Category: Withdrawing from the Union

Daniel Webster’s View of the Constitution

In his 1881 “Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government”, Jefferson Davis revisits the words of New England orator and statesman Daniel Webster (1782-1852) regarding the sovereignty of the American States.

Daniel Webster’s View of the Constitution

“Mr. Webster held the views which were presented in a memorial to Congress of citizens of Boston, December 15, 1819, relative to the admission of Missouri as a State, drawn up and signed by a committee of which he was chairman, and which also included among its members Mr. Josiah Quincy.

Mr. Webster speaks of the States as enjoying “the exclusive possession of sovereignty” over their own territory, calls the United States “the American Confederacy” refers to them “the only parties to the Constitution, contemplated by it originally, [and who] were the “thirteen confederated States.”

In letters written and addresses delivered during the Administration of Mr. [Millard] Fillmore, he repeatedly applies to the Constitution the term “compact” which, in 1833, he had so vehemently repudiated. In his speech at Capon Springs, Virginia, in 1851, he says:

“If the South were to violate any part of the Constitution intentionally and systematically, and persist in doing year after year, and no remedy could be had, would the North be any longer bound to the rest of it? And if the North were, deliberately habitually, and of fixed purpose, to disregard one part of it, would the South be bound any longer to observe its other obligations?

How absurd it is to suppose that, when different parties enter into a compact for certain purposes, either can disregard any one provision and expect, nevertheless, the other to observe the rest!”

“I have not hesitated to say, and I repeat that, if the Northern States refuse, willfully and deliberately, to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which its respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, and Congress provide no remedy, the South would no longer be bound to observe the compact. A bargain cannot be broken on one side and still bind the other side.”

(Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume I. Jefferson Davis. D. Appleton & Co., 1881, pp. 166-167)

 

Harper’s Ferry Arsenal Burned

Soon after Virginia’s convention ratified its ordinance of withdrawal from the United States Constitution on April 18, 1861, the military commander at the Harper’s Ferry, apparently under orders to do so, set fire to the armory. Contrary to Northern reports that the American South had been for years preparing for war, in reality the federal government had kept the construction and manufacture of war materials in the North.

Harper’s Ferry Arsenal Burned

“The avowed purpose of the Federal Government was to occupy and possess the property belonging to the United States, yet one of the first acts was to set fire to the armory at Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, the only establishment of the kind in the Southern States, and the only Southern depository of the rifles which the General Government had then on hand.

What conclusion is to be drawn from such action?

To avoid attributing a breach of solemn pledges, it must be supposed that Virginia was considered as out of the Union, and a public enemy, in whose borders it was proper to destroy whatever might be useful to her of the common property of the States lately united.

As soon as the United States troops had evacuated the place, the citizens and armorers went to work to save the armory as far as possible from destruction, and to secure valuable material stored within. The master armorer, Armistead Ball, so bravely and skillfully directed these efforts, that a large part of the machinery and materials was saved from the flames.”

(Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Jefferson Davis, Volume I, D. Appleton and Co., 1881, pp. 318-319)

 

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)

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)

A Posse and Grenades to Overawe South Carolina

On November 24, 1832, “the tariff acts were proclaimed void and not binding upon this State or its citizens,” after February 1, 1833. South Carolina Gov. Robert Y. Hayne declared the use of federal force in an attempt to collect duties after that date would be met by the State’s secession from the 1789 constitution. This would of course make South Carolina an independent country.

In reply to South Carolina’s decision not to comply with the increased and what it believed to be an unconstitutional tariff, Andrew Jackson threatened to fill that State with 100,000 troops raised from the other States, which he referred to as “a posse.” His vice-president later said that Jackson “yearned to lead this force in person.”

A Posse and Grenades to Overawe South Carolina

New York politician and Vice President Martin Van Buren politely disagreed with Jackson’s contention that the mere raising of troops by South Carolina, i.e., State militia, constituted actual treason. Even Jackson’s close political advisor regretted this wording in the President’s proclamation, which he saw as inviting trouble. This advisor saw that the root of the issue was a high protective tariff which went above and beyond a constitutional tariff to support the expenses of the federation’s government. The latter simply advised Jackson that “a gesture toward tariff reduction might pave the way to a happy solution of everything.”

