HOW AND WHY ABRAHAM LINCOLN STARTED
THE WAR OF NORTHERN AGGRESSION
TO PROTECT HIS OWN POLITICAL CAREER
by Frank Conner
The following is a post by Compatriot Elijah Coleman and is for educational purposes only:
To justify their claims that our Confederate ancestors were
like Nazi concentration-camp guards -- and therefore that all Confederate symbols
must now be obliterated, the civil-rights activists argue as follows: the Southern
states rebelled against the Union, and started and fought the "Civil
War" to protect the unspeakably-evil institution of slavery.
Those are blatant lies, and it is very important for all
Southerners to know that. But because the North won the war, you have to
look very hard to find the books which tell the truth. John S. Tilley's
"Lincoln Takes Command" and Ludwell Johnson's "North Against
South" are two such books.
I took most of the material below from those books several
days ago, to refute a claim in the SCV list server that Lincoln couldn't have
been THAT bad a person. Well, he was.
The North's Republican party came out of nowhere in 1854,
formed from the wreckage of the Whig party (the Northern Conscience-Whigs), and
from the Free-Soilers and the Know-Nothings. It opposed slavery, and it demanded a
powerful national-government which would subsidize Northern industrialization.
The new Republican party grew very rapidly. Not surprisingly, its key
bankrollers were Northern capitalists -- financiers, shippers, industrialists,
etc. Two of its founders and strongest political-leaders were Salmon P.
Chase (first a senator and then a governor); and William H. Seward (also a
governor and a senator).
There were two factors about the election of 1860 which
disturbed the Southerners so badly that Southern states subsequently seceded.
First was the Republican-party platform for 1860. Basically, the Northern
capitalists wanted the U.S. government to tax (only) the South deeply, to
finance the industrialization of the North, and the necessary transportation-net
to support that. In those days, there was no income tax. The federal
government received most of its revenue from tariffs (taxes) on imported goods.
The Southern states imported from England most of the manufactured goods they
used, thus paid most of the taxes to support the federal government. (The
Northerners imported very little.) In 1860, for example, just four
Southern-states paid in 50% of the total tariffs.
In 1860, the averaged tariff-rate was 18.84%; the Republicans
spread the word that they were shooting for 40% -- which could bankrupt many
Southerners
and would make life much harder for most of them. The Republican platform
included a transcontinental railroad (following a Northern route); extensive
internal-improvements to extend the transportation net for the Northern
manufacturers; a homestead act which would eliminate the only other important
source of federal funding, etc.
Second, if the Republicans somehow managed to gain control of
Congress AND the White House, they would then be able to use the federal
government
to enact and enforce their party platform -- and thus convert the prosperous
Southern-states into the dirt-poor agricultural colonies of the Northern
capitalists. And given the trends in demographics, the Southern states
would never be able to reverse that process. The intent of the Declaration
of Independence and the U.S. Constitution would then have been subverted
completely: the Southern states would no longer be governed with the consent of
the governed -- but instead bullied mercilessly by the Northern majority.
Why, then, remain in the Union?
Came the election.
At the 1860 Republican convention in Chicago, Chase and
Seward were the favored candidates. Lincoln was a dark horse. In
national politics, he had served only in the House, and only for one two-year
term --1847-49: he had left Congress 11 years earlier! Lincoln had
only three things going for him: he was considered a political lightweight, who
could easily be manipulated by the power brokers; he himself was from Illinois,
so the convention hall was located on his own stomping-grounds; and both he and
his campaign manager -- David E. Davis -- were extraordinarily-adroit politicians.
In 1860 the vast majority of the Republicans did not want
war. But the relatively-mild Seward had earlier coined several phrases
which led many to
believe mistakenly that he was a warmonger. And if Seward might possibly
lead the country into war, the hot-head Chase would probably do so. Lincoln the
unknown murmured soothing words of peace -- which went down well. Meanwhile, he
and Davis manipulated that convention behind the scenes in ways that would make
today's dirty-tricks advocates turn green with envy. Consequently, Lincoln won
the Republican nomination.
Meanwhile, the numerically-far-stronger national
Democratic-party was busy self-destructing over the issue of slavery. So when
the 1860 election-returns came in, it turned out that the Republicans had won
the White House, and substantial majorities in the House and the Senate.
When that message sank in, Southern states began seceding from the Union --
beginning with South Carolina on 20 December 1860. Several of them said
that the main issue was the protection of slavery, but that was strictly for
local consumption by people who did their thinking solely in terms of simple
slogans. The Southern legislators
could do their math; thus they knew full well that the only truly-safe way to
protect the institution of slavery would be for the Southern states to remain in
the Union and simply refuse to ratify any proposed constitutional-amendment to
emancipate the slaves. For slavery was specifically protected by the
Constitution, and that protection could be removed only by an amendment ratified
by three-quarters of the states. In 1860 there were 15 slave states and 18 free
states. Had the number of slave states remained constant, 27 more free
states would have had to be admitted into the Union -- for a total of 60 states
-- before an abolition amendment could be ratified. That was not likely to
occur anytime soon. But with the Southern states seceding, the issue of slavery
could then be settled by force of arms at any time.
