I found Governor Brown's statement denouncing Confederate policy to be emblematic of the major problem with the Confederacy as a whole. The combination of a week central government and strong state governments makes it extremely difficult for even the most basic of governmental duties to be accomplished, lit alone successfully making war on another country at your technological level. The Union and the Confederacy both needed strong central governments in order to manage the affairs of the individual states for the mutual benefit of them all as a whole. This government could take a variety of forms, but it was a VITAL necessity to the successful persecution of a war. There are examples of this from other eras in history:
1) Ancient Egypt, ruled by the pharaoh, a divine king, conquered or controlled an area of territory that stretched through modern-day Sudan to the south as well as the Sinai Peninsula, parts of modern day Lebanon, Syria, and into Southern Turkey to the East. When Egypt had internal problems and lost that strong central government, they descended into chaos and lost their empire.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Kingdom
2) Even Rome as a republic, in times of war, the Senate would appoint a dictator with absolute authority to run the country during these times when action had to be taken quickly and with no time for the Senate to deliberate and reach a consensus. The practice was solid and mostly successful, view the success of Roman in the Punic Wars.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_dictator
3) From America's earlier history, the original documents that established the United States as an independent country from Great Britain, were the "Articles of Confederation", this document gave the new country strong state governments and a week federal government. Its' creators feared that if they created a strong central government, then Americans would just be trading one dictatorship for another. However, it didn't take too long (at most 12 years, but since ratification didn't take place until 3 years after passing into law by the Second Continental Congress, it probably didn't see much actual use) before another governing document was passed, at the urging of such luminaries as George Washington, who felt that the "Articles" "lacked the necessary provisions for a sufficiently effective government. There was no president or executive agencies or judiciary. There was no tax base. There was no way to pay off state and national debts from the war years." Thus our Constitution was born, which firmly placed the Federal government in overall control of the country, with the State governments playing supporting roles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_confederation
Sorry there, I got off on a historical tangent there. But though many strong central governments throughout history have equated to monarchies or dictatorships, that does not need to always be the case. Unfortunately, Southerners of the 1860s tended to hold this erroneous viewpoint, seeing Lincoln as an American Catiline, someone attempting to usurp the rightful governmental order. But what the Southerners also failed to realize was that though some powers of the individual states were invariably lost to the federal government, as a WHOLE country they gained larger abilities (more men to muster for war, a larger population to pull from, more tax money with which to fund civic improvements and technological advancements) which made the whole country greater and more powerful as a result, then each individual state could ever be on its' own. The confederacy was a case of too many chiefs and not enough Indians.
I find it pretty interesting that Governor Brown is complaining about the excesses of the military in matters of taking control away from the civilian authorities (I presume that he was NOT a fan of the draft also) when he was a master of hording the supplies that his state accumulated and insuring that they went only to Georgian soldiers, content to let soldiers from other states starve and freeze to death. If the state governments and the Confederate Constitution tie the federal government's hands from acting in the country's best interest, then it is up to the military to do so. The states are mostly concerned with the well-fare of their own constituents and have lost sight of the wider goal.....independence for them all. For the only way a country's military can successfully defend the entire country is to have the backing of the entire country regardless of where the individual soldiers hale from. Since the federal government has no state support, the states have no control outside their own borders, who is left to maintain law and order...the military. Chaotic situation in the country and no firm governmental control in time of war is what leads to military dictatorships. Perhaps Governor Brown is right to fear military despotism. If so, then maybe that would have been the best thing for the Confederacy, forced unity fight have brought them success in their war for independence.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
General "Beast (with a soft heart)" Butler
As much as slavery was a divisive feature of the pre-Civil War United States, how to end it and what to do with the freed black people divided the nation even more. Among the South, the ending of slavery meant an end to their way of life which was obviously something to be avoided. However there was little agreement among Northerners either in the matter. At the beginning, perhaps Lincoln sought to avoid having to deal with issue all together, but a pair of blinders on and just concentrated on military matters. But General Benjamin Butler (a general of questionable military ability, but one good with logistics and politics), unlike Lincoln, found himself forced to deal with the matter of runaway slaves who were escaping from their masters and fleeing to the Union lines. No fan of slavery himself, he was loath however, to step on any political toes (such as General Fremont did a few months after this letter was written) and thus directed a letter to the Secretary of War Simon Cameron, asking for orders.
First. What shall be done with them? and, Second. What is their state and condition? Upon these questions I desire the instructions of the department.
