Was Secession Taught at West Point?

jgoodguy

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http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/Century_Magazine/78/1/Was_Secession_Taught_at_West_Point*.html[font=arial, sans-serif]http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/Century_Magazine/78/1/Was_Secession_Taught_at_West_Point*.html[size=large][font=arial, sans-serif]Was Secession Taught at West Point? [/font]
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Is the standard refernce to the question of if secession was taught at West Point.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/Century_Magazine/78/1/Was_Secession_Taught_at_West_Point*.html
Was the right of a State to secede from the Union taught at the United States Military Academy?
Was Rawle's work "A View of the Constitution of the United States" a text-book at the military academy at any time prior to the Civil War? Did that book advocate the right of secession, and did it inculcate the duty of the individual to be loyal to his State rather than to the Union?​
Was this work the legal and authorized text-book from which General Albert Sidney Johnston (1826), Mr. Jefferson Davis (1828), Generals Robert E. Lee (1829), Joseph E. Johnston (1829),  Thomas J. ("Stonewall") Jackson (1846),  Dabney H. Maury (1846), Fitzhugh Lee (1856), and others graduated at West Point between the years 1825 and 1861, received instruction in constitutional law?

The above are questions which for years have been asked of the authorities at West Point as a result of statements made in public speeches, in newspapers, magazines, and books, that the right of "secession" of a State was there taught to the graduates named, and from the text-book mentioned above, and which, if unanswered, are tending toward being accepted as historical fact.

Several statements from various sources, made at different times, allege that Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, and other prominent graduates who entered the Southern Confederacy, were taught at the United States Military Academy that any State had a right to secede, and that their duty at that time was allegiance to their States. It has been asserted that the doctrine of the right of secession was inculcated at West Point as an admitted principle of constitutional law and, in each case, it has been said that "A View of the Constitution of the United States," published in Philadelphia in 1825, by William Rawle, was the text-book used.​
The year of graduation is placed after each of the names mentioned above, and it will be apparent therefrom, after noting them, that instruction in the right of secession, if such instruction was given, as has been alleged, must have extended over a period of thirty years or more, or from the cadet days of General Albert Sidney Johnston, 1826, to those of General Fitzhugh Lee, 1856.
In this conflict between two classes of duty requiring these graduates to decide which they felt to be the superior, many of those born in, and appointed from, Southern States, like Generals George H. Thomas, William Hays, Henry D. WallenJohn NewtonBarton S. AlexanderThomas J. WoodRichard I. DodgeStephen V. Benet, and many others, decided for what they considered to be their legal and moral duty, and remained loyal to the Union.

If the study of Rawle, if it was taught them, is urged as an excuse for the action of those who went to the Confederacy, what excuse can be made for these men who, receiving the same instruction, remained loyal to the Union under as great a pressure, and with a more intensified feeling against their action, because, in doing so, it severed them from home, kindred, and their native States?
The first stumbling block in asserting secession was taught at West Point with loyalty to States, is that a number of Southern graduates did not join the secessionists.
 

Nitti

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jgoodguy said:
[font=arial, sans-serif][size=large][font=arial, sans-serif][size=large][font=arial, sans-serif]Was Secession Taught at West Point?[/font]

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/Century_Magazine/78/1/Was_Secession_Taught_at_West_Point*.html[/font][/size]

[/font][/size]
Is the standard reference to the question of if secession was taught at West Point.
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/Century_Magazine/78/1/Was_Secession_Taught_at_West_Point*.html
Was the right of a State to secede from the Union taught at the United States Military Academy?
Was Rawle's work "A View of the Constitution of the United States" a text-book at the military academy at any time prior to the Civil War? Did that book advocate the right of secession, and did it inculcate the duty of the individual to be loyal to his State rather than to the Union?​
Was this work the legal and authorized text-book from which General Albert Sidney Johnston (1826), Mr. [img=15x13]http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/Images/Utility/Bullets/WP.gif[/img]Jefferson Davis (1828), Generals Robert E. Lee (1829), Joseph E. Johnston (1829),  Thomas J. ("Stonewall") Jackson (1846),  Dabney H. Maury (1846), Fitzhugh Lee (1856), and others graduated at West Point between the years 1825 and 1861, received instruction in constitutional law?

