Intruders Within States

It is essential to understand that the word “union” was merely a convenient word to describe the agreement between 13 independent States (as referred to by the 1783 Treaty of Paris and the Articles of Confederation), who in 1789 agreed to a newer governing covenant between them. Of course, this in no way transferred a State’s population and territory into what was referred to as “the Union.” Below, the word “conquered” below reveals all. Hamilton noted in his 1789 Federalist opinion that a war between member States would mean the Constitution was at an end.

Rev. Orestes Brownson (1803-1876) was a Vermont-born preacher who “inclined to the view of his friend, John C. Calhoun, holding that the united States are a confederation of sovereign or independent States,” which was in line with the 1783 Treaty of Paris as England listed each former colony as an independent State.

Intruders Within States

“It was apparent on this theory – that no State could secede – that Lincoln built his executive plan for reorganizing the rebellious States as States in the Union in December 1863.

Brownson objected to the plan primarily as it was a distinctly executive plan [but] in no case, he maintained, did it come within the jurisdiction of the President to institute either military of civil governments in the conquered States or territories. [He] looked upon Lincoln’s plan or reorganization as a dangerous and revolutionary assumption of power contrary to our Constitution and republican form of government. He exposed sharply the equally discrediting alternatives in volved in Lincoln’s plan:

“If the States are still in the Union, the President violates their constitutions, and wars against the essential principle of every State constitution [no right to interfere]; if they are not States in the Union, but, as we maintain, population and territory belonging to the Union, then he transcends his province as executive of the government and attempt to do on executive authority what only Congress can do.”

If the States are still in the Union, as the administration claims, by what right, Brownson wanted to know, had Lincoln appointed Andrew Johnson as governor of Tennessee; Col Hamilton governor of Texas; Mr. Phelps governor of Arkansas; Eli Thayer as governor of Florida; Edward Stanly as governor of North Carolina; and Col. Shepley as governor of Louisiana. If these respective territories are States in the Union, then these so-called governors are intruders, without any constitutional authority, for under the American Constitution the right to choose its own officers is reserved to the State, “and there is no authority in the President or Congress to appoint a single State officer, not even a constable.” The error of the Lincoln administration, is denying that a State can secede.”

(Orestes A. Brownson: A Definitive Biography. Thomas R. Ryan. Our Sunday Visitor, 1976, p. 635)

A War Far, Far Away

The following reminds us of Robert E. Lee’s mid-December 1866 letter to Britain’s Lord Acton, noting that the new highly centralized US government had become despotic at home as well as aggressive abroad.”

The colonial French stronghold of Deinbienphu surrendered to North Vietnamese forces on May 7,1954, leading to the partition of Vietnam into North and South. The latter would be protected by inclusion into the new SEATO defense treaty, which in hindsight was a gross mistake. The author below noted that Eisenhower did “Americanize” the region and commit US prestige to defend a government, which to use Dulles’s phrase, “would lose the support of the people.” It had been Eisenhower himself who predicted the consequences. It would be Eisenhower’s successors who would have to face them.”

A War Far, Far Away

“Still, neither Dulles nor Eisenhower were willing to throw in the towel [in late-April]. They quickly devised an alternative plan by which a United Action coalition could be arranged among France, the ANZUS countries, and the Associated States. Dienbienphu would be lost, but the French could withdraw into defensible enclaves where they could be supported by American air and sea power. The British could join the coalition later. Eisenhower sounded out the Republican leaders.

“There are plenty of people in Asia,” he explained, “and we can train them to fight well. I don’t see any reason for American ground troops to be committed in Indochina, don’t think we need it, but we can train their forces and it may be necessary for us eventually to use some of our planes or aircraft off the coast and some of our fighting craft we have in that area for support.” The essential point was, Eisenhower concluded, “Where in the hell can you let the Communists chip away anymore [sic]. We just can’t stand it.”

“[During a National Security Council meeting on April 29, Eisenhower noted that] the position of the US as the leader of the free world necessitated associates. Without allies “the leader is just an adventurer like Genghis Kahn.” Further, “We would in the eyes of many Asiatic peoples merely replace French colonialism with American colonialism . . . [and] be everywhere accused of imperialistic ambitions. A unilateral intervention would mean a general war with China and perhaps the USSR, which the US would have to prosecute separated from its allies.”