The first question, however, may perhaps be answered by considering the last. Are these men, women, and children slaves? Are they free? Is their condition that of men, women, and children, or of property, or is it a mixed relation? What their status was under the constitution and laws, we all know. What has been the effect of a rebellion and a state of war upon that status? When I adopted the theory of treating the able-bodied negro fit to work in the trenches as property liable to be used in aid of rebellion, and so contraband of war, that condition of things was in so far met, as I then and still believe, on a legal and constitutional basis.
Butler has recognized that his actions in refusing to surrender escaped slaves back to their masters and his thus utilizing them to aid in the Union's military struggle was an act of military necessity and though it was nominally supported by the federal government, it was a stop-gap measure at best.
But now a new series of questions arise. Passing by women, the children, certainly, cannot be treated on that basis; if property, they must be considered the incumbrance rather than the auxiliary of an army, and, of course, in no possible legal relation could be treated as contraband. Are they property? If they were so, they have been left by their masters and owners, deserted, thrown away, abandoned, like the wrecked vessel upon the ocean. Their former possessors and owners have causelessly, traitorously, rebelliously, and, to carry out the figure, practically abandoned them to be swallowed up by the winter storm of starvation.
The regulations under which Butler had previously seized runaway slaves and used them as labors, he states cannot now be applied to all of the 900 Negros who have fled to his lines. For these numbers include women, children and older people, all of whom could not be expected to the kind of labor that Butler had initially claimed the runaways for. What Butler is clearing asking for is an official ruling by the federal government, something with legs to stand on in order to JUSTIFY his keeping runaway slaves, this time ones not of any great use to the army, from their masters.
But we, their salvors, do not need and will not hold such property, and will assume no such ownership: has not, therefore, all proprietary relation ceased? Have they not become, thereupon, men, women, and children? No longer under ownership of any kind, the fearful relicts of fugitive masters, have they not by their master's acts, and the state of war, assumed the condition, which we hold to be the normal one, of those made in God's image? Is not every constitutional, legal, and normal requirement, as well to the runaway master as their relinquished slaves, thus answered? I confess that my own mind is compelled by this reasoning to look upon them as men and women. If not free born, yet free, manumitted, sent forth from the hand that held them, never to be reclaimed.
I have no personal knowledge of Butler's thoughts on slavery and black people in general. He may have first refused to return runaway slaves to their masters out of a need to both use their labor to help the army and to hurt their masters. However, this last section certainly seem to me to be the words of an abolitionist. With: "Have they not become, thereupon, men, women, and children? No longer under ownership of any kind" he gives the runaways a status as "human beings", NOT as "property". He further goes on to say that by making the runaways free men and women, all requirements of a society: "constitutional, legal, and normal" are fulfilled. For the Constitution supported keeping them away from their masters under articles of war pertaining to "contraband". In legal matters, if a person is living on free soil (as territory under Union military control could be considered) then slavery is not allowed. As for "normal requirements" what could be more "normal" then a desire to be free from bondage? And with many of the runaway slaves already working in a multitude of capacities for the Union army and earning wages, or simply food and a place to stay, who could not argue that they were doing the work of "free men" not slaves?
First. What shall be done with them? and, Second. What is their state and condition? Upon these questions I desire the instructions of the department.
The first question, however, may perhaps be answered by considering the last. Are these men, women, and children slaves? Are they free? Is their condition that of men, women, and children, or of property, or is it a mixed relation? What their status was under the constitution and laws, we all know. What has been the effect of a rebellion and a state of war upon that status? When I adopted the theory of treating the able-bodied negro fit to work in the trenches as property liable to be used in aid of rebellion, and so contraband of war, that condition of things was in so far met, as I then and still believe, on a legal and constitutional basis.
Butler has recognized that his actions in refusing to surrender escaped slaves back to their masters and his thus utilizing them to aid in the Union's military struggle was an act of military necessity and though it was nominally supported by the federal government, it was a stop-gap measure at best.
But now a new series of questions arise. Passing by women, the children, certainly, cannot be treated on that basis; if property, they must be considered the incumbrance rather than the auxiliary of an army, and, of course, in no possible legal relation could be treated as contraband. Are they property? If they were so, they have been left by their masters and owners, deserted, thrown away, abandoned, like the wrecked vessel upon the ocean. Their former possessors and owners have causelessly, traitorously, rebelliously, and, to carry out the figure, practically abandoned them to be swallowed up by the winter storm of starvation.
