Southern Messenger – Constitution of the United States of America

SOUTHERN MESSENGER HISTORY PAGE

William Rawle's "A View of the Constitution of the United States of America" is online at this site: http://www.constitution.org/wr/rawle-00.htm

Get a copy of the Constitution, a facsimile, and read the preamble. It says We the people
of the united States of America...", not the United States of America.
In the Declaration of Independence, it states

"... The unanimous declaration of the thirteen united States of America."

Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island on entering the Union reserved, in express terms, the right to withdraw from the same whenever they deemed it to their interest. Were they not admitted without question? Was not the declared right of these States the absolute right of all?
In 1806, New England leaders grew white with rage over the idea of admitting Louisiana into the Union. Senator Plumer of New Hampshire said, "The Eastern States must and will dissolve the Union and form a separate government of their own and the sooner the better." Senator Pickering of Massachusetts wrote: "I rather anticipate a new Confederacy exempt from the corrupt influence of this aristocratic Democrats of the South. There will be separation, The British provinces of Canada, even with the consent of Great Britain, will become members of the Northern Confederacy."
"[Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States]" -- breathes the very essence of States' rights, and the right of secession is distinctly set forth by Rawle's.. When we remember that only seven years had then elapsed since New York, Vermont, Connecticut, and, perhaps, other Northern States asserted this right, and threatened to exercise it or make dishonorable terms of peace with Great Britain unless the war, was stopped, we can understand that Mr. Calhoun was not violating Northern sentiment in introducing Rawle on the Constitution at West Point. It there remained as a text book till 1861, and Mr. Davis and Sidney Johnston, and General Joe Johnston and General Lee, and all the rest of us who retired with Virginia from the Federal Union, were not only obeying the plain instincts of our nature and dictates of duty, but we were obeying the very inculcations we had received in the National School.
In 1844 the admission of Texas was a question. Did not the Legislature of Massachusetts pass the following resolution, "That the project of the annexation of Texas, unless arrested on the threshold, may drive these States into a dissolution of the Union"
Rep. Marlin Schneider of Wisconsin informs us that
Wisconsin almost seceded over the Dred Scott decision.

North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Arkansas were drawn into the conflict ONLY after they were ordered to provide a military force to be used to invade and bare arms against the other seceding states. They felt that this was a criminal unwarranted act of aggression without Constitutional Authority. Which it was.

Lincoln's War of Federal Aggression started against 7 States for one reason but was increased by 4 States for the reason that the aggression was without any authority and without law. In other words, four States joined the cause because they refused to join in the criminal act of violating the Constitution of the United States.

Many of the newspapers that supported the Republican party openly called for a military invasion of southern ports to keep the South from adopting free trade, which was written into the Confederate Constitution of 1861.

West Virginia was the last slave state admitted to the Union, annexed in 1863. If the western counties of Virginia stuck with the Confederacy, they'd be forced to free their slaves by the Emancipation Proclamation. If they joined the Union, they could keep them. There's just no argument here. You can't say the Union fought to free the slaves when they were busy admitting a new slave state at the same time, as well as having 1/2 million slaves in Union border states. What hypocrisy!

Horace Greeley's American Conflict Vol. I The first state to actual exercise its right to secede was not South Carolina, not even one from the South at all, but low and behold one from New England. Vermont declared its independence from the "union" over disagreements in our participation in the war of 1812.

Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia, urged in the Declaration of Independence that the slave trade be forbidden. John Adams, of Massachusetts, urged that clause be omitted.

The Confederate decision to fight as a de-facto nation-state waging conventional war might well have been a critical decision. Richmond could perhaps rather have waged the contest along the lines of national liberation movements of our century. A protracted irregular war could have sapped the strength out of the Union so superior in men, weapons and material.

King Gelele of Africa
Wilmot, explained to King Gelele: "England has been doing her utmost to stop the slave trade in this country. Much money has been spent, and many lives sacrificed to obtain this desirable end, but hitherto without success. I have come to ask you to put an end to this traffic and to enter into some treaty with me."
Gelele refused: "If white men came to buy, why should I not sell?" Wilmot asked how much money he needed. "No money will induce me...I am not like the kings of Lagos and Benin. There are only two kings in Africa, Ashanti and Dahomey: I am King of all the Blacks. Nothing will compensate me for the lose of the slave trade." Gelele also told Burton, "If I cannot sell my captives taken in war, I must kill them, and surely the English would not like that. King Gelele of Africa

Between 2,000 and 3,000 Jews fought under the Confederate flag, said Charleston attorney and historian Robert N. Rosen. "As you study the history of the South, you see the Jews were very loyal to the Confederate cause," said Rosen, whose newest book, "The Jewish Confederates," is scheduled for publication in October.

The ranks of the Union Army Officer Corps contained 1,000 more slave owners
than its counterpart in the Confederate Army.

Southerners have historically been the most loyal to the United States and
ready to fight in its defense of all Americans. They are also the Americans
most loyal to their own region and their own states, and the most likely to
remain in their native territory. This is not paradoxical because loyalty is
an indivisible quality of character. Their loyalty makes Southerners natural
enemies of those powerful Americans who are not loyal to their people or
country but to the government and the "propositions" it allegedly
represents.

In his book "North Against South" Professor Emeritus of History at the College of William and Mary, Ludwell H. Johnson, has observed, in regard to the war that: "The Republicans could recruit their ranks by using the war as a bountiful source of patronage, as well as by accommodating the various interests that had rallied to their banner. Many people at every social and political level regarded the Union cause primarily as an opportunity to make money or to advance their public careers, or both." Not to be outdone, the federal government, on March 3, 1863, passed the Captured and Abandoned Property Act. Professor Johnson has noted that "The latter's main concern was cotton, and its execution confirmed Southerners in their belief that the real object of the war was to rob them. Property of a non-warlike nature taken by Federal forces was regarded as 'captured'; property whose owners were absent, presumably within Confederate lines, was considered 'abandoned.' The Treasury Department was responsible for its collection or administration. This led to a great proliferation of the department's bureaucracy,..." And Johnson continued: "The full extent of fraud perpetrated by these swarms of agents will never be known. In corrupt collusion with army officers, they got up expeditions whose sole purpose was to capture cotton." So, between Yankee bureaucrats and corrupt Yankee officers, they were all going to make a bundle off Southern misery. It could well be said of them that, in their support for the Union, "their hypocrisy knew no bounds."

The ill-fated Red River Campaign of Yankee General Commissary Banks was a prime example. In his interesting book "War Along the Bayous" author William Riley Brooksher has told us that: "Despite Banks' strenuous efforts to control activities involving cotton, Washington and (Rear Admiral) Porter together were too much for him. So pervasive was the scramble for cotton and so broad was the influence of some speculators that even Banks' own headquarters boat had brought a 'whole regiment' of speculators, most 'bearing licenses from Washington.' Everybody seemed to be in on the act as civilians and a portion of the military scrambled for cotton taking it with little regard for ownership or the needs of the expedition. So determined and desperate were they for transportation for their bonanza that cotton was piled on gunboats and coal barges emptied to make room for it. The use of threats and bribes was not overlooked either." Brooksher relates the story of one naval lieutenant, patrolling the mouth of the Red River, who was offered another stripe if he would let cotton through and he was threatened with dismissal if he wouldn't. Rear Admiral Porter had his hand in the pot too. He detailed several vessels to go out collecting cotton. In fact the Navy was so much into grabbing Southern cotton that according to Army Captain John S. Cooney it "was about the principle thing the navy did." One observer rather cynically noted that while the army did all the dirty work fighting the Confederates, the Navy then rolled in, once the fighting was over, picked up all the Southern cotton they could get their hands on, and they got one third of the money it brought in as a prize, while all the soldiers that slogged through the bayous and fought the Confederates got nothing, except casualties. As I said earlier, it really makes you wonder who Mr. Lincoln was "preserving the Union" for.

In his memoirs Sherman wrote that when he met with Lincoln after his March to the Sea was completed, Lincoln was eager to hear the stories of how thousands of Southern civilians, mostly women, children, and old men, were plundered, sometimes murdered, and rendered homeless. Lincoln, according to Sherman, laughed almost uncontrollably at the stories. Even Sherman biographer Lee Kennett, who writes very favorably of the general, concluded that had the Confederates won the war, they would have been "justified in stringing up President Lincoln and the entire Union high command for violation of the laws of war, specifically for waging war against noncombatants." Thomas J. DiLorenzo

http://www.acws.co.uk/ This is the article I said I'd send you
John Collier( CollierJscv@020.co.uk) on Black Confederates

I read with interest the remarks by Carolyn Hall regarding Gary Edmisten's letter on Black Confederates, especially as Gary and I communicate frequently by mail and he strikes me as the sort of bloke who always tries "to get it right".

