American Civil War, yet again

[Shryke]

My great aunt Betty tried to prove that we were descended from English royalty. She discovered that we were kicked out of England for writing dirty poetry and for horse thieving.

I come from a very noble people.

The truth is way more awesome in this case anyway.

[Elder Sister]

I wonder if there's any way of tracking down the actual poem itself.

I'm embarrassed that I never thought to ask.

[Shryke]

The American Civil War seems to be one of those conflicts that has never ended.

No sooner was the last musket laid down than the first pen was taken up to refight the war again, just this time on paper and memory. The likes of Jubal Early got in and started forming myths, eviscerating the likes of Longstreet who had the temerity to accept that the war had been lost and to attempt to assist in reconstruction.

At first the myth making was explicitly about immediate political objectives, mobilising support to overturn reconstruction and to achieve Democratic majorities, but more generally rewriting history to form a Southern history of the confederacy that whitewashed over the messier realities of resistance to the war effort - sometimes even at state-level, iirc something like 80% of the conscription exemptions came from Georgia, not to mention the realities of a slave economy.

Its interesting as an outsider to see that process is still ongoing through the claims about black confederates or the re-imagining of the confederacy as some kind of proto-libertarian state as opposed to actually what it was - the nearest thing to war communism so far seen on North-American soil. And the discussion about the importance of slavery is all part of that. If you can separate slavery from the history of the south then you have created a palatable form of southern-nationalism with a deep root but which preserves the traditional structures of power and authority. :dunno:

:agree:

The whole thing is and always has been a political/social objective. The Civil War was lost but the fight that underlay it simply continued apace on different fields.

[Lightysnake88]

Look up how Alexander "Cornerstone Speech" Stephens began writing textbooks explaining the Civil War...or Millicent "Miss Milly" Rutherford who led campaigns to whitewash the south.

the South went on a PR rampage and for the most part, it was successful for a very long while.

[Crazydog7]

Look up how Alexander "Cornerstone Speech" Stephens began writing textbooks explaining the Civil War...or Millicent "Miss Milly" Rutherford who led campaigns to whitewash the south.

the South went on a PR rampage and for the most part, it was successful for a very long while.

I'm really impressed that other people know who Rutherford was. Scary stuff and totally shoots that entire "try reading a book that wasn't assigned to you in school" argument full of holes

I mean I only know the name because she rightly or wrongly (for my money wrongly) influenced a great deal of what the averege man on the street in South Carolina knows about Pitchfork Ben and his "popularist" uprising. Got some coverage locally a little while ago.

I was going to try to find the column on that but I found this instead seems oddly close to the mark

http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/HaireoftheDog/archives/2014/04/01/confederate-camp-for-kids-anger-parents-a-selection-from-the-many-crimes-of-wyatt-duvall

I think the father of this kid sort of missed the point.

[Zorral]

They thought it because they thought their cotton production had the UK by the balls. They were quite arrogant about it too.

But with the UK finding other sources of cotton, importing food from the US, and intense public distaste for slavery, Britain was never going to get involved. Not to mention the fear of losing Canada.

Yeah, the War of Rebellion / Southern Aggression was known in Egypt as "The Cotton Boom."

Moreover, New York City, rabid nest of copperheads that it was, because it lost so much money by losing the carrying trade to England's textile mills and the goods it brought back that Southern planters bought, roared back economically to boom times itself within a year after the war effort began, via both industry and trade. New York supplied the Army instead instead of southern planters, as did the west. The West (including upstate New York, Ohio, Illinois, etc.) poured grain, meat, horses and mules into New York and the army.

[Lightysnake88]

I'm really impressed that other people know who Rutherford was. Scary stuff and totally shoots that entire "try reading a book that wasn't assigned to you in school" argument full of holes

I mean I only know the name because she rightly or wrongly (for my money wrongly) influenced a great deal of what the averege man on the street in South Carolina knows about Pitchfork Ben and his "popularist" uprising. Got some coverage locally a little while ago.

