William Carney (1840-1908)

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William Carney (1840-1908) Sergeant William H. Carney – another black American renowned for his heroism – was born into slavery in Norfolk, Virginia. While William was still a boy, his father escaped to freedom on the Underground Railroad. He soon purchased the family out of slavery and brought them to New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Upon the outbreak of the Civil War, black Americans – both slave and free – believed that God would use President Abraham Lincoln and General Ulysses S. Grant to bring them freedom in the same way that God had used Moses to lead the Israelites out of captivity. Viewing abolition as a spiritual mission made black Americans all the more eager to help, thereby hastening the arrival of freedom.

In 1863, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and the Union Army began actively recruiting black volunteers. William understood the powerful spiritual dimension of emancipation and eagerly enlisted – a decision that sprang from his deep Christian convictions. As he explained: “Previous to the formation of colored troops, I had a strong inclination to prepare myself for the ministry; but when the country called for all persons, I could best serve my God [by] serving my country and my oppressed brothers.”

Carney joined the Morgan Guards, who later became part of the Massachusetts 54th (featured in the 1989 movie Glory). The regiment was led by the 25 year-old white Colonel Robert Shaw, son of prominent Boston abolitionists. The all-black 54th included both freeborn men and former slaves as well as two sons of Frederick Douglass (Douglass played a major role in establishing the 54th). Upon completing their training, the 54th was assigned to attack Fort Wagner, South Carolina.

On the evening of July 18, 1863, the 600 men of the 54th lay along the sandy beach 1,000 yards from the fort. Chosen to lead the charge, they were awaiting orders to move out. Union guns had pounded the Confederate stronghold all day long, attempting to weaken its defenses. That evening, the order to advance finally came.

The men set with fixed bayonets, running toward the enemy; but the Union bombardment had failed to weaken the gun emplacements, and the 54th ran right into a heavy Confederate cannon fire and torrent of bullets that sliced through them, causing extensive casualties. Among those who fell was Sergeant John Wall, the carrier of the United States flag. Sergeant William Carney, who had been running next to Wall, dropped his rifle and caught the flag before it could hit the ground (the scene displayed on this issue’s cover).

As he carried the flag, he was shot in the leg, but he continued to lead the attack. Ignoring the searing pain, he and his forces pushed forward and were able to gain control of a small part of the fort. Carney proudly planted the American flag and held his position against the wall of Fort Wagner for nearly half an hour through hand-to-hand combat. In the darkness of the night, Carney saw troops moving toward him and made the mistake of believing them to be fellow Union fighters. Suddenly surrounded by Confederate soldiers, Carney quickly wrapped the flag around its staff as he and the others fell back down the embankment.

Retreating across the chesthigh water, he held the flag high, keeping it aloft even as he was shot twice more, once in the chest and again in the leg. Still he continued on, resolved not to let the flag fall. A member of another regiment pleaded with the injured Carney to let him carry the flag, but Carney quickly replied, “No one but a member of the 54th should carry the colors.” Carney was shot again (for the fourth time), this time narrowly escaping death as the bullet creased his skull. At last he reached the safety of what remained of the 54th, proclaiming breathlessly before collapsing, “Boys, I only did my duty. The flag never touched the ground.”
The attack against Fort Wagner was unsuccessful, and the battle was a defeat for the Union. The total lives lost that day were 351, only twelve of whom had been Confederates; but the 54th had acquitted itself courageously, just like their counterparts in the Louisiana Native Guards.
On May 23, 1900, Sergeant William Harvey Carney was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Though several black Americans had already received the prestigious award for gallantry in both the Civil War and the subsequent western Indian Campaigns, Carney’s heroism at Fort Wagner was the earliest action of the Civil War to be recognized. He died eight years later in New Bedford, still strong in his Christian faith. His grave is marked with a gold image of his nation’s highest award for valor in battle – an award which very few American soldiers can claim.

