Former U.S. President and current Confederate Congressman-elect John Tyler dies in Richmond, Virginia.
Tyler was a product of tidewater Virginia, and he spent nearly his entire life in public service. Tyler was a U.S. Senator from Virginia during the 1830s, when many of the sectional issues were emerging in national politics. A Whig, Tyler became vice president in 1841. Within a month of his inauguration, President William Henry Harrison died in office and Tyler vaulted into the executive chair. The major achievement of his administration was the addition of Texas to the Union in 1845.
After his presidency, Tyler moved to his plantation, Sherwood Forest, in Virginia. His fellow Virginians called on the 70-year-old to head a Peace Convention in the winter of 1860-1861. This body tried to negotiate a compromise with the victorious Republicans in the North to prevent a civil war. The attempt failed, as the Republicans were not willing to entertain any proposals that would protect slavery in the western territories. Tyler was a delegate to the subsequent Secession Convention and he later became a member of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America. Tyler felt that victory was impossible for the Confederates but he nonetheless suggested that Confederate cavalry be dispatched to capture Washington before the Union military was in place.
Tyler was elected to the permanent Congress of the Confederate States of America but he died before he could take his seat. He was survived by his second wife, Julia, and 11 of his 15 children. Tyler is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.
You don't know squat, fold. You think you know a few things but it certainly wasn't through your own efforts. At best you believe what you are told. You need to be careful who you listen to.
Union General Ambrose Burnside's Army of the Potomac begins an offensive against General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia that quickly bogs down as several days of heavy rain turn the roads of Virginia into a muddy quagmire. The campaign was abandoned three days later.
The Union army was still reeling from the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862. Burnside's force suffered more than 13,000 casualties as it assaulted Lee's troops along hills above Fredericksburg. Lee suffered only 5,000 casualties, making Fredericksburg one of the most one-sided engagements in the eastern theater of operations. Morale was very low among the Yankees that winter.
Now, Burnside sought to raise morale and seize the initiative from Lee. His plan was to swing around Lee's left flank and draw the Confederates away from their defenses and into the open. Speed was essential to the operation. January had been a dry month to that point, but as soon as the Federals began to move, a drizzle turned into a downpour that last for four days. Logistical problems delayed the laying of a pontoon bridge across the Rappahannock River, and a huge traffic jam snarled the army's progress. In one day, the 5th New York moved only a mile and a half. The roads became unnavigable, and conflicting orders caused two corps to march across each others' paths. Horses, wagons, and cannon were stuck in mud, and the element of surprise was lost. Jeering Confederates taunted the Yankees with shouts and signs that read "Burnside's Army Stuck in the Mud."
Burnside tried to lift spirits by issuing liquor to the soldiers on January 22, but this only compounded the problems. Drunken troops began brawling, and entire regiments fought one another. The operation was a complete fiasco, and on January 23 Burnside gave up his attempt to, in his words, "strike a great and mortal blow to the rebellion." The campaign was considered so disastrous that Burnside was removed as commander of the army on January 25.
Why bother to post on this topic, Rob, if it bores you that much?
Where have I heard this ? Hmmmm. Oh yea, now I remember, if it really bothers you that much might I suggest......... (The following message is displayed because Luv2fly is on your ignore list, to remove from your ignore list click on prefferences)
It doesn't bother me so much because that was the first time, I believe, I saw you post that way on this board. I am surprised that you would take the effort to post on a topic you find dull. I am assuming that you can tell the difference between being irritated and being bored.
I actually like the civil war Jethro, We've debated it quite a few times although we disagree. My point and reason was I know it's a topic you really enjoy discussing. It's annoying isn't it ? well that's the same way I feel about the daily namecalling, it get's really old really fast. Perhaps others here enjoy reading them or paging past the posts to get to actual discussion. Perhaps others also enjoy getting the flow of a debate interrupted by "you're a moron" or "fuck you" I was merely stating my opinion that I am tired of seeing it. E-gram the shit out of eachother for all I care just do it somewhere else instead of every stinking thread. I'm asking you as a favor to do so or create your own thread where you can exchange f'u's all day. But please, enough.
I'm not trying to beat up on either one of you, it's just something I felt I needed to say to both of you, it's not a matter of who's more at fault, who's right or wrong, . As JT said omce and a while I could see, we all lose our cool but this morning I logged on and half of the posts were f.u's between you and Bill. e-grams are great for f.u's or one thread. Just wanted to speak my mind, it's up to you guys what you do.
Jethro, please don't try to teach anyone History. I know exactly why the Civil War was fought and I know why the north WON.
