Civil War I

I long had a feeling that the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865 was not about slavery but more to do with trade and money. It was the industrial North versus the rural South. It seems that my view was on the right lines. The people doing a hard sell on the story that Abraham Lincoln hated slavery are liars with an agenda. Professor DiLorenzo explains. He covers the ground in his book Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed To Know about Dishonest Abe. Another view is put by Margaret Mitchell in Gone with the Wind. It reads as an honest view from a European perspective. Mrs Mitchell lived in Atlanta, Georgia and knew people who were there at the time.

From http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo206.html

 

The Official, Politically-Correct Cause of the 'Civil War'

by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
Recently by Thomas DiLorenzo: Another Big Lincoln Lie Exposed

 

The memo has gone out. Since 2011 is the 150th anniversary of the start of the War to Prevent Southern Independence the Lincoln Cult, aided and abetted by the many worshippers of the centralized, bureaucratic, Leviathan state that he founded, has been hard at work since the first week of January endlessly repeating the politically-correct version of the one sole cause theory of the "Civil War."

Unlike all other wars in human history, the "Civil War" is said to have one and only one cause. This was not always the case; university courses on the war during the 1960s and ’70s frequently used as a text Kenneth Stampp’s The Causes of the Civil War. Stampp was a former president of the American Historical Association. His scholarship has been replaced with a-historical political correctness on today’s college campuses.

Supposed "proof" of the "one sole cause" theory is that when the Southern states seceded in 1860-61, some Southern politicians defended the institution of slavery. Therefore, the story goes, slavery was the sole cause of the war. The not-so-implicit assumptions behind this assertion are the following: 1) Lincoln was about to abolish slavery "with the stroke of a pen" as soon as he took the oath of office; 2) Southerners understood this; therefore, Southern secession amounted to kidnapping of the slaves; and 3) Lincoln launched an invasion of the South to free the kidnapped slaves. This is the only way in which Southern secession could have necessitated war. Read any of Harry Jaffa’s books if you want "verification" of this "official view."

Everything about this politically-correct fantasy is patently false, regardless of how many times it is repeated in the New York Times and Washington Post. Some Southern politicians did indeed defend slavery, but not as strongly as Abraham Lincoln did in his first inaugural address, where he supported the enshrinement of Southern slavery explicitly in the U.S. Constitution (the "Corwin Amendment") for the first time ever. Coming from the president of the United States, this was the strongest defense of slavery ever made by an American politician.

Some Southern politicians did say that their society was based on white supremacy, but so did Abraham Lincoln and most other Northern politicians. "I as much as any man want the superior position to belong to the white race," Lincoln said in a debate with Stephen Douglas in 1858. When Lincoln opposed the extension of slavery into the new territories (but not Southern slavery), he gave the standard Northern white supremacist reason: We want the territories to be reserved "for free white labor," he said. The Lincoln cultists can quote Alexander Stephens’ "cornerstone" speech all they want, but the truth is that Abraham Lincoln, and most of the leaders of the Republican Party, were in total agreement with Stephens. White supremacy was as much (if not more of) a "cornerstone" of Northern society as it was of Southern society in the 1860s.

The abolition societies of the North never claimed more than two percent of the Northern adult population as members. Lincoln was never an abolitionist, distanced himself from them politically, and even boasted in a speech in New York City that "we have abolitionists in Illinois; we shot one the other day." All of this makes it extremely unlikely that anyone who voted for Lincoln in the 1860 election did so because they thought he would end Southern slavery (which of course the Republican Party Platform of 1860 did not promise).

More importantly, secession in no way necessitates war, regardless of what the reasons for secession are. The reasons for secession, and the reasons why there was a war, are two entirely separate issues. When New Englanders openly and publicly plotted to secede for fourteen years after Thomas Jefferson’s election, culminating in the 1814 secession convention in Hartford, Connecticut, neither President Jefferson nor President Madison (or anyone else) said one word about the appropriate response to a Northern-state secession being "invasion," "force," and "bloodshed." These are the words Lincoln used in his first inaugural address to describe what would happen in any Southern state that seceded.

