would it have been possible to be a confederate and a devout catholic?

[Lujack]

What the North did to the South was UNPRECEDENTED in Christian against Christian wars. The Union RAPED the South - burning homes. crops, stealing or slaughtering farm animals - total devastation. Man, Woman, Child - no mercy was shown to any who stood in the way or could not get out of harms way. What the north did to the south makes an utter mockery of the notion that the north was at war over moral principals. Slavery is morally wrong but mass extermination and a scorched earth policy that made civilians all equal targets for suffering was barbaric and utterly inhumane. It was an “any means justify the ends” mentality and a shameful moment in American History that is only paralleled by the savage atrocities and taking of lands committed against the native Americans.

James

Utter, utter nonsense. The Union did not RAPE the South; they weren’t even all that bad when you compare them to the general conduct of armies. There was never any deliberate policy of extermination or assaults on civilians, and the idea that “no mercy” was shown is also utter nonsense and a bit of a slander on the Union. Where was no quarter given? Where were no prisoners taken? Maybe the Confederates at Fort Pillow took no prisoners, but you’ll never be able to prove that Sherman didn’t take prisoners, because it didn’t happen. The exhaustion of war itself, which required taking supplies and food from areas that didn’t have enough to give, and the havoc wreaked by marching armies did all that damage, without any deliberate policy of assaults on civilians. Sherman’s March to Sea is quite overrated as far as “atrocities” go; Columbia, South Carolina, burned to the ground because retreating Confederates set the cotton bales on fire, and Atlanta was wrecked by the fact that battles were fought there. Northern Virginia was wrecked by the fact that the armies basically spent three years in a very confined area; how was any land supposed to find that?

But, if you’d be so kind, because they were oh so obviously present list the “atrocities”, source them, and explain how they were unprecedented in a war between two Christian nations. Not that you’ll be able to, because that’s not the way it was.

 

[Lujack]

President Lincoln, General Sherman, and General Grant believed the only way to defeat the Confederacy was through the concept of a total war. They needed to destroy everything to cripple the South’s economy and that’s exactly what they did.

Not really. Sherman believed in smashing the Confederate economy, and Lincoln believed in the principle of “concentration in time” (attacking everywhere at once), but Grant didn’t believe in destroying everything. Grant first wanted Vicksburg, to open the Mississippi, and he pursued that like a bulldog. Then he was sent to save Chattanooga, which he did, and then he sent Sherman against Atlanta while he himself took on Lee. His overriding principle was to engage Lee and keep pushing until he took Richmond, which he did, and brilliantly.

Grant is really the most underrated general of the war because he was able to go toe-to-toe with Robert E. Lee in battle. Shelby Foote gives Grant a lot of credit, but still puts Lee a little bit ahead; Gordon Rhea, who has written a whole series of books on the Grant vs. Lee struggle in Northern Virginia, basically puts them about equal. And remember, Grant was able to steal a march on Lee and cross the James, putting him in position outside Petersburg, and in position to start the beginning of the end; its Grant’s finest moment that nobody cares about.

If the CSA had won the Battle of Gettysburg, Great Britain would have pledged their support of the Confederacy and they would have won. The fact that that did not happen was a major factor in the South losing the war.

I don’t know. If the South won at Gettysburg, things would have gotten really interesting. I still don’t believe that the British would have come to the aid of the Confederacy; there was a significant faction that wanted to, but there was an equally significant faction that didn’t, especially among the working classes, who saw the war as over slavery. British aid to the South would have been very unpopular in Britain. The way Britain could have entered the war is if the United States did something to offend them, like in the Trent Affair. I think swooping in after a major Confederate victory was something of a pipe dream that the nobility had, and a vain hope that the Confederate high command had.

 

[Lujack]

The American Civil War was not fought over slavery. It just became associated with slavery because of it was one of the achievements reached during the War.

No, the war was fought over slavery.

The Civil War was fought over money. The North, being industrialized, had been heading towards a depression. The South, being agricultural, was prospering. The North had deemed that the prices it was getting for raw materials from the South were too high, and being politically in control, began enacting laws to lowering the prices the South could sell them for, as well as who it could sell to.

That’s not true at all. There were never laws passed limiting who the South could sell raw materials to, or what price they could sell them for. There were tariffs, which was a major issue in the Lower North, as they protected the Northern industries from competition with the British. And it is also not true that the North had been politically in control all that much before the election of Lincoln; James Buchanan was a notorious doughface (a Northerner who kowtowed to the every whim of Southern slaveholders), Franklin Pierce was a Southern supporter, and so was Millard Fillmore. Zachary Taylor was opposed to slavery in the territories, but he died and before him was James K. Polk, a supporter of the Southern vision of the United States all the way through (Polk was willing to fight for specious claims on the boundary of Texas, but caved pretty quickly on the better argument that the US had for Oregon).

