Deal Johnny Reb Part II EDITED

Yes Virginia, It Was About Slavery...

Now, another common argument I hear it’s “Well, it was only a small percentage of the population that were slave owners. All those foot soldiers didn’t own slaves!”

Quite right, the majority of those (often bare)foot soldiers did not own slaves.

But their leaders did. Their senators, congressmen, members of their state assemblies, their governors did. And remember folks, this is a time before internet, before CNN, before TV, before radio, before telephones. Newspapers. That was it. And newspapers were blatantly biased. Most of the time in a big town you had two newspapers: one written and edited by those sympathetic to the Whig or Republican party and one written and edited by those sympathetic to the Democratic Party (which BTW, is the oldest of two major parties active today, though it has gone through much metamorphosis).

It would be as if you had two news sources: the Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee. How “fair and balanced” do you think the coverage would be?

Many poor or middle class people in the south didn’t like slavery, but were scared what would happen if all the slaves were freed. They were scared of how the blacks would retalliate if given legislative power. After the Nat Turner rebellion, some were scared of violence. Many of the poor whites were scared of the flood of freed slaves on the job market. Some hoped slavery would end but wanted it to end on it’s own rather than a federal power legislating it. (They ignored the fact that it was being actively transported to newly formed states and not showing much signs of dying a quiet & peaceful death.)

Throw into the mix a pack of leaders who have a vested interest in keep the slaves on their plantations and the hefty rhetoric of guys like John C. Calhoun …

Very different would be the circumstances under which emancipation would take place with us. If it ever should be effected, it will be through the agency of the Federal Government, controlled by the dominant power of the Northern States of the Confederacy, against the resistance and struggle of the Southern. It can then only be effected by the prostration of the white race; and that would necessarily engender the bitterest feelings of hostility between them and the North. But the reverse would be the case between the blacks of the South and the people of the North. Owing their emancipation to them, they would regard them as friends, guardians, and patrons, and centre, accordingly, all their sympathy in them. The people of the North would not fail to reciprocate and to favor them, instead of the whites. Under the influence of such feelings, and impelled by fanaticism and love of power, they would not stop at emancipation. Another step would be taken--to raise them to a political and social equality with their former owners, by giving them the right of voting and holding public offices under the Federal Government. We see the first step toward it in the bill already alluded to--to vest the free blacks and slaves with the right to vote on the question of emancipation in this District. But when once raised to an equality, they would become the fast political associates of the North, acting and voting with them on all questions, and by this political union between them, holding the white race at the South in complete subjection. The blacks, and the profligate whites that might unite with them, would become the principal recipients of federal offices and patronage, and would, in consequence, be raised above the whites of the South in the political and social scale. We would, in a word, change conditions with them--a degradation greater than has ever yet fallen to the lot of a free and enlightened people, and one from which we could not escape, should emancipation take place (which it certainly will if not prevented), but by fleeing the homes of ourselves and ancestors, and by abandoning our country to our former slaves, to become the permanent abode of disorder, anarchy, poverty, misery, and wretchedness.

...and you have a non-slave owning public ready to fight so you can keep your slaves. They thought the Union was going to come down and destroy their way of life.

Kinda in the same way there are tens of thousands of troops in Iraq “fighting for American freedom” right now. (Well, maybe not so many of them believe that now.)

Sorry, couldn’t resist.

So the South was fighting for State's Rights.

Unfortunately, the Right they chose to take a stand on and fight over was slavery.

EDIT: What amuses me was that people say they were "fighting for states rights!", yet when those states rights interfered with slavery, it was another story altogether. The Fugitive Slave Act and the Dredd Scott decision both put the rights of slave owner over state laws in order to return the slave to the owner or for the owner to keep the slave as propoerty, despite his residence in a non-slave state. Hell, not only did the Fugitive Slave Act allow roving bands of slave hunters through non-slave states, the Act stated that the local citizens of a non-slave owning state *must* assist in the capture of runaway slaves no matter what the laws of the state maybe.

Where are the rights of the States in that?

Now as for the “Lincoln started the war” crap...

The fact is the South was so paranoid about keeping their slaves that Lincoln didn’t even appear on the ballot in many southern states. They were so scared of his abolitionist views they started seceding as soon as he was elected, before he even took office. He was elected in November of 1860, South Carolina succeeded in December. Before he took office in March of 1861, eight states had left the Union.

He didn’t even have the power to do anything yet.

Now when South Carolina succeeded, they had a slight problem: The federally owned fort on the federally owned island in Charleston Harbor.

"Federally owned" which means that when the Confederate army took it over they were invading Federal territory, months before Lincoln sent the troops to Bull Run.

And the fact is April of 1861 is not the first time the Confederates had opened fire on a federal ship. Buchanan had attempted to resupply and reinforce the Fort Sumter in January of that year with the steamship The Star of the West. (BTW- Very interesting source there.) The Rebels shot at that one too, driving it out of the bay. The Commander of the Fort refrained from opening fire on the Confederate batteries for fear of starting a war.

The truth is the South seceded first and they fired first, before Lincoln had a chance to do squat.

Now it is probably true that Lincoln wanted an opening to bring the Confederate states back into the Union by any means necessary.

And it is quite probable that Lincoln knew that sending a ship into to resupply Ft. Sumter was going to cause a war.

But quite frankly the Confederates were spoiling for one so bad he could have just sneezed in a general southerly direction and they would have been firing the forward batteries.

So he sneezed, so to speak.

And what choice did he have really? Anderson had told him that they either had to be re-supplied or they had to surrender the fort. I find it amusing that so many people who so loudly proclaim America’s sovereignty and national defense as paramount in today’s political climate feel that Lincoln should have been more mellow handing over a federal fort to a state full of traitors.

Was Lincoln ready to call up 75,000 troops the day after the Fort fell to Confederate cannon fire…and send them into Maryland in July? Hell yes. But the South fired first. Twice.

Now having said all this, the South put up one hell of a fight and the descendants of those soldiers should be proud of their ancestors service, if not for the reasons why. The fact is no one ever out-thought Lee except perhaps Lee himself (at Gettysburg), and even when those troops were starving they were prepared to fight on. Grant & Sherman weren’t smarter, they just beat them into submission. They were the first set of Union commanders to walk out of a battle in which they lost 30,000 men to say, “I still have 70,000 men. We’ll break camp and persue at day break.”

I always find the Civil War a fascinating piece of American history because…well, for one it was the last “gentlemen’s war”. All the commanding officers knew each other on the other side of the battle field and so there are these almost romantically chivalrous moments of friendship that shine through this horrific amount of bloodshed. Shelby Foote, God rest him, once said that the most bloody, nasty fist fights he had ever witnessed had been between brothers and so it is with Civil Wars of all nations. It brings out the best and the worst in a people.

I mean as a Historian I cannot read the account of Chamberlain’s salute to the Confederate soldiers at Appomattox without tears in my eyes.

And that fact that when Americans were pushed to throw the hammer down, they didn’t do it over resources (well, one could say the South defined it as being over resources) or money, they did it over ideals of “All men are created equal…”

It’s a tremendously interesting and poignant point in our history.

For further into, here is a timeline of the American Civil War.

And a place to get started with some of the most interesting people involved in the Civil War.