The above are questions which for years have been asked of the authorities at West Point as a result of statements made in public speeches, in newspapers, magazines, and books, that the right of "secession" of a State was there taught to the graduates named, and from the text-book mentioned above, and which, if unanswered, are tending toward being accepted as historical fact.

Several statements from various sources, made at different times, allege that Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, "Stonewall" Jackson, and other prominent graduates who entered the Southern Confederacy, were taught at the United States Military Academy that any State had a right to secede, and that their duty at that time was allegiance to their States. It has been asserted that the doctrine of the right of secession was inculcated at West Point as an admitted principle of constitutional law and, in each case, it has been said that "A View of the Constitution of the United States," published in Philadelphia in 1825, by William Rawle, was the text-book used.
The year of graduation is placed after each of the names mentioned above, and it will be apparent therefrom, after noting them, that instruction in the right of secession, if such instruction was given, as has been alleged, must have extended over a period of thirty years or more, or from the cadet days of General Albert Sidney Johnston, 1826, to those of General Fitzhugh Lee, 1856.
In this conflict between two classes of duty requiring these graduates to decide which they felt to be the superior, many of those born in, and appointed from, Southern States, like Generals George H. Thomas, William Hays, Henry D. WallenJohn NewtonBarton S. AlexanderThomas J. WoodRichard I. DodgeStephen V. Benet, and many others, decided for what they considered to be their legal and moral duty, and remained loyal to the Union.

If the study of Rawle, if it was taught them, is urged as an excuse for the action of those who went to the Confederacy, what excuse can be made for these men who, receiving the same instruction, remained loyal to the Union under as great a pressure, and with a more intensified feeling against their action, because, in doing so, it severed them from home, kindred, and their native States?
The first stumbling block in asserting secession was taught at West Point with loyality to States, is that a number of Southern cgraduates did not join the secessionists.
 

jgoodguy

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Nitti said:
jgoodguy said:
Exactly, they did not write or influence the articles of secession with Rawles suggested secession proceedure.  That suggests that they had no knowledge of secession.  Also that no secession followed Rawles' secession proceedure.  If it was taught, then it had the exact influence as if it had not been taught.   An interesting future thread would look at West Point generals input into secession debates and discussion.  http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Journals/Century_Magazine/78/1/Was_Secession_Taught_at_West_Point*.html
 

jgoodguy

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More quotes from [font=arial, sans-serif]Was Secession Taught at West Point?[/font]

Much of the assertions come from a work of Colonel Rober Bringham of Asheville, North Carolina, and are inserted in a preface to a pamphlet reprint of an article entitled "Sectional Misunderstandings," 


Many of the authorities for the assertion as to the use of Rawle's work as a text-book at the military academy have been collected by Colonel Robert Bingham of Asheville, North Carolina, and are inserted in a preface to a pamphlet reprint of an article entitled "Sectional Misunderstandings," which was originally published in the "North American Review" of September, 1904. In this preface he says:
The crux of the following paper is the historic fact, often asserted and never officially denied, that, from 1825 (the year during which Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis entered the U. S. Military Academy)2 to as late as 1840, and probably later, the United States Government taught its cadets at West Point from Rawle's View of the Constitution that the Union was dissoluble, and that, if it should be dissolved, allegiance reverted to the STATES. Some conclusive documentary proof of this historic fact is hereby offered, for the first time, as far as the writer has been able to ascertain.
This statement, with the documents quoted, covers the gist of the claim. To ascertain the truth of the matter, a thorough examination of the academic records has now for the first time been made.​
The "documentary proof" following this statement of Colonel Bingham consists of letters from the Superintendent of the United States Military Academy, from its librarian, some from descendants  p631 of the Rawle family, and from others, none of which states definitely and positively from certain knowledge that Rawle's "View of the Constitution" was used as a text-book, though some of them say that they have heard it stated as a fact, and believe it to be true. Among the letters are two from graduates of the period covered in this inquiry. Almost every statement is based upon "recollection" or "hearsay and belief."
This not good foundational evidence. ​
In addition to these letters, there is quoted one from the Hon. Charles Francis Adams, inclosing a copy of one of his own publications entitled, "The Constitutional Ethics of Secession," in which it is said that "anterior to 1840 the doctrine of the right of secession seems to have been inculcated at West Point as an admitted principle of Constitutional Law. . . . Prior to 1840, his [Rawle's] View was the text-book in use at West Point."