I was going to try to find the column on that but I found this instead seems oddly close to the mark

http://www.charlestoncitypaper.com/HaireoftheDog/archives/2014/04/01/confederate-camp-for-kids-anger-parents-a-selection-from-the-many-crimes-of-wyatt-duvall

I think the father of this kid sort of missed the point.

It's scary to me how unknown Rutherford is, when she influenced opinions for the nation immensely and her importance is hard to overstate. (I apologize, though, her first name was Mildred). She'd travel the south for speeches, collecting oral histories from veterans, organizing essay contests and writing "The Truth Of History," which was amassive propaganda victory for the South. She just cherry picked quotes, took things out of conext and flat out lied in other places: "The South acquiring more territory? They meant to FREE the slaves and needed land for them!"

This stuff still reverberates today, and it's scary. People in these states don't even know what their own states' declarations of secession say about slavery.

[Zorral]

Look up how Alexander "Cornerstone Speech" Stephens began writing textbooks explaining the Civil War...or Millicent "Miss Milly" Rutherford who led campaigns to whitewash the south.

the South went on a PR rampage and for the most part, it was successful for a very long while.

Not to mention old Jeff Davis himself, backtracking the secessionist reasons for secession -- to preserve their slave society -- even before setting Richmond alight and his escape attempt -- long before the Memoirs he wrote while imprisoned. Nor did he ever ask for a pardon from the U.S. government. He was the Hero, proudly pointed to as unreconstructed, by which he lived the rest of his life.

The PR was astoundingly successful -- Confederate Carpetbaggers the most successful of all. But then, so many of the Families of the confederacy were already long intermarried with The Families of wealth, power and elite of the north, particularly in New York. For one instance alone, Theodore Roosevelt's mother was one of Georgia Bullochs. Their plantation, which still exists, is considered Margaret Mitchell's model for Tara.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Zorral,

Care to speculate about why Jefferson Davis was imprisoned for treason for several years yet never actually put on trial for treason?

[Zorral]

The situation has been fairly well covered by quite a few historians, who specialty it is -- which isn't mine, but I'll try to summarize.

Davis was in prison only two years -- and southerner, Andrew Johnson, was POTUS (one of Lincoln's very poor judgment calls ....) who was in his own battles with the so-called "radicals" of the House and Senate and Cabinet, leading to his impeachment trial -- was not in favor of punishment of any kind of the former confederacy and the members of its government or military. He also was essentially in favor of re-enslavement. Thus the conflict.

However, Davis was indicted for treason, though no trial was ever held. It helped that a more sympathetic military officer of the prison came to be in charge.

Davis was released on bail of $100,000, raised by a coalition of wealthy northern and southern men. Among them was Cornelius Vanderbilt, who had donated his own ships to the U.S. Navy for the duration (including the ironclad that got renamed the USS Monitor, who fought the CSS Merrimack at the Battle of Hampton Roads, keeping Baltimore and D.C. from confederate bombardment), organized the federal navy to keep the gold coming to NYC from California, to Central American, and through the Gulf without getting pirated by Confederate privateers) -- but who wasn't a political man, because politics, like friendship, had no place in business. Vanderbilt, while organizing the bail, met and marrie dFrank Armstrong Crawford, an unreconstructed young woman from a fine family in Mobile, Alabama (who had moved to New York in those years -- and who were very active in helping Davis and his family by calling on wealthy relatives and lobbying the wealthy and influential at parties). Witnesses to their marriage were Confederate Gen. Braxton Bragg and his brother Thomas, the former Confederate attorney general. Vanderbilt was very proud of his Rebel Wife.

It was all part of the reconciliation that Greeley, Vanderbilt, and other very wealthy influential men felt was in their best interest the best interest of the country.

But -- in those first years of freedom, Davis made sure he stayed out of the U.S.

Edited to add -- that I think I understand how this happened. But what really puzzles me is why the European powers didn't execute Napoleon. Neither time. :uhoh:

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Zorral,

It is your cotention that despite Davis' obvious guilt for treason that wealthy interests prevented his trial after indictmemt by paying off the right people?

[Lightysnake88]

Zorral,

It is your cotention that despite Davis' obvious guilt for treason that wealthy interests prevented his trial after indictmemt by paying off the right people?