“Mr. Van Buren’s anxieties arose chiefly from the fact that, like many others, he regarded the crisis through the spectacles of partizan politics . . . who feared a break with Southern leaders, notably those of Virginia. He feared the political aftermath of a break with them now, as Jackson had thrown such considerations to the winds, placing himself militantly at the head of union sentiment of the nation, irrespective of person or party.

This man of caution had raised two points which the man of action could not ignore:

The first concerned the definition of treason of actual treason and the constitutional right of the Executive to intervene in a State’s affairs. Legally he could do so only (1.) at the request of the Governor to suppress insurrection, or (2.) on his own initiative, to enforce the laws of Congress [if the State remained as a member of the federation].

Jackson dispatched seven revenue cutters and a ship of war to Charleston harbor, anchoring off the battery with their guns commanding the fashionable waterfront lined with the homes and brick walled gardens of the city’s elite.

“No State or States,” the President wrote Joel Poinsett, leader of the State’s unionists, “has a right to secede . . . Nullification therefore means insurrection and war; and other States have a right to put it down. I will . . . have the leaders arrested and arraigned for treason . . . in forty days I can have within the limits of South Carolina fifty-thousand men, and in forty more days more another fifty thousand.”

Poinsett, a veteran of the Mexican War and eager to suppress his fellow citizens desire for political independence, wrote Jackson on November 16, 1832: “Grenades and small rockets are excellent weapons in a street fight. I would like to have some of them.”

(The Life of Andrew Jackson. Chapter XXX, Marquis James. Bobbs Merrill Company, 1938, pg. 609; 615)

Father of the Revolution – Samuel Adams

As described below, New England political agitation brought about the avoidable secession from England and war; the same occurred some 80 years later “as Massachusetts agitators and men of letters had done their best to see that there should be thousands, and tens of thousands” joining them in denouncing their union with the South. The uncompromising Puritan moral crusade against the very African slavery which ironically enriched their own section, would now be put to work to destroy the 1789 union. The agitation pushed the hand of Lincoln in April 1861 to confront now-independent South Carolina over the question of tariff revenue – which predictably resulted in gunfire and war. Those defending their State were denounced in the north as “rebels” intent upon destroying the union.

Father of the Revolution – Samuel Adams

“It is a great mistake to think of public opinion as united in the colonies and as gradually rising against British tyranny. Public opinion was never wholly united and seldom rises to a pitch of passion without being influenced – in other words, without the use of propaganda. The Great War [of 1914-1918] taught that to those who did not know it already.

From the first, [John] Adams and those working with him had realized the necessity of democratic slogans in the creation of a state of mind. [He] at once struck out boldly to inflame the passions of the crowd by threatening that it was to be reduced to the “miserable state of tributary slaves,” contrasting its freedom and moral virtue with the tyranny and moral degradation of England. He proclaimed that the mother country was bent on bringing her colonies to a condition of “slavery, poverty and misery,” and on causing their utter ruin, and dinned into the ears of the people the words “slavery and tyranny” until they assumed a reality from mere reiteration.

His political philosophy was eagerly lapped up by a populace smarting under hard times and resentful of colonial even more than imperial conditions of the moment. The establishment of government by free consent of all had become imbedded in the mind of the average man, as an essential part of the American dream. Adams himself had seen the vision but had glimpsed it with the narrowness and bitterness with which the more bigoted Puritans had seen the vision of an unloving and revengeful Hebrew Jehovah.

Such talk as this could only make England fearful of how far the people might try to put such precepts into practice. The upper classes of the colonies also began to be uneasy. Up to 1770, when their own grievances were redressed, they might allow such ideas to be disseminated, considering themselves in control of the situation, but after that it became clear that they were losing control . . . [as] Sam Adams and the lesser radicals worked harder than ever to keep public opinion inflamed.

