Over the last few years I have been noticing the constant drumbeat of apologists for the Confederacy getting louder and louder. Usually I ignore it but lately it has got to the point where I can no longer do that. Defenders of the Old South know their talking points and most other people don’t know their American history well enough to know if these neo-Confederates are being reasonable. However, I am one the people who does know better and I want to chip my two cents in.
I follow a YouTube streamer that goes by the name of RazörFist. He has an on screen persona I enjoy and he is fun to watch play video games. A few weeks ago he posted a video on what a horrible person Abraham Lincoln was. I didn’t bother to watch but figured I knew what he was going to say. Then, a few weeks later, he appeared on another channel I subscribe to named Blonde in the Belly of the Beast. The video is “RazörFist on Lincoln’s Tyranny & Modern-day Secession.” Oh bother, RazörFist is taking his show on the road and will talk to anyone who will listen. I decided I should listen to the video to find out what’s going on. It was everything I wasn’t hoping for and more!
I couldn’t make even twenty minutes into the show. The discussion featured many unsupported assertions and just plain bad mouthing of Lincoln. Many statements are serious misrepresentations of events around Lincoln and the Civil War and take a very strong Confederate bias.
Below I am going to respond to a few of the assertions they made. But, first I want to point out the tactic they are using; it’s called the Gish Gallop:
Gish gallop is a fallacious debate tactic in which a person uses as many arguments as possible against their opponent, without any consideration into the strength of the arguments.
The arguer’s aim is to quickly back their position with a large amount of “evidence”, however, it is typically hastily put together, inaccurate, and even irrelevant to the issue at hand. In fact, the more arguments one can come up with, and the vaguer they are, the more effective the tactic becomes.
As such, the Gish gallop fallacy only focuses on the quantity of the arguments, not quality, in order to achieve its objective: to make it too difficult for the opponent to respond. As a result, the person committing it seemingly gains an upper hand in the debate.
You will notice that the amount of material I provide took a lot more than twenty minutes to pull together and that’s the point. The crew on the podcast put out a fire hose of information to place opponents on the defensive.
RazörFist made the comment that someone on YouTube tried to refute him but didn’t touch on all his points. No doubt that’s true. After an hour of that kind of explosive verbosity it is almost impossible to respond. RazörFist demands detail when all he provides is a superficial discussion. In my response I am not trying to cover every point he made, or thinks he made. Rather, I want anyone finding this post to compare the detail I provide with the quick hits RazörFist provides. If what I say checks out then please don’t trust what RazörFist tells you. If the first twenty minutes of the video are garbage then it’s a pretty good bet that the last thirty-five minutes are garbage too. Now, let’s get started.
Claim 1: Lincoln arrested thirteen-thousand Americans to quell unrest!
What RazörFist and Rachel were referring to here is when Lincoln unilaterally suspended the Writ of Habeas Corpus on April 27, 1861. It’s important to understand what a Writ of Habeas Corpus is:
In its simplest form a writ of habeas corpus requires that a person who is in custody be brought before a judge or court and that they be able to challenge that custody. The writ of habeas corpus is used to attack an unlawful detention or illegal imprisonment.
Oh my, this looks bad for Lincoln! The Writ of Habeas Corpus is a Constitutional right and Lincoln suspended it unilaterally! Well, that’s not the whole story. In fact it’s not even half the story. Here is the clause in the Constitution that speaks to suspension of Habeas Corpus:
Article I, Section 9, Clause 2:
The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.
The privilege of Habeas Corpus can be suspended in times of rebellion. Also, note that this clause does not specify who can suspend the Writ. It was the position of Lincoln and his administration that the President held this power. Also, Congress did enact legislation authorizing suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus on March 3, 1863 so whether or not Lincoln had Constitutional authority was moot at that point. Frankly there doesn’t seem to have been a lot of pushback against President Lincoln for this action.
For anyone out there who is interested in reading about the legal issues in more detail there are two legal articles which provide a lot of history as well as legal analysis:
- Lincoln’s Suspension of the Writ of Habeas Corpus: An Historical and Constitutional Analysis
- The Power to Suspend Habeas Corpus: An Answer from the Arguments Surrounding Ex Parte Merryman
Footnote 86 on page 24 in the later article provides background on how many people were arrested under the suspension of the Writ. This part of footnote 86 (it’s along footnote) from page 24 is quite interesting:
Neely also provides an in-depth analysis of the different figures used by historians, as well as the problems inherent in attempting to obtain a precise count of arrests. Id. at 113-38. He ultimately contends that, while it is clear that there were more than 13,353 citizens arrested, the significance for civil liberties was small, since many of those arrested were in fact citizens of the Confederacy. Id. at 137-38.
