Punishing Enemies of the North

Questions abound from the following – how can Americans who follow the spirit of Jefferson’s Declaration, i.e., “the consent of the governed” be declared “enemies” and have their property confiscated by the mere agent of the States; how can independent and free States be “insurrectionary” in a voluntary and fraternal union; and how does a citizen of a State hold loyalty to “the Union flag” when it is the US Constitution that they and their representatives are sworn to uphold and defend?

Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"

Punishing Enemies of the North:

“It was “enemies’ property” that was made seizable in the second confiscation act; and the harsh rule was adopted that all persons residing in the eleven “insurrectionary” States were enemies during the Civil War, a rule which was even extended to include foreigners and those who were in fact loyal to the Union flag.

It was held after the war that neither pardon nor universal amnesty could restore property rights when proceedings under the second confiscation act had been completed. Thus the guilty thing during the war was mere residence in an “insurrectionary State.”

Yet the United States Supreme Court in another line of decisions held that insurrection and war do not loosen the bonds of society, and that ordinary acts of the individual Southern States were valid and binding. The Confederate States were held to be a government maintaining such actual supremacy during the war in the South that obedience to its authority, in civil and local matters, was both a necessity and duty.

In seeking to understand the various interpretations of what the government at Washington required of the Southern people it might perhaps be said that they were expected to withhold support for their own governments insofar as such governments were acting against the United States, while giving support in “ordinary” civil matters.

Such qualified support of any government, however, is difficult to defend in theory, while in practice it was utterly impossible.

In vain did [Northern] moderates as [Orville H.] Browning of Illinois, Garrett Davis of Kentucky, [Jacob] Collamer of Vermont, and [John B.] Henderson of Missouri urge that the drastic confiscation program was designed to ruin millions of unoffending civilians. Of no avail were the arguments that it was unjustifiable as a belligerent measure, that it was forbidden by the Constitution, that it amounted to a bill of attainder, that it would bear heavily upon men who really supported the Union.

By a peculiar rigmarole Congress rushed through an “explanatory joint resolution” to the effect that the law was not the work of forfeiture beyond the life of the accused; and, though this met only a part of his objections, the signature of Lincoln was obtained on a measure of which he fundamentally disapproved.”

(The Civil War and Reconstruction, J.G. Randall, D.C. Heath and Company, 1969, pp. 284-285)

Punishing Enemies of the North