EDUCATION NEEDED ABOUT LEE, JACKSON & CONFEDERACY

The Invasion On May 23, 1861, the people of Virginia voted on whether or not to secede from the Union after Abraham Lincoln’s issued a proclamation for troops to invade southern states. At about 2am that night, before newspapers could publish the results of their near 4-1 landslide vote, Lincoln sent 14,000 Union troops across the bridges to occupy Alexandria and Arlington. That began a, half-million man, 20 entry point invasion of Virginia destroying many Virginians' homes, families, farms, cattle, property and lives.

Generals Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and many others defended the people of Virginia against the Union Army’s direct attacks on civilians in places like Fredericksburg, Petersburg and the Shenandoah Valley. Art. IV Sec. IV of the U.S. Constitution requires the federal government to protect the states and its people from invasion and domestic violence. Art. I Sec. X, prohibits states to “engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay”

The People’s Right to Secede Article VII of the U.S. Constitution explains how only 9 states are needed for the union to exist so participation by additional states is optional. Nowhere does the Constitution say the union is perpetual. If it did it would have never been ratified after the anti-federalist debates. The people of Virginia Tennessee and Texas voted to secede according to the powers reserved for them over the federal government in the 9th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The state legislatures of eight other states voted to secede according to the power reserved to them over the federal government in the 10th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Several states had explicitly reconfirmed their right to leave the Union when they ratified the U.S. Constitution in 1788 to 1790.

The 13 free, independent, sovereign states received power when it was transferred from the King of England in the 1783 Treaty of Paris. Representatives of the states negotiated and signed the treaty that maintained their sovereign status as they proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence. Those states had ratified the Articles of Confederation in 1781 to create a subordinate federal government with state controlled military power and no mention of slavery. The states then ratified the U.S. Constitution that was flawed with no Presidential term limits, nationalized slavery and inadequate protections for the people if a President simply ignored the document. Regardless of its flaws, the states created the federal government and ratified its governing documents. The federal government did not create the states.

Why the States Seceded Virginians were law abiding members of the Union on April 12th when South Carolina shelled Fort Sumter to get back its property for the defense of Charleston. The Virginia state legislature voted to stay in the Union on April 4th by a 2-1 margin after the South Carolina delegates voted 169-0 to secede on December 20, 1860.

South Carolina first considered secession in 1830 when it nullified the 62% Tariff of Abominations claiming the federal government, “has raised and collected un-necessary revenue for objects unauthorized by the Constitution;” Tariff rates were lowered over a 10 year period but the Morrill Tariff Act threaten to increase the rates from about 17% to 30% after passing the U.S. House in May of 1860. The 1860 secession document cited ”…frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States...” as causes of secession. A key concern was an unwillingness to enforce Art IV, Sec 2 of the U.S. Constitution in regards to returning runaway slaves. The document contends that “encroachments have continued to increase” and that some states unconstitutionally elevated persons to citizenship who voted to elect the country’s first sectionalist Presidential and Vice Presidential ticket that would assume power in March, 1861.

After seceding, South Carolina sent commissioners to Washington D.C. to negotiate payment for return of the Fort Sumter property but President Buchanan refused to meet. On January 5, Buchanan sent the Star of the West to resupply the fort. On January 9, South Carolina fired at the ship to thwart the resupply effort. News of Buchannan’s decision to resupply the fort rather than return it triggered delegates of six more states to vote to secede from the union after conventions had been called in their states. The votes were not close and they came in rapid fire order. On January 9, Mississippi delegates voted 83-15 to secede. On January 10, Florida delegates voted 62-7 to secede. On January 11, Alabama delegates voted 61-39 to secede. On January 19, Georgia delegates voted 208-89 to secede. On January 26, Louisiana delegates voted 113-17 to secede. On February 1, Texas delegates voted 166-7 to hold a public referendum on secession. On February 23, the people of Texas voted 44,317 to 13,020 to secede.

