his actions are not recorded. Conclusions about the President’s role rested on gossip . . .” Another Lincoln scholar Lerone Bennett, Jr. the longtime executive editor of Ebony magazine and author of Forced into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream, calls a “pleasant fiction” the main theme of the righteous cause myth that Lincoln supposedly used his “political skills” to get the Thirteenth Amendment that legally ended slavery passed. It never happened. The only 13th Amendment Lincoln endorsed in an inaugural speech and in letters was the one that made slavery permanent and irrevocable.

      7. So Ron, your response shows me you lack any real understanding of Lincoln. Lincoln believed in the US Constitution, and would have done anything to keep the Union, united. He has gone on record that if he could save the Union by freeing no slaves, he would. If he could save the Union by freeing 1/2 the slaves, he would.If he could save the Union by freeing all the slaves, he would.

        Of course Lincoln would have endorsed the Corwin Amendment. It would have kept the Union , united.

        As far as the Hampton Roads Conference, the wart continued , because the Confederacy would not compromise.

        Nice try though.

      8. I love watching you guys squirm when you get called out on the Corwin Amendment. It’s sad that you would downplay the fact that the All-Union House and Senate voted to keep slavery in perpetuity in the states where it existed. Lincoln stated in his First Inaugural: “To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments so far as to say that, holding such a provision [Corwin Amendment] to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.” Pop-Quiznos: what does IRREVOCABLE mean? Did he speak out against keeping slaves in bondage forever in the south, nope… he didn’t.

        If the seceded states accepted it the union states would have ratified it faster than you can say, “state’s rights.”

        1. Corwin made slavery federally protected forever.

        2. It nullified the slave/free state race because no matter the number of free states brought into the union they could never vote down slavery to destroy it. They thought they knew all the answers to southern secession, they didn’t kinda like you here now NYGiant.

        3. It proves that the Union/Northern States were more than happy to live with slavery forever and federally protected because their house and senate voted for it.

        4. There was NO representation allowed from seceded states. The bill was rejected by Jefferson Davis and all confederate states.

        5.The Confederate Constitution prohibited the international slave trade, and prohibited the government from interfering with any member state’s right to abolish chattel slavery.

        6. The Northern states were mistaken when they thought slavery was the lever of power. The border states reminded Lincoln what that lever was and so did Jefferson Davis.

        The lever of power was NORTHERN INFIDELITY TO THE CONSTITUTION. That’s why loyal border states turned down Lincoln’s offer for a compensated emancipation and why slavery federally protected forever wasn’t enough to entice the seceded states back into the union. Yankees were simply untrustworthy.
        ————————-
        Lincoln’s close Illinois associate, U.S. Senator Lyman Trumbull said on August 7, 1858: “We, the Republican party, are the white man’s party. We are for free white men.”

        As to during the Civil, The goal was to colonize all African Americans out of the country:

        Washington, December, 1862: In the middle of a War that was costly in terms of lives and money, and in which the Government was desperate for funds to stifle the rebellion of the confederate states, President Abraham Lincoln, in his annual State of the Union speech, was bold enough to ask Congress for US$ 600,000 for purposes other than the conflict.

        “Congressmen need to release the money necessary to deport free black people to any place outside the United States”, stated Lincoln. It was neither the first, nor the only time that the president, one year before proclaiming the emancipation of the slaves, spoke officially and publicly of his interest in deporting blacks: he made five political declarations to this effect, including two State of the Union speeches and the speech that preceded emancipation.

        “The place where I’m thinking of having a colony is in Central America. It’s closer to us than Liberia [a territory in Africa, dominated by the USA, where freedmen were sent]. The land is excellent for any people, especially the climatic similarity to their native land, and it is therefore suitable for their physical conditions”, he wrote in an article for the New York Tribune entitled, “The colonization of people of African descent.”

        The Brazilian political elite rejected the idea because it was already focused on attracting white European immigrants to Brazil just as the US was doing at home.

        http://revistapesquisa.fapesp.br/en/2009/02/01/the-day-on-which-brazil-said-no-to-the-united-states/

        The movers and shakers of the north sought to colonize black folks out of the country, and to keep most bottled up in the South until colonization could be accomplished. Fear of blacks migrating North was why no major political party proposed emancipation in the antebellum period. It wasn’t politically popular.

