The context of their times was pretty shabby. I suspect the Trump administration would gladly bring back slavery. Isn't that what Trump did every time he refused to pay his alien workers?
And after the war, the Republicans should have pushed for a whole new constitution instead of settling for 3 amendments! The inadequacy of the Articles of Confederation was realized in less than 10 years; within 75 years of the Constitution being put in place, the country was in a Civil War. And the Confederacy was never truly defeated, with repercussions since.
Robt E Lee, Jefferson Davis and their ilk should've been hanged on the mall and every Confederate traitor had his trigger finger lopped off as a marker and a reminder of their treason.
Just want to say how much I appreciate your uncompromising fire in denouncing Confederate cosplay in the present day 2025. Now the neo-Confederates have seized control, owing to our addictive allegiance to an archaic 18th Century Constitution that could never anticipate how its ideals could be defiled in a future the founders could never imagine. I'm not gonna outline a manifesto here, but I am confident that tyranny and entrenched stupidity can NEVER win. As another Civil War icon observed, "the best way to repeal bad or noxious laws is through their vigorous enforcement" (US Grant).
NEVER treat conservatives with unearned respect & consideration. The Chuck Schumer compromise inevitably leads to the corruption ( and loss) of your judicial and electoral processes.
Slavery ( and the vile destruction of the indigenous tribes) IS your original Sin.
The elitist dumbdogs of Confederacy never gave up on it.
Which is why your deep South is an historical dead weight on your culture and your disappearing democracy.
Most people are not tuned into politics and have completely forgotten about that comprise. You can bet had Democrats refused to compromise and the government had shut down the mainstream “liberal” media would still be blaming and shaming Democrats as much or more than they would be blaming Republicans for allowing that to happen. The double standard is blatant and extremely damaging to our democracy.
That double standard is why so many swing voters voted for Trump. Despite the fact that the US economy was the strongest in the world the media had convinced voters that the US economy was bad. That was made clear by post-election polls showing that those swing voters who went for Trump had mistakenly believed the economy was bad even though a solid majority of those same voters also told pollsters that they and their local regions were doing well economically.
Economist Dean Baker is one of the few who called out the media for misleading the public on this issue.
“Yes, the Media Lied About the Pre-Election Economy”
Yes BUT I remind myself 24/7 that millions of blue voters live in the MAGA South, and they don't deserve to be abandoned no matter how crazy-rabid their Trumpist neighbors get to be.
My "lifeboat" right now is my conviction that TRUTH & REALITY always outshines the lure of hatred & clannish superstition. I have no "silver bullet" to convert MAGA'ts into AOC/Bernie donors, but I daresay the harsh reality of thuggish Trumpism is gonna start clamping down hard very soon, and the human toll will force a political re-evaluation on all but the most fanatical.
Supplemental viewing: the 2012 movie "Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter." OK, it's a really out-there stretch for suspension of disbelief, but the writer's conceit of bloodthirsty undead engaged in slave trading to feed themselves & expand their evil dominion actually hits some bullseyes relevant to our current struggle against MAGA! Mostly a gory horror/action movie, but it punches above its weight.
I'm not American and I find the apologia for the Confederate cause loathsome. The key issue was slavery, whatever the ahistorical "lost cause" myths claim.
I objected to Waldman's essay because he was sounding to me more like Trump than Lincoln. And I have been trying to persuade the Left in general they do not do their cause any good by indluging in hate speech just like the Right.
I objected to your first reply because after I said the Secession was no more treason than the Revolution, you responded that therefore it was maximum treason, which sounded to me like you were taking the King George point of view, or the rather nasty point of view of some Northeners who wanted to hang a lot of Southerners. It is obvious I suppose that the pardon and reconstruction point of view did not entirely succeed...evil is never entirely defeated, it just backs off for a while to reconsider its next big move. But I think thepardons were a far far better thing both for the country and for us as individuals {I would have said "souls" but then I get axcused of worshipping some sky-daddy and then called condescending because i suggest he has failed to read what I actually said. [try to imagine what "soul" might mean to someone who does not "believe" in all the nonsense invented by people who can't imagine anything more than a tyrant king god who punishes disobedience with a physical hell or rewards "obedience"==to thepoint of killing his enemies for him.]
but i am digging myself in again. so-without condescension--try to understand what i am trying to say that is not answered by "oo committed treason" or "oo called it treason."
you do yourself a disservice. while i agree with most of your take on the issues you write about. you do not help your cause by making enemies of half the population. (half is a figure of speech not a precise count). first, most of the people taking the side of the Confederacy were not immoral haters of America, or even abusers of blacks. They were simply the people who accepted the mores of their time and place or at least did not take the risks of challenging them.