With the upper classes [becoming] lukewarm or hostile to his continued propaganda [despite] the obnoxious legislation repealed or modified, [Sam Adams] had to trust to generalizations and emotional appeal.

A good example of his use of the latter was the affair called the “Boston Massacre.” As part of the general imperial policy following the [French and Indian] war, the British government had stationed some regiments in Boston. They were under good officers and good discipline, and there was no more reason why they should have made trouble there, than in any provincial garrison town of England. Sam Adams, however, was continually stirring up the public mind against them; John Adams reported finding Sam one Sunday night ‘preparing for the next day’s newspaper – a curious employment, cooking up paragraphs, articles and [incidents], working the political engine.’

Finally, one March evening, as a result of more than usual provocation given by taunting boys to soldiers on duty, an unfortunate clash occurred. There was confusion, a rioter’s shout to fire” was mistaken for an officer’s command, and several citizens were killed. The officer surrendered to civilian authorities, was tried, defended by John Adams and Josiah Quincy, Jr., and acquitted.

But Samuel Adams at once saw the value of the incident. Every emotion of the mob was played upon. The affair was termed a “massacre,” and in the annual speeches given for a number of years to commemorate its anniversary the boys and men who had taken part in the mobbing were described as martyrs to liberty and the soldiers as “bloody butchers.”

(The Epic of America. James Truslow Adams. Little, Brown and Company. 1932, pp. 83-84).

Seward Insists Upon Servile War

Lincoln’s Secretary of State William Seward promised the cotton-dependent British an early end to war with “Northern victories releasing the raw cotton” of the South to England. Seward’s claim that New Orleans would soon be under his control was quickly dashed, and all were aware that Southern plantation owners would sooner burn their cotton bales than allow them to fall into enemy hands.  A desperate Seward then followed Virginia’s Royal Governor’s (Lord Dunmore) November 1775 edict to incite race war in the South, threatening both Britain and France that any aid to the American Confederacy would unleash a bloody slave uprising there. This would not only destroy Europe’s cotton source but also repeat the Haitian massacres of the early 1790’s which saw the slaughter of 4,000 white men, women and children. In retaliation, some 15,000 Africans were killed by the French.

Seward Insists Upon Servile War

“Fearing the growth in England, especially, of an intention to intervene, Seward threatened a Northern appeal to the slaves, thinking of the threat not so much in terms of an uncivilized and horrible war as in terms of the material interests of England. In brief, considering foreign attitude and action in relation to Northern advantage – to the winning of the war – he would use emancipation as a threat of servile insurrection, but he did not desire emancipation itself for fear it would cause that very intervention which it was his object to prevent.

On May 28, 1862, Seward wrote to US diplomat Charles Francis Adams, emphasizing two points: first, US diplomats abroad were now authorized to state that the war was, in part at least, intended for the suppression of slavery, and secondly, that the North if interfered with by foreign nations would be forced to unleash servile war in the South.

Such a war, Seward argued, would be “completely destructive of all European interests” and a copy of this was given to Britain’s Lord Russell on June 20th . . . and that any attempts a European mediation of the conflict would result in servile war unleashed upon the South. On July 13, Lincoln told Seward and [Gideon] Welles of the planned [gradual and compensated] emancipation proclamation and that this was his first mention of it to anyone.

On July 28, after Lord Russell reviewed Seward’s arguments, commented on the fast- increasing bitterness of the American conflict which was disturbing and unsettling to European governments, and wrote: “The approach of servile war, so much insisted upon by Mr. Seward in his dispatch, only forewarns us that another element of destruction may be added to the slaughter, loss of property, and waste of industry, which already afflict a country so lately prosperous and tranquil.”

(Great Britain and the American Civil War. Ephraim Douglas Adams. Alpha Editions, 2018 (original manuscript 1924), pg. 388-390)

“We Are for Peace”

Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois urged the maintenance of peace as a motive for evacuating forts in Southern States which had withdrawn ratification of the US Constitution, and in doing so was no doubt aware of the full force of his words. He knew that their continued occupation was virtually a declaration of war.

