Confederate Union
Page 21
Four score and several years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a Second War of Independence, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated may long endure. We are met on a battlefield of that war guarding the approaches to the Cradle of Liberty where that nation was conceived. We have come here to honor those who here gave their lives that that nation shall live, and that the Lamp of Liberty lit by our fathers shall continue to illuminate the world unto the latest generation.
We may be certain that our dedication to the principles of 1776 will be tested as surely today as they were tested then. They were tested at Delphi, as surely as they were tested at Lexington and Concord. They were tested here again at Gettysburg as surely as they were tested at Bunker Hill. Now, as then, the embattled citizens of a Free Republic stood their ground and turned back the armies sent forth by the tyrant to conquer them.
We may also be certain that we have the means to secure our independence from those who seek to conquer us:
We are superior in numbers of free citizens to the Slave States styling themselves the Confederate Union. We far surpass them in manufactories and agricultural productions. We have a preponderance of mechanics, industrial workers, railroad engineers, and men possessing all the other inventive skills that modern warfare requires.
We are the Forge of Liberty.
Let us ask ourselves: When have superior numbers fighting bravely to maintain their freedom ever been defeated by lesser numbers fighting to conquer them? We need merely to unite ourselves, putting aside all partisan factions. Is it not better that those who voted for both parties in the last election should fight together as free citizens of a free country, than that any should side with a government that seeks to return some of them to slavery?
Also know that we do not fight alone. The Friends of Liberty in all parts of the world hear us, just as they heard us in 1776. They will come to our aid in our Second War of Independence just as Lafayette, Von Steuben, Kosciusko, Pulaski, and Thomas Paine, came to aid us in our first. And let us not forget our fellow citizens who, though they sympathize with our cause, reside in territory beyond our lines. Nor let us forget the friends we may have even in the Slave States, who, though accepting the existence of slavery in their states, do not seek to force it upon people who are free.
And also know that we are heard on a higher plane, by that Providence that never failed our fathers. Does any thoughtful man question whether Providence destines men to be slaves or to be free? Our Founders answered that question for us: “All men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”
Let us now dedicate ourselves to the great tasks remaining before us: of liberating New York and reopening our Gateway to the World; of restoring the territorial integrity of our Free States; of liberating the Free States on the Pacific Coast that are held by the carry-overs of pro-slavery territorial governments; and of re-establishing our authority over the Free Territories of the West. All of these things we will do if we continue to fight as we have done at Delphi and Gettysburg.
And after vindicating our independence through our courage in battle let us vindicate by our example that freedom is the natural condition of men. If we will do that the country we used to call ‘The United States’ will be reunited when our late fellow citizens now calling themselves ‘The Confederate Union’ will choose to join us in freedom rather than insist upon coercing us to join them in slavery.
If we shall continue to do that which we have already shown we can do, here on this battlefield and elsewhere, then this new nation, under God, shall carry forth its birthright of freedom --- so that government of the people, by the people, and for the people shall not perish from the earth.
This story will be continued in The Confederate Union War coming to Kindle in 2013.
Afterword
Besides its story of alternative history, I wanted this book to present some actual historical perspectives. First is the implacable hostility towards the Union by Southern Fire Eaters like Alabama’s William Yancey. These men were relentlessly determined to find a way of taking the South out of the Union in order to acquire Mexico and Central America as new Slave States. Even though their scheme to break up the Charleston Convention is defeated in this alternative history, they still find a way to provoke hostilities by instigating the slave raid into Michigan.
Many Northern Abolitionists were equally hostile to the Southern Slave owners. The fictional raid by Southern Fire Eaters to re-enslave free Negroes in Michigan mirrors the Abolitionist-funded John Brown’s Raid into the South that sought to incite the slaves to rise up against their masters. John Brown’s Raid drove the wavering majority of Union-minded Southerners into the Secessionist Fire Eater’s waiting arms. This book reverses the scenario: Southern Fire Eaters instigate the slave raid into Michigan that causes moderate Northerners to conclude that their destiny lies outside of the old Union.
Because this story chronicles the hypothetical secession of the North it emphasizes the grievances of the Northern Free States against the Southern Slave States. Many Free Staters felt that they were being hemmed in and even invaded by the Slave States. The pro-Southern majority in Congress had succeeded in repealing the old Missouri Compromise line and thereby allowing slavery an opportunity to expand beyond its previously agreed to limits and move on up into Kansas and Nebraska. The Dred Scott Decision by the pro-slavery Supreme Court allowed Southerners to carry their slaves anywhere, including into the Free States.
Of course the Southern Slaves States also felt aggrieved by Northern Republicans and Abolitionists. The Republican-dominated Free State legislatures declared the Fugitive Slave Law null and void. Southerners saw this as a repudiation of both the Constitutional obligation to apprehend runaway slaves and the Compromise of 1850 whereby Northerners, in return for having all of California admitted to the Union as a Free State, pledged to improve their enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law.
Southern Secessionists argued that their “contract” with the Union had been voided by the North’s refusal to honor the Constitution and the Compromise of 1850. The more extreme Northern Abolitionists also constantly provoked and goaded the South, culminating by funding John Brown’s raid. Southerners were also alarmed by the rise of the Republican Party’s “Wide Awakes” paramilitaries, which Southern Secessionists alleged were an “army” waiting to invade the South and instigate a slave uprising should a Republican be elected President.
Thus, it is fair to blame the Civil War on the bad faith shown by fanatics in both sections who undercut Americans of moderate views who preferred compromise to civil war. The bad faith of fanatics in the North and South may have made it no more likely that alternative history President Stephen Douglas would have been able to avoid a War of Secession than President Lincoln was able to. The only thing that might have been different is the side that seceded.
This book ends with the Confederate Union having stabilized its front in the West but having suffered an embarrassing defeat of its hastily-conceived Eastern Offensive. This is analogous to the situation the real Union faced in July 1861 after its defeat at First Bull Run. Both sides are beginning to understand that the war will not be concluded with a single climactic battle in 90 days. They are starting to gird themselves for a long war whereby they will be called upon to mobilize their full military, economic, and moral strength.
This book is followed by a second volume that chronicles the Free State War of Independence as it is known in the Free States a.k.a. The Confederate Union War as it is known in the rest of the country.
www.amazon.com/dp/B00GLHV8IY/
This second book may contain some surprises. Jefferson Davis, as President of the Confederate States, has been criticized for allegedly taking a narrow and overly-personalized view of the war. He is alleged to have been a confrontational personality who weaken
ed his cause by stirring up strife among the military and civilian components of the Confederacy. But what kind of President would Jefferson Davis have been if he had been surrounded by a larger group of nationalist advisors instead of the more limited talent pool he had to work with in the eleven-state Confederacy? Could Jefferson Davis, as President of the Confederate Union, have rallied the country to defeat a secessionist North?
About the Author
Alan Sewell has intensively studied the Civil War for more than thirty years, especially its politics and political dissent. Alan has written two articles for the December 1981 Civil War Times Illustrated Special issue: DISSENT: FIRE IN THE REAR. Alan has also reviewed books in CWTI on the Pennsylvania Antiwar Movement and the career of General John Logan in Illinois. He has previously published the Civil War Novel Fire in the Heartland.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00514WNYG
Alan and his family live in Melrose, Florida and Manistee, Michigan.
Copyright
Confederate Union is a work of fiction. All characters other than historical figures are fictional. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.
Copyright 2012 by Alan Sewell
Pictures are courtesy of the Library of Congress and other sources in the public domain.
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