We deserve no sense of supeiority because we accept the mores of our time and place. This is mostly true of those people who in this time and their particular corner of this place accept the mores of their neighbors...and the lies of the people who cleverly manipulate those mores to evil ends.
There was no more treason in scession than there was in the American Revolution. Lincoln himself knew that, but he also knew that allowing secession would fatally damage that lest best hope on earth of government by the people for the people, and he being at a higher moral pay grade than you and I took the responsibility of saving the Union and used that to end slavery.
the rest is history.
you and i agree that slavery was evil. you and i don't agree that stroking that evil is an effective way to fight the remnants of that evil and save the Union in our own times.
Gee, Dale, I see it differently. The MAGA's are aggressively making enemies of ME with their gun fetish, subjugation of them there wimmenfolk, decimation ×2 of Federal agencies serving the public good, naked political intimidation of the press, universities, law firms, and former international allies. I also feel threatened like never before in my life by lowbrow MAGA thugs in the congress, cabinet, judiciary & on our public streets. They're now decked out in full regalia, everything but the armband. Have you seen the new Trump profile badges the True Believers are now sporting on their lapels?
What am I saying here that isn't true? Which one of us is really the aggrieved party?
I fully realize that these differences between people will never go away, and at age 67, I'm certainly not spoiling for a fight. But we can't ignore the obvious and wicked menace these MAGA goons represent. We must meet the challenge of their malice BEFORE it fully takes hold and leads the world into cataclysm. "SO MUCH WINNING!!!"
you are not saying anything that isn't true, or that i don't agree with. what i was saying that is not good politics to make enemies of the peope whose votes you need. not all of the people who believe Trump are bad people, they are just ordinary people who don't know much and believe the lies they are told. we make them our enemies by hating them, saying things about them that they don't think are true. we are falling into the divide and conquer trap that all tyrants use.
moreover, it is not good for US as individuals to enjoy hating. some famous person a few thousand years ago tried to teach people that. they crucified him. and their leaders and the leaders after them (of both the church and state, have tried to teach us just the opposite: something like "god will hate you if you don't hate the people we say are his enemies." i don't think you have to be a religious person to see the wisdom of not giving yourself over to hate.
I fully realize the futility of arguing over religion with its adherants, but I'm gonna reassert that slackjawed & unquestioning prostration before an invisible "sky daddy" is at least 50% of the problem we're coping with now. It's all "Santa Claus for adults". The obviously evil Trump draws most of his support from "Christians." Dale doesn't have to answer or defend his faith, but I do ask whether or not he recognizes Trump & his "Christian Nationalist" as evil people?
i think you might need to learn to read more carefully. i was not arguing about or for religion. I have no "Faith." I was talking about the bad politics of making enemies. And the worse effects of hating people you don't know because of a label. I do think Trump is evil but that gets me nowhere in terms of stopping the evil, and I do think his high level adherents, including the Republican Party and the complicit Democrats are evil. but that doesn't get me anywhere either. Doesn't get you anywhere either. As for Trump's adherents...my own sister was a victim of Fox news long before Trump. She was definitely not a Christian, neither the good kind or the bad kind, but she was the least evil person I ever knew, but she was a victim of clever liars. As are you.I do know a lot of people who voted for Trump. Most of them are not "christian," but some are also victims of what i would call pseudo christianity. These people are at least as decent, or more decent, as the people whoo vote for Democrats. Your hating them shows that you are just as suseptible to lies as they are.
