To Sustain the Right of Self-Government

In his “Rise and Fall,” President Jefferson Davis described the object of the American South’s struggle “was to sustain a principle – the broad principle of constitutional liberty, the right of self-government.”

To Sustain the Right of Self-Government

“The notice received, that an armed expedition had sailed for operations against the State of South Carolina in the harbor of Charleston, induced the Confederate States Government to meet, as best it might, this assault, in the discharge of its obligation to defend each State of the Confederacy. To this end the bombardment of the formidable work, Fort Sumter, was commenced, in anticipation of the [Northern] reinforcement which was then moving to unite with its garrison for hostilities against South Carolina.

The bloodless bombardment and surrender of Fort Sumter occurred on April 13, 1861. The garrison was generously permitted to retire with the honors of war. The evacuation of the fort, commanding the entrance to the harbor of Charleston, which, if in hostile hands, was destructive of its commerce, had been claimed as the right of South Carolina. The voluntary withdrawal of garrison by the United States government had been considered, and those best qualified to judge believed it had been promised.

Yet, instead of the fulfillment of just expectations, instead of the withdrawal of its garrison, a hostile expedition was organized and sent forward, the urgency of the case required its reduction before it should be reinforced. Had there been delay, the more serious conflict between larger forces, land and naval, would scarcely have been bloodless, as the bombardment fortunately was.

The event, however, was seized upon to inflame the mind of the Northern people, and the disguise which had been worn in the communications with the Confederate States Commissioners was now thrown off, and it was cunningly attempted to show that the South, which had been pleading for peace and still stood on the defensive, had by this bombardment inaugurated a war against the United States.

But it should be stated that the threats implied in the declarations that the Union could not exist part slave and part free, and that the Union should be preserved, and the denial of the right of a State peaceably to withdraw, were virtually a declaration of war, and the sending of an army and navy to attack was the result to have been anticipated as the consequence of such declaration of war.”

(Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Jefferson Davis, Volume I, D. Appleton and Co., 1881, pp. 296-297)

Peaceful Separation No Longer Possible

In his December 3, 1860, State of the Union address, President James Buchanan stated that all that the South desired was to be let alone to manage its domestic institutions. Regarding the personal liberty laws of the Northern States, he declared they were in direct violation of the United States Constitution.

Buchanan further noted that waging war against a State desiring withdrawal was not a valid Federal power in the Constitution, but if the power existed, exercising it would produce a fraternal conflict in which “a vast amount of blood and treasure would be expended, rendering future conciliation . . . impossible.”

Peaceful Separation No Longer Possible

“Mr. Buchanan was an able man, but a very timid one. If he had the nerve to deal with the situation [of December 20, 1860] as its gravity demanded, I doubt exceedingly whether any other State [at the] South would have followed South Carolina into secession.

Had he withdrawn the troops from Sumter, it would have been such a conspicuous act of conciliation that the other States would not, I believe, have called conventions to consider the question of secession, or if they had the ordinances [they] would not have been passed. I was not one of those who believed there could ever be a peaceful separation of the States but could not convince our people of it.

I had years before become convinced by my association with Mr. Webster, that the North would never consent to it. I knew that secession meant war, and, therefore, did my utmost to prevent it. When the war came, however, it had to be met with spirit.

The chance for peaceful separation of the States was lost years before the war. It could have succeeded when the North wanted to go [the Hartford Convention], and again when Texas was annexed [when New England voiced secession], but not after.”

(The Life and Death of Jefferson Davis. A.C. Bancroft, editor. J. S. Ogilvie Publisher, 1889, pp. 145-146)

The Union’s “Veteran’s Corps”

In some northern States the amount of total bounty money for one man had risen to $1500 – a very large sum in 1863. If one consults Robert L. Dabney’s “Discussions, Volume IV (1897), he states: “the Secretary of War wrote that “after May 1, 1863, there were 1,634,000 enlistments. And if the cost of each enlistment was $300, which is far below the average bounty, somebody had to pay them a total of $490,000,000. It is then likely the “bounty jumpers” as it is well-known, perpetrated immense frauds with the number of bounties paid being far larger than that of the enlistments.”