The issue was that the South wanted more and more and more land for slavery; they broke down the Missouri Compromise because they wanted more land for slavery, they started the Mexican War because they wanted more land for slavery, they shoved a Fugitive Slave Law down the throats of the North under threat of secession (the biggest expansion of Federal power to that point!! How’s that for states rights?), and they tried to force the Kansans to accept slavery when they didn’t want it with violence and mass electoral fraud. Then, when the North dared to elect Abraham Lincoln president, the Southerners took their ball and went home.

If the North so provoked the South, what action did Abe Lincoln take that caused the Deep South to attempt to leave the Union? The answer is nothing; the Deep South went out when Lincoln was literally sitting in Springfield, waiting to take office.

Now at this time, the South had been getting really good deals for their products to Foreign Nations, particularly the Europeans ones. After being screwed over by the North for several years, they began the secession of the states.

Nonsense. They seceded as soon as the doughfaces were out of power. They seceded as soon as they could no longer get their way on fugitive slaves and Kansas.

The point of freeing the slaves in the war, was to help weaken the South, and to gather support from the former slaves. Originally, even if a slave had managed to escape to the North, it had to be sent back to their owners.

Correct. A law that was very unpopular in the North and pushed down their throats under threat of secession. Did you know that in Massachusetts, slave catchers were often shot at, sometimes killed, and always roughed up? That the mayor of Boston defied Franklin Pierce to get an escaped slave to Canada? That a “vigilance committee” knocked down a courthouse door to try and free an escaped slave from federal marshals sent by James Buchanan? That Quakers would often hide fleeing slaves?

This was decided in the Dred Scott case.

A case ruled on by Southern sympathizer Roger Taney, who helped get his majority when doughface Buchanan exerted unfair pressure on a wavering Supreme Court justice to support a sweeping interpretation of the law.

So just escaping to the North meant nothing, because even if they were caught, they still had to be sent back. By freeing them, it offered them a place of safe haven in the North, weakened the backbone of the South, and provided civilian support for the war.

Actually, emancipation initially hurt Lincoln, especially in New York. It was a courageous move to stick with it, because it looked in early '64 like it might cost him re-election.

 

[Le_Cracquere]

I am not a historian but knew that Louisiana, previously a Fresh territory was in fact highly Catholic. But what I don’t know are the numbers that participated outside of simple policing and harassing maneuvers on the Mississippi waterway to prevent union forces from blockading Southern supplies or using it for their own transport. I believe there was a small regiment sent to General Lee to support him though.

The Catholic Bishops tried very hard to not get torn by the politics of the war since they did not want to split the church along political lines or force Catholics to support one side over the other since it was not seen fully as a moral war at all but rather a constitutional matter. This proved to be very wise since the Baptists and some other Protestant Churches DID make it into a moral war and divided over it even to this day. Lincoln’s men tried to FORCE the Catholic Bishops to say prayers for Lincoln and the union to prove their allegiance. But they refused to get drawn into a forced religious blessing for one side over the other and one was jailed for years until Lincoln had him released.

Catholics were in a very difficult position over this entire matter since it was overwhelmingly a Protestant Nation and Catholics were under a lot of persecution and contempt as it was.

But yes some firebrand Bishops did want to make it a purely moral issue and no doubt did threaten excommunication. And this would have been very hard for individual Catholics who had relatives on either side of the Mason Dixon Line and there were different opinions among Bishops on what was proper here. In the Catholic Church Bishops are the supreme authority for their dioceses when the pope has not voiced his sentiments for the entire Church and it would have been entirely possible for a southern bishop to support defending the just principals of state rights (a Catholic principal of subsidiarity) over the slavery issues since oppression of freedoms applied to entire states could easily be seen as a greater evil than the much lessor incidents of slavery. Overall the Catholic Church desired to convert the blacks to the Catholic Church and of course get the southern states sentiments changed over time to give them their freedom.

James

Sounds about right. In my post, I was simply relating what I knew of some Southern bishops’ prewar and midwar pronouncements on the institution of SLAVERY; to my uneven knowledge of the situation, they were overwhelmingly neutral on the war, and on Catholics’ participation therein.

 

[Lujack]

By the way, what Catholic bishop was imprisoned by Abraham Lincoln for refusing to say prayers for Union victory in the war? As far as I can find, this never happened; in fact, Lincoln maintained good relations with Archbishop Hughes of New York, and, interestingly enough, clumsily tried to convince Pope Pius IX that Hughes ought to be made a cardinal (this was ignored).

 

[jtoth]

By the way, what Catholic bishop was imprisoned by Abraham Lincoln for refusing to say prayers for Union victory in the war? As far as I can find, this never happened; in fact, Lincoln maintained good relations with Archbishop Hughes of New York, and, interestingly enough, clumsily tried to convince Pope Pius IX that Hughes ought to be made a cardinal (this was ignored).

I never heard about this…surely in my studies it would have come up…but hey ya never know!

 

[CentralFLJames]

Sounds about right. In my post, I was simply relating what I knew of some Southern bishops’ prewar and midwar pronouncements on the institution of SLAVERY; to my uneven knowledge of the situation, they were overwhelmingly neutral on the war, and on Catholics’ participation therein.