And you might have to learn to read more carefully.
oh, i will isk saying that i really don't like it when people who have the advantage of living in a time when slavery is seen as bad think of themselves as better than the people who lived in a time when humanity had not yet come to understand that. cheap virtue.
real virtue come from recognizing and overcoming one's own unthinking habits that hurt one's self and others.
'no more treason in secession than there was in the American Revolution'
Then there was *maximum* treason, you're saying? There is no doubt the Founders would have been tried and executed for treason if they'd lost. They knew it and said so themselves.
Who acknowledged secession was treason? It was widely understood to be, and agreed to by no less than Robert E. Lee, writing in a letter to his son.
perhaps, but i am not rob't e lee. i suspct he was waning his son that the North would regard it as treason. Lincoln in any case did not treat it as treason, and i am very much a fan of Lincoln. similarly, i am not surprised that the king of england regarded the American revolution as treason, but i have never heard of an American regarding it as treason. And my whole point was that throwing around words like treason and disgusting and immoral is counterproductive. it should be firly obvious to you that at some point we may need to take action against the trumpers that they will call treason..in fact, I think Trump already has. I really hate hanging people.
now, a thought from me. not an insult but just a suggestion that you get ahold of reality and stop playing word games. what is reality? good question. I think it is one we have to answer for ourselves but then we have to answer for the consequences of our answer.
No, he was analyzing the claims circulating at the time that secession was allowed by the COTUS and disagreeing with that idea:
"But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, & I am willing to sacrifice every thing but honour for its preservation. I hope therefore that all Constitutional means will be exhausted, before there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labour, wisdom & forbearance in its formation & surrounded it with so many guards & securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the confederacy at will. It was intended for pepetual [sic] union, so expressed in the preamble,4 & for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established & not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison & the other patriots of the Revolution. In 1808 when the New England States resisted Mr Jeffersons Imbargo law & the Hartford Convention assembled secession was termed treason by Virga statesmen. What can it be now?"
thanks for the information. i note that he framed it as a question, and depended it on "all Constitutional means ...exhausted." since he did fight for the seceded states, are we to assume he considered himself a traitor or sacrifice of his honor?
i often write provisional opinions before i come to a final conclusion. Can it be that Lee did the same?
we note that the Secessionist leaders were not tried and executed for treason.
i also note that Jefferson energetically tried Burr for treason, but even though Burr was found innocent, his memory is treated as if he was guilty.
I note also that it is Trump who is accusing people of treason when they disagree with him.
i'll stand by the rest of what i said, which may not be what you think i said.
Thank you for your well considered reply and questions.
Robert E. Lee would have gladly fought for the Union, if Virginia voted against secession. Their vote to secede carried by just a one vote margin. Then he felt honor-bound to stand by his beloved Virginia, considering it his highest duty, above his oaths to the Constitution. But as he wrote, he knew even the original Articles of Confederation stated it was a 'perpetual union,' and the Constitution was for 'a more perfect union.' If secession had been allowed as part of either plan, its procedures would have been debated and prescribed.
Some evidence that the American Revolution was considered treason:
"The British authorities in America were unsure how to prosecute these [Tea Party] protestors and asked the Attorney General in England for advice. He responded that these protests constituted high treason as they undermined the state of Great Britain by contravening a British act of Parliament." ...
"In August 1775, George III issued the Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition, declaring the American colonies to be in a state of ‘open and avowed rebellion’. Part of the proclamation urged loyal subjects in America to ‘disclose and make known all treasons and traitorous conspiracies’. A definite statement by the King of Great Britain that the American rebels had committed treason against their king." [1]
In the aftermath of the US Civil War, many leaders of the Confederacy immediately fled the country, fearing prosecutions for treason. Lincoln called for a national reconciliation in his second inaugural address:
“With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
"During his presidency Lincoln issued 64 pardons for war-related offences; 22 for conspiracy, 17 for treason, 12 for rebellion, 9 for holding an office under the Confederacy, and 4 for serving with the rebels."