So that nasty Lincoln was arresting a lot of fifth columnists? How dare he!
Also left out of the sound bite is why Lincoln felt the need to suspend the Writ of Habeas Corpus. The linked articles provide a lot of background but neither of them discusses the attack on the 6th Massachusetts Volunteer Militia in Baltimore dubbed the Baltimore Riot. The Baltimore Riot makes for an interesting read if you like history.
I can go on but it is certainly not clear that Lincoln exceeded his constitutional authority or that there isn’t cause. This was a misrepresentation by RazörFist and Rachel.
Claim 2: Lincoln never opposed slavery!
This is a half truth and, of course, there is a lot more to the story than the drive by mention it was given in the show. Lincoln was opposed to slavery but he wasn’t an abolitionist, he was a “free soiler.” This means he was opposed to admitting any more slave states to the Union. This, he believed, would put slavery on the road to ultimate extinction. At the time of his election I don’t think Lincoln expected to see the end of slavery in his lifetime.
If anyone is interested in a deep dive into the subject you may want to check out the article “Lincoln’s Colonization Plan and the Political Realities of Emancipation.” Here is a sample from that article:
In the 1860 election, the Republican Party platform labeled the Democratic Party’s support for the Kansas Nebraska Act as “deception and fraud” and equated the extension of slavery into the territories as a violation of America’s founding principles (Republican). Abraham Lincoln was not an abolitionist, which was a radical minority group in mid-19th century America, but he did appeal to the “free soil” majority of the Republican Party, who wanted to keep the west open as a land of opportunity for free, not slave labor.
Maybe school kids think Lincoln ran on an abolitionist platform but no one who is familiar with the subject would think that.
RazörFist and Rachel also made a big deal out of Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address and that he didn’t call for abolition of slavery. That address was in agreement with the Republican Party platform of 1860 and what Lincoln made clear in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates. Those debates made Lincoln famous nationally and ultimately led to his election as President. There was nothing surprising or out of character in the inaugural address.
Claim 3: There were many causes for the Civil War and slavery was just one of them
RazörFist and Rachel downplayed the role of slavery in the secession crisis and claimed there were many causes for the Civil War. That is, once again, partly true. The South listed many causes in their secession documents:
- Confederate States of America – Georgia Secession
- Confederate States of America – Mississippi Secession
- Confederate States of America – Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union
- Confederate States of America – A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union
While there were many causes it would be a mistake to say that all causes were of equal importance. Since Lincoln was going to openly fight the admission of new slave states to the Union, the South was going to see a gradual loss of power and influence which they could not tolerate.
In his book, The Impending Crisis, 1848-1861, David M. Potter makes the case that, as soon as the United States won the Mexican-American War, Civil War was inevitable. The addition of huge amounts of territory in the west would push sectional differences over slavery to the fore. The sectional strife over slavery started in earnest in 1820 with the Missouri Compromise and the Mexican-American War was the coup de grâce.
Claim 4: People should not conflate secession with civil war.
This is an especially weak assertion. While the South asserted a Constitutional right to secession the North denied it (see the articles: “So, You Believe in States’ Rights. Which Kind?” and “Do States Have a Constitutional Right to Secede?”). The North rightly held secession to be an act of rebellion.
Of course if you want to be really pedantic about it the cause of the Civil War was the bombardment of Fort Sumter beginning on April 12, 1861.
That ties into another unsupported assertion that Lincoln was landing Union troops in the South. I think they meant (once again they weren’t very clear) was that Lincoln resupplying Fort Sumter, SC and Fort Pickens, FL was a violation of Confederate sovereignty. See, that silly boy Lincoln didn’t believe secession was Constitutional so he wasn’t willing to hand U.S. military installations over to the Confederacy.
Claim 5: The Civil War was preventable because slavery could have been ended peaceably.
I have heard other Confederate apologists say the same thing and it’s just not true. RazörFist and Rachel tied this into the British abolishing slavery in the West Indies and then claiming the United States could have followed suit. The South was very aware of British emancipation and they didn’t like British abolitionists any more than they liked Yankee abolitionists.
