Well okay. Since your "Southern defense" wasn't exactly coherent and structured, I've decided to just throw it back atcha at length. There are primarily four sub-arguments serving as the basis of your defense of the South, one of which appeals to inappropriate authority, three of which have little to do with the real locus of the debate. You’ve formed your argument around 1. a definition of the War’s cause based upon the varied opinions of Confederate soldiers, 2. perceived wrongs of Northerners prior to and during the War, 3. an appeal to claims that were not mutually accepted by the states at the Constitutional Convention and 4. an ipso-facto acceptance of the belief that slavery’s expansion to the western territories was Constitutional and compatible with official American doctrine.
Firstly, it is impossible to gain the most significant meaning of the Civil War from the varied opinions of the War’s soldiers. Soldiers fight for a variety of reasons, not all of which are necessarily directly aligned with one another. While the young man to whom you referred in your last post may have fought the War ’because yall are down here,’ others fought simply because they wished to impress their fathers or because they did not wish to be thought cowards. To others, the War was a paycheck and three squares. Vast numbers of others thought they were defending their country by protecting the moral order created by the slave system, and still others fought to compete for the admiration of women. Many fought for combinations of all these. Moreover, these varied motives likely changed without notice, once participation in the War began in earnest. Though we find patterns of belief amongst the soldiers, we also find their motives were varied and that where they were similar each man nevertheless weighed the issues differently. Ultimate definition is not found here because there was a single, more significant force, namely the Confederate government, looming above these men, a force that had the capability of organizing their varied passions and compelling them, despite their differences, toward its purposes. Since the Confederate government acquired its motives from its topmost leaders, we must refer to these leaders to discern why the Confederacy persisted in its war effort. Those leaders were absolutely clear that the South was waging its War effort chiefly for the protection of slavery.
“The new [Confederate] 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 (i.e. secession) and present revolution (i.e. the Civil War).” (1861 Speech by Confederate Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, found in “Alexander H. Stevens, Public and Private: With Letters and Speeches, before, during, and since the War, Philadelphia, 1886, pp. 717-729.” Also found in Macmillan’s four volume work, “The Encyclopedia of the Confederacy.”
“Slavery was undoubtedly the immediate fomenting cause of the woful American conflict. It was the great political factor around which the passions of the sections had long been gathered--the tallest pine in the political forest around whose top the fiercest lightnings were to blaze and whose trunk was destined to be shivered in the earthquake shocks of war.” (Confederate General John Brown Gordon on page 19 of his “REMINISCENCES OF THE CIVIL WAR” NEW YORK, CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS ATLANTA THE MARTIN & HOYT CO., 1904)
“Louisiana looks to the formation of a Southern confederacy to preserve the blessings of African slavery, and of the free institutions of the founders of the Federal Union, bequeathed to their posterity." (George Williamson, Commissioner from Louisiana Feb 11, 1861, and presented to the Texas Secession Convention on Mar 9, 1861. Found in The Journal of the Secession Covention of Texas, pp 120-123., E.W. Winkler, ed.,)
Lee, Jackson and your ancestors, fought beneath the Confederate flag expressly to advance the will of the Confederacy. That will was bent chiefly upon defending and extending the Southern right to slavery across America.
Secondly, merely because Northerners were “agitating” for abolition of slavery despite America’s past acceptance of the institution, gave the South no recourse at all for breaking the law as it did. America is a nation built on the freedom to protest and “agitate” for change. Though slavery was indeed widely accepted in America prior to 1808, the Founders built us a legal mechanism wherein citizens may effect changes to slave law in a civil fashion. “Agitating” for change is part of that mechanism, despite that we may disagree with the agitators.
The real issue on this point is whether the North had worked within the framework of American law and democracy as it “agitated” the South. Though Northern individuals undoubtedly broke the law as did Southerners, no officially sanctioned illegalities occurred by Northern governments, unlike with the South. The North at no time wantonly broke American law against the South, but instead pushed for change within the legal structure left us by the Founders. Did the North bully the South at the time? Perhaps so. But a generation prior, Southerners had literally established and codified precisely the sort of behavior seen in the North. The flaw in your position here is that it tries to justify the South’s breaking of a legal contract on the basis of Northern behavior that, however distasteful to you, was in line with that contract.
Thirdly, the United States existed before the Confederacy, which didn't exist until 1861. This is important because it underscores the fact that dissolving the Constitution by one or even a handful of states by no means restores to the states the order of sovereignty that existed prior to the Constitution. Such an act in fact attempts to create a wholly new order. Only by the mutual consent of states can the prior order be achieved. Without such consent, those states claiming the “right” to unilaterally break their contract with the other states are by default claiming the right to force the other states into a contractual order the nature of which may be at odds with their interests. Even the essential meaning of the word “contract” disallows such “rights” unless they are made explicit.
