Talk:Confederate States of America/Archive 2

message: The Confederacy didn't attack Fort Sumpter they was pushed and egged on by the Union by them being on Confederate property just like we did in the Mexican-American War, also slavery wa one of the least important reason of the Civil War even if it was a major outcome of it.
:This page doesn't exist to discuss the war, only the article. -Will Beback 10:29, 2 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misconception of Beginnings of the War 

message: CSA Secretary of State Judah Benjamin on Oct. 8, 1863.
explained the status of consuls under international law:
:When the Confederacy was first formed, there were in our ports a number of British Consuls and Consular Agents, who had been recognized as such, not only by the Government of the United States, which was then the authorized agent of the several States for that purpose, but by the State authorities themselves. Under the law of nations, these officials are not entitled to exercise political or diplomatic functions, nor are they ever accredited to the sovereigns within whose dominions they reside. Their only warrant of authority is the commission of their own government; but usage requires that those who have the full grade of Consul should not exercise their functions within the territory of any sovereign before receiving his permission in the form of an exequatur; while consular agents of inferior grade simply notify the local authorities of their intention to act in that capacity. It has not been customary upon any change of government, to interfere with these commercial officials, already established in the discharge of their duties, and it is their recognized obligation to treat all governments which may be established, de facto, over the ports where they reside, as governments de jure.  So Raven was not a diplomat. He was a citizen of CSA which he recognized as sovereign.  He could not bind the government of Saxe in any way--he could not make Saxe officially recognize the CSA.  Rjensen 12:32, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Nicholas is correct in the sense that consul Raven recognized the Confederacy. He certainly did--he was a loyal Texan after all. But as he said he did not imply that Saxe-C-G recognized the Confederacy. It did not. But the Duke did not and did not send an ambassador. Nor did the CSA government announce it had been recognized and send its minister to the Duke.  Rjensen 20:16, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Perhaps we are talking about two different points in international law.  If your point is that there was no formal de jure recognition of the C.S.A. by Saxe-Colburg-Gotha, then you are correct.  The Duke's government sent no ambassador or minister nor did it make any formal announcement of recognition.  The controversy over Conusl Raven's request for an exequatur is over whether it represented an informal de facto recognition of the C.S.A.  This is a weaker and more tentative form of recognition than de jure recognition and is implicit, rather then explicit, being based on established common practice and precedent rather than a formal declaration by the recognizing power.  It is possible that the Duke's government, as claimed by Bergwanger claims, did make a statement that the request did not imply recognition.  More evidence to back up this claim would certainly end the controversy.  At the moment, however, the case rests on the interpretation of actions.  I've laid out a chain of logic that, minus any contrary statement by the Saxe-Colburg-Gotha goverment, does support the view that there was an implicit de facto recogntion.  It is not clear from your counter arguments were you disagree with this logic: (1) Was Raven appointed Consul by the Saxe-Colburg-Gotha government? (2) Is an appointed consul an official of that goverment? (3) Was a formal request for an exequatur made by an official of the Saxe-Colburg-Gotha government to the C.S.A.? (4) Is there not precedent, as I've cited, that in common practive of international law that a request for an exequatur consitutes a de facto recognition of sovereignty?  Or is it your argument that while these previous points may be true that Berwanger's claim is strong enough on its own to show that the Saxe-Colburg-Gotha goverment explicitely denied that the request implied recognition?  Zeroing in on exact point of dispute would help this debate just being one of "yes, it may have happened/no, it definately didn't happen".  I look forward to your response.  Nicholas F 17:01, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes Raven recognized the confederacy. He was a citizen of Texas and the Confederacy (and not of Saxe). He had no diplomatic or political power to recognize anyone, says Benjamin. Raven was not appointed consul to the CSA--no one claims that. (He was appointed some time previously to texas and just kept on going). Exequator was not a formal diplomatic procedure, as the ConfedeSecty of State tells us. Asking for it was therefore not a formal diplomatic request. The Duke apparently never heard of the business because he gave speeches and interviews expressing his support for USA. Rjensen 17:12, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Legal status of consuls: they have no diplomatic role 

message: The table of states has details on Reconstruction, which have no bearing whatever on the defunct CSA. (each state covers that topic in its article). More interesting was when the state was mostly controlled by USA, so I added that info (but am not positive about a couple cases like Arkansas). Likewise we should tell when Union took over each of those 15 cities.  I think Baltimore and St Louis should be added. Rjensen 17:15, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Table of states 

