MaineMilitia.com

If South Carolina goes out surely our beloved Georgia must follow suit! Down with this treacherous Union!

Will Cotton
Dec. 17, 1860

Oh and on December 17, 1903 a couple of guys from Ohio spent a few moments in a self-propelled gizmo floating over a sand dune off North Carolina.

But other wise, not much happened on this day in history. :)

--
Michael Johnson

Confederate 'State's Rights', a brief history

The Confederate view of 'States Rights' is based on four aspects: 1) Property and the institution of slavery; 2) Soft money Agrarian vs National commercial Bank system; 3) Political Power; and 4) Land, availability of the western land to agricultural expansion

1) Peculiar Institution of Slavery
Southerners would not accept threats to their slave properties and Northerners would have no dealings with reforms that might imperil their commercial endeavors.

By 1787 the affects of Enlightenment or the natural rights ideology of the American Revolution, caused increasing numbers of citizens to question the institution of slavery. Antislavery societies had begun to spring up in the North. As early as 1785 Southerners understood that if they took chattel with them into Pennsylvania, they ran the risk that their slaves might be liberated during their residency in that state or any 'free' state. Abolitionism with White Northerners was not a burning issue but Northerners were willing to stop the expansion of slavery. Within the decade, emancipationist legislation would be passed in every Northern state.

But when the choice was between saving the Union or eradicating slavery, the peculiar institution took a backseat. The national government embraced the notion that the Southern states should be left to deal with slavery within their respective jurisdictions as they saw fit. The South was delighted with its victory. Congress could terminate the African slave trade, but not before 1808. The run-a-way slave law required that slaves be returned to their owners even from 'free' states. Also, the national government guaranteed that slaves could be moved from one slave state to another as well as slaves could be brought into 'free' states at lest temporarily without being freed. The 3/5ths clause allowed slave states to include 60% of their chattel in the population count for the apportionment of representation in the lower house of congress and the electoral college. Congress was prohibited from taxing exports, a move that prevented slavery from being taxed indirectly through the imposition of duties on the cash crop produced by chattel. Finally, the national government could protect states from "domestic Violence" by suppressing Insurrections which include slave revolts. The 'slave' states had gotten all they sought.

2) Beware the "Stockjobbers" , Wealthy men in the northern states already owned most of the shares of the government's securities and with a national bank system, would become the principle stockholders in the Bank of the United States. These "stockjobbers" (northern commercial elite), Jefferson declared, would have the leverage to control both states and individuals to secure their every whim at the disadvantage of the Southern Agrarian Proprietors .

3) Political Power
The power of the national government at the expense of the states.

Under the articles of Confederation, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Delaware, whose combined populations did not equal that of the free population of Virginia, and barely exceeded the number of free inhabitants of North Carolina, each enjoyed one vote in Congress. Southerners were apprehensive that neither their personal interest, nor that of their region, any longer was safe. It appeared that their interests were no better served by the American Union than they had been in the empire.

Southerners were living under the umbra of depotism, the ancestors of these yeoman long ago had sought to escape the heavy hand of monarchical and aristocratically controlled central governments in England and Europe by fleeing to America. They were being confronted with what they believed was the "same tyranny which drove the first emigrants from their home".

4) Available Land for Expansion
The Southern states needed the western lands to be opened to settlement which allowed slavery. The Southern states feared that a national government controlled by an increasingly Abolitionist Northern states.

South Carolina Heritage
South Carolina was the most militant of the Southern states.
In 1663 King Charles of England gave a grant of land "South of Virginia" to a group of his friends.  They wanted to the use the colony for their businesses. They named the colony Carolina in honor of Charles. The first settlement was Charleston. When these men came they found that many settlers from Virginia were already living in the area. This caused arguments between the two groups. In 1680 the argument was solved by dividing Carolina into two separate colonies:  North Carolina and South Carolina.

Once approved by the King, in 1660, several of the Proprietors (who lived on the island of Barbados) drove the settlement of Carolina. In October 1665, Sir John Yeamans and a group of colonists established a colony in the area now know as Cape Fear. It was located slightly upriver from present-day Wilmington, N.C., and on a branch or creek on the western side of the Cape fear River. As many as 800 colonists may have been drawn to Charles Town, as it was known.

The first English settlement was made in 1670, when William Sayle sailed up the Ashley River with three shiploads of English emigrants from the Barbados, and they pitched their tents on its banks and built a town, which has since wholly disappeared. It has been estimated that nearly half of the immigrants to the new colony in its first three decades were from Barbados. In 1671, Sir John Yeamans, whom we have met in North Carolina, joined the colony, bringing with him about two hundred African slaves.