Conclusion The list of black American heroes of the Civil War is long and impressive. All the more impressive is that many of these men not only fought bravely against the enemy but also against occasional racism in their own army. Admirably, their response to racist opposition did not include personal animosity, bitterness, or hate, but rather an increased determination to prove wrong the misconceptions. In fact, to have harbored destructive feelings of ill-will would have violated their strong Christian faith. They lived by Biblical admonitions such as those delivered long before by the Rev. Richard Allen (himself a former slave), who had urged:
[L]et no rancor or ill-will lodge in your [heart] for any bad treatment you may have received from any. If you do, you transgress against God, Who will not hold you guiltless. He would not suffer it even in His beloved people Israel; and you think He will allow it unto us? . . . I am sorry to say that too many think more of the evil than of the good they have received.

The illustrious stories of Robert Smalls, Andre Cailloux, and William Carney are the stories of heroes who not only followed the teachings of Christianity but who also fought with exceptional courage, doing the work of the Lord in “Liberty and Union.”

“Be strong and of a good courage; fear not, nor be afraid of them, for the Lord thy God – He it is that doth go with thee; He will not fail thee nor forsake thee.”Deuteronomy 31:6, Joshua 1:9

Andre Cailloux (1825-1863)

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Andre Cailloux (1825-1863) Andre Cailloux was a member of the Afro-Creole community of New Orleans (the Afro-Creoles were French in language and culture, and Roman Catholic in faith) and a pioneer in black American military history. Although born into slavery, he received his freedom in 1846 and quickly began to make his mark as a leader within what was considered one of the most prosperous black regions in the nation. Cailloux received a formal education, married, purchased a home, bought his mother out of slavery, sent his sons to a prestigious school, and was elected to various posts within the Afro- Creole community.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, most battlefield activity initially occurred far from Louisiana, in the North and the East. But with the Union’s desire to break the communication and supply lines of the Confederates, gaining control of the Mississippi River became a priority. In April 1862, the Union army captured New Orleans, and then authorized the formation of the Louisiana Native Guards – black Americans from New Orleans who would fight for the Union and help hold New Orleans and Louisiana in Union hands.

In 1862, Cailloux was commissioned as captain of E Company in the 1st Regiment of Louisiana Native Guards – the first black regiment officially recognized for military service in the Civil War. Upon receiving his commission, Cailloux began recruiting and enlisting both free men of color and runaway slaves from the New Orleans region.

An imposing figure in character and stature, Cailloux was a direct visual repudiation to the image of black servility, inferiority, and cowardice long perpetuated by racists. His gentlemanly demeanor, athletic build, and keen intelligence gave him a confidence and charisma that made him a natural to help lead the newly formed Louisiana Native Guards.

Cailloux and his men faced many challenges – and not all from their Confederate enemy. Too often they had to endure insults from white troops, insufficient supplies (less than what their white counterparts often received), and excessive manual labor pushed on them by lazy officers and soldiers. Nevertheless, they continued to train, anxious to prove their mettle on the battlefield.

That opportunity arrived in May 1863. The Confederate stronghold of Port Hudson on the Mississippi River (north of Baton Rouge) was under siege from forces led by Union General Nathaniel P. Banks. The 1st and 3rd Louisiana Native Guards had been assigned to Banks and were chosen to mount an attack on the heavily fortified bluffs and rifle pits protecting Port Hudson. It was a critical but dangerous assignment; and Cailloux’s E Company was designated to lead the charge as the standard bearer for the entire regiment.

As the regiment took the field, Cailloux encouraged his men with calm words of assurance. They charged, met by extremely heavy Confederate fire that required Cailloux and the other officers to regroup and rally their men on several occasions. At last, Cailloux led a charge all the way to the backwater of the Port, just 200 yards shy of the bluffs. He and his men finally got off a round of musket shot, only to be answered with a wave of Confederate artillery. Their losses were heavy; and Cailloux himself was wounded, taking a bullet through his arm just above his elbow. He rallied his men once again and charged across the muddy waters toward the bluffs, his useless arm dangling beside him. This charge was his final heroic act; he received a fatal blow in the head from an enemy shell.

