Constitution of the Confederate States; March 11, 1861

[torchbearer]

agreed, this is prior to vicksburg and gettsburg, the two northern victories in and of that summer...
the cotton that had backed the monies of the confederacy, some of it had been sent to europe.
prominent citizens instead owned the cotton in the warehouses, not the confederate government...

maybe its not stated in the wiki, but alexandria wanted no part of war. its citizens were cowards. they were focused on a economy of providing services to each other and living in peace.
can you not see why a union army and its government would oppose such people?

 

[torchbearer]

While Admiral Porter expressed sympathy for the suffering Alexandria residents, he declared the "burning of Alexandria a fit termination of the unfortunate Red River expedition."[SUP][[/SUP]

 

[Travlyr]

you now know why you aren't free. and you aren't free to leave. in 1865, the question was answered- you are a slave to government. you can not remove yourself from it.
so, all your slavery retorts mean shit. the irony is... the csa with its misguided immorality would have led to a better future as the question would have been answered that all men can break there chains of bondage.

We lost our legitimate government on December 23, 1913 to a coup of international bankers who counterfeit money and debase currency for 100 years of a war economy.

 

[Aratus]

agreed, they did not ask that army to raze the entire city to the ground nor were they fighting a guerilla war against that army.
normally, there ought to have been a military courtmarshall in the history books but there isn't. banks at least acted with honor.

 

[Aratus]

technically porter exceded orders. if porter quarrels with banks, the d.c "old boy network" won that round?

 

[robert68]

Methinks far more salient is the oft-ignored right of the INDIVIDUAL to remain ungoverned from without so long as he adheres to those very few most fundamental principles of proper human relations as embodied in the Canon of Individual Sovereignty, which basically says, "do what thou wilt, but trespass ye not upon thy fellows in the doing."

The "right" of a state to secede, preserve itself, or something else, is often conflated with individual rights, rendering them very 'alienable'.

 

[torchbearer]

We lost our legitimate government on December 23, 1913 to a coup of international bankers who counterfeit money and debase currency for 100 years of a war economy.

the root goes futher. the original contract disolves in 1861. a new one was sealed by lee in 1865 surrender.

 

[torchbearer]

technically porter exceded orders. if porter quarrels with banks, the d.c "old boy network" won that round?

yes, and i take pride that we tell our history true, even if it shows a union guy trying to stop a bad thing from happening.
banks was noted to being opposed to the burning... but the way buildings were stacked up then, if you wanted to burn down the whole town- all one had to do was start a fire in one building. that was common knowledge. the razing was the intent, and porter got his orders from a higher source than banks.

 

[Aratus]

indeedy the war dep't = edwin stanton?
hense the trial in 1868 of our 17th potus?

 

[Travlyr]

the root goes futher. the original contract disolves in 1861. a new one was sealed by lee in 1865 surrender.

Five days before Lincoln was killed? Do you have details?

 

[Aratus]

if poor andy johnson had nothing to do with j. w. booth's conspiracy
and was almost killed that day on the 14th, if he had a letter perfect
right to fire his own sec' of war, then is this the total core issue of the
senate trial? he clearly wanted a new sec' of war. if ole abe lincoln let
stanton act like a petty tin horn tyrant & A.J wanted the man fired...?

 

[torchbearer]

Five days before Lincoln was killed? Do you have details?

lincoln had served his role. if you know his history, you know the real movers were his cabinet, filled with all those opponents he supposedly bested at the GOP convention. I see a grand deal were lincoln become the lout and the real power brokers get the government they always wanted. maybe lincoln was just a simple farm boy who wanted to play in a big boy's world.. and became the biggest sucker of them all.
but its doesn't change what happened.

 

[Aratus]

lee's surrender is the poor men under his command. the capturing of poor jefferson davis
after he fled past abbeville south carolina ended the confederacy, even if lee's defeat was
a major event in that spring. the idea was, had most of jefferson davis's gov't have fled to
europe, they'd be a gov't in exile. are we being metaphoric about 1865 and 1913 even though
1929/30 was a major shock to the system but in a different way than 1860? did FDR create
barack obama's presidency via the new deal and ww2 regs? wilson liked segregation and taxes.

 

[Aratus]

the election of 1864 put andrew johnson on the ticket in lieu of hannibal hamlin of maine.
veeps were often political eunuchs and ticket balancers. this begs several deep questions.

