The Confederate and Neo-Confederate Reader: The Great Truth about the Lost Cause

439 Pages·2010·3.75 MB·English

by  James W. Loewen

The ConfederaTe and
neo-ConfederaTe reader

The ConfederaTe and
neo-ConfederaTe reader
The “Great Truth” about the “Lost Cause”
Edited by James W. Loewen
and Edward H. Sebesta
university press of mississippi / jackson
www.upress.state.ms.us
Designed by Peter D. Halverson
The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of
American University Presses.
Copyright © 2010 by University Press of Mississippi
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing 2010
∞
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Confederate and neo-Confederate reader : the great truth about the
lost cause / edited by James W. Loewen and Edward H. Sebesta.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-60473-218-4 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-60473-219-1
(pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-60473-788-2 (ebook) 1. Confederate
States of America—Sources. 2. Southern States—History—19th
century—Sources. 3. Southern States—History—20th century—Sources.
4. United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Causes—Sources. 5.
United States—History—Civil War, 1861–1865—Influence—Sources. I.
Loewen, James W. II. Sebesta, Edward H.
F215.C75 2010
973.7'13—dc22 2010008340
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
ConTenTs
Acknowledgments and Photo Credits xiii
inTroduCTion
Unknown Well-Known Documents 3
ChapTer 1
The Gathering Storm (1787–1860) 22
Debate over Slavery at the Constitutional Convention, August 21–22, 1787 25
John C. Calhoun (1782–1850), “On Abolition Petitions,” U.S. Senate,
February 6, 1837 30
Alabama Platform, February 14–15, 1848 36
John C. Calhoun (1782–1850), “Address to the Southern People,” U.S. Senate,
January 22, 1849 40
James H. Thornwell (1812–62), The Rights and the Duties of the Masters,
May 26, 1850 50
Resolves of the Southern Convention at Nashville, June 10–11, 1850 55
Journal, Resolution, and Ordinance, State Convention of South Carolina,
April 26–30, 1852 60
Two Images of Slavery: Confederate $100 Bill (1862) and Obelisk, Fort Mill,
South Carolina (1895) 62
Samuel A. Cartwright (1793–1863), “Diseases and Peculiarities of the
Negro Race,” 1851 64
Vi Contents
Slave Jail, Alexandria, c. 1859 71
Jefferson Davis (1808–89), “Endorsement”; T. L. Clingman (1812–97),
“Endorsement”; and J. H. Van Evrie (1814–96), “Negroes and Negro ‘Slavery,’
The First an Inferior Race—The Latter, Its Normal Condition,” 1853 73
George Fitzhugh (1806–81), Cannibals All! Or Slaves Without Masters, 1857 80
Alexander H. Stephens (1812–83), “Speech on the Bill to Admit Kansas as a State
under the Topeka Constitution,” House of Representatives, June 28, 1856 82
Jefferson Davis (1808–89), Speech at State Fair, Augusta, Maine,
September 29, 1858 87
John B. Gordon (1832–1904), “An Address Delivered Before the Thalian &
Phi Delta Societies of Oglethorpe University,” June 18, 1860 89
ChapTer 2
Secession (1859–1861) 92
South Carolina General Assembly, “Resolutions for a Southern Convention,”
December 22, 1859 94
Jefferson Davis, Congressional Resolutions on “Relations of States,”
U.S. Senate, March 1, 1860 96
Official Proceedings of the Democratic Convention, April 28–May 1, 1860 98
Benjamin Palmer (1818–1902), “Thanksgiving Sermon,” November 29, 1860 104
Christiana Banner, 1994 (1911, 1851) 109
South Carolina Secession Convention, “Declaration of the Immediate Causes
Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal
Union,” December 24, 1860 111
South Carolina Secession Convention, “The Address of the People of South
Carolina, Assembled in Convention, To the People of the Slaveholding States
of the United States 1861,” December 24, 1860 118
Mississippi Secession Convention, “A Declaration of the Immediate Causes
Which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the
Federal Union,” January 26, 1861 127
Florida Secession Convention, “Cause for Secession,” January 7, 1861 130
Contents Vii
Alabama Secession Convention, “Resolution of Resistance,” January 7, 1861,
and “Ordinance of Secession,” January 11, 1861 131
Georgia Committee of Seventeen, “Report on Causes for Secession,”
January 29, 1861 133
Texas Secession Convention, “A Declaration of the Causes Which Impel the
