The Gettysburg Address

Lincoln at Gettysburg

When the Battle of Gettysburg was fought and the armies marched away, the small town was left with thousands of dead and wounded to deal with. At first all that could be done was to bury the men in crude and shallow graves. But the Northerners wanted to do for the soldiers that had fallen on their homeland, in one of the greatest Union victories thus far in the war. A committee was formed of men from all the states who had soldiers fight there. A hilltop cemetery had been an important Union position during the battle, so it was natural that a portion of this hill would be turned into a cemetery and memorial for the Union dead. The committee moved fast. 17 acres were purchased, and less than five months later they were ready to commemorate the Soldier's Cemetery.

Lincoln's handwritten draft of the speech

The main speaker for the event was Edward Everett, an important Massachusetts figure who had served as governor, ambassador to Great Britain, Secretary of State, U.S. Senator and President of Harvard. For nearly a decade he had toured the country as an orator. When the ceremony was held, 150 years ago today, Everett gave a two hour speech, but today very few remember what he said. For after him rose President Abraham Lincoln, whose two minute speech is one of the most famous in American history. Lincoln said:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. 

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. 

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

The next day Everett wrote to Lincoln, saying, “I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.” Reactions to the speech different, based primarily upon the politics of the commentators. The Republican Chicago Tribune wrote “The dedicatory remarks by President Lincoln will live among the annals of man,” while the Democratic Chicago Times said, “The cheeks of every American must tingle with shame as he reads the silly, flat, and dishwatery utterances.”¹ The southerners, of course, thought very little of it. The Lynchburg Virginian said, “Really, the ignorance and coarseness of this man would repel and disgust any other people than the Yankees . . . What a commentary is this on the character of our enemies.”2

New York Times article on the address

Those who agreed with Lincoln would come to see it as one of the greatest statements of why the war was fought. A few years later newspaper editor Horace Greeley wrote, “I doubt that our national literature contains a finer gem than that little speech at the Gettysburg celebration....” ³ Republican senator Charles Sumner said, “The battle itself was less important than the speech. Ideas are more than battles."⁴

Today the Gettysburg Address is regarded by many as one of the foundational statements of American government, ranking in importance with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Some have called it the founding document of a second American revolution. In many ways these analysis are true. The Address is a concise statement that declares that American changed during the Civil War. It experienced a “new birth,” and the debate over what that birth entailed continue in the country to the present day.

1.Contemporary Reactions, Cornell University: The Gettysburg Address http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/gettysburg/ideas_more/reactions_p1.htm.

2.Virginians' Responses fo the Gettysburg Address, 1863-1963 by Jared Elliott Peatman, 2006. http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/available/etd-04162006-004530/unrestricted/peatman.pdf. p. 39.

3.The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine: May 1891, to October 1891. (New York: The Century Co., 1891) p. 380.

4.The Life of Charles Sumner by Jeremiah Chaplin and J. D. Chaplin (Boston: D. Lothrop Company, 1874) p. 421.

Clement Vallandigham Arrested

Vallandigham

The north was not completely unified behind Abraham Lincoln and his conduct of the war. There was a significant movement for peace in the North. They were called Copperheads by their enemies as a reference to the snake, but they adopted the name, and wore the heads of Liberty cut out of copper pennies. The recognized leader of the Copperheads was Clement Vallandigham of Ohio, a U.S. Representative who had lost his seat in 1862 due to gerrymandering. He was a support of state's rights, saying the states had a right to secede and the federal government had no power under the constitution to regulate slavery. He said this in Congress on January 14th, 1863:

Soon after the war began the reign of the mob was... supplanted by the iron domination of arbitrary power. Constitutional limitation was broken down; habeas corpus fell; liberty of the press, of speech, of the person, of the mails, of travel, of one’s own house, and of religion; the right to bear arms, due process of law, judicial trial, trial by jury, trial at all ... Whatever pleases the President, that is law! Prisoners of state were then first heard of here. Midnight and arbitrary arrests commenced; travel was interdicted; trade embargoed; passports demanded; bastiles were introduced; strange oaths invented; a secret police organized; "piping" began; informers multiplied; spies now first appeared in America. The right to declare war, to raise and support armies, and to provide and maintain a navy, was usurped by the Executive.... I have denounced, from the beginning, the usurpations and the infractions, one and all, of law and Constitution, by the President and those under him; their repeated and persistent arbitrary arrests, the suspension of habeas corpus, the violation of freedom of the mails, of the private house, of the press and of speech, and all the other multiplied wrongs and outrages upon public liberty and private right, which have made this country one of the worst despotisms on earth for the past twenty months; and I will continue to rebuke and denounce them to the end.... 