Why were there slaves owned in northern states? Why were there black slave owners? Why were there free black confederate soldiers? So many questions that do not fit into your definition of why there was a Civil War.
I suppose you only demanded that I agree that you are an expert, fold. You wrote the following:
Jethro, please don't try to teach anyone History. I know exactly why the Civil War was fought and I know why the north WON.
Dan simply pointed out some facts that he thought you might want to consider if you think about why the Civil War was fought. Apparently you don't want to consider them.
Forgive me Dan. I forgot that I demanded everyone agree that I am an EXPERT on the Civil War.
Never said that you were, but you did claim to know why the war was fought.
Please explain your point...?
My point being that you seem to claim that the war was only about slavery (black slavery to be precise). If this were true, why would free black people (or African American or whatever the P.C. word of the day is) wish to fight on the side of the south and against the north? Why would those that did not own slaves fight on the side of the south adn against the north? Why did the north have slaves?
These facts do not agree with the interpretation that it was only about slavery. There must have been other factors involved.
The U.S. House of Representatives passes the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in the United States. It read, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude...shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
When the Civil War began, President Lincoln's professed goal was the restoration of the Union. But early in the war, the Union began keeping escaped slaves rather than returning them to their owners, so slavery essentially ended wherever the Union army was victorious. In September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in areas that were still in rebellion against the Union. This measure opened the issue of what to do about slavery in border states that had not seceded or in areas that had been captured by the Union before the proclamation.
In 1864, an amendment abolishing slavery passed the Senate but died in the House as Democrats rallied in the name of states' rights. The election of 1864 brought Lincoln back to the White House and significant Republican majorities in both houses, so it appeared the amendment was headed for passage when the new Congress convened in March 1865. Lincoln preferred that the amendment receive bipartisan support--some Democrats indicated support for the measure, but many still resisted. The amendment passed 119 to 56, seven votes above the necessary two-thirds majority. Several Democrats abstained, but the 13th Amendment was sent to the states for ratification, which came in December 1865.
To say that the "Republicans" did start that war, is a complete fabrication and total misrepresentation of the facts, and only a lunatic would think the "Party of Lincoln" would have or could have done so. Sorry, fold, but it is a legitimate interpretation of the facts that the Party of Lincoln started the civil war by refusing even to discuss compromise on the issues. Why don't you broaden your mind just a little at least consider the idea.
I have tried to ignore you and frankly Jethro, is has been pretty easy. Obviously it hasn't.
So if I'm reading this right, Jethro is condemning the actions of the Republican Party and Bill is defending them? It seems like I've gone through the looking glass.
Texas becomes the seventh state to secede from the Union when a state convention votes 166 to 8 in favor of the measure.
The Texans who voted to leave the Union did so over the objections of their governor, Sam Houston. The hero of the Texas War for Independence was in his third term as the state's chief executive; a staunch Unionist, his election seemed to indicate that Texas did not share the rising secessionist sentiments of the other southern states.
But events in the year following Houston's election swayed many Texans to the secessionist cause. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in October 1859 raised the specter of a massive slave insurrection, and the ascendant Republican Party made many Texans uneasy about continuing in the Union. After Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency, pressure mounted on Houston to call a convention so that Texas could consider secession. He did so reluctantly in January, and he sat in silence on February 1 as the convention voted overwhelmingly in favor of secession. Houston grumbled that Texans were "stilling the voice of reason," and he predicted an "ignoble defeat" for the South.
Texas' move completed the first round of secession. Seven states--South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas--left the Union before Lincoln took office. Four states--Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas-- waited until the formal start of the war with the firing on Ft. Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina, before deciding to leave the Union. The remaining slave states--Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri--never mustered the necessary majority for secession.
Lincoln was an extremely intelligent and pragmatic leader, and above all else, FOR the Union, and FOR the abolishment of Slavery as an institution, in our free nation.
But I think the point Jethro is making that I happen to agree with is that while pursuing the salvation of the Union and the abolition of slavery, Lincoln chose to pursue a path that had a rather high cost to it, a cost that few people today even realize because now that it's over a 100 years later, we don't even remember what it was like before.
The Civil War marks the ascendancy of the federal government over states' rights. And whether or not it seems to work ok today, that's not how the US Government was designed to be. At the time, the reasons they had for doing so could certainly be considered noble enough, but we have to live with the legacy of that change nonetheless.
Under the old mentality, the United States was a collection of states, each with the right to largely rule themselves, yet still loosely banded together under a federal government. In that setting, it was up to each state as to whether or not it wanted to allow slavery, or whatever else it might choose to allow or not allow.
