A Soldier's Final Letter

The first major land battle of the Civil War, the First Battle of Bull Run, was fought on July 21, 1861, so we're coming up on its 150th anniversary next week. Soldiers preparing for the fight were of course well aware that they might not return from the battlefield, and prepared by writing letters home. Major Sullivan Ballou, of the Second Rhode Island Volunteers, wrote a loving letter to his wife Sarah on July 14, exactly 150 years ago. It's too long to copy in full, but I hope you will follow the link and read the whole thing. Have tissues handy.

Here is an excerpt:

Our movement may be one of a few days duration and full of pleasure - and it may be one of severe conflict and death to me. Not my will, but thine 0 God, be done. If it is necessary that I should fall on the battlefield for my country, I am ready. I have no misgivings about, or lack of confidence in, the cause in which I am engaged, and my courage does not halt or falter. I know how strongly American Civilization now leans upon the triumph of the Government, and how great a debt we owe to those who went before us through the blood and suffering of the Revolution. And I am willing - perfectly willing - to lay down all my joys in this life, to help maintain this Government, and to pay that debt.

But, my dear wife, when I know that with my own joys I lay down nearly all of yours, and replace them in this life with cares and sorrows - when, after having eaten for long years the bitter fruit of orphanage myself, I must offer it as their only sustenance to my dear little children - is it weak or dishonorable, while the banner of my purpose floats calmly and proudly in the breeze, that my unbounded love for you, my darling wife and children, should struggle in fierce, though useless, contest with my love of country?

I cannot describe to you my feelings on this calm summer night, when two thousand men are sleeping around me, many of them enjoying the last, perhaps, before that of death -- and I, suspicious that Death is creeping behind me with his fatal dart, am communing with God, my country, and thee.

The Confederacy won the First Battle of Bull Run, and Major Ballou was among the dead. The terrible battle seems to have been the first time that both sides realized that this was not going to be a fun little war with lots of banners and glory, but a long and horrifying slog.



If you live somewhere around Virginia, I'm sure you've heard about it already, but there will be a lot of commemoration going on this year. A big re-enactment of the First Battle of Bull Run will be performed soon, so maybe you'll want to go and see it.

A note from Jefferson Davis

After South Carolina seceded from the Union, Mississippi was the next to follow. Jefferson Davis, the senator from Mississippi, was chosen as President of the Confederacy, and wrote to former U. S. President Franklin Pierce about the impending war. (Pierce was from New Hampshire, but was a "doughface" --a Northerner who supported the Confederacy--which ruined his reputation.) Davis had served as Pierce's secretary of war; the men knew each other well and corresponded.

Here is the letter:

Washington D.C. Jany. 20. 1861

My dear friend,

I have often and sadly turned my thoughts to you during the troublous times through which we have been passing and now I come to the hard task of announcing to you that the hour is at hand which closes my connection with the United States, for the independence and Union of which my Father bled and in the service of which I have sought to emulate the example he set for my guidance. Mississippi not as a matter of choice but of necessity has resolved to enter on the trial of secession. Those who have driven her to this alternative threaten to deprive her of the right to require that her government shall rest on the consent of the governed, to substitute foreign force for domestic support, to reduce a state to the condition from which the colony rose. In the attempt to avoid the issue which had been joined by the country, the present Administration has complicated and precipitated the question. Even now if the duty "to preserve the public property" was rationally regarded the probable collision at Charleston would be avoided. Security far better than any which the federal troops can give might be obtained in consideration of the little garrison of Fort Sumpter. If the disavowal of any purpose to coerce So. Ca. be sincere the possession of a work to command the harbor is worse than useless.

When Lincoln comes in he will have but to continue in the path of his predecessor to inaugurate a a civil war and, leave a soi disant democratic administration responsible for the fact. Genl. Cushing was here last week and when we parted it seemed like taking a last leave of a Brother.

I leave immediately for Missi. and know not what may devolve upon me after my return. Civil war has only horror for me, but whatever circumstances demand shall be met as a duty and I trust be so discharged that you will not be ashamed of our former connection or cease to be my friend.