And now, sir, I recur to the state of the Union to-day. What is it? Sir, twenty months have elapsed, but the rebellion is not crushed out; its military power has not been broken; the insurgents have not dispersed. The Union is not restored; nor the Constitution maintained; nor the laws enforced. Twenty, sixty, ninety, three hundred, six hundred days have passed; a thousand millions been expended; and three hundred thousand lives lost or bodies mangled; and to-day the Confederate flag is still near the Potomac and the Ohio, and the Confederate Government stronger, many times, than at the beginning.... You have not conquered the South. You never will. It is not in the nature of things possible; much less under your auspices. But money you have expended without limit, and blood poured out like water. Defeat, debt, taxation, sepulchers, these are your trophies.... The war for the Union is, in your hands, a most bloody and costly failure. The President confessed it on the 22d of September.... War for the Union was abandoned; war for the negro openly begun, and with stronger battalions than before. With what success? Let the dead at Fredericksburg and Vicksburg answer....

His arrest

The government could not let Vallandigham remain free to express his opinion. 150 years ago today he was arrested for violating Burnside's General Order Number 38. The charges against him were that he criticized the war, and said that the government was despotic and was violating the people's rights. Vallandingham was denied the writ of habeas corpus, and tried by a military tribunal, which caused many to say that his civil rights were violated. He was convicted and sentenced to prison for two years for attempting to hinder the war effort. Lincoln upheld the conviction, but changed it to banishment to the Confederacy. He went there against his will, and traveled to Canada. From there he ran for Governor of Ohio. He was nominated by the Democrats but lost the election in a landslide. Nonetheless he remained an active part of the Democratic party.

Politicians including Vallandigham

Legal Tender Acts

In February of 1862 Lincoln and the Republican Congress passed the Legal Tender Acts, authorizing paper money. This was one of the first steps in Lincoln's government expansion, which was one of the main reasons the South seceded. For more information on this act, read the blog post The Greenback is Born from the New York Times, or buy the book The Real Lincoln by Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo.

Causes of the War State's Rights

As we have discussed on this blog before, slavery was the main issue that caused the Deep South States to secede, but secession did not necessarily mean war. This is a major misunderstanding about the Civil War today. When the North was considering whether or not to attack the South, the question was no longer about slavery. The question was whether or not the Southern states had a right to be allowed to leave the Union peacefully. The South viewed the United States as a confederation in which the states joined together for mutual protection. They joined freely, so they thought they could leave freely. However, the North believed that the states surrendered their sovereignty and could never regain it. It was this difference of understanding that caused the South to fight for freedom and the North to preserve the indissolvable Union.

Constitution

To start off, the U.S. Constitution does not clearly permit or forbid secession. The other founding documents convey contradictory impressions. When Virginia joined the Union they specifically reserved the right to secede. However, the Northwest Ordinance, an important bill passed by Congress regarding adding new states to the Union, forbade secession. There were differences of opinion regarding this right before the war, but as we will see, they were not clearly divided between North and South.

History of Secession

The 1860s were not the first time that states had threatened to leave the Union. It had also happened during several crises since the founding of America. At those times it had been debated whether the right to secede was retained by the states. What is interesting though is that several times it was not the South, but also the North that was arguing for secession. In the years directly proceeding the war the abolitionists urged their states to leave the Union because they thought it was wrong to be in a Union that also contained slaveholders. During one of their meetings in 1844:

... it was decided ... that fidelity to the cause of human freedom, hatred of oppression, sympathy for those who are held in chains and slavery in this republic, and allegiance to God, require that the existing national compact should be instantly dissolved; that secession from the government is a religious and political duty; that the motto inscribed on the banner of Freedom should be, NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS; ¹

These were the same men that in 1861 declared that they must fight to preserve the Union.