This led me to research this subject even further. I had written to the Newsletter regarding individuals and small groups of coloureds who fought for the South, and I came upon several more like The Richmond Howitzers partially manned by Black militiamen. James Washington, a sergeant in Co D, 34th Texas cavalry and Horace King, a former slave who became known as "The bridge builder of the Confederacy" for his engineering skills, but I agree that a few individuals here and there barely make a token contribution. But I came upon instances involving whole companies and men in their hundreds and even thousands.

Frederick Douglas in the fall of 1861 said, "There are at present many Coloured men in the Confederate Army doing duty not only as cooks, servants and labourers, but real soldiers, having muskets on their shoulders, and bullets in their pockets".

The Jackson Battalion included two companies of Black solders, who saw combat at Petersburg. Their C.O., Col, Shipp stated, "They acted with utmost promptness and goodwill".

As of Feb. 1865, 1150 Black seamen served in the Confederate Navy.

On April 4, 1865 in Amelia County, VA., a Southern supply train guarded (and manned) exclusively by Black Infantry fought off Federal Cavalry.

Other interesting facts include the fact that a Coloured man, Sam Ashe, killed the first Union officer in the war (Major T Winthrop) and private John W Buckner, another Coloured Confederate was wounded at Fort Wagner helping to repulse the 54th Mass.!!

So why do many people feel that Black Confederates didn't exist, or that the only Coloureds in the Southern Army were teamsters, labourers, musicians, etc.?

I can offer two explanations, the first is in comparing the thousands of Asians who fought for Britain in two world wars, do we today imagine the trenches, jungles and deserts involving huge numbers of Indian and Colonial troops? You may imagine a few Gurkhas here and there but in reality literally tens of thousands of Asians fought in the WW1 trenches, and the deserts and jungles of WW2.

My second explanation is that people do try to change history. Many Black Confederate soldiers pension forms and other documents have been altered and tampered with. In many cases the word soldier has been crossed out and servant inserted.

Several black members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans (notable Nelson Winbush and Anthony Cohen) are doing their best to put forward a factual and positive heritage of Black Confederates, as are some Black professors like Dr. Leonard Hayes of The Southern University at Baton Rouge. In fact he said "when you eliminate the Black Confederate soldier, you've eliminated the history of the South."

J Collier, 24th Michigan, A.C.W.S.
"Taken at the Flood," a study of the fall, 1862, Confederate campaign in MD. Dr. Harsh gives a copious, well-documented and deliberated analysis. In so doing, he cites (pp. 169ff) the eye-witness reporting of a Northern doctor, Dr. Lewis H. Steiner, who kept detailed notes on the composition and behavior of the ANV in and around Frederick, MD, in SEP 62. His notes are prob as accurate as Gen Lee's morning reports. And here's what he had to say, per Harsh: "...[H]e was startled to discover the presence of 'over 3,000 negroes' who were "manifestly an integral portion of the Southern Confederacy Army.' The blacks were 'clad in all kinde of uniforms' that were 'not shabbier than those worn by white men in the rebel ranks.' Most were armed in some fashion, including 'rifles, muskets, sabres, bowie-knives, dirks' or the like, and many were supplied with knapsacks, haversacks, and canteens. 'They were seen riding on horses and mules, driving wagons, riding on caissons, in ambulances, with the staff of Generals, and promiscuously mixed up with all the rebel hordes.'" (P. 169) In other words, comfortably accommodated among their "white folks."
Bibliography:- Forgotten Soldiers of the Confederacy - K A O'Connell; The Negroes Civil War - James McPherson; Black Southerners in Gray (1994) - Richard Rollins; Black Confederates and Afro-Yankees in The Civil War (1995) - E L Jordan; Blacks in Gray - Geitner Simmons

Rudolph Young, in writing recently about "Black Confederates In Lincoln County, North Carolina" says, "Students of African American history should have been able to predict with a great degree of certainty that some, if not most, black Southerners would support their country, as did most white Southerners. During the Revolutionary War, black and white fought together, on both sides. In 1861, most blacks found themselves as residents of a country called The Confederate States of America. Most blacks served because of loyalty to their country or loyalty to an individual." He goes on to say that, "there was no stigma attached to having served in the Confederate army among African-Americans in the years following the war, but as time passed, attitudes changed."

John Ainsworth
Southern reasons for fighting the War.
I shall start with some of my selected facts concerning North Carolina.

* On Feb. 28, 1861 N.C. Governor John Ellis called for a convention that would vote on whether they would consider secession. The call for even the consideration of secession was defeated by 651 votes. But while they voted against a convention they did make a hold to the belief that the Federal government could not force one State to fight another.

* On April 12 Fort Sumter was fired upon. This occurred after 4 months of federal occupation of South Carolina's land. They left the Union on De. 20, 1860. Remember there never was any Congressional or Supreme Court decision on the illegality of secession. It had always been accepted as common knowledge as a legitimate State right.

* On April 15th Governor Ellis was notified by the secretary of war that North Carolina would be expected to furnish two regiments of troops to make war on the seceded States. The Governor closed his refusal with these words; "I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of the country, and to this war upon the liberties of a free people. You can get no troops from North Carolina."

North Carolina was drawn into the war as a moral issue of violating the law and waging a war when there was no debate of waging a war in Congress, no Declaration of War and no legal precedent upon which there is authority to wage a war over a free people in order to maintain a free government of the people. Show me some shred of legality here. In fact it is oxymoronic. They fight a people who are exercising their rights as a free people to choose their form of government by subjugating them to a form of government that violates the law.
North Carolina was given the choice of War. They were to fight. But for who? On what grounds? North Carolina's moral question was whether to remain in a Union of States where the Federal government had proven that they were not to be limited by the Constitution of the United States, and therefore by the fundamental laws of the Nation. North Carolina's choice was to either join the criminal action of the Federal government, and that is the correct term to use concerning those that break the law, by waging an unlawful war of aggression and oppression or, to join her sister States in a defensive war against overwhelming odds. A War that if protracted, surely could not be won. North Carolina chose to fight unbridled and criminal Federal aggression no matter what the cost.
As a North-Carolinian, am I proud of the symbols of the Confederacy? You bet I am.

* North Carolina seceded from the Union on May 20, 1861 but only after they were forced to war. Not a war to defend slavery but a war to either participate in the violation of the Constitution of the United States or not.

Now lets look at the object of the war from the Northern perspective. This one is easy to clarify. Congress stated the object of the war in Resolution form in both Houses of Congress as being the following;
"… that this war is not prosecuted upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for the purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States, … and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several states unimpaired; that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease."
The object of a war is extremely important. It tells those that are going to be called to arms exactly what they are fighting for. It also tells them what the objectives that they are to accomplish in order for the war to be over.
Let's review these objects carefully;
'This tells us that the War is not prosecuted for the purpose of "conquest." This is easy enough, in order to be a war of "conquest" then the Southern States would have to be in reality a foreign nation. The Northern States fought the war upon the principal that the Southern States Ordinances of Secession were nullities and had no force or effect. The North stated that the South had created no new nation so that they considered their actions to be a police action of putting down a rebellion against lawful government. Remember this, Northern soldiers did not take to the battlefield to "conquer" the Southern States.
Congress tells those that it is calling into battle that the war is not prosecuted for "for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States." This is clear! The Northern soldiers were called to fight and possibly die for the specific and clear reason of NOT overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States. This clearly means 2 things;

* 1. That the soldiers being called into battle for the ultimate object of the war to NOT be to overthrow or interfere with states rights and;

* 2. That the soldiers being called into battle for the ultimate object of the war to NOT be to overthrow or interfere with the established institution of slavery.

We see now that the Northern soldiers did not fight to free slaves, in fact it was just the opposite. They were fighting not to overthrow or to interfere with the institution of slavery. They were fighting to maintain the institution.
For some reason I have not figured this high ground that the sympathizers of the North take by claiming that they had a moral and just cause to fight the war based upon the so called "fact" that they fought to free the slaves. The facts reflect that their belief is the real "myth." The facts are that the Northern soldiers did not fight to free slaves, but instead to preserve the institution.
We go on;" … and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several states unimpaired; that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease."
The Northern soldiers fought to preserve the Union with the end goal being a return to a Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several states unimpaired. Has this ever been accomplished? Did the Northern soldiers die in vein? Absolutely! Their deaths were dishonored by the Reconstruction Acts which fulfilled the object of evil and immoral men in Congress who were willing to send hundreds of thousands of people to their deaths fighting for a lie that they were told.
The Reconstruction Acts were based upon the principal of "conquest" and was the overthrow of the Constitution of limited government. It is reflected by the flag that flies over Columbia in the top position.
John Ainsworth,
Founder, T.I.G.E.R.
Truth In Government, Everyone's Responsible.

The facts as given by the United States Government are that 4.9% of white Southerners were slaveholders.