All along the line, Union forces were pushed back with heavy casualties; both the 1st and the 3rd Regiments were finally forced to break ranks and seek shelter in the surrounding willow trees. Nevertheless, the bravery of Andre Cailloux did not go unnoticed, or the actions of so many of his troops who fought fiercely against overwhelming odds. The story of Cailloux and his men quickly spread across the North; the false stereotype had been shattered; and the black soldier was now viewed as a valuable and integral part of the war – a reputation strengthened with the accomplishments of the Native Guards’ counterparts in the North, the Massachusetts 54th (the subject of the movie Glory, 1989). By the end of the Civil War, some 180,000 black Americans had fought in the United States Armed Forces.

Andre Cailloux – a hero in New Orleans (and the first black hero of the Civil War) – received a hero’s funeral. He laid in-state for four days, watched over by a military guard, and his funeral procession was led by a band of musicians playing somber dirges followed by a horse-drawn, tasseled caisson with Cailloux’s body. Mourners lined the streets for almost a mile along the funeral route, holding tiny American flags as his remains rolled by. The attack in which Cailloux lost his life had been unsuccessful – as was a subsequent attack two weeks later. Union General Banks eventually pulled back and laid siege to Port Hudson, finally forcing their surrender a month-and-a-half later. That surrender was considered one of the Confederacy’s most devastating defeats, opening the Mississippi River to Union troop and supply movements.
Over 12,000 lives were lost at Port Hudson; 5,000 of those lives were Union, and many occurred during the initial attack led by Cailloux. Nevertheless, the attack had not only produced the first black hero of the Civil War but it also proved the strength and courage of black American troops, firmly cementing their permanent place in future American military service.

Robert Smalls (1839-1916)

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Robert Smalls (1839-1916) Robert Smalls was raised as a slave in Charleston, South Carolina, where he learned steamboats – including how to pilot large vessels along the Atlantic seaboard. He earned a reputation for exceptional navigational skills, and at the outbreak of the Civil War was forced into service for the Confederacy as quartermaster on the Planter, a 300-ton side-wheel steamer. As quartermaster, Smalls was in charge of the ship’s steering, thus making him the de facto pilot of the Planter; but he did not hold that title, for such an important post was not allowed a black slave in the Confederate south.

On the evening of May 12, 1862, while the Planter was docked in Charleston, the Confederate officers left the ship to attend a party onshore, leaving Smalls and the rest of the crew to ready the ship for departure the next morning. Always watchful for an opportunity to gain his freedom, and recognizing the potential in this situation, Smalls alerted the families of the crew to be in hiding nearby. Upon receiving his signal, they quickly boarded the ship.

Smalls took the wheel and quietly headed toward open sea. Knowing he would have to pilot the ship past Confederate sentinels, he donned the captain’s clothing and hoisted the Confederate flag. Moving the ship along slowly, and blowing the usual signals, Smalls was successful in not attracting unwanted attention. In fact, a Confederate soldier later reported that even though he saw the Planter moving away from the wharf, he didn’t “think it necessary to stop her, presuming that she was but pursuing her usual business.”

Having surmounted the dangers of the initial departure, Smalls and his crew still faced two major obstacles. The first was Fort Johnson (which Smalls safely passed, giving the customary steam-whistle salute); the second – and much more ominous threat – was Fort Sumter, the starting place of the Civil War. As the Planter approached its stark gray walls, some of Smalls’ crew urged him to turn back, fearing that the Sumter guards would board and inspect the ship.
Smalls cried out to God: “Oh, Lord, we entrust ourselves into Thy hands. Like Thou didst for the Israelites in Egypt, please stand guard over us and guide us to our promised land of freedom.” Rather than retreating, he continued bravely on, knowing that if they were stopped or shot, at least they would enter heaven as free men.

As they approached Fort Sumter, Smalls – still wearing the familiar hat and coat of the captain – turned his back slightly to the sentry in order to obscure his own face and features. He then signaled with the whistle, asking for permission to pass. The crew waited in tense expectation; and after what seemed like hours, the Confederate guard finally answered, “Pass the Planter!”
Yet, even though the most difficult part of the escape was now behind them, it was still too early to celebrate. When the Planter eventually reached the outer edge of Confederate waters, Smalls replaced the Rebel flag with a white sheet of surrender – but nearly too late. The commander of an oncoming Union vessel, the US Onward, had almost given the command to fire on the Planter before recognizing the flag of truce. He guided his ship alongside the Planter and the Union crew boarded the vessel. When they asked for the captain, Smalls proudly answered, “I have the honor, sir, to present the Planter, formerly the flagship of General Ripley!”