I had hoped this summer to have had an opportunity to see you and Mrs. Pierce and to have shown to you our children. Mrs. Davis was sorely disappointed when we turned Southward without seeing you, I believe she wrote to Mrs. Pierce in explanation of the circumstances which prevented us from executing our cherished plan of a visit to you when we should leave West Point.

Mrs. Davis joins me in kindest remembrance to Mrs. Pierce and the expression of the hope that we may yet have you both at our country home. Do me the favor to write to me often, address Hurricane P.O. Warren County, Missi.

May God bless you is ever the prayer of your friend

Jeffn. Davis

Looking back to people who felt that their actions were necessary and just at the time is always somewhat strange. Lines like "Mississippi not as a matter of choice but of necessity has resolved to enter on the trial of secession. Those who have driven her to this alternative threaten to deprive her of the right to require that her government shall rest on the consent of the governed..." have so much unintended irony that it's hard to look at them objectively. It always makes me wonder what our descendants will say about us.

The plantation pictured here is the Hurricane Plantation that Davis gives as his address. It belonged to his older brother, and a side division of the land called Brierfield was given to Davis.

John Brown and Harpers Ferry

In October 1859 a zealous abolitionist named John Brown led a raid on the town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia, to take weapons from the armory and rally the slaves there to a rebellion. It was an utter disaster; half of Brown's men were killed, and the other half were taken (by Lieutenant Colonel Robert E. Lee) and tried for treason. Of course, all were found guilty and executed.

As he lay in prison awaiting his execution, John Brown wrote to his minister, one D. R. Tilden:

Charlestown, 28 November, 1859

TO THE HON. D. R. TILDEN.

My Dear Sir-- Your most kind and comforting letter of the 23d inst. is received. I have no language to express the feelings of gratitude and obligation I am under for your kind interest in my behalf ever since my disaster. The great bulk of mankind estimate each other's actions and motives by the measure of success or otherwise that attends them through life. By that rule, I have been one of the worst and one of the best of men. I do not claim to have been one of the latter, and I leave it to an impartial tribunal to decide whether the world has been the worse or the better for my living and dying in it. My present great anxiety is to get as near in readyness for a different field of action as I well can, since being in a good measure relieved from the fear that my poor broken-hearted wife and children would come to immediate want. May God reward a thousandfold all the kind efforts made in their behalf! I have enjoyed remarkable cheerfulness and composure of mind ever since my confinement; and it is a great comfort to feel assured that I am permitted to die for a cause, not merely to pay the debt of nature, as all must. I feel myself to be most unworthy of so great distinction. The particular manner of dying assigned to me gives me but very little uneasiness. I wish I had the time and the ability to give you, my dear friend, some little idea of what is daily, and I might almost say hourly, passing within my prison walls : and could my friends but witness only a few of these scenes, just as they occur, I think they would feel very well reconciled to my being here, just what I am, and just as I am. My whole life before had not afforded me one half the opportunity to plead for the right. In this, also, I find much to reconcile me to both my present condition and my immediate prospect. I may be very insane ; and I am so, if insane at all. But if that be so, insanity is like a very pleasant dream to me. I am not in the least degree conscious of my ravings, of my fears, or of any terrible visions whatever ; but fancy myself entirely composed, and that my sleep, in particular, is as sweet as that of a healthy, joyous little infant. I pray God that he will grant me a continuance of the same calm but delightful dream, until I come to know of those realities which eyes have not seen and which ears have not heard. I have scarce realized that I am in prison or in irons at all. I certainly think I was never more cheerful in my life.

I intend to take the liberty of sending by express to your care some trifling articles for those of my family who may be in Ohio, which you can hand to my brother Jeremiah when you may see him, together with fifteen dollars I have asked him to advance to them. Please excuse me so often troubling you with my letters or any of my matters. Please also remember me most kindly to Mr. Griswold, and to all others who love their neighbors. I write Jeremiah to your care. Your friend in truth,

John Brown.