        Source: Benjamin Wade letters to Caroline Wade, December 29, 1851 and March 9, 1873, Wade Papers, Library of Congress.

      9. I love it when someone brings up the Corwin Amendment, and how everyone was behind it.

        Fact is, those who bring it up, NEVER mention, that it had to be passed by 3/4ths of the States in order to become an amendment. It didn’t get approved. Only 3 states voted for it, Illinois, Rhode Island and Kentucky. ( Ohio and Maryland ratified it, but rescinded their actions in 1864 and 2014.

        I just love giving the answers, and instructing those less educated, about what the US Constitution says, I learned about adding amendments to the US Constitution in Civics Class.

        My advice, take the class again, and pass it this time.

  11. “This is the South, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

    The actual quote is “This is the WEST, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” From the tremendous flick (IMHO) “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”. The quote itself is attributed to legendary Director John Ford.

    I’m going to paste something here that I have pasted before on these boards. I will no doubt do so again in the future. I say now as I said those other times that I do not know who wrote it, and I do not remember the site I copied it from. But I maintain that, to me, it is THE best explanation of what transpired after the War as far as national attitudes towards the South and especially the soldiers from there that bore the burdens of what the politicians decided.

    “On the rebel flag: I have always been a proud Yankee, Union and Freedom Forever! So it’s like the Cowboys to an Eagles fan. You wouldn’t catch me dead flying that thing. But my southern friends don’t see it that way and part of how we ended the Civic War, and the reason we didn’t have decades of guerilla war, was that we made an agreement with the South to RESPECT their heritage, even in defeat.

    What was important, in this order, was, we saved the Union and we freed the slaves. Lincoln wanted to free the slaves, but he knew that if we didn’t save the Union very bad things would have happened. History shows us what that might have looked like. So we damned Yankees agreed to give old Johnny Reb his due. We licked the Rebs, but we also knew that to preserve the Union and win them back to our cause, we couldn’t disrespect their honor and heritage. In turn, the Rebs became fierce patriots whose service to this country remains peerless. They more than atoned for the Civil War in their proceeding defense of our country since then.

    Now the Democrats, ever the party of civil conflict and violence, want to break our word. The progeny of Johnny Reb must now be made ashamed, they must be canceled. They must choose between their ancestors or this new version of a self-loathing America that is defined solely by her mistakes and failures, ignoring the fact our country is and was the greatest and freest country in human history!

    This is all too much.

    For a second even I was tempted to fly Johnny Reb’s banner, as a token of respect to my southern friends. But I really can’t, to me it’s just a fallen flag from a vanquished foe of my country, but I totally see why to my southern friends it’s not that at all. It’s just a token of respect to their ancestors, many of whom, man for man, were just fighting for their home state.

    I don’t agree at all with the Southern Cause, using state’s right to justify slavery is morally reprehensible to me. But Johnny Reb wasn’t even attuned to any of those things, he just loved his state, back when that was still a thing, and it is still with me, I love Pennsylvania more than any other state in this Union and it is even more precious to me than America itself. I’ve studied the history of Germany in ww2 intensely. I can tell you, having poured over documents and letters from soldiers and their kin, even the German soldier in ww2, whose cause was even worse than any interpretation of the Southern Cause, was mostly just a young man serving his country. Few German soldiers saw much past the seeming necessity and mercilessness of the times to serve Germany.

    The Southerner was mostly just serving his state. Most people have no such affection for their state, so they can’t grasp how Johnny Reb felt and why he fought. For these folks in grey and buttercup, their state called them and that was enough. Period. Just because you don’t get that doesn’t mean you can gainsay it. So I won’t fly the flag of Johnny Reb, but neither will I join the cancel culture hysterics and their bid to open old wounds that could once again threaten our Union.

    As I said, my motto is “Union and Freedom Forever!” I will brook nothing that threatens our Union, not even if it means letting the South honor its ancestors and its heritage, even if they hold no allure to me.”

  12. “Monuments to traitors have no place in the United States. Moving on means to remind Americans that slavery was the cause.”
    Every one of those memorials calls on the viewer to recall those who fell. Those are memorials, not monuments.
    Tom Crane

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