The Union’s “Veterans Corps”

“In early November 1863 the veteran northern troops occupying Plymouth, North Carolina first read of financial incentives to reenlist, made necessary due to high bounties paid for new enlistees. To avoid mass desertions of veterans the US War Department needed incentives for existing troops. The following month a New York soldier recorded in his diary that “those regiments whose time expires next fall are asked to reenlist for three years or the war’s duration.” He wrote that the men “were lured by money in sums not imagined earlier: payment of an unpaid original bounty of $100, a new bounty of $400 plus a $2 recruiting premium paid in $50 installments every six months.

This was at a time when the annual family income in New York may have been $350. In addition to the $402 financial incentive was a month-long furlough home to see loved ones while wearing the blue uniform adorned with a gold sleeve chevron of the new “Veterans Corps.” Once at home, the soldier would also receive a $50 bounty from the State of New York and whatever bounty was offered by the soldier’s county and town. The total sum of $750 or more was sufficient to “build a house on his little farm on the road up home.”

As a town or county did not require residency to receive the bounty-paid credit, the soldier home on reenlistment furlough could shop area communities and counties for the highest amount and credit his reenlistment to them. Civilians unwilling to enlist and employers wanting to retain trained workers both contributed to each town’s bounty account to attract substitutes.

Some blowbacks did occur as some “Veteran Volunteers” visiting home would credit themselves to another community so as to not shelter those they considered “shirkers” in their hometowns who avoided the draft.”

(Plymouth’s Civil War: The Destruction of a North Carolina Town. John Bernhard Thuersam. Scuppernong Press, 2024, pp. 160-161)

Letter From Enemy-Occupied Plymouth

The writer below laments the low number of troops left to defend occupied-Plymouth, North Carolina, as the men of the 101st Pennsylvania Regiment were enjoying a 30-day furlough home. This and $402 was a bonus for “veteranizing,” a device for the retention of northern soldiers coming to the end of their original 3-year term. In addition to the $402 bonus, at home the reenlisting soldier collected generous State, county and town bounties offered as well, often totaling over $1000. Few voluntary enlistments came after the carnage of Fredericksburg; draft riots and poor-quality substitutes forced Lincoln to turn to American and foreign mercenaries. The North Carolina “troops” mentioned below were likely deserters whose families and farms were caught behind enemy lines.

Letter from Enemy-Occupied Plymouth

“There are not over eight hundred troops here now, & a considerable part of them are North Carolinians, & how much they can be depended [on] we do not yet know. A [rebel] deserter came in yesterday.  Says he came from Goldsborough & that there are but two rebel troops in this State. Don’t believe him as all the news we have had for the past month shows that the rebels have been concentrating a force in this state. Probably he was sent in to deceive us in hopes we would relax our vigilance & become easy prey the rebels.

Our river gunboat USS Bombshell had a narrow escape last week . . . she went up the Chowan River and was engaged by a rebel battery . . . though not damaged. Harry Brinkerhoff, her commander is considered a brave man. He is a German & is most terribly wicked.

We have two companies of the 2nd Regiment, Massachusetts Heavy Artillery here now. They are a hard set. Nearly all foreigners. Came out for the large bounties. It is amusing to hear some who are Irishmen talk about their enlistment: They will say: “only six weeks in this country and I enlisted in the Massachusetts “waty” [brogue for weighty or heavy] artillery.”

(Civil War Letters of E.N. Boots from New Bern and Plymouth. Wilfred W. Black, editor. North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. XXVI, No. 2, April 1959, pp. 220-221)

An Unequal Duel

Author John P. Cullop (below) asserts that while “Irish immigration increased substantially in 1863 and 1864” and it is difficult to ascertain how many served in the American military, historian Frank L. Owsley estimates “that Ireland, England and Germany contributed over 300,000 men to Union forces . . . [and] there is no doubt that the North relied heavily on immigrant soldiers.” As early as August 1862, Secretary of State William Seward was advised to send all Federal consuls in Europe full particulars about bounties paid to volunteers. Lincoln’s army was bolstered by an estimated 150,000 Irish men, of whom over 35,000 paid lost their lives. At Fredericksburg’s Marye’s Heights in December 1862, over 41% of northern casualties were Irishmen.

An Unequal Duel

“Federal interest in the procurement of recruits from Europe was manifest early in the war. In May 1861, Henry S. Sanford, American minister to Belgium, suggested to secretary of State Seward that as the Lincoln administration apparently intended to rely primarily on volunteers for the army, it was not too early to look abroad for recruits. He reminded the Secretary that the British had received excellent service from the German Legion of Ten Thousand during the Crimean War.