State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union,” February 2, 1861 140
George Williamson (1829–82), Louisiana Secession Commissioner, “Letter
to President and Gentlemen of the Convention of the People of Texas,”
February 11, 1861 145
Henry L. Benning (1814–75), “Address Delivered Before the Virginia State
Convention,” February 18, 1861 149
Virginia Secession Convention, “Resolutions,” March 28–April 5, 1861 153
Arkansas Secession Convention, “Resolutions,” March 11, 1861 156
Isham Harris (1818–97), Governor of Tennessee, “Message to the Legislature,”
January 7, 1861 160
John W. Ellis (1820–61), Governor of North Carolina, “Proclamation,”
April 17, 1861 166
ChapTer 3
Civil War (1861–1865) 167
Jefferson Davis (1808–89), “Farewell to the U.S. Senate,” January 21, 1861 170
Jefferson Davis (1808–89), “Message to the Confederate Congress about
Ratification of the Constitution,” April 29, 1861 175
The Constitution of the Confederate States of America, March 11, 1861 182
Alexander H. Stephens (1812–83), “African Slavery: The Corner-Stone of the
Southern Confederacy,” March 22, 1861 187
Governor H. M. Rector (1816–99), Letter to Colonel Sam Leslie,
November 28, 1861 191
Three National Flags of the Confederacy, 1861, 1863, 1865 193
Viii Contents
William T. Thompson (1812–82), “Proposed Designs for the 2nd National
Confederate Flag,” April–May 1863 194
Jefferson Davis (1808–89), “Message to the Confederate Congress,”
January 12, 1863 198
Confederate Congress, “Response of the Confederate Congress to Message
from Jefferson Davis on the Emancipation Proclamation,” May 1, 1863 201
Richard Taylor (1826–79), Edmund Kirby Smith (1824–93), “Treatment of
African American Prisoners of War,” June 8, 13, 16, 1863 203
Fort Pillow Massacre, April 12, 1864 206
John R. Eakin (1822–55), “The Slave Soldiers,” June 8, 1864 209
Henry Hotze (1833–87), “The Negro’s Place in Nature,” December 10, 1863 213
Robert E. Lee (1807–70), Letter to Hon. Andrew Hunter, January 11, 1865 216
Macon Telegraph, Editorial Opposing Enlistment of African Americans,
January 6, 1865 219
Howell Cobb (1815–68), Letter to James A. Seddon, Secretary of War,
January 8, 1865 221
J. H. Stringfellow (1819–1905), Letter to President Jefferson Davis, February 8, 1865 223
General Orders, No. 14, An Act to Increase the Military Force of the Confederate
States, approved March 13, 1865 228
ChapTer 4
Reconstruction and Fusion (1866–1890) 230
Edmund Rhett Jr., “Letter to Armistead Burt,” October 14, 1865 234
Mississippi’s Black Code, November 24–29, 1865 237
Robert E. Lee (1807–70), Testimony before the Congressional Joint Committee
on Reconstruction, February 17, 1866 240
Rushmore G. Horton (1826–68), “A Youth’s History of the Great Civil War in the
United States from 1861 to 1865,” 1867 242
Jack Kershaw (1913– ), Statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, 1998 247
Contents iX
Edward A. Pollard (1831–72), “The Lost Cause Regained,” 1868 249
Alexander H. Stephens (1812–83), “Conclusion,” A Constitutional View of the
Late War Between the States, 1868 251
Robert E. Lee (1807–70), “The White Sulphur Manifesto,” August 26, 1868 254
John B. Gordon (1832–1904), “To the Colored People,” address in Charleston,
South Carolina, September 11, 1868 257
Ku Klux Klan Postcard, c. 1937 259
R. L. Dabney (1820–98), “Women’s Rights Women,” 1871 260
Jubal A. Early (1816–94), “Speech to the Southern Historical Society,”
August 14, 1873 267
Jefferson Davis (1808–89), “Slavery Not the Cause, but an Incident,” 1881 271
ChapTer 5
The Nadir of Race Relations, 1890–1940 277
J. L. M. Curry (1825–1903), The Southern States of the American Union, 1895 283
Stephen D. Lee (1833–1908), “The Negro Problem,” 1899 286
White Mob Burns Black Businesses in Wilmington, North Carolina,
November 10, 1898 294
S. A. Cunningham (1843–1913), “M’Kinley, Roosevelt, and the Negro,” January 1903 296
S. A. Cunningham, “Problem of the Negroes,” January 1907 299
John Sharp Williams (1854–1932), “Issues of the War Discussed,” November 1904 301
John Singleton Mosby (1833–1916), Letter to Sam Chapman, July 4, 1907 304
E. H. Hinton (1852–1916), “The Negro and the South: Review of Race
Relationships and Conditions,” August 1907 306
South Carolina Confederate Women’s Monument, 1912 312
C. E. Workman, “Reconstruction Days in South Carolina,” July 1921 314
Mildred Rutherford (1852–1928), “The War Was Not a Civil War,” January 1923 320