I thought it was an interesting letter; assuming he was telling the truth about his feelings, Brown seems to have felt no fear for himself, only for his family (in fact he refused to escape when a friend arrived to help him get out of prison). I wonder how they fared afterwards--I would guess that they had to leave the area quickly.

On the day of his execution, Brown wrote, "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood. I had, as I now think, vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed it might be done." He was convinced that the only way to rid the country of slavery was through violence, and his actions did quite a lot to push the country toward civil war. People still argue today over whether Brown was a hero or a terrorist.

Years later, American soldiers turned a camp revival hymn known as Brothers, Will You Meet Us into a marching song called John Brown's Body. It went through several permutations (often quite vulgar ones) and settled for some time into this form:

Old John Brown’s body lies moldering in the grave,

While weep the sons of bondage whom he ventured all to save;

But tho he lost his life while struggling for the slave,

His soul is marching on.

John Brown was a hero, undaunted, true and brave,

And Kansas knows his valor when he fought her rights to save;

Now, tho the grass grows green above his grave,

His soul is marching on.

He captured Harper’s Ferry, with his nineteen men so few,

And frightened "Old Virginny" till she trembled thru and thru;

They hung him for a traitor, they themselves the traitor crew,

But his soul is marching on.

John Brown was John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see,

Christ who of the bondmen shall the Liberator be,

And soon thruout the Sunny South the slaves shall all be free,

For his soul is marching on.

The conflict that he heralded he looks from heaven to view,

On the army of the Union with its flag red, white and blue.

And heaven shall ring with anthems o’er the deed they mean to do,

For his soul is marching on.

Ye soldiers of Freedom, then strike, while strike ye may,

The death blow of oppression in a better time and way,

For the dawn of old John Brown has brightened into day,

And his soul is marching on.

--by William Weston Patton

I'm sure that looks familiar, for a few years later Julia Ward Howe turned it into The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

A little more of Robert E. Lee

In 1856, Robert E. Lee was serving in the US Army and was unable to be at home with his family as much as he wished. In a letter to his wife dated December 27, he wrote a bit on his feelings about the institution of slavery. The letter is not available online in full, but the most famous bit is excerpted here:

... In this enlightened age, there are few I believe, but what will acknowledge, that slavery as an institution, is a moral & political evil in any Country. It is useless to expatiate on its disadvantages. I think it however a greater evil to the white man than to the black race, & while my feelings are strongly enlisted in behalf of the latter, my sympathies are more strong for the former. The blacks are immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially & physically. The painful discipline they are undergoing, is necessary for their instruction as a race, & I hope will prepare & lead them to better things. How long their subjugation may be necessary is known & ordered by a wise Merciful Providence.

”

I was surprised to find that Lee was--sort of--ot in favor of slavery. He spends the rest of the letter writing about his belief that slavery would only be abolished by God at some future time, and that abolitionist agitation was harmful to the welfare of slaves. Abolitionists, he considers, are interfering to no purpose (since slavery will not end until the time appointed), and he accuses them of intolerance: "Is it not strange that the descendants of those Pilgrim Fathers who crossed the Atlantic to preserve the freedom of their opinion have always proved themselves intolerant of the spiritual liberty of others?"

A little further investigation taught me that this opinion was not uncommon among Lee's set (religious slaveowners living in the border states). They didn't exactly approve of slavery, but they thought it was not their business to end it, either. Lee himself owned several slaves, and did not always treat them well. I am really going to have to read a biography of this man.

Robert E. Lee's Resignation from the U.S. Army

By the time the Civil War was starting, Robert E. Lee had served in the United States Army for about 25 years and had attained the rank of colonel. (The picture here is of Lee as a younger man in the U. S. Army.) He was a Unionist and did not agree with secession, but when his home state of Virginia voted to secede he was torn in two; he didn't support secession, but he could not fight against his home state and his own family. Lincoln offered him the post of field commander of the army, which he declined, and he decided to resign his commission. He hoped he would not have to fight at all, but Virginia named him commander of its army.

