Letters To The Editor

Originally published May 2016 · p. 2

TO THE EDITOR: H.V. Traywick’s once again engages in distortions of history, this time in response to my critical letter of his neo-Confederate views in a prior issue. I would like to respond to some of the so-called “erroneous points” of mine that Traywick cites in his letter. Sorry, Mr. Traywick, the South’s response to Lincoln’s legal election as president, after it dominated the federal government since its inception, was indeed armed insurrection. The seceded states renounced their allegiance to the federal government, placed tens of thousands of men under arms, seized federal forts and arrested hundreds of U.S. army personnel, and fired on a U.S. vessel, all before Lincoln was sworn in as president. Shortly after Lincoln was in office, the South opened fire on federal Fort Sumter, which was obliged to surrender If these acts do not constitute armed insurrection, what would? As for Traywick’s bizarre claim that the first “act of war” was Major Anderson’s burning of the gun carriages at Fort Moultrie in Charleston, apparently he forgets that these carriages were the property of the United States government, as were both Forts Moultrie and Sumter. The South wanted those gun carriages to use in its rebellion against the United States! Traywick feels that Lincoln’s only recourse to these violent actions was to acquiesce in the South’s unconstitutional rejection of his election. This is analogous to saying that FDR’s only valid response to the attack on Pearl Harbor would have been to capitulate to Japan’s quest for hegemony in order to avoid a bloody war. Lincoln chose to preserve the nation rather than see it torn asunder, and the South bears responsibility for the carnage that followed. As for Lincoln’s “war of invasion,” how can a country invade itself? Treason has its consequences, Mr. Traywick. The armed insurrection preceded the war. And yes, Mr. Traywick, the seceded states did indeed intend to expand slavery. The Confederate Constitution required that all territories admitted to the CSA would have to be slave states. As various reputable historians have noted, the Confederacy planned to annex Cuba and parts of northern Mexico as well as to invade Haiti and enslave its free black population, whom the South had long regarded as a threat. And Traywick’s assertion that by seceding the Confederacy “gave up any claims to the common U.S. territories” is patently absurd. The Confederates claimed, and invaded, the New Mexico Territory (the present day states of Arizona and New Mexico) and had designs on Colorado Territory as well. And, yes, the various Secession Ordinances did indeed make clear that slavery was by far the primary reason for the Cotton States illicit withdrawal from the Union, with their rants against “Black Republicanism,” “Abolitionism,” and “miscegenation.” Finally, Traywick regurgitates the revisionist claim that Lincoln waged war solely for economic reasons under pressure from “the industrialists, the financiers, the railroad magnates, and the crony capitalists who had gotten him elected” (I guess the millions of people that voted for him do not count), implying that Lincoln and the Northern people had no other considerations in making vast sacrifices in order to preserve the Union other than greed. The fact is that if Lincoln had simply recognized the Confederacy, southern cotton would still have been sold to northern mills, the South still would have been a market for northern manufactured goods, and USA ships would still have had access to the mouth of the Mississippi, since blocking access would have been an act of war, which the South would certainly have wanted to avoid. An independent South would have been no more free of Northern economic power than an independent Canada is free of United States economic might today. As for the loss of tariff income from the South, Traywick conveniently neglects to note that a disproportionate amount of the federal budget was devoted to the numerous forts and military installations defending the South’s enormously long coastline as well as the Mexican border with Texas, a state that also needed federal protection from hostile Native Americans. Recognizing secession would have freed the federal government from all of these monetary obligations. No, it was not greed that motivated the Union to suppress the rebellion, but higher principles than Mr. Traywick is willing to acknowledge. I know, facts can be so very annoying at times. Dennis Middlebrooks Brooklyn, N.Y.

Ordinance Of Secession Good Column To Expand Slavery Claims TO THE EDITOR: In the April issue, H.V. Traywick, Jr. writes that secession was not intended to expand slavery because the seceding states “gave up any claims to the common U.S. Territories and thereby willfully gave up any claims to their rights to carry slavery into them!” He fails to acknowledge that many Confederates desired to annex and bring slavery to Cuba and parts of Mexico, Central America and the American Southwest. In fact, the Confederate Constitution reflects their expansionist desires. Article IV, Section 3(3) states: “The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without [emphasis added] the limits of the several States, and may permit them, at such times and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the

Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and the territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.” Mr. Traywick also says that “any reading of these Ordinances of Secession will readily reveal” that preservation of slavery was only one, but not the only, reason for secession. To the contrary, the reasons for secession set forth in those documents relate exclusively to preservation of slavery and white supremacy, the right to extend slavery into territories, and the right to secede if their pro-slavery and white supremacy arguments were not accepted. For details on the exclusive slavery/white supremacy basis for secession and the Confederacy, see my book on The Myth of the Lost Cause. Edward H. Bonekemper, III Willow Street, Pa.

TO THE EDITOR: Great issue of Civil War News, the best ever! I have always enjoyed Joe Bilby’s column and his great perspective. I wish we had a black powder/modern cannoneer historian to run a column like Bilby. Rob Zaworski Atlanta, Ga.