casus belli ? (“Five generations on Smith’s Plantation, Beaufort, South Carolina”, 1862, Library of Congress)
150 years ago yesterday General Grant issued a congratulatory order to the troops. He zeroed in on slavery as the “the cause and pretext of the rebellion.” From The New-York Times June 5, 1865:
THE LIEUT.-GENERAL TO OUR ARMIES.; Grant to the Armies of the United States. Their Glorious Services Nobly Acknowledged.Their Great Achievements and Priceless Legacy.
WASHINGTON, Sunday, June 4.
Gen. GRANT has issued the following congratulatory address to the armies.
WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERALS OFFICE, WASHINGTON, D.C., June 2, 1865.
Mr. Seward declared the conflict irrepressible
GENERAL ORDERS, No. 108 [18?]. — Soldiers of the Armies of the United States: — By your patriotic devotion to your country in the hour of danger and alarm, your magnificent fighting, bravery and endurance, you have maintained the supremacy of the Union and the Constitution, overthrown all opposition to the enforc[e]ment of the laws, and of the proclamations forever abolishing slavery, the cause and pretext of the rebellion, and opened the way to the rightful authorities to restore order and inaugurate peace on a permanent and enduring basis on every foot of American soil. Your marches, sieges and battles, in distance, duration, resolution and brilliancy of results, dim the lustre of the world’s past military achievements, and will be the patriot’s precedent in defence of liberty and right in all time to come. In obedience to your country’s call, you left your homes and families and volunteered in its defence. Victory has crowned your valor, and secured the purpose of your patriotic hearts; and with the gratitude of your countrymen and the highest honors a great and free nation can accord, you will soon be permitted to return to your homes and families, conscious of having discharged the highest duty of American citizens. To achieve these glorious triumphs, and secure to yourselves, your fellow countrymen and posterity, the blessings of free institutions, tens of thousands of your gallant comrades have fallen, and sealed the priceless legacy with their lives. The graves of these a grateful nation bedews with tears, honors their memories, and will ever cherish and support their stricken families. U.S. GRANT, Lieut.-General.
“More than one-third of the headstones at Shiloh National Cemetery in Tennessee mark graves of unknown Union soldiers” (by Carol M. Highsmith, Library of Congress)
You can read all about the 1860 political cartoon at the Library of Congress.
From William H. Seward’s 1858 Irrepressible speech:
… Thus these antagonistic systems are continually coming into closer contact and collision results.
Shall I tell you what this collision means? They who think that it is accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral, mistake the case altogether. It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing and enduring forces, and it means that the United States must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slave-holding nation or entirely a free-labor nation. Either the cotton and rice-fields of South Carolina and the sugar plantations of Louisiana will ultimately be tilled by free labor, and Charleston and New Orleans become marts for legitimate merchandise alone, or else the rye-fields and wheat-fields of Massachusetts and New York must again be surrendered by their farmers to slave culture and to the production of slaves, and Boston and New York become once more markets for trade in the bodies and souls of men.
It is the failure to apprehend this great truth that induces so many unsuccessful attempts at final compromise between the slave and free States, and it is the existence of this great fact that renders all such pretended compromises, when made, vain and ephemeral. …
