Man this thread is just so satisfying, sometimes. Ridiculous cliffhanger, by the way.
A Glorious Union or America: the New Sparta
- Thread starter TheKnightIrish
- Start date
"sometimes"! Ooooo you just earned yourself a one way trip to Fort Warren with Davis, Rhett, Early and the gang! "sometimes"! Treason I say!
Thanks.
Too much heat. Too much whisky. And surprisingly too many witches (long long story). Will post tomorrow (Reconstruction is complicated!!!).
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Five A Peace That Exists Only On The Other Side of War: Part One
Chapter One Hundred and Twenty Five
A Peace That Exists Only On The Other Side of War: Part One
A Peace That Exists Only On The Other Side of War: Part One
From “The Rivals – Lincoln and his Cabinet” by Amelia Doggett
Grosvenor 2008
“As news from the Carolinas and Georgia accumulated during the summer it appeared increasingly likely that victory might be achieved before the Fall elections. This caused a number of political figures to brave the Washington summer heat and make the pilgrimage to the Soldiers Home to see the President…
Advice on the Peace and upon Reconstruction came from every quarter. “I have this morning received my old friend Justice Davis who came to tell me that the country would not tolerate military commissions and tribunals as a means of securing the peace. I thanked him for his advice for which I was very grateful. Just as I had thanked General Butler on Wednesday past for his advice that military tribunals were the only means by which we could fairly and honestly try rebels without embarrassment…” (Lincoln writing to Joseph Holt)…”
From “Kearny and the Radicals” by Hugh W. McGrath
New England Press 1992
“Kearny was very honest about his failings in his correspondence with his friend Austin Blair. “I have often turned my mind to the nature of the peace…I have recorded my thoughts to prompt an honest discussion within the army [the Potomac Memorandum]…but in truth I am ignorant as to the legal tools required to make such proposals manifest. Indeed I.S. [Isaac Stevens] has warned me that my proposals may set unfortunate precedents, may even be unconstitutional in nature…I have resolved to educate myself on this subject and am seeking counsel from friends within and without the army…this army is not scarce of lawyers with opinions…”
From “Kearny the Magnificent” by Roger Galton
NorthWestern
“Having secured the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia General Kearny took the remainder of August to put in place plans for the securing of the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida…
On the September 3 Kearny departed the army to answer a summons from the President, leaving General Reynolds in command. Kearny had been recalled to the Capitol to advise the President on the plans for Reconstruction then being considered…
The three days from September 8 to September 10 would be decisive in formation of the peace…”
From “Kearny and the Radicals” by Hugh W. McGrath
New England Press 1992
“On the journey north Kearny took the opportunity of insisting that the Assistant Judge Advocate General of the Army, Colonel William McKee Dunn, travel with him. Colonel Dunn was returning to Washington where Kearny was to arrange his promotion to Judge Advocate General to replace Joseph Holt, who was resigning his commission following receipt of the National Unionist Nomination for Vice President…
Colonel Dunn records that through out the length of journey Kearny discussed, with some sophistication, the possible legal basis for variously constituted military tribunals. The Kearny that arrived in Washington was a well briefed one…”
Colonel William McKee Dunn
From “The Rivals – Lincoln and his Cabinet” by Amelia Doggett
Grosvenor 2008
“Lincoln had held innumerable meetings with the Cabinet, members of Congress and others on the possible appearance of any peace with the South. Now as that peace approached any prospect of agreement seemed to be receding. “The parties divide into factions; the factions into sections; the sections into schools of thought…no detailed proposal yet constituted on the peace can obtain more than a handful of votes in the Congress…only the simplest generalities have any popularity though no agreement exists as to their execution or effect…” (Seward to Thurlow Weed)…”
From “Kearny and the Radicals” by Hugh W. McGrath
New England Press 1992
“Kearny the politician was fully in evidence. After properly reporting his return to Washington to Secretary Stanton, his first meeting was not of an official or military nature. General Kearny met with his friend and frequent correspondent Austin Blair, Governor of Michigan, and was introduced to the junior senator from Michigan, Jacob M. Howard who had helped draft the 13th Amendment [which had then yet to pass the House]…
There is no record of the meeting but given Senator Howard’s sponsorship of the Howard/Washburne Bill and his involvement in the drafting of the 14th Amendment it is clear that he was closely involved in preparing the positions Kearny would set out before the President…”
From “The Martyr - The Biography of David Hunter” by Ambrose E. Edward Sr.