The ship was now in Union hands; but even more valuable to the Union was Smalls’ extensive knowledge of Confederate placements around Charleston. Upon delivering these precious spoils, Smalls explained with a wry smile, “I thought they might be of some service to Uncle Abe.”
President Lincoln personally invited Robert Smalls to Washington, where he and his crew were recognized for their bravery. Smalls was then commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the 33rd Regiment of United States Colored Troops. (For a black American to be commissioned as an officer was extremely rare and was an exceptional honor: at that time, most officers – even of black troops – were white.) After receiving his commission, Smalls was made the official pilot of the Planter, now sailing for the Union.

The Planter was assigned to transport service, delivering supplies along the coastal waterway near Charleston. On a routine trip in November 1863, the Planter came under Confederate bombardment. The shelling proved so intense that the Union captain of the ship panicked, wanting to surrender. Smalls refused, knowing that he and the crew would be killed if captured by the Rebels. (The Confederacy had issued orders that black Americans who surrendered were not to be made prisoners but were to be put to death on the spot.) The frightened Captain fled below deck, leaving Smalls in charge; he brought the ship safely through the shelling, landing amidst the cheers of thousands gathered at the dock awaiting the supplies. Union Major General Quincy Gillmore immediately promoted Smalls to Captain, a position he held until the end of the war. Smalls eventually rose to the rank of Major General in the South Carolina Militia.
After the War, Smalls was elected as a Republican to the South Carolina House and then to the United States Congress, where he served for nine years. As a Member of Congress, he pursued equal treatment for black Americans, often explaining, “My race needs no special defense, for the past history of them in this country proves them to be the equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.”

Robert Smalls was a strong Christian, whose faith was evident in both the military and the political arena.

Confronting Civil War Revisionism: Why The South Went To War

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Confronting Civil War Revisionism: Why The South Went To War

David Barton - 03/21/2006

WallBuilders not only seeks to present an accurate view of American history but through our strong reliance on primary source documents also seeks to expose and rebut instances of revisionism. The dictionary defines revisionism as advocating “the revision of an accepted, usually long-standing view, theory, or doctrine; especially a revision of historical events and movements.” 1 Many special interest groups over the past sixty years have urged upon the public a revisionist view of history in a manipulative attempt to justify their particular agenda.

For example, those who rely on activist courts to advance an agenda they are unable to pass through the normal political process frequently defend their misuse of the courts by asserting three historically unfounded doctrines: (1) the judiciary is to protect the minority from the majority; (2) the judiciary's primary purpose is to review and correct the acts of Congress and the presidency; and (3) the judiciary is best equipped to determine and meet the needs of an ever-changing society. These three errant doctrines are disproved by scores of original writings from the Founding Era, especially in The Federalist Papers. (See also our book, Restraining Judicial Activism.)

Similarly, those who aggressively pursue a secular public arena also invoke a revisionist view of history, frequently arguing that: (1) the Founding Fathers were atheists, agnostics, and deists; and (2) the Founders wrote into the Constitution a strict separation of church and state that requires the exclusion of religious influences and expressions from the public arena. These assertions are also easily rebuttable through hundreds of the Founders' own writings and public acts and laws. (See also our book, Original Intent.)

Another prominent example of modern historical revisionism involves an inaccurate view of the Civil War, asserting that: (1) the secession of the southern states at the start of the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery; and (2) slavery was not a significant issue in the conflict. (Irrefutable Confederate documents disproving this assertion will be presented shortly.)

