They were trying to change the US Government legally until Kansas became a free state, then they knew they were in the minority and would never get the upper hand over free-staters.
The South fired the first shot on Ft. Sumter. Nevertheless, I would say true greed is having a huge source of labor you never have to pay.
That’s some nice capitalization there, the mark of a true intellectual. Simple question: is slavery moral and just or not? If you can justify invading a foreign country to free the citizens from tyranny (Iraq) then why is part of our own country off limits?
You are aware that plenty of Confederates engaged in their own war crimes, aren’t you? Sherman’s march to the sea was brutal, but slaughter of innocent civilians by Confederate guerillas is well documented.
So you would disregard the words of the Confeds themselves in the Cornerstone Address, the various state Declarations of Independence, etc, which specifically state that the secession was over slavery and defense of the “natural state” of white supremacy over blacks. They were wrong, but they were literate and left no question as to why they did what they did. I disagree totally, but I will respect the words they left behind by accepting that they actually knew their own minds.
The legal theory behind the Emancipation Proclamation is that it fell under Lincoln’s broad authority to wage war, so he couldn’t have issued it if there HADN’T been an ongoing rebellion. If a peacetime President had the legal authority to end slavery singlehandedly then Congress wouldn’t have had to pass the 13th Amendment.
Honestly, I’m starting to wonder whether you really are a Constitutional scholar at all.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
There were no sovereign states. The supreme law of the land could not be overruled by state acts or laws. No state could unilaterally decide to remove itself and its residents from the Union.
Adding to your list of facts, it’s also worth noting that the “Legal Right to Secede” (sic) is not explicitly enshrined in the Constitution. Per the 10th Amendment, secession was legal only in the sense that it wasn’t (and isn’t) forbidden by the Constitution. To place the term in Very Important Capital Letters is a sign of ignorance or intellectual dishonesty or both.
What was definitely not legal was a Confederate state following up its legally non-binding secession with a military assault on what was still a federal army installation staffed by troops loyal to the Union.
Correct. There was no formal legal mechanism then or now for a state to do that. Unilaterally terminating relations with the Union was not sufficient to make the Confederate states anything more than what they were (and what they proudly called themselves): rebels. And rebels with a particularly nasty cause at that.
Sherman’s March to the Sea was destructive, but civilian casualties were nearly non-existent. By all accounts the burning of Atlanta was accidental. The march was so shocking for the South because Sherman was destroying civilian property behind their own battle lines with impunity. Bringing the war right to the doorstep of slavers who were used to safety with people fighting on their behalf. They were freeing slaves and there wasn’t anything the Confederate military could do to stop it.
And speaking of RK Milholland and the lost cause mythology, he had this exchange recently on the twitters with C. Spike Trotman (whose work I have not read, but would like to now):
Yes, I had a colleague who did some work on aspects of this, in that case, it was about the building of I-20, which cut right through the heart of black, working class Atlanta…
Robert Moses did a similar act of vandalism with the Cross Bronx Expressway and Route 495 through New Jersey. A huge trench was dug right through the middle of working class minority neighborhoods to connect highways from Manhattan to the suburbs.
