reason the Reconstruction ended in 1877 was?

Question

reason the Reconstruction ended in 1877 was?

Answer 1

Because of the American culture; our teaching methods and the fact, the winner holds the reins few if any one realizes that the South is still under reconstruction; is still at war and still at the mercy of the North. A very famous Southerner before he died said, “Surrender means the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy that our youths will be taught by Northern School teachers learn from Northern school books THEIR version of the war”.



If you do not believe Reconstruction is still in place look at the differences in the manner voting is handled; there are still active segregation cases where the Federal Government is unhappy with the method we are using to comply with their laws. Look at transportation and manufacturing taxation there too you will find inconsistencies between what the rest of the country faces and we here in the South. The Federal Government contends that the ICC removing the punitive discriminatory freight rates from Georgia commerce in 1952 was the last act of Reconstruction. When You confront any Government representative with these additional facts, they always say they have no control over it.



Since it is such a slight and blemish on their history the Yankees will not allow it to be taught in there schools. But like Germany, there has been a holocaust in this country (I mean other then what we did to the native Americans) take a look at Johnson s Island (northern Ohio); Camp Douglas (Chicago); and Elmira (New York).



The official U.S. position on the treatment of Confederate prisoners of war during The War for Southern Independence would shock many modern Americans. The data, facts and statistics have been thoroughly eliminated from American history books. One must research the original documents to discover the horrible truth.



During the Civil War (1861-1865), the U.S. House of Representatives passed the following resolution: "Rebel prisoners in our hands are to be subjected to a treatment finding its parallels only in the conduct of savage tribes and resulting in the death of multitudes by the slow but designed process of starvation and by mortal diseases occasioned by insufficient and unhealthy food and wanton exposure of their persons."



One Yankee prison commander boasted that he had killed more Confederate soldiers than any Union officer on the front battle lines.



The story of Confederate prison camps, especially Andersonville, has been misrepresented. There was no deliberate attempt to mistreat northern POWs. The South asked the North to send doctors and medicine, and they tried to exchange the prisoners.



The North refused and finally the Confederacy offered the North cotton and gold as payment to take them without exchange. Again, the North refused to do so. They knew the Confederate States of America would be honor bound to try to feed and house the Union POWs and to do so would hamper the Confederate war effort. But at weekly some news caster will report on Andersonville and what to yankee prisioners; they compare it to Iraqi, Guantanamo Bay or Germany and everyone believes the Southern people to be vile and murderous. They never explain that the prisioners were fed and clothed in the same manner as we fed and clothed our own; that we begged to swap prisioners; and finally offered to release them but all offers were refused by the yankees.



You have heard of mistreatment of slaves in "Uncles Tom Cabin". Then you have the people claiming the blacks were so much better off as slaves. Both were bull ****. The truth was some where in the middle. If you bought someone, say for 500,000 would you mistreat them? Of course, not what would happen to you the first time you turned your back? Sure, you'll be dead. I am not saying there was a big happy setting it just was not all whippings and cuffing. Even though it was against the law in many places many blacks could read, write and do math. Keep in mind blacks were looked on by Northerners and Southerners as being inferior to whites but at the same time people frown on people for mistreating their animals the same goes for their ill treatment of blacks. A slave would grow up only knowing their way of life; they would develop feelings for their owners. They saw their owners as their security blanket, food, a roof over their head the occasional handout, pat on their head; something that made them think you cared. In the South, many slave owners did develop feelings toward their slaves, but as I keep saying, do not get me wrong the slave owner could never afford to miss a chance to show dominance. Be it voice fluxation; tone; a trinket to win their affection or loyalty; punishment, think of the ways “you” show dominance over the geek or the new guy! The War changed that relationship you have an entire population of whites who had but one feeling towards blacks so when blacks are abruptly placed in charge over whites animosity will grown and grow it did and continued up through the late sixties. You should note that most race riots were in the North and today’s most race problems still originated in the North again left over from their arrogance that was reflected during the War. Blacks in the North call the Southern Afro-American “House-******” or country both derogatory names, white call Southern whites “****** lover” inbred, or white trash.



You read almost daily about a private citizen or country who might be dead or no longer exists petitioning someone usually an American or American museum for the return of looted war time Art Work, treasures and historic items. Every time I enter a yankee museum, I make list of material seized during the war and on exhibit. I then petition the indiviual and/ or museum to release the items back to eth South; I am of course refused. Every cultural group with the exception of Southerners live, display, and honor their heritage. With the exception of a small group of persons usually with a military background who understands that soldier does what he have to and no matter whom he served he deserves our gratitude, respect and he should be honored. No when they enacted the Equal Rights bill, it did not include Southerners or our ancestors.

One of the biggest things still affecting daily life are Confederate Symbols like the flag.



I Am Their Flag

In 1861, when they perceived their rights to be threatened, when those who would alter the nature of the government of their fathers were placed in charge, when threatened with change they could not accept, the mighty men of valor began to gather. A band of brothers, native to the Southern soil, they pledged themselves to a cause: the cause of defending family, fireside and faith. Between the desolation of war and their homes, they interposed their bodies and they chose me for their symbol.

I Am Their Flag.

Their mothers, wives, and sweethearts took scissors and thimbles, needles and thread, and from silk or cotton or calico - whatever was the best they had - even from the fabric of their wedding dresses, they cut my pieces and stitched my seams.

I Am Their Flag.

On courthouse, lawns, in picnic groves, at train stations across the South the men mustered and the women placed me in their hands. "Fight hard, win if possible, come back if you can; but, above all, maintain your honor. Here is your symbol," they said.

I Am Their Flag.

They flocked to the training grounds and the drill fields. They felt the wrenching sadness of leaving home. They endured sickness, loneliness, boredom, bad food, and poor quarters. They looked to me for inspiration.

I Am Their Flag.

I was at Sumter when they began in jubilation. I was at Big Bethel when the infantry fired its first volley. I smelled the gun smoke along Bull Run in Virginia and at Belmont along the Mississippi. I was in the debacle at Fort Donelson; I led Jackson up the Valley. For Seven Days I flapped in the turgid air of the James River bottoms as McClellan ran from before Richmond. Sidney Johnston died for me at Shiloh as would thousands of others whose graves are marked "Sine Nomine," - without a name - unknown.

I Am Their Flag.

With ammunition gone, they defended me along the railroad bed at Manassas by throwing rocks. I saw the fields run red with blood at Sharpsburg. Brave men carried me across Doctor's Creek at Perryville. I saw the blue bodies cover Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg and the Gray ones fall like leaves in the Round Forest at Stones River.

I Am Their Flag.

I was a shroud for the body of Stonewall after Chancellorville. Men ate rats and mule meat to keep me flying over Vicksburg. I tramped across the wheat field with Kemper and Armistead and Garnett at Gettysburg. I know the thrill of victory, the misery of defeat, the bloody cost of both.

I Am Their Flag.

When Longstreet broke the line at Chickamauga, I was in the lead. I was the last off Lookout Mountain. Men died to rescue me at Missionary Ridge. I was singed by the wildfire that burned to death the wounded in the Wilderness. I was shot to tatters in the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania. I was in it all from Dalton to Peachtree Creek, and no worse place did I ever see than Kennesaw and New Hope Church. They planted me over the trenches at Petersburg and there I stayed for many long months.

I Am Their Flag.

I was rolled in blood at Franklin; I was stiff with ice at Nashville. Many good men bade me farewell at Sayler's Creek. When the end came at Appomattox, when the last Johnny Reb left Durham Station, many of them carried fragments of my fabric hidden on their bodies.

I Am Their Flag.

In the hard years of so-called "Reconstruction”, in the difficulty and despair of years that slowly passed, the veterans, their wives and sons and daughters, they loved me. They kept alive the tales of valor and the legends of bravery. They passed them on to the grandchildren and they to their children, and so they were passed to you.

I Am Their Flag.

I have shrouded the bodies of heroes, I have been laved with the blood of martyrs, I am enshrined in the hearts of millions, living and dead. Salute me with affection and reverence. Keep undying devotion in your hearts. I am history. I am heritage, not hate. I am the inspiration of valor from the past. Look Away, Dixie Land!

I Am Their Flag.



If one is actually concerned over, what flag was flown over slaves it was the US Flag. It flew over EVERY ship, which carried slaves to America it is flow in EVERY KLAN rally.



Most books on the Civil War are biased in favor of the Northern view of the conflict. However, in many of these books the careful reader can find a number of facts that support the Southern view of the war. In this article I will document the following facts from mainstream history books:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

* Only a fraction of Southerners owned slaves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

President James Buchanan blamed the secession crisis on the North

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

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

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

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

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

Lincoln held racist views toward blacks

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lincoln did not start the war in order to end slavery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Most Southerners believed the South would be able to secede peacefully

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Only a small percentage of Southerners owned slaves

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"In order to save the Confederacy, Davis even led his fellow Confederates toward an abandonment of slavery." (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 705-706)



Here I offered considerable evidence that the war was not over slavery and if I am correct then why was the war fought? Hey, there an hour I, answered this same question please allow me to use that same answer. Afterwards if you have additional questions feel free to write me. One point before some says it the war was not over slavery. Lincoln told the South (Up to his visit to City Point) they could keep their slaves in they would rejoin the Union. Since the War was not about slavery, they refused his offer.



"I was a soldier in Virginia in the campaigns of Lee and Jackson, and I declare I never met a Southern soldier who had drawn his sword to perpetuate slavery.... What he had chiefly at heart was the preservation of the supreme and sacred right of self- government.... It was a very small minority of the men who fought in the Southern armies who were financially interested in the institution of slavery." [Quote from The Gray Book, Sons of Confederate Veterans., p. 36]



In the movie Gods and Generals, the character of Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, a famous Union officer, gives a brief, stirring speech to his brother, Tom, on slavery and the Confederate cause. In his short speech, Chamberlain presents a strong argument against the Confederate position. Says Chamberlain,



“Now, somewhere out there is the Confederate army. They claim they are fighting for their independence, for their freedom. Now, I cannot question their integrity. I believe they are wrong, but I do not question it. But I do question the system that defends its own freedom while it denies it to others, to an entire race of men. I will admit it, Tom, war is a scourge, but so is slavery. It is the systematic coercion of one group of men over another”.



Many people find this argument simple, logical, and powerful. After all, wasn't it inconsistent for the Confederates to claim they were fighting for freedom and independence when at the same time they were keeping another group of people in bondage? Yes, it was. This is a valid argument, up to a point. But it's also an incomplete argument, and in some ways it’s an unfair argument. One reason this argument is both incomplete and unfair is that it ignores major inconsistencies in the North’s position. For example, one could ask tough, critical questions about the North's claim that it was fighting for freedom and for the preservation of the Union:



* How could the North claim it was fighting for freedom when it was forcing Southern slaves to fight in the Union army, even when those slaves made it clear they didn't want to leave their plantations and didn't want to fight for the North?



* How could the North claim it was fighting for freedom when four of the Northern states were slave states and when some Northern states wouldn't even allow free blacks to settle within their boundaries?



* How could the North claim it was fighting for freedom when it was trying to crush an independence movement? To put it another way, how could the North claim it was fighting for freedom when it was trying to conquer eleven states

that had left the Union in a peaceful, democratic manner, that had made every effort to establish friendly relations with the North after they had seceded, and that simply wanted to be left alone?



* How could the North claim it was justified in fighting to preserve the Union when the original Union was a voluntary compact between the states, and when the founding fathers had prohibited the federal government from using force against any of the states? Even President James Buchanan, who was

president when the Deep South states seceded, said the federal government had no authority to use force against the seceded states. How can one rightfully attempt to preserve a voluntary Union by waging war to force eleven of its members to remain against their will?



* Wasn’t the North’s use of force against the Southern states fundamentally contrary to the Declaration of Independence’s statement that governments derive their just powers "from the consent of the governed" and that people have the right to form a new government if they feel they must do so?