But by the dawn of the 1860's the tide was already changing, spurred on mostly over the slavery debate. The people in the north considered slavery repulsive, not just for themselves, but for everyone. And thus there arose a situation where citizens of one state were trying to tell citizens of another state what they could or could not do.
Lincoln obviously agreed with this mentality and people in the South recognized that. They saw that if he was elected, the federal government would start changing and start trying to override their states' rights. So their motivations to succeed were no doubt driven by economic factors that required slavery to continue, but at the same time they were also choosing to leave a government that was changing and whose vision they no longer supported.
It might be somewhat parallel to what might happen if the government were to ban anything it considered "hate speech" and Minnesota decided it wanted to secede as a result. One could say we're a bunch of evil people who support hate speech. Or one could say that we're a bunch of people who support free speech. It's not quite the same because the South actually did support slavery, but at the same time, what they were really rebelling against was the way the government was changing and becoming distorted from what it was originally envisioned to be. And since the North won, that distortion remains to this day.
Whether or not letting states have ultimate authority in state matters is a good thing in this day and age may be a separate debate, but this change was at least as significant as the abolition of slavery. Yet of course it's barely ever talked about, or taught in schools. Maybe we should ask why?
Lincoln was an extremely intelligent and pragmatic leader, and above all else, FOR the Union, and FOR the abolishment of Slavery as an institution, in our free nation. Lincoln was willing to have slavery continue as before if the southern states would have returned to the union. That is fact.
Some like to romanticize those times as a glorious time of rebellion and rejection of all things we hold sacred in our constitution, and twist them to fit their unrelenting and quite-mad view of that time. I do not. Some people romaticize about the American Revolution in the same way. The only real difference between the two is victory and defeat.
Jefferson Davis receives word that he has been selected president of the new Confederate States of America.
Davis was at his plantation, Brierfield, pruning rose bushes with his wife Varina when a messenger arrived from nearby Vicksburg. It was not a job he wanted, but he accepted it out of a sense of duty to his new country. Varina later wrote that she saw her husband's face grow pale and she recalled, "Reading that telegram he looked so grieved that I feared some evil had befallen our family. After a few minutes he told me like a man might speak of a sentence of death."
Davis said of the job: "I have no confidence in my ability to meet its requirement. I think I could perform the function of a general." He could see the difficulties involved in launching the new nation. "Upon my weary heart was showered smiles, plaudits, and flowers, but beyond them I saw troubles innumerable. We are without machinery, without means, and threatened by powerful opposition but I do not despond and will not shrink from the task before me."
Davis was prescient in his concerns. He drew sharp criticism during the war--Alexander Stephens, the vice president, said Davis was "weak and vacillating, timid, petulant, peevish, obstinate," and Stephens declared that he held "no more feeling of resentment toward him" than he did toward his "poor old blind and deaf dog."
Insurance broker Tom Martin and retired union bookkeeper Patricia Pijut don't agree on much. He's a staunch Republican and she's a loyal Democrat.
But in the latest Zogby poll for the Post-Dispatch, both were among the two-thirds of the Missourians surveyed who hold the same position on the Confederate flag.
They strongly oppose the recent decision of Missouri officials to take down the Confederate flag at two state historic sites where the flag has flown for decades.
Of those polled, 45 percent said they "strongly disagreed" with the state's decision to no longer fly the flag; an additional 21 percent said they "somewhat disagreed" with the decision.
Only 30 percent said they agreed with Gov. Bob Holden and others - including U.S. Sens. Christopher S. Bond and Jim Talent and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt - that the flag should no longer fly.
The results are well outside the poll's margin of error of 4.1 percentage points.
Support for the Confederate flag was particularly strong outstate, where almost three of every four persons polled opposed taking it down. In the St. Louis area, more than half of those surveyed backed the flag.
Pijut and Martin offer the same reason for keeping the Confederate flag aloft: history.
Pijut, who lives in Affton, said it is appropriate to allow the flag to fly at Civil War sites and cemeteries. "There was a Confederate army. We can't change history," she said.
Martin, of Richmond Heights, accused the Confederate flag's critics of "rewriting history to make it politically correct."
Missouri's dispute over the flag has attracted national attention, with some seeing it as a spinoff of the ongoing controversy in South Carolina over the flag.
Gephardt, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, touched off the matter while campaigning recently in South Carolina. He declared that the Confederate flag had no business flying anywhere. At the time, Gephardt was not aware that the flag flew at two sites in Missouri, but he added later that he stuck by his view.