Bishop William Henry Elder (1819-1904) Bishop of Natchez, Mississippi (1857-80).
He was a native Southerner and was one of the most prominent Church leaders in the South and while initially skeptical later instructed his diocese to give their allegiance to the Confederate government. But he avoided aligning the entire Catholic Church with the secession movement itself. He saw that the constitutional provisions and protections were being ignored by the North and could not be relied on.
Catholic Encyclopedia entry:
In 1864 he “refused to obey the order of the Federal troops at Natchez and to have certain prayers for the President of the United States recited publicly in the churches of his diocese. He was arrested, tried, and convicted; but the decision of the military court was reversed at Washington”.

Willard E. Wight, “Bishop Elder and the Civil War,” Catholic Historical Review, Vol.4, No.3 (1958), 290.
During the Northern occupation of Mississippi in 1863 and 1864, Union authorities attempted to force Bishop Elder to direct all priests under his jurisdiction to pray publicly for President Lincoln at every Mass. Refusal to do so would have constituted disloyalty and would have been punished. Bishop Elder refused to comply and as a result, was ordered to remain inside Federal military lines, which included Mississippi at that time. The Union took control of his cathedral, as well as every other church that refused to offer prayers for President Lincoln. Lincoln eventually ordered Bishop Elder’s release, but these experiences gave the Southern bishop even more reason to support the Confederate cause.

Some of the Bishop’s Sentiments:

Letter to the Bishop of Chicago in 1861:
I hold it is the duty of all Catholics in the seceding states to adhere to the actual government without reference to the rights or the wisdom of making the separation-or the grounds for it-our state government [and] our new Confederation are de facto our only existing government here and it seems to me as good citizens we are bound not only to acquiesce in it but to support it [and] contribute means [and] arms [and] above all to avoid weakening it by division of counsel without necessity.

Letter to the Archbishop of Baltimore:
in a letter to the Archbishop of Baltimore: “…if [Catholics] were satisfied, dispassionately, that secession was the only practical remedy…their religion [does] not forbid them to advocate it.”
James

 

[CentralFLJames]

I never heard about this…surely in my studies it would have come up…but hey ya never know!

That’s probably because you are reading Protestant History Books and books published from northern publisher companies.

James

 

[jtoth]

That’s probably because you are reading Protestant History Books and books published from northern publisher companies.

James

That could be very possible…History books are sooo different in the North and South…It’s really amazing actually.

 

[CentralFLJames]

Utter, utter nonsense. The Union did not RAPE the South; they weren’t even all that bad when you compare them to the general conduct of armies.

…

But, if you’d be so kind, because they were oh so obviously present list the “atrocities”, source them, and explain how they were unprecedented in a war between two Christian nations. Not that you’ll be able to, because that’s not the way it was.

Lincoln waged his TOTAL WAR without an actual declaration of war, without authorization for war and completely ignored almost the entire constitutional provisions for the rights of state to succeed. That war cost the lives of 620,000 Americans and untold more wounded – Including the murder of 50,000 innocent Southern civilians. As a percentage of the South’s total civilian population that number is even more horrid. What Sherman did to Georgia in his burning march to the sea was monstrous and devastated the ability of Southerners in that region from even being able to live off the land. His destruction converted them from self-sufficiency to an enslavement to poverty for generations to come and to be “beholding” to the generous North to take care of these poor ignorant Southern wretches who dared to hold to the silly romantic idea that states had any real rights. And let’s not even get into what the North did to Southern Prisoners with a deliberate campaign of polemics and disinformation to justify cutting their rations and making conditions so squalid that men died of every disease and starvation. Sure the South had the same problem with being unable (but not unwilling) to feed its prisoners after the North scorched their crops and devastated the South’s transportation network; AND after the North refused prisoner exchanges unless the South capitulated to their demands. The north pressed hard in that regard to put politics over basic human rights to eat, drink and have shelter and ended up getting untold 10’s of thousands more killed in prisons. Thus the Union pressed war against not only combatants but also against the civilians and the wounded and near-death POWS who were no threat to anyone.

What a travesty - fighting wars over competing morality and sacrificing a greater number for a fewer number of slaves. If the North was so morally against slavery they would have done better to not fight the war and seek a financial and political solution. For the money and lives lost the nation could have done better with buying the slaves (and returning them to their African homes) and then giving crop subsidies or labor subsidies to hire any slaves that wanted to stay – at least till the South was able to get back to self sufficient production during the transient change in morality. But again, that would not be on the table since it was not a moral issue at all but a control issue.

