I have been wondering for several days what I was going to write this evening, I felt that I needed to note the evening of December 20th, 2010 with some posting in observance of the 150th Anniversary of the Secession of South Carolina, the first domino to fall that leads to the firing on Fort Sumter in April of 1861. So as I rode back from a trip to Shiloh and Corinth, I thought about all of the lives that this event impacted, almost all of the men that fought in those battles were living quiet and peaceful lives 150 years ago tonight, a year later they were embroiled in a bloody war due to the series of events that this one kicked into high gear. So while fellow bloggers are covering the modern commemoration/celebration in SC, or what the cause of this event was I will refer you to future brigade commander and General, Arthur M. Manigault who would recall with a Lost Cause slant:
"The election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States by the Republican party of the North, in October 1860, satisfied the people of the Southern States that the time long since foreseen by our wiser statesmen, had at last arrived when the South must withdraw from the Union. It was now evident that the party into whose hands the direction of the government had fallen would to a great extent pervert the Constitution to the advancement of their own ends, and denying us through the majority which they possessed in Congress, the rights and protection which it secured us, eventually bring about our complete and thorough ruin. To save themselves from the threatened danger, most of the Southern slaveholding States, with remarkable unanimity, one after another, called conventions of the people and passed Ordinances of Secession, beginning with South Carolina, on the 20th of December, 1860, and expresing a desire peaceably to withdraw from the Union, adopted a Constitution of their own, and formed a Government known as the Confederate States of America."
So readers, thus it began. The following morning the famous Evans and Cogswell Broadside proclaiming "THE UNION IS DISSOLVED" was posted.
"The election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States by the Republican party of the North, in October 1860, satisfied the people of the Southern States that the time long since foreseen by our wiser statesmen, had at last arrived when the South must withdraw from the Union. It was now evident that the party into whose hands the direction of the government had fallen would to a great extent pervert the Constitution to the advancement of their own ends, and denying us through the majority which they possessed in Congress, the rights and protection which it secured us, eventually bring about our complete and thorough ruin. To save themselves from the threatened danger, most of the Southern slaveholding States, with remarkable unanimity, one after another, called conventions of the people and passed Ordinances of Secession, beginning with South Carolina, on the 20th of December, 1860, and expresing a desire peaceably to withdraw from the Union, adopted a Constitution of their own, and formed a Government known as the Confederate States of America."
So readers, thus it began. The following morning the famous Evans and Cogswell Broadside proclaiming "THE UNION IS DISSOLVED" was posted.
2 comments:
Sad as it was after reading so much stuff at the http://docsouth.unc.edu/index.html
I see what he is saying as the Truth and not a Lost Cause slant.
The more you trace the time line the better you can understand the "lost cause". I recommend "Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory". It is a terrific book that traces the lost cause mentality from the days of reconciliation.
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