On August 8, 1862, Seward sent all American embassies and consulates in Europe Circular No. 19, which was essentially an invitation to the poor people of Europe to emigrate to the US, emphasizing opportunities for wartime employment but carefully avoiding mention of possible military service. However, mercenary soldiers were uppermost in Seward’s mind, for on September 19, 1862, he wrote American consul general at Paris, John Bigelow that “to some extent this civil war must be a trial between the two parties to exhaust each other. The immigration of a large mass from Europe would of itself decide it.” Many years after the war Bigelow noted that Seward’s circular threw light “upon the mysterious repletion of our army during the four years of war, while it was notoriously being depleted by firearms, disease and desertion.”

Large numbers of Irishmen applied directly to American consuls for enlistment, but were uniformly refused as enlistment had to occur in the United States after emigration. While it was an easy matter to entice Irishmen to the US, it was equally easy to enlist them on arrival. Simply informing the penniless immigrant of the large bounties was often sufficient. Even more attractive were the larger sums offered by speculators who secured substitutes for northerners who wished to avoid Lincoln’s draft.

By April 1864, British Foreign Minister Earl Russell charged that there was strong circumstantial evidence of a well-organized Union military recruiting program in Ireland. This led to a closer scrutiny of Union activity in Ireland but did little to stem the flow of Irish emigrants in 1864.”

(An Unequal Duel: Union Recruiting in Ireland, 1863-1864. John P. Cullop. Civil War History: A Journal of the Middle Period. John T. Hubbell, editor. Vol. XIII, No. II, June 1967, pp.102-109)

Truman’s War Bypasses Congress

Lincoln established the unconstitutional precedent of a president waging war without congressional approval. The following is drawn from a chapter entitled “A Costly Mistake: War Without Congressional Approval.” As a note of clarification, Sen. Robert Taft was not an “isolationist” but an anti-interventionist who advocated avoidance of European or Asian wars, concentrating instead on solving its domestic problems. He advocated a strong American military as adequate protection and opposed Truman’s unconstitutional actions.

Truman’s War Bypasses Congress

“After Sen. Scott Lucas of Illinois had read to the Senate on June 27 Truman’s initial statement committing US air and naval forces and ordering the fleet to neutralize Formosa, Senator James P. Kem, Republican of Missouri, rose: “I notice that in the President’s statement he says ‘I have ordered the fleet to prevent any attack on Formosa.’ Does that mean he has arrogated to himself the authority of declaring war?”

“A state of emergency exists,” Lucas said, ignoring the fact that Truman had not legally declared one. Based on the action of the United Nations Security Council,” Lucas explained, the President of the United States has ordered action. It is a demonstration of our keeping the faith.”

Republican Senator John Bricker of Ohio interposed, “Am I correct in saying that the President’s action was taken as a result of the cease-fire order issued by the Security Council? Lucas said that Bricker was correct as far as action in Korea was concerned. Watkins declared that Truman had taken a step leading toward war.

“The Congress is now in session,” the senator said, “and unless there is power in the United Nations to order our forces into action of this kind which may result in a major world clash, then I think we should have been informed by the President in a message to Congress today. As I recall, we were told time and time again when we were considering the [North Atlantic Treaty Organization] that nothing would take us into war under that pact without action by Congress. The President could not do it . . . Now, according to the action taken, by the mere order and request of the United Nations, our troops can be sent into a fighting war without Congress saying ‘yes or no.’

Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution provides that Congress shall have the power to declare war.

The big gun went off in the Senate on June 28. In a crackling speech, Robert Taft, “an old-time isolationist” to Truman – alleged:

“a complete usurpation by the President of authority to use the armed forces of the country. His action has brought about a de facto war with the government of northern Korea. He has brought that war about without consulting Congress and without congressional approval. We have a situation in which in a far-distant part of the world one nation has attacked another, and if the President can intervene in Korea without congressional approval, he can go to war in Malaya or Indonesia or Iran or South America.” With but the slightest detour on a map Taft might have included Vietnam.  

“Mr. President”, a reporter asked, “everybody is asking in this country, are we or are we not at war?”

“We are not at war,” Truman replied and later added that “the members of the United Nations are going to the relief of the Korean Republic to suppress a bandit raid . . .”

“Mr. President, would it be correct, against your explanation, to call this a police action under the United Nations?”

Truman responded, “Yes, that’s exactly what it amounts to . . .”