The regulations under which Butler had previously seized runaway slaves and used them as labors, he states cannot now be applied to all of the 900 Negros who have fled to his lines. For these numbers include women, children and older people, all of whom could not be expected to the kind of labor that Butler had initially claimed the runaways for. What Butler is clearing asking for is an official ruling by the federal government, something with legs to stand on in order to JUSTIFY his keeping runaway slaves, this time ones not of any great use to the army, from their masters.
But we, their salvors, do not need and will not hold such property, and will assume no such ownership: has not, therefore, all proprietary relation ceased? Have they not become, thereupon, men, women, and children? No longer under ownership of any kind, the fearful relicts of fugitive masters, have they not by their master's acts, and the state of war, assumed the condition, which we hold to be the normal one, of those made in God's image? Is not every constitutional, legal, and normal requirement, as well to the runaway master as their relinquished slaves, thus answered? I confess that my own mind is compelled by this reasoning to look upon them as men and women. If not free born, yet free, manumitted, sent forth from the hand that held them, never to be reclaimed.
I have no personal knowledge of Butler's thoughts on slavery and black people in general. He may have first refused to return runaway slaves to their masters out of a need to both use their labor to help the army and to hurt their masters. However, this last section certainly seem to me to be the words of an abolitionist. With: "Have they not become, thereupon, men, women, and children? No longer under ownership of any kind" he gives the runaways a status as "human beings", NOT as "property". He further goes on to say that by making the runaways free men and women, all requirements of a society: "constitutional, legal, and normal" are fulfilled. For the Constitution supported keeping them away from their masters under articles of war pertaining to "contraband". In legal matters, if a person is living on free soil (as territory under Union military control could be considered) then slavery is not allowed. As for "normal requirements" what could be more "normal" then a desire to be free from bondage? And with many of the runaway slaves already working in a multitude of capacities for the Union army and earning wages, or simply food and a place to stay, who could not argue that they were doing the work of "free men" not slaves?
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Lincoln's Speeches
President Lincoln wrote some powerful speeches in his day. I sure do wish that we could have a Chief Executive with that kind of way with words again.
Lincoln's "First Inaugural Address" was very much focused on the "good of the many outweighing the good of few or the will of the majority taking precedent over the desire of the minority".
"A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left."
He uses the Constitution in attempts to show the South that though he has no intention to mess with slavery where it exists, he also has no LEGAL way of doing so.
"There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:
1) Slavery comments dealt with southern fears that the radical Republicans, who included such vocal anti-slavery proponents as Secretary Seward, would not only prohibit the spread of slavery into the territories, but also seek to make it illegal in the South itself.
2) Paragraphs about the rights of states and individuals, also referred to slaves, since the South wanted stronger enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, as well as protection of their property from the institution of slavery being outlawed.
3) The comment about the Supreme Court was to assure the South that the federal government was going to abide by the rulings of the court who dictated that the slaves had no rights and that the federal government had no Constitutional authority to prohibit ANY one from taking ANY property ANY where in the country.
Throughout the Inaugural Address, Lincoln makes references to the founding of the United States:
"Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union."
Saying in effect that the concept of "Union" might be enforced by the Constitution, but it exists by the will of the people, in order to express their will. A point which I found myself agreeing with.
Though Lincoln's "First Inaugural Address" is a well written speech, which ends with those evocative words:
"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."
"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
It very much seems at times to be more of a civics and law lesson than an inspirational speech. I know that Lincoln is trying to impress upon the South the need for unity and that they have nothing to fear from his administration, but is not, other than the last few paragraphs, a beautiful speech.
"The Gettysburg Address", is a breathtaking and haunting speech, but I am not going to to discuss it in this post. Instead, I wish to compare Lincoln's "First Inaugural Address" to his "Second Inaugural Address".
Lincoln begins by essentially agreeing with my thought that his "First Inaugural Address" was a tad long-winded, but necessary in order to fully explain to his dissatisfied countrymen the state of the Union. Now, such a statement is not needed, since the entire country knows the state of affairs, after having survived the past four years of war. No reminders of the cause of the civil war are needed.
However, Lincoln still fixates on slavery, pushing it front and center as the cause and reason for North and South fighting it out on the battlefield.
"These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war."
He even invokes "God" into the war, taking some of the blame off of the South, by stating that God may have brought this conflict about in order to make the white race pay for the degradations of slavery they inflicted onto the black race.
"Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
Though Lincoln's tone in this speech is not one of outright condemnation of the South, in particular for causing the war as seen in the last excerpt, he doesn't completely let them off the hook:
"While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came."