A key argument that is implied in the movie character's criticism is that the South did not deserve to be independent because slavery existed within its borders. Critics argue that not only was the South's position inconsistent, but that the Southern states had no moral right to be independent and that the North's invasion was justified. No Moral Right to Independence? Did the South have no moral right to be independent because it permitted and upheld slavery? There's no doubt that slavery was wrong and that it needed to be abolished. But, if the Southern states had no right to form their own government because slavery existed within their borders, then the American colonies had no right to form their own government either, since slavery existed in the colonies and since some of the colonies upheld and grew rich from the slave trade. British leaders noted this inconsistency during the American Revolution. They pointed out that some of the colonial leaders who were loudly demanding "freedom and independence" were slaveowners. If the existence of slavery within a nation's borders means that nation has no right to exist, then America had no right to exist in the first place. In fact, the slaves would have been freed over thirty years sooner if the colonies had not won their independence, since England abolished slavery in 1833.

Every nation and region has its share of social injustices, and the South was certainly no exception. But what about the North? For starters, the New England states made large fortunes from the slave trade and from industries associated with the trade. Some Northern states continued to profit from the slave trade until just before the war started (John Tilley, The Coming of the Glory, Springfield, Tennessee: Nippert Publishing, 1995, reprint, pp. 1-13). Conditions on the New England slave ships were horrible. The slaves were kept below deck in cramped quarters and forced to sit or lie in their own urine and defecation. Not surprisingly, disease was rampant. The slaves were chained together by twos, hands and feet, and had no room to move around. Tens of thousands of slaves died on those slave ships. The North was home to a cruel form of wage slavery where factory workers, especially those who were immigrants, worked in terrible conditions for wages that were barely sufficient for basic existence. These workers were usually cast aside as soon as they ceased to be productive. On the other hand, many slaves (some would say most slaves) were fed, clothed, and housed for the duration of their lives, even after they grew old and could no longer work,. Even some modern scholars agree that many Northern wage-slave factory workers were materially worse off than most Southern plantation slaves (see, for example, John Garraty and Robert McCaughey, The American Nation: A History of the United States to 1877, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1987, p. 385). Most Northern states had "Black Codes" that severely discriminated against free blacks. As mentioned, some Northern states wouldn't even allow free blacks to move into their territory. Let's briefly consider the conditions in one such Northern state, Illinois, the "Land of Lincoln," a state that was commonly described as a "free state" because it had abolished slavery. As of 1845, free blacks could not settle in Illinois unless they could prove their freedom and post a $1,000 bond. If a black did have a certificate of freedom, under Illinois law "he and his family were required to meet reporting and registration procedures reminiscent of a totalitarian state," notes African-American scholar Lerone Bennett (Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream, Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company, 2000, pp. 184-185). Bennett continues describing the conditions under which free blacks lived in Illinois,

The head of the family had to register all family members and provide detailed descriptions to the supervisor of the poor, who could expel the whole family at any moment. Blacks who met these requirements were under constant surveillance and could be disciplined or arrested by any White. They could not vote, sue, or testify in court. . . . With [Abraham] Lincoln's active and passive support, the state used violence to keep Blacks poor. Most trades and occupations were closed to them, and laws and customs made it difficult for them to acquire real estate. . . . As for the pursuit of happiness . . . Blacks could not play percussion instruments, and any White could apprehend any slave or servant for "riots, routs, unlawful assemblies, trespasses and seditious speeches." It was a crime for any person to permit "any slave or slaves, servant or servants or color, to the number of three or more, to assemble in his, her or their house, out house, yard or shed for the purpose of dancing or reveling, either by night or by day. . . ." (Forced Into Glory, pp. 185-186)

Incidentally, Abraham Lincoln not only supported the Illinois Black Code, but he voted to deny blacks the right to vote "and to tax Blacks to support White schools Black children couldn't, in general, attend" (Forced Into Glory, p. 186).

In 1848 Illinois adopted a new constitution that made it illegal for blacks to settle in the state. It, like the previous statute, also prohibited them from voting and from serving in the militia. In 1853, the state legislature made it a crime, punishable by fine, for a black to settle in the state. If the violator couldn't pay the fine, he or she could be sold by the sheriff to pay court costs. The architect of this ***** Exclusion Law was John Logan. During the Civil War, Lincoln named Logan to be a major general in the federal army. In any discussion on the South and the Confederacy, critics invariably raise the issue of white supremacy. They are quick to point out that Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the Confederate States, said that one of the foundational principles of the new government was that the white race was superior and that blacks were best suited for slavery. Said Stephens, Our new government . . . rests upon the great truth, that the ***** is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. (Cornerstone Speech, March 21, 1861) When critics quote this statement, they almost never inform the reader that, sad to say, most Americans at that time believed that whites were superior and that blacks were inferior. One of those Americans was Lincoln himself, who said the following in 1858:

. . . anything that argues me into . . . [the] idea of perfect social and political equality with the ***** is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse chestnut to be a chestnut horse. . . . I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. (Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, New York: The Library of America, 1989, edited by Don Fehrenbacher, pp. 511-512) In another speech that he gave that year, Lincoln said much the same thing:

I will say, then, 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; that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters of the free negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, or having them to marry white people. I will say in addition, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which, I suppose, will forever forbid the two races living together upon terms of social and political equality, and inasmuch as they cannot so live, that while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, that I as much as any other man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man. (Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, p. 751) Not only did most Americans believe that blacks were inferior, but they believed that America was founded to be ruled by whites and for whites. Senator Stephen A. Douglas, a prominent Northern politician, the leader of the Northern faction of the Democratic Party, and a Democratic presidential candidate in 1860, voiced this view in the following words in 1858 during his fourth debate with Lincoln:

I say to you in all frankness, gentlemen, that in my opinion a ***** is not a citizen, cannot be, and ought not to be, under the constitution of the United States. . . . I say that this government was established on the white basis. It was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and never should be administered by any except white men. (Fourth Lincoln-Douglas Debate: Douglas' Reply, in Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, p. 673) What did Lincoln think about this? He agreed, saying, "in point of mere fact, I think so too" (The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 2, edited by Roy P. Basler, Rutgers, 1955, p. 281, as quoted in Bennett, Forced Into Glory, p. 306, emphasis added). Many Northerners believed that the statement in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal" did not apply to blacks, but only to whites. Senator Douglas expressed this position in his fifth debate with Lincoln, The signers of the Declaration of Independence never dreamed of the ***** when they were writing that document. They referred to white men, to men of European birth and European descent, when they declared the equality of all men. (Fifth Lincoln-Douglas Debate: Douglas' Speech, in Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, p. 697) Lincoln believed that the "all men are created equal" phrase did not refer to inherent equality but only to legal equality in certain respects, and more than once he called the Declaration of Independence "the white-man's charter of freedom" (Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, pp. 269, 477; see also Bennett, Forced Into Glory, pp. 303-304). It's interesting to note that of the 3.4 million votes that were cast in the free states in the 1860 election, Senator Douglas received over 800,000 of them. In addition, during that election, Republican candidates described their party as "the true 'White Man's Party' because they wanted to reserve the territories for free white labor" (James McPherson, Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982, p. 123). Even after the war, racism was alive and well in the North. Herbert Gutman notes that Northern whites not only viewed blacks as inferior but also women and working-class men: Neither the Civil War nor the Thirteenth Amendment emancipated northern whites from ideological currents that assigned inferior status to nineteenth-century blacks, women, and working-class men. . . . Northern whites regularly compared the ex-slaves to the northern Irish and other "degraded . . . races or classes." (The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, New York: Pantheon Books, 1976, p. 293) I could go on for several pages documenting the fact that, unfortunately, in those days most Americans, North and South, believed in white supremacy and in black inferiority. This is why it's unfair when critics quote Stephens' cornerstone speech but remain silent about the fact that most Northerners held very similar views, and that some Northerners held identical views. It's also unfair when critics quote Stephens' speech but say nothing about the Black Codes that existed in most Northern states. Furthermore, not all Southerners agreed with Stephens' belief that blacks were best suited for slavery, but critics rarely mention this fact either.

What Was Slavery Really Like? So just how bad was slavery in the South? Did any good come from slavery? Did slavery have any good aspects? Did all slaveowners mistreat their slaves? The subject of slavery in the antebellum (or pre-Civil War) South is a delicate, highly charged issue because history books have usually only told one side of the story. I'm not trying to justify or excuse slavery. All I'm saying is that if we're going to talk about slavery, let's be fair and honest about it. History books are full of tragic stories about the bad aspects of slavery, but they rarely mention the good aspects of the institution. Historians typically cite the worst cases of mistreatment and abuse but ignore or minimize the cases of kindness, mutual respect, and genuine friendship. True, the good aspects of slavery don't outweigh the fact that slavery was wrong, but they should be noted in the interest of fairness and accuracy. Most slaves were not mistreated. Slaves in the South were arguably materially better off than many factory workers in the North. In many cases, slaves and slaveholders formed lasting friendships. Some slaves remained fiercely loyal to their masters, even during the war and even though they had ample opportunity to leave. In part because of the efforts of numerous slaveowners, millions of slaves voluntarily accepted Christianity and found peace in their personal lives in spite of their circumstances. In some cases, Christian slaves converted their masters and afterward enjoyed a better relationship with them (see, for example, Leslie Howard Owens, This Species of Property: Slave Life and Culture in the Old South, New York: Oxford University Press, 1976, p. 150). In comparison to other systems of slavery in the world at the time, Southern slavery was humane. Bearing in mind that most American slaves lived in the South, let's consider some of the observations of historian James McPherson, who certainly can't be accused of being sympathetic toward the antebellum South:

Slavery in the United States operated with less physical harshness than in most other parts of the Western Hemisphere. . . . The U.S. slave population increased by an average of 27 percent per decade after 1810, almost the same natural growth rate as for the white population. This rate of increase was unique in the history of bondage. No other slave population in the Western Hemisphere even maintained, much less increased, its population through natural reproduction. In Barbados, for example, the decennial natural decrease from 1712 to 1762 was 43 percent. At the time of emancipation, the black population of the United States was ten times the number of Africans who had been imported, but the black population of the West Indies was only half the number of Africans who had been imported. Of the ten million Africans brought across the Atlantic by the slave trade, the United States received fewer than 6 percent; yet at the time of emancipation it had more than 30 percent of the hemisphere's black population. (Ordeal By Fire, pp. 34-35) McPherson notes other interesting facts: Although Southern law did not recognize marriages between slaves, 66 to 80 percent of slave marriages were not broken up by their masters (Ordeal By Fire, pp. 35-36). Not only did many if not most slaveowners permit their slaves to marry, but some masters allowed their slaves to earn money and in some cases to buy their freedom (Ordeal By Fire, p. 34). Economic historians Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman contend that not only could slaves earn money and rise to responsible positions in the slave system but that in some cases they received a greater share of the product of their labor than did many factory workers in the North (Time on the Cross, Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1974; see also John Niven, The Coming of the Civil War, Arlington Heights, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1990, pp. 160-161). Some slaves who worked in Southern cities had private homes "that rivaled those of country slaveholders in space and rustic luxury" (Owens, This Species of Property, p. 147). On "many of the farms the slave cabins were not much inferior to the master's cabin," and on some plantations "they were nearly as comfortable as the overseer's cottage" (Kenneth Stampp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South, Vintage Books Edition, New York: Vintage Books, 1989, p. 293). Good relations often existed between slaves and slaveowners. As one example of this fact, let's consider the relationship between Confederate soldier Henry Kyd Douglas and one of his family's slaves named Enoch, who had left the family and had gone to live in Pennsylvania as a free man. When Enoch found out that Douglas had been wounded and captured and that he was being held in a Union prison camp, he wrote to Douglas and offered to send him money. Douglas was deeply moved by the offer: I was surprised about this time to receive a letter from Enoch, whom I have spoken of as my father's colored coachman. He had gone off from home and was living in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, working for his living, in freedom, but harder than he ever did in his life. He wrote to say that he heard I was wounded and in prison and was having a hard time, and he had laid aside several hundred dollars and would send it to me, or as much as I wanted, if I were suffering or needed it. His letter was in his own untutored language, but its words were verily apples of gold. I did not need his money, but I hope I wrote him a letter that left no doubt of my appreciation and my gratitude. (Henry Kyd Douglas, I Rode With Stonewall, Marietta, Georgia: Mockingbird Books, 1974, reprint, p. 255) Another case in point is that of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America himself. Davis cared deeply for his slaves, and they for him. When Davis had to leave his plantation suddenly in order to assume duties as the Confederate president, "He made a touching farewell speech to his quickly assembled slaves, who responded with expressions of devotion. . . ." (Rembert Patrick, Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet, Louisiana State University Press, 1944, p. 27). Davis was deeply concerned about the fate of his slaves when federal forces torched and plundered the Davis estates in Mississippi. Davis even sent money, in fact $3,000, to pay for supplies for his slaves to ensure they received proper care. The year before Davis died, he received a letter from one of his former slaves, James H. Jones, who had since become a Republican and had had a successful career in the intervening fifteen years. Jones told Davis, "I have always been as warmly attached to you as when I was your body servant" (William J. Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, Vintage Books Edition, New York: Vintage Books, 2000, p. 691). Jones went on to say that he always defended Davis from "any attack of malicious or envious people" (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, p. 691). William J. Cooper gives us additional information about Davis's relations with blacks: Without question he respected individual blacks and in turn received their respect. His dealings with his slave James Pemberton and with Ben Montgomery as both a slave and a freedman illustrate such a relationship. Inviting Davis to attend the Colored State Fair in Vicksburg in 1886, Montgomery's son Isaiah said he knew Davis would have an interest "in any Enterprise tending to the welfare and development of the Colored people of Mississippi." "We would be highly pleased to have you here," Isaiah Montgomery asserted, " and he closed "with best wishes for your continued preservation." (Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 690-691)