Despite the sentiment in the North for recriminations, Andrew Johnson followed Lincoln's plans for clemency:
"There were 12,652 pardons issued by June 5, 1866. Under Johnson's "thirteenth" exemption the number of pardons was issued in this order: Virginia, 2,070; Alabama, 1,361; Georgia 1,228; Mississippi, 765; South Carolina, 638; North Carolina, 482; Texas, 269; Louisiana, 142; Tennessee, 93; Arkansas, 41; West Virginia, 39; Florida, 22; Kentucky, 11; Missouri, 10.[6]. ...
"in a final proclamation on December 25, 1868, Johnson declared "unconditionally, and without reservation, ... a full pardon and amnesty for the offence [sic] of treason against the United States, or of adhering to their enemies during the late civil war, with restoration of all rights, privileges, and immunities under the Constitution and the laws ..." [2]
As has been said, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. And in the words of Sir John Harington (1561-1612):
"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
Because the American Revolution succeeded, England agreed in the peace treaty that they were an independent sovereignty that was not bound by loyalty to the Crown and therefore, not traitors.
The Confederacy did not win, but the interests of binding up the wounds of the horrific conflict to reaffirm the union conferred a clemency on them.
i said "no more treason than the American Revolution. You said "then it was maximum treason." Does that mean that you think the American Revolution was treason? if so, you are the only American I know who thinks it was.
you said secession was widely considered to be treason. then you said "the claims circulating at the time at it was allowed by the Constitution." Do you see any problem with "widely considered to be treason" and "claims that it was allowed by the Constitution."
and of course my argument said "no more treason than the revolution"
because i was trying to point out the political unwisdom of calling it treason when the people you need to win over think that it was not. that is not a question of whether it was or was not, but of how to win friends and influence people.
Beautifully said. They weren’t heroes. They were racists and traitors. I’m tired of hearing that we need to view them in the context of their times.
The context of their times was pretty shabby. I suspect the Trump administration would gladly bring back slavery. Isn't that what Trump did every time he refused to pay his alien workers?
And after the war, the Republicans should have pushed for a whole new constitution instead of settling for 3 amendments! The inadequacy of the Articles of Confederation was realized in less than 10 years; within 75 years of the Constitution being put in place, the country was in a Civil War. And the Confederacy was never truly defeated, with repercussions since.
Robt E Lee, Jefferson Davis and their ilk should've been hanged on the mall and every Confederate traitor had his trigger finger lopped off as a marker and a reminder of their treason.
Just want to say how much I appreciate your uncompromising fire in denouncing Confederate cosplay in the present day 2025. Now the neo-Confederates have seized control, owing to our addictive allegiance to an archaic 18th Century Constitution that could never anticipate how its ideals could be defiled in a future the founders could never imagine. I'm not gonna outline a manifesto here, but I am confident that tyranny and entrenched stupidity can NEVER win. As another Civil War icon observed, "the best way to repeal bad or noxious laws is through their vigorous enforcement" (US Grant).
NEVER treat conservatives with unearned respect & consideration. The Chuck Schumer compromise inevitably leads to the corruption ( and loss) of your judicial and electoral processes.
Slavery ( and the vile destruction of the indigenous tribes) IS your original Sin.
The elitist dumbdogs of Confederacy never gave up on it.
Which is why your deep South is an historical dead weight on your culture and your disappearing democracy.
Most people are not tuned into politics and have completely forgotten about that comprise. You can bet had Democrats refused to compromise and the government had shut down the mainstream “liberal” media would still be blaming and shaming Democrats as much or more than they would be blaming Republicans for allowing that to happen. The double standard is blatant and extremely damaging to our democracy.
That double standard is why so many swing voters voted for Trump. Despite the fact that the US economy was the strongest in the world the media had convinced voters that the US economy was bad. That was made clear by post-election polls showing that those swing voters who went for Trump had mistakenly believed the economy was bad even though a solid majority of those same voters also told pollsters that they and their local regions were doing well economically.
Economist Dean Baker is one of the few who called out the media for misleading the public on this issue.
“Yes, the Media Lied About the Pre-Election Economy”
https://cepr.net/publications/media-lied-about-pre-election-economy/
Media critic Dan Froomkin also shines a spotlight on the mainstream media’s role in misleading the American public prior to the election.