A few quotes should clear this misunderstanding up. There are two quotes from John C. Calhoun’s 1837 floor speech in the Senate regarding abolition petitions:
It is impossible under the deadly hatred which must spring up between the two great nations, if the present causes are permitted to operate unchecked, that we should continue under the same political system. The conflicting elements would burst the Union asunder, powerful as are the links which hold it together. Abolition and the Union cannot coexist. As the friend of the Union I openly proclaim it—and the sooner it is known the better. The former may now be controlled, but in a short time it will be beyond the power of man to arrest the course of events. We of the South will not, cannot, surrender our institutions [slavery].
And this gem:
But I take higher ground. I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slaveholding states between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good—a positive good. I feel myself called upon to speak freely upon the subject where the honor and interests of those I represent are involved. I hold then, that there never has yet existed a wealthy and civilized society in which one portion of the community did not, in point of fact, live on the labor of the other.
Of course this speech was given in 1837 (the British eliminated slavery in 1833) and you may wonder if Southern attitudes had softened by the time of the Civil War. Well, I think Chief Justice Roger Taney in his famous Dred Scott Decision in 1857 can help us:
They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold, and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever a profit could be made by it. This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute; and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern; without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion.
[…]
No one, we presume, supposes that any change in public opinion or feeling, in relation to this unfortunate race, in the civilized nations of Europe or in this country, should induce the court to give to the words of the Constitution a more liberal construction in their favor than they were intended to bear when the instrument was framed and adopted. Such an argument would be altogether inadmissible in any tribunal called on to interpret it. If any of its provisions are deemed unjust, there is a mode prescribed in the instrument itself, by which it may be amended; but while it remains unaltered, it must be construed now as it was understood at the time of its adoption. It is not only the same in words, but the same in meaning, and delegates the same powers to the Government, and reserves and secures the same rights and privileges to the citizen; and as long as it continues to exist in its present form, it speaks not only in the same words, but with the same meaning and intent with which it spoke when it came from the hands of its framers, and was voted on and adopted by the people of the United States.
I would like to also include a quote from the epilog of Matthew Karp’s book This Vast Southern Empire:
In the decades before the Civil war, slaveholders organized U.S. foreign policy around the effort to defend slavery throughout the Western Hemisphere. They did this not simply to guard their property rights or to solidify their social order, but because they understood slavery as a vital element of global progress. It was the appointed destiny of the United States, slaveholders believed, to uphold the institutions that nourished modern civilization. Only a political revolution that was unprecedented and unrivaled in American experience drove them from power. Even their ultimate defeat unfolded on the grandest of scales: no other slaveholding class in human history led a rebellion that claimed three-quarters of a million lives. Its triumphs, its downfall, and its legacy attest to the vast breadth and fierce confidence of the proslavery political vision. We can be grateful that slaveholders never gained the world they craved, but we achieve nothing by failing to take the true measure of its dimensions.
Karp, Matthew, “This Vast Southern Empire” (Harvard University Press, 2018), p. 256
The South’s position on slavery really shouldn’t be in doubt.
Claim 6: Slaves were able to have money and hold patents prior to the Civil War.
What part of chattel slavery don’t you all understand? This was the condition of all slaves in the United States until they were freed:
- Slaves were not citizens and had no rights as enumerated in the Constitution.
- Slaves could not legally own, or have title, to any form of property. They did not own their own bodies much less the shirts on their backs.
- Slaves could not enter into legal contracts. This includes marriage which is a legal contract.
- Slaves had no right of redress in American courts. If some white boy molested a slave’s daughter then the only legal recourse was if a free white brought charges in court on their behalf. What could possibly go wrong with that?
Assumed Claim: States have a constitutional right to secede from the Union.
I never made it far enough into the video to see their defense of secession but it was obviously coming. What good does it do to flack for the Confederacy if you don’t defend secession? Please see these two articles which I wrote:
The South had no right to secede and neither do we. If you want to go down that path then just claim the U.S. Government has been flagrantly violating the Constitution for over 100 years and the Social Contract is in breach. That’s so much easier than pimping for the Slave Power.
That’s all I’m going to write for now. I’ve spent way too much time refuting things that shouldn’t have to be refuted. This defense of the Confederacy, at the very least, was misplaced. Please don’t believe them!