The following statistics are from J.C.G. Kennedy, Supt. of Census, Agriculture in the United States in 1860 (Washington: G.P.O., 1864)
State Slave- Slaveholders in slaves per
holders white pop. (%) slaveholder

AL 33,730 6.4 12.9
AR 11,481 3.5 9.7
DE 5870 . 6.5 3.1
FL 5,152 6.6 12.0
GA 41,084 6.9 11.2
KY 38,645 4.2 5.8
LA 22,033 6.1 15.0
MD 13,783 2.7 6.3
MS 30,943 8.7 14.1
MO 24,320 2.3 4.7
NC 34,658 5.5 9.6
SC 26,701 9.2 15.1
TN 36,844 4.4 7.5
TX 21,878 5.2 8.3
VA [5] 52,128 5.0 9.4
VA1 [5] 48,523 7.0 9.7
WV [5] 3,605 1.0 5.1

Total 393,967 4.9 10.0

Another motivating factor behind the North's abolition of slavery is that many Northerners did not want black people living amongst them. Many northern states passed laws prohibiting blacks from entering their states. Massachusetts once passed a law that stated that if a Negro, native American or mulatto entered their state and stayed for more than two months they would be publicly flogged. One Northern state after another stigmatized the free Negroes by excluding them from its borders. When Illinois drew up its constitution in 1848 an emphatic clause prohibited the entry of such folk, and the legislature five years later not only made it a misdemeanor for any Negro to enter with the purpose of settling, but provided that the offender might be fined and his time sold for a sufficient period to pay the penalty. Iowa, in 1851, severely penalized any free Negro who set foot upon her soil. Indiana placed a Negro-exclusion article in her constitution of 1851, the people approved it by the tremendous vote of more than five to one. Oregon adopted a constitution in 1857 stipulating that no free colored people should enter, that those who came should be forcibly removed, and that anybody who harbored or employed them should be punished. It also forbade the Negroes already there to hold real estate, make contracts, or prosecute suits. Proposals for a general expulsion of free blacks were frequent in the border states and by no means unknown farther north. References: "Truths of History" by Mildred Lewis Rutherford Chapter 4. "War for What" by Francis W. Springer Chapters 2-12. "Story of the Confederacy" by Joseph T. Derry, Part 2 Chapter 3. "The South Was Right" by James R. Kennedy and Walter D. Kennedy Chapter 2. "A Southern View of the Invasion of the Southern States" by Samuel A. Ashe, Chapter 1-2. "Facts the Historians Leave Out" by John S. Tilley, pages 7-23.

For The Cause, The State of New Jersey Speaks! by Mike Crane "The objective of dismembering the highest representative assembly in the nation, and humiliating a State of the Union, faithful at all times to all its obligations, and the object of said amendment were one - to place new and unheard of powers in the hands of a faction, that it might absorb to itself all executive, judicial and legislative power, necessary to secure to itself immunity for the unconstitutional acts it had already committed, and those that it has since inflicted on a too patient people." Joint Resolution, State of New Jersey Legislature Some very interesting words, that when analyzed in the context in which they were written, begins to shed some light on the Cause. Some light that is not commonly taught today, but light that has its basis in historical fact, none the less. Lets look closely at a portion of this paragraph before going on to other words representing the official position of this State that was securely on the side of the US in its War of Aggression with the Confederate States of America. " necessary to secure to itself immunity for the unconstitutional acts it had already committed,". Secure immunity for the unconstitutional acts it had already committed. Speaks for itself, I believe. Continuing on, " and those that it has since inflicted on a too patient people." Now here is a northern State sounding the alarm, the Constitution is being violated! The US government is violating the Constitution and we have been patient too long! This isn't Jefferson Davis or Alexander Stephens speaking, it is the Legislature of New Jersey, assembled in Joint Session, going on record by vote according to their legislative process. But this cry, this sounding of the alarm of Constitutional abuse was too late. Yes, Ohio and Oregon also sounded the alarm and cried out against this continuing Constitutional abuse. To no avail, were these cries uttered, for the defenders of Constitutional government in this land, were in the throes of Reconstruction and could not come to their aid. Those people who make a claim that this War was fought for a noble cause, and those who make the claim that it ended for the best, do not seem to have a very good understanding of what the real intentions of the invaders were. But this statement by the State of New Jersey, and similar ones by Ohio and Oregon do present some insight. Continuing on, " - to place new and unheard of powers in the hands of a faction, that it might absorb to itself all executive, judicial and legislative power". New and unheard of powers. Remember that this is not Jefferson or Calhoun speaking, it is the State of New Jersey. Where is the noble cause? From the perspective of this State, there was no noble cause; there was only the all too familiar ursurption of power, which has been the plague of human government from time immortal. The government being caught in the act here is non other than the US. The irony of this Resolution is contained in " and humiliating a State of the Union" for the State of New Jersey had just been , "faithful at all times to all its obligations" in the War to forever alter the form of government established in 1789 and was now seeing first hand, the wisdom of our Founding Fathers. The same wisdom, that has been the hearth and soul of the Southern people from the Colonial period through today. Here were the States of New Jersey, Ohio and Oregon, fresh from their conquest of Constitutional government, gravely feeling the loss, firsthand. But in their own words, it was too late, for their government had gained "immunity for the unconstitutional acts it had already committed." And the conquered defenders of Constitutional government, the very people who would have come to the aid of New Jersey, Ohio and Oregon were also gravely feeling the loss. For if New Jersey found Reconstruction distasteful, imagine the plight of the Men in Grey. Here was open and wanton violation of the Constitution, but did the States of New Jersey, Ohio and Oregon take a stand to preserve the Constitution? Did the men in blue, obviously recognizing the destruction of American Liberty right in front of their eyes make a stand? The answer is of course, NO. Today we are still faced with the "immunity for the unconstitutional acts" and the "New and unheard of powers" with 130 years of conditioning and indoctrination.

From "The Southern Essays of Richard M. Weaver"
Weaver observes that in the War Between the States, Southerners "believed that they were fighting to defend the government as it was laid down at Philadelphia in 1787 and as recognized by various state ordinances of ratification. This was a government of restricted power, commissioned to do certain things which the states could not do for themselves, but strictly defined as to its authority." As long as each state was viewed as a sovereign entity, "the maximum amount of self-determination by the states" preserved, and states' rights rigorously upheld, any drift towards despotism was automatically nipped in the bud. That, according to Weaver, was ultimately the issue over which the South went to war since it held that the North "was rebelling against this idea which had been accepted by the members of the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Or to put it another way, the North was staging a revolution, the purpose of which was to do away with this older concept of the American government." The South rejected this revolution and sought to defend what it insisted were its God-given rights.

The Lincoln Administration imprisoned at least 14,000 (Northern) civilians throughout the course of the war. ... The federal government simultaneously monitored and censored both the mails and telegraphs. ... It also suppressed newspapers. Over three hundred, including the Chicago Times, the New York World, and the Philadelphia Evening Journal, had to cease publication for varying periods.

JOHN F. HARRIS, BLACK REPUBLICAN AND FORMER CONFEDERATE SOLDIER John F. Harris was a Black Republican and one of 6 Black members of the Mississippi State House of Representatives in 1890. While Mr. Harris served in this capacity, he had the opportunity to vote on a resolution to erect a monument to the Confederate Soldiers of Mississippi. There was one representative who chose to talk against the passage of this resolution, and it looked as though it would fail. Mr. Harris came from his sick bed to give the following speech in support of the resolution; "Mr. Speaker! I have arisen here in my place to offer a few words on the bill. I have come from a sick bed...Perhaps it was not prudent for me to come. But, Sir, I could not rest quietly in my room without...contributing... a few words of my own. I was sorry to hear the speech of the young gentlemen from Marshall County. I am sorry that any son of a Soldier should go on record as opposed to the erection of a monument of honor of the brave dead. And, Sir, I am convinced that had he seen what I saw at Seven Pines and in the Seven Days' fighting around Richmond, the battlefield covered with mangled forms of those who fought for their country and for their country's honor, he would not have made that speech. When news came that the South had been invaded, those men went forth to fight for what they believed, and they made no requests for monuments...But they died, and their virtues should be remembered. Sir, I went with them. I too, wore the gray, the same color my master wore. We stayed four long years, and if that war had of gone on till now I would have been there yet....I want to honor those brave men who died for their convictions. When my mother died I was a boy. Who, sir, then acted the part of a mother to the orphan slave boy, but my 'old missus'? Were she living now, or could speak to me from those high realms where are gathered the Sainted dead, she would tell me to vote for this bill. And, Sir, I shall vote for it. I want it known to all the world that my vote is given in favor of the bill to erect a monument in honor of the Confederate Dead." ______________ All that day in the Mississippi House of Representatives came to their feet with a roar of applause. When the applause was over the bill passed unanimously for the Confederate Monument.