At a time when many Americans, in all parts of the country, still opposed allowing blacks to testify in court, Davis favored allowing them to do so. He expressed this view in a letter to his wife in which he also expressed concern about the welfare of their former slaves: I hope the negroes' fidelity will be duly rewarded and regret that we are not in a position to aid and protect them. There is, I observe, a controversy which I regret as to allowing negroes to testify in court. From brother Joe [Joseph Davis], many years ago, I derived the opinion that they should be made competent witnesses, the jury judging of their credibility. (Jefferson Davis: Private Letters 1823-1889, selected and edited by Hudson Strode, New York: De Capo Press, 1995, reprint, p. 188) Few people know that Davis and his wife informally adopted a mulatto (half-white-half-black) orphan during the war. For those who care to know, the child looked like a young African-American boy, except that his skin was slightly less dark than the skin of most other black children; his facial features and hair were clearly African-American. Mrs. Davis rescued the young boy from a cruel guardian and brought him with her to live at the Confederate White House in Richmond. His name was Jim Limber. Davis and his wife raised him as one of their own children. Jim Limber and the other Davis children played together as normal siblings. Even in family letters, Jim's new family spoke lovingly of him, and he expressed his love for them. Sadly, after the war, the Davises had to give up custody of the child when a disreputable Union officer threatened to take him from them (Felicity Allen, Jefferson Davis: Unconquerable Heart, Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1999, p. 24). Davis was a kind, decent Christian man who treated blacks with respect, and many blacks knew it. During a trip through the western part of the Confederacy, Davis got off his train at Griswoldville, Georgia, in order to meet with a group of slaves who had gathered in the hope of seeing him. These men worked at a local pistol factory and had come to the train station because they wanted to meet Davis. Informed of the gathering, Davis got off the train and circulated among the group, shaking each hand and speaking to each man individually (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, p. 494). When Davis returned to Richmond, Virginia, after the war, he was not only cheered by whites but also by blacks. One observer noted that Davis was "greatly touched" by the sympathy shown to him by the blacks in the crowd. In fact, some blacks climbed up on his carriage, shook and kissed his hand, and called out "God bless Mars Davis" (Allen, Jefferson Davis: Unconquerable Heart, pp. 486-487). Many other examples of good relations between slaves and slaveholders could be cited. For example, there were numerous instances during the war when slaves hid food from Union troops and then gave the food to their masters and their families (who in turn shared it with them). One such instance occurred when when Union forces occupied Charles and Mary Jones' plantation on the Georgia coast. When the Union troops took over the plantation, a slave named Sue hid potatoes from the troops in order to feed the Jones' children (Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, p. 322). Ex-slaves of the Sea Islands in South Carolina showed great kindness to their former masters when the latter fell on hard times. The freedmen "did not enjoy seeing their old masters suffer." They "offered help and even, when they could, gave them money" (in Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, p. 312 n). An ex-slave in Georgia remained on his former master's estate to work for wages "so that, in a variety of ways, he could take care of the distressed white family. . . ." (in Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, p. 312 n). In another case, Clarence Fripp, a former Sea Islands slaveowner whose plantation had been sold from him, went back to his old plantation and asked his ex-slaves for money because he was nearly destitute. The freedmen took up a collection for him and gave him a "significant amount of money" (in Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, p. 312 n). Two years earlier, "a northerner among the Sea Islanders reported that 'all' the ex-slaves 'speak with great affection of Fripp'" (in Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, p. 312 n). "Many ex-slaves," notes Leslie Howard Owens, "chose to live with their masters after emancipation, some out of affection" (This Species of Property, p. 86). Owens continues, The affection that masters and domestics [domestic slaves] showed one another took many forms. At the death of Jimmy, a "faithful servant," one of her owners, whom she had suckled in his infancy, experienced her loss deeply. He lamented that she "always felt more like a mother than a servant to me and was a kind mother to all my children." Masters' feelings at these times seem to strip the slave's personality of any resemblance to stereotypes. Jimmy's master continued his tribute as follows: she "was a kind mother to all my children. I frequently left them entirely in her care and always found her faithful in nursing and taking care of them and they all loved her as a mother and she loved them. . . ." In other cases, masters compared their domestics to relatives and friends: [In speaking to his sister during a funeral, one master said] "True, sister, he was a servant, and you may be vexed or ashamed, that I should in any manner compare him with yourself . . . but although his skin was black his heart was always in the right place." (This Species of Property, pp. 116-117) Some female slaves occupied an especially honored place in plantation homes. Owens observes that one of "the most privileged domestics was the black mammy of the large estate" (This Species of Property, p. 118). Owens provides further information on these women: She "is in fact the foster Mother of her Master's children and is treated with all the respect due to the faithful discharge of the duties of her station. . . ." The mammy nursed them through their illnesses and watched them as they grew into adulthood. She also showered them with a loving affection, which they returned. Many whites mourned for her at her death. (This Species of Property, p. 118) One almost never hears about the fact that at times free blacks sought refuge on slaveholders' plantations to escape persecution during periods of rumored slave revolts. Says Owens, There were times, too, when slaves witnessed the hasty retreat of free blacks to the plantation's safety in order to escape repression by whites during periods of rumored slave uprisings. Elizabeth Jefferson of Mississippi remarked that her "grand father let a ***** free and gave him a trade. He was a competent brickmason. Often he came to the plantation for protection, sometimes remaining there for weeks." And this was not all. "There was an old darkye [sic] freed by a relative of our family. He was prosperous and finally bought his wife and children. He and his family on several occasions came to Greenwood for protection." This was not an atypical situation. (This Species of Property, pp. 86-87, emphasis added) Many owners strove to accommodate a slave couple's desire to get married, and some sought to provide a form of recognition for the marriage. Cooper says "most slaveowners . . . recognized families among their slaves, despite the absence of any statutory provision or protection for the slave family" (Jefferson Davis, American, p. 251). Gutman observes, The recollections of elderly ex-slaves and other historical evidence disclose a variety of ways in which slave marriages were publicly announced and legitimized. . . . Elderly ex-slaves also recollected owner-sponsored ceremonies. (The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, pp. 273-274) John Blassingame points out that thousands of slaves were married in Southern churches: Abolition doubts notwithstanding, thousands of slaves were married in Southern churches between 1800 and 1860. For example, out of a total of 1,228 marriages performed in Episcopal churches in South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Virginia in 1860, at least 460, or 38.1 percent, were slave weddings. At many times between 1830 and 1860 more slaves were married in the Episcopal churches in some states than were whites. Between 1841 and 1860 Episcopal ministers performed 3,225 weddings in South Carolina; 1,705, or 52 percent, of these were slave marriages. (The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South, Revised and Enlarged Edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 169) A large number of owners tried to keep married slaves together. "A study of wills and advertisements," says Francis Butler Simkins, "shows that many masters" stipulated that their slaves "were not to be sold away from their families or transported out of the state" (A History of the South, Third Edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Publisher, 1963, p. 123). As mentioned, 66 to 80 percent of slave marriages were not broken up by their masters. When circumstances led to the separation of a slave family, some owners and others tried to help the family in any way they could. Notes Gutman,

The separation of slave family members by sale or for other reasons led some sensitive owners to encourage contact between them. . . . Overt expressions of slave familial feelings deeply affected some owners and other whites who came into contact with these slaves. Whites intervened sometimes to prevent the sale of slaves. After a hired Virginia slave was sold and separated from his family because he had not earned enough, whites who attended church with the man raised sufficient cash to buy him from a trader. Their slave grandmother persuaded a Kentucky clergyman to bid for two teen-aged sisters threatened with a distant sale, but a trader outbid him. The purchase of Mima and her children by an Alexandria slave-trading firm led the hard-pressed Virginian Richard H. Carter, who owned Mima's husband, to try to buy them "because of the distress . . . on account of the separation". . . . (The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, pp. 287-288) Kenneth Stampp:

No slaveholder needed to respect the marital ties of his slaves; yet a Tennesseean purchased several slaves at a public sale, not because he needed them, but because of "their intermarriage with my servants and their appeals to me to do so." A Kentucky mistress tried to buy the wife of her slave before moving to Missouri. Another Kentuckian, when obliged to sell his slaves, gave each an opportunity to find a satisfactory purchaser and refused to sell any to persons residing outside the neighborhood. (The Peculiar Institution, pp. 229-230) A number of slaves were freed by their owners in the owners' wills. African-American scholars John Franklin and Alfred Moss note that for many years slaveholders, "stricken by conscience, impelled by affection, or yielding to the temptation to evade responsibility, manumitted [freed] their slaves in large numbers. . . ." (From Slavery to Freedom, Eighth Edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, p. 168, emphasis added). Other slaves earned enough money to purchase their freedom. Some owners assisted with the purchase of freedom by accepting payments over a period of time or by agreeing to accept a generously low price. Stampp explains how some slaves managed to buy their freedom:

Occasionally, they earned the necessary funds by working nights and Sundays. More often, they hired their own time. Either way, they gradually accumulated enough money to pay their masters an amount equal to their value and thus obtained deeds of emancipation. Benevolent masters helped ambitious bondsmen by permitting them to make the payments in installments over a period of years or by accepting a sum lower than the market price. (The Peculiar Institution, p. 96) Allan Nevins noted that even in the 1850s "many" slaves continued to buy their freedom: Even in the eighteen-fifties, many slaves, particularly in towns and among the skilled or semi-skilled, continued to buy their liberty. (The Emergence of Lincoln, Volume 2, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950, p. 161) Slaves in Southern cities had additional opportunities to advance themselves. This was no small number of people either. In 1860 there were some 400,000 slaves living in cities, "and many additional thousands were hired out by their owners" (J. G. Randall and David Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, Lexington, Massachusetts: D. C. Heath and Company, 1969, p. 75). J. G. Randall and David Donald, citing the research of Richard B. Morris, point out some of the opportunities that were available to these slaves: By the nature of their employments and the conditions of their service, as Richard B. Morris has pointed out, these urban and industrial slaves were a step removed from plantation service. . . . many of them were, despite numerous legal restrictions, "permitted to hold property, receive wages, make contracts, and assume supervisory responsibilities"; in addition, they possessed "some measure of mobility and occasionally a limited choice as to masters and occupations." "In industry slaves were customarily reimbursed for services performed beyond an accepted minimum," Professor Morris continues. ". . . slaves hired to others occasionally received directly a portion of the hiring wages. . . . Masters were often reluctant to force slaves to work as hirelings in occupations they disliked or for masters whom they found uncongenial." An increasing number of slaves were permitted to hire their own time--i.e., to work at whatever employment they pleased, paying their masters an annual rental. Such "nominal slaves" were able "to control their earnings, separate property, or occupational choices." (The Civil War and Reconstruction, p. 76)

One frequently runs across the claim that slaves had no legal protection. This is simply not true. I'm not saying slaves had all the legal protection they deserved, but the often-heard claim that they had no protection whatsoever is incorrect. Stampp discusses the legal status of slaves: "A slave," said a Tennessee judge, "is not in the condition of a horse. . . . He has mental capacities, and an immortal principle in his nature." The laws did not "extinguish his high-born nature nor deprive him of many rights which are inherent in man." All the southern codes recognized the slave as a person for purposes other than holding him accountable for crimes. Many state constitutions required the legislature "to pass such laws as may be necessary to oblige the owners of slaves to treat them with humanity; to provide for them necessary clothing and provisions; to abstain from all injuries to them, extending to life and limb." The legislatures responded with laws extending some protection to the persons of slaves. Masters who refused to feed and clothe slaves properly might be fined; in several states the court might order them to be sold, the proceeds going to the dispossessed owners. Those who abandoned or neglected insane, aged, or infirm slaves were also liable to fines. In Virginia the overseers of the poor were required to care for such slaves and to charge their masters. (The Peculiar Institution, p. 217)

All Southern states had laws that imposed penalties for mistreating slaves. Whites who killed slaves could be convicted of first- or second-degree murder or of manslaughter, depending on the circumstances, and could be put to death for the crime. A few whites were actually executed for murdering slaves, and in a few other cases, Southern courts refused to convict slaves who had killed brutal overseers because they had acted in self-defense to resist a potentially deadly assault (Stampp, The Peculiar Institution, pp. 220-221).