“I Blame the Media”
https://presswatchers.org/2024/11/i-blame-the-media/
As Steve Bannon has said it’s the mainstream media that does the real damage to Democrats.
Yes BUT I remind myself 24/7 that millions of blue voters live in the MAGA South, and they don't deserve to be abandoned no matter how crazy-rabid their Trumpist neighbors get to be.
My "lifeboat" right now is my conviction that TRUTH & REALITY always outshines the lure of hatred & clannish superstition. I have no "silver bullet" to convert MAGA'ts into AOC/Bernie donors, but I daresay the harsh reality of thuggish Trumpism is gonna start clamping down hard very soon, and the human toll will force a political re-evaluation on all but the most fanatical.
Supplemental viewing: the 2012 movie "Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter." OK, it's a really out-there stretch for suspension of disbelief, but the writer's conceit of bloodthirsty undead engaged in slave trading to feed themselves & expand their evil dominion actually hits some bullseyes relevant to our current struggle against MAGA! Mostly a gory horror/action movie, but it punches above its weight.
I'm not American and I find the apologia for the Confederate cause loathsome. The key issue was slavery, whatever the ahistorical "lost cause" myths claim.
I objected to Waldman's essay because he was sounding to me more like Trump than Lincoln. And I have been trying to persuade the Left in general they do not do their cause any good by indluging in hate speech just like the Right.
I objected to your first reply because after I said the Secession was no more treason than the Revolution, you responded that therefore it was maximum treason, which sounded to me like you were taking the King George point of view, or the rather nasty point of view of some Northeners who wanted to hang a lot of Southerners. It is obvious I suppose that the pardon and reconstruction point of view did not entirely succeed...evil is never entirely defeated, it just backs off for a while to reconsider its next big move. But I think thepardons were a far far better thing both for the country and for us as individuals {I would have said "souls" but then I get axcused of worshipping some sky-daddy and then called condescending because i suggest he has failed to read what I actually said. [try to imagine what "soul" might mean to someone who does not "believe" in all the nonsense invented by people who can't imagine anything more than a tyrant king god who punishes disobedience with a physical hell or rewards "obedience"==to thepoint of killing his enemies for him.]
but i am digging myself in again. so-without condescension--try to understand what i am trying to say that is not answered by "oo committed treason" or "oo called it treason."
this is reply to Sofia. hope she sees it. this site hs a design flaw no one will bother to fix'
Sick 🤢
waldman
you do yourself a disservice. while i agree with most of your take on the issues you write about. you do not help your cause by making enemies of half the population. (half is a figure of speech not a precise count). first, most of the people taking the side of the Confederacy were not immoral haters of America, or even abusers of blacks. They were simply the people who accepted the mores of their time and place or at least did not take the risks of challenging them.
We deserve no sense of supeiority because we accept the mores of our time and place. This is mostly true of those people who in this time and their particular corner of this place accept the mores of their neighbors...and the lies of the people who cleverly manipulate those mores to evil ends.
There was no more treason in scession than there was in the American Revolution. Lincoln himself knew that, but he also knew that allowing secession would fatally damage that lest best hope on earth of government by the people for the people, and he being at a higher moral pay grade than you and I took the responsibility of saving the Union and used that to end slavery.
the rest is history.
you and i agree that slavery was evil. you and i don't agree that stroking that evil is an effective way to fight the remnants of that evil and save the Union in our own times.
Gee, Dale, I see it differently. The MAGA's are aggressively making enemies of ME with their gun fetish, subjugation of them there wimmenfolk, decimation ×2 of Federal agencies serving the public good, naked political intimidation of the press, universities, law firms, and former international allies. I also feel threatened like never before in my life by lowbrow MAGA thugs in the congress, cabinet, judiciary & on our public streets. They're now decked out in full regalia, everything but the armband. Have you seen the new Trump profile badges the True Believers are now sporting on their lapels?
What am I saying here that isn't true? Which one of us is really the aggrieved party?
I fully realize that these differences between people will never go away, and at age 67, I'm certainly not spoiling for a fight. But we can't ignore the obvious and wicked menace these MAGA goons represent. We must meet the challenge of their malice BEFORE it fully takes hold and leads the world into cataclysm. "SO MUCH WINNING!!!"