"Constitutional Problems under Lincoln," James G. Randall, 1951, Urbana:
University of Illinois Press:

"Among the unconstitutional and dictatorial acts performed by Lincoln were
initiating and conducting a war by decree for months without the consent or
advice of Congress; declaring martial law; confiscating private property;
suspending habeas corpus; conscripting the railroads and censoring telegraph
lines; imprisoning as many as 30,000 Northern citizens without trial;
deporting
a member of Congress, Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio, after Vallandigham
- a fierce opponent of the Morrill tariff -- protested imposition of an
income tax
at a Democratic Party meeting in Ohio; and shutting down hundreds of
Northern newspapers."

Richardson's "Defense of the South," p.20:
"Thomas Elkins, of Effingham County, Georgia, before 1860, offered to free his slaves and send them back to Africa at his own expense and the slaves begged to let them remain with him.

Practically every single slave ship was owned and operated by Northerners. The Puritans of Massachusetts not only captured and sold their Pequot Indian neighbors into slavery in the West Indies, they also carried on large trade in Negroes imported from Africa. Just to give you an idea between 1755 and 1766, the importers landed on Massachusetts shores no fewer than 23,000 African captives. In 1787, Rhode Island held first place in the traffic. Later, New York City forged to the front of the trade. Philadelphia soon found the slave boom business attractive. The traders could buy a slave in Africa for a few gallons of rum and sell him in this country at fantastic profit. So it is no mystery how they made fabulous fortunes.

Fortunately, some foreigners visited the South in those days to study the situation. Buckingham, a distinguished Englishman wrote that the slaves observed by him were as well off as were English servants in the middle rank of life. He found them well feed, well dressed and well cared for. In 1856, Frederick L. Olmstead, a Northern student published his "Journey in the Seaboard Slave States." Noting that the situation might be different else where, he wrote of slave conditions in sections visited by him. He learned that the slaves were probably fed better than any comparable class in other countries. The labor required by house servants was light and that of field hands no more than a laborer in the North. Slave marriages were frequently made occasions, attended by their owners and a lot were performed in the masters house by his minister.

Colored Soldier/Slave impressment by Federal troops, From the Official Records

" A major of colored troops is here with his party capturing negroes, with or
without their consent....They are being conscripted."......Major Gen John A
Logan, 15th Corps, AOT, Feb 26, from Huntsville, AL, reporting to U.S, Grant
in Nashville.

" Officers in command of colored troops are in constant habit of pressing all
able-bodied slaves into the military service of the U.S."...Maj. Gen. Lovell
H. Rousseau, District of Nashville, on Jan 20th...reporting to Gen. G. H.
Thomas.

"….other Government places have suffered severely from having the able-bodied
hands forced at the point of the bayonet from the plantations for
conscription."…..G. W. Cozzens, Superintendent of Plantations, New Orleans, on
Sept. 26th 1863, to Benjamin F. Flanders, Treasury Dept, New Orleans.

"the oppression of these negro recruiting officers…..These cases of cruelty
are reported daily."…..BG Charles P. Stone, chief of staff to Gen N. P. Banks,
Dept. of the Gulf.

"The negro soldiers [at Elizabeth City] did nothing but what they were ordered
to do…..That we had to burn houses and carry away the families of the
guerrillas is most true…..It was done under orders."…
…Gen. B.F. Butler, 18th Army Corp, Fort Monroe, on Jan 10th, to Elizabeth T.
Upshur of Franktown, VA.

"Nine-tenths of the depredations on the 14th after the enemy and citizens fled
from the town were committed by the negroes before our troops reached the
city.' (This must be taken with a grain of salt….editor's note)….BG Ambrose
Burnside, Dept of NC, on March 20th, 1862, to Stanton.

"This has been a sad day in these islands…Some 500 men were hurried…from
Ladies and Saint Helena to Beaufort…and the carried to Hilton Head….The
negroes were sad…Sometimes whole plantations, learning what was going on, ran
off to the woods for refuge….This mode of [enlistment by] violent seizure and
transportation….spreading dismay and fright, is repugnant."…Edward L. Pierce,
special agent, Treasury Dept., Port Royal, on May 12th, 1862, to Sec. Chase.

"In accordance with….orders of MG Hunter…the several agents or overseers of
plantations will send to Beaufort tomorrow morning every able bodied negro
between the ages of 18 and forty five, capable of bearings arms."…..order
issued by BG Isaac I. Stevens, commanding post at Beaufort, Port Royal, on May
11th, 1862.

"They were taken from the fields without being allowed to go to their houses
even to get a jacket….On some plantations the wailing and screaming were loud
and the women threw themselves in despair on the ground. On some plantations
the people took to the woods and were hunted up by the soldiers….I doubt if
the recruiting service in this country has ever been attended with such scenes
before." …..Treasury agent Edward Pierce, at Pope's Plantation, Saint Helena
Island, on May 13th, to MG David Hunter.

" This conscription, together with the manner of its execution, has created
suspicion that the Government has not the interest in the negroes that it
professed, and many of them sighed yesterday for the 'old fetters' as being
better than the new liberty."…G.M. Wells, superintendent of Plantations, Mrs.
Jenkins' Plantation, Saint Helena Island, to Edward Pierce.

"The whole village, old men, women, and boys, in tears [were] following at our
heels. The wives and mothers of the conscripts, giving way to their feelings,
break into the loudest lamentations and rush upon the men, clinging to them
with the agony of separation….Some of them, setting up such a shrieking as
only this people could, throw themselves on the ground and abandon themselves
to the wildest expressions of grief….
The old foreman [at Indian Hill]…. said it reminded him of what his master
said we should do….I have heard several contrast the present state of things
with their former condition to our disadvantage.
This rude separation of husband and wife, children and parents, must needs
remind them of what we have always stigmatized as the worst feature of
slavery….Never, in my judgment, did major general fall into a sadder blunder
and rarely has humanity been outraged by an act of more unfeeling
barbarity."…..L.D. Phillips at Dr. Pope's Plantation, on May 13th, to Pierce.

"When the colored regiment was first organized by General Hunter no provision
was made for its payment, and the men were discharged after several months'
service, receiving nothing for it. In the meantime their families
suffered….This failure to pay them for their service has weakened their
confidence in our promises for the future and makes them slow to enlist."….BG
Rufus Saxton in Beaufort, Oct 29th, 1862.

A part of this brigade went to the plantation of….John F. Malone and quartered
in the negro huts for weeks, debauching the females and roaming with the males
over the surrounding country to plunder and pillage….Several soldiers came to
the house of Mrs Charlotte Hine and committed rape on the person of a colored
girl and then entered the house and plundered it..."…MG Don C. Buell, on Aug
6th, 1862, in testimony published from the court martial of Colonel John B.
Turchin, 19th Illinios, regarding his command's war crimes in the vicinity of
Athens, AL. Turchin was dismissed from the service. President Lincoln…in a
showing of his feelings toward this officer's war crimes conduct, promoted
Turchin and appointed him BG of U.S. Volunteers…which Turchin accepted on
Sept. 1, and remained in the service until Oct. 4, 1864. All Turchin's
subordinates were basically acquitted as acting under his orders. Later on in
WWII this defense would be used repeatedly by the Naiz's and rejected my the
Nuremburg court.

"Not only is property taken….but property is wantonly destroyed, negro women
are debauched, and ladies insulted."….Gen. Buell, admonishing Colonel Douglas
A. Murray, 32rd Ohio Cavalry in Woodville, AL.

"A complaint has been made to me that the colored people who are to go to
Craney Island have been forced to remain all night on the wharf without
shelter and without food; that one has died, and that others are suffering
with disease, and that your men have turned them out of their houses, which
they have built themselves, and have robbed some of them of their money and
personal effects."….MG John A. Dix, Fort Monroe on Nov 26th, 1862, to BG
Michael Corcoran, commanding at Newport News.

"[The soldiers whipped on Dec. 9 were] the two drummer boys, named Harry
Williams and Munroe Miller…with…a mule whip, such as is used on carts; a whip
with a stock and a lash…..I have seen…[Col. Benedict]…spread a man [negro] out
on his back, drive stakes down, and spread out his hands and legs, take of his
shoes, and take molasses and spread it over his face, hands, and feet [to
bring the fire ants…editor's note]."…..testimony taken during the court
martial of Colonel Augustus W. Benedict, Corps d'Afrique, for cruelty to Negro
soldiers in his command at Fort Jackson. LA, that resulted in a mutiny there
on Dec 9, 1862.