After the Republicans gained control of the presidency and
the Congress, eleven Southern states eventually seceded from the Union --
specifically to avoid becoming the helpless agricultural-colonies of the
Northern capitalists. This move took the Northern capitalists completely by
surprise. The South was like the little boy who was forever crying
"wolf." Southern states had been threatening to secede ever
since the Tariff of Abominations and the days of Calhoun; the North no longer
took those threats seriously. But with the South now gone, there would be
no federal funding to industrialize the North -- for the Northern citizenry would
certainly never agree to be taxed to pay for it. And far worse than that,
the many, many Northern-capitalists who had been earning fortunes factoring the
Southern cotton-crop, transporting the cotton, and buying the cotton for New
England textile-mills now faced financial ruin. The South normally bought
its manufactured goods from Britain, anyway. Now, as a sovereign nation,
the South could easily cut far better deals with the British financiers, ship
owners, and textile mills to supply the South with all of the necessary
support-services--leaving the Northern capitalists out in the cold.
This was all Lincoln's fault! If he hadn't been
elected, the South wouldn't have seceded; and the Northern capitalists would not
now be in this mess.
So as President-elect Lincoln prepared to take office, he was
in a world of hurt. He had the trappings of office--but not the power base
to support him
safely in office against the slings and arrows of his outrageous
political-enemies. Both Seward and Chase had well-established power bases
(financial backers, newspapers, magazines, personal political-organizations,
etc.); both of them wanted Lincoln's job; both of them merely awaited the first
opportunity to spring a political trap on him, subject him to deadly ridicule,
and thereafter cut him off at the knees. Given time, Lincoln -- who, after
all, did occupy the presidency -- could weld together a formidable power base of
his own; but right at the beginning of his term he was perilously vulnerable.
He MUST now have the support of the Northern capitalists.
Lincoln was a Whig masquerading as a Republican, because that
was now the only game in town. He didn't care anything about the slavery
issue; he
preferred to temporize with the abolitionists. But he couldn't temporize
with the Northern capitalists. He would have to drag the South back into the
Union immediately, or he'd (figuratively) be shot out of the saddle and
discredited very quickly; then Seward or Chase would really be running the
country; and Lincoln could forget all about being reelected in 1864. That was
unthinkable. But there was no way Lincoln or anyone else from the
Republican party could possibly talk the Southern states back into the Union at
this stage of the game; so he would have to conquer them in war. (He assumed it
would be a 90-day war, which the Union Army would win in one battle.)
If you read Lincoln's first inaugural-address with any care
at all, you'll see that it was simply a declaration of war against the South.
It was also filled with lies and specious reasoning. In 1860, the official
government-charter for the U.S. was the U.S. Constitution. In writing it,
the delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 (some of the most-canny
politicians in the country) had pointedly omitted from it the "perpetual
union" clause which had been a main feature of the unworkable Articles of
Confederation and Perpetual Union, the U.S.-government charter adopted only six
years earlier in 1781. Under the Articles, no state could secede lawfully
unless all states seceded simultaneously. But the Constitution -- which
Lincoln had just taken an oath to uphold -- did not contain that clause (or any
other like it); so any state could secede lawfully at any time. The South
did secede lawfully. Honest Abe flat-out lied when he said that was not
so; and he subsequently used his blatant lie to slaughter 623,000 Americans and
Confederates eventually -- in order to perpetuate himself in political office.
Lincoln needed an excuse to start his war of aggression,
because Congress did not want war and would not declare war of its own volition.
The most likely hot-spot in which Lincoln could start his war was Charleston
Harbor, where shots had already been fired in anger under the Buchanan
administration. But the newly-elected governor of South Carolina, Francis
Pickens, saw the danger--that Lincoln might, as an excuse, send a force of U.S.
Navy warships to Charleston Harbor supposedly to resupply Maj Anderson's Union
force holed up in Fort Sumter. So Gov Pickens opened negotiations with Maj
Anderson, and concluded a deal permitting Anderson to send boats safely to the
market in Charleston once a week, where Anderson's men would be allowed to buy
whatever victuals they wished. (This arrangement remained in effect until
a day or so before the U.S. Navy warships arrived at Charleston). Maj
Anderson wrote privately to friends, saying that he hoped Lincoln would not use
Fort Sumter as the excuse to start a war, by sending the U.S. Navy to resupply
it.
Before his inauguration, Lincoln sent a secret message to Gen
Winfield Scott, the U.S. general-in-chief, asking him to make preparations to
relieve the Union forts in the South soon after Lincoln took office. Lincoln
knew all along what he was going to do. President Jefferson Davis sent peace
commissioners to Washington to negotiate a treaty with the Lincoln
administration. Lincoln refused to meet with them; and he refused to
permit Secretary of State Seward to meet with them. After Lincoln assumed the
presidency, his principal generals recommended the immediate evacuation of Maj
Anderson's men from Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor--which was now located on
foreign soil. To resupply it by force at this point would be a deliberate
act-of-war against the C.S.A.
