i saw this yesterday in the ajc, it is great
Maybe DeKalb employees can open their duty day with a two minute hate at the monument.
The new plaque says, "the real catalyst," the definite article "the" followed by the singular noun means "sole" or "only." This is, of course, ludicrous and easily proven so. All one would have to do to disprove the assertion is to find some other reason, any other reason, for which the state declared its intention to leave the Union. To the proof by quotations.
Georgia Secession Declaration
The people of …our non-slave-holding confederate States … have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility,† and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, ‡ … The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the South not at all. In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests. Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and $500,000 is now paid them annually out of the Treasury. The navigating interests begged for protection against foreign shipbuilders and against competition in the coasting trade. Congress granted both requests, and by prohibitory acts gave an absolute monopoly of this business to each of their interests, which they enjoy without diminution to this day. Not content with these great and unjust advantages, they have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of light-houses, buoys, and the maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and the Government now pays above $2,000,000 annually for the support of these objects. These interests, in connection with the commercial and manufacturing classes, have also succeeded, by means of subventions to mail steamers and the reduction in postage, in relieving their business from the payment of about $7,000,000 annually, throwing it upon the public Treasury under the name of postal deficiency. The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early, and has clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors. This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States. Wielding these great States it held great power and influence, and its demands were in full proportion to its power. The manufacturers and miners wisely based their demands upon special facts and reasons rather than upon general principles, and thereby mollified much of the opposition of the opposing interest. They pleaded in their favor the infancy of their business in this country, the scarcity of labor and capital, the hostile legislation of other countries toward them, the great necessity of their fabrics in the time of war, and the necessity of high duties to pay the debt incurred in our war for independence. These reasons prevailed, and they received for many years enormous bounties by the general acquiescence of the whole country.* …
The faithless conduct of our adversaries is not confined to such acts as might aggrandize themselves or their section of the Union. They are content if they can only injure us. The Constitution declares that persons charged with crimes in one State and fleeing to another shall be delivered up on the demand of the executive authority of the State from which they may flee, to be tried in the jurisdiction where the crime was committed. It would appear difficult to employ language freer from ambiguity, yet for above twenty years the non-slave-holding States generally have wholly refused to deliver up to us persons charged with crimes affecting slave property.** Our confederates, with punic faith, shield and give sanctuary to all criminals who seek to deprive us of this property or who use it to destroy us. This clause of the Constitution has no other sanction than their good faith; that is withheld from us; we are remediless in the Union; out of it we are remitted to the laws of nations.# …
The public law of civilized nations requires every State to restrain its citizens or subjects from committing acts injurious to the peace and security of any other State and from attempting to excite insurrection, or to lessen the security, or to disturb the tranquillity of their neighbors, and our Constitution wisely gives Congress the power to punish all offenses against the laws of nations.
These are sound and just principles which have received the approbation of just men in all countries and all centuries; but they are wholly disregarded by the people of the Northern States, and the Federal Government is impotent to maintain them. For twenty years past the abolitionists and their allies in the Northern States have been engaged in constant efforts to subvert our institutions and to excite insurrection and servile war among us. They have sent emissaries among us for the accomplishment of these purposes. Some of these efforts have received the public sanction of a majority of the leading men of the Republican party in the national councils, the same men who are now proposed as our rulers. These efforts have in one instance led to the actual invasion of one of the slave-holding States, and those of the murderers and incendiaries who escaped public justice by flight have found fraternal protection among our Northern confederates.
These are the same men who say the Union shall be preserved. …
They give sanctuary to thieves and incendiaries who assail it to the whole extent of their power, in spite of their most solemn obligations and covenants; because their avowed purpose is to subvert our society and subject us not only to the loss of our property but the destruction of ourselves, our wives, and our children, and the desolation of our homes, our altars, and our firesides. To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our fathers delegated to the Government of the United States, and henceforth will seek new safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and tranquillity.
Approved, Tuesday, January 29, 1861
† Here Georgia is referring to the act of terrorism committed at Harper’s Ferry in October 1859, an attack Republicans knew about a year and a half before it happened but did nothing to prevent.
‡ You might think this is referring to the fugitives form labor clause, but Toombs (the drafter of the declaration) was referring to the fugitives from justice clause of the Constitution.
* Here, Toombs is referring to what we now call “crony capitalism,” and the Morrill Tariff, first proposed in May 1860 which greatly increased the protection of northern industry and impoverished, to an equal degree consumers in the agricultural South and Midwest.
** Here Toombs is referring to the official protection given to men of John Brown’s “army” who escaped in the aftermath of the Harper’s Ferry raid. These men, Barclay Coppoc, Francis Merriam and Owen Brown, escaped to state with Republican governors and those Republican governors refused to honor requests for their arrest and extradition, even though the Constitution demands the arrest of fugitives from justice.
# Here Toombs echoes statements he made in his speech in the Senate of the United States in January 1860 and before the Georgia legislature in November 1860. The jus gentium applies to relations between nations. Since Ohio and Iowa were inside the United States, Georgia only protection against what would otherwise be violations of international law was the constitution of the United States. The governors of Ohio and Iowa (Republicans the both of them) set that at naught. If, however, Georgia were outside the Union, the jus gentium would apply and Georgia would have the protections of international law to protect her against further outrages from citizens of Ohio or Iowa.
If "the real catalyst," the sole and exclusive cause was slavery (which Abraham Lincoln took pains to assure his audience in his first inaugural he had neither the intention or power to threaten), then Georgia would have said simply, "Lincoln is threatening our right to own slaves" and left it at that. QED.
DeKalb County is not setting the record straight, it is twisting history for political purposes. This is not a new tactic (see 1984 and the entire history of communism), but it is disreputable.