Gephardt's stance attracted the attention of Missouri officials, including his longtime ally, Holden, and the Missouri flags came down. Since then, Confederate-flag backers have rallied outside the governor's mansion and pressed for a reversal.
But Talent and Bond, both Republicans, have sided with Holden on the flag - raising questions of how much of a political issue it will be in next year's statewide elections.
President-elect Abraham Lincoln leaves home in Springfield, Illinois, as he embarks on his journey to Washington.
On a cold, rainy morning, Lincoln boarded a two-car private train loaded with his family's belongings, which he himself had packed and bound. Mary Lincoln was in St. Louis on a shopping trip, and she joined him later in Indiana. It was a somber occasion. Lincoln was leaving his home and heading into the maw of national crisis. Since he had been elected, seven states of the lower South had seceded from the Union. Lincoln knew that his actions upon entering office would likely lead to civil war. He spoke to the crowd before departing: "Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young man to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being...I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail...To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell."
A bystander reported that the president-elect's "breast heaved with emotion and he could scarcely command his feelings." Indeed, Lincoln's words were prophetic--a funeral train carried him back to Springfield just over four years later.
Feb. 12 ought to mark the birthday not of an American icon, but of a man whose name should live on in infamy. If Americans want to reclaim their moral character as a nation, they will have to confront and denounce "The Real Lincoln," who carried out a violent constitutional revolution (instead of pursuing peaceful emancipation like every other nation did) – a revolution, which, in turn, sired the modern imperialist, interventionist and highly centralized American State.
If Americans want to reclaim their moral character as a nation, they will have to confront and denounce "The Real Lincoln," who carried out a violent constitutional revolution (instead of pursuing peaceful emancipation like every other nation did) – a revolution, which, in turn, sired the modern imperialist, interventionist and highly centralized American State.
Are you friggin serious ? I fear that you are. Yikes.
I think the facts establish that such an argument is well supported. I do believe Lincoln exceeded his authority in performing a duty that he did not have.
think the facts establish that such an argument is well supported.
From the article
"a revolution, which, in turn, sired the modern imperialist, interventionist and highly centralized American State. "
So you think we're imperialist? Did you recently move to Superior ?
Also from the article.
"If Americans want to reclaim their moral character as a nation, they will have to confront and denounce "The Real Lincoln,"
And I'm supposed to take moral advice from someone who writes bile like that ? No thanks, if trashing Him or our founding fathers is all they can do to advance an ideal then I sure the hell don't want her speaking for me.
So you think we're imperialist? Did you recently move to Superior?
I think US history bears out that the US has imperialist tendencies. I think we have shown that in our relationship to Mexico especially in the 1840's when we went to war to obtain western land. I think it showed when we went to war with Spain in 1898. I think it showed to some degree in our dealing in building the Panama Canal. I think it shoes in the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary to it.
And I'm supposed to take moral advice from someone who writes bile like that ? Will you consider the evidence supporting the argument that Lincoln exceeded his constitutional authority?No thanks, if trashing Him or our founding fathers is all they can do to advance an ideal then I sure the hell don't want her speaking for me. It appears you won't even consider the underlying evidence of the allegations. Why?
I didn't say we didn't. What I said it was US imperialist tendencies that caused it. We got a lot out of our endeavors in Latin America. We did it with the purpose of benefiting the US at the expense of others.
And lets not forget how "The Monroe Doctrine" has benefitted the nations of the Americas, both north and south, from what could have been a total communist takeover of South America especially, had we not been strong FOR them, and against the Soviets.
I didn't say that the US interjecting itself into other countries business was a bad thing. I just think that it needs to be recognized that we did it on the basis of self interest.
1862 John Tyler dies
Former U.S. President and current Confederate Congressman-elect John Tyler dies in Richmond, Virginia.
Tyler was a product of tidewater Virginia, and he spent nearly his entire life in public service. Tyler was a U.S. Senator from Virginia during the 1830s, when many of the sectional issues were emerging in national politics. A Whig, Tyler became vice president in 1841. Within a month of his inauguration, President William Henry Harrison died in office and Tyler vaulted into the executive chair. The major achievement of his administration was the addition of Texas to the Union in 1845.
After his presidency, Tyler moved to his plantation, Sherwood Forest, in Virginia. His fellow Virginians called on the 70-year-old to head a Peace Convention in the winter of 1860-1861. This body tried to negotiate a compromise with the victorious Republicans in the North to prevent a civil war. The attempt failed, as the Republicans were not willing to entertain any proposals that would protect slavery in the western territories. Tyler was a delegate to the subsequent Secession Convention and he later became a member of the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States of America. Tyler felt that victory was impossible for the Confederates but he nonetheless suggested that Confederate cavalry be dispatched to capture Washington before the Union military was in place.