“We Are for Peace”

“On March 15, 1861, Stephen Douglas of Illinois offered a resolution recommending the withdrawal of the US garrisons within the limits of States which had withdrawn from the United States, except Key West and the Dry Tortugas. In support of this resolution, he said:

‘We certainly cannot justify the holding of forts there, much less the recapturing of those already taken, unless we intend to reduce those States themselves into subjection. I take it for granted, no man may deny the proposition, that whoever permanently holds Charleston and South Carolina is entitled to the possession of Fort Sumter.

It is true that Forts Taylor and Jefferson, at Key West and Tortugas, are so situated as to be essentially national, and therefore important to us without reference to our relations with the seceded States. Not so with Moultrie, Johnson, Castle Pinckney and Sumter, in Charleston Harbor; not so with Pulaski, on the Savannah River; not so with Morgan and other forts in Alabama; not so with those other forts that were intended to guard the entrance of a particular harbor for local defense.

We cannot deny that there is a Southern Confederacy, de facto, in existence, with its capital at Montgomery. We may regret it. I regret it most profoundly; but I cannot deny the truth of the fact, painful and mortifying as it is . . . I proclaim boldly the policy of those with whom I act. We are for peace.’”

(Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Jefferson Davis, Vol I. DaCapo Press, 1990, (original 1889), pp. 242-243)

Correcting the Record

Correcting the Record

“The Jackson (Mississippi) Clarion prints the following letter:

Beauvoir, Mississippi

June 20, 1885

Dear Sir, – Among the less-informed persons at the North there exists an opinion that the negro slave at the South was a mere chattel, having neither rights nor immunities protected by law or public opinion. Southern men knew such was not the case, and others desiring to know could readily learn the fact.

On that error the lauded story of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was founded, but it is strange that a utilitarian and shrewd people did not ask why a slave, especially valuable, was the object of privation and abuse? Had it been a horse they would have been better able to judge and would most probably have rejected the story for its improbability. Many attempts have been made to evade and misrepresent the exhaustive opinion of Chief Justice Taney in the ‘Dred Scott’ case, but it remains unanswered.

From the statement in regard to Fort Sumter, a child might suppose that a foreign army had attacked the United States – [and] certainly could not learn that the State of South Carolina was merely seeking possession of a fort on her own soil and claiming that her grant of the site had become void.

The tyrant’s plea of necessity to excuse despotic usurpation is offered for the unconstitutional act of emancipation, and the poor resort to prejudice is invoked in the use of the epithet ’rebellion,’ a word inapplicable to the States generally, and most especially so to the sovereign members of a voluntary union. But alas for their former ancient prestige, the States have even lost the plural reference they had in the Constitution . . . such language would be appropriate to an imperial government, which in absorbing territories required the subject inhabitants to swear allegiance to it.”

(Letter from President Davis on States’ Rights. Southern Historical Society Papers. Vol. XIV, January – December 1886, Rev. J. William Jones, D.D., pp. 408-409)

 

A Northern Conspiracy

In late-March 1861 it was believed by most Americans in the South – even those devoted to political independence from the north – that the policy of secession was the surest way of securing a redress of grievances from northerners – and hopefully bring them back to respecting constitutional principles. Lincoln’s proclamations of war came instead, backed by troops from northern States.

A Northern Conspiracy

“In late March 1861 the understanding in Washington was that the newly inaugurated president had determined to withdraw all United States forces from the limits of the newly formed Confederate States.

It was at this juncture, however, that seven Northern Governors hastened to Washington, and then and there organized their “Conspiracy,” and by appeals to Mr. Lincoln, and tendering to him their organized military forces, caused him to change his policy and to adopt theirs, which aimed at an entire overthrow of the Constitution of the United States and the federative principles of government upon which it was based.

It was by and through its active agency that Mr. Lincoln’s policy was changed, though not communicated to the Confederate States commissioners who were left with peaceful assurances from Lincoln’s Secretary of State, Seward.”

(A Constitutional View of the Late War Between the States, Vol. II. Alexander H. Stephens Sprinkle Publications, 1994 (original 1870), p. 354)