Southern legislatures sought to provide other legal protections for slaves. Some legislatures passed laws that limited the number of hours a slave could be worked in a day. All legislatures enacted laws that set aside Sunday as a day of rest for slaves. Some states provided for trials by black juries for slaves accused of misdemeanor offenses. In most states, slaves who were accused of a capital crime were given jury trials in the regular courts. Certain states, like Texas, stipulated that slaves accused of any felony were to receive an impartial trial by jury. In contrast to many factory workers in the North, and even in contrast to many low-wage workers in third-world nations in our day, many slaves received relatively good medical care. Most slaves received at least some medical care. And some slaves received exceptional medical care. Says Stampp,

To treat their sick slaves, many masters employed trained physicians, often the same ones who treated the white families. A few large planters retained resident doctors on their estates; occasionally several small planters together contracted with a doctor for his full-time service. More commonly a slaveholder made a yearly contract with a physician who agreed to charge a fixed amount for each visit. "Bargained today with Dr. Trotti to practice at the plantation," Hammond noted in his diary. "He agrees to charge only $2.50 a visit without reference to the number of sick prescribed for." Another planter cautioned his overseer, "Strong medicines should be left to the Doctor; and since the Proprietor [the master] never grudges a Doctor's bill, however large, he has a right to expect that the Overseer shall always send for a Doctor when a serious case occurs." Slaveholders, both large and small, sometimes spent generous sums for skilled medical treatment for their "people." To prove that there was "no class of working people in the world better cared for," one southern physician declared that he had often received large fees for attending even senile and worthless slaves. This statement was much too optimistic, but it did give recognition to a class of humane masters whose expenditures for medical service went far beyond the simple dictates of self-interest. In mourning the death of an old slave woman, a North Carolinian noted that his physician had given the case "assiduous attention" for six months, "devoting to it more reflection and research than he had (as he informs me) to any case within ten years". . . . A few masters patronized hospitals which were built and maintained especially for the care of sick slaves. During the 1850's, three Savannah physicians ran a slave hospital for "lying-in" women as well as for medical and surgical cases; similar institutions existed in Charleston, Montgomery, Natchez, and New Orleans. But plantation proprietors usually established their own hospitals where the sick could be attended by physicians or slave nurses. "All sick persons are to stay in the hospital night and day, from the time they first complain to the time they are able to go to work again," a South Carolinian instructed his overseer. "Hopeton," James Hamilton Couper's Georgia rice plantation, contained a model hospital where ailing slaves received the best medical attention the South could provide. The hospital was well ventilated and steam heated; it contained an examining room, medicine closet, kitchen, bathing room, and four wards, all of which were swept every day and scrubbed once a week. Wise and humane masters gave proper attention to slave women who were either expectant or nursing mothers. A Mississippian ordered his overseer to treat them with "great tenderness." A South Carolinian required "lying-in women" to remain at the quarters for four weeks after parturition, because their health might be "entirely ruined by want of care in this particular." Hammond gave the "sucklers" lighter tasks near the quarters and insisted that they be cool and rested before morning.

Some masters were equally solicitous about the care of slave children. On the smaller establishments they appointed an old woman to watch the children while the mothers worked in the fields. On the plantations they built nurseries where the plantation nurse cooked for the children, mended their clothing, and looked after them during illness. (The Peculiar Institution, pp. 311-313) In addition, slaves were by no means always confined to their farms and plantations. Many slaves were allowed to visit other estates or to go into nearby towns on a fairly regular basis. A few slaves lived in a state of virtual freedom. As mentioned, some slaves earned money by working on their time off. Slaves were usually free to attend church, and often times they were encouraged to do so. Blassingame observes that many slaves did not have to sneak off the plantation in order to leave for short periods for social visits and the like: Many slaves did not have to use . . . stratagems. Their masters did not try to restrict their recreational activities as long as they did not interfere with the plantation routine. According to Robert Anderson, "The slaves on a plantation could get together almost any time they felt like it, for little social affairs, so long as it did not interfere with the work on the plantation. During the slack times the people from one plantation could visit one another, by getting permission and sometimes they would slip away and make visits anyway." Similarly, Elijah Marrs said his master "allowed us generally to do as we pleased after his own work was done, and we enjoyed the privilege granted to us." (The Slave Community, p. 108)

The more religious planters not only excused their slaves from work on religious holidays but provided great feasts and recreation on these occasions. "During these periods, which lasted from four to six days," says Blassingame, "planters prepared sumptuous feasts for their slaves" (The Slave Community, p. 107). He continues, Whole hogs, sheep, or beeves were cooked and the slaves ate peach cobbler and apple dumplings, and frequently got drunk. Often the festival seasons included dances and athletic contests. (The Slave Community, p. 107) Europeans visited the South and left us their impressions of slavery. Civil War scholar John Tilley observed that their accounts suggest that most slaves were treated humanely:

Among these were Buckingham and Sir Charles Lyell, both Englishmen of distinction. Interestedly appraising the status of house-servants of his Southern hosts, Buckingham wrote that their situation was quite comparable to that of servants in the middle rank of life in his own country. He goes on record that, as a rule, they were "well-fed, well-dressed. . . ." Lyell's investigation led to a like conclusion: namely, that these house-slaves enjoyed advantages superior to those experienced by white servants in similar work in Europe. He found himself in agreement with the view expressed by William Thompson; after traveling in the South, Thompson, a Scotch weaver, had made public his finding that he had not seen in slave conditions one-fifth of the suffering which was the lot of employees in British factories. Observers of the high type of Chevalier, Fredrika Bremer, and Achille Murat, drew similar contrasts between the conditions prevailing among the "peasants" and "poor working people" of Europe and those obtaining in the slave sections of the United States. Bremer's verdict was that the slaves were "much better provided for."

Yet others came from abroad to be astonished by the variance between fiction and fact relative to slavery conditions. Lady Wortly found the Southern negroes generally happy and contented. Grund's observations convinced him that they were better cared for than the free ***** element he had seen in the North. Charles Mackay singled out the farm labor of Europe, the shop tailors and seamstresses of the great English cities, as living in physical surroundings inferior to those of the slaves. In his work, Life and Liberty in America, MacKay called attention to the "paternal and patriarchal kindness" of many among the masters. A digression may be indulged. True to his Northern preconceptions, historian [James] Rhodes manifests unmistakable annoyance because of the reports of the foreign visitors. He proceeds to use his scalpel and the result of his dissection of the phenomenon is the pronouncement that, with the exception of the Scotch weaver who likely mingled only with the less favored class, the opinions of the travelers were possibly colored by their enjoyment of "the generous hospitality of the Southern gentlemen." Such an evaluation of the effectiveness of social contact with slave-owners in beclouding the judgment of astute foreign investigators presents, perhaps, the climax of tributes to Southern courtesy and charm. (The Coming of the Glory, pp. 27-28) Tilley continued by arguing that the findings of Northern student Frederick Law Olmsted and of a Northern governess agree with those of the European visitors:

A few years prior to the War between the States, a Northern student, Frederick Law Olmsted, made tours of various sections of the South in order personally to view the situation of ***** bondman. In 1856, in a volume entitled Journey in the Seaboard States, he shared with the public the benefit of his findings. Some of these, it may be worthwhile briefly to summarize.

Generally, according to Olmsted, the slaves had food in plenty; in fact, it was his opinion that in this respect they were better provisioned for than "the proletarian class of any other part of the world." While in South Carolina, he noted that the house-servants were intelligent, competent, and comfortably dressed. Regarding the consideration given their "health and comfort," he believed it superior to that usually bestowed upon free domestics. His judgment was that the labor required of the negroes would not be considered excessively hard by free labor in the North. It interested him to find that, in their employment in the fields, the rule was to assign to each a specific task; this performed, his work for the day was done. He had personally observed a number of significant scenes, such as slaves leaving the field by one or two o'clock, the remainder of the day to be theirs to use as they willed. On one plantation he had seen, between three and four o'clock, "a dozen women and several men" returning to their quarters, their day's work completed. The slaves on "Mr. X's plantation" were treated with uniform kindness. . . . Rhodes tells of a New England-born governess, employed on a Tennessee plantation, who expressed astonishment that there had failed to show up the "revolting horrors" of which she had heard. Her wonder had grown upon learning that physical punishment was there unknown; willingly, she testified to the sharp contrast between actual conditions and what her preconceived theories had prepared her to expect. (The Coming of the Glory, pp. 28-29) All this being said, slavery was still wrong. It had its good and humane side, but it was still wrong. My only point in noting some of the good aspects of the institution is to provide a little balance to the one-sided picture that is usually painted of it. There were many forms of injustice in the world in the nineteenth century. Southern slavery was one of them, but it was not the worst of them. Moreover, it’s important to keep in mind that most Southerners did not own slaves. Scholars generally agree that no more than 25 percent of Southern citizens were slaveholders. Notes Stampp,

Nearly three-fourths of all free Southerners had no connection with slavery through either family ties or direct ownership. The "typical" Southerner was not only a small farmer but also a nonslaveholder. (The Peculiar Institution, p. 30)