(Reevaluating Eisenhower: American Foreign Policy in the Fifties. R. Melanson; D. Mayers, editors. University of Illinois Press. 1989, pp. 142-143)

 

Reconstruction Days in Washington

On March 2, 1875, President Grant signed the Civil Rights Bill for which Charles Sumner had labored so many years, and which was a tribute to his memory. Southerners and Democrats in Congress had bitterly contested the Bill, which imposed a $500 fine, upon owners of restaurants, theaters and hotels which refused to accommodate all persons regardless of color. The Bill did not apply to churches nor to schools – and in the South, was held to be an unwarrantable interference with the rights of the individual States, and after a number of test cases in the lower courts, this opinion was sustained by the US Supreme Court.

Reconstruction Days in Washington

“During the Reconstruction period the colored people of Washington were able briefly to enjoy some of those advantages and privileges for which they and their Radical friends had so long struggled. The leaders of the Republican party, well-aware that only the solid support of the colored voters of the South had regained the two-thirds majority of their party in Congress and therefore anxious to preserve their loyalty, treated the colored representatives with a healthy respect.

The largest contingent of Negro congressmen had come from South Carolina, which had been under Republican control since the new state constitution of 1869. The white “Scalawag” members who had been returned to the 41st Congress had reflected little credit on their state or their party. One of them, B.F. Whittemore, had resigned after his sale of West Point cadetships was revealed. Another, C.C. Bowen, the representative for the Charleston district, was jailed for bigamy after a long and sensational trial in the District courts. Convicted by a mixed jury, Bowen was freed after two weeks in prison; he was not, however, renominated for his congressional seat.

Joseph H. Rainey was a mulatto native of Georgetown, SC and a barber. His scanty formal education had been improved by travel in the West Indies. In an interview, Rainey stated it was hard to find rooms in Washington and that colored congressmen were charged more than white men. At Falf’s Bar, across from the Post Office, he had been obliged to pay fifty cents for a glass of beer, the water freely admitting that the extra charge was account of his color.”

(The Uncivil War: Washington During the Reconstruction: 1865-1878. James H. Whyte, Twayne Publishers, 1958, pp. 237-238; 242)

Fish and Oyster Subsistence

The disbanding of the State militia by order of the Florida convention and steady withdrawal of troops for service in the Army of Tennessee forced the abandonment of Apalachicola by the military, while the Federal blockading fleet hovered off the coast. Florida created its Coast Guard in early October 1861 to defend its long shoreline. Northern military incursions and slave seizures increased in 1862 while Lincoln’s administration was negotiating with the Danes and Dutch to take those seized for their Caribbean sugar plantations.

Fish and Oyster Subsistence

“People expected Apalachicola sooner or later to experience the fate of Cedar Keys, Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Fernandina; therefore, many inhabitants followed the retiring troops to the interior. The northern blockaders had demanded in March 1862, that the town be surrendered and the people forthwith to take the oath of allegiance to the union. Whereupon a committee of citizens – among them the Roman Catholic priest responded: “The city is defenseless. There are no soldiers or arms; but there is no one having authority to surrender it.” The answer closed with the opinion that there was “no one who would take the oath of allegiance except some —- foreigners.”

The expected visitation from the Federals soon followed this candid reply. On the night of April 2nd, 1862, a boat expedition put off from two warships to find some 500 people – mostly poor whites and free Negroes – remaining out if a total population of 2500 with the streets and wharves deserted. Destitution was apparent – no flour, no sugar, no meat, very little corn. The people were dependent on fish and oysters for subsistence.

A man in the crowd called out: “Captain, some of our boys [meaning negroes] have gone to your ship. Will they be given up?” The commander responded: “No. They have been used to transport soldiers and arms, in building fortifications and a gunboat to be used against the United States. You will never get relief for their loss.”

This comparatively unimportant affair alarmed the people of the lower Chattahoochee valley, with the Columbus, Georgia voting funds to obstruct navigation above Apalachicola with a submerged boom.”

(The Civil War & Reconstruction in Florida, William Watson Davis, Columbia University, 1913, pp. 162-163)

 

Colonial Versus British Law

Between 1680-1688 England operated 249 slave ships; from 1713, for twenty years, 15,000 slaves were annually shipped to America; by 1786, England had brought over 97,000 slaves. Though Liverpool was the chief port for this trade, Bristol was a close second. New England was not slow in this nefarious system – by 1725 it had become the center of the transatlantic slave trade. After the Pequot tribe was vanquished in the latter 1630s, Puritans sold captive men, women and children into West Indies slavery.