It is only now that the South is once again coming into its own and it would not surprise me frankly to once again see a coalition of states forming itself along moral lines and states rights in opposition to this corrupt and fat federal government that sure seems hell bent on destroying all Christian morality and completely yoking us and our great grandchildren with a mountain of unpayable debt. It seems we are all being converted to a neo-sharecropper form of existence here in the USA under the Federalist system where the Multi-National Corporations have more rights to protection and voice than do the citizens. Times are a changing in this country right before our very eyes…

But please, if anything get this nonsence out of your head that the war was over the morality of slavery in any moral sense. It was not. It was over state’s rights and the economic advantage that slavery gave the South. When somone says “the Civil War was about slavery” it is simply wrong to automatically assume that means the moral repulsion to slavery as 90% of people are taught in High School to believe. Lincoln was mostly interested in FEDERAL CONTROL, keeping himself in office with his constituents and keeping the southern states from succeeding (since that reduced federal power). He would have bartered his so called morality over the slavery issue in the short term to keep the union intact. He then would have been more than happy to use a slow political war of attrition in the arena of politics to chip away at slavery from a moral argument to keep himself in office with the rising morality and political clout of the Abolitionists. And Catholics would have supported him on this since Catholics did not support slavery out of pure moral reasons as well. But Lincoln was a politician not a religious bible thumping Messiah that some social-engineers and Protestant Christians want to make him.

And that’s the bottom line - pure politics as usual in America.

We are far afield of the OP and I really do not want to continue this line of discussion since we are hijacking it and will get it closed.

James

 

[Major_Tom]

What the North did to the South was UNPRECEDENTED in Christian against Christian wars. The Union RAPED the South - burning homes. crops, stealing or slaughtering farm animals - total devastation. Man, Woman, Child - no mercy was shown to any who stood in the way or could not get out of harms way. What the north did to the south makes an utter mockery of the notion that the north was at war over moral principals. Slavery is morally wrong but mass extermination and a scorched earth policy that made civilians all equal targets for suffering was barbaric and utterly inhumane. It was an “any means justify the ends” mentality and a shameful moment in American History that is only paralleled by the savage atrocities and taking of lands committed against the native Americans.

James

Balance and context are everything!

Did the North devestate the South? Absolutely. Recall, though, that this ‘scorched earth’ policy came into play later in the war, when the sobering realization hit everyone that this would NOT be a cakewalk that would be resolved in simply a few weeks. To end it, even more blood and devestation woould need to be unleashed. Does this excuse it? No. But it was not a wanton policy at the beginning of the war.

I just finished reading Lies My Teacher Told Me, a wonderfully researched book by a fella named James Loewen. He’s a teacher by trade, and the point of the book was to higlight how poorly most high-school history books are written. You not only get his opinion, but compared and contrasted to several others all at once.

He shreds the idea that the point of the war was simply a matter of ‘state’s rights’, also.

Oh, and Loewen is from Mississippi, in case anyone’s concerned that he’s just a biased Yankee.

A few other points from him in a minute…

 

[Major_Tom]

If the North was so morally against slavery they would have done better to not fight the war and seek a financial and political solution. For the money and lives lost the nation could have done better with buying the slaves (and returning them to their African homes) and then giving crop subsidies or labor subsidies to hire any slaves that wanted to stay – at least till the South was able to get back to self sufficient production during the transient change in morality.

It was over state’s rights and the economic advantage that slavery gave the South. When somone says “the Civil War was about slavery” it is simply wrong to automatically assume that means the moral repulsion to slavery as 90% of people are taught in High School to believe. Lincoln was mostly interested in FEDERAL CONTROL, keeping himself in office with his constituents and keeping the southern states from succeeding (since that reduced federal power). He would have bartered his so called morality over the slavery issue in the short term to keep the union intact. He then would have been more than happy to use a slow political war of attrition in the arena of politics to chip away at slavery from a moral argument to keep himself in office with the rising morality and political clout of the Abolitionists. And Catholics would have supported him on this since Catholics did not support slavery out of pure moral reasons as well. But Lincoln was a politician not a religious bible thumping Messiah that some social-engineers and Protestant Christians want to make him.

Seek a political solution? We’d been trying to do that (North and South), for 200 years!

 

[Major_Tom]

From a political perspective it was federalism vs states rights (the North was fearful of the South’s rising clout and economic power and their getting way too cozy with the British without their permission).

James

True. That absolutely was a factor. Recall also that the North’s antipathy toward slavery existed from the get-go. They didn’t only “get religion” late in the game. Many in the North were pressing to get rid of it at the writing of the Constitution, only to have to give it up, lest the Constituion not have enough support to become ratified.

The history we read in the Protestant controlled and influenced secular school history books (mostly published by northern publishers) is fantasy and paints the north as having the moral high ground while it paints the south as universally ignorant and abusive to blacks. The truth is while there were abuses many of the blacks were treated by their owners with compassion and became like family members. Many were much better off in the South than they ever were under the harsh conditions where they came from. Most people don’t realize it but many of the blacks were NOT originally free to begin with and lived in squalid conditions in Africa. That is, the blacks in Africa were being enslaved in mass by the Muslims who were conquering Africa and funding their empire by selling those they did not want to convert to Islam as mere chattel to the Protestant England with the head of the Protestant Church’s (the King/Queen) full consent. It’s easy to see that the war between the North and the South was less about slavery than it was about economics, control and power among competing Protestant dominant secular cultures.