message: I am not sure that Baltimore really belongs on the list as the C.S.A. never claimed Maryland.  As for St. Louis and Louisville, although the C.S.A. did claim Missouri and Kentucky, neither state was ever under the effective control of the C.S.A. so it is questionable that they should be on the list.  Furthermore, doesn't listing dates when the U.S. took over control of Baltimore, St. Louis, and Louisville in an article on the C.S.A. imply that the C.S.A. contolled them before then?  Wheeling is a slightly different case as Virginia did have de jure jurisdiction over Wheeling when it seceeded.   Nicholas F 18:20, 6 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Baltimore was early on de-facto controlled by CSA supporters, who engaged in military action (attacking federal troops, burning bridges), until the city was seized by force by Gen Butler.  So it counts. St Louis was contested territory and Union won. It's more than a nicety--these were two if the three largest and most important slave cities and without them (and New Orleans), CSA was an economic cripple. Louisville was neutral but was claimed by CSA and had a CSA Congressman, as did St Louis. The CSA recruited lots of soldiers from these areas as well. The story has it that Louisville became Confederate in 1865! In a word: it is helpful to readers to explain what happened. Rjensen 18:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Baltimore saw a riot against federal troops, and was certainly never part of the Confederacy.  This is an incredibly dubious claim.  There was a riot against federal troops in New York, as well.  And St. Louis was seized very early by union troops, and was never effectively controlled by Confederate troops.  This all happened well before Missouri's confederate supporters officially seceded.  As such, neither Baltimore nor St. Louis (nor certainly Louisville) was ever under Confederate control (as opposed to Confederate sympathizer control, which is not the same thing at all).  And there's absolutely no way that Baltimore should be included.  john k 19:28, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

text: The Confederacy claims LOTS of territory it never actually controlled--see the map. delete cities, ok, then delete the map and the claims for "states" like Kentucky and Missouri. For that matter the population numbers are way too high as well because the CSA at no time controlled all the population of even the 11 core states. (for example it never controlled western Virginia.) Rjensen 04:20, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: List of cities

message: The text says "Following Abraham Lincoln's election as President of the United States in 1860 on a platform that opposed the extension of slavery, seven slave southern states chose to secede from the United States and declared that the Confederate States of America was formed on February 4, 1861; Jefferson Davis was selected as its first President the next day."
From what I've read, including McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom, Jefferson Davis was selected as president on February 9, not February 5. The February 9 date agrees with the Jefferson Davis article. I altered the page text to reflect this. I also added his inauguration date. 
Should the article include the date Davis was actually elected president? If so, the section on Davis being selected president should make it clear that he was only selected as "provisional" president. There was a formal election and inauguration after the war had already begun. My main concern, though, was correcting the error suggesting Davis was selected president on February 5. Agoodall 03:05, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date Jefferson Davis was selected president 

message: I happened upon a website "brainyhistory" that claims Brazil recognized the Confederacy on August 1, 1861. Has anyone seen this claim previously? Hal Jespersen 17:13, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Trick question. Yes I've seen it everywhere online, but I've seen no attribution in any case. I've seen it listed as part of online turnbased cardgames. OR doesn't say a word about Brazil, just a complaint by a consul at Ben Butler's attrocious behavior in New Orleans (III, 2). Looking through digitized diplomatic files (in Portuguese) is tough going, but I see nothing like recognition; I see several lengthly statements of neutrality as it regards the conflict. I'll bet Rjensen knows where to look. BusterD 22:25, 14 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would be a very good idea to create a Diplomatic History of the Confederate States, as someone has proposed above, and move all this angel-counting about SCG and Brazil and the Vatican and God-knows-where to that page.  Clearly, the essentially issue for this page is that the Confederate States did not recieve robust support from any other nation, and that the matter of official recognition can only be addressed at the level of diplomatic minutiae.  Ethan Mitchell 01:19, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

text: On recognition: the CSA was truly desperate for recognition and would have trumpeted any that it received. It never claimed any. Rjensen 04:15, 24 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, OK, that's a theory.  There are a bunch of folks who disagree, and they'r all vehement about it.  So I think this is an important enough issue to have its own page.  But it is a relatively minor footnote to the history of the CSA, so let's give it its own page and be done with..  Ethan Mitchell 19:00, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