State Sovereignty

The debate over the legitimacy of secession really comes down to a different view of state sovereignty. Is the Union is a collection of states joined together for the common good, and still reserving much sovereignty to themselves, or did the states just become departments of the federal government? The Civil War resulted in a huge lose of the states' power, ignoring the Constitution and what the founders intended. The states were constitutionally intended to provide a check on the federal government and were to retain all power that they did not specifically delegate to the federal government. After the Southern states were defeated in their attempt to leave the Union, they were not let back in until they surrendered many of their original rights – even though the North claimed they had not even really left in the first place.

Bibically

One of the applications of the Bible to civil government that was made by the Reformers was the doctrine of interposition. This is the idea that the when the greater civil magistrates become wicked and tyrannical, the lesser civil magistrates are to lead the people to remove them. This is similar to what the South was trying to do in their secession. The state officials voted to leave the Union because it was trying to abolish the institution of slavery which they believed was ordained by God, and they formed a new union that would better fulfill the role of civil government.

Conclusion

While slavery served as a catalist, it did not cause the war. The war was fought over state's rights. Did states have the right to regulate their own laws and to leave the Union when it was no longer beneficial to them? As we will see later, the upper south did not secede because they thought Lincoln would abolish slavery. They seceded because they were ordered to attack their brethren who had left the Union.

I will close with a quote from Jefferson Davis after the war:

Secession ... is to be justified upon the basis that the States are sovereign. There was a time when none denied it. I hope the time may come again, when a better comprehension of the theory of our Government, and the inalienable rights of the people of the States, will prevent any one from denying that each State is a sovereign, and thus may reclaim the grants which it has made to any agent whomsoever.

Jefferson Davis

1. The Constitution A Pro-Slavery Compact (New York: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1845) p. 101 Source. 

Jefferson Davis Inaugurated

Davis's Inauguration

Jefferson Davis was inaugurated on February 18th, 1861 as President of the Confederate States of America. The ceremony took place in Montgomery, Alabama, the capital of the new nation. At the same time as this event was occurring, Abraham Lincoln was traveling from Illinois to Washington, DC for his inauguration which would happen on March 4th.

After being escorted to the steps of the capital building by a military guard in a carriage drawn by six horses, Jefferson Davis gave a short speech. He affirmed the right of the South to secede according to the principles of the Constitution of the United States. While Davis hoped that war would be avoided, he knew that it must be prepared for. He declared that if war came, it would be the North's responsibility:

Should reason guide the action of the Government from which we have separated, a policy so detrimental to the civilized world, the Northern States included, could not be dictated by even the strongest desire to inflict injury upon us; but, if the contrary should prove true, a terrible responsibility will rest upon it, and the suffering of millions will bear testimony to the folly and wickedness of our aggressors.

He concluded his speech with:

It is joyous in the midst of perilous times to look around upon a people united in heart, where one purpose of high resolve animates and actuates the whole; where the sacrifices to be made are not weighed in the balance against honor and right and liberty and equality. Obstacles may retard, but they cannot long prevent, the progress of a movement sanctified by its justice and sustained by a virtuous people. Reverently let us invoke the God of our fathers to guide and protect us in our efforts to perpetuate the principles which by his blessing they were able to vindicate, establish, and transmit to their posterity. With the continuance of his favor ever gratefully acknowledged, we may hopefully look forward to success, to peace, and to prosperity.

After taking the oath of office, Jefferson Davis became President of the Confederacy and undertook the duties of organizing the government and preparing for possible war with the United States.

Confederate Constitution

The delegates to the convention in Montgomery, Alabama decided to base the Constitution for the new Confederacy off of the United States Constitution. While they had decided to leave the United States, they still thought that that form of government would be the best with a few minor adjustments. Therefore the new Constitution was word-for-word the same in most sections. We will go over the more important changes and see whether they were good improvements.

Preamble

We, the people of the Confederate States, each state acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity—invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God—do ordain and establish this constitution for the Confederate States of America.