"…where I found a mulatto girl, about 12 or 13 years old, lying dead in a
field….She had been killed by a pistol ball, which had entered the forehead
and passed entirely through the head. I learned from the negro man, who was
near, that the girl had been shot by a drunken soldier, who had at first shot
at one of the men"…..[testimony of Sgt. John Sims]…"I heard a rumor that
Captain Moore, his officers and men, had seized a quantity of Louisiana rum
and were on a drunken spree, committing various depredations, and that one of
his men had attempted to rape a mulatto girl and had shot and killed her for
resisting."….Gen Robert A Cameron to Gen Thomas W Sherman on Nov 30th, 1864,
New Orleans.
"The negroes [on Roanoke Island]will not go [to be laborers at Fort Monroe]
voluntarily, so I am obliged to force them. I have sent seventy one and will
send this afternoon about 150.I expect to get a large lot tomorrow….The matter
of collecting the colored men for laborers has been one of some difficulty….I
am aware that this may be considered a harsh measure, but…..we must not stop
at trifles."…..Gen. Innis N. Plamer, New Bern, on Sept 1, 1864, reporting to
B.F. Butler, Fort Munroe.

"Complaint is made to me that you are forcing negroes into the military
service, and even torturing them….riding them on rails, and the like….to
extort their consent."…..President Lincoln, on Feb 7th, to Col. John Glenn,
120th colored infantry, Henderson Kentucky.

"I found the prejudice of color and race here in full force, and the general
feeling of the army of occupation was unfriendly to the blacks. It was
manifested in various forms of personal insult and abuse, in depredations on
their plantations, stealing and destroying their crops and domestic animals,
and robbing them of their money. [He is surprised to discover that this was
what Yankees were all about...editor's note].....The women were held as the
legitimate prey of lust.....Licentiousness was widespread.... the influences
of too many (officers and soldiers) was demoralizing to the negro, and has
greatly hindered the efforts for their improvement and elevation. There was a
general disposition among the soldiers and civilian spectators here to defraud
the negroes in their private traffic, to take the commodities which they
offered for sale by force, or to pay for them with worthless
money.[ditto].......
..........BG Rufus Saxton, Military Governor, US Forces at Beaufort, on Dec
30, 1864, reporting to Sec of War Stanton.

"There is a class of people[in the South], men, women and children, who must
be killed or banished before you can hope for peace and order."…..Gen. W.T.
Sherman, Big Shanty, GA, June 21, 1864, to Secretary of War Stanton.

'Your letter of the 21rst of June has just reached me and meets my
approval."….Stanton reply on July 1.

"Until we can repopulate Georgia, it is useless to occupy it, but the utter
destruction of it's roads, houses, and PEOPLE (editor's emphasis) will cripple
their military resources….I can make the march, and make Georgia howl."…..Gen.
W.T. Sherman, at Allatoona on Oct. 9, 1864, to U.S. Grant.
*************************************************
The South has struggled to put this tragedy behind us, Sir. We try to abide by
the words of our General Lee:

And General Lee:

"The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a
wrong he may
have committed against him. He cannot only forgive, he can forget; and
he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character, which
imparts sufficient strength to let the past be but the past."

Black Southerners fought alongside white, Hispanic, Native American, Jewish, and thousands of foreign-born Southerners. They fought in mixed units and they fought in all-Black units as documented in Tennessee by _Union_ sources. Federal Official Records, Series I, Vol XVI Part I, pg. 805 records: "There were also quite a number of negroes attached to the Texas and Georgia troops, who were armed and equipped, and took part in the several engagements with my forces during the day." The 85th Indiana Volunteer Infantry reported to the Indianapolis Daily Evening Gazette that on 5 March 1863: "During the fight the [artillery] battery in charge of the 85th Indiana [Volunteer Infantry] was attacked by [*in italics*] two rebel negro regiments. [*end italics*]." Union soldiers robbed, raped and murdered Free Black and slave Southerners they had come to "emancipate." Union "recruiters" hunted, kidnapped and tortured Black Southerners to compel them to serve in the Union Army. At the Battle of the Crater white Union soldiers bayoneted retreating Black Union soldiers and the 54th Massachusetts was fired upon by Maine troops while assaulting Battery Wagner. The Federal Official Records and memoirs of the USCT document of all these war crimes.

The first military monument in the US Capitol that honors an African-American soldier is the Confederate monument at Arlington National cemetery. The monument was designed 1914 by Moses Ezekiel, a Jewish Confederate, who wanted to correctly portray the "racial makeup" in the Confederate Army. A black Confederate soldier is depicted marching in step with white Confederate soldiers. Also shown is one "white soldier giving his child to a black woman for protection". - Source: Edward Smith, African American professor at the American University, Washington DC.

Not only were our ancestors required to pay up "back taxes" after
Appomattox but the U.S. tax code was amended to deny the right
to redeem properties from tax sales if the taxpayer had been a
Confederate soldier, sailor or official.
The intent of the government in denying this right if one had
served the Confederacy is clear: the intent was not so much to
raise legitimate tax revenue owed the federal government but to
effectuate a massive transfer of wealth from the hands of Southern
Whites into the hands of Northern speculators.

ABSOLUTE PROOF THE NORTH DIDN'T INVADE OVER SLAVERY
The Republican controlled Congress passed the first 13th Amendment in the spring of 1861. This amendment is the only one in the history of our nation to be signed by a President, Abe Lincoln. This amendment prohibited any action by the federal government to restrict or end slavery in the states, and specifically stated that slavery was a right of the state. The Republicans passed this as a last ditch measure to avoid war! Therefore, slavery was not the issue, but rather the right of a state to secede from the Union!
There was a bill before the US congress in 1862 which would have abolished slavery. It was defeated, even though the Southern states were not in the Union.

Lincoln's expansive interpretation of presidential powers made him the most imperial president in American history, thereby setting a dangerous precedent for predisposed successors. The incarceration of approximately twenty thousand political prisoners, the closing of over three hundred newspapers, the interruptions of state legislatures, the blockade of the South, the unilateral suspension of habeas corpus, explicit and implicit defiance of the Supreme Court, the sanctioning of the creation of West Virginia, private property seizures, and electioneering/voting irregularities have all been rationalized as necessary war measures."

Slavery Established by a Black!
In 1650, there were only 300 Negroes in Virginia, about 1% of an estimated 30,000 population. They were not slaves any more than were the approximately four thousand white indentured "servants" working out their loans for passage money to Virginia, and who were granted 50 acres of land each when freed from their indenture. Slavery was established in 1664 when Anthony Johnson of Northampton convinced a court that he was entitled to the lifetime services of John Casor, a Negro. This is the first judicial record of involuntary servitude except as punishment for a crime. But who was Anthony Johnson, winner of this epoch-making decision? Anthony Johnson was a Negro himself, one of the 20 brought to Jamestown in 1619 and "sold" to the colonists. By 1623 he had earned his freedom and by 1651 he was prosperous enough to import five "servants" of his own. Because of this he was granted 250 acres. (See page 378,"Virginia, Guide to the Old Dominion," WPA Writers' Program, Oxford University Press, NY, 1940) from Vanguard, newsletter of the North Texas Brigade,

The NEW YORK HERALD 16th March 1861 published the Confederate Constitution in full !!! And on March 19th recommended its acceptance as the basis of peaceful reunion !!!!!! From the NEW YORK HERALD: "The ultimatum of the seceded States is now before the Government at Washington, in this new Constitution adopted by the Congress at Montgomery, Alabama. Heretofore even our best-disposed Northern conservatives have been perplexed how to move, and what to propose to reconcile 'the cotton States' to the Union. Now, however, with their ultimatum before us, there can be no longer any doubt upon the subject. In their unrestricted discretion to shape a Federal constitution for themselves, the seceded States have unquestionably provided these securities, checks, and balances which they regard as essential for the maintenance of their peculiar institutions. Thus our Northern politicians and the administration in Washington are furnished the conditions upon which the Union may be re-established, without war and without trouble. The new Southern Constitution is the Constitution of the United States with various modifications and some very important and most desirable improvements........" ".......there are certain stringent provisions in said Constitution, which it would be extremely difficult to persuade our Northern fishermen, manufacturers, and lobby corruptionists to swallow, even to re-establish the Union. The provisions include: 1. The absolute prohibition of all bounties from the Federal treasury, and all duties or taxes on imported goods intended to promote or foster any branch of home industry. 2. A positive prohibition of Federal appropriations for internal improvements, and the substitution of local tonnage duties for such improvements. 3. The restriction of Congress by a majority vote to such appropriations as may be recommended by the President, or some Executive department. All other appropriations requiring a two thirds vote. 4. The holding of contractors to the strict letter of their contracts. 5. That the Post Office department shall pay its own expenses." "These are excellent constitutional amendments. If they had been in force in Washington during the last ten years, they would have prevented the wasteful squandering in swindling lobby jobs, contracts, etc., of three, four, or five hundred million dollars of public money and public property that have been squandered to the enriching of the lobby jobbers, and the general demoralization of our Northern political parties and politicians to the lowest level of moral debasement and corruption." "Let President Lincoln then call Congress together, and let him lay before it this new Constitution of the seceded States and the peace propositions of their treaty commissioners, and perhaps there may be wisdom enough in the two houses to provide the ways and means for peace and the purification of the Government at Washington...."

