I am continuing the theme that the US government has lied us into all wars, even the War on Covid-19 (to cover up the financial bubble being burst in parallel). We were lied to about the rationale for the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War and here we will talk about the so-called ‘American Civil War’.

Character Flaw: US Government Has Lied Us into War of 1812 All the Way to the War on Covid-19

As I have mentioned before, “civil war” is a misnomer due to the fact in a true civil war both parties want to be in power of the WHOLE country after the war is complete. With this war, more appropriately called the War Against Southern Independence, the southern states had no eyes on any of the northern territory or states.

In fact, we do need to separate out a few things here. Secession itself did NOT cause this war. Slavery, protected under the US Constitution, did not trigger this war even though it was pointed to in secession documents to cover the South’s legal exit.

The South wanted their secession to be constitutional in order to deprive the North of a pretext for invasion.  This made it impossible for the Southern states to argue that they were seceding because of the tariff.  The tariff was a federal issue.  The Constitution gave the federal government the right to pass tariffs.  So the real reason the South was leaving the union left the South with no constitutional argument.  On the other hand, slavery was a state’s right guaranteed by the Constitution.  This caused the South to seize on the noncompliance of some northern states with the federal law requiring the return of run-away slaves and make a constitutional issue out of it. This argument then appeared in some of the secession documents of the southern states. – Paul Craig Roberts

So we need to understand that the southern seven states that had seceded had voted on secession AND had withdrawn peacefully.

Southern Independence was indeed achieved as these seven states formed a confederation that Jefferson would have been happy with and saw as inevitable since the early 1800s.The Confederate States of America even took their peaceful approach a step further, they offered to pay the US for the federal property (forts, etc) in the south! Beyond this, they even sought peace negotiations even offering European leaders to be a neutral party as part of this peace conference. Lincoln ignored all of this to preserve his notion that this was an insurrection only and that the states were still part of the union.

In a neat case of Throwback Thursday, try on this Lincoln quote from 1847:

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable – a most sacred right – a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.

Imagine that, by 1861 Lincoln changed his mind, placing expediency and power over principle. The commensurate politician!

So fast forward to late 1860 and early 1861 when things were happening fast-n-furious, most people with standard high school history probably believe that the firing on Ft. Sumter was the first hostile act of the war.

“FAKE NEWS” Just a little research shows that it just ain’t so. From DEC1860 to APR1861 some definite acts of aggression were made:

• The first act that torpedoed trust in the relationship between federal units still in occupation of forts in the southern seven states AFTER the state seceded occurred when Major Robert Anderson, who commanded the US troops at Sumter, had of his own discretion moved the troops from Ft Moultrie, an indefensible position, to Ft Sumter in the night of 26DEC1860. He had done so without the direction of President Buchanan, and because the Carolinians were unaware of this, they received the information as a signal that the US intended to forcefully maintain possession of Fort Sumter in the middle of Charleston harbor.. Although the South Carolina state troops refrained from attacking the fort, this action by US troops was regarded as an act of war.
• Florida seceded on 10JAN1861 the very day the US commanding officer in charge of the Pensacola Bay fortifications transferred his command from Fort Barrancas to Fort Pickens. He made the decision to transfer his forces after hearing rumors that the people of Florida were going to seize all of the forts around Pensacola harbor and also that all of the forts in Mobile Bay, Alabama had already been taken. On the night of 13JAN1861 ten men were seen outside of the fort. These men from the Florida State guard were scouting the area to find out more information about the fort and it’s defenses when a shot was fired, a return shot was fired. These were the first shots of the War Against Southern Independence.
• President Buchanan had ordered a reinforcement of the Fort and the USS Star of the West, loaded with supplies and additional troops, set out for Charleston. Cooper says that Buchanan attempted to rescind the order, but it was too late. The ship was already underway so word of this never reached the command. As with the relocation of troops to Sumter from Moultrie, this attempted resupply was likewise received as a hostile act by the Carolinians whose forces fired warning shots at the vessel on 13JAN1861
• As the Confederate government was formed in FEB1861, and as Abraham Lincoln took office on 04MAR1861, correspondence between the two entities continued. William H. Seward, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, ostensibly acted as mediator between the Confederate government and the Lincoln administration. Cooper suggests that Seward had presumed to speak on behalf of Lincoln when no such authority had been delegated to him. In all probability, whether intentional or not, Seward was advancing a delaying action on behalf of the administration while a plan of action was formulated. Correspondence between the Confederate government and Seward went on for several weeks with Seward continually stalling and assuring the South that he was in favor of avoiding hostilities. Although he assured the Confederates that Sumter would be evacuated, he deflected any attempts by their officials to ascertain specifics or details.
• Lincoln’s First Inaugural included the following myth that shocked the seven southern states who knew for fact that voluntary union meant voluntary disunion: “.. No State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get out of the Union; that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence within any State or States against the authority of the United States are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances … In doing this [rejoin the union] there needs to be no bloodshed or violence, and there shall be none unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the Government and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion, no using of force against or among the people anywhere. ” – A. Lincoln on 04MAR1861
• NOTE: Back on December of 1861, Anderson had informed President Buchanan that, due to his relationship with the Mayor of Charleston, as well as with the town merchants, he had access to all of the food necessary to keep his troops fed. This relationship only came to a halt with Lincoln’s inaugural address which the South received as a threat of invasion.