Apart from the slavery issue that was mostly practiced only by the relatively few wealthy Southern large-plantation owners the South’s congeniality and rich social fabric and self-sufficient spirit – it was economics and states rights and the sothern way of life that most southerners fought for.

James

Wow. Could not disagree more. We’re talking several hundred thousand slaves, all owned by a “few plantation owners” ?! Putting it politely, that is simply not accurate.

So the slaves should be glad that were slaves, because they were treated so well? Loewen (as mentioned in previous post) rips apart this argument. The picture you paint for some is true, but I suggest that it is the exception, and certainly not the rule. Regarding the brutal suppressions that occurred in the South when a revolt did break out… were thes fictions created by Protestant northerners?

If the treatment of slaves was so magnamimous, why then Jim Crow laws? If they were treated like family members, why did it take so long for integration post-War?

For additional support, I’d offer Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States; he’s (horrors!) quite left on the political spectrum. If that doesn’t suit your taste, I’d cite Bill Bennett’s (2) volume history (America: The Last Best Hope). If you’re limiting yourself to non-Protestants, don’t worry, he’s Catholic

 

[JRKH]

My my this thread has certainly took off in a different, but predictable direction.

For myself, rather than rehash the same old arguments about who was right and who was wrong in the war, I tend to look at history since then and ask, What would be different if the South had won the war??
In this I’m not talking about the continuation of slavery because, quite frankly, the industrial revolution was making it less and less profitable anyway.
No I’m refering to what would have happened to the United States and the World if the CSA had won. Of course such speculation gets fuzzier the further you move from the event.

I victory by the CSA would not have resulted in two stable counties moving forward. Rather it would result in continued fracturing and realigning of states and regions.
Why?
Because a Southern victory would have fatally wounded the Consitution of the United States with it’s strong central government, by accepting the right of seccesion.
After this, Any state in the union could secede citing the precident of the CSA. New England could withdraw over tarriffs, California, with it’s gold, could secede because of distance etc. The North would probably try to quickly pass an ammendment to prevent such future breakup but would the several states, even if tehy believed in the Union want to give up that right now that it was firmly established?

The CSA would not be safe either. In fact they would be even more fragile. After having fought a war for states rights, they would be unable to build a strong central government and be powerless to prevent the cessesion of one or more states from any “Confederate” government that is established.

Wesern expansion would probably have continued just as rapidly but with even more bloodshed as the US, the CSA and any other combination of allied states jockied for land and alliance.
This would have destroyed any chance that any the “States” (now countries) formally comprising the United States from becoming the power that the US did over the next 50-75 years.

No - Regardless of the reasons for the war or the methods used to conduct the war, when we look at history from 1865 to now, we can all be glad that the war ended in a Union Victory.

Peace
James

 

[Lujack]

Lincoln waged his TOTAL WAR without an actual declaration of war, without authorization for war and completely ignored almost the entire constitutional provisions for the rights of state to succeed.

Point me to those constitutional provisions.

That war cost the lives of 620,000 Americans and untold more wounded – Including the murder of 50,000 innocent Southern civilians.

Point me to the source that notes that 50,000 Southern civilians were “murdered”.

What Sherman did to Georgia in his burning march to the sea was monstrous and devastated the ability of Southerners in that region from even being able to live off the land. His destruction converted them from self-sufficiency to an enslavement to poverty for generations to come and to be “beholding” to the generous North to take care of these poor ignorant Southern wretches who dared to hold to the silly romantic idea that states had any real rights.

Ever heard of the “new South” in, uh, the late 1870’s? Poverty for generations to come, nonsense. The North was shamefully leaving the South and abandoning freedmen’s rights as early as 1876. And of course, Sherman’s actions are no more monstrous than the kidnappings perpetrated by Robert E. Lee during the Gettysburg campaign; hundreds of free Pennsylvania blacks were dragged back south and back into slavery (but the war wasn’t about slavery, and Lee hated slavery, so he never would have done anything like that, right?)

Oh, and no sources, either?

And let’s not even get into what the North did to Southern Prisoners with a deliberate campaign of polemics and disinformation to justify cutting their rations and making conditions so squalid that men died of every disease and starvation. Sure the South had the same problem with being unable (but not unwilling) to feed its prisoners after the North scorched their crops and devastated the South’s transportation network;

Source?

AND after the North refused prisoner exchanges unless the South capitulated to their demands.

Oh, the demands were so unreasonable, too! They only wanted black soldiers not to be sold into slavery, and white officers of black soldiers not to be hung! I don’t know, that seems like a rather basic demand.

The north pressed hard in that regard to put politics over basic human rights to eat, drink and have shelter and ended up getting untold 10’s of thousands more killed in prisons. Thus the Union pressed war against not only combatants but also against the civilians and the wounded and near-death POWS who were no threat to anyone.