Of those Southerners who did own slaves, three-fourths owned less than ten. Half owned less than five, and often worked side by side with them in the fields. As for the "planter class," less than fifteen percent of slaveholders belonged to it. "The planter aristocracy," says Stampp, "was limited to some ten thousand families. . . ." (The Peculiar Institution, p. 30). Slavery and the North’s Use of Force Given these and other facts, I don't believe the existence of slavery in the South justified the North's use of force to deny the South its independence. I don't believe that Southern slavery justified the brutal form of "total war" that Northern armies waged against the South. This brand of warfare included the needless destruction of thousands of private homes and public buildings, the large-scale theft of private belongings, the burning of priceless Southern libraries, the killing of thousands of farm animals (even in remote areas), and the shelling of defenseless towns. Some idea of the brutality that was inflicted on the South is indicated by the fact that about 50,000 Southern civilians died in the war (Kenneth C. Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, Avon Books Edition, New York: Avon Books, 1997, p. 411). Nor do I believe that Southern slavery justified Lincoln's policy of blocking medicines from reaching the South. This cruel policy caused the needless deaths of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers and of thousands of Southern civilians (Charles, Roland, The Confederacy, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960, pp. 152-153). This policy also caused the deaths of thousands of Union soldiers who were being held in Confederate prisoner of war camps. When the South tried to buy medical supplies from the North to care for Union prisoners, Lincoln wouldn't even reply to the offer. Noted Tilley, The time came when, shut off from the world by blockade [the federal blockade], the South experienced the greatest difficulty in obtaining medicine which had been made contraband by order of the federal government. By 1864 conditions were so desperate that the South actually offered to purchase from the North such needed supplies, agreeing to pay for them in gold, cotton, or tobacco. The offer made plain that Union surgeons might bring the medicines down and use them solely to minister to Union prisoners. To this offer, there was no reply. (Facts the Historians Leave Out, Ashland City, Tennessee: Nippert Publishing, 1993, reprint, p. 52) I'm glad slavery was abolished, but it could and should have been abolished peacefully. Yes, this would have taken longer, probably a lot longer. But it also would have saved the lives of over 600,000 soldiers who died in the war, as well as the lives of tens of thousands of Southern civilians who died as a result of the brutal type of warfare that Northern armies waged in the South. It also would have spared tens of thousands of soldiers from suffering the loss of arms and legs for the rest of their lives. Other nations found ways to abolish slavery peacefully. I don't believe that waging the most destructive war in our nation's history was the only way slavery could have been ended. We will never know what would have happened to Southern slavery if the North had allowed the South to go in peace. The Confederacy was never given the chance to outgrow slavery. There were plenty of people in the South who did not like slavery and/or who wanted to see the slaves freed, including Confederate generals Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Confederate Congressman Duncan Kenner, and James Spence, the Confederate financial agent in Europe, who criticized slavery in his book The American Union (Patrick, Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet, p. 196). There were also Confederate leaders who supported emancipating slaves who served in the Confederate army, such as Confederate generals Patrick Cleburne, Joseph E. Johnston, Daniel Govan, John H. Kelly, and Marc Lowrey, Governor William Smith of Virginia, Confederate Secretary of State Judah Benjamin, and the Confederate president himself, Jefferson Davis. As mentioned, some 75 percent of Southerners did not own slaves. I believe the Confederacy would have eventually abolished slavery. There is evidence that suggests slavery was beginning to die out on its own. For example, the percentage of Southern whites who belonged to slaveholding families dropped by 5 percent from 1850-1860 (Robert Divine, T. H. Bren, George Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams, America Past and Present, Fifth Edition, New York: Longman, 1999, p. 389). Nevins noted that "slavery was dying all around the edges of its domain" (The Emergence of Lincoln, Volume 2, p. 469). We must be careful not to judge a country or a people through our 21st-century lens. Past nations and their citizens should be judged primarily in the context of their own times and not in the context of our times. One hundred years from now, who is to say that future civilizations won't look back and denounce modern America as an unjust, oppressive nation because we have legalized the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent unborn children every year by abortion, because we still have not extended basic health care to all of our citizens, and because we continue to pollute the environment with toxic waste and fossil fuel emissions? Over the last thirty years alone, more innocent human beings have been killed by abortion than were ever killed by slavery (even including the thousands who died on the slave ships). Or, consider how many low-income people in our country have died prematurely because they had substandard health care or no health care at all. This tragic injustice is no secret. Numerous stories about it have appeared on TV, in newspapers, and in books for decades. Yet, it continues. Will future civilizations look back and judge America harshly because of this? Will we be condemned as a cruel, elitist society? How would we feel if Islamic nations teamed up to invade America because we permit and uphold abortion? How would we feel if Russia and China teamed up to invade America because we don't have universal health care and because we're the world's biggest polluter? What if England, France, and Russia had teamed up to invade the Northern states in the early 1800s because New England permitted and reaped huge profits from the African slave trade and because so many Northern states strongly discriminated against blacks?

More on the Confederacy This is not to say the Confederacy was perfect. But, in comparison to other nations in that era (and even to many nations in our day), the Confederacy was one of the most democratic countries in the world. The Confederacy came into existence in a peaceful, democratic manner, with the support of the overwhelming majority of Southern citizens. In fact, the percentage of Southern citizens who supported the formation of the Confederate States of America was considerably larger than the percentage of colonial citizens who supported the American Revolution (Roland, The Confederacy, pp. 14-15; cf. Divine et al, America Past and Present, pp. 159-161). Throughout its existence, the Confederacy enjoyed a vibrant free press. The Confederate government closely resembled the federal government, with three separate branches of power, i.e., executive, legislative, judicial. Confederate laws went through the legislative process. The Confederate constitution was very similar to the U.S. Constitution, and it contained improvements that even some Northern writers praised. The Confederacy held free and fair elections. Citizens of the Confederacy enjoyed every right that we now enjoy, if not more. The Confederacy made every effort to establish peaceful relations with the North. The Confederate government even offered to pay compensation for all federal facilities in the South and to pay the Southern states' fair share of the national debt. The Confederacy also announced that Northern ships could continue to use the Mississippi River. The record is clear that the South sought to avoid war. In fact, most Southerners believed secession would be peaceful. It's interesting to note that the correspondence of the first Confederate Secretary of War, Leroy Walker, "clearly indicates he did not expect war" (Patrick, Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet, p. 106). The Confederate states believed, with good reason, that since they had joined the Union voluntarily and peacefully, they had every right to voluntarily and peacefully leave the Union. But war came when the North launched an invasion of the Confederate states. That's why the vast majority of battles were fought in the South. The South fought because it was invaded. The South had no desire to overthrow the federal government--it merely wanted to leave that government and to form its own. The Confederacy did not start the war, and, contrary to what most history books claim or imply, the war didn't really begin when Confederate forces "attacked" Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Lincoln later all but admitted he provoked the incident so that he could blame the South for firing the first shot. Soon after South Carolina seceded, federal forces, acting without orders to do so, occupied Fort Sumter, in violation of the agreement that South Carolina had (or certainly thought it had) with President James Buchanan not to change the status quo. Southern leaders argued that South Carolina had the legal right to reclaim Fort Sumter, citing the fact that the state had ceded the fort to the federal government on certain conditions and that these conditions had not been fulfilled. (Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 1, New York: De Capo Press, 1990, reprint of 1881 edition, pp. 179-180). South Carolina, and then the Confederacy, tried for months to have Fort Sumter evacuated. Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Seward, promised Confederate representatives the fort would be evacuated, but this promise was not kept. When Confederate leaders learned that, contrary to Seward's promise, Lincoln had sent a convoy of warships and other vessels to resupply the fort, they decided to demand the fort's surrender. The commander of the federal garrison on the fort refused, even though he did not agree with Lincoln's decision to send a resupply convoy (Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol. 1, pp. 243-244). The Confederates then gave the federal commander advance notice the fort would be attacked. Not a single Union soldier was killed in the attack. As a matter of fact, at one point, when the Confederates feared a fire on the fort was going to burn out of control, they offered to help put out the fire. When the federal troops surrendered, the Confederates allowed them to surrender with full military honors and then permitted them to return to the North in peace. This was the "attack," the alleged act of "rebellion" or "insurrection," that Lincoln used as his pretext for launching an invasion of the seceded states. On the other hand, even after the Fort Sumter incident, Jefferson Davis continued to publicly express his desire for peaceful relations with the North. In fact, just two weeks after the Fort Sumter incident, Davis said the following in a message to the Confederate congress:

We protest solemnly, in the face of mankind, that we desire peace at any sacrifice, save that of honor. In independence we seek no conquest, no aggrandizement, no concession of any kind from the States with which we have lately been confederated. All we ask is to be let alone--that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms. (The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol. 1, pp. 283-284; see also Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, p. 367) Was the War Fought Over Slavery? Many historians seek to justify the North's invasion of the South by claiming that the war was fought over slavery, and that the North was fighting to free the slaves while the South was fighting to keep them in bondage. A number of critics claim the South only fought in order to ensure the continuation of slavery. A detailed refutation of these assertions would require a separate paper. However, for now, I offer the following points in response to them:



* The war was fought over secession, not over slavery. If the South had not declared its independence, Lincoln would not have launched an invasion, and there would have been no war. The only slave states that were charged with insurrection and then invaded were those that belonged to the Confederacy. Would the North have accepted secession if the Confederacy had announced it was abolishing slavery as the first official act of its existence? Would the North have allowed a peaceful separation if the Confederacy had started an emancipation program right after the First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run)? Would any serious student of the Civil War answer either of these questions in the affirmative? I don't think anyone who has studied the subject believes the North would have allowed the South to go in peace no matter when the Confederacy would have started to abolish slavery.



* In July 1861, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution, by a nearly unanimous vote, that affirmed that the North was not waging the war to overthrow slavery but to preserve the Union (William Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, New York: Viking Books, 2001, pp. 66-70). McPherson notes, . . . in 1861 the North was fighting for the restoration of a slaveholding Union. In his July 4 message to Congress, Lincoln reiterated the inaugural pledge that he had "no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists." (Ordeal By Fire, p. 265)



* When Lincoln assumed office, he was entirely willing to allow slavery to continue. Lincoln even supported a constitutional amendment that would have given additional legal protection to slavery. When Lincoln issued his famous Emancipation Proclamation about two years later, he did so only because he was under intense pressure from abolitionist Republicans in Congress, who were threatening to cut off funds from the army if Lincoln didn't issue some kind of emancipation order. One only has to read the Emancipation Proclamation itself to see that it was a war measure that only applied to slaves who were in Confederate territory--it did not apply to any slaves who were in Union-controlled territory, not even to slaves who were in the four Union slave states. In addition, Bennett shows that Lincoln himself tried to undermine the proclamation soon after he issued it, and that he issued it unwillingly (Forced Into Glory, pp. 22-29, 411-508). For that matter, Lincoln only began to consider issuing the proclamation after the Union war effort continued to falter (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 134-139; Robert Divine et al, America Past and Present, p. 460.)



* To be sure, some members of the Republican Party did believe the war should be waged for the purpose of abolishing slavery. Those who belonged to this faction of the party were commonly known as "Radical Republicans." It would be worthwhile to take a closer look at these men. They wielded tremendous power in their party. They were not only abolitionists, but, like most other Republicans of their day, they tended to support high taxes (in the form of high tariff rates), subsidies and land grants to certain big businesses, and the expansion of the federal government's size and power. Southern leaders consistently opposed these policies. Most Radical Republicans made no secret of their intense hatred of the South. Southern leaders suspected that some of the Radicals didn't really care about the slaves but were using slavery as an excuse to crush and subjugate the South. The harsh, illegal Reconstruction program that the Radical Republicans in Congress imposed on the South after the war led many people, in all sections of the country, to believe this suspicion was justified. Even President Andrew Johnson said in an official message that the Reconstruction regime that the Radicals wanted to impose on the South was illegal, vengeful, and despotic (Lloyd Paul Stryker, Andrew Johnson: A Study in Courage, New York: The MacMillan Company, 1930, pp. 263-285; see also Johnson's veto message of the first Reconstruction act). Johnson tried to prevent the Radicals from imposing such harsh terms by vetoing their Reconstruction bill, but they had enough votes to override his veto. When Johnson persisted in opposing the Radicals, they indicted him and then tried to remove him from office on the basis of charges that can only be described as shameful, not to mention invalid (Stryker, Andrew Johnson, pp. 572-674; see also Randall and Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, pp. 601-617).

Almost immediately after Lincoln was assassinated, Radical Republicans in the Congress and in the War Department, along with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, falsely accused Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders of complicity in Lincoln's death. A War Department military tribunal and the House Judiciary Committee formally endorsed this claim. They based this accusation on information they knew was bogus. Some Radicals continued to repeat the accusation even after it became clear that it was false. Cooper notes that most people came to reject the claim that Davis was involved in Lincoln's death: In the immediate aftermath of Lincoln's assassination . . . the War Department, with Secretary Stanton's enthusiastic endorsement, claimed that Davis was intimately involved in the conspiracy that resulted in Lincoln's murder as well as other failed intrigues. . . . In subsequent investigations this supposedly crystal-clear certainty turned murky. A few officials clung to the theory of Davis's responsibility, but most observers found the evidence flimsy, even fraudulent. (Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 582-583) The story of the Radical Republicans' attempt to convict Jefferson Davis of involvement in Lincoln's death is one of the most shameful episodes in American history, and it says a lot about how utterly lawless and corrupt some of these men were. I'm unaware of a single textbook that says anything about the Radicals’ unethical conduct in the affair. Therefore, I'd like to devote a few paragraphs to examining some aspects of their attempt to frame Davis for Lincoln's death. One of the best treatments of the subject is Seymour Frank's booklet The Conspiracy Against Jefferson Davis (Biloxi, Mississippi: The Beauvoir Press, 1987). The booklet originally appeared as an article in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review (March 1954) under the title "The Conspiracy to Implicate the Confederate Leaders in Lincoln's Assassination." In his foreword to Frank's booklet, historian James West Thompson discusses some aspects of the attempt to blame Davis for Lincoln's murder:

A surprise witness at the Lincoln conspirators' trial was a man who identified himself as Henry Von Steinacker, who claimed to have attended a meeting of Confederate officers who were planning Lincoln's murder. Shortly after his testimony, defense counsel learned that Von Steinacker had been a member of the Union Army and had been arrested while attempting to desert. Sentenced to death, he had escaped while awaiting execution. Joining the Confederate forces of General Edward Johnson, he had been assigned to headquarters as a draftsman, but he was arrested by the Confederates and accused of theft and of abuse of prisoners. Again he escaped. Defense Attorney Clampitt was denounced by General Lew Wallace . . . for stating these facts. Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt [who headed the Bureau of Military Justice] hypocritically stated that he would be happy to return "Von Steinacker" to the courtroom if only he could be found. It later developed that when "Von Steinacker" testified, he had been a Federal prisoner named Hans Von Winklestein and was serving a sentence for desertion. He had, with the full knowledge of the prosecution, been allowed to testify to lies under a false name, and he was then released from prison immediately afterwards as a reward for his lies.