Sam
you are not saying anything that isn't true, or that i don't agree with. what i was saying that is not good politics to make enemies of the peope whose votes you need. not all of the people who believe Trump are bad people, they are just ordinary people who don't know much and believe the lies they are told. we make them our enemies by hating them, saying things about them that they don't think are true. we are falling into the divide and conquer trap that all tyrants use.
moreover, it is not good for US as individuals to enjoy hating. some famous person a few thousand years ago tried to teach people that. they crucified him. and their leaders and the leaders after them (of both the church and state, have tried to teach us just the opposite: something like "god will hate you if you don't hate the people we say are his enemies." i don't think you have to be a religious person to see the wisdom of not giving yourself over to hate.
I fully realize the futility of arguing over religion with its adherants, but I'm gonna reassert that slackjawed & unquestioning prostration before an invisible "sky daddy" is at least 50% of the problem we're coping with now. It's all "Santa Claus for adults". The obviously evil Trump draws most of his support from "Christians." Dale doesn't have to answer or defend his faith, but I do ask whether or not he recognizes Trump & his "Christian Nationalist" as evil people?
sam
i think you might need to learn to read more carefully. i was not arguing about or for religion. I have no "Faith." I was talking about the bad politics of making enemies. And the worse effects of hating people you don't know because of a label. I do think Trump is evil but that gets me nowhere in terms of stopping the evil, and I do think his high level adherents, including the Republican Party and the complicit Democrats are evil. but that doesn't get me anywhere either. Doesn't get you anywhere either. As for Trump's adherents...my own sister was a victim of Fox news long before Trump. She was definitely not a Christian, neither the good kind or the bad kind, but she was the least evil person I ever knew, but she was a victim of clever liars. As are you.I do know a lot of people who voted for Trump. Most of them are not "christian," but some are also victims of what i would call pseudo christianity. These people are at least as decent, or more decent, as the people whoo vote for Democrats. Your hating them shows that you are just as suseptible to lies as they are.
And you might have to learn to read more carefully.
Enough of your condescension. "Have a Great Lunch."
oh, i will isk saying that i really don't like it when people who have the advantage of living in a time when slavery is seen as bad think of themselves as better than the people who lived in a time when humanity had not yet come to understand that. cheap virtue.
real virtue come from recognizing and overcoming one's own unthinking habits that hurt one's self and others.
'no more treason in secession than there was in the American Revolution'
Then there was *maximum* treason, you're saying? There is no doubt the Founders would have been tried and executed for treason if they'd lost. They knew it and said so themselves.
Who acknowledged secession was treason? It was widely understood to be, and agreed to by no less than Robert E. Lee, writing in a letter to his son.
perhaps, but i am not rob't e lee. i suspct he was waning his son that the North would regard it as treason. Lincoln in any case did not treat it as treason, and i am very much a fan of Lincoln. similarly, i am not surprised that the king of england regarded the American revolution as treason, but i have never heard of an American regarding it as treason. And my whole point was that throwing around words like treason and disgusting and immoral is counterproductive. it should be firly obvious to you that at some point we may need to take action against the trumpers that they will call treason..in fact, I think Trump already has. I really hate hanging people.
now, a thought from me. not an insult but just a suggestion that you get ahold of reality and stop playing word games. what is reality? good question. I think it is one we have to answer for ourselves but then we have to answer for the consequences of our answer.
No, he was analyzing the claims circulating at the time that secession was allowed by the COTUS and disagreeing with that idea:
"But I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we complain of, & I am willing to sacrifice every thing but honour for its preservation. I hope therefore that all Constitutional means will be exhausted, before there is a resort to force. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Constitution never exhausted so much labour, wisdom & forbearance in its formation & surrounded it with so many guards & securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the confederacy at will. It was intended for pepetual [sic] union, so expressed in the preamble,4 & for the establishment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by revolution or the consent of all the people in convention assembled. It is idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established & not a government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison & the other patriots of the Revolution. In 1808 when the New England States resisted Mr Jeffersons Imbargo law & the Hartford Convention assembled secession was termed treason by Virga statesmen. What can it be now?"
from: https://leefamilyarchive.org/history-reference-essays-rachal-index/
sofia
thanks for the information. i note that he framed it as a question, and depended it on "all Constitutional means ...exhausted." since he did fight for the seceded states, are we to assume he considered himself a traitor or sacrifice of his honor?
i often write provisional opinions before i come to a final conclusion. Can it be that Lee did the same?
we note that the Secessionist leaders were not tried and executed for treason.
i also note that Jefferson energetically tried Burr for treason, but even though Burr was found innocent, his memory is treated as if he was guilty.