Again, no sources. Conditions were poor at those camps due to incompetence, not malice. Part of the problem was that it got cold in the winter, and the camps weren’t equipped to keep people warm. The prison camps were terrible, no doubt, but that’s not “pressing war against wounded and near-death POWS”, that’s the sad consequences of war.

And basic human rights? From the South? What about liberty, the kind that wasn’t permitted to people that are known as slaves?

What a travesty - fighting wars over competing morality and sacrificing a greater number for a fewer number of slaves. If the North was so morally against slavery they would have done better to not fight the war and seek a financial and political solution. For the money and lives lost the nation could have done better with buying the slaves

Too bad the South wouldn’t sell. And that if you dared to even be a gradual emancipationist like Cassius Clay, you’d be chased out of the state. Read Road to Secession by William Freehling for some nice information on what happenned to anybody who questioned Southern slavery.

(and returning them to their African homes) and then giving crop subsidies or labor subsidies to hire any slaves that wanted to stay – at least till the South was able to get back to self sufficient production during the transient change in morality. But again, that would not be on the table since it was not a moral issue at all but a control issue.

It was not on the table because anybody who dared to oppose slavery was shouted down and threatened with secession. Charles Sumner gave a speech against secession and was caned nearly to death; Northern senators heard anti-slavery petitions and got slapped with a gag rule.

It is only now that the South is once again coming into its own

Nonsense. The Solid South dominated Democratic politics for years, electing Woodrow Wilson (a Virginian at heart), blocking Al Smith in 1924 and killing his election chances in 1928, and elected a president from Texas, Georgia, and Texas again. And held up Civil Rights legislation for about twenty years.

and it would not surprise me frankly to once again see a coalition of states forming itself along moral lines

Like the right to hold slaves?

and states rights in opposition to this corrupt and fat federal government that sure seems hell bent on destroying all Christian morality

Like the moral holding of slaves?

Like the yoke that slaves had to bear?

It seems we are all being converted to a neo-sharecropper form of existence

Like the former slaves who were forced into sharecropping by the “redeemer governments” in the 1880’s?

here in the USA under the Federalist system where the Multi-National Corporations have more rights to protection and voice than do the citizens.

Like the protection and voice that slaves got?

 

[Lujack]

But please, if anything get this nonsence out of your head that the war was over the morality of slavery in any moral sense. It was not.

It was.

It was over state’s rights and the economic advantage that slavery gave the South. When somone says “the Civil War was about slavery” it is simply wrong to automatically assume that means the moral repulsion to slavery as 90% of people are taught in High School to believe.

It wasn’t. It was ultimately about slavery.

Lincoln was mostly interested in FEDERAL CONTROL, keeping himself in office with his constituents and keeping the southern states from succeeding (since that reduced federal power). He would have bartered his so called morality over the slavery issue in the short term to keep the union intact.

And then proceeded to eliminate slavery in the long-term. After all, his platform was to keep slavery out of the territories, and let it wither away. But that drove the South out of the Union. You are right; it was about control. The Slave Power wanted control over the territories, and the Republican Party didn’t want to give it to him.

Lincoln always intended for the limiting and reducing of slavery; the Slave Power always wanted its expansion and strengthening. Remember the Missouri Compromise? The Slave Power broke it and tried to steal Kansas with blood and fire. Remember Personal Liberty Laws? The Slave Power tried to quash them and replace them with fugitive slave laws.

He then would have been more than happy to use a slow political war of attrition in the arena of politics to chip away at slavery from a moral argument to keep himself in office with the rising morality and political clout of the Abolitionists. And Catholics would have supported him on this since Catholics did not support slavery out of pure moral reasons as well. But Lincoln was a politician not a religious bible thumping Messiah that some social-engineers and Protestant Christians want to make him.

Lincoln was a politician and a visionary. He was opposed to slavery because he believed it to be wrong; “If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong”, and he knew that in the end right would prevail. For that reason, he was determined to keep the Slave Power out of the territories; and over the issue of slavery in the territories, the rebels went out.

And that’s the bottom line - pure politics as usual in America.

We are far afield of the OP and I really do not want to continue this line of discussion since we are hijacking it and will get it closed.

James

You don’t get off that easy. You fire a shot at the North and Lincoln, then say “But nobody respond because that’ll get the thread closed, so give me the last word!”

 

[Lujack]

Bishop William Henry Elder (1819-1904) Bishop of Natchez, Mississippi (1857-80).
He was a native Southerner and was one of the most prominent Church leaders in the South and while initially skeptical later instructed his diocese to give their allegiance to the Confederate government. But he avoided aligning the entire Catholic Church with the secession movement itself. He saw that the constitutional provisions and protections were being ignored by the North and could not be relied on.
Catholic Encyclopedia entry:*
In 1864 he “refused to obey the order of the Federal troops at Natchez and to have certain prayers for the President of the United States recited publicly in the churches of his diocese. He was arrested, tried, and convicted; but the decision of the military court was reversed at Washington”.