I read his letter of resignation from the Army, in which he expresses gratitude and his indebtedness to his superior officer. His feelings are muted by the formality of the letter, but it's easy to see something of what he felt.


Then there's his letter to his sister, Anne Marshall. Here, he's more personal and expresses something of his dilemma: "With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have therefore resigned my commission in the Army, and save in defense of my native State, with the sincere hope that my poor services may never be needed, I hope I may never be called on to draw my sword. I know you will blame me; but you must think as kindly of me as you can, and believe that I have endeavoured to do what I thought right."

I've never read anything about General Lee's life; I think I'm going to have to get to know him a little better.

Henry Timrod: Ethnogenesis

Henry Timrod was a famous poet in the mid-19th century South; the Poetry Foundation calls him "after Poe, the most important Southern poet of the nineteenth century...he is not a major poet, but he is a significant minor poet." I'd never heard of him, but I don't know if that's because his strongly pro-Southern sentiment sank his reputation or because American literature is another area I'm not strong in. He was considered the unofficial poet laureate of the South.

"Ethnogenesis" was written upon the occasion of the First Southern Congress in February 1861 and was originally titled "Ode, on the Meeting of the Southern Congress." That extremely boring title does give you a clue about the poem: there are only a few kinds of odes, and this looks like a Pindaric ode, which means that it's a long poem with complex stanzas that don't have to match, which is composed to commemorate some heroic or highly emotional national event. A Pindaric ode may be a musical event with a chorus and dancers. So this poem ought to evoke triumph, national pride, and a general feeling of pageantry.

Timrod calls upon all the natural beauties of the South to celebrate its birth as a country. The cotton plant gets half a stanza to itself and is invoked as "the snow of Southern summers" to protect the land. Should the South be profaned by invasion, the very earth itself will rise up in self-defense to throw off the oppressing North's creed of avarice, while God will fight on the side of honor, purity, and the generosity of the South--which is destined to bless the whole world by giving work to the poor.

Most of Timrod's work sprang directly from the Civil War, and he died only a few years after it ended. I'm going to have to look further at his poetry. Meanwhile I'll quote the fourth and final stanza of "Ethnogenesis" here:

But let our fears -- if fears we have -- be still,
And turn us to the future! Could we climb
Some mighty Alp, and view the coming time,
The rapturous sight would fill

Our eyes with happy tears!

Not only for the glories which the years
Shall bring us; not for lands from sea to sea,
And wealth, and power, and peace, though these shall be;
But for the distant peoples we shall bless,
And the hushed murmurs of a world's distress:
For, to give labor to the poor,

The whole sad planet o'er,

And save from want and crime the humblest door,
Is one among the many ends for which

God makes us great and rich!

The hour perchance is not yet wholly ripe
When all shall own it, but the type
Whereby we shall be known in every land
Is that vast gulf which lips our Southern strand,
And through the cold, untempered ocean pours
Its genial streams, that far off Arctic shores
May sometimes catch upon the softened breeze
Strange tropic warmth and hints of summer seas.

Jefferson Davis' Inaugural Speech

Jefferson Davis was a senator for Mississippi and an influential man in Congress. I was surprised to find out that he was against secession; for a couple of years before the war he spoke in Northern and Southern states on behalf of keeping the Union together. Once his state seceded in January 1861, he spoke to the Senate urging peace. Davis was more pessimistic about the prospect of a war than most of his fellow Southern leaders were; he expected it to come and he was not hopeful about the South's ability to fight. He was evidently startled when representatives of the Confederate states elected him president, and he was unsure about his ability to lead. His first act was to send a commission to Washington in hopes of avoiding war, but the commission was refused.