text: No there are not a "bunch of folks who disagree" -- there is not a single reliable source that says so. It's a new myth invented in the 1990s as a practical joke. Rjensen 02:05, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I didn't say there was a reliable source that said so, I said 'a bunch of folks disagree', which is god's own truth.  A bunch of Mormons think that Jesus crossed the Atlantic on a Boeing, and we have pages about it.  By comparison, the claim that the CSA had diplomatic ties with other countries is both mild and well-documented.  It deserves its own page, if only so we can have this argument without blocking traffic here on more important issues. Ethan Mitchell 19:27, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Brazil? 

message: I think calling the Confederacy a "nation" is fraught with all sorts of implications, so I changed it back to "government", although perhaps a better phrasing is in order than that.  The problem is that the Union considered the Confederacy nothing more than rebelling states against the United States, and not a separate "nation" in any sense whatsoever.  A "nation" is generally construed as more than just a government, but a people with a common character and identity (and the word "nation" can be used in all sorts of non-political contexts--Nation of Islam, and so forth).  In fact, in the Gettysburg Address, Lincoln made a point of using the word "nation" to describe the entire United States, including the South. soulpatch
I don't agree. The South legally sceeded from the union. They were united by more than a government, slavery, and territory. There was a sense throught the Confederacy that they were a single nation, united by ties of blood, idealogy, and natiolalism. How else could you explain cowboys from Texas, indians form Oklahoma, cotton pickers from Georgia, and tobacco growers from Virginia to fight and die along side people thay had never met. Unlike the north, who had mass amounts of immagrents from northern and western Europe, there was little immagration to the South so the people there could trace there roots to the foundings of the english colonies. There was a sense of nationalism and brotherhood that was and still is apart of the way the South sees it's self in this world. It's no different than the fellings of the first americans in the Revolutionary war. And if people think that the Revoulutionary war and the Civil war were fought over different reasons, and that the South didn't have the same right as those early americans than they are hypocritical. Jim
Considering soulpatch's statements, I have to disagree. While Lincoln argued that the CSA wasn't a seperate nation but "our brothers in err", he arguably had political motivations in doing so; in short, he was fighting a PR battle as well as a war. By your definition, the America South is probably the most distinct area of the US, both culturally and economically. Only New England has a group of states similar in culture, speech, and manner. Southerners are instantly recognized by speech, manner, culture, and beliefs. They had good reason to believe themselves a kind of seperate people. DesScorp 01:53, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Confederate States of America was considered a "Nation". The US treated the CS as so de jure in the example when Jefferson Davis was up for treason (not convicted because of his legal obligation to protect his boarders). Also, let it be noted The Confederate Government is still in existence (de jure). This would be a good thing to ask for trivia game on here (hint). But it's also a thing that makes you wonder "why hasn't anyone caught this yet?" Sophion 23:45, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Nation?

message: Can we get a map that shows what the CSA really looked like [as well as the rest of the world] when it was born? On the map, some of the countries in Europe such as Poland don't even exist. --71.35.88.125 04:02, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Edited the map to show 1865 political geography.--RedFoxBandit 04:19, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Indian Territory (i.e. Oklahoma) and the Confederate Territory of Arizona (i.e. southern Arizona and southern New Mexico) should be added to the CSA in the location map as they both under CSA control in the early part of the war.  71.246.225.183 19:37, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map? 

message: There had been some very biased editing and incomplete correction regarding the disputed secession of Kentucky and Missouri.  East Kentucky, like West Virginia, was pro-Union and both states had a real civil war within the civil war.
I'm not getting involved, but someone should sort this out.  Maybe also lock the article against recent or unregistered users.
--GwydionM 17:13, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Six states listed under 'four seceeded' 

message: Kentucky has been omitted.  The Confederacy definitely recoginsed it as having seceeded, though the Union side had the better claim to be legal.
Missouri's secession may have been legal, this is disputed.  What's definite is that the pro-Union government included part of the pre-war government and had solid support in some parts of the state.
--GwydionM 18:27, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Put things back roughly as they were.  The previous edit lost Kentucky in Missouri's notes.  --GwydionM 18:22, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: List of secession now neutral