There were three other "witnesses" who were the backbone of the trial and who supplied the basis of the verdict. All were perjurers for hire, and they were hired by Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt. Foremost was . . . Sanford Conover, alias James Watson Wallace, but whose true name was Charles A. Dunham, a totally unscrupulous New York lawyer. He brought together a group of minor characters whom he drilled in stories he wrote out for each one and drilled them in reciting the stories until they were letter-perfect. Then they gave the depositions of these stories to Judge Holt personally. Only he took their statements. Conover's testimony and that of his "witnesses" proved to be a mass of lies. But Judge Holt continued to use him and to pay him even after he had been thoroughly exposed. . . .

Second of these perjurers was a man who claimed to be Richard Montgomery. His real name was James Thompson, and he was a convicted New York burglar with a long record of felonies. The third of these perjurers was known as Dr. James B. Merritt, who later confessed to a committee of the House of Representatives that his testimony had been a tissue of lies, for which the government had paid him $6,000. . . . It was on the basis of the lies of these men that Secretary of War Stanton was able to induce new President Andrew Johnson to issue his offer of rewards for the capture of Jefferson Davis and several other Confederates, accused of having plotted Lincoln's death. Stanton claimed that this was on the basis of evidence in the possession of the Bureau of Military Justice. Stanton knew that this was false, that no evidence was held, and that only unsworn, oral statements, never reduced to writing, had been obtained. (Foreword, The Conspiracy Against Jefferson Davis, pp. 5-6)

Time permits me to quote only a small part of Frank's analysis:

The news of President Lincoln's assassination came as a terrific blow to the people of the North. . . . Stanton immediately informed the stunned world that Lincoln's assassination had been the outcome of a general plot to murder the President, his cabinet, and leading Union generals. It was engineered, he charged, by Jefferson Davis and other Southern leaders. . . .

Through bribes and offers of rewards, Stanton's assistants were able to assemble a group of persons who seemed willing to perjure themselves to aid the Secretary in achieving his goal. . . .

In the trial before the military tribunal the prosecution had attempted to establish this complicity [of Davis in Lincoln's death] primarily by the testimony of three witnesses. This attempt had failed despite the fact that the military court, by its verdict, had indicated otherwise. The three witnesses were Richard Montgomery, Dr. James B. Merritt, and Sanford Conover. By his own admissions, each had done much to discredit his story and to impeach his personal credibility. Holt knew that their stories would not stand public scrutiny and tried to keep their testimony secret. This endeavor had failed. . . . The entire evidence of the three was therefore given to the newspapers. In early June [1865], this suppressed evidence appeared in the leading American and Canadian papers. Bitter denunciations, indignant denials, and angry countercharges followed. The witnesses had alleged that most of the plotting had occurred in Toronto and Montreal. The newspapers in both cities were swamped with letters and statements, all tending to establish that Montgomery, Merritt, and Conover were men of poor reputation and that their testimony was false. (The Conspiracy Against Jefferson Davis, pp. 11-12, 17-18)

Although President Johnson allowed several people to be tried and hung as conspirators in Lincoln's death, he came to realize that the "evidence" against Davis was false. Incredibly, when it became apparent that Johnson was not going to allow Davis to be brought to trial on the basis of this evidence, two Radical Republicans in Congress plotted with Sanford Conover to produce false evidence that would connect Johnson himself with Lincoln's assassination. Yes, two Republican members of Congress conspired to falsely accuse a sitting president with involvement in the previous president's murder. And, yes, they did so with the same Sanford Conover, one of the discredited Davis-conspiracy witnesses. The two Republicans were Representatives James Ashley and Benjamin Butler. The scheme failed because Conover, fearing the two Congressmen weren't keeping their part of the deal, decided to reveal the plot to Johnson, and he turned over to the president several documents that exposed the plan. Needless to say, Johnson was shocked by this information, and he immediately had the documents published in major newspapers, including the New York Times (Frank, The Conspiracy Against Jefferson Davis, pp. 37-38).

The same Republican-controlled Congress that imposed Reconstruction on the South also sanctioned official discrimination against the American Indians in the West and permitted them to be segregated from the rest of society. One textbook, edited by Civil War scholar Bruce Catton, puts it this way: The same Congress that devised Radical Reconstruction . . . approved strict segregation and inequality for the Indian of the West. (Catton, editor, The National Experience: A History of the United States, Second Edition, New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1968, p. 416)



* There were important economic and political differences between the North and the South that were major reasons for the South's desire for independence. Prior to secession, the South had complained for decades about unfair, unconstitutional Northern economic policies, especially tariff policy. One of the seven ordinances of secession and two of the Declarations of Causes of Secession of the Deep South states mention unfair Northern economic policies. Jefferson Davis mentioned the South's complaints about Northern protectionist tariff policies in his first message to the Confederate congress (he cited the North's imposition of "burdens on commerce as a protection to their manufacturing and shipping interests"). In his famous speech on secession to the Georgia legislature, Robert Toombs spent the first half of the speech listing some of the South's economic complaints against the North, and he cited these complaints as reasons the South needed to be independent. Historian Frank Owsley discussed some of the reasons for these complaints: The industrial North demanded a high tariff so as to monopolize the domestic markets, especially the Southern market. . . . It was an exploitative principle, originated at the expense of the South and for the benefit of the North. . . .

The industrial section demanded a national subsidy for the shipping business and merchant marine, but, as the merchant marine was alien to the Southern agrarian system, the two sections clashed. It was once more an exploitation of one section for the benefit of the other. The industrial North demanded internal improvements--roads, railroads, canals, at national expense to furnish transportation for its goods to Southern and Western markets which were already hedged around for the benefit of the North by the tariff wall. . . .

It is interesting to observe that all the favors thus asked by the North were of doubtful constitutional right. . . . Even in the matter of public lands the South favored turning over these lands to the state within which they lay, rather than have them controlled by the federal government. . . . ("The Irrepressible Conflict," in Edwin C. Rozwenc, editor, The Causes of the American Civil War, Second Edition, Lexington, Massachusetts: D. C. Heath and Company, 1972, pp. 108-109) Even after the war, the North's economic exploitation of the South continued for decades. For example, Kenneth C. Davis, although he is critical of the South on many points, concedes that Southern railroad companies were "burdened for decades by unfair rates and restrictive tariffs set by Northerners, who controlled the vast majority of railways and the legislatures that set rates" (Don't Know Much About the Civil War, pp. 425-426).

* Southern leaders had valid reasons for their belief that monetary considerations played a major role in the North's decision to invade the South. It was no secret that the North did not want Southern ports to be able to trade directly with Europe because they knew European businesses would naturally be attracted by the Confederacy's extremely low tariffs, as opposed to the North's high tariffs. In addition, the North didn't want to lose the tariff revenue that it collected from the Southern states. I think it’s revealing that in his first inaugural address, Lincoln threatened to invade the seceded states if they didn’t pay the federal tariffs. He didn’t threaten to invade over slavery. But he said there would be an invasion if the seceded states didn’t pay the federal tariffs: The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. (First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861)

Lincoln was a master at using clever wording that could blunt the full impact of what he was saying. But his meaning in this statement is readily discernible. He named two "objects" over which he would use force in order to carry them out, and one of those objects was "to collect the duties and imposts," i.e., federal tariffs. Southern leaders resented this threat, especially since the Southern states paid an unfairly large amount of the tariffs and since the tariff rates had just been markedly increased. The fact that Lincoln was prepared to invade if the tariffs weren’t paid shows that monetary considerations played a significant role in the North’s decision to use force against the seceded states. * In order to understand the Civil War, one must take into account the inflammatory anti-Southern propaganda that numerous Northern leaders and newspapers spread for years prior to the war. Northern abolitionist attacks on slavery were often misleading and exaggerated. These attacks frequently included unfair attacks on the South as a whole. Northern agitators unfairly attacked the South on a wide range of issues. In her book, North Over South: Northern Nationalism and American Identity in the Antebellum Era (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Press, 2000), British scholar Susan-Mary Grant documents the harsh anti-Southern propaganda that Northern leaders, writers, and newspapers spread in the decades leading up to the war, especially from around 1840 onward. During the five years that preceded the war, numerous Republican leaders and pro-Republican newspapers frequently portrayed Southerners as barbaric, ignorant, depraved, and even un-American. In the 1860 presidential election, the Republican Party distributed an abridged version of a book entitled The Impending Crisis of the South, which spoke approvingly of a scenario where slaves would rise up and kill their masters. Not only did the Republican Party distribute this book, but in the version that the party printed, Republican editors added such captions as "The Stupid Masses of the South" and "Revolution--Peacefully if we can, Violently if we must." The "Revolution . . . Violently if we must" statement referred to inciting slave revolts that would potentially cause the deaths of thousands or even tens of thousands of Southern citizens. * As one reads the speeches and letters of Confederate leaders during the war, it becomes apparent that they certainly didn't believe they were fighting merely to preserve slavery. For example, beginning in late 1862, James Phelan, Joseph Bradford, and Reuben Davis wrote to Jefferson Davis to express concern that some opponents were claiming the war "was for the defense of the institution of slavery" (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 479-480, 765). They called those who were making this claim "demagogues." Cooper notes that when two Northerners visited Jefferson Davis during the war, Davis insisted "the Confederates were not battling for slavery" and that "slavery had never been the key issue" (Jefferson Davis, American, p. 524).

* There is no doubt the issue of slavery was the main, immediate factor that led the original seven states of the Confederacy to secede, but it was certainly not the only factor. Also, it's crucial to understand that secession and the war were two different events. The election of Lincoln and the Radical Republicans in 1860 was the reason the Deep South states seceded. The issue of slavery was the biggest reason they decided to secede when Lincoln was elected, though, as mentioned, it was by no means the only reason. What about the four other states of the Confederacy? Why did they secede? They only seceded after Lincoln announced he was going to invade the Deep South. In fact, in two of those four states, the people had initially voted decidedly against secession. However, when Lincoln announced he was going to invade the seceded states, new referendums were held and the people voted strongly in favor of separation.