Tyler was elected to the permanent Congress of the Confederate States of America but he died before he could take his seat. He was survived by his second wife, Julia, and 11 of his 15 children. Tyler is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.
1861 Georgia secedes
Georgia joins South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama in secession as a special state convention votes 208-89 to leave the Union.
You don't know squat, fold. You think you know a few things but it certainly wasn't through your own efforts. At best you believe what you are told. You need to be careful who you listen to.
I see, fold, the more exasperated you are the more vulgar you become.
1863 Mud March Begins
Union General Ambrose Burnside's Army of the Potomac begins an offensive against General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia that quickly bogs down as several days of heavy rain turn the roads of Virginia into a muddy quagmire. The campaign was abandoned three days later.
The Union army was still reeling from the disastrous Battle of Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862. Burnside's force suffered more than 13,000 casualties as it assaulted Lee's troops along hills above Fredericksburg. Lee suffered only 5,000 casualties, making Fredericksburg one of the most one-sided engagements in the eastern theater of operations. Morale was very low among the Yankees that winter.
Now, Burnside sought to raise morale and seize the initiative from Lee. His plan was to swing around Lee's left flank and draw the Confederates away from their defenses and into the open. Speed was essential to the operation. January had been a dry month to that point, but as soon as the Federals began to move, a drizzle turned into a downpour that last for four days. Logistical problems delayed the laying of a pontoon bridge across the Rappahannock River, and a huge traffic jam snarled the army's progress. In one day, the 5th New York moved only a mile and a half. The roads became unnavigable, and conflicting orders caused two corps to march across each others' paths. Horses, wagons, and cannon were stuck in mud, and the element of surprise was lost. Jeering Confederates taunted the Yankees with shouts and signs that read "Burnside's Army Stuck in the Mud."
Burnside tried to lift spirits by issuing liquor to the soldiers on January 22, but this only compounded the problems. Drunken troops began brawling, and entire regiments fought one another. The operation was a complete fiasco, and on January 23 Burnside gave up his attempt to, in his words, "strike a great and mortal blow to the rebellion." The campaign was considered so disastrous that Burnside was removed as commander of the army on January 25.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Why bother to post on this topic, Rob, if it bores you that much?
Where have I heard this ? Hmmmm. Oh yea, now I remember, if it really bothers you that much might I suggest.........
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can the petty arguments 700 Joe :)
It doesn't bother me so much because that was the first time, I believe, I saw you post that way on this board. I am surprised that you would take the effort to post on a topic you find dull. I am assuming that you can tell the difference between being irritated and being bored.
I actually like the civil war Jethro, We've debated it quite a few times although we disagree. My point and reason was I know it's a topic you really enjoy discussing. It's annoying isn't it ? well that's the same way I feel about the daily namecalling, it get's really old really fast. Perhaps others here enjoy reading them or paging past the posts to get to actual discussion. Perhaps others also enjoy getting the flow of a debate interrupted by "you're a moron" or "fuck you" I was merely stating my opinion that I am tired of seeing it. E-gram the shit out of eachother for all I care just do it somewhere else instead of every stinking thread. I'm asking you as a favor to do so or create your own thread where you can exchange f'u's all day. But please, enough.
I thought it was in response to his "This Day in Civil War History" posts. If it was in regards to the name calling, then I'd concur.
I agree with Luv on this one.
Take it somewhere else.
A little of that stuff is tolerable but you guys are constantly at each other.
JMHO, do what you want.
I hear you. Bring it up with, fold.
It's both of you.
Jethro,
I'm not trying to beat up on either one of you, it's just something I felt I needed to say to both of you, it's not a matter of who's more at fault, who's right or wrong, . As JT said omce and a while I could see, we all lose our cool but this morning I logged on and half of the posts were f.u's between you and Bill. e-grams are great for f.u's or one thread. Just wanted to speak my mind, it's up to you guys what you do.
You are right, it is both of us. I said that I hear you. You have half the problem solved.
Jethro, please don't try to teach anyone History. I know exactly why the Civil War was fought and I know why the north WON.
Why were there slaves owned in northern states? Why were there black slave owners? Why were there free black confederate soldiers? So many questions that do not fit into your definition of why there was a Civil War.
I suppose you only demanded that I agree that you are an expert, fold. You wrote the following:
Dan simply pointed out some facts that he thought you might want to consider if you think about why the Civil War was fought. Apparently you don't want to consider them.