It is unlikely that anyone even dreamed of invading Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island and bombing and burning Boston, Hartford and Providence into a smoldering ruin while murdering thousands of New Englanders, women and children included, if New England were to secede. Indeed, when Jefferson was asked what would happen if New England seceded, he said in a letter that New Englanders, like all other Americans "would all be our children" and he would wish them all well. More recently, all of the Soviet republics, and all of Eastern and Central Europe peacefully seceded from the Soviet Union. Secession does not necessitate war.

No American president had the power in the nineteenth century to abolish slavery "with the stroke of a pen." The slaves were slaves before Southern secession, and they were slaves after secession. Indeed, as Alexander Stephens once correctly remarked, slavery was more secure in the union than out of it because of the Fugitive Slave Clause [ See Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 ], which Lincoln strongly supported, and because of the 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision.

No respectable historian would argue that Lincoln invaded the South to free the slaves. Even his Emancipation Proclamation was only a "war measure" that would have become defunct if the war ended the next day – and it was written so as to avoid freeing any slaves since it only applied to "rebel territory." Both Lincoln and Congress announced publicly that their purpose was not to disturb slavery but to "save the union," a union that they actually destroyed philosophically by destroying its voluntary nature, as established by the founders. All states, North and South, became wards or appendages of the central government in the post-1865 era.

What Lincoln did say very clearly about war in his First Inaugural Address was that it was his duty "to collect the duties and imposts," but "beyond that there will no be any invasion of any state . . ." That is, if Southern secession made it impossible for Washington, D.C. to "collect the duties and imposts" (i.e., tariffs on imports, which had just been more than doubled two days earlier), then there will be an invasion. He followed through with this threat, and that is why there was a war that ended up killing 670,000 Americans, including some 50,000 Southern civilians, while maiming for life more than a million.

Secession does not necessitate war; nor was war necessary to end slavery. The rest of the world (including all of the Northern states ended slavery peacefully in the nineteenth century, as James Powell documents and describes in his outstanding book, Greatest Emancipations: How the West Ended Slavery.

 

April 12, 2011

Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail] is professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland and the author of The Real Lincoln; Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed To Know about Dishonest Abe and How Capitalism Saved America. His latest book is Hamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution – And What It Means for America Today.

Copyright © 2011 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.

 

 

154 Years Ago Today Lee Surrenders At Appomattox [ Not necessarily a reliable source - Editor ]

It is sadly a truism that the truth about most wars is completely unknown to the general public. One of the least understood wars is the US Civil War, very few people in the US have any idea what it was really all about, why it happened and who was behind it.

It was most definitely not about slavery, few in the North cared enough about the plight of the black man to go to war over the issue, even fewer in the South gave a damn. The North didn’t start claiming they were fighting to free the slaves until they needed a good excuse to tell to the Europeans to explain away why they were committing ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity in the Shenandoah Valley and Georgia.

It wasn’t about State’s rights either, although a great many, especially in the South continue to believe that was the real issue.

The truth is far more disturbing, far more Machiavellian and the root of it all is the desire of the Rothschilds and the other handful of elite Jewish families that run the world, to return the north American continent to their control.

The key figure is Judah P. Benjamin, the Jewish politician who held several key posts in the Confederacy, inc. Deputy President. It was Benjamin that created the war, Benjamin that prolonged it and Benjamin that manipulated the Confederacy so that it served the interests of the Jewish banking families in Europe.

The goal of the Civil War was twofold; firstly, the 13 colonies would be returned to British rule, secondly, the remaining states, especially those in the South, would be turned into independent nation states – the Confederacy was designed to fail, to disintegrate into several nation states that were weak and dependent on European finance to survive.

War is highly profitable, and the plan was to have continual war in North America, pitting the various Southern states against each other in a series of conflicts that would have seen the wealth of those states flow to Europe in return for a steady supply of arms with which to fight the wars.

The scope for conflicts was almost endless, Alabama and Mississippi wouldn’t have required much persuasion to go to war, neither would Virginia have needed much prodding to fight Kentucky or the Carolinas or Tennessee, Texas wouldn’t have needed much of a reason to fight anyone.

These fairly small scale, regional conflicts could have been prolonged for years, leading to decade after decade of war and resultant huge profits for the Jewish banking families in Europe that were provoking and financing the fighting. There would have been no United States ‘from sea to shining sea’ and the history of the North American continent would have been one of continual war and endless suffering.