Again, Truman had let a reporter put words in his mouth that were later to be held against him. He did not initiate, nor volunteer, the phrase “police action” any more than he had “red herring,” but the result was to be the same as if he had.”

(Tumultuous Years: The Presidency of Harry S. Truman, 1949-1953. Robert J. Donovan. W.W. Norton & Company, 1982, pp. 219-223)

 

America’s 1861 Revolution

There was no “war emergency” that Lincoln faced at Fort Sumter. The US Constitution explicitly states that only Congress may declare war, with four US Supreme Court Justices holding in 1862 that a President’s authority to suppress an insurrection “is not tantamount to the power of initiating a legal state of war, and that civil war does not validly begin with an executive declaration.”

US Senator Thomas Clingman of North Carolina rightly prophesied on March 19, 1861:

“The Republicans intend . . . as soon as they collect the force to have war, to begin; and then call Congress suddenly together and say, “the honor of the country is concerned; the flag is insulted. You must come up and vote men and money.”

Lincoln intentionally bypassed Congress.

America’s 1861 Revolution

“The reaction of the Lincoln administration to the war emergency produced many unusual situations. Governmental norms were abandoned. War powers overbore the rule of law, and extra-legal procedures were initiated. Well-known distinctions of government were obscured. The line was blurred between State and federal functions, between executive, legislative, and judicial authority, and between civil and military spheres. Probably no president, not even Wilson, nor Roosevelt, carried the presidential power, independently of Congress, as far as did Lincoln. He began his administration by taking to himself the virtual declaration of the existence of a state of war, for his proclamation of insurrection (April 15, 1861) started the war regime as truly as if a declaration of war had been passed by Congress.

In issuing this proclamation Lincoln committed the government to a definite theory of the nature of the war (he commenced, but] it may be noted that in strict theory the [United States] government declined to regard the struggle as analogous to a regular war between independent nations. The American Confederacy . . . was deemed a pretender, an unsuccessful rival, and a usurper. Instead of the struggle being regarded as a clash between governments, the Southern effort was denounced as an insurrection conducted by combinations of individuals against their constituted authorities.

In contrast to this, the Southern view was analogous to that of the [British] Americans in the Revolution . . . that the Confederate States was an independent nation conducting war and entitled to the respect due a people fighting off an invader.

Lincoln’s view of his own war powers was most expansive. He believed that in time of war constitutional restraints did not fully apply, but that so far as they did apply, they restrained the Congress more than the President.”

(The Civil War and Reconstruction. J.G. Randall. D.C. Heath and Company, 1937, pp. 382-383; 385)

State’s Rights and Civil Rights

“States’ Rights are easy enough to define. The Tenth Amendment does it succinctly: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people [of the States]”

Civil rights should be no harder. In fact, however – thanks to extravagant and shameless misuse by people who ought to know better – it is one of the most badly understood concepts in modern political usage.  Civil rights [are] frequently used synonymously with “human rights” – or with “natural rights.”

As often as not, it is simply a name for describing an activity that someone deems politically or socially desirable.  A sociologist writes a paper proposing to abolish some inequity, or a politician makes a speech about it – and, behold, a new “civil right” is born!  The Supreme Court has displayed the same creative powers.

A civil right is a right that is asserted and is therefore protected by some valid law. It may be asserted by the common law, or by local or federal statutes, or by the Constitution; but unless a right is incorporated in the law, it is not a civil right and is not enforceable by the instruments of the civil law.

There may be some rights – “natural,” “human,” or otherwise – that should also by civil rights.  But if we desire to give such rights the protection of the law, our recourse is to a legislature or to the amendment procedures of the Constitution.  We must not look to politicians, or sociologists – or the courts – to correct the deficiency.

[The] federal Constitution does not require the States to maintain racially mixed schools. Despite the recent holding of the Supreme Court, I am firmly convinced – not only that integrated schools are not required – but that the Constitution does not permit any interference whatsoever by the federal government in the field of education.

It may be wise or expedient for Negro children to attend the same schools as white children, but they do not have a civil right to do so which is protected by the federal Constitution, or which is enforceable by the federal government.  The intentions of the founding fathers in this matter are beyond any doubt: no powers regarding education were given to the federal government.”