Yet despite the horrors of the last four years of war, Lincoln is trying NOT to look towards the past, to who caused the war, to the battlefields of slaughter, to slavery. Instead, he has his eyes on a hopeful future; one in which both sides are united again and working together to heal the wounds, both physical and spiritual, caused by this civil war. And he is saying it with some of the most beautiful words ever written:
"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."
Whenever I read these lines, particularly when reading them carved on the Lincoln Memorial, I always get misty-eyed. Lincoln was such a naive and idealistic man, just the type of statesman we need more of right now, who's words cannot help but inspire hope for the future in all who read them, regardless of when or where they live.
Lincoln's "First Inaugural Address" was very much focused on the "good of the many outweighing the good of few or the will of the majority taking precedent over the desire of the minority".
"A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does of necessity fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible. The rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left."
He uses the Constitution in attempts to show the South that though he has no intention to mess with slavery where it exists, he also has no LEGAL way of doing so.
"There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:
No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."Lincoln is speaking directly to the South throughout this entire speech. The paragraphs that talk about slavery, the references to protecting the rights of individuals and states and the comments on respecting the rulings of the Supreme Court were all designed to address certain fears that the South had regarding rule of the country by the Republicans.
1) Slavery comments dealt with southern fears that the radical Republicans, who included such vocal anti-slavery proponents as Secretary Seward, would not only prohibit the spread of slavery into the territories, but also seek to make it illegal in the South itself.
2) Paragraphs about the rights of states and individuals, also referred to slaves, since the South wanted stronger enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act, as well as protection of their property from the institution of slavery being outlawed.
3) The comment about the Supreme Court was to assure the South that the federal government was going to abide by the rulings of the court who dictated that the slaves had no rights and that the federal government had no Constitutional authority to prohibit ANY one from taking ANY property ANY where in the country.
Throughout the Inaugural Address, Lincoln makes references to the founding of the United States:
"Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that in legal contemplation the Union is perpetual confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed, in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured, and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution was "to form a more perfect Union."
Saying in effect that the concept of "Union" might be enforced by the Constitution, but it exists by the will of the people, in order to express their will. A point which I found myself agreeing with.
Though Lincoln's "First Inaugural Address" is a well written speech, which ends with those evocative words:
"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."
"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."
It very much seems at times to be more of a civics and law lesson than an inspirational speech. I know that Lincoln is trying to impress upon the South the need for unity and that they have nothing to fear from his administration, but is not, other than the last few paragraphs, a beautiful speech.
"The Gettysburg Address", is a breathtaking and haunting speech, but I am not going to to discuss it in this post. Instead, I wish to compare Lincoln's "First Inaugural Address" to his "Second Inaugural Address".
Lincoln begins by essentially agreeing with my thought that his "First Inaugural Address" was a tad long-winded, but necessary in order to fully explain to his dissatisfied countrymen the state of the Union. Now, such a statement is not needed, since the entire country knows the state of affairs, after having survived the past four years of war. No reminders of the cause of the civil war are needed.
However, Lincoln still fixates on slavery, pushing it front and center as the cause and reason for North and South fighting it out on the battlefield.
"These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war."
He even invokes "God" into the war, taking some of the blame off of the South, by stating that God may have brought this conflict about in order to make the white race pay for the degradations of slavery they inflicted onto the black race.
"Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."
Though Lincoln's tone in this speech is not one of outright condemnation of the South, in particular for causing the war as seen in the last excerpt, he doesn't completely let them off the hook:
"While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came."
Yet despite the horrors of the last four years of war, Lincoln is trying NOT to look towards the past, to who caused the war, to the battlefields of slaughter, to slavery. Instead, he has his eyes on a hopeful future; one in which both sides are united again and working together to heal the wounds, both physical and spiritual, caused by this civil war. And he is saying it with some of the most beautiful words ever written:
"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."
Whenever I read these lines, particularly when reading them carved on the Lincoln Memorial, I always get misty-eyed. Lincoln was such a naive and idealistic man, just the type of statesman we need more of right now, who's words cannot help but inspire hope for the future in all who read them, regardless of when or where they live.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
General McClellan and his Ego
The unmitigated gaul of General George McClellan never ceases to amazing me. This entire letter is one HUGE lecture to President Lincoln instructing him on how to do the job of President, when any student of history knows that McClellan is the one who needs a lesson in how to do his job. Contained within the paragraphs are several criticisms are Lincoln's policies.