New England Press 1927
“Many were the voices raised in protest at the mere suggestion of leniency, of clemency. The names of David Hunter and his comrades remained on the lips of all true patriots. The calls for the trial and execution of the traitors had not been diminished over time. Great petitions were taken up in Massachusetts, in Rhode Island, in Maine and in Michigan that all the leaders of the Slaveholders’ Rebellion be punished for their hand in the murder of prisoners; the slaying of innocents; the enslavement of freemen; and the destruction of property…
In Michigan Zachary Chandler reminded people that Russell Alger had known how to deal with rebels when he captured the rebel Mosby in Virginia – “a long rope and a short drop”. In New England Hunter’s own words were published anew, paraphrased and reworked. “Just as the Rebels have contended for the liberty to sin as Satan did, so to should they be punished as was Satan – cast down into Hell for all Eternity” (from a Boston Church sermon based on one of David Hunter's letters in the Fall of 1864)…”
From “The Rivals – Lincoln and his Cabinet” by Amelia Doggett
Grosvenor 2008
“The informal meetings of the summer had left the President frustrated. He was alone in believing in both full emancipation and a generous peace. Although the 13th Amendment had passed the Senate and had the backing of the majority of the cabinet, his Attorney General, Edward Bates, remained quietly unsupportive. He opposed the manner of emancipation, the mechanism and the enlistment of free negros in the army. Unfortunately Bates’ was the only voice raised in cabinet now in support of the President’s stance on Reconstruction…
Secretaries Stanton and Chase were firm and loud in their declarations that only “a justly deserved harsh peace will satisfy the Party, the Nation and History” (Chase). If the President had condescended to include Vice President Hamlin in these cabinet meetings, which he did not, a third voice would have been raised against him. Wells, Usher and Dennison (replacing Blair as Postmaster-General as part of the price Radicals demanded for the replacement of Hamlin on the ticket) leaned towards a strict punishment of the rebels but, having no express plans of their own, largely remained on the sidelines of these debates. Only Seward’s position remained unclear in cabinet as he seized every opportunity to play devil’s advocate and tear apart each proposal offered, often including the President’s…
The meeting begun on the morning of September 8 was the first to combine the full cabinet with outsiders. General Philip Kearny attended in his role as Commanding General of the Armies and General Joseph Holt as Judge Advocate General of the Army (his resignation not yet having been formally accepted)…”
The war had left Edward Bates' views out of date
From “The War Between the States” by Otis R. Mayhew
Sword & Musket 1992
“We have some idea of the agenda from the notes kept by Kearny’s military secretary, the former engineer, Major Joseph Cuffe Briscoe, who was, at Kearny’s request, allowed to minute elements of the meeting:
• Unconditional Political Prisoners;
• Unconditional Military Prisoners;
• Chantilly Terms Political Prisoners;
• Chantilly Terms Political Prisoners;
• Charges of Treason;
• Criminal Charges including murder;
• Jurisdiction and Composition of the Court;
• General Sanctions;
• Basis for the Reintegration of the States in Rebellion;
• Status and Protection of Freedmen; and
• Texas…”
From “The King and his Heir – Lincoln and Kearny in the Civil War” by Robert Todd Lincoln II
Grafton Press 1939
“From the beginning there was friction which harked back to earlier debates between the President and General Kearny. The President believed that, following a Confederate surrender, his primary objectives were to quickly reunite the nation and to establish emancipation in a meaningful sense. The President believed mercy, forgiveness and a speedy reconciliation remained the best way to achieve these goals…
General Kearny agreed with these objectives but was convinced that they could not be met without first fundamentally altering structure of power and politics in the Southern States. “If we permit the Plantation Class to return to power we will have won the war only loose the peace... At best everything we have won will be undone at a state level in a dozen years…at worst our sons will perforce have to repeat this war” (Kearny to John Watts de Peyster)…
Yet these positions seemed scarcely different when compared to the rhetoric of mass executions, life imprisonments and widespread confiscations demanded by Radical Republicans across the country…
The President and his General were united in their belief that, unrestrained, the Radicals would destroy the Union they sought to rebuild…”
The meeting seemed to achieve little but the airing of divisions for General Kearny's education
From “The Rivals – Lincoln and his Cabinet” by Amelia Doggett
Grosvenor 2008
“Trials! It was the question of how to deal with the Confederate prisoners and the charges of treason, murder and more that dominated the first meeting on the morning of September 8…
Accepting the premise that some rebels must be tried the President asked by whom and where? By military tribunal or civilian court? In what jurisdiction? Should Jeff Davis be tried in Virginia?...