I am just trying to help you, fold. You need it.
Louisiana becomes the sixth state to secede from the Union when a state convention votes 113 to 17 in favor of the measure.
Forgive me Dan. I forgot that I demanded everyone agree that I am an EXPERT on the Civil War.
Never said that you were, but you did claim to know why the war was fought.
Please explain your point...?
My point being that you seem to claim that the war was only about slavery (black slavery to be precise). If this were true, why would free black people (or African American or whatever the P.C. word of the day is) wish to fight on the side of the south and against the north? Why would those that did not own slaves fight on the side of the south adn against the north? Why did the north have slaves?
These facts do not agree with the interpretation that it was only about slavery. There must have been other factors involved.
House passes the 13th Amendment.
The U.S. House of Representatives passes the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in the United States. It read, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude...shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."
When the Civil War began, President Lincoln's professed goal was the restoration of the Union. But early in the war, the Union began keeping escaped slaves rather than returning them to their owners, so slavery essentially ended wherever the Union army was victorious. In September 1862, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all slaves in areas that were still in rebellion against the Union. This measure opened the issue of what to do about slavery in border states that had not seceded or in areas that had been captured by the Union before the proclamation.
In 1864, an amendment abolishing slavery passed the Senate but died in the House as Democrats rallied in the name of states' rights. The election of 1864 brought Lincoln back to the White House and significant Republican majorities in both houses, so it appeared the amendment was headed for passage when the new Congress convened in March 1865. Lincoln preferred that the amendment receive bipartisan support--some Democrats indicated support for the measure, but many still resisted. The amendment passed 119 to 56, seven votes above the necessary two-thirds majority. Several Democrats abstained, but the 13th Amendment was sent to the states for ratification, which came in December 1865.
Interesting that it was the Republican Party that stomped on states' rights in order to create a more powerful federal government.
That isn't surprising since it was the Republicans that stomped on state's rights and started the Civil War!!!!!
So I take it you don't identify with the Republican Party then jethro?
Both the Republican and Democrat parties have changed immensely in the last 138 years. It is very interesting to read about how it came about.
Well that's true though I was still sort of curious if you're a Republican, Libertarian, or don't consider yourself part of any party.
Oh I am a Republican, no doubt about that.
To say that the "Republicans" did start that war, is a complete fabrication and total misrepresentation of the facts, and only a lunatic would think the "Party of Lincoln" would have or could have done so. Sorry, fold, but it is a legitimate interpretation of the facts that the Party of Lincoln started the civil war by refusing even to discuss compromise on the issues. Why don't you broaden your mind just a little at least consider the idea.
I have tried to ignore you and frankly Jethro, is has been pretty easy. Obviously it hasn't.
So if I'm reading this right, Jethro is condemning the actions of the Republican Party and Bill is defending them? It seems like I've gone through the looking glass.
It's a strange world!
Texas secedes
Texas becomes the seventh state to secede from the Union when a state convention votes 166 to 8 in favor of the measure.
The Texans who voted to leave the Union did so over the objections of their governor, Sam Houston. The hero of the Texas War for Independence was in his third term as the state's chief executive; a staunch Unionist, his election seemed to indicate that Texas did not share the rising secessionist sentiments of the other southern states.
But events in the year following Houston's election swayed many Texans to the secessionist cause. John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, Virginia, in October 1859 raised the specter of a massive slave insurrection, and the ascendant Republican Party made many Texans uneasy about continuing in the Union. After Abraham Lincoln's election to the presidency, pressure mounted on Houston to call a convention so that Texas could consider secession. He did so reluctantly in January, and he sat in silence on February 1 as the convention voted overwhelmingly in favor of secession. Houston grumbled that Texans were "stilling the voice of reason," and he predicted an "ignoble defeat" for the South.
Texas' move completed the first round of secession. Seven states--South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas--left the Union before Lincoln took office. Four states--Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas-- waited until the formal start of the war with the firing on Ft. Sumter at Charleston, South Carolina, before deciding to leave the Union. The remaining slave states--Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri--never mustered the necessary majority for secession.
Lincoln was an extremely intelligent and pragmatic leader, and above all else, FOR the Union, and FOR the abolishment of Slavery as an institution, in our free nation.
But I think the point Jethro is making that I happen to agree with is that while pursuing the salvation of the Union and the abolition of slavery, Lincoln chose to pursue a path that had a rather high cost to it, a cost that few people today even realize because now that it's over a 100 years later, we don't even remember what it was like before.