Colonial Versus British Law

“Slavery [in American colonies] simply evolved in practice, as a custom, and then received statutory recognition. Actually, the process of “recognition” was implicit, involving no articulation of first principles. In 1636 the governor and council of Barbados decreed that “Negroes and Indians, that come here to be sold, should serve for Life, unless a Contract was made before to the contrary.” A Rhode Island statute of 1652 cited “the common course practiced among English men to buy Negars, to that end that they may have them for service or slaves forever.”

The famous Fundamental Constitutions, drawn up by John Locke and the Earl of Shaftesbury in 1669 for the nascent South Carolina colony, guaranteed that “Every Freeman of South Carolina shall have absolute power and authority over Negro Slaves.” [And] the reality is that slavery was principally acknowledged in law by an extensive set of police measures.

Chief Justice Sir John Holt reasoned that “as soon as a negro comes to England, he becomes free; one may be a villein in England, but not a slave.” Yet in an earlier opinion he concluded to the contrary that Africans were indeed commodities; yet in no case did the common law ever meddle with, ratify, reject or otherwise directly address slavery in the colonies, as opposed to England, other than as the apparent custom of the colonies.

In fact, there are many reported cases concerning the English slave-trading monopoly, indebted tobacco or sugar planters, the duties charged on various plantation commodities, and trade to Africa and America, all matters whose circumstances frequently involved black slaves.”

(Slavery and the Law, Paul Finkelman, ed., Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002, pp. 382; 388-389)

Florida’s Reconstruction

By order of the Sixth District’s Federal military occupation commander, Major-General John Pope, the election of Florida’s constitutional convention members was to be held on November 14, 15 and 16, 1867. Those chosen to register voter names were noted as “pronounced and bitter Republican partisans,” and holding positions as election officers and poll judges.

The struggles over Reconstruction issues in Florida noted below would revive the State’s prewar Democratic party, as conservative citizens became aware of the Republican scheme to form a “ring” to monopolize the State’s railways with New York funding.

Florida’s Reconstruction

“The native whites were not exhibiting interest in registering [under Reconstruction rule]. From Walton County, West Florida, came the report: “I fear this class (negroes, carpetbaggers and scalawags) will control the county unless a greater interest can be awakened.” What is true of Walton is true of most of the counties in the State,” announced the Floridian.

The mass of the whites had refrained from voting, with only 1,220 white votes cast, of which 203 were against assembling the convention. The Conservative party [of native whites] had succeeded neither in making Conservative voters of the negroes nor in preventing them from voting the Republican ticket.

Forty-six delegates were actually returned in this election: eighteen were negroes, and three of the latter were citizens of other States. Of the twenty-seven whites, one or two were Conservatives, fifteen or sixteen were Radical carpetbaggers from the North, and ten or twelve Southern loyalist or “scalawags.”

What were the obvious characteristics of these delegates chosen by the newly enfranchised? Several of the negro members were unlettered – unable to read or write. Two or three of the blacks had evil reputations and would have done better in jail than in legislative halls. Of the whites, the native Union or loyalist element was made up of men of no particular reputation – good or bad – and of mediocre enlightenment.

The carpetbag or Northern element – composing about one-third of the delegates – contained some men of considerable intelligence and passable education. The most cultured member of the convention, probably, was Jonathan Gibbs, a tall and slightly- built man of color indicating mulatto origin. Born in Philadelphia, educated at Dartmouth College and Princeton Theological Seminary, he was a fairly successful type of an intelligent black subjected to New England culture.

Sent into Florida for philanthropic work among the negroes. He soon entered politics and was ere long in rubbing shoulders with cantankerous and thieving ignorance. He died before the end of Republican rule, ostensibly from eating too heavy a dinner. It was rumored that he was poisoned by fellow Republicans.”

(The Civil War & Reconstruction in Florida, William Watson Davis, Columbia University, 1913, pp. 491-495)

 

Dahomey’s Export Trade

To understand how the slave trade to the Americas developed, one must look to the African country of Dahomey which existed from about 1600 until 1904 and is now known as the Republic of Benin. These warlike people, the Fon, became a strong regional power in the 18th century with an economy built upon conquest and slave labor. The Fon soon conquered the port of Whydah on the Atlantic coast, from which it exported its slaves to European traders.