An uncomfortable Kearny reminded the assembled notables that under the Chantilly Terms he had specified that the prisoners would face Military Tribunals, the reasoning being that the old army officers trusted one another to be fair and honorable, whereas a handpicked radical civilian jury was the terror of most rebel officers. (This may appear odd that some among the Confederate leadership would prefer to risk a military tribunal than a standard civilian court, yet Ben Butler had suggested to the President that if civilian courts were to be utilized, in place of military hearings, “we had best ensure juries are selected which will not embarrass the administration”)…
Salmon P. Chase posed the obvious question, though in rather grandiose terms “why would we expose the fruits of victory to the scrutiny of a peaceful court of law”. Having all but won the war on the premise that secession was unconstitutional why then would they reopen that argument in court. On the question of treason in particular, a jury trial, particularly one held in a former Confederate state, must by definition be a tricky proposition. Holt clarified that in Virginia, as indeed in most states, a guilty verdict for the crime of treason must be unanimous. One dissenting juror and the accused would go free…
In respect of Jefferson Davis, the likely test case for Confederate treason in one sense, Edward Bates cited a note prepared by leading prosecutor John H. Clifford, at Bates request, in which he set out that he did not believe a case for treason could be made out against Jefferson Davis (in this Thaddeus Stevens and Horace Greeley would have agreed). Much to Bates' irritation Joseph Holt then quoted from a similar note prepared by Richard Dana. Dana, another leading prosecutor, had concluded that although it should be possible to make out a case for treason, it was firstly by no means a certain proposition, and secondly in any event a pointless argument before the inevitably prejudiced Virginia jury…
Bates then went on to confirm that he considered military tribunals to be of “constitutionally uncertain foundation”, a position David Davis had tried to impress on the President several days earlier…
Secretary William averred that the discussion was academic as Congress was out of session until December, would be focused on the passing of the 13th Amendment, and then, would likely prevaricate on the remaining terms of Reconstruction until the 39th Congress sat the following year. The 39th Congress would inevitably be a Radical Congress that would look to set its own terms for Reconstruction. Seward left unspoken the widely acknowledged assumption that the Radicals would achieve a veto-proof majority in the 39th Congress…
The suggestion of a delay of this duration deeply disturbed General Kearny. Kearny reminded the Cabinet that there were thousands of men imprisoned or soon to be imprisoned at Forts Warren and Delaware and at Point Lookout among other locations. It was simply “not civilized” to keep so many men in such conditions for such a period. General Kearny was particularly concerned with conditions at Point Lookout which was in the process of becoming the largest prison in the country and indeed larger than many towns. Given the death rates at some less well run camps like Elmira it must be admitted than General Kearny had a very valid point. “I dread the appearance that we might leave the rebel prisoners to wither away in the hopes of burying the problem in an unfortunately literal sense”…
This first meeting broke up without any resolution save that President Lincoln suggested Generals Kearny and Holt return the following day for a further discussion…
From “Kearny the Magnificent” by Roger Galton
NorthWestern
“General Kearny spent the remainder of the day at the War Office with Stanton discussing practical arrangements for prisoners and plans for Texas where the Union advance had temporarily ground to a halt under General James Blunt…
Kearny received a bundle of correspondence which had awaited his return to the capitol, two elements of which would have a critical impact on the discussions. The first was a letter from a former French comrade in action in Mexico containing reports and rumors from the Mexican war. The second was a bundle of correspondence from his wife relating to personal matters, his investments and a gift of several books and periodicals…”
From “The Rivals – Lincoln and his Cabinet” by Amelia Doggett
Grosvenor 2008
“The second day went much as the first. John Hay reported the President’s increasing irritation with the obstructionist Bates. That evening the President would ask for Edward Bates resignation. The President could have tolerated Bates, and his qualified support, in any role save that of Attorney General which would be pivotal in the coming days and weeks...
The discussion was broader and covered the reintegration of the rebellious states. The President’s 10% plan was politely considered as was the Ben Wade plan. Hay reports the growing consensus, excluding Lincoln and Bates, around large scale disenfranchisement and for the confiscation of estates worth in excess of perhaps $20,000: States to be readmitted on ratifying the 13th Amendment and a majority of eligible voters (after disenfranchisement had been effected) had taken an oath of loyalty. The consensus broke down however when Chase suggested the confiscated estates be sold on the open market to approved bidders as a means of defraying the costs of the war and Reconstruction. Both Stanton and Kearny believed that confiscated estates could be broken up to provide land grants to freedmen, southern veterans and southern unionists. “In the south as with anywhere else, land is power. We should put it in the hands of those most deserving and most well disposed towards us” (Stanton)…
The discussion of the post-war military occupation of the south, which Kearny was ostensibly there to discuss, was briefly considered and then shelved. The nature of any such occupation would be governed by the necessities of the terms of the peace as yet unresolved...