Lincoln realised this was the agenda when he went to the Jewish bankers in New York to borrow money to finance the war and was offered loans at ridiculously high rates of interest. Instead of taking their deal and thus enslaving the US to the bankers for generations to come, he chose to have the US government issue it’s own currency and finance the war through other means than loans from the big banks.

Winning the war and preserving the unity of the states simply had to be achieved at almost any cost because the alternative was unthinkable, Lincoln clearly saw that and paid for his foresight with his life. It may annoy the Southern folks to point this out, but the Confederacy was ultimately, nothing more than a Judeo-Zionist conspiracy and simply had to be destroyed for the good of the entire US populace.

Surrender at Appomattox, 1865

With his army surrounded, his men weak and exhausted, Robert E. Lee realized there was little choice but to consider the surrender of his Army to General Grant. After a series of notes between the two leaders, they agreed to meet on April 9, 1865, at the house of Wilmer McLean in the village of Appomattox Courthouse. The meeting lasted approximately two and one-half hours and at its conclusion the bloodliest conflict in the nation’s history neared its end.

Prelude to Surrender

On April 3, Richmond fell to Union troops as Robert E. Lee led his Army of Northern Virginia in retreat to the West pursued by Grant and the Army of the Potomac. A running battle ensued as each Army moved farther to the West in an effort to out flank, or prevent being out flanked by the enemy. Finally, on April 7, General Grant initiated a series of dispatches leading to a meeting between the two commanders.

“General R.E. Lee, Commanding C.S.A.:
5 P.M., April 7th, 1865.
The results of the last week must convince you of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia in this struggle. I feel that it is so, and regard it as my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate States army known as the Army of Northern Virginia.
U.S. Grant, Lieutenant-General”

The note was carried through the Confederate lines and Lee promptly responded:

“April 7th, 1865.
General: I have received your note of this date. Though not entertaining the opinion you express of the hopelessness of further resistance on the part of the Army of Northern Virginia, I reciprocate your desire to avoid useless effusion of blood, and therefore, before considering your proposition, ask the terms you will offer on condition of its surrender.
R.E. Lee, General.”

Grant received Lee’s message after midnight and replied early in the morning giving his terms for surrender:

“April 8th, 1865.
General R.E. Lee, Commanding C.S.A.:
Your note of last evening in reply to mine of the same date, asking the conditions on which I will accept the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, is just received. In reply I would say that, peace being my great desire, there is but one condition I would insist upon,–namely, that the men and officers surrendered shall be disqualified for taking up arms against the Government of the United States until properly exchanged. I will meet you, or will designate officers to meet any officers you may name for the same purpose, at any point agreeable to you, for the purpose of arranging definitely the terms upon which the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia will be received.
U.S. Grant, Lieutenant-General”

The fighting continued and as Lee retreated further to the West he replied to Grant’s message:

“April 8th, 1865.
General: I received at a late hour your note of to-day. In mine of yesterday I did not intend to propose the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia, but to ask the terms of your proposition. To be frank, I do not think the emergency has arisen to call for the surrender of this army, but, as the restoration of peace should be the sole object of all, I desired to know whether your proposals would lead to that end. I cannot, therefore, meet you with a view to surrender the Army of Northern Virginia; but as far as your proposal may affect the Confederate States forces under my command, and tend to the restoration of peace, I should be pleased to meet you at 10 A.M. to-morrow on the old state road to Richmond, between the picket-lines of the two armies.
R.E. Lee, General.”

Exhausted from stress and suffering the pain from a severe headache, Grant replied to Lee around 5 o’clock in the morning of April 9.

“April 9th, 1865.
General: Your note of yesterday is received. I have not authority to treat on the subject of peace. The meeting proposed for 10 A.M. to-day could lead to no good. I will state, however, that I am equally desirous for peace with yourself, and the whole North entertains the same feeling. The terms upon which peace can be had are well understood. By the South laying down their arms, they would hasten that most desirable event, save thousands of human lives, and hundreds of millions of property not yet destroyed. Seriously hoping that all our difficulties may be settled without the loss of another life, I subscribe myself, etc.,
U.S. Grant, Lieutenant-General”

Still suffering his headache, General Grant approached the crossroads of Appomattox Court House where he was over taken by a messenger carrying Lee’s reply.