Dahomey’s Export Trade

“Visitors extensively documented the kingdom which became one of the most familiar African nations known to Europeans, as it became known as a major supplier of slaves. Dahomey was a highly militaristic society organized for constant warfare, taking captives in wars and raids against its neighbors and trading them to Europeans as slaves in exchange for weapons, gunpowder, fabric, tobacco and alcohol. Other captives became slaves for Dahomey royal plantations or died in human sacrifice celebrations known as the Annual Customs of Dahomey.

In the 1840s, Dahomey was in decline due to British pressure to abolish the slave trade, which included the anti-slavery blockade of Africa by the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron. The country was also weakened after crushing defeats by the Yoruba who were migrating south. Territorial disputes with France led to war in 1890 and part of the kingdom became a French protectorate. Renewed fighting led to the end of the kingdom four years later and annexation into French West Africa. French Dahomey gained independence in 1960 with Hubert Maga as its first president, who was deposed in an army coup three years later led by Gen. Soglo, who dismissed the civilian government. Another military coup occurred in late 1967; yet another in 1969, and another in 1972. Between 1974 and 1989 Dahomey embraced socialism and changed its name to the People’s Republic of Benin. In 1990, Benin abandoned its Marxist ideology, began moving toward multiparty democracy, and changed its name again, to the Republic of Benin.”

Its literacy rate in 2010 was recorded to be 42.4%. (Wikipedia)

 

“So Many Times . . .”

Maj-General Robert F. Hoke once said in regard to the War:

“So many times we failed of success by such a narrow margin that it seems it was not intended that we should succeed.”

(Confederate Veteran, September 1912, pg. 437)

Hoke’s Men at Cold Harbor

The Lincoln government fed northern newspapers horrid tales of inhuman treatment of prisoners held at Andersonville, Georgia, while refusing Southern pleadings to send doctors and medicine safe passage to feed and treat them. Grant’s policy, underscored by Lincoln, was to refuse prisoner exchange as blue-clad prisoners would be sent home to recuperate while most Southern prisoners returned to the ranks to fight.

Hoke’s Men at Cold Harbor

“At an early hour on June 3, 1864, the battle was opened by a vicious assault upon our right and center,” much of which was occupied by Maj-Gen. Robert F. Hoke’s command. As our cannon commanded the field, the loss of the enemy was frightful to contemplate with the ground on our front covered with their dead and wounded. For two days Grant left his dead unburied and the wounded left to their loneliness and agony. Then he reluctantly asked for a truce to bury the one and care for the other.”

Time and time again the order was given to advance as new troops were moved to the front and division after division was hurled against the works held by Kershaw and Hoke, where Lee’s veterans with steady nerve and accurate aim sent death and destruction to the advancing hosts of the enemy. Everywhere along the line Grant’s mighty army was hurled back by a storm of steel.”

(Sketch of Gen. Robert Hoke, Tho. Hufham, Confederate Veteran, Sept. 1912, p. 438)

Memorial to the Victors at Plymouth

Memorial to the Victors at Plymouth

The following is an extract from the address by Josephus Daniels, June 19, 1928, at the unveiling of the Confederate Memorial Marker on the site of the Battle of Plymouth, North Carolina.

“If the man from Mars should seek to learn how the Confederate army, poorly equipped and poorly-fed, kept at bay superior forces for four long years, the answer would be” “Look at the character, resourcefulness, and courage of the men who led the armies and who followed them in battle.”

Every army is judged by the oncoming generation, not by its victories or defeats, but by the spirit and life of its personnel. By that standard the battalions of the South have stood the test of threescore and more years.

While the survivors of those who wore the grey cannot take their sons to Gettysburg or to Appomattox and say, “Upon these battlefields we overpowered our opponents and carried our standards to victory,” they can indeed point to success after success won against superior odds, almost in the very shadow of Washington, DC, and on a hundred fields of battle. Among these splendid victories that attest to the glory of the brave men who achieved them stands out in bold relief the battle of Plymouth. It is fitting, therefore, that we should stand here today with the thin line of the immortals with bowed heads, in honor of the victor of Plymouth, as there is unveiled here a memorial to their valor and their success.

Many battles surpassed the one waged and won here by Southern troops, for the most part North Carolinians, in the number of troops or in far-reaching results. It has, however, one distinction that is without parallel in that the victory was so highly esteemed by President Jefferson Davis that he promoted Brig-Gen. Hoke to the rank of Major General by telegraph immediately after the news reached him.

This was the only promotion made directly by President Davis on the field of battle during the war.”

(“Two Illustrious Roberts of the Southern Confederacy.” Confederate Veteran, September 1912, pg. 437)