• 15MAR1861 Lincoln called a cabinet meeting and asked each member of his cabinet to submit in writing their view of what should be done with regards to Fort Sumter. Every member, except Postmaster General Montgomery Blair, voted against resupply and voiced their opposition to send reinforcements.
• By 18MAR1861, a press laid clear what was ahead for the region: “.. The ‘Boston Transcript’ presented the underlying Republican argument for a Federal conquest of the Confederacy: specifically to keep prices of manufactured goods high by ensuring collection of Federal import taxes , not only in seceded States, but in Federal States as well. The Confederate Constitution prohibited all but modest taxes on imports, far below the Federal tax rate, which Republicans would soon triple on average: The Transcript argued “it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding States are now for commercial independence.
• 20MAR1861 United States Senator James A. Bayard of Delaware began a three day speech on the prospects of war and the legality of secession. He began by offering a resolution in the hope of avoiding what he predicted would be a long, bloody conflict. It read: “Resolved by the Senate of the United States, That the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, has full power and authority to accept the declaration of the seceding States that they constitute hereafter an alien people, and to negotiate and conclude a treaty with “the Confederate States of America” acknowledging their independence as a separate nation; and that humanity and the principle avowed in the Declaration of Independence that the only just hosts of government is “the consent of the governed,” alike require that the otherwise inevitable alternative of civil war, with all its evils and devastation, should be thus avoided.
• Senator Orville Browning, a close friend and confidant of Lincoln’s, advised him: “In any conflict…..between the government and seceding States, it is very important that the traitors shall be the aggressors, and that they be kept constantly and palpably in the wrong. The first attempt……to furnish supplies or reinforcements will induce aggression by South Carolina, and then the government will stand justified, before the entire country, in repelling that aggression, and retaking the forts.”

So President Lincoln in deciding the Sumter question had adopted a simple but effective policy. To use his own words, he determined to ‘send bread to Anderson’; if the rebels fired on that, they would not be able to convince the world that he had begun the civil war.

After Lincoln maneuvered the South into “firing the first shot” on 12APR1861, in a 01MAY1861 letter to Gustavous Fox, who commanded the naval detachment charged with resupplying Sumter, the following:

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.

Mission Accomplished, Lincoln had successfully provoked war while, in his mind, maintaining the appearance of a non-aggressor. FDR took note of this in 1940 many months before Pearl Harbor in DEC1941.

At this point war was still not a sure thing, but Lincoln used the firing on federal property, even though no man was killed, as his justification to keep Congress from meeting until he had called up volunteers and prepared for war on the south.

The only reason a War for Southern Independence was needed was because the northern states invaded the south. The north, under Lincoln’s leadership would not let the south go and would call their action the putting down of a general insurrection. I have plenty of previous posts (post, post, post, post, post, post, post, in 2020 alone) that touch on much of the lead up to this war.

Remember US Senator James A. Bayard who spoke eloquently with logic back on 20MAR1861 to anyone who would hear. Later in 1861 when his son-in-law went off to fight for the Union Army in this War Against Southern Independence he again spoke wisdom:

“In embarking on this war therefore, you enlist in a war for invasion of another people. If successful it will devastate if not exterminate the Southern people and this is miscalled Union. If unsuccessful then peaceful separation must be the result after myriads of lives have been sacrificed, thousands of homes made desolate, and property depreciated to an incalculable extent. Why in the name of humanity can we not let those States go?”

Today, here in the awesome year of 2020, I ask the same question about portions of California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Minnesota and much of the New England states, can’t the United States federal government honor the possible roadmap shown in the 1990s by the USSR and peacefully split into many republics that can “serve” their own cultures the best?

Peace out.

-SF1