“April 9th, 1865.
General: I received your note of this morning on the picket-line, whither I had come to meet you and ascertain definitely what terms were embraced in your proposal of yesterday with reference to the surrender of this army. I now ask an interview, in accordance with the offer contained in your letter of yesterday, for that purpose.
R.E. Lee, General.”

Grant immediately dismounted, sat by the road and wrote the following reply to Lee.

“April 9th, 1865.
General R. E. Lee Commanding C. S. Army:
Your note of this date is but this moment (11:50 A.M.) received, in consequence of my having passed from the Richmond and Lynchburg road to the Farmville and Lynchburg road. I am at this writing about four miles west of Walker’s Church, and will push forward to the front for the purpose of meeting you. Notice sent to me on this road where you wish the interview to take place will meet me.
U. S. Grant, Lieutenant-General.”


The McLean family sits on the porch
of their home. The surrender was
signed in the 1st floor room on the left.

 

 


Meeting at Appomattox

The exchange of messages initated the historic meeting in the home of Wilmer McLean. Arriving at the home first, General Lee sat in a large sitting room on the first floor. General Grant arrived shortly and entered the room alone while his staff respectfully waited on the front lawn. After a short period the staff was summoned to the room. General Horace Porter described the scene:

“We entered, and found General Grant sitting at a marble-topped table in the center of the room, and Lee sitting beside a small oval table near the front window, in the corner opposite to the door by which we entered, and facing General Grant. We walked in softly and ranged ourselves quietly about the sides of the room, very much as people enter a sick-chamber when they expect to find the patient dangerously ill.

The contrast between the two commanders was striking, and could not fail to attract marked attention they sat ten feet apart facing each other. General Grant, then nearly forty-three years of age, was five feet eight inches in height, with shoulders slightly stooped. His hair and full beard were a nut-brown, without a trace of gray in them. He had on a single-breasted blouse, made of dark-blue flannel, unbuttoned in front, and showing a waistcoat underneath. He wore an ordinary pair of top-boots, with his trousers inside, and was without spurs. The boots and portions of his clothes were spattered with mud. He had no sword, and a pair of shoulder-straps was all there was about him to designate his rank. In fact, aside from these, his uniform was that of a private soldier.

Lee, on the other hand, was fully six feet in height, and quite erect for one of his age, for he was Grant’s senior by sixteen years. His hair and full beard were silver-gray, and quite thick, except that the hair had become a little thin in the front. He wore a new uniform of Confederate gray, buttoned up to the throat, and at his side he carried a long sword of exceedingly fine workmanship, the hilt studded with jewels. His top-boots were comparatively new, and seemed to have on them some ornamental stitching

Signing the surrender
From a contemporary sketch.

of red silk. Like his uniform, they were singularly clean, and but little travel-stained. On the boots were handsome spurs, with large rowels. A felt hat, which in color matched pretty closely that of his uniform, and a pair of long buckskin gauntlets lay beside him on the table.

General Grant began the conversation by saying ‘I met you once before, General Lee, while we were serving in Mexico, when you came over from General Scott’s headquarters to visit Garland’s brigade, to which I then belonged. I have always remembered your appearance, and I think I should have recognized you anywhere.’

‘Yes,’ replied General Lee, ‘I know I met you on that occasion, and I have often thought of it and tried to recollect how you looked, but I have never been able to recall a single feature.'”

The two generals talked a bit more about Mexico and moved on to a discussion of the terms of the surrender when Lee asked Grant to commit the terms to paper:

“‘Very well,’ replied General Grant, ‘I will write them out.’ And calling for his manifold order-book, he opened it on the table before him and proceeded to write the terms. The leaves had been so prepared that three impressions of the writing were made. He wrote very rapidly, and did not pause until he had finished the sentence ending with ‘officers appointed by me to receive them.’ Then he looked toward Lee, and his eyes seemed to be resting on the handsome sword that hung at that officer’s side. He said afterward that this set him to thinking that it would be an unnecessary humiliation to require officers to surrender their swords, and a great hardship to deprive them of their personal baggage and horses, and after a short pause he wrote the sentence: ‘This will not embrace the side-arms of the officers, nor their private horses or baggage.’