The meeting ended without any firm resolution and the President considered the consultations at an end for the moment. General Kearny suggested that he would nonetheless return the following day, September 10, to brief the President on unspecified military matters…
On leaving the Soldiers Home, Briscoe observed General Kearny take Joseph Holt by the arm and, leading him away ask a seemingly idle question: was he familiar with the author Edward Everett Hale and did he have time to have a late lunch so the Commander of All the Armies could take some legal advice…?”
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Hale supported Irish immigration, as he felt it freed Americans from performing menial, hard labor. In a series of letters in the Boston Daily Advertiser, he noted the "inferiority" of the immigrants: "[it] compels them to go the bottom; and the consequence is that we are, all of us, the higher lifted."[12]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Everett_Hale
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Everett_Hale
Hale is anti slavery, but thinks the Irish are inferior only fit for performing menial, hard labour.
I wonder if the clue is the author or the story. Someone mentioned this story in an earlier comment on ttl i think.
The person the story is based on is stranger than fiction.
Clement Vallandigham
Vallandigham's deportation to the Confederacy prompted Edward Everett Hale to write The Man Without a Country.[61] This short story, which appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in December 1863, was widely republished. In 1898, Hale made the assertion that Vallandigham stated, "he did not want to belong to the United States".[62]
He was deported by Lincoln to the CSA and imprised there as an alien enemy and later travel by brockad runner to canda and ran for Governor of Ohio subsequently winning the Democratic nomination in absentia. but lost the election.
Death
Vallandigham died in 1871 in Lebanon, Ohio, at the age of 50, after accidentally shooting himself in the head with a pistol. He was representing a defendant in a murder case for killing a man in a barroom brawl. Vallandigham attempted to prove the victim had in fact killed himself while trying to draw his pistol from a pocket when rising from a kneeling position. As Vallandigham conferred with fellow defense attorneys in his hotel room, he showed them how he would demonstrate this to the jury. Grabbing a pistol he believed to be unloaded, he put it in his pocket and enacted the events as they might have happened, shooting himself in the process
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Vallandigham
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clement_Vallandigham
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Probably the story which may have raised the possibility of sentences of exile rather than death. Given the mention of the other element of correspondence that Kearny received, the Mexican war, I'm wondering about exile to the Foreign Legion.
Doesn't any sort of trial actually legitimize the Confederate cause...that is kind of why they held off in OTL, especially against Jefferson Davis.
Military trials, i could definitely see against former US military personnel, as it was, in a way, a committed treason and an act of rebellion. But against Jefferson Davis and any Confederate government official, does not any trial justify their cause?
Military trials, i could definitely see against former US military personnel, as it was, in a way, a committed treason and an act of rebellion. But against Jefferson Davis and any Confederate government official, does not any trial justify their cause?
Jefferson Davis was former US military also. He fought in the Black Hawk War and Mexican-American War as an officer in the US army.
A civilian trial might say that a state seceding was not illegal under us law and that he could not be guilty of treason. That would create too many problems.
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But the point is that the rights and wrong of secession and treason are irrelevant to the history of any trial. The problem is if its (1) a military trial: its a fit up. Jeff Davis the martyr gets hung by a biased Yankee unconstitutional kangaroo court or (2) a civilian court: Jeff Davis the traitorous SOB gets off because one or more rebel scum on the jury closes his ears to the truth and suddenly the US looses faith in the justice system.
It a lose lose situation for Lincoln putting JD on trial. He needs a non-trial way out.
It a lose lose situation for Lincoln putting JD on trial. He needs a non-trial way out.
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Certainly I can see this being heavily debated between the various factions involved.
Corder, you bring up a good point; do you put Davis on trial for being President of what the US considers rebels?
When TKI said Reconstruction would be difficult, he was seriously understating things. It doesn't help that there is a serious lynch mob mentality among many in the North.
Davis could have been tried in New York or Boston.
They could always this loophole.
They could always this loophole.
http://civilwartalk.com/threads/richard-henry-dana-jr-on-trying-jefferson-davis-for-treason.76721/Carronade said:
Again a murder trial would be held where the crime was committed in the old south so not much chance of a conviction.
Hanging Davis would only make him a martyr to the Lost cause and would be seen as revenge not justice.
Why not try him for the killing of the poor starving rioting Richmondites? Him and the Englishman Brockenborough. That might put the cat among the pigeons. He gave the order after all. Didnt one ggeneral refuse to comply cause it illegal or murder? You might get a Virginia jury to convict the killer of starvin southern womenhood your honour!