I note also that it is Trump who is accusing people of treason when they disagree with him.
i'll stand by the rest of what i said, which may not be what you think i said.
Thank you for your well considered reply and questions.
Robert E. Lee would have gladly fought for the Union, if Virginia voted against secession. Their vote to secede carried by just a one vote margin. Then he felt honor-bound to stand by his beloved Virginia, considering it his highest duty, above his oaths to the Constitution. But as he wrote, he knew even the original Articles of Confederation stated it was a 'perpetual union,' and the Constitution was for 'a more perfect union.' If secession had been allowed as part of either plan, its procedures would have been debated and prescribed.
Some evidence that the American Revolution was considered treason:
"The British authorities in America were unsure how to prosecute these [Tea Party] protestors and asked the Attorney General in England for advice. He responded that these protests constituted high treason as they undermined the state of Great Britain by contravening a British act of Parliament." ...
"In August 1775, George III issued the Proclamation for Suppressing Rebellion and Sedition, declaring the American colonies to be in a state of ‘open and avowed rebellion’. Part of the proclamation urged loyal subjects in America to ‘disclose and make known all treasons and traitorous conspiracies’. A definite statement by the King of Great Britain that the American rebels had committed treason against their king." [1]
In the aftermath of the US Civil War, many leaders of the Confederacy immediately fled the country, fearing prosecutions for treason. Lincoln called for a national reconciliation in his second inaugural address:
“With malice toward none with charity for all with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan ~ to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
"During his presidency Lincoln issued 64 pardons for war-related offences; 22 for conspiracy, 17 for treason, 12 for rebellion, 9 for holding an office under the Confederacy, and 4 for serving with the rebels."
Despite the sentiment in the North for recriminations, Andrew Johnson followed Lincoln's plans for clemency:
"There were 12,652 pardons issued by June 5, 1866. Under Johnson's "thirteenth" exemption the number of pardons was issued in this order: Virginia, 2,070; Alabama, 1,361; Georgia 1,228; Mississippi, 765; South Carolina, 638; North Carolina, 482; Texas, 269; Louisiana, 142; Tennessee, 93; Arkansas, 41; West Virginia, 39; Florida, 22; Kentucky, 11; Missouri, 10.[6]. ...
"in a final proclamation on December 25, 1868, Johnson declared "unconditionally, and without reservation, ... a full pardon and amnesty for the offence [sic] of treason against the United States, or of adhering to their enemies during the late civil war, with restoration of all rights, privileges, and immunities under the Constitution and the laws ..." [2]
As has been said, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. And in the words of Sir John Harington (1561-1612):
"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
Why, if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
Because the American Revolution succeeded, England agreed in the peace treaty that they were an independent sovereignty that was not bound by loyalty to the Crown and therefore, not traitors.
The Confederacy did not win, but the interests of binding up the wounds of the horrific conflict to reaffirm the union conferred a clemency on them.
[1] https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/treason-against-the-state-america-declares-independence/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardons_for_ex-Confederates
note on logic
i said "no more treason than the American Revolution. You said "then it was maximum treason." Does that mean that you think the American Revolution was treason? if so, you are the only American I know who thinks it was.
you said secession was widely considered to be treason. then you said "the claims circulating at the time at it was allowed by the Constitution." Do you see any problem with "widely considered to be treason" and "claims that it was allowed by the Constitution."
and of course my argument said "no more treason than the revolution"
because i was trying to point out the political unwisdom of calling it treason when the people you need to win over think that it was not. that is not a question of whether it was or was not, but of how to win friends and influence people.
Brilliant