One example of this type of Civil War revisionism can be found in a plaque displayed in the Texas State Capitol, declaring:
PLAQUE HANGING IN THE TEXAS STATE CAPITOL
Because we desire to perpetuate, in love and honor, the heroic deeds of those who enlisted in the Confederate Army and upheld its flag through four years of war, we, the children of the South, have united together in an organization called "Children of the Confederacy," in which our strength, enthusiasm, and love of justice can exert its influence. We therefore pledge ourselves to preserve pure ideals; to honor our veterans; to study and teach the truths of history (one of the most important of which is that the war between the states was not a rebellion nor was its underlying cause to sustain slavery), and to always act in a manner that will reflect honor upon our noble and patriotic ancestors. (emphasis added)

Other sources make this same false claim, 2 instead blaming the war on what they claim was the federal government's incessant lust for power and what they consider its unconstitutional intrusiveness into what they believe to be solely states' affairs. Regrettably, the acceptance of this revisionist view of the Civil War is actually gaining strength among many Americans.

To disprove their errant assertion, one need proceed no further than just three Confederate documentary sources: (1) the secession documents of the southern states setting forth their reasons for leaving the Union and forming the Confederacy; (2) the famous speech of Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens delivered just after the formal creation of the Confederacy, identifying its philosophical foundations; and (3) the Confederacy's own constitution. All three Confederate sources unequivocally prove that the South's desire to sustain slavery was a significant reason for the formation of the Confederacy.

1. Southern Secession Documents

From December 1860 through August 1861, the southern states met in conventions to decide whether to secede from the Union; on December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first state to do so. In its secession document, South Carolina boldly proclaimed to the world why it left the Union. Note its repeated emphasis on preserving slavery:
[A]n increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding states to the institution of slavery has led to a disregard of their obligations. . . . [T]hey have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery. . . . They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes [through the Underground Railroad]; and those who remain have been incited by emissaries, books, and pictures to servile insurrection. . . . A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the states north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States [Abraham Lincoln] whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common government because he has declared that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. . . . The slaveholding states will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the federal government will have become their enemy . . . 3

South Carolina's stated reasons for secession irrefutably affirm that the preservation of slavery was a major cause.On January 9, 1861, Mississippi became the second state to secede. In its secession document, it set forth the reasons it left the Union:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. . . . [A] blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin. That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution [slavery], a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove. The hostility to this institution commenced before the adoption of the Constitution and was manifested in the well-known Ordinance of 1787. † . . . It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves and refuses protection to that right on the high seas [i.e., banning the slave trade], in the territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction. It refuses the admission of new slave states into the Union and seeks to extinguish it [slavery] by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion. . . . It advocates Negro equality, socially and politically. . . . It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the states and wherever else slavery exists. . . . We must either submit to degradation and to the loss of property [i.e., slaves] worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers to secure this as well as every other species of property. 4

Undeniably, the preservation of slavery was a primary factor in Mississippi's decision to help break up the Union.

On January 10, 1861, Florida became the third state to secede. Two days earlier, it framed its preliminary resolutions setting forth its reasons for secession, in which it acknowledged:

All hope of preserving the Union upon terms consistent with the safety and honor of the Slaveholding States has been finally dissipated by the recent indications of the strength of the anti-slavery sentiment in the Free States. 5

Florida not only seceded because of the growth of “the antislavery sentiment” in the northern states but it even openly described itself as a member of “the slaveholding states.”

On January 11, 1861, Alabama became the fourth state to secede. Like South Carolina (the first to secede), Alabama's secession document also blamed the 1860 Republican victory as a reason for its secession, condemning. . .
. . . the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of president and vice-president of the United States of America by a sectional party [the Republicans], avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions [slavery] and to the peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama . . . 6

Since several of the secession documents directly blamed the Republican election victory of 1860 as a reason for secession, what caused that specific election to become such a focus?

