From: HK Edgerton
To: rodbren
Sent: Sunday, October 10, 2010
Subject: Mailing
Dear Rodney,
If you don’t mind, please send me your mailing address so that the Publisher of the ( Un-Civil War ) can mail you a copy.
Your brother,
HK
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From: rodbren – rodbren@sbcglobal.net
Date: Sun, Oct 10, 2010
Subject: Re: Mailing
To: HK Edgerton – hk.edgerton@gmail.com
Mr. Edgerton,
If this is the book by Mike Scruggs, I’ve either read it or most of it. If I recall correctly, he contends that high tarrifs were the primary reason for the "Civil War." I’m sure it was a factor up to the time of the war, but slavery itself is mentioned as the primary reason by the states in official southern documents.
If interested, here’s a link to an article written by David Barton, title "Civil War Revisionism: Why the South Went To War." This isn’t necessarily an endorsement to everything he says; in fact, I couldn’t tell you much about him, but he includes in the article some excerpts from those offical reasons for secession:
http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=92
I think that I and almost everyone who has sent me e-mails in response to my e-mail to you will have to agree to disagree on some things. I suspect, however, that all those folks and I are pretty much on the same side concerning states’ rights and tyranny in government today.
Sincerely,
Rodney Combs
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From: tribune editor
To: Mike Scruggs
Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Subject: Slavery – Mailing
Mike,
Could you please comment on this for me?
Thanks
David
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From: Mike Scruggs – mikescruggs@morrisbb.net
Date: Wed, Oct 13, 2010
Subject: Re: Slavery – Mailing
To: tribune editor – tribuneeditor@bellsouth.net
Cc: HK Edgerton – hk.edgerton@gmail.com
David,
Only Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas published declarations of cause for seceding.
Mississippi clearly identifies itself with the institution of slavery, but even that does not make it the sole cause of secession.
Slavery is mentioned a good bit in all four declarations, but the overwhelming majority of the statements address abusive Northern attacks on the South on the slavery issue including attempts to stir up slave revolts that would endager public safety. Underlying all this is a fundamental difference in how Southern versus primarily New England states viewed the Constitution and especially States Rights. You have to understand the heated attacks on the South by Northern politicians, the abolitionist press, and some Northern clergy to have a feel for why these Southern declarations are so vehement about denouncing the North for their abusive rhetoric and propaganda attacking the South on the slavery issue.
Of course, as I frequently point out, slavery was an issue, but for the most part, it was not the morality play that people usually associate with it. Just check out some of the Northern political rhetoric to their own voters on it. As Lincoln himself said regarding Kansas and Nebraska in 1854, it was about preserving these states “for the homes of free white people.” They did not want salvery to spread to compete with free labor, and frankly, they did not want blacks in Northern or new states.
I have never contended that the Morrill Tariff was the only reason for the war. But I will say that the legislation was such a regionally partisan economic abuse and explotation of South Carolina and the Gulf states that these states could not have remained in the Union without abandoning self-respect, honor, principle, and the well-being of their own people. The Morrill Tariff was a perfect example of partisan greed and blatant disregard for the general welfare of the country.
Note that the legislatiion only got one Southern vote in the House and none in the Senate. It was sectionalism with a foot in the South’s face.
Much of this discussion misses an important point. It was Lincoln that called for 75,000 troops to invade the South and did so. There were many underlying reasons for secession, but the reason for the war was Northern invasion of the South.
Also, no credible historian believes the North invaded the South to free the slaves. They invaded to keep Southern states from seceding, The Tariff and Southern free trade bore heavily in their rreasoning–See Lincoln’s inaugeration speech. There was also danger of other states and cities seceding. New York City was threatening to secede and be a free port on the side of free trade. There was also talk of a seperate secesion on the west coast. So Lincoln surely had a dilemma, but his solution was not constutional, and the cost in life and property was a great calamity.
I must also point out that many nations emacipated slaves in an orderly fashion and avoided such clamity. This was because they did not have to contend with the tyrannical form of sectionalism advocated by Radical Republicans. This sort os ""Sectionalism" is often sited as a "cause: of the war" in older Southern literature. I agree, and the Morrill Tariff could not be a more concrete example.
On the eve of the war, the Charleston Mercury nailed it in an editorial: The Tariff and Northern designs for a centralized Statist government uninhibited by a strong constitution. Don’t have time to look up exact quote. It is in the book.
Also in the newer versions of the book–Thaddeus Stevens, probably the most powerful Republican in the House (referred to as the "Boss of America" after Lincoln died) and a co-sponsor of the Tariff pointed out in a speech just before the November 1860 election that the two most important issues in the election were the Extension of Slavery and the Tariff, but of the two, the Tariff was the most important. Note also that the expension of slavry and not simply the morality of slavery was the issue. Much of the slavery issue revolves around how to handle it. Lincoln favored gradual emancipation, reimbursement of slaveholders, and "colonization." The abolitionists wanted to free the slaves at once and punish slaveholders and the South.
Well, I will write something on the declaration at some point, but I am too busy in the near future. It is a great stretch, however, to say that these four declarations mean that secession and the war were all about slavery.
But Northern apologists are desperate to prove the moral superiority of the Union cause and killing over 600,000 people. That is the underlying reason for all the puffery on slavery. But it is just a pious excuse for tyranny.
President Woodrow Wilson was once asked how the role of slavery became so distorted and exaggerated as a cause of the “Civil War.” Wilson gave this succinct answer:
“It was necessary to put the South at a moral disadvantage by transforming the contest from a war waged against states fighting for their independence into a war waged against states fighting for the maintenance and extension of slavery…”
Five years after the end of the War, prominent Northern abolitionist, attorney and legal scholar, Lysander Spooner, put it this way:
“All these cries of having ‘abolished slavery,’ of having ‘saved the country,’ of having ‘preserved the Union,’ of establishing a ‘government of consent,’ and of ‘maintaining the national honor’ are all gross, shameless, transparent cheats—so transparent that they ought to deceive no one.”
I have attached an article of several months ago–on Tea Party Issues.
N more time to do this!
Mike
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Battle For Historical Truth Tea Party Issues