It turned out that Lincoln's postmaster general, Montgomery
Blair, had a brother-in law, Gustavus V. Fox, who was a retired Navy-captain,
and wanted to get back into action. Fox had come up with a plan for
resupplying Fort Sumter which would force the Confederates to fire the first
shots -- under
circumstances which would force them to take the blame for the war. Lincoln sent
Fox down to talk with Maj Anderson about the plan, but Anderson wanted no part
of it. Lincoln had Fox pitch the plan to his Cabinet twice. The
first time, the majority said that move would start a war. But the second
time, the Cabinet members got Lincoln's pointed message, and capitulated.
Meanwhile, Congress got wind of the plan. Horrified, they called Gen Scott
and others to testify about it; Scott and the other witnesses said they wanted
no part of the move against the Confederacy in Charleston (and nor did
Congress). Congress demanded from Lincoln -- as was Congress's right --
Fox's
report on Maj Anderson's reaction to the plan. Lincoln flatly refused to
hand it over to them.
Lincoln sent to Secretary Cameron (for transmittal to
Secretary Welles) orders in his own handwriting (!) to make the warships
Pocahontas and Pawnee and the armed-cutter Harriet Lane ready for sailing, along
with the passenger ship Baltic -- which would be used as a troop ship, and two
ocean-going tugboats to aid the ships in traversing the tricky shallow
harbor-entrance at Charleston. Fox's plan was to send 500 extra
Union-soldiers to reinforce Maj Anderson's approximately-86-man force at Fort
Sumter -- along with huge quantities of munitions, food, and other supplies.
The Confederacy would, of course, resist this invasion--in the process firing
upon the U.S. flag. The unarmed tugs would, of necessity, enter the harbor
first, whereupon they would likely be fired upon by
the C.S.A., giving Lincoln the best-possible propaganda to feed to the Northern
newspapers, which would then rally the North to his "cause." Lincoln
sent orders for the Union naval-force to begin its journey so as to enter
Charleston Harbor on 11 or 12 April. Next, Lincoln sent a courier to
deliver an ultimatum to Gov Pickens on 8 April, saying that Lincoln intended to
resupply Fort Sumter peaceably or by force. There was no mistaking the
intent of that message.
Lincoln had set the perfect trap. He had given
President Davis just enough time to amass his forces and fire upon the U.S.
Navy. But if Davis acquiesced instead, Lincoln need merely begin sending
expeditionary forces to recapture all of the former Union-forts in the South now
occupied by Confederate forces; sooner or later Davis would have to fight; and
the more forts he allowed Lincoln to recapture in the interim, the weaker would
be the military position of the C.S.A. As a practical matter, Davis was
left with no choice.
Accordingly, the C.S.A., informed that the U.S. Navy was en
route, demanded that Maj Anderson surrender the fort forthwith. Anderson
refused;
Beauregard's artillery bombarded Fort Sumter into junk (miraculously without
loss of life inside); and Anderson then surrendered with honor intact. The
U.S. Navy arrived during the bombardment -- but because elements of the force had
been delayed for various reasons, did not join in the fight. The Navy was
allowed to transport Anderson's men back to the U.S. Thereafter Lincoln wrote to
Fox, pronouncing the mission a great success.
Lincoln ended his
letter by saying, "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."
Folks, that ought to be plain enough for anybody to
understand.
Now Lincoln had his
excuse for a war (assuming that he continued to lie his head off about it --
which
he did); but there was no reason for him to believe that Congress would declare
war against the South on his say-so. In fact, there was every indication that
they would not. So instead of calling Congress into emergency session and
asking them to declare war (which was their prerogative, and not Lincoln's),
Lincoln simply declared war himself -- by calling the C.S.A.'s defense of its
sovereignty in Charleston Harbor an "insurrection" against the U.S.
government. Lincoln did not call Congress into session until several months
later -- when his war had progressed so far that Congress could not then call it
off, but as a practical matter would have to rubber stamp it.
So Lincoln started the war virtually single-handed. Without
vulnerable dark-horse Abraham Lincoln assuming the presidency in 1861, I do not
believe we would have had a war. Nobody wanted one except Lincoln and a
few rabid-abolitionists and some Northern-capitalists whose fortunes were
threatened. I consider Lincoln a megalomaniacal sociopath whose like we
have not yet seen -- and I pray we never will see.
For anyone who wishes confirmation of what I have said -- and
to learn the important details, please read John S. Tilley's "Lincoln Takes
Command," and Ludwell Johnson's "North Against South/An American
Iliad." Both authors have a number of other major surprises in store
for you in those books. Both books are available now from Confederate
booksellers.
For those who (for shame!) do not at present patronize
Confederate booksellers, Tilley's book is currently published by Bill Coats,
Ltd. in Nashville (in 1991); and Johnson's by The Foundation for American
Education, P.O. Box 11851, Columbia, SC 29211 (in 1995). Your local
bookseller should be able to order a copy for you.
- Frank Conner
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