A House-Divided

[HerbS]

In a tiny Hamlet of Fishers,NY-South of Rochester,NY is a weathered modest little house on Log Cabin Road.The NYState Historical marker was,weathered,faded,and 3"off the ground.This household had Two Brothers who died for their cause,one for the Union,one for the Confederacy!No one lives there now and I asked a firefighter where it was located.Boy,If walls could talk!

[LincolnMan]

Sadly, that situation was probably not all that uncommon...

[L Verge]

My great-grandmother Huntt had two brothers with divided loyalties. One fought for the Union and one for the Confederacy. Both survived the war (including the Confederate who spent over a year as a prisoner at Point Lookout). They would come together at family functions, but they never acknowledged or spoke to each other for the rest of their lives.

The one who had been a prisoner carried a running sore on his ankle to the day he died. He contracted infection from striking his ankle with a pick-ax while serving on grave detail in the prison. The filth there was horrible.

[Bill Richter]

The point that Herb made was that this divided family came from and unexpected place--upstate new York not a border state. I'd like to hear those walls talk, too.

[LincolnMan]

Bill: you're right. I completely missed that!

[HerbS]

To the two Bills,That is what blew my mind also.I have read letters from Union soldiers to their mother,asking if their father has become a copperhead!That is why I am a firm believer in my letter to Lincoln warning him of his assassination-Post Marked-Dansville,NY-2-21-1865.I feel Lincoln was a target for Upstate New Yorkers!

[LincolnMan]

Wow Herb!

[L Verge]

I was aware of the fact that we were talking upstate New York. I happen to consider New York a divided state from the get-go. That's why I want to see Herb pursue his letter. Len Guttridge was pursuing the address of Dansville about thirty years ago. Maryland had a Dansville address also - about three miles east of T.B.

[HerbS]

Laurie,I am getting too worn out to pursue"The Letter To Lincoln".Postmarked-Dansville,NY-2-21-1865.Maybe some one on this forum has the energy to totally research it!

[HerbS]

Update---I interviewed the current owner of "The House Divided"today.She knew the History of the House.They were Irish Immigrants and the two brothers had very strong beliefs on slavery.She did not know if they survived the war.She said that she is the 5th owner of the House and the"paper work" [deeds] has vanished!

[maharba]

In his 1858 House Divided address, Abraham Lincoln was now advancing Abolitionist doctrines. But the U.S. Constitution made written provisions for slavery. Abolitionists wanted the Constitution done away with.

"I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free."

But for 70 years this 'more perfect Union' had endured, until disunionists kept a constant lobbying for its destruction. The old insane man John Brown was funded by abolitionists, had intent to destroy the Union and Constitution. Robert E. Lee put a sudden end to that abolitionist scheme, at Harpers Ferry.

"I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect
the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided."

"...such decision is probably coming, and will soon be
upon us, unless the power of the present political dynasty
shall be met and overthrown."

"...and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State.
"To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty, is the work now before...This is what we have to do."

Lincoln falsely parodied Chief Justice Taney with an alarmist prediction. He urges in the House Divided speech to overthrow the dynasty, the work before us to do. Even Lincoln's friends and advisors did not like this speech, telling him it cost him the (Senate) election. They appear to have anticipated what the South heard there. Another abolitionist who both disdained the Constitution and reviled its Highest Court.

[Gene C]

I'm not so sure Lincoln "disdained the Constitution and reviled its Highest Court", as much as he felt an injustice was occurring, and that legal/political corrective actions needed to be taken. A great wrong needed to be righted.

[Eva Elisabeth]

I second Gene. Mahraba, could you please explain the sentence "Lincoln falsely parodied Chief Justice Taney with an alarmist prediction" to me and to whom "another abolitionist who both disdained the Constitution and reviled its Highest Court" refers? Thank you.

Also I'd like to know if you found it wrong what Abraham Lincoln intended? What would you have done?

[Wild Bill]

"I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect
the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided."

"...such decision is probably coming, and will soon be
upon us, unless the power of the present political dynasty
shall be met and overthrown."

"...and we shall awake to the reality, instead, that the Supreme Court has made Illinois a slave State.
"To meet and overthrow the power of that dynasty, is the work now before...This is what we have to do."

Lincoln did not falsely parody C.J.Taney. If one reads these three quotes Lincoln is right on the money. He was correct that the decision of the Court in Dred Scott DID in effect turn Illinois into a slave state. It turned all states into slave states. It was coming down the road in a new case coming up through the Federal court system, Lemmon v. the People of the State of New York.

This is the case which would end the notion of the nation being half slave and half free hinted at in Dred Scott by making all states slave states. So long as the slaveholder remained a citizen of his/her original slave state he/she could take and hold and exploit his/her slave property anywhere in the Union, in its states or territories. John C. Calhoun, ten to fifteen years before Dred Scott, while he was Secretary of State under President Tyler, even maintained that slavery could be exploited anywhere in the world, although he referred to the then Republic of Texas and the British West Indies.

The leading light in this notion was actually Secretary of War Abel Upshur of Virginia, but he was killed accidentally in the testing of the Dahlgren naval cannon in 1844. It was all based on the concept that slavery had a special place in the US Constitution because art 4, sect. 2, clause 2, gave it an extraterritorial character that meant slave law adhered to the back of a slave anywhere the slave went in the US and its territories, or indeed in the world, until the master to mistress freed the slave. This was the basis of Dred Scott and was ready to be expanded by the US Supreme Court that had the same make-up as the court that decided Dred Scott.

The South had won the Constitutional/legal argument. This is why so many other Southern states refused to secede after the first seven, until Lincoln fired on Ft Sumter. This is why there had to be a 13th Amendment beyond the Emancipation Proclamation--to get rid of extraterritoriality once and for all. This is also why Lincoln and the Republicans started the Civil War intentionally to achieve this end to slavery and all of its extraterritorial aspects.

Contrary to what historians usually say about Taney deciding wrongly in Dred Scott, Lincoln saw have he decided correctly and emancipation would have to be accomplished militarily by invading the South. He never really admitted to this until half-way through the war. Instead he said that it was fought for Union. The four border states believed him and they never seceded. West Virginia separated from Virginia under the same idea--the war was fought for Union.

Read Thomas DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln (2002); Walter Williams, The Civil War Wasn't About Slavery, Jewish World Review, Dec 2 1998; James Oaks, Freedom National (2013), Arthur Brestor, State Sovereignty and Slavery, Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, 53 (1960), 117-80; William J Cooper, "The Critical Signpost on the Journey toward Secession," Journal of Southern History, 77 (2011), 16 ff. All of this is summarized in my The Assassinator (2015) and my upcoming book The Last Shot.

[Eva Elisabeth]

Lincoln did not falsely parody C.J.Taney. If one reads these three quotes Lincoln is right on the money. He was correct that the decision of the Court in Dred Scott DID in effect turn Illinois into a slave state. It turned all states into slave states.

Thanks, Bill, this has always been my understanding of the ongoings.

Factually I agree on "the South had won the Constitutional/legal argument", just to me this was morally/ethically wrong from the outset thus as well as it was to maintain it (while I do not say all abolitionists had entirety such altruistic motives). Subsequently while some of Lincoln's decisions/actions may legally have been questionable, yet to me they were legitimate. Factually also the Confederates fired the first shot.

I wonder what would have happened had Seward not foolishly undermined Lincoln's initial reinforcement plan. (Not that I think it would have changed anything on the whole.)

What do you estimate - without the CW, for how long would slavery have continued to legally exist in the worst case?