They made several important changes to the preamble, which stated the general purpose of the government. The new government would be more limited and the state would be given more power, even though the changes they made were small. They stated more clearly that the states were establishing the new Union as sovereign and independent. They also removed the broad statement "to promote the general welfare," which they thought should be left to the states.

They also invoked the favor of God. God was referenced in the Declaration of Independence, but not in the U.S. Constitution even though almost all of the founders, including those who would not be considered Christians such as Benjamin Franklin, recognized the necessity of the blessing and providence of God. The Southerners wanted to add this idea specifically to the new Constitution.

President’s Term

They changed the term of the President from four-years to six, and he was not allowed to be re-elected. The limit in the number of terms would prevent people from choosing one “tyrant” over and over, but it would also stop a good man from continuing to serve his country. The six years would mean that if a bad choice was made, they were stuck with it for six years. Since the president was not able to be reelected, he would not change his policies as his term came to a close to please the people. This could have good and bad implications. The issue of the president's term was very complicated and the founders spent much time thinking about which was better. Both solutions have their benefits and problems.

State’s Rights

In Article 1 Section 2 they said that the state legislatures could impeach any federal officer or judge who worked solely in that state. This would increase the powers of the states to resist federal encroachments because they had the power to remove government officials that were doing things which they disagreed with.

Tariffs

They attempted to add provisions to restrain the Congress from favoring some industries over others with tariffs. This was one of the reasons they left the Union.. However, by their nature tariffs favor some industries. The real solution was for the congressmen to be very careful about what tariffs they voted for and whether they would unfairly favor an industry.

Slavery

They specifically banned the slave trade in the new Constitution, which we already discussed in a previous post: . http://civilwar150th.blogspot.com/2010/12/slave-trade.html They also explicitly gave the right to own slaves. However, many today are surprised that their new Constitution did not focus more on this issue. But the focus of the government would not be on slavery, that was just one of the reasons that compelled them to leave the Union.

Declaration of the Immediate Causes...

Secession Convention

150 years ago today South Carolina adopted a “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union.” You can read that declaration here. The paper was to tell the world why they were leaving the Union. We will spend a little time looking at what they said.

War for Independence

They began with the history of the War for Independence and beyond. They declared that the war was to preserve from Great Britain “the right of a State to govern itself; and the right of a people to abolish a Government when it becomes destructive of the ends for which it was instituted. And concurrent with the establishment of these principles, was the fact, that each Colony became and was recognized by the mother Country a FREE, SOVEREIGN AND INDEPENDENT STATE.”

Constitution

They also held that because they voluntarily joined the Union by ratifying the Constitution, they had the rights of the laws of contract.  “We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other...” Therefore they assert that they have a right to leave because as they are about to say, they believe the federal government had not fulfilled its Constitutional duties.

Fugitive Slaves

Their first grievance was the violation of the fugitive slave law. In the Constitution (as we have previously seen) the states were required to return escaped slaves to their masters. But with the rise of the abolition movement against slavery, the Northern states passed laws which rejected their Constitutional requirement because they did not believe slavery was just.

Resistance to Slavery

They also complained that even though the US Constitution left it it to each individual state to govern itself, the other states denounced the institution of slavery as a sin and encouraged the slaves to escape or rebel against their masters. They also said that they were no longer equal members of the Union when a candidate for President had been elected, Abraham Lincoln, who said that the, “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free.” Therefore they properly feared that they would be under attack from the Federal government because they held slaves.

Separation from the Union

They concluded by saying this:

We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do.

You may recognize that they are using the exact same language that the founders used in the Declaration of Independence. They were pointing back the the War for Independence and claimed that they had the right to do the same thing in 1860.

Concluding Thoughts

Notice in this document that South Carolina’s main reason to leave the Union was not that the North did not have slaves. It was because they believed that the Constitution had been violated by the states ignoring the fugitive slave law, and that it would be broken further when the federal government headed by Abraham Lincoln would attempt to eradicate slavery from the Southern states.