Davis delivered his Inaugural Address on February 18, 1861. In it, he naturally does not express his fears for the future of the South. He first speaks about the Declaration of Independence and claims its inalienable rights for the South, saying that Southerners are merely asserting their rights and repeating the actions of the Revolution now that the United States has ceased to merit their consent to be governed. Davis expresses hopes for the future of the new Confederacy, for peace and for free trade. Over and over, he repeats that the South wants a peaceful start as a new country, and that if there is a war it will be the North's fault. Otherwise, he emphasizes, nothing has changed; the Constitution stands as the governing document of the Confederacy and everything can go on as usual, if only the danger of war can be averted.

Now of course Davis had a perfectly good point about the Declaration of Independence. The majority of voting Southerners wanted to secede, and under the philosophy outlined in the Declaration, they could do so. But it's also easy to see how that idea can get very damaging very fast; if every state could leave the Union when it had a grievance, then it would not take long for the Union to fragment into a whole lot of small, weak countries--each of which would then be at economic and political disadvantage. And they would probably fight with each other as well; it would not have been difficult to end up like 19th-century Europe, with constant wars in one place or another. So I can see both Lincoln's and Davis' point of view.

Davis enlarges on the point by saying: "To increase the power, develop the resources, and promote the happiness of a confederacy, it is requisite that there should be so much of homogeneity that the welfare of every portion shall be the aim of the whole. Where this does not exist, antagonisms are engendered which must and should result in separation." Now this has been a popular idea at times, and it certainly appeals to many, especially oppressed minorities. But it also seems to me like a recipe for fragmentation, which leads to a lot of problems as well.

The South's Economic Argument for Secession

New Orleans Daily Crescent published an editorial titled "Economic Reasons for Secession" on January 21, 1861. It expressed indignation that the North should be so rude as to object to secession, while the South would be quite happy to let the North secede ("as in common decency they ought to do seeing that they are so unhappy about the countenance the Union is supposed to give to the institution of slavery...").

The writer then explains the reasons that the North is so angry at the idea of secession: because although the South is constantly called uncivilized and barbaric and poor, it is in fact the source of most of the Union's wealth, and secession would deprive the North of the "rich feast upon which they have so long fed and fattened." Since Northerners are descended from Puritans, they have a "love of mean tyranny and cold-blooded, inexorable oppression."

I can quite understand Southerners' anger and defensiveness at the constant accusations of barbarity; no one enjoys being called names even if they're true. However, given that slavery actually was a barbaric institution, the bits about feeding off the wealth of others and cold-blooded, inexorable oppression are painfully ironic.

Should New York City secede from the Union?

Here's an odd little proposal I found. In January 1861, with civil war looming, the mayor of New York City made a speech suggesting that the city secede from the Union and become a free city, thus preserving its valuable trade links with both sides. Mayor Fernando Wood had built up quite a political machine for himself, which the Republican state legislature was always trying to break down, so he had little sympathy with the Union cause.

Mayor Wood argues that New York City has drawn residents from every part of the Union, and has commercial interests in every state. Not only that, but New York has sympathy with the South:

With our aggrieved brethren of the Slave States, we have friendly relations and a common sympathy. We have not participated in the warfare upon their constitutional rights or their domestic institutions. While other portions of our State have unfortunately been imbued with the fanatical spirit which actuates a portion of the people of New England, the city of New York has unfalteringly preserved the integrity of its principles of adherence to the compromises of the Constitution and the equal rights of the people of all the States. We have respected the local interests of every section, at no time oppressing, but all the while aiding in the development of the resources of the whole country. Our ships have penetrated to every clime, and so have New York capital, energy and enterprise found their way to every State, and, indeed, to almost every county and town of the American Union. If we have derived sustenance from the Union, so have we in return disseminated blessings for the common benefit of all. Therefore, New York has a right to expect, and should endeavor to preserve a continuance of uninterrupted intercourse with every section.