Those states formed the Confederacy, which sent commissioners to Washington D.C. again to negotiate payment for return of the Fort Sumter property. This time the newly sworn in President Lincoln also refused to meet with them. Major Anderson and Commanding Union General Winfield Scott advised against resupplying the previously evacuated, and then reoccupied, fort because it had no military value. Postmaster General Montgomery Blair was the only cabinet member who wanted to resupply the fort. He recommended a mission using his brother-in-law who set sail after Blair and Lincoln convinced cabinet members Chase and Wells that South Carolina could be blamed for an incident to start a war.

South Carolina and the new Confederacy were still faced with a dilemma: Prevent resupply of Fort Sumter or give the Union the ability to destroy Charleston by shelling like they eventually did to Petersburg and Vicksburg. To provide for their defense with minimal bloodshed they chose to gain control of the fort before the resupply ships arrived. Confederate Gen. Beauregard warned his mentor Union Major Anderson in advance that they must fire on the fort. The shelling forced Anderson to surrender the fort and there were no deaths or casualties. South Carolina and other seceding states committed no other act of aggression against the Union before Lincoln’s invasion of Virginia.

Cause of War Had Lincoln not invaded Virginia there would have been no war. On April 15th, the day after Major Anderson formally surrendered the fort, Lincoln issued his proclamation for 75,000 troops. The governors of Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky and North Carolina sent scathing refusals explaining to the president that his proclamation was illegal and unconstitutional. Their letters confirmed the opinion Attorney General Jeremiah Black gave to President Buchanan just four months earlier. Black wrote that such action “…would destroy the theory of our Union”

On April 19th newly recruited troops from Massachusetts traveled to Washington where they prepared to invade Americans in the south. They crossed Maryland against the will of Maryland Governor Thomas Holliday Hicks and the people of Baltimore rioted. The troops opened fire on a crowd killing 12 Maryland citizens. Some in the crowd had revolvers and returned fire killing four Massachusetts infantrymen. These are considered to be the first casualties of the war. The Confederate states were not involved.

Once Lincoln issued the April 15th proclamation for 75,000 troops to invade southern states without Congressional approval, he forced a horrible alternative on the people of Virginia: Kill or be killed. Virginians had to vote to attack their fellow southerners and kill them for seceding or be invaded and killed themselves for seceding. On April 23rd the Virginia legislature scheduled a public referendum on secession for May 23. On that day, Virginians made the only honorable decision that they could under those circumstances: They voted overwhelmingly 132,201 to 37,451 to secede.

On May 6, the Tennessee legislature also scheduled a secession referendum and on June 8 the people of Tennessee followed suit by a 108,339 to 47,233 margin. Delegates of North Carolina and Arkansas made the same honorable decision. Maryland would also have seceded however the Union Army, under direct order from Secretary of War Simon Cameron, arrested 30 state legislators to prevent Maryland from seceding. Missouri attempted to remain neutral but the Union Army attacked the state militia to force duly elected governor Claiborne Jackson to vacate his office. Both actions violated Article 1 Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution which clearly defines that the states have jurisdiction for conducting elections.

Slavery Myths Secession documents show that slavery was a catalyst for secession but it was not the sole cause of secession and it was definitely not the cause of war. Mississippi seceded almost solely over the right to maintain involuntary servitude. Several states echoed South Carolina’s complaint about an unwillingness to return runaway slaves along with other Constitutional issues. Georgia railed against the federal government for collecting tariffs excessive to the need to fulfill its constitutional obligations. Texas cited a failure by the federal government to protect Texans from Indians and outlaw murders as well as the isolation they had with the Union once their neighboring states seceded.

The secession documents and chronology of actual events shows that the people who voted by referendum in Virginia, Tennessee and Texas did not vote to secede because of slavery. Numbers vary by state, but on average only 5% of the population and, 25% of families in seceding states had servants. Texans had other issues driving their vote other than just slavery as previously explained. The people of Virginia and Tennessee had previously voted to stay in the union but were eventually faced with Lincoln’s unconstitutional and unprecedented kill or be killed ultimatum.