(The Conscience of a Conservative, Barry Goldwater, Victor Publishing Company, 1960, pp. 31-34)

The South’s Manpower Advantage

In his efforts to overwhelm the American South’s resistance, Grant ended prisoner exchanges with soldiers returning to the South’s ranks while those in blue went home. He knew the late war, poor-quality conscripts and diseased substitutes he received wouldn’t fight and would desert at the first opportunity. This reality accelerated the capture and removal of colored laborers who represented an important part of the Southern war effort.

The South’s Manpower Advantage

“The responsibility for effectively assembling Negro manpower became that of the Virginia lawmakers and the Confederate Congressmen. Speaking on this point, President Jefferson Davis stated, “much of our success was due to the much-abused institution of African servitude.”

This opinion was shared by General Ulysses S. Grant who was well-aware of the need to remove from the South her vast army of noncombatants. Grant said, “the 4,000,000 colored noncombatants are equal to more than three times their number in the North, age for age, sex for sex.” Both Grant and Davis early recognized that the mobilization of the Negro constituted an extremely valuable resource.

At the call to repel the Yankee invaders, for example, Virginia looked to its Negro population as a major source of civilian workers. [The majority] of Negroes employed by the quartermaster, ordnance, niter and mining bureaus, and military hospitals were hired through voluntary contracts with free Negroes and the owners of bondsmen.

In February 1862 the State legislature passed an act which required local courts to register all male free Negroes within their jurisdiction between the ages of 18 and 50. The selected free persons were not required to serve longer than 180 days without their consent, and entitled to compensation, rations, quarters and medical attention. Their pay, rations and allowances were borne by the Confederate States.

[In early 1863, and in response to Lincoln’s so-called emancipation decree,] the Richmond Examiner asserted that the North had discovered from this war the value of the slave to the South as a military laborer, and “Lincoln’s proclamation is designed to destroy this power in our hands.”

(The Confederate Negro: Virginia’s Craftsmen and Military Laborers, 1861-1865. James H. Brewer. University of Alabama Press, 1969, pp. 6-7; 14)

Seddon’s View of Black Southern Troops

By 1856 the new Republican party had acquired control of most northern State governments, while being denounced as the chief “disunionists” of the country for reintroducing slavery agitation as a party tactic.

Its party platform in 1860 was very clear on the territories, favoring subsidies for immigrant homesteaders, and a transcontinental railroad crossing Indian lands in the way of rail lines carrying Northern goods westward. Once Southern members departed Congress in early 1861, Republicans created a Federal corporation, the Union Pacific, which extinguished Indian titles and any defense of their land when driven off by military force.  The Indian tribes were to be progressively eliminated as obstacles to settlement and industrial expansion, and before the Civil War ended this policy was in full force.

As the South’s colored population fell into their hands as plantations were overrun, they were designated “contrabands” and utilized as hard labor battalions. As US Colored Troops, they were used as prison guards or cannon fodder in futile assaults and rightly assumed they would suffer the same fate as the Indians under northern rule.

Seddon’s View of Black Confederate Troops

“Hon. James A. Seddon, Confederate Secretary of War, in his report, supplemented Mr. Davis’s message with some still stronger recommendations of his own. The slaves, he said, had an even stronger interest in the victory of the Confederacy than did the white people. The latter risked their political independence, but the former their very existence as a race.

If the eternal enemies of the South should triumph, they would extinguish the negroes in a few years, as they had already extinguished the Indians. He recommended that the States which had absolute and exclusive control of the matter, should legislate at once with a view to the contingency of negro enlistments.

On the 15th [of March 1865] the subject of enlistments came up in the Virginia legislature . . . and on the 27th instructed its Senators to vote for the [negro] enlistment measure in the Confederate Congress. [About this time] a letter of General Lee’s was published looking to approval, considering it “not only expedient but necessary.” If the Confederates did not make use of the slaves, the Federals would.

The vote in the Senate on the final passage of the bill, March 7, 1865, the President was authorized to ask for and accept from slave owners the services of as many able-bodied slaves as he thinks expedient; to the same to organized by the commander-in-chief under instructions from the War Department, and to receive the same rations and compensation as other troops.

Mr. Lincoln did not think much of the impressment and enlisting of slaves. He said, in a speech made at Washington on the 17th of March, that the negro could not stay at home and make bread and fight at the same time, and he did not care much for which duty was allotted to him by the Confederate government. “We must now see the bottom of the rebels; resources.”

(Confederate Negro Enlistments. Edward Spencer. Annals of the War, Written by the Leading Participants, North and South. 1879, pp. 547-552)