It was in that 1860 election that Republicans (a party formed only six years earlier) had for the first time became the majority party, winning control of the presidency, the House, and the Senate. The Republican platforms leading up to that election had strongly articulated an unequivocal opposition to slavery, calling for its elimination. They had also specifically condemned the 1857 Dred Scott ruling 7 in which the Supreme Court had declared not only that blacks were property and not persons but also that Congress could not interfere with or prohibit slavery in any territory 8 - a direct repudiation of the Northwest Ordinance. Republicans strenuously disagreed with that ruling, and in their platform took an opposite position, proclaiming:

We deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislation, of any individual or association of individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States. 9

Other planks throughout Republican platforms articulated both their firm opposition to slavery and their willingness to use congressional powers to combat its growth. This was seen as a direct threat by southern Democrats; and Democrat platforms (and every southern state at that time was a solidly Democrat state) announced their support for the Dred Scott decision 10 and the continuation of slavery, 11 and also condemned all antislavery and abolition efforts. 12

Therefore, when the antislavery Republicans gained control of the presidency and the Congress in 1860, the southern slave-holding Democrat states saw the proverbial “handwriting on the wall” and found the prospect to be completely unacceptable (For more information, see our book Setting the Record Straight).

Alabama, like the other southern states, viewed the 1860 election and the possibility of the end of slavery as sufficient grounds for secession. It therefore announced:

It is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding states of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as permanent government [the Confederacy] . . . 13

Alabama, like the three states before it that had already seceded, made clear that its desire to preserve slavery was a major factor in its secession.

On January 19, 1861, Georgia became the fifth state to secede, announcing:

For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slaveholding confederate states with reference to the subject of African slavery. They have . . . persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property [i.e., slaves]. . . . A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of antislavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the federal government [i.e., the Republican Party] has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, ¥ called the Republican Party under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an antislavery party. . . . - antislavery is its mission and its purpose. . . . That reason was her [the Republican Party's] fixed purpose to limit, restrain, and finally abolish slavery in the states where it exists. The South, with great unanimity, declared her purpose to resist the principle of prohibition [abolition] to the last extremity. . . . The prohibition of slavery in the territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its [Republican] leaders and applauded by its followers. . . . The prohibition of slavery in the territories is the cardinal principle of this organization [the Republican Party] . . . . For twenty years past, the abolitionists and their allies in the northern states have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions [i.e., slavery] and to excite insurrection and servile war among us. 14

Unquestionably, Georgia seceded in order to sustain the institution of slavery.

On January 26, 1861, Louisiana became the sixth state to secede. Only days later, Texas was scheduled to hold its secession convention. In order to urge Texas to secede, Louisiana sent Commissioner George Williamson to speak to the Texas convention, where Williamson told the convention:

Louisiana looks to the formation of a Southern Confederacy to preserve the blessings of African slavery. . . . As her [Texas'] neighbor and sister state, she [Louisiana] desires the hearty co-operation of Texas in the formation of a Southern Confederacy. . . . Louisiana and Texas have the same language, laws, and institutions. . . . and they are both so deeply interested in African slavery that it may be said to be absolutely necessary to their existence and is the keystone to the arch of their prosperity. . . . The people of Louisiana would consider it a most fatal blow to African slavery if Texas either did not secede or, having seceded, should not join her destinies to theirs in a Southern Confederacy. . . . As a separate republic, Louisiana remembers too well the whisperings of European diplomacy for the abolition of slavery in the times of annexation not to be apprehensive of bolder demonstrations from the same quarter and the North in this country. § The people of the slaveholding states are bound together by the same necessity and determination to preserve African slavery. The isolation of any one of them from the others would make her a theater for abolition emissaries from the North and from Europe. Her existence would be one of constant peril to herself and of imminent danger to other neighboring slave-holding communities. . . . and taking it as the basis of our new government we hope to form a slave-holding confederacy . . . . 15

Clearly, Louisiana had seceded over the issue of slavery and urged Texas to do the same. This encouragement turned out to be unnecessary, however; for even before Commissioner Williamson had arrived from Louisiana, on February 1, 1861, Texas had become the seventh state to secede. In its secession document, Texas announced:

[Texas] was received as a commonwealth, holding, maintaining, and protecting the institution known as Negro slavery - the servitude of the African to the white race within [Texas] - a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slaveholding states of the Confederacy. . . . The controlling majority [i.e., Republicans] of the federal government . . . has so administered the same . . . for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions [i.e., slavery] of Texas and her sister slaveholding states. . . . In all the non-slave-holding states . . . the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party [i.e., the Republican Party] . . . based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these southern states and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men irrespective of race or color - a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of divine law. They demand the abolition of Negro slavery throughout the Confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and Negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us so long as a Negro slave remains in these states. . . . By the secession of six of the slave-holding states, and the certainty that others will speedily do likewise, Texas has no alternative but to remain in an isolated connection with the North or unite her destinies with the South. 16