Information provided by the Grandson of Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest, CSA.
"This information is unpublished history," Mr. Forrest explained. "After the close of the reconstruction days in the South, a conference was arranged between Forrest and General Grant. It was at that time the Ku Klux Klan was at work in the South. What took place at the meeting of the two men, what was said, or what was done, was never stated. Immediately afterwards the Ku Klux Klan was disbanded and federal troops withdrawn from the South, as history shows."

At Fort Blakely, Alabama, on April 9, 1865, U.S. Colored troops started to massacre unarmed Confederate prisoners. Read In Deadly Earnest by Phil Gottschalk for this information.

Glen Jones article:
On the Morning of November 29, 1864 Union cavalry under the
command of Colonel John Chivington attacked and massacred the unsuspecting and sleeping encampment of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians at Sand Creek, Colorado Territory. Over two hundred Indians died in the ensuing massacre, more than two-thirds of the dead being women and children. After the slaughter Chivington's men sexually mutilated and scalped many of the dead, later exhibiting their trophies to cheering crowds in Denver. Colonel John Chivington was an ordained Methodist minister who believed the only good Indian was a dead Indian. His Commander-In-Chief Abraham Lincoln refused to courts-martial the Colonel for his murderous actions

The United States' Use of Human Shields In the summer of 1864 the city of Charleston, South Carolina was under a U.S. blockade. The guns of the Yankee-held forts and navy were shelling the city. The Confederate army was returning fire from ashore. The U.S. government then took 600 Confederate POW's and sent them to Charleston. These POW's, often referred to as "The Immortal 600," were to be placed in a stockade less than two acres square, directly beneath the guns of a United States fort which was located on Johnson's Island. According to Captain Walter MacRae of the Seventh North Carolina, who was one of the POW's, they were situated so that every shot from the Confederate guns "must either pass over our heads or right through the pen. Any which fell short or exploded a tenth of a second too soon, must strike death and destruction through our crowded ranks." The POW's were placed under the guard of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts and their cruel commander, Col. E. N. Howell. Col. Howell gave an order to the black troops of the Fifty-Fourth Massachusetts to shoot into any gathering of POW's larger than ten men or at any POW who broke any other rule of the prison. Any POW who walked too close to a roped off perimeter that was inside the stockade was also ordered to be shot. The POW's food ration consisted of provisions that had been condemned by the U.S. federal government as unfit for U.S. troops. These "rations" consisted of worm-and insect-infested hardtack, a one-inch square, one-half inch thick piece of pork, and eight ounces of sour corn meal. They had to eat, sleep, and care for their wounded in the same place where garbage and sewage were dumped. Their only supply of water was from holes they dug in the sand. The water holes quickly filled with a mixture of rain water, salt water, garbage and sewage. The attempt by the United States army to use Southern POW's as human shields to protect their positions did not work though. Captain MacRae noted that the Southern gunners did slow down and take more time to aim. With each well-placed shot from the Confederate artillery, a great shout of joy would go up from the POW's. When the Confederate guns fired, someone in the stockade would shout and everyone would hit the dirt and watch as the friendly fire would hit it's mark. After a few months of this bombardment, the POW's were removed to another prison where they were treated no better, but at least they were in no danger of being killed by their own men. In contrast, United States Major General C. V. Foster stated: "Our officers, prisoners of war in Charleston, have been ascertained to be as follows [rations]: Fresh meat three quarters of a pound or one half pound hard bread or one half pint of meal; beans, one fifth pint." "Many of the people of Charleston exerted themselves in every way to relieve the necessities of our men, and freely, as far as their means would allow, made contributions of food and clothing." He also stated that the kind treatment of the U.S. POW's by their Southern captors had induced over half (sixty-five percent) of the men to go over to the Southern cause and sign an oath of allegiance to the Confederacy. Only one percent of the six hundred POW's held by General Foster went over to the U.S. side. U.S. Gen. W.T. Sherman assured his wife in the summer of 1862 that if the North could hold on, the war would soon take a turn toward the extermination not only of the rebel armies but of civilians! He quickly put his ideas in practice. Exasperated by the way in which Confederates fired on supply steamboats from the banks of the Mississippi, he ordered an Ohio colonel, September 24, 1862, to destroy every house in the town of Randolph, scene of such an attack, and this without inquiry into the guilt of the inhabitants. Three days later he ordered that for every instance of firing onto a boat, ten families should be expelled from Memphis, and began placing Confederate prisoners on boats exposed to attack!

- Excerpted from Seventy Years In Dixie, by F.D. Srygley, Faith and Facts Press [Indianapolis, IN], first printing 1891.
"...To people who passed through those memorable days in Dixie, it seems queer to hear Southern men and women spoken of as "traitors," "rebels," "enemies of American liberty" and "foes of the Constitution." I know not what may have been the secret motives of wiley leaders, if there were any such leaders, which I gravely doubt, but as for the people, nothing but patriotism pure and simple moved them to vote secession and to enlist in the army. The people at the South felt just as confident that the people at the North contemplated a deliberate overthrow of the Republic as their fathers in the Revolution felt that King George was a tyrant. In all the public orations and private discussions the idea that slavery was the bone of contention never once entered the minds of the common people . . . . They understood that the Constitution of the United States was assailed, and that they were offering themselves for its defense. The question, as they understood it, was whether American liberty should be perpetuated or crushed by Northern monarchy. Fighting for slavery? Think of the absurdity of the thing! The Southern army was largely made up of volunteers from the mountain regions. There were no slaves of consequence in that mountain country, and those poor mountaineers hated "stuck-up" slave holders as cordially as a saint hates sin. True, they understood in a vague sort of way that there was some discussion on the subject of slavery in a general way, but to them this was only an incidental and irrelevant topic of public interest which was in no way connected with the question of secession. The people understood that the question at issue was simply their right to manage their own affairs in their own States. If the North proposed to interfere with that right, what assurance had they that it would not take from them their homes and all their property? I know not what the leaders thought, but there was no mistaking the feelings and opinions of the common people. . . . I understood that in seceding the South held on to the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, and Bunker Hill monument, and the life of George Washington. . . . We traitors? We rebels against the American government and enemies of the Constitution? Shades of Washington and Bunker Hill! Why, what were the people up in the mountains fighting for if not for the Constitution? . . . . What did they care about slavery? Hadn't it been as a thorn in the flesh to them from time immemorial? Did not everybody know that the North had set aside the Constitution, throttled our liberty and pulled the tail feathers out of the American eagle? . . . ."

"By this in portions of the country called rebellious, slaves were made
free, unless by the 1st of January, 1863, said communities ceased to rebel.
Slave ownership was to be the reward of loyalty; slave abolition the penalty
of rebellion. This might be translated; "negroes shall continue to be slaves
to their masters if only their masters will be slaves to us. Let us have in
peace the jobs which are in sight and your slaves may reap in peace your
harvests, taxed only by our TARIFFS. We will let you have your slaves if you
will let us have your freedom." After this offer had been made and rejected,
who had a right to say that the South was fighting for slavery, or Lincoln
for freedom?"--Col. Leigh Robinson, December 18, 1908 referring to the
EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION.
----------------------------------------------------------------
"Thomas Prentice Kettell, a Northern man, estimates that in these three ways
the Old South contributed from, 1789 to 1861, $2,770,000,000 of her wealth
to Northern profits. Our statesmen knew, surely, that their own section
would never get one dollar in return from this enormous expenditure. But
they were patriotic enough to be willing to make the nation rich and
prosperous, even at the expense, for a season, of their own beloved South.
My countrymen ! that Old South was a generous Old South. "
--Lieutenant-General D. H. Hill, June 6th, 1887, at Baltimore, before the
Society of the Army and Navy of the Confederate States in the State of
Maryland.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Morill tariff passed in the U.S. Congress on Feb 20, 1861,
resulting in an increase of 47%. While South Carolina had
already seceded on Dec 20, 1860, they undoubtedly forecast
the coming Northern agenda. Two months later, April 12
the Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter, in an event
recorded as "symbolic as the Boston Tea Party."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Northern manufacturers wanted high tariffs to secure high prices for their
products in Southern markets, and Southern farmers wanted low tariffs that
they might buy cheaply. Ere long it appeared that two opposing civilizations
lay alongside of each other in the United States; and while the roof of a
common government was over both of them, it covered a household divided
against itself in the very structure of its domestic life, in the nature of
its avocations, in the economies of its labor, and in the very tone of its
thoughts and aspiration.
Revolution was in the air. An irrepressible conflict had risen.
Two Revolutions Rising on Parallel Lines--The Revolution of the North
Against the Constitution.
There were indeed two revolutions forming in the American republic. The one
was a Northern revolution against a Constitution which had become
distasteful to its sentiments and unsuited to its needs. As the population
of the East moved westward across the continent, the Southern emigrant to
the new territories wished to carry with him his household servants, while
the Northerner saw in the negro a rival in the field of labor which
cheapened its fruits, and degraded, as he conceived, its social
status."--Hon. John W. Daniel, oration before
General Assembly of Virginia, Jan 25, 1890.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


When the Republicans controlled the White House and the Southern Democrats left the Congress, the Republicans, as former Whigs, did what they had been itching to do for decades: go on a protectionist frenzy. In his first inaugural address Lincoln stated that he had no intention to disturb slavery in the southern states and even if he did, there would be no constitutional basis for doing so. But he promised a military invasion if tariff revenues were not collected. Unlike Andrew Jackson, he would not back down from the South Carolinian tariff nullifiers. By 1862 the average tariff rate had crept up to 47.06 percent, the highest level ever to that point, even higher than the 1828 Tariff of Abominations. These high rates lasted for decades after the war.