South Carolina Secedes

Secession Convention

As soon as South Carolina heard of the election of the Republican anti-slavery candidate Abraham Lincoln, the General Assembly of South Carolina called for the election of delegates to a Convention to consider secession from the Union. While the convention was gathering, a group of Southern Senators and Representatives wrote this:

To our Constituents: The argument is exhausted. All hope of relief in the Union, through the agency of committees, Congressional legislation, or constitutional amendments, is extinguished, and we trust the South will not be deceived by appearances or the pretence of new guarantees. The Republicans are resolute in the purpose to grant nothing that will or ought to satisfy the South. We are satisfied the honor, safety, and independence of the Southern people are to be found only in a Southern Confederacy —a result to be obtained only by separate State secession—and that the sole and primary aim of each slaveholding State ought to be its speedy and absolute separation from an unnatural and hostile Union.¹

The convention convened on December 17th and on the first day passed a unanimous resolution to secede. On December 20th, 1860, 150 years ago today, they again unanimously passed the Ordinance of Secession which was their official statement that they were seceding from the Union and becoming independent states. A few days later they wrote a document which declared their reasons for separation, which we will discuss at that time.

At this point the question for the North was whether or not the South had a Constitutional right to secede. It had been threatened by several states North and South previously, but now one had actually tried it. Would they allow South Carolina to leave the Union peaceably or would they use force to attempt to bring them back?

1. The Century May 1887 – October 1887 (New York: The Century Co, 1887) p. 829. Source.

The Real Causes of the Civil War

Before we can understand who was right in the Civil War and the effects that it has had on America today, we first need to understand what caused it. If you ask the average American today what caused the Civil War, he would tell you it was because the North wanted to free the slaves. But that is not true. The idea that the war was fought over slavery is the biggest misconception about it today. The war was fought over whether or not states had the right to secede. Lincoln wrote this during the war:

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.¹

However, as we will see through the next few weeks, Lincoln frequently lied. He did have a chance to save the Union and preserve slavery, but he rejected it. But most of the Northern soldiers were fighting to preserve the Union, not to end slavery.

If you look deeper and examine the causes of secession, then you will find slavery played a big role in causing the Southern states to attempt to leave the Union. But even that it is not as clear cut as most make it out to be. There were also economic and religious reasons that went into the decision to leave the Union.

There were four main causes of succession and the war which do overlap at some points. We will look at these as a progression, not in order of importance. First there were economic reasons that caused the South to believe that the North was robbing them. Second there were religious differences because of Unitarianism. These religious differences caused the third disagreement which was slavery, and lastly there is the idea of state sovereignty. In the coming days we will examine each of these causes and who was right in each instance.

1. Source

What to Call it

One of the many hotly debated issues regarding the Civil War is what to call it. Most people today call it the Civil War, modern day Confederates call it the War of Northern Aggression, other less inflammatory names include War Between the States and the War of Southern Secession. Many writers after the war referred to it as The Late Unpleasantness. Of all these choices, which is correct and which should we use today?

Civil War

Many times when someone calls it the Civil War, someone responds with, “It wasn't a Civil War. There was nothing civil about it!” This is actually an incorrect statement. “Civil” does not refer to the kindness between the combatants, or there would be no civil wars. A civil war is one between factions in the same country. Those who believe that the South had a right to secede, including myself, would take objection to the fact that the war was between parts of the same country.

War of Northern Aggression

A common term among Southerners is the War of Northern Aggression. Supporters of the Union would point out that it was the Confederates who fired on Fort Sumter, their opponents would respond that they shouldn't have been there at all. That is a another argument for another day. But clearly, this name will never be in common use by both sides because it is very one-sided.

War for Southern Independence

The War for Southern Independence or War for Southern Secession is less biased. Everyone would acknowledge that the war began because the Southern states decided that they no longer wished to be a part of the Union. Many would say that the true cause was slavery, but I would disagree (again, a discussion for another day.)

War Between the States

The most appropriate yet unbiased name seems to me to be the War Between the States. The South still considered itself to be states, and the North did as well. The only problem with this name is that it is not in general use, and is much longer than Civil War.” warbetweenthestates150blog.blogspot.com is a very long name to remember! So unfortunately, for the time being we will have to stick with the Civil War.