The causes of secession were not the causes of the war, and secession did not have to lead to war. The North could have allowed the South to go in peace, but it chose not to do so. The direct cause of the war itself was the North's invasion of the South. The battles started when Northern armies invaded the Southern states in an effort to destroy the Confederacy and to force the South back into the Union. * Precious few textbooks mention the fact that by 1864 key Confederate leaders, including Jefferson Davis, were prepared to abolish slavery. As early as 1862 some Confederate leaders supported various forms of emancipation. In 1864 Jefferson Davis officially recommended that slaves who performed faithful service in non-combat positions in the Confederate army should be freed. Robert E. Lee and many other Confederate generals favored emancipating slaves who served in the Confederate army. In fact, Lee had long favored the abolition of slavery and had called the institution a "moral and political evil" years before the war (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, New York: Ballantine Books, 1988, p. 281; Recollections and Letters of Robert E. Lee, New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2003, reprint, pp. 231-232). By late 1864, Davis was prepared to abolish slavery in order to gain European diplomatic recognition. Duncan Kenner, one of the biggest slaveholders in the South and the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee of the Confederate House of Representatives, strongly supported this proposal. So did the Confederate Secretary of State, Judah Benjamin. Davis informed congressional leaders of his intentions, and then sent Kenner to Europe to make the proposal. Davis even made Kenner a minister plenipotentiary so as to ensure he could make the proposal to the British and French governments and that it would be taken seriously. The Abolitionists, Slavery, and the South

The conduct of the Northern abolitionists is rarely questioned because their ultimate goal, the emancipation of the slaves, was undeniably noble and praiseworthy. But does a worthy goal justify any and all means to achieve it, even if those means include the use of egregious falsehoods and violence? Granted, it's tragic and frustrating when immoral institutions or evil practices are protected by law, either expressly in the Constitution, by legislative acts, or by court rulings. However, the proper way to remedy such situations is to change the law or to reverse the court ruling, not to resort to inflammatory slander and violence. Slavery was an institution that was protected from federal intervention by the Constitution. Even Lincoln said repeatedly the Constitution prohibited the federal government from abolishing slavery. In 1835 the House of Representatives voted 201 to 7 that Congress had no constitutional authority to interfere with slavery. There were only two ways to legally abolish slavery, and that was by each state voting to end slavery within its borders or by the passage of a constitutional amendment banning slavery in every state. The abolitionists realized it would be many years before slavery could be abolished by either of these two processes. Therefore, many of them, if not most of them, resorted to spreading grossly misleading attacks on the South, and some of them even began supporting or launching armed raids into the South that were designed to incite violent slave rebellions. Naturally, Southerners resented these methods. They saw considerable hypocrisy and lawlessness in such assaults. They knew that slavery had been legal since the founding of the republic. They also knew that many of the founding fathers had owned slaves, and that slavery had existed in the North for decades. When the Northern states abolished slavery, they did so gradually, and they permitted Northern slaveholders to sell their slaves to the South. Similarly, when England abolished slavery, slaveholders were compensated. Yet, Northern abolitionists, some of whom were Radical Republicans, demanded that the Southern states free their slaves immediately and without compensation, which even Lincoln said was unfair. Additionally, the abolitionists made no suggestion that the Northern states should return any of the large fortunes they had made from the slave trade or from the sale of Northern slaves to the South. Even more upsetting to many Southerners were the abolitionists' attempts to incite slave insurrections. When the British attempted to incite slave revolts in the American colonies, the colonists greatly resented it, and Thomas Jefferson cited this in the Declaration of Independence as one of the colonists' grievances against the British.

In many ways one can compare the situation that existed with slavery to the situation that now exists with abortion. Abortion is an immoral practice that was legalized by a highly questionable ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973. No matter how dubious or unfounded the court's ruling may have been, the decision established abortion as a protected practice in American law. As a result, tens of millions of unborn children have been killed in abortion clinics. In an effort to stop this evil practice, a few radical anti-abortion activists have resorted to bombing abortion clinics and to shooting abortion doctors. As much as one might detest abortion (as I do), one cannot condone these actions. In terms of the cost in human lives, abortion has caused far, far more death and suffering than did slavery. There is simply no comparison. Nevertheless, no responsible citizen, no matter how strongly he or she dislikes abortion, condones the bombing of abortion clinics or the shooting of abortion doctors. Similarly, although I certainly admire the Northern abolitionists for their opposition to slavery, I cannot condone some of their methods, especially their armed raids into the South. Few nations or peoples respond positively when they're subjected to false accusations and unfair criticism, and especially when they're subjected to armed raids. Tilley expressed the view of many Southerners that slavery could have been abolished peacefully and that some of the abolitionists' methods only made the situation worse: The record has disclosed that prior to the onslaught of the abolitionists, gradual emancipation was in the making. As a matter of course, it was not to be accomplished overnight. Beyond question, it would require a plan of just compensation to those on whom would fall the financial loss. . . . After all is said, the best blood of the South knew then, as its descendants know now, that slavery was inherently, incurably evil, an economic and moral anachronism. Slavery and the ideals of freedom which inspired the founders of the nation were wholly incompatible conceptions. No system of human bondage, be it ever so humane, could have long endured the blinding light of American civilization and Christianity.

Time was required. Time is a potent problem solver. . . . Time would have wrought the extirpation [elimination] of human enslavement. The march of progress, intellectual, social, and spiritual, could not long have tolerated the barrier of such a stumbling block. That the ugliest blot on American life is forever gone from these shores no individual Southerner regrets. It is just possible, however, that he may be indulged the privilege to submit that, in light of all the facts, the method of its going was transparently unjustified and unfair. (The Coming of the Glory, pp. 46-47) On an aside note, it should be observed that the South’s anger over the attempts to incite slave revolts was a major reason that Confederate leaders strongly objected when the North began to use former slaves in the Union forces that were invading and ravaging the Southern states. Few textbooks mention the fact that Union forces often compelled ex-slaves to fight in the Union army. Nor do many textbooks explain that Union soldiers frequently took slaves away from their farms and plantations against their will. Confederate leaders, and most Southerners as well, viewed the Union army’s use of former slaves as a federally sanctioned slave revolt. From their viewpoint, since those slaves had either been stolen or had run away, they still belonged to their owners and had no legal right to be soldiers nor to take up arms against Southern citizens. Slavery was still legal in the South, and it was still legal in the four Union slave states. Yet, Union armies didn’t invade and devastate Northern slave states, only Southern slave states. Of course, on the other hand, one can certainly sympathize with those former slaves who joined the Union army out of desire to free their fellow blacks who were still being held as slaves in the South. I can’t say that if I had been in their position that I wouldn’t have wanted to do the same thing. But I can also understand the Confederate position on the matter. What If the Confederacy Had Survived? Although I don't support secession in our day, I don't agree with the view that it would have been a catastrophe if the Confederacy had survived. The claim is sometimes heard that if the South had remained independent, we could not have defeated Nazi Germany and Japan in World War II. Yet, England and America, though separate nations after the Revolutionary War, were able to work together to defeat Hitler and Tojo. There's no reason that the U.S.A. and the C.S.A. could not have worked together to defeat the fascist threat. The Confederate States and the United States could have worked together in numerous areas for the benefit of all Americans, North and South. All the states still would have been American states, but with somewhat different laws in certain cases. The borders could have remained open. Trade and business could have flowed freely between the two nations. An independent South, freed from the protectionist trade policies of the North, could have traded directly with Europe and undoubtedly would have grown even more prosperous than she was before the war. Hopefully, Northern citizens would have seen the benefits of lower tariffs and would have insisted that their leaders adopt such policies. (Instead, high tariffs remained in place for decades after the war.) If the Confederacy had survived, abortion most likely would not have been legalized in the Southern states; taxes would have been much lower in the South; no federal income tax would have been imposed on the Southern states; prayer and Bible reading and the posting of the Ten Commandments would have remained in Southern schools; Southern anti-sodomy laws would not have been swept aside by an amoral U.S. Supreme Court; and sick "virtual" child pornography would not have been legalized as "protected free speech" by that same amoral U.S. Supreme Court.

We should keep in mind that the Confederate states and their citizens were American too. After all, they comprised the Confederate States of America. They still revered our founding fathers. In fact, they saw themselves as preserving and defending the principles of the founders. The official seal of the Confederacy featured George Washington. Confederate postage stamps bore the images of Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson. If the Confederacy had not been invaded but had been allowed to exist in peace, the relations between all the states would have been nearly identical to how they had been before secession, and the citizens of the states could have remained "one people" in every important sense. Similarly, if the U.S. were to announce tomorrow that it was withdrawing from the United Nations, how would this change the relations between the people and the governments of, let's say, America and England? Would it have any meaningful impact on the millions of British-American friendships? Would it have any meaningful impact on the relations between British and American families that are related to each other? Would our leaving the United Nations prevent us from working on a joint space-station project with the Russians, as we've been doing for years? Would it prevent us from continuing the close trade and business relationships that we have with Canada and England? Would it mean we could no longer have virtually open borders with Canada? Obviously, the answer to all these questions is no. These aren't exact analogies, but they're fairly close to the mark. It's hard to imagine now, but in the days before the Civil War the average citizen had very little contact with the federal government. Why? Because back then the federal government was much, much smaller than it is today. The states performed the great majority of the vital functions of government.

"We Lost Too Much": The War’s Impact on Our Form of Government The North's invasion and subjugation of the South destroyed the type of Union that the founding fathers established. We went from a Union in which the federal government's powers were strictly limited to a Union in which the federal government could dominate the states and control functions that were originally reserved to the states. We went from a Union where the federal government was prohibited from using force against a state to a Union where the federal government invaded and crushed eleven states. We went from a Union with a limited federal government and very low taxes to a Union with a huge federal government and much higher taxes. Basically, the only functions the federal government leaves to the states are those that it simply doesn't want to perform. McPherson explains how the relationship between the average American and the national government was changed because of the Civil War:

The Internal Revenue Act of 1862 taxed almost everything but the air northerners breathed. . . . The law also created a Bureau of Internal Revenue, which remained a permanent part of the federal government. . . . The relationship of the American taxpayer to the government was never again the same. . . .

The old federal republic in which the national government had rarely touched the average citizen except through the post office gave way to a more centralized polity that taxed the people directly and created an internal revenue bureau to collect these taxes, drafted men into the army, expanded the jurisdiction of federal courts, created a national currency and a national banking system, and established the first national agency for social welfare. . . . Eleven of the first twelve amendments to the Constitution had limited the powers of the national government; six of the next seven, beginning with the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, vastly expanded those powers at the expense of the states. (The Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 447-448, 859)

And: The Civil War marked a decisive turn in the nature of American nationality. Buried forever was the notion of the Union as a voluntary confederation of sovereign states. The word "Union" gradually gave way to "nation". . . . The war strengthened the national government at the expense of the states. Before 1861, only the post office among federal agencies touched directly the lives of most Americans. Citizens paid their taxes to local or state governments and settled most of their disputes in state courts. For money, they used the notes of banks chartered by state legislatures. When war came in 1861, the President called first on the state militia. State governors took the lead in recruiting, equipping, and officering the volunteer regiments. But the centralizing pressures of war changed all this. By 1863 the War Department prescribed enlistment quotas for states and drafted men directly into the army if states failed to meet the quotas. The President declared martial law and stationed soldiers in every state, where their powers of detention superseded those of state courts. The United States government levied a host of direct taxes and created an internal revenue bureau to collect them. (Ordeal By Fire, p. 485) For all practical purposes the Tenth Amendment, which reserves all unspecified powers to the states and to the people, was abolished by the North's victory. Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton came under attack during her confirmation hearings because she had dared to say in a 1996 speech that "we lost too much" in the way of states rights because of the Civil War. In her speech, Norton, who was then the Attorney General of Colorado, said the following: I recall, after I had just gone through this massive battle with the EPA on state sovereignty and states rights, visiting the east coast. For the first time, I had the opportunity to wander through one of those Civil War graveyards. I remember seeing this column that was erected in one of those graveyards. It said in memory of all the Virginia soldiers who died in defense of the sovereignty of their state. It really took me aback. Sure, I had been filing briefs and I thought that was pretty brave. And then there were times we looked beyond the substance. When we looked at the decision making process. And understood the 10th Amendment was part of that separation of powers. It was part of what was supposed to guarantee that our government would remain limited. What would guarantee our freedom? Again, we certainly had bad facts in that case where we were defending state sovereignty by defending slavery.