No slaves were freed in any state by Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation issued on September 22, 1862. The proclamation provided for southern states to keep all of their servants if they returned to the Union by January 1, 1863. Specifically, emancipation was:  Explicitly excluded in all Northern states  Explicitly excluded in southern territories being occupied by Union forces  Explicitly excluded in southern states that returned to the Union that year  Ignored by seceding southern states since they were not under Union control anyway Slavery was abolished in December of 1865 after the 13th Amendment was ratified.

Many free blacks and servants fought with the Confederacy. At Big Bethel, Sam Ashe a servant for Captain Richard James Ashe of the 1st North Carolina Volunteers Is believed to have shot the first Union officer killed in the war, Major Theodore Winthrop.

Lee. Jackson & Their Servants Stonewall Jackson had two families of servants and taught the men of those families to read. He also taught a Sunday school class for free blacks and servants in the community. Robert E. Lee inherited servants from his parents and the family of his wife Mary Anna Custis Lee, the great granddaughter of Martha Custis Washington and who adopted Martha’s children when they married. Lee freed the servants of his father-in-law in 1862 while the south was winning the war. Those servants worked at the Arlington House which was confiscated in 1864 by the U.S. Government after they imposed a property tax and refused to accept any payment from Mrs. Custis Lee other than in person. Robert E. Lee dies in 19870 and Mrs. Lee died in 1974 but their eldest son George Washington Custis Lee filed suit to regain the property. In 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the confiscation violated the 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution which reads “…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation” They also ruled 5-4 that Custis Lee had the right to sue the U.S. Government upholding a lower court jury decision favoring his claim. By then, over 2,000 soldiers had been buried on the property and Lee was forced to sell it to the U.S. Government. Thus, Arlington Cemetery, the Pentagon and Fort Meyer rest today on land stolen from Lee and his wife, the great granddaughter of .

Lincoln and Northern White Supremacy Northern politicians and Abraham Lincoln were equally or more white supremacists as southerners. In a September 18, 1858 debate in Charleston, Illinois with Stephen Douglas, Lincoln stated: “I am not now nor have ever been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the black and white races” and I “am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the White race."

In an Oct. 16, 1854 speech at Peoria Illinois, Lincoln explained the reason for northern opposition to slavery was the Western territories: “We want them for the homes of free white people. This they cannot be, to any considerable extent, if slavery shall be planted within them.”

In his Second Annual Message to Congress, on December 1, 1862, as President, Lincoln confirmed: “I cannot make it better known than it already is that I strongly favor colonization.” On August 14, 1862, Abraham Lincoln told a group of black leaders at the that they should be colonized. Lincoln was a member of the American Colonization society that attempted to ship blacks out of America.

As President in 1962, Lincoln appointed James Mitchell, former leader of the American Colonization Society as Commissioner of Emigration. Mr. Mitchell unsuccessfully attempted to export slaves to a variety of foreign countries with the help of Interior Secretary Caleb Smith, Senator Samuel Pomeroy and business man Bernard Kock.

In April of 1865, Lincoln asked Gen. Butler: "But what shall we do with the Negroes after they are free? I can hardly believe that the South and North can live in peace, unless we can get rid of the Negroes...I believe that it would be better to export them all to some fertile country with a good climate, which they could have to themselves."

Call to Action The history of war is written from the perspective of the victors. All calls for removal of Confederate monuments and flags so far have been based on lies disproven by the undisputed facts cited above. Generals who defended their homelands are now called traitors. Citizens who exercised their Constitutional rights to avoid attacking fellow Americans are now recast as racists. An event where there were no deaths or injuries is now called the start of a war that killed over 620,000 Americans. One white supremacist is glorified while another is reviled. The acts of Invading states and killing their people are somehow justified as necessary and acceptable.

If we don’t understand our history we are doomed to repeat it. Those of us who have studied the war must now fight suppression with courage to speak truth to power and educate public officials about the Confederacy. Those who want to preserve the true legacy of their ancestors must avoid hate mongers and expose the political game that threatens to destroy America with a race war. The Rev. Martin Luther King was falsely accused of enticing riots in some cities although his speeches were always completely non-violent. Lee and Jackson have been falsely accused of white supremacy. They defended black and white Virginians who peacefully exercised their Constitutional rights against utter tyranny that caused more American deaths than those who died in all other American wars combined.

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