Therefore, the city should seriously consider seceding from the Union and becoming an independent free city, able to trade with everyone. Wood strongly resents the perceived injustices the city has been laboring under, and claims that the rest of the state lives only to plunder New York's riches. (In those days before income tax, the Union depended on tariffs for tax income, and New York City was the main source of that money; if the city had seceded, it would have been a financial disaster for Washington DC.) He feels no obligation to the rest of the Union:

When Disunion has become a fixed and certain fact, why may not New York disrupt the bands which bind her to a venal and corrupt master – to a people and a party that have plundered her revenues, attempted to ruin her and a party that have plundered her revenues, attempted to ruin her commerce, taken away the power of self—government, and destroyed the Confederacy of which she was the proud Empire City? Amid the gloom which the present and prospective condition of things must cast over the country, New York, as a Free City, may shed the only light and hope of a future reconstruction of our once blessed Confederacy.

What an interesting idea! It actually had quite a lot of support in New York City, which was a bastion of anti-Republican and pro-Southern feeling. Merchants were terribly worried about losing Southern business, and workers feared that their jobs would disappear if freed slaves arrived, willing to work for less. But once the war actually started, New York citizens turned right around to support the Union, much to the fury of Southerners hoping for the city's support.

So Mayor Wood did not get his wish, but neither did he have to worry about losing income. The North's industrial expansion during the war provided New York City with plenty of business after all.

The Government's Right to Self-Defence

As Americans got ready to go to war, James Russell Lowell--the editor of the Atlantic Monthly magazine--wrote essay after essay on critical issues. "The Government's Right to Self-Defence" appeared in the February 1861 issue (which is not the one pictured here). In it, Lowell argued that the North had to defend the principle of majority rule, which the South had violated.

Lowell castigates President Buchanan for indecision and lack of action. It seems that everyone was angry at Buchanan for his refusal to act, which I can understand; the president's insistence on acting only according to the law was an excellent principle, but the country was in a situation that had not been properly provided for in the law. I'm not sure that Buchanan's ideals can really be called indecision, but that's what it looked like, and it's landed him on a lot of "Worst President" lists.

Lowell argues that the Southern states have shown their true autocratic colors by threatening secession. He says that as long as things were going their way, they were happy to endorse the idea of majority rule, but as soon as that stopped, they threw a tantrum and wanted to quit:

It cannot be too distinctly stated or too often repeated that the discontent of South Carolina is not one to be allayed by any concessions which the free states can make with dignity or even safety. It is something more radical and of longer standing than distrust of the motives or probable policy of the Republican Party. It is neither more nor less than a disbelief in the very principles on which our government is founded. So long as they practically retained the government of the country, and could use its power and patronage to their own advantage, the plotters were willing to wait; but the moment they lost that control, by the breaking up of the Democratic Party, and saw that their chance of ever regaining it was hopeless, they declared openly the principles on which they have all along been secretly acting.

Denying the constitutionality of special protection to any other species of property or branch of industry, and in 1832 threatening to break up the Union unless their theory of the Constitution in this respect were admitted, they went into the late presidential contest with a claim for extraordinary protection to a certain kind of property already the only one endowed with special privileges and immunities. Defeated overwhelmingly before the people, they now question the right of the majority to govern, except on their terms, and threaten violence in the hope of extorting from the fears of the free states what they failed to obtain from their conscience and settled convictions of duty. Their quarrel is not with the Republican Party but with the theory of democracy. ...

His conclusion is that the Republic is far too important to give up without a struggle, and that war is justified because secession is, itself, an act of aggression against the Union.

And lastly--don't you love Lowell's beard?

Back to the Civil War

I sort of skipped the Civil War by reading only some Lincoln and then heading over to read Thoreau, so I'm going to go back and spend some time in the actual war. Since I've always lived in California, I know quite a bit more about pioneers and missions than the Civil War.

Today I read President James Buchanan's Message to Congress of December 3, 1860. Lincoln had already been elected and Buchanan was finishing his term. He had spent much of his energy trying to hold the Union together, and got little thanks for it; his efforts angered both sides. This speech was a final plea to the people of the United States to avoid secession and war.

When I first started reading the speech, I thought Buchanan must be a Southerner and had to go look him up. I was surprised to find that he was from Pennsylvania. Buchanan was a lawyer, and for him all that counted was the law; his motto was "I acknowledge no master but the law." As President, he could not change the law, only execute it, and he stuck to that.