South Carolina differs from most of the colonies:
1) in not having had to battle against impending dissolution during its first years of existence
2) Also, nearly half of the immigrants to the new colony in its first three decades were from Barbados which had a strong slave economy already in existance.
3) And from all the others in depending largely on slave labor from the beginning.

About 1693 by a sea captain, who gave a bag of seed to a South Carolina planter. Not many years passed till the Carolinas rivaled Egypt and Lombardy in furnishing rice for Southern Europe. By the middle of the eighteenth century indigo became a strong rival of rice in South Carolina, but not until a later generation was cotton enthroned as king. Rice grows best in marshy ground and swamps, and its cultivation is peculiarly destructive to human life. The same is in a great measure true of indigo. These facts had much to do in shaping the economic and social condition of South Carolina. They made it the chief slaveholding community in America. No white man could long endure the malarial atmosphere of the rice swamps. Even among the blacks the death rate was very high, and their ranks had to be refilled constantly from Africa. But slaves were cheap. A strong black man could be purchased for forty pounds and, as he could earn near that amount in a year, the planter found it more profitable to work him to death than to take care of him. Almost from the beginning the slaves in South Carolina outnumbered the whites; slavery became the cornerstone in the political system and so it continued to the time of the Civil War.

Many of the South Carolinians were men who had fled from religious persecution at home, such as the Huguenots. At the same time, yeoman farmers, who worked smaller tracts of land, sat in popular assemblies and found their way into political office. Their outspoken independence was a constant warning to the oligarchy of planters not to encroach too far upon the rights of free men.

Another difference arose from the important seaport of Charleston, and therefore direct communication with Europe, the West Indies or New England. Charleston through its commodious harbor, carried on a brisk foreign trade -- bringing the commodities and luxuries of civilized life. Here lived the wealthy planter, visiting but seldom his plantation were herds of black men toiled under the lash of the overseer. Most naturally the conditions in Charleston fostered the growth of aristocracy, while in culture and refinement the city came to rival Philadelphia, New York and Boston. Charleston, South Carolina, became the leading port and trading center of the South. There the settlers quickly learned to combine agriculture and commerce, and the marketplace became a major source of prosperity.

Western Agrarians' Post Revolutionary War Concerns

* Western Agrarians wanted to protect the small producers from the "money men" who did not live by their own labor but preyed upon those who did. They wished to minimize the levies of great men: taxes, rents, legal fees, and land payments.

* Western Agrarians feared prolonged economic dependence as tenants or wageworkers as the path to "slavery".

* Western Agrarians wanted and needed access to and possession of freehold land.

* Western Agrarians believed that republican government could not survive unless property was widely held and equitably distributed among adult (white, at the time) males. They feared that if the great men could not be checked in their greed that American would become an oppressive society of arrogant aristocrats lording over impoverished, landless, and powerless masses.

* The agrarian yeomen believed that wilderness land ought to be free to the needy and that common folks had the right to resist laws they perceived as unjust.

Pvt/Lt Craig Young
3rd Maine, Company A
29th Georgia/7th Maine
Lambh Deargh Erin Abu!
Most importantly we are free. Free in thought, body, and soul.
It is no longer the blood, but the spirit that makes us what we are.
We are Celts!

I hear there is a larger conference going to be held in Alabama..
Though myself bieng but an immigrent Irish tradesman, Printer my trade, and own no slaves I feel if Alabama does go I will have to fight any incursion from the North as my kin fought the Sassenach.
Seamus

"it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifing......nothing"
MacBeth

How can you invade a place that is part of our country?

We are coming to save our brothers from their wicked governments who conspire to sperate them from our beloved Union. The same Union which the Old Dominion help create through it blood during the Revolutionary War. And, has provided us with our consitution and many of our Presidents as well as Suprem Court judges. What our county is today has much to do with the guidence of the South.

Brothern, listen not to the pleasing sound of the serpent! Be not decieved, for the same army which is bound by law (the national government could protect states from "domestic Violence" by suppressing Insurrections which include slave revolts. The 'slave' states had gotten all they sought) to protect the citizens of the South from slave revolt, will now march to save you from traitors. Union Forever! Huzzah Boz! Huzzah!

Pvt/Lt Craig Young
3rd Maine, Company A
29th Georgia/7th Maine
Lambh Deargh Erin Abu!
Most importantly we are free. Free in thought, body, and soul.
It is no longer the blood, but the spirit that makes us what we are.
We are Celts!