"Great governmental aids followed each other thick and fast in the form of
bounties, tariffs, contracts and the like, in the disbursement of which the
large percentage went away from the South. Grants to build railroads with
public lands which Southern cessions and policy had secured to the National
wealth exceeded the area of European empires, and of which the South
received not one-fifth of its share. The Southern people make no unfair
complaint at the energy with which these and other unnamed advantages were
seized, but they do rebuke all unjust sneers which stigmatize them as an
unprogressive race, and the whole South makes a powerful protest against
this injustice by the evidence of its old thrift in maintaining a prosperous
existence in the Union for nearly a century by the use of only one-tenth of
its resources, and the still more significant display of its rapid rise in
recent years from utter prostration through the masterful spirit of its own
people." --Gen. Clement Evans, delivered before the Association of the Army
of Northern Virginia, October 10th, 1895, at Richmond, Virginia.
----------------------------------------------------------
Robert Lewis Dabney writes on the origins of the war, based upon the memoirs
of Colonel John B. Baldwin of Stuanton, VA.
"But what was the decisive weight that turned the scale against peace, and
right, and patriotism? It was the interest of a sectional tariff! His
[Lincoln's] single objection, both to the wise advice of Colonel Baldwin and
Mr. Stuart, was: "Then what would become of my tariffs?" He was shrewd
enough to see that the just and liberal free trade policy proposed by the
Montgomery Government would speedily build up, by the help of the
magnificent Southern staples, a beneficent foreign commerce through
Confederate ports; that the Northern people, whose lawless and mercenary
character he understood, could never be restrained from smuggling across the
long open frontier of the Confederacy; that thus the whole country would
become habituated to the benefits of free trade, so that when the schism was
healed (as he knew it would be healed in a few years by the policy of
Virginia), it would be too late to restore the iniquitous system of
sectional plunder by Tariffs, which his section so much craved. Hence, when
Virginia offered him a safe way to preserve the Union, he preferred to
destroy the Union and preserve his tariffs. The war was conceived in
duplicity, and brought forth in iniquity."
------------------------------------------------------
Commodore Matthew Fontaine Maury wrote the following vindication in May of
1871. He discusses the injustice in trade that led the country to war ten
years before.
"In consequence of the Berlin and Milan Decrees, the Orders in Council, the
Embargo and the war which followed in 1812, the people of the whole country
suffered greatly for the want of manufactured articles, many of which had
become necessaries of life. Moreover, it was at that time against the laws
of England for any artisan or piece of machinery used in her workshops to be
sent to this country. Under these circumstances it was thought wise to
encourage manufacturing in New England, until American labor could be
educated for it, and the requisite skill acquired, and Southern statesmen
took the lead in the passage of a tariff to encourage and protect our
manufacturing industries. But in course of time these restrictive laws in
England were repealed, and it then became easier to import than to educate
labor and skill. Nevertheless the protection continued, and was so effectual
that the manufacturers of New England began to compete in foreign markets
with the manufacturers of Old England.
Whereupon the South said, "Enough: the North has free trade with us; the
Atlantic ocean rolls between this country and Europe; the expense of freight
and transportation across it, with moderate duties for revenue alone, ought
to be protection enough for these Northern industries. Therefore let us do
way with tariffs for protection. They have not, by reason of geographical
law, turned a wheel in the South; moreover, they have proved a grievous
burden to our people."
Northern statesmen did not see the case in that light; but fairness, right
and the Constitution were on the side of the South. She pointed to the
unfair distribution of the public lands, the unequal dispensation among the
States of the Government favor and patronage, and to the fact that the New
England manufacturers had gained a firm footing and were flourishing.
Moreover, peace, progress and development had, since the end of the French
wars, dictated free trade as the true policy of all nations. Our Senators
proceeded to demonstrate by example the hardships of submitting any longer
to tariffs for protection.

The example was to this effect; -- The Northern farmer clips his hundred
bales of wool, and the Southern planter picks his hundred bales of cotton.
So far they are equal, for the Government affords to each equal protection
in person and property. That's fair, and there is no complain. But the
Government would not stop here. It went further -- protected this industry
of one section and taxed that of the other; for though it suited the
farmer's interest and convenience to send his wool to a New England mill to
have it made into cloth, it also suited in a like degree the Southern
planter to send his cotton to Old England to have it made into calico.
And now came the injustice and the grievance. They both prefer the
Charleston market, and they both, the illustration assumed, arrived by sea
the same day and proceeded together, each with his invoice of one hundred
bales, to the custom house. There the Northern man is told that he may land
his one hundred bales duty free; but the Southern man is required to leave
forty of his in the custom house for the privilege of landing the remaining
sixty. It was in vain for the Southerner to protest or to urge, "You make us
pay bounties to Northern fishermen under the plea that it is a nursery for
seamen. Is not the fetching and carrying of Southern cotton across the sea
in Southern ships as much a nursery for seaman as the catching of codfish in
Yankee smacks? But instead of allowing us a bounty for this, you exact taxes
and require protection for our Northern fellow citizens at the expense of
Southern industry and enterprise."
The complaints against the tariff were, at the end of ten or twelve years,
followed by another compromise in the shape of a modified tariff, by which
the South again gained nothing and the North everything. The effect was
simply to lessen, not to abolish, the tribute money exacted for the benefit
of Northern industries.
Fifteen years before the war it was stated officially from the Treasury
Department in Washington, that under the tariff then in force the self
sustaining industry of the country was taxed in this indirect way in the sum
of $80,000,000 annually, none of which went into the coffers of the
Government, but all into the pocket of the protected manufacturer. The
South, moreover, complained of the unequal distribution of the public
expenditures; of unfairness in protecting, buoying, lighting and surveying
the coasts, and laid her complaints on grounds like these: for every mile of
seafront in the North there are four in the South, yet there were four well
equipped dockyards in the North to one in the South; large sums of money had
been expended for Northern, small for Southern defenses; navigation of the
Southern coast was far more difficult and dangerous than that of the
Northern, yet the latter was better lighted; and the Southern coast was not
surveyed by the Government until it had first furnished Northern ship owners
with good charts for navigating their waters and entering their harbors.
Thus dealt by, there was cumulative dissatisfaction in the Southern mind
towards the Federal Government, and Southern men began to ask each other,
"Should we not be better off out of the Union than we are in it?" -- nay,
the public discontent rose to such a pitch in consequence of the tariff,
that nullification was threatened, and the existence of the Union was again
seriously imperilled, and dissolution might have ensued had not Virginia
stepped in with her wise counsels. She poured oil upon the festering sores
in the Southern mind, and did what she could in the interest of peace; but
the wound could not be entirely healed; Northern archers had hit too deep.
The Washington Government was fast drifting towards centralization, and the
result of all this Federal partiality, of this unequal protection and
encouragement, was that New England and the North flourished and prospered
as no people have ever done in modern times."

After being elected to Congress Abraham Lincoln makes his first visit to Washington, DC. Benjamin P. Thomas comments about what Lincoln saw and he remarked: "....as Lincoln saw it Washington was a dirty, sprawling town of 40,000, often cold in winter and humid and malarial in summer. Three-fourths of the population were whites, while 8,000 free negroes and 2,000 slaves made up the balance. Georgetown, close by, had an additional 8,500 inhabitants...." "....privies, pigsties, and cowsheds cluttered the back yards; while streets and alleys were littered with garbage. Chickens, geese an pigs roamed at will, feasting on the refuse . Water was supplied by wells; while produce was brought in from Maryland and Virginia farms in carts driven by slaves, and sold at the market, and the White House...." "....a disgrace to the capitol in the eyes of many Northerners was the domestic slave trade of which it was the center. Lincoln was deeply impressed by seeing gangs of slaves shuffling through the streets in chains and in his Peoria address, six years later, recalled the 'sort of Negro livery-stable, plainly visible from the Capitol, where droves of Negroes were collected, temporarily kept, and finally taken to Southern markets, precisely like droves of horses....'"