Texas therefore chose to “unite her destinies with the South,” following her sister “slave-holding states” in secession. With seven states having now seceded, on March 11, 1861 (only eight days after Lincoln was inaugurated President), a constitution was formed for the new confederacy of slave-holding states. The secession of southern states, however, was not yet finished.

On April 17, 1861, Virginia became the eighth state to secede. It, too, acknowledged that the oppression of the “southern slave-holding states” - among which it numbered itself - had motivated its decision, acknowledging:

[T]he federal government, having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia but to the oppression of the southern slave-holding states, . . . 17

Eventually, eleven states seceded; and secession documents undeniably affirm that slavery was a major reason for their secession. Furthermore, the fact that the Confederacy regularly described itself as a confederacy of “southern slave-holding states” further confirms that sustaining slavery was indeed a primary cause of the Civil War.

2. Declaration of Confederate Vice-President Alexander Stephens

On February 9, 1861, following the secession of the seventh southern state (Texas), Jefferson Davis (a Democrat U. S. Senator from Mississippi) was elected president of the new Confederate States of America, and Alexander Stephens (a Democrat U. S. Representative from Georgia) as their new vice-president. The southern Democrats in the U.S. Congress also resigned their seats to join the new Confederacy 18 (no Republican left the Union, for there were no Republican Members of Congress from the South).

Just weeks later on March 21, 1861 (and just three weeks before the outbreak of military hostilities with the South's attack against Fort Sumter), the new Vice-president, Alexander Stephens, delivered a major policy speech for the new nation: “African Slavery: The Corner-Stone of the Southern Confederacy.” In that speech, Stephens first correctly acknowledged that the Founding Fathers - even those from the South - had never intended for slavery to remain in America:

The prevailing ideas entertained by him [Thomas Jefferson] and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old Constitution were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature - that it was wrong in principle - socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that somehow or other, in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent [temporary] and pass away. 19

So what did Vice-president Stephens and the new Confederate nation think about these antislavery ideas of the Founding Fathers?

Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. . . . and the idea of a government built upon it. . . . Our new government [the Confederate States of America] is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid - its cornerstone rests - upon the great truth that the Negro is not equal to the white man. That slavery - subordination to the superior [white] race - is his natural and moral condition. This - our new [Confederate] government - is the first in the history of the world based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. 20 (emphasis added)

Notice that by the title he assigned his own speech, Vice-president Stephens affirmed that slavery was not just a peripheral issue but that it was the cornerstone of the Confederacy; and the content of his speech only reaffirmed what he had initially declared in its title.

3. Confederate Constitution

On March 11, 1861, the constitution of the Confederate States of America was adopted. Given the strong support of the individual confederate states for slavery, it is not surprising that the Confederate constitution contained a number of clauses not only protecting but also making it illegal to end slavery. For example:

ARTICLE I, Section 6, (4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in Negro slaves shall be passed.

ARTICLE IV, Section 2, (1) The citizens of each state . . . shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any state of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.

ARTICLE IV, Section 2, (3) No slave or other person held to service or labor in any state or territory of the Confederate States under the laws thereof, escaping or lawfully carried into another, shall . . . be discharged from such service or labor but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such slave belongs. 21

If slavery was not an issue, then why was its preservation so aggressively safeguarded throughout the Confederate constitution?