You appeal to non-binding claims to argue the South’s ability to break the law. If two parties enter a contract and one party makes some claim external to the contract, then should that claim conflict with the contract, the other party has no obligation to recognize it at all. Some states may have claimed a right to break the Constitution prior to entering that Contract, but if those states entered the Contract without successfully inserting a provision granting them an unrestricted right of dissolution, then the right does not exist and the Contract logically stands in full force until such a time as the Contract’s parties mutually agree to grant the right. This is why Lincoln rightly believed secession was illegal and immoral, saying
"I hold that, in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the union of these States is perpetual....It follows....that no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void; and that acts of violence, within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances. I, therefore, consider that, in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken." (First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861)</ul>
The United States had developed and maintained their resources mutually, with both Northern and Southern participation under the Union Contract we call the Constitution. The United States were by all logic within their rights to continue maintaining their mutual resources and no logic supports the claim that they were obliged to recognize any persons who would unite themselves under the ipso facto claim they were a “sovereign government” that owns United States property because they didn’t like the President. The United States had established covenants between themselves for how they would conduct their union. Indeed, in Article I: Section X of the Constitution it states several times that no state can form a confederacy with any other state. In no place does the Union Contract permit that it can be broken unilaterally, forcing by default another agreement upon the states, so that Article I: Section X can then be broken. No logic supports the Southern position.
Finally, calling a personally rejected, mentally ill Supreme Court Justice who once wrote approvingly of slavery “eminent,” by no means lends support to your position and actually suggests profound ignorance of American history. Baldwin cannot possibly support your implied contention that slavery’s expansion was Constitutional and compatible with American doctrine.
"Lacking any provision for retirement, many judges stayed on past the point when they were capable of serving adequately. For instance, Justice Henry Baldwin, appointed to the Supreme Court by Andrew Jackson in1830, died in office in 1844 at the age of 64. But one account states that '[t]owards the close of his life his intellect became deranged and he was vio-lent and ungovernable in his conduct on the bench.'" (from “Why Judges Resign: Influences on Federal Judicial Service,1789 to 1992”, Federal Judicial History Office Federal Judicial Center,1993)</ul>
216.239.37.104
Henry Baldwin was a supporter of slavery, as were many other Americans of his day, but the idea that slavery was the “cornerstone” of America is utterly refuted by the document that actually launched America’s existance: the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration came before the insane judge’s proclamations and unlike Baldwin’s incoherent works, it actually served as the basis of our existence as a nation. It obviously trumps what Baldwin has declared. In the Declaration we find that the true cornerstone of America is not slavery, but the opposite of slavery: Freedom. There are no documents, no claims, no speeches by any of America’s topmost leaders defining slavery as the basis of our existence. All of our Founders have unanimously declared Freedom to be our doctrine.
oyez.org
Slavery was in fact the “cornerstone” of a different government, one that was anti-American, a government whose leaders declared that the Declaration of Independence was “wrong,” that America had no real basis for existence because its stated basis was “wrong.” That government is known as the Southern Confederacy:
"The prevailing ideas entertained by [Thomas Jefferson] 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…Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong… Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its cornerstone 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…. This stone which was rejected by the first builders is become the chief of the corner -- the real "corner-stone" -- in our new edifice." (from Alec Stephens, Vice President of the Southern Confederacy, Savannah, GA 1861, found in Henry Cleveland’s “Alexander H. Stephens, In Public and Private: With Letters and Speechs, before, during and since the War, Philadelphia, 1886, pp.717-729)
Your claim that the American slave trade originated in the North is demonstrably false. The very first trade of human flesh for forced labor occurred at Jamestown, Virginia in the year 1619, long before any Northern colony existed. Though the slaves may have been eventually released after earning their freedom by forced labor, the fact is they were forced into bondage. By 1640 at least one of these blacks was certainly recognized as a slave. Your confusion is due to the fact that Massachusetts Colony was first to legally recognize slavery in 1641. But trade in slaves had occurred at least two decades prior, and it originated in the South. liunet.edu
Unlike the Confederacy, America has never embraced slavery as a philosophy. America always acknowledged Freedom as her doctrine and her Founders recognized slavery as a thing at odds with American belief. Indeed, those Founders, while having inherited the slave system, wanted it to end and passed legislation prohibiting its expansion. pbs.org
The Constitution obviously did not prohibited this legislation because the Constitution governed only existing states. If the Constitution did not prohibit the Founders, it did not prohibit Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln expressed a wish to prohibit slavery’s expansion, he was by no means ‘ignoring the Constitution’ as you and so many neo-Confederates like to contend. He was simply acting in accord with already established law and historical precedence. He was, contrary to Confederate leaders, leading America precisely as the Founders had done, trying to better calibrate the country toward her Freedom doctrine.
Your use of Buchanan’s quote is deeply flawed (likely a boorish cut and paste from some goofy neo-confederate website) because Lincoln presented no threat at all to slavery where it existed and he by no means threatened the lives of Southerners.
But the embarrassing flaw of your use of the quote is seen when we understand that the Buchanan speech was given in 1859. The Southern Confederacy did not exist in 1859, but would not exist for two more years. Moreover, Buchanan speaks of ‘15 states of the Confederacy.’ But there were only 11 states in the Southern Confederacy. Obviously then when Buchanan spoke of a “confederacy” he was not speaking to your point. He was actually speaking of the then 15 “confederated” states of the United States of America. The remark was in response to the events of Harper’s Ferry. The speech actually harms your point of view because it demonstrates that the Union did not support the crimes John Brown committed against slaveowners. When we see the remarks in context of the speech, we see the point of it was to explain why punishing abolitionist crime is necessary. If such crimes are not punished and the people of the 15 states cannot enjoy the benefits of the Union because they are being murdered, then the Union is nothing. People have a right to protect their lives against murder, they have a right to self-preservation. Read the speech. pcntv.com It will not take the most perceptive reader to readily see that Buchanan’s statement has no applicability to your position and that it cannot logically be used as you have attempted.
As you no doubt see, my original point stands unassailed by your “defense.” |