The Civil War marks the ascendancy of the federal government over states' rights. And whether or not it seems to work ok today, that's not how the US Government was designed to be. At the time, the reasons they had for doing so could certainly be considered noble enough, but we have to live with the legacy of that change nonetheless.
Under the old mentality, the United States was a collection of states, each with the right to largely rule themselves, yet still loosely banded together under a federal government. In that setting, it was up to each state as to whether or not it wanted to allow slavery, or whatever else it might choose to allow or not allow.
But by the dawn of the 1860's the tide was already changing, spurred on mostly over the slavery debate. The people in the north considered slavery repulsive, not just for themselves, but for everyone. And thus there arose a situation where citizens of one state were trying to tell citizens of another state what they could or could not do.
Lincoln obviously agreed with this mentality and people in the South recognized that. They saw that if he was elected, the federal government would start changing and start trying to override their states' rights. So their motivations to succeed were no doubt driven by economic factors that required slavery to continue, but at the same time they were also choosing to leave a government that was changing and whose vision they no longer supported.
It might be somewhat parallel to what might happen if the government were to ban anything it considered "hate speech" and Minnesota decided it wanted to secede as a result. One could say we're a bunch of evil people who support hate speech. Or one could say that we're a bunch of people who support free speech. It's not quite the same because the South actually did support slavery, but at the same time, what they were really rebelling against was the way the government was changing and becoming distorted from what it was originally envisioned to be. And since the North won, that distortion remains to this day.
Whether or not letting states have ultimate authority in state matters is a good thing in this day and age may be a separate debate, but this change was at least as significant as the abolition of slavery. Yet of course it's barely ever talked about, or taught in schools. Maybe we should ask why?
Lincoln was an extremely intelligent and pragmatic leader, and above all else, FOR the Union, and FOR the abolishment of Slavery as an institution, in our free nation. Lincoln was willing to have slavery continue as before if the southern states would have returned to the union. That is fact.
Some like to romanticize those times as a glorious time of rebellion and rejection of all things we hold sacred in our constitution, and twist them to fit their unrelenting and quite-mad view of that time. I do not. Some people romaticize about the American Revolution in the same way. The only real difference between the two is victory and defeat.
It was to some degree reluctant back-up.
I am sorry I gave you too much credit when I said you might have a disconcerting thought. You DON'T think.
Give it up, fold. Your rants aren't accomplishing what you think they do. In fact it is quite the opposite.
some southern tunes: http://www.sterlingprice145.org/csamusicindex.htm
Sung to Jingle Bells.
We'll wanted ta' keep our slaves Jeff Davis saves, Longstreet saves the day......Did good for 4 years and then had to run away,hey.
Took a beatin bad, got our hinnie's beat, we're still backwards but we'll never admit defeat....Hey.
OR the contemporary southern song.
The south's gonna do it again ! (lose a war?) YEeeeeeeeeeeee HHHHHHAAAA !
Davis learns he is president
Jefferson Davis receives word that he has been selected president of the new Confederate States of America.
Davis was at his plantation, Brierfield, pruning rose bushes with his wife Varina when a messenger arrived from nearby Vicksburg. It was not a job he wanted, but he accepted it out of a sense of duty to his new country. Varina later wrote that she saw her husband's face grow pale and she recalled, "Reading that telegram he looked so grieved that I feared some evil had befallen our family. After a few minutes he told me like a man might speak of a sentence of death."
Davis said of the job: "I have no confidence in my ability to meet its requirement. I think I could perform the function of a general." He could see the difficulties involved in launching the new nation. "Upon my weary heart was showered smiles, plaudits, and flowers, but beyond them I saw troubles innumerable. We are without machinery, without means, and threatened by powerful opposition but I do not despond and will not shrink from the task before me."
Davis was prescient in his concerns. He drew sharp criticism during the war--Alexander Stephens, the vice president, said Davis was "weak and vacillating, timid, petulant, peevish, obstinate," and Stephens declared that he held "no more feeling of resentment toward him" than he did toward his "poor old blind and deaf dog."
By JO MANNIES
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
02/07/2003
"We can't change history,"
says Affton woman
Insurance broker Tom Martin and retired union bookkeeper Patricia Pijut don't agree on much. He's a staunch Republican and she's a loyal Democrat.
But in the latest Zogby poll for the Post-Dispatch, both were among the two-thirds of the Missourians surveyed who hold the same position on the Confederate flag.
They strongly oppose the recent decision of Missouri officials to take down the Confederate flag at two state historic sites where the flag has flown for decades.