Grant handed the document to Lee. After reviewing it, Lee informed Grant that the Cavalry men and Artillery men in the Confederate Army owned their horses and asked that they keep them. Grant agreed and Lee wrote a letter formally accepting the surrender. Lee then made his exit:

General Lee leaves
From a contemporary sketch.

 

“At a little before 4 o’clock General Lee shook hands with General Grant, bowed to the other officers, and with Colonel Marshall left the room. One after another we followed, and passed out to the porch. Lee signaled to his orderly to bring up his horse, and while the animal was being bridled the general stood on the lowest step and gazed sadly in the direction of the valley beyond where his army lay – now an army of prisoners. He smote his hands together a number of times in an absent sort of way; seemed not to see the group of Union officers in the yard who rose respectfully at his approach, and appeared unconscious of everything about him. All appreciated the sadness that overwhelmed him, and he had the personal sympathy of every one who beheld him at this supreme moment of trial. The approach of his horse seemed to recall him from his reverie, and he at once mounted. General Grant now stepped down from the porch, and, moving toward him, saluted him by raising his hat. He was followed in this act of courtesy by all our officers present; Lee raised his hat respectfully, and rode off to break the sad news to the brave fellows whom he had so long commanded.”

References:
Buel, Clarence, and Robert U. Johnson, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. IV (1888, reprint ed. 1982); Grant, Ulysses S., Memoirs and Selected Letters, Vol. I (1885, reprint ed. 1990); McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (1988).

How To Cite This Article:
“Surrender at Appomattox, 1865,” EyeWitness to History, www.eyewitnesstohistory.com  (1997).

 

First Inaugural Address ex Wiki
He went on to address several other points of particular interest at the time:

  1. Slavery: Lincoln stated emphatically that he had "...no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
  2. Legal status of the South: He asserted that as he had just taken an oath "to preserve, protect, and defend the United States Constitution", this oath enjoined him to see that the laws of the Union were faithfully executed in all states—including those that had seceded.
  3. Use of force: Lincoln promised that there would be no use of force against the South, unless it proved necessary for him to fulfill his obligation to "hold, occupy, and possess the property and places" belonging to the federal government, and to collect legal duties and imposts. However, if the South chose to actively take up arms against the Government, their insurrection would meet a firm and forceful response.
  4. Secession: Referring to words in the preamble to the Constitution, Lincoln stated that the Constitution was established "to form a more perfect union" than the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union had effected. Since the Union established under the Articles was explicitly perpetual in name and text, thus the Union under the Constitution was equally perpetual. He added that even if the Constitution were to be construed as a simple contract, it could not be legally rescinded without an agreement between all parties, meaning all of the states, North and South.
  5. Protection of slavery: Lincoln explicitly stated that he had no objection to the proposed Corwin Amendment to the Constitution, which had already been approved by both houses of the United States Congress. This amendment would have formally protected slavery in those states in which it already existed, and assured to each state the right to establish or repudiate it. Lincoln indicated that he thought that this right was already protected in the original Constitution, and thus that the Corwin Amendment merely reiterated what it already contained.
  6. Slavery in the Territories: Lincoln asserted that nothing in the Constitution expressly said what either could or could not be done regarding slavery in the territories. He indicated his willingness to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, so long as free blacks could be protected from being kidnapped and illegally sold into slavery through its misuse.
  7. The postal service: The U.S. Mails would continue to operate throughout the South, "unless repelled."
  8. Federal offices in the South: With no professional civil service in operation during this period of American history, Lincoln promised that he would not use the spoils system to appoint Northern office-holders to federal offices, such as postmasterships, located in the Southern states. Instead, he said he would "forego the use of such offices" rather than force "obnoxious strangers" upon the South.

Lincoln concluded his speech with a plea for calm and cool deliberation in the face of mounting tension throughout the nation. He assured the rebellious states that the Federal government would never initiate any conflict with them, and indicated his own conviction that "touched" once more by "the better angels of our nature," the "mystic chords of memory" North and South would "yet swell the chorus of the Union."