"...He (Mr. Hall) also added that Europe had ceased to believe that the South was fighting merely for the preservation of slavery, an error which had been persistently disseminated abroad at the beginning of the war. The Morrill tariff alone was an evidence of the financial despotism which the North, for her own aggrandizement, intended to inflict upon the South..."--Confederate Commissioner A. DUDLEY MANN in Copenhagen, Denmark to Hon J.P. BENJAMIN, Secretary of State. October 24, 1862 [Navy O.R.-- Series II--Volume 3 List of Papers pp. 553-599] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------ "To these remarks the Emperor also fully assented. Mr. L. (Wm S. Lindsay). went on to say that the North was not making war, as many pretended, for the abolition of slavery, but to subjugate the South in order to reestablish their protective tariff and to restore their monopoly of Southern markets. That for proof of this assertion it was only necessary to refer to Mr. Lincoln's inaugural and messages, the proclamations of his generals, and to the continued existence of slavery in the District of Columbia, which Lincoln might have put an end to a year ago. That he knew many Northern men and had a very extensive correspondence with them, and that all agreed that not one Northern man in ten desired the abolition of slavery, for the simple reason that they knew it would be destructive of their own interests." --John Slidell in Paris, France in report to Secretary of State, Judah Benjamin April 14, 1862 Navy O.R.-- Series II--Volume 3 List of Papers pp. 366-413 ----------------------------------------------

A Black History Moment
The confusion in Africa after the abolition of the slave trade by Britain and the U.S. was considerable. In 1820, the King of Ashanti asked a British official, Dupuis, why the Christians did not want to buy slaves any more. Was their God not the same as that of the Muslims, who continued to buy, kidnap, and sell slaves just as they had always done? Since the Koran accepted slavery, some Muslims even persuaded themselves that the new Christian behavior was an attack on Islam.

Lincoln revered "all across the political spectrum"? Someone must be out to prove that historians are, indeed, "the camp followers of a victorious army." What Lincoln and his party achieved was to convert this land from a Jeffersonian republic of limited government to a monstrous and ever-growing welfare/police state, taxing and regulating everything in sight, dreaming up monopoly government licensing schemes for everything from the practice of law and medicine to peaceful travel of the highways, and most insidiously creating a vast tax-supported bureaucratic cadre to propagandize the nation's youth -- education being an arena in which no role for government had previously been contemplated -- teaching them precisely that their heroes should be none other than those most successful betrayers of the American Revolution, Lincoln the First and Roosevelt the Second!

Alexander Stephens, Vice President, Confederate States of America

"As for my Savannah speech, about which so much has been said and in

regard to which I am represented as setting forth "slavery" as the

"cornerstone" of the Confederacy, it is proper for me to state that that

speech was extemporaneous. The reporter's notes, which were very

imperfect, were hastily corrected by me; and were published without

futher revision and with several glaring errors. The substance of what

I said on slavery was, that on the points under the old Constitution

out of which so much discussion, agitation, and strife between the

States had arisen, no future contention could arise, as these had been

put to rest by clear language. I did not say, nor do I think the

reporter represented me as saying, that there was the slightest change

in the new Constitution from the old regarding the status of the

African race amongst us. .................. The status of the African

race in the new Constitution was left just where it was in the old; I

affirmed and meant to affirm nothing else in this Savannah speech."

- Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens: His Diary kept when a

prisoner at Fort Warren, New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1910., pp

172-174. Entry for 5 June 1866

Confederate Postal Service
After decades of sectional divisions between the North and the South, on December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first of thirteen Southern states to secede from the Union. In February 1861 delegates from the seceding states meet in Montgomery, Alabama and formed The Confederate States of America. The Confederacy, no longer a part of the Union, solved the problem of moving the mail by creating its own postal service. The CSA Post Office Department was instituted on February 21, 1861. John Henninger Regan, a congressman from Texas and a delegate to the secession convention, was appointed CSA Post Master General. Three printing processes in stamp production were used in the 19^th century: lithography, typography, and engraving. Among stamp-issuing governments, only the CSA employed all three. The first Confederate stamp was a 5 cent green imperforate, bearing the portrait of President Davis. It appeared on October 16, 1861.President Davis was the first living president to appear on a postage stamp. With the absence of radio, tv, and lavish illustrated publications, the postal stamp was looked upon as the best means to introduce the leader of the new Confederacy to his constituency. Post Master General Reagan was a superb executive. Under his supervision the department actually made a profit. In view of the condition of the war torn South this was an incredible achievement. Even the Union officials were impressed. In 1865, after the war ended, Mr. Reagan was asked to head the U.S. Postal service. He declined. The Confederate Post Office Department and Post Master General Reagan provided a great service for the people of the South and are to be commended for their devotion to duty and country. By: Donald Futch

The prophetic significance of President Andrew Johnson's
words when he vetoed the Civil Rights Bill in 1865. Born in
a Raleigh log cabin, but cradled in a deep understanding
& respect for our Constitution, Johnson said: 'In all our history,' ran the message, … that contemplated by the details of this bill has ever before been proposed or adopted. They establish for the security of the colored race safeguards which go infinitely beyond any that the General Government has ever provided for the white race. In fact, the distinction of race and color is, by the bill, made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race. They interfere with the municipal regulations of the States, with the relations existing exclusively between a State and its citizens, or between inhabitants of the same State — an absorption and assumption of power by the General Government which, if acquiesced in, must sap and destroy our federative system of limited powers, and break down the barriers which preserve the rights of the States. It is another step, or rather stride, to centralization and the concentration of all legislative power in the National Government.’ President Johnson's veto was overturned by the Radical Republicans which could be considered a tombstone for the appreciation of states rights by the Executive Branch of our government. For you home-schoolers, it was not until Johnson married that he learned to read, receiving tutelage from his wife. Remarkable!

Winston Smith wrote: Lincoln could not collect the taxes he needed to conclude his aggression against the South so he passed his legal tender acts and issued his infamous greenbacks to get labor and materiel without payment.
In doing these two things, he made every war in this century possible as well as the ones coming in the 21st century. That is, he made it possible for government to get everything while paying for nothing.
The outcome of his war could have, that is WOULD have, been vastly different had he not done those two unconstitutional acts.
We now have a totalitarian government over both the North and the South, limited only by their ability to convince the majority that they are paid with strips of paper and by their ability to get the majority to ridicule and punish the few who want God's laws and the Constitution upheld.
Legal tender constitutes legal slavery and Horace Greely called it slavery.

THE TRAGIC ERA, by Claude Bowers

Pgs 198-205

CARPETBAGGERS, SCALAWAGS AND RADICAL REPUBLICANS

In the autumn of 1866, and through the winter and summer of 1867 strange men from the North were flocking into the black belt of the South, and mingling familiarly with the negroes, day and night. These were the emissaries of the Union League Clubs of Philadelphia and New York that have been unfairly denied their historic status in the consolidation of the negro vote. Organized in the dark days of the war to revive the failing spirit of the people, they had become bitterly partisan clubs with the conclusion of the struggle; and, the Union saved, they had turned with zest to the congenial task of working out the salvation of their party. This, they thought, depended on the domination of the South through the negro vote. Sagacious politicians, and men of material means, obsessed with ideas as extreme as those of Stevens and Sumner, they dispatched agents to turn the negroes against the Southern whites and organize them in secret clubs.

EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK, "BACK HOME" BY BILL MAULDIN
COPYRIGHTED - 1947.
Mauldin was famous for his cartoons of Willie and Joe in World War II.
"Like everyone else who raises a storm about racial problems in America, I took my share of cracks at the Negro situation in the South. But I could never learn to admire the Northern liberal who stays securely in his fortress above the Mason-Dixon line where it is generally safe to abusive toward Southerners, and who seems to ignore a number of useful facts about the ancient Yankee-Rebel feud.
He forgets that it was the Northern businessman and the English who brought the slaves to America under such abominable conditions that great numbers of them died in early captivity and during the journey from Africa to our fair shores. And he forgets that the South’s angry and bitter fear of the Negros is due, in large part, to the post-Civil War period, when in the first flush of freedom numbers of Negros were elected to high legislative offices even in such states as Mississippi. The only experience that qualified them for such responsibilities was a lifetime of working as field hands and menials. The result must have been very much like the conditions that always exist after revolutions; the underdog is at last equal with his master, and his long-pent-up resentment and his intoxication with sudden power sometimes lead him to grave excesses. Today the penalty is still being paid by Negros for the troubles of the reconstruction period, which were in great part stirred up by Northern opportunists who flocked to the South after its defeat. This is childishly elementary American history, but some liberals in the North seem painfully in need of some education on the subject."

Gen. Nathan B. Forrest speaks on Reconstruction:
40th CONGRESS - HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT NO.1 REPORT O