Of those polled, 45 percent said they "strongly disagreed" with the state's decision to no longer fly the flag; an additional 21 percent said they "somewhat disagreed" with the decision.
Only 30 percent said they agreed with Gov. Bob Holden and others - including U.S. Sens. Christopher S. Bond and Jim Talent and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt - that the flag should no longer fly.
The results are well outside the poll's margin of error of 4.1 percentage points.
Support for the Confederate flag was particularly strong outstate, where almost three of every four persons polled opposed taking it down. In the St. Louis area, more than half of those surveyed backed the flag.
Pijut and Martin offer the same reason for keeping the Confederate flag aloft: history.
Pijut, who lives in Affton, said it is appropriate to allow the flag to fly at Civil War sites and cemeteries. "There was a Confederate army. We can't change history," she said.
Martin, of Richmond Heights, accused the Confederate flag's critics of "rewriting history to make it politically correct."
Missouri's dispute over the flag has attracted national attention, with some seeing it as a spinoff of the ongoing controversy in South Carolina over the flag.
Gephardt, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, touched off the matter while campaigning recently in South Carolina. He declared that the Confederate flag had no business flying anywhere. At the time, Gephardt was not aware that the flag flew at two sites in Missouri, but he added later that he stuck by his view.
Gephardt's stance attracted the attention of Missouri officials, including his longtime ally, Holden, and the Missouri flags came down. Since then, Confederate-flag backers have rallied outside the governor's mansion and pressed for a reversal.
But Talent and Bond, both Republicans, have sided with Holden on the flag - raising questions of how much of a political issue it will be in next year's statewide elections.
Lincoln leaves Springfield
President-elect Abraham Lincoln leaves home in Springfield, Illinois, as he embarks on his journey to Washington.
On a cold, rainy morning, Lincoln boarded a two-car private train loaded with his family's belongings, which he himself had packed and bound. Mary Lincoln was in St. Louis on a shopping trip, and she joined him later in Indiana. It was a somber occasion. Lincoln was leaving his home and heading into the maw of national crisis. Since he had been elected, seven states of the lower South had seceded from the Union. Lincoln knew that his actions upon entering office would likely lead to civil war. He spoke to the crowd before departing: "Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young man to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being...I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail...To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell."
A bystander reported that the president-elect's "breast heaved with emotion and he could scarcely command his feelings." Indeed, Lincoln's words were prophetic--a funeral train carried him back to Springfield just over four years later.
Feb. 12 ought to mark the birthday not of an American icon, but of a man whose name should live on in infamy. If Americans want to reclaim their moral character as a nation, they will have to confront and denounce "The Real Lincoln," who carried out a violent constitutional revolution (instead of pursuing peaceful emancipation like every other nation did) – a revolution, which, in turn, sired the modern imperialist, interventionist and highly centralized American State.
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30992
Are you friggin serious ? I fear that you are. Yikes.
I think the facts establish that such an argument is well supported. I do believe Lincoln exceeded his authority in performing a duty that he did not have.
From the article
"a revolution, which, in turn, sired the modern imperialist, interventionist and highly centralized American State. "
So you think we're imperialist? Did you recently move to Superior ?
Also from the article.
"If Americans want to reclaim their moral character as a nation, they will have to confront and denounce "The Real Lincoln,"
And I'm supposed to take moral advice from someone who writes bile like that ? No thanks, if trashing Him or our founding fathers is all they can do to advance an ideal then I sure the hell don't want her speaking for me.
So you think we're imperialist? Did you recently move to Superior?
I think US history bears out that the US has imperialist tendencies. I think we have shown that in our relationship to Mexico especially in the 1840's when we went to war to obtain western land. I think it showed when we went to war with Spain in 1898. I think it showed to some degree in our dealing in building the Panama Canal. I think it shoes in the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary to it.
And I'm supposed to take moral advice from someone who writes bile like that ? Will you consider the evidence supporting the argument that Lincoln exceeded his constitutional authority?No thanks, if trashing Him or our founding fathers is all they can do to advance an ideal then I sure the hell don't want her speaking for me. It appears you won't even consider the underlying evidence of the allegations. Why?
I didn't say we didn't. What I said it was US imperialist tendencies that caused it. We got a lot out of our endeavors in Latin America. We did it with the purpose of benefiting the US at the expense of others.
And lets not forget how "The Monroe Doctrine" has benefitted the nations of the Americas, both north and south, from what could have been a total communist takeover of South America especially, had we not been strong FOR them, and against the Soviets.
I didn't say that the US interjecting itself into other countries business was a bad thing. I just think that it needs to be recognized that we did it on the basis of self interest.