Summary

As noted earlier, there are numerous official documents - official Confederate documents - affirming that slavery was a primary issue that drove the secession movement and was indeed central in the rebellion. Those who would assert otherwise are not only ignoring but even rewriting history. They either have not read the original documents of the Confederacy and the public policy positions of its elected leaders, or else they have chosen to ignore the significant body of authoritative evidence disproving their errant claim. Therefore it is blatant and unmitigated revisionism at its worst to assert - as do Confederate apologists - that “one of the most important” of the “truths of history” is “that the war between the states was not a rebellion nor was its underlying cause to sustain slavery.” 22

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NOTES
[1] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, © 2004, by Houghton Mifflin Company.
[2] Sons of Confederate Veterans, “Derby, Kansas Middle School Suspension Denounced by Sons of Confederate Veterans” which declares “[T]he War Between the States was fought over issues such as the rights of individual states to set their own tariffs, establish their own governments, and receive full profit from their agricultural production. . . . the question of slavery was brought into the war by Lincoln in late 1862 as an emotional one to bolster the sagging Northern war effort . . .”; and United Daughters of the Confederacy, “Children of the Confederacy: Creed” (at http://www.hqudc.org/CofC/index.html) which declares “We, therefore pledge ourselves . . . to study and teach the truths of history (one of the most important of which is, that the War Between the States was not a rebellion, nor was its underlying cause to sustain slavery)”; etc.
[3] Edward McPherson, The Political History of the United States of America During the Great Rebellion (Washington: Philip & Solomons, 1865), pp. 15-16, “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union,” December 24, 1860.
[†] In 1787, the nation still governed itself under the Articles of Confederation; and on July 13, 1787, the Continental Congress passed the Northwest Ordinance (which Mississippi called the “well-known Ordinance of 1787”). That Ordinance set forth provisions whereby the Northwest Territory could become states (eventually Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota entered from that Territory). As a requirement of statehood, Article 6 of that Ordinance stipulated: “There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory.” When the Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation, the Founding Fathers re-passed the “Northwest Ordinance” to ensure its continued effectiveness under the new Constitution. Signed into law by President George Washington on August 7, 1789, it retained the prohibition against slavery. As more territory was gradually ceded to the United States (the Southern Territory - Mississippi and Alabama, the Missouri Territory - Missouri and Arkansas, and others), Congress applied the requirements of the Ordinance to those new territories. Mississippi had therefore originally entered under the requirement that it not allow slavery.
[4] The Civil War Home Page, “A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union, January 9, 1861” (at http://www.civil-war.net/pages/mississippi_declaration.asp).
[5] Orville Victor, The History, Civil, Political and Military, of the Southern Rebellion (New York: James D. Torrey, 1861), Vol. 1, p. 194, Florida, “Preliminary Resolution Prior to Secession,” January 7, 1861.
[6] Victor, Southern Rebellion, Vol. 1, p. 195, “An Ordinance to dissolve the union between

Daniel A. P. Murray

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/aap/murray.html

Daniel A. P. Murray
Daniel A. P. Murray (1852 -1925). Photographer unknown. Photograph, undated.

Daniel Alexander Payne Murray (1852-1925) was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of a freed slave. At the age of nine, he moved to Washington, D.C. to work for his brother, a caterer and manager of the United States Senate Restaurant. Ten years later, in 1871, Murray became a member of the twelve-person staff of the Library of Congress as the personal assistant to the Librarian of Congress, Ainsworth Rand Spofford. Murray was the second African-American to hold a professional position at the Library of Congress. In 1881, he was promoted to assistant librarian.

In 1899, Spofford's successor, Herbert Putnam, asked Murray to compile a collection of books and pamphlets by black authors for an exhibition of "Negro Authors" at the 1900 Paris Exposition. Murray published a preliminary list of titles in 1900, appealing to the public for donations of listed works, as well as suggested additions. Within several months, his list had grown to eleven hundred titles; his collection became the core of the Library of Congress's "Colored Authors' Collection." Although Murray planned to expand his collection and create an encyclopedia of African-American achievement, the project never received sufficient support to become a reality.

Murray was widely acknowledged as an authority on African-American concerns. He was the first African-American member of the Washington Board of Trade, and he testified before the House of Representatives about Jim Crow laws and the migration of African-Americans from rural locations to urban areas. He was twice a delegate to the Republican National Convention and was a member of many other councils and organizations. He was also a prolific author, and a frequent contributor to African-American journals, in particular The Voice of the Negro. Murray's personal library of African-American works was bequeathed to the Library of Congress upon his death in 1925.