1) McClellan, on one hand, says that "The Constitution and the Union must be preserved, whatever may be the cost in time, treasure and blood." Yet he later on puts conditions on how Lincoln should be executing the war. "It should not be a War looking to the subjugation of the people of any state, in any event. It should not be, at all, a War upon population; but against armed forces and political organizations." How exactly does McClellan expect to win the war? The "high principles of Christian Civilization" just aren't going to cut it.
2) With his comments against the military confiscation of property, McClellan shows himself to be trying to live in the storybook days of "chivalry". In the American Revolution, the colonial government freely took possession of the property of the Tories (those colonists who chose to stay loyal to British rule) and never compensated them for it. War is made by a whole civilization on another whole civilization. This means that ALL members of the society are involved in either fighting, supporting or governing the waring countries, thus ALL members of society have to face the consequences of living in a state of war.
3) McClellan is also rather pro-slavery. He goes to great lengths to stress that slavery is protected by the government, even detailing how the dealings between the Union government and slaveholders should go, with the government compensating the slave owners when they need to make use of slave labor. McClellan even charges that a "declaration of radical views, especially upon slavery, will rapidly disintegrate our present Armies". In fact, as the Democrats learned to their dismay in the election of 1864, the soldiers overwhelmingly supported Lincoln, which included is issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. McClellan consistently, and throughout his entire military career, managed to completely, and totally overestimate everything!
However, it is worth questioning whether he would have moved beyond those politically expedient beliefs (necessary for a Democrat to have) after being elected and realizing what was needed to secure victory is open for interpretation. Personally, I say, oblivious in battle......oblivious in the Presidency.
McClellan goes down in my personal record book as the most over-rated General the Union ever had. I know that the Union had quite a few BAD generals: Hooker and Burnside spring to mind, but none of them had such systematic delusions that McClellan had. He had delusions of grandeur over-estimating his own ability as well as delusions of fear, over-estimating the strength of the enemy. Putting up with him in command for as long as Lincoln did is one of the few faults I can find with our President. I would have given him the sack at least after the Peninsula Campaign. Then again, U.S. Grant is one of my heroes, so I am probably more than a tad biased.
*** Side note, if this essay is a bit chaotic and not as well put-together as my previous ones, I apologize. I am sick and perhaps not in possession of my full faculties. But I still have more of them, even in my weakened state than McClellan did! ***
1) McClellan, on one hand, says that "The Constitution and the Union must be preserved, whatever may be the cost in time, treasure and blood." Yet he later on puts conditions on how Lincoln should be executing the war. "It should not be a War looking to the subjugation of the people of any state, in any event. It should not be, at all, a War upon population; but against armed forces and political organizations." How exactly does McClellan expect to win the war? The "high principles of Christian Civilization" just aren't going to cut it.
2) With his comments against the military confiscation of property, McClellan shows himself to be trying to live in the storybook days of "chivalry". In the American Revolution, the colonial government freely took possession of the property of the Tories (those colonists who chose to stay loyal to British rule) and never compensated them for it. War is made by a whole civilization on another whole civilization. This means that ALL members of the society are involved in either fighting, supporting or governing the waring countries, thus ALL members of society have to face the consequences of living in a state of war.
3) McClellan is also rather pro-slavery. He goes to great lengths to stress that slavery is protected by the government, even detailing how the dealings between the Union government and slaveholders should go, with the government compensating the slave owners when they need to make use of slave labor. McClellan even charges that a "declaration of radical views, especially upon slavery, will rapidly disintegrate our present Armies". In fact, as the Democrats learned to their dismay in the election of 1864, the soldiers overwhelmingly supported Lincoln, which included is issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. McClellan consistently, and throughout his entire military career, managed to completely, and totally overestimate everything!
However, it is worth questioning whether he would have moved beyond those politically expedient beliefs (necessary for a Democrat to have) after being elected and realizing what was needed to secure victory is open for interpretation. Personally, I say, oblivious in battle......oblivious in the Presidency.
McClellan goes down in my personal record book as the most over-rated General the Union ever had. I know that the Union had quite a few BAD generals: Hooker and Burnside spring to mind, but none of them had such systematic delusions that McClellan had. He had delusions of grandeur over-estimating his own ability as well as delusions of fear, over-estimating the strength of the enemy. Putting up with him in command for as long as Lincoln did is one of the few faults I can find with our President. I would have given him the sack at least after the Peninsula Campaign. Then again, U.S. Grant is one of my heroes, so I am probably more than a tad biased.
*** Side note, if this essay is a bit chaotic and not as well put-together as my previous ones, I apologize. I am sick and perhaps not in possession of my full faculties. But I still have more of them, even in my weakened state than McClellan did! ***
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