 

[Aratus]

could john wilkes booth have had SOUTHERN and NORTHERN backers who wanted a free hand, a political coup d'etat
that does away with a sec' of sate, a veep and a potus but not in that order, as they expected the southern gov't
to keep fleeing? the famous actor had traveled extensively to almost each state of the union and was charismatic...

 

[torchbearer]

without the army of virginia, the people of the south had no protection from northern razing. thankfully, the surrender of our last tool of defense was seen as such by most of those in power position. louisiana had no army, only gangs of vigilantes.

 

[Aratus]

like FDR and the plot smedley butler uncovered, was ole andrew johnson very in the way
and by merely being very alive, preventing something worse from going down in a bad way?

 

[Travlyr]

Regarding Sumter and the 'first shots of the civil war', Dilorenzo says this:

Daily Bell: Why didn't the South just stand down? There's a theory that if the South had simply declared its independence and walked away that there would not have been much the North could do. Why did the South willingly embark on a shooing war?

Thomas DiLorenzo: The South did not "embark on a shooting war'" Lincoln did. The states were sovereign, and therefore had a right to secede, as they do today. Article 7 of the Constitution proves this by stating that the Constitution is to be ratified by political conventions of the states. No human being was harmed, let alone killed during the bombing of Fort Sumter. South Carolinians considered the fort to be their property, paid for with their tax dollars, and erected for their protection. Lincoln responded to Fort Sumter with a full-scale invasion of all the Southern states that ended up killing some 350,000 Southerners. For this he is hailed as "a great statesman" by our court historians.

Daily Bell: Still, there are those who believe it was a mistake for the South to have initiated hostilities at all.

Thomas DiLorenzo: Lincoln had sent warships to Charleston Harbor, and successfully duped the South Carolinians into foolishly firing on the fort. Afterwards, Lincoln wrote a letter of thanks and congratulation to his naval commander Gustavus Fox for assisting him in getting the war started in this way. It was the biggest political miscalculation in American history: Lincoln (and many other Northerners) believed the war would be relatively bloodless and last only a few weeks or months.

Can anyone verify what DiLorenzo says is true? It looks to me like DiLorenzo is flat out lying. The South fired the first shots. The Confederate Secretary of War admits to starting the war.

"On April 12, 1861 only hours after Confederate guns opened fire on Fort Sumter in the Charleston harbor, Confederate Secretary of War Leroy P. Walker appeared before a jubilant crowd in Montgomery, Alabama. "No man can tell when the war this day commenced will end," Walker thundered from the balcony of the Exchange Hotel, at the heart of the Confederate capital, "but I will prophesy that the flag which now floats the breeze here will float over the dome of the old capital at Washington before the first of May."

WASHINGTON, May 1st, 1861.

Capt. G.V. Fox:

My Dear Sir,

I sincerely regret that the failure of the late attempt to provision Fort Sumter should be the source of any annoyance to you. The practicability of your plan was not, in fact, brought to a test. By reason of a gale, well known in advance to be possible, and not improbable, the tugs, an essential part of the plan, never reached the ground ; while, by an accident, for which you were in nowise responsible, and possibly I, to some extent, was, you were deprived of a war-vessel, with her men, which you deemed of great importance to the enterprise.

I most cheerfully and truthfully declare that the failure of the undertaking has not lowered you a particle, while the qualities you developed in the effort have greatly heightened you in my estimation. For a daring and dangerous enterprise of a similar character, you would, to-day, be the man of all my acquaintances whom I would select. You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it should fail ; and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result.

Very truly your friend, A. LINCOLN.

Anybody at all? I have not yet been able to find accurate information to support DiLorenzo's claim on naval commander Gustavus Fox's mission where the claim is that Lincoln sent warships to Fort Sumter. Best I can find is the merchant ship (Star of the West) sent by President Buchanan in January to supply Major Anderson with supplies, and the above letter from A. Lincoln to Capt. G.V. Fox indicating sending provisions but not men or arms.

 

[Aratus]

if an unspeakable & unsaid "worse than FDR" cataclysmic event almost happened in 1933
and this is very like the "worse than tennessee andy" potential tin horn event in 1865 that
almost actually happened, we as a union managed to survive abe lincoln an' herbert hoover.

 

[Aratus]

Travlyr... DiLorenzo is technically out on a scholarly limb given that many in that
generation took secrets to their graves that we can only guess at and surmise...