I thought Buchanan must be from the South because the first part of his speech rails against the Northern people for their 'interference' and constant agitation on the subject of slavery: "The immediate peril arises...from the fact that the incessant and violent agitation of the slavery question throughout the North for the last quarter of a century has at length produced its malign influence on the slaves and inspired them with vague notions of freedom." If the Northerners would just quit harping on about the evils of slavery and opposing the Fugitive Slave Law, then everything would be fine. Buchanan upholds the idea that every state in the Union is independent and the North has no business telling the South what to do, any more than they could interfere "in Russia or in Brazil."

The rest of the speech is a detailed exposition of the Constitution and the illegality of secession. Buchanan feels that secession would be illegal--but so would any act that forced a secessionist state back into the Union. He says that Congress has no power to declare or make war against a state, and that the Union was designed to be permanent. This is a bit of a dilemma, then, and he urges Congress to work towards reconciliation, mostly by telling abolitionists to be quiet and enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law throughout the Union.

South Carolina seceded from the United States two weeks later.

More Lincoln Speeches

More speeches from President Lincoln:

At the start of the Civil War, Lincoln addressed a special session of Congress and detailed the history of the final time before the outbreak of hostilities. He pointed out all the ways that the US government had bent over backwards to avoid a war, but the Southern states were determined and attacked Fort Sumter without provocation. I never knew how all that happened, so it was interesting. He then offered a legal defense of the reasons that secession was illegal and unconstitutional.

As it became clear that the war was not going to be short, Lincoln issued a proclamation of a day of prayer and fasting.

I actually read these a few weeks ago and then dropped the ball--again!--about posting. So I'll be reading post-Civil War material for the next few weeks.

Thoreau: Civil Disobedience and other essays

Somehow I wound up reading Thoreau instead of actual Civil War material. I don't even like him very much; he always sort of bugs me, with the ranting and the "simple life" in which someone else cooked his meals most of the time. So I'm trying to appreciate Thoreau better.

I read Civil Disobedience, in which he talks about his opposition to slavery and the Mexican War. He didn't approve of the American government, so he refused to pay poll taxes for several years. He figured that if everyone refused to support the government in wrong actions, it would have to give in. For his refusal to pay taxes, Thoreau was put in jail for a night. His aunt then paid the back taxes against his will, so he was released. A good deal of the essay talks about his night in prison and how much he liked it.

There's some good stuff in the essay. I like his maxim about the least government possible being the best kind. He expressed hopes that eventually a minimal government would give way to none at all, which seems a bit improbable.

I also read an essay about Slavery in Massachusetts, which was originally a speech castigating his fellow citizens for worrying about Nebraska when the Fugitive Slave Law was in effect right there in their own area. Another essay is a defense of John Brown, but I'm not done with it yet.

Then at the last minute, I read Lincoln's First Inaugural Address, which was largely designed to avoid a civil war. In it, he reiterates his opinion that a President has no right to abolish slavery (it had to be done by Constitutional amendment), and repeated over and over again that no one was going to attack the Southern states and that if they wanted a war, they would have to start it.

Lincoln vs. Douglas

I've been reading some of Abraham Lincoln's presidential campaign speeches, which are largely concerned with his opponent, Judge Douglas, and the burning question of the day--whether slavery would be allowed to spread, or if it could be contained and eventually ended.




Some well-known quotations from Lincoln on his position about slavery are taken from these speeches, but I found that a single famous line by itself did not really communicate his opinion properly. He starts off his speech by saying that he does not want to interfere with slavery or abolish it, and that he does not feel that he has the power to do so anyway (which was true enough). Most of the rest of the speech is devoted to making it quite clear that he doesn't approve of slavery one bit, but he's primarily concerned with stopping Douglas and others from spreading the practice throughout all the States. After that, he thinks it would be Congress' job to foster an environment in which slavery would die out, preferably without starting a war over the issue.

I need to do quite a bit more reading on the Civil War--I haven't even really gotten started.