Willard E. Wight, “Bishop Elder and the Civil War,” Catholic Historical Review, Vol.4, No.3 (1958), 290.
During the Northern occupation of Mississippi in 1863 and 1864, Union authorities attempted to force Bishop Elder to direct all priests under his jurisdiction to pray publicly for President Lincoln at every Mass. Refusal to do so would have constituted disloyalty and would have been punished. Bishop Elder refused to comply and as a result, was ordered to remain inside Federal military lines, which included Mississippi at that time. The Union took control of his cathedral, as well as every other church that refused to offer prayers for President Lincoln. Lincoln eventually ordered Bishop Elder’s release, but these experiences gave the Southern bishop even more reason to support the Confederate cause.

Some of the Bishop’s Sentiments:

Letter to the Bishop of Chicago in 1861:
I hold it is the duty of all Catholics in the seceding states to adhere to the actual government without reference to the rights or the wisdom of making the separation-or the grounds for it-our state government [and] our new Confederation are de facto our only existing government here and it seems to me as good citizens we are bound not only to acquiesce in it but to support it [and] contribute means [and] arms [and] above all to avoid weakening it by division of counsel without necessity.

Letter to the Archbishop of Baltimore:
in a letter to the Archbishop of Baltimore: “…if [Catholics] were satisfied, dispassionately, that secession was the only practical remedy…their religion [does] not forbid them to advocate it.”

James

Ah. Elder, however, was never imprisoned by Lincoln, but due to a mix up of orders. General James Tuttle ordered Elder imprisoned, but Washington was never involved. In fact, Secretary of War Stanton initially ordered the order revoked, and received a letter of thanks from Bishop Elder. Tuttle’s replacement, Mason Brayman, later took command and reinstituted the order; Elder spent a few weeks in prison but was released on Washington’s orders. So its clear that the actions were taken by Tuttle and Brayman, and they were overruled by Stanton and Lincoln (who brought the matter to Stanton’s attention after receiving a letter from Elder.

 

[CentralFLJames]

True. That absolutely was a factor. Recall also that the North’s antipathy toward slavery existed from the get-go. They didn’t only “get religion” late in the game. Many in the North were pressing to get rid of it at the writing of the Constitution, only to have to give it up, lest the Constituion not have enough support to become ratified.

Wow. Could not disagree more. We’re talking several hundred thousand slaves, all owned by a “few plantation owners” ?! Putting it politely, that is simply not accurate.

Oh, I didn’t want to get pulled into this topic any deeper to hijack the OP and turn it into a history discussion and have to spend a lot of time revisiting all the history. I’ll particpate bit more since I am learning some new things…

I was curious so was just researching the numbers this morning and found a reference that says there were an estimated nearly 4 million slaves all together - mostly in the South but also boarder states and a few out west. The largest concentration was in Virgina at 491,000 followed by Alabama 435,080. What is very illuminating is examining the ratio of free citizens to slaves in the Lower South to get an idea of the economic leverage the south had. As well it should suggest how immediate in the minds of Southerns it would have been to imagine the social horror of suddenly finding themselves a minority in their own states by a Federal fiat that suddenly freed them all. The slaves by numbers could have easily taken over the south (esp. in Miss. & S, Carolina) by shear numbers if they had later organized themselves politically or elected to reverse the relationship to takeover the southern states by force. The South was already committed to an economy based on slavery and had invested itself fully in that and also put itself in SEVERE socio-economic jeopardy if the Fed. Gov. suddenly forced its policies on them. From the Southern perspective there had to be real fears that they would become dominated by the slaves if forced to release them and might reasonably expect retributions and civil unrest and conflict. In a very real sense the election of Lincoln ignited the realization that the Southerner’s very lives were in jeopardy if nearly 4 million slaves who had limited exposure to the American culture were suddenly turned loose on the streets. Southerners knew that there would be a different kind of civil war and massive bloodshed. The South clearly preferred to take its chances warring with the Federal Government over what they had to imagine was a surety of the complete chaos, civil unrest and rupture to society that would occur if the bowed to Lincolns wishes.

Lower Southern States Population 1860

State       Free Pop.    Slave Pop. Ratio Free:Slave
Alabama    519,121       435,080      1.19
Florida         78,679         61,745      1.27
Georgia      505,088       462,198      1.09
Louisiana   376,276       331,726      1.13
Miss.         354,674       436,631      0.81
S, Carol.    301,302       402,406      0.75
Texas        421,649       182,566      2.31

So the slaves should be glad that were slaves, because they were treated so well?

Gladness has nothing at all to do with it. They were victims of Islamic expansion and opportunistic nations and interests. The slaves were not US citizens and were not entitled to constitutional rights at the time - nor apparently where the states.

Loewen (as mentioned in previous post) rips apart this argument. The picture you paint for some is true, but I suggest that it is the exception, and certainly not the rule. Regarding the brutal suppressions that occurred in the South when a revolt did break out… were thes fictions created by Protestant northerners?