But we lost too much. We lost the idea that the states were to stand against the Federal government gaining too much power over our lives. That is the point I think we need to reappreciate. We need to remind ourselves and remind the political debate that part of the reason the states need to be able to make their own decisions is to provide that check in our Federal system against too much power going to Washington. ("Rediscovering the 10th Amendment," delivered at the Stevinson Center's Annual Summer Symposium, Vail, Colorado, August 24, 1996)

Jefferson Davis believed the North's denial of the Southern states' desire to peacefully leave the Union was a repudiation of the original form of our government, and he noted that secession was in no way a hostile act: Secession, on the other hand, was the assertion of the inalienable right of a people to change their government. . . . Under our form of government, and the cardinal principles upon which it was founded, it should have been a peaceful remedy. The withdrawal of a state from a league has no revolutionary or insurrectionary characteristic. The government of the state remains unchanged as to all internal affairs. It is only its external or confederate relations that are altered. To term this action of a sovereign a "rebellion" is a gross abuse of language. So is the flippant phrase which speaks of it as an appeal to the "arbitrament of the sword" [i.e., trying to settle an issue by force]. In the late contest, in particular, there was no appeal by the seceding states to the arbitrament of arms. There was on their part no invitation or provocation to war. They stood in the attitude of self-defense, and were attacked for merely exercising a right guaranteed by the original terms of the compact. . . . The man who defends his house against attack cannot with any propriety be said to have submitted the question of his right to it to the arbitrament of arms. . . . The invasions of the Southern states, for purposes of coercion, were in violation of the written Constitution, and the attempt to subjugate sovereign states, under the pretext of "preserving the Union," was alike offensive to law, good morals, and the proper use of language. The Union was the voluntary junction of free and independent states; to subjugate any of them was to destroy the constituent parts, and necessarily, therefore, must be the destruction of the Union itself. (The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 1, pp. 157, 379) The Right of Secession

What about the right of secession? Did the South have the right to secede? Thomas Jefferson clearly indicated he would allow a state to leave the Union, even if he didn't agree with its reasons for wanting to separate. President John Tyler likewise believed a state had the right to leave the Union. So did President John Quincy Adams. The Northern Federalists' Hartford Convention declared in 1814 that a state had the right to secede in cases of "absolute necessity" (Alan Brinkley, Richard Current, Frank Freidel, and T. Harry Williams, American History: A Survey, Eighth Edition, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1991, p. 230). None other than President Ulysses S. Grant (1868-1876), who was also the commanding general of all Union armies at the end of the war, said he believed the founding fathers probably would have allowed the South to go in peace. Grant stated,

If they had foreseen it, the probabilities are they would have sanctioned the right of a State or States to withdraw rather than that there should be war between brothers. (The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, Old Saybrook, Connecticut: Konecky & Konecky, 1992, reprint, p. 131) Grant also said he believed that if any of the original thirteen states had attempted to secede from the Union under the Articles of Confederation, their right to do so would not have been challenged. Said Grant,

If there had been a desire on the part of any single State to withdraw from the compact at any time while the number of States was limited to the original thirteen, I do not suppose there would have been any to contest the right, no matter how much the determination might have been regretted. (The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, p. 130) The Declaration of Independence says governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed" and that people have the right to form a new government when they believe they need to do so, "laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." Southern citizens overwhelmingly supported secession and the formation of their states into the Confederate States of America. This is just a small part of the evidence that shows the South had valid grounds for believing it had the right to peacefully leave the Union. In offering this evidence, I don’t mean to imply that I support secession in our day. My intent is merely to show that the South had just cause for believing secession was legal. A thorough treatment of the legality of secession can be found in attorney John Remington Graham’s recent book A Constitutional History of Secession (Louisiana: Pelican Publishing, 2002). The Devastation of the South One cannot understand why many Southerners feel the war was unjust without understanding the extent of the devastation that the South experienced during the war. When a whole region experiences the kind of devastation and brutality that the South suffered, accounts of such wrongs are passed down from parents to children for many generations. Today nearly all textbooks either ignore or gloss over the cruel type of warfare that Northern armies waged in the South and the amount of destruction and suffering that those armies caused. So, before I conclude this article, I'd like to take just a moment to examine the nature and consequences of the devastation that was inflicted on the South. Kenneth Davis: Along with the horrible number of deaths and crippling wounds, much of the seceded South was left in smoldering ruins. The Southern economy was practically nonexistent. The dollar value of the destruction was staggering. Although cotton resumed its significant position almost immediately, it was another twenty-five years before the number of livestock in the South returned to prewar levels. . . .

William T. Sherman [a Union general] always maintained that the devastatingly destructive war he had waged on the Confederacy shortened the war and saved soldiers' lives. His good intentions went unappreciated by the victims of his ruthlessness. For many along his path, after Sherman's troops departed, there was literally nothing left on which to support a family. Houses were looted. Those animals that were not taken by the Union troops were killed. Under Sherman's "scorched earth" policy, any item that could be used for farming or manufacturing was destroyed, the grim "justice" for what Sherman viewed as treason.

In the aftermath of the war, the entire Confederacy, save sections west of the Mississippi that had been spared the massive battles, was devastated--physically, economically, even spiritually. The postwar South was probably worse off than Europe after either of the world wars of this century. Because of Sherman's notorious destruction of the southern railroads, many of Lee's defeated soldiers had to walk home from Virginia. Many found that their homes had been burned. In some cases, entire towns and even whole counties had been evacuated. (Don't Know Much About the Civil War, pp. 411, 425)

Randall and Donald: On the nature and extent of devastation at the South the historian's sources present a sad record. By the end of the war the eleven seceding states had 32 percent fewer horses than in 1860, 30 percent fewer mules, 35 percent fewer cattle, 20 percent fewer sheep, and 42 percent fewer swine. . . . Omitting slave property from his calculations, Professor Sellers concludes that "southern wealth in 1860 had shrunk in value at the end of the war by 43 percent". . . . The South had been broken by the war. Lands were devastated. Proud plantations were now mere wrecks. Billions of economic value in slaves had been wiped away by emancipation measures without that compensation which Lincoln himself had admitted to be equitable. . . . Accumulated capital had disappeared. Banks were shattered; factories were dismantled; the structure of business intercourse had crumbled. In Atlanta, Columbia, Mobile, Richmond, and many other places great havoc had been wrought by fire. The interior of South Carolina, in the wake of Sherman's march, "looked for many miles like a broad black streak of ruin and desolation--the fences all gone; lonesome smoke stacks, surrounded by dark heaps of ashes and cinders, marking the spots where human habitations had stood; the fields along the road wildly overgrown by weeds, with here and there a sickly looking patch of cotton or corn cultivated by ***** squatters. In the city of Columbia . . . a thin fridge of houses encircled a confused mass of charred ruins of dwellings and business buildings, which had been destroyed by a sweeping conflagration." The Tennessee valley, according to the account of an English traveler, "consists for the most part of plantations in a state of semi-ruin, and plantations of which the ruin is for the present total and complete. . . . The trail of war is visible throughout the valley in burnt up gin-houses, ruined bridges, mills, and factories, of which latter the gable walls only are left standing, and in large tracts of once cultivated land stripped of every vestige of fencing. . . . Borne down by losses, debts, and accumulating taxes, many who were once the richest among their fellows have disappeared from the scene, and few have yet to take their place." (The Civil War and Reconstruction, pp. 517, 543-544) McPherson: The war not only killed one-quarter of the Confederacy's white men of military age. It also killed two-fifths of southern livestock, wrecked half of the farm machinery, ruined thousands of miles of railroad, left scores of thousands of farms and plantations in weeds and disrepair. . . . Two-thirds of assessed southern wealth vanished in the war. The wreckage of the southern economy caused the 1860s to become the decade of least economic growth in American history before the 1930s. As measured by the census, southern agricultural and manufacturing capital declined by 46 percent between 1860 and 1870, while northern capital increased by 50 percent. In 1860 the southern states had contained 30 percent of the national wealth; in 1870, only 12 percent. (The Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 818-819) Simkins: When surrender stopped the invader, physical destruction was apparent in many places. Lands were devastated, plantations wrecked. Accumulated capital had disappeared in worthless stocks, bonds, and currency. The banks had failed; factories had been dismantled; and the structure of business intercourse had crumbled. Two billion dollars invested in slaves had been wiped out, without the compensation which Lincoln himself had regarded as equitable. . . . Cotton worth $30,000,000 had been confiscated by federal Treasury agents. . . . The eighty miles from Harpers Ferry to New Market were described by a Virginia farmer as "almost a desert." "We had," he explained, "no cattle, hogs, sheep, or horses or anything else. The fences were all gone. . . . The barns were all burned; chimneys standing without houses, and houses standing without roofs, or doors, or windows". . . .

In December 1865, an estimated 500,000 white people in three states of the lower South were without the necessities of life, and some of them even starved. . . . Fifteen years after the war only the frontier states of Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Florida had as many acres under cultivation as in 1860. . . .

The spirit of vengeance was strong in the victorious North at first. . . . Because Southerners refused to be friendly, the federal army of occupation resorted to irritating retaliations. Women required to go to military headquarters for any favor were forced to take ironclad oaths of national loyalty. The wearing of Confederate uniforms was forbidden and when this order was enforced among men who had no other clothes, scenes of unforgivable humiliation resulted. . . . Church buildings were seized and turned over to Northern denominations, and ministers were not allowed to preach unless they agreed to conduct "loyal services, pray for the President of the United States, and for Federal victories." Direct refusal of Protestant Episcopal clergymen to substitute in their liturgy the name of the President of the United States for that of the President of the Confederate States resulted in the closing of churches and the dispersal of congregations. In addition, there was the burden of discriminatory war taxes and the confiscation laws of Congress. Federal Treasury agents threaded their way through the occupied areas seizing 3 million out of the 5 million bales of cotton which had not been destroyed. They corruptly enriched themselves. "I am sure," said the Secretary of the Treasury, "that I sent some honest agents South; but it sometimes seems very doubtful whether any of them remained honest for very long." A special tax of from 2.5 to 3 cents a pound on cotton yielded the federal treasury $68,000,000. Because of its effects on the economy of a prostrate region, this levy was called by the United States Commissioner of Agriculture "disastrous and disheartening in the extreme." As soon as the federal troops got a foothold in the South, property was seized and sold for nonpayment under the Direct Tax Act. (A History of the South, pp. 247-251, original emphasis) In conclusion, I hope that in this article I have provided some balance to the common, and I believe inaccurate and unfair, descriptions of the antebellum South, of the Confederacy, and of the events that led to the Civil War. When judged by any fair, reasonable comparison, the South was just as deserving of its independence as were the original thirteen colonies. Similarly, the South had just as much right as did the North to be governed by a government of its choosing. The Confederacy had just as much right to exist as did any other nation of its day. It's been said that those who fail to learn from the mistakes of history are bound to repeat them. But how can we learn from history if our version of history is markedly one-sided and incomplete? Sometimes the facts of history can be unsettling, especially when those facts have been widely suppressed. Robert Catlett Cave expressed my feelings about discussing such facts: I acknowledge . . . the obligation to heal dissensions, allay passion, and promote good feeling; but I do not believe that good feeling should be promoted at the expense of truth and honor. I sincerely desire that there may be between the people of the North and the people of the South increasing peace and amity, and that, in the spirit of genuine fraternity, they may work together for the prosperity and glory of their common country; but I do not think the Southern people should be expected to sacrifice the truth of history to secure that end. (The Men in Gray, Crawfordville, Georgia: Ruffin Flag Company, 1997, reprint, p. 17).



One of the latest possible reasons for the war was Northern big business it seems that recent findings might hold that they desired the war to free blacks as a cheaper work force then what they had to deal.





God Bless You and Our Southern People.

Answer 2

There is actually a very nice little video presentation on this on the website for the Supreme Court Historical Society which is supremecourthistory.org. Two of the Justices were involved in the election commission that decided the outcome of the disputed Hayes-Tilden election of 1876. The upshot of it was that the Democrats in the Southern States agreed to go along with seating the Republican candidate, Hayes, if the Republicans agreed to end the military occupation of the South that had been part of Reconstruction.

Answer 3

The disputed election of 1876.

The Democrats said they would let the Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes have the presidency if the occupying forces were withdrawn from the south. They were, and the Reconstruction state administrations collapsed.

Alistair Cook said it was a 'gentlemen's agreement'. Yeah, right.

Answer 4

The Union troops pulled out of the Southern states in 1876. Reconstruction ended that year.

Answer 5

It was ended as part of a political deal in the Hayes-Tilden presidential campaign. Rutherford B. Hayes's party, the Democrats, agreed to end reconstruction in return for Southern support. Hayes won.

Answer 6

Reconstruction had to end after the civil conflict after the country rebuilt itself after the civil conflict reconstruction became now not mandatory. the country reconstructed itself, how lengthy does reconstruction might want to very last? there's a era correct after reconstruction standard as radical reconstruction this became a time period the position you had knowledgeable blacks interior the south with powers of authority over some undesirable decrease classification whites.

Answer 7

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