It'd be my contention there, honestly. Davis was let off far too easily, as were Stephens and the rest of them. Also look up Stephens "What I really said in the Cornerstone Speech" for a beautiful example of Confederate whitewashing. As soon as they realized slavery was no longer the cause to champion (indeed, look at how it ended in Maryland. For many soldiers, ending slavery did become a personal crusade) they switched rhetoric.

The 'doomed lost cause' against a tyrannical government became so popular when the South as a powerful voting bloc was also reestablished: nobody wanted to offend them, so the lies continued to be told, and as a consequence this also led to the most insidious aspect of all: slavery was utterly sanitized into a benevolent institution whose only problem was the burden it put on white farmers

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Lightsnake,

Is it possible that they didn't want a trial where the legality of secession was actually tested (a seperate issue from the morality of the reason for the choice to secede)? Morally, the South was clearly, in my opinion, wrong to chose to leave when they did. Legally, it's not that clear.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Texas v. White later established that the Confederate states never legally left. Davis was thus an American citizen who was waging war against the Federal Government, which is treason.

I don't think this was hesitance about Davis arguing legality - I think it was just considered too politically inconvenient for a trial to take place.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

RBPL,

Texas v. White does that with the radically effective legal analysis that adds up to "because we said so." It addresses neither the 10th amendment reservation of powers not assumed by the Federal Government nor the questions raised by the manner of ratification specified in Article VII. I've been through these numerous times when I had all ten fingers to type with rather than just my thumbs.

The issue of secession while "closed" has never been squarely addressed in any manner more than merely dismissive and summary by the Supreme Court. It deserves more than a throw away argument to force.

[Lightysnake88]

Scott,

The fact is, I'm not entirely sympathetic to the South's legality arguments because it boils down to a tantrum at not getting their way. The South raised not one peep at certain issues when the south held political power in the nation. The citation of the constitution and anything else was really obfuscation of the real issues they identified in their articles of secession: "Slavery is great and we're not giving it up."

The South had been too happy to ignore States' rights when they were in charge. I think there's a fair argument to be made of needing to assert rights in a timely manner or losing them.The South was years late in that. And frankly, I think the precedent of "now this Democracy thing isn't working out for us so screw you" legality is a terrible one.

[The Marquis de Leech]

RBPL,

Texas v. White does that with the radically effective legal analysis that adds up to "because we said so." It addresses neither the 10th amendment reservation of powers not assumed by the Federal Government nor the questions raised by the manner of ratification specified in Article VII. I've been through these numerous times when I had all ten fingers to type with rather than just my thumbs.

The issue of secession while "closed" has never been squarely addressed in any manner more than merely dismissive and summary by the Supreme Court. It deserves more than a throw away argument to force.

Whether or not the ruling in Texas v. White was a masterpiece of judicial reasoning is irrelevant - the same reasoning (for good or ill) would have been applied in a Davis treason trial, so the Federal Government would have had nothing to fear.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Lightsnake,

I don't disagree. The "state's rights" argument is pretty hypocritical. Which makes me wonder what would have happened if it had been raised in a non-hypocritical fashion.

[OnionAhaiReborn]

The Constitution creates and grants powers to the Federal Government, grants the Federal Gov. powers over the states. It makes no sense to imagine that the states which agreed to this Constitution establishing Federal powers over them could have also reserved the right to utterly ignore Federal power if they so choose. Why bother with such a nonbinding farce?

[Mad Monkey]

The Constitution creates and grants powers to the Federal Government, grants the Federal Gov. powers over the states. It makes no sense to imagine that the states which agreed to this Constitution establishing Federal powers over them could have also reserved the right to utterly ignore Federal power if they so choose. Why bother with such a nonbinding farce?

I think it's well-established that the states can make laws about issues where the federal government does not. Where it gets squirrelly is when people argue that states can make laws that contradict the U.S. Constitution, Congressional laws, and/or federal court rulings. Part of the reason for that is that the federal government's purview has expanded like taffy over the generations, and part of the reason is that a lot of people are enamored of the idea of having each state operate like a separate country where the Bill of Rights do not apply.