I am seeing this all now from a new perspective of the general Southerner who had no slave suddenly realizing what it meant to him and his family if near equal numbers of slaves were suddenly released from the “wealthy plantation” owners and were forced to compete with cheap labor, mass poverty, and non educated people who did not share any cultural or common values now wandering the streets and homeless. It would have been social chaos. The common Southerner must have been terrified at the prospects for what would happen and that is no doubt what is behind any brutality that was seen. They were afraid for their lives and losing their way of life. There was nothing to lose in resisting the Federal government since capitulation would bring their worst fears.

If the treatment of slaves was so magnamimous, why then Jim Crow laws? If they were treated like family members, why did it take so long for integration post-War?

It’s unfair to compare this by current standards. Remember there were no laws in Africa except tribal social mores. As well remember that Europe before Chrisian law was establised were just pagan and old Roman law. Slavery was a common thing in Africa and the laws were a first step in bring a rule of order that would give uniform treatment rather than arbitrary punishment. It was entirely fair at the time since the black slaves and their descendants were in fact a different nation living within a nation. This was not unprecedented. Recall how America put the Tribal native Indians on the reservations to segregate them so they could have their own tribal laws - and some still prefer it over “white man cival law”.

What if American Muslims try to politically demand its own segregation from America and wants to have its own Sharia laws seperate from its Christian host country? Will you feel the same way and permit them to ELECT to be seperate but equal?

James

 

[Odell]

No, the war was fought over slavery.

No doubt some proabably wanted to win so they could keep slaves. But how many rich slave owners you think fired a weapon?

We are a band of brothers and native to the soil
Fighting for our Liberty, With treasure, blood and toil
And when our rights were threatened, the cry rose near and far
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star!
Chorus:
Hurrah! Hurrah!
For Southern rights, hurrah!
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
2. As long as the Union was faithful to her trust
Like friends and like brethren, kind were we, and just
But now, when Northern treachery attempts our rights to mar
We hoist on high the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
Chorus
3. First gallant South Carolina nobly made the stand
Then came Alabama and took her by the hand
Next, quickly Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida
All raised on high the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
Chorus
4. Ye men of valor gather round the banner of the right
Texas and fair Louisiana join us in the fight
Davis, our loved President, and Stephens statesmen rare
Now rally round the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
Chorus
5. Now here’s to brave Virginia, the old Dominion State,
With the young Confederacy at last has sealed her fate,
And spurred by her example, now other states prepare
To hoist high the bonnie blue flag that bears a single star.
Chorus[2]
6. Then cheer, boys, cheer, raise a joyous shout
For Arkansas and North Carolina now have both gone out,
And let another rousing cheer for Tennessee be given,
The single star of the Bonnie Blue Flag has grown to be eleven.
Chorus
7. Then here’s to our Confederacy, strong we are and brave,
Like patriots of old we’ll fight, our heritage to save;
And rather than submit to shame, to die we would prefer,
So cheer for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star.
Chorus

No mention of slavery here! Also why did Abe say if he could win and not abolish slavery he would?

 

[Lujack]

No doubt some proabably wanted to win so they could keep slaves. But how many rich slave owners you think fired a weapon?

Not too many of the plantation owners fired a weapon, but a heckuva of a lot of them commanded the armies and ran the political system. Davis owned slaves, Alexander Stephens owned slaves, Judah Benjamin owned 150 slaves before he got out of the plantation business and he never freed any of them when he sold the plantation, Secretary of War James Seddon owned a plantation with slaves, Robert E. Lee owned slaves and although his letters oppose slavery, he owned them and used them nonetheless…find a major Confederate leader who did not own at least some slaves.

No mention of slavery here! Also why did Abe say if he could win and not abolish slavery he would?

Simple. Abraham Lincoln was willing to not go to his big gun of immediate emancipation; he was not, however, willing to do anything that took slavery off what he believed to be the path to ultimate extinction. Lincoln was willing to let Virginia back in with slaves; he was not willing to give them Kansas, which was a significant demand that the South was not willing to give up. Lincoln was utterly opposed to the expansion of slavery, and believed that by sealing it off, it would slowly die.

However, once he issued the Emancipation Proclamation, he refused to go back on it, even when his advisors told him that it might cost him the Election of 1864 against George McClellan (and if Sherman hadn’t taken Atlanta, it very well could have). Lincoln refused to go back, saying “I would be damned now and eternity for so doing; my friends will now that I will stand by them, come what will”. Those aren’t the words of a man who took emancipation lightly.

Then, of course, there was Lincoln’s view of what he was and was not permitted to do; he felt that as a war power, he could order the slaves freed, but could not do it by fiat in states that were not in rebellion. That limited him somewhat.

And also, his letter to Horace Greeley where he made that remark was kind of a lie. He presented himself as uncertain and undecided about emancipation, when he had already told the cabinet that he was issuing a proclamation to free the slaves, and was already in the process of writing the draft for the final proclamation.