General Adams wrote this upon information he then had at hand, and refers to correspondence with "the librarian and authorities at West Point."​
A letter dated November 23, 1904, and written by the librarian of the United States Military Academy, is quoted by Colonel Bingham, to the effect that "the copy" of Rawle's "View of the Constitution" "owned by the Library U. S. M. A., contains Ms. notes which make it very probable that this book was used as a text-book at the Military Academy, inasmuch as there is a list of sections and lessons marked."​
A rigid and careful examination of this book, with a decipherment of the pencil notes and marks in it, shows that the librarian, while correct in his statement as to the probable use of Rawle's work, was mistaken in his ground therefor as to this particular book, and that these notes and marks do not indicate a list of sections or a division of the text into lessons, as might have been the case if it had been used as a text-book.​
The superintendent of the military academy wrote, November 14, 1904, that in the "Memorial Volume of the Military Academy," soon to be published, the following note would appear:The text-book of the law department, from (?) to (?). The copy of this book owned by the Library U. S. Military Academy makes it very probable that it was used as a text-book.​
But the same superintendent, after a further examination of the matter, wrote later, July 10, 1905, to the Hon. W. A. Calderhead, Marysville, Kansas:​
The records of the Department have been carefully searched and they do not show that Rawle was ever used either as a text-book or work of reference.​
The subject matter expert changed his story.​


General Adams published his pamphlet in 1903, and his letter inclosing it was written in 1904, so that it is very probable that he had the first statements given above, or similar information, upon which he based his assertion. In a personal letter to the writer hereof, dated March 4, 1908, he has since written:

I freely confess, and with some mortification, that the reference in my booklet, "The Ethics of Secession," was too strong. I should have stated that Rawle's "View" "is said to have been used as a text-book at West Point" during the period named. As it stands, I have stated it as a fact. I did so on the authority of others, mainly Southern writers, including Jefferson Davis. He, however, gave different limits of time for its use.
My own final impression on the matter is, that Rawle's "View" never was an established and authorized text-book at the Academy for any course of instruction; but, between 1825 and 1832, the question of Nullification and the right of secession were freely discussed among the students, and Rawle's view was that certainly accepted by the Southern students, and, in all probability, by the mass of both students and instructors. I have equally little question that frequent reference was made to the book.
No evidence of Rawles work used as a textbook, but if it was used in secession discussions, the method of secession suggested by Rawles was not used.
 

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How West Point was...

Link: https://www.historynet.com/americas-civil-war-comes-to-west-point.htm

The authorities did all they could to prevent politics from dividing the Corps. In the forties, Superintendent Richard Delafield dissolved the Dialectic Society for a year because it was debating subjects such as ‘Has a State under any circumstances the right to nullify an act of Congress?’ When he allowed it to reorganize, he limited it to noncontroversial topics. The Corps of Cadets, however, represented all sections of the country, and in the fifties, as political passions rose, divisions did begin to appear. Fights, especially during election periods, became more frequent. In the aftermath of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859 there were many heated arguments and at least one duel. A Georgia Cadet, Pierce M.B. Young, hanged Brown’s body in effigy from one of the windows at the barracks. In a Fourth of July address the next year first classman William W. McCreery condemned the outbreaks, maintained that the ‘noble Union’ would not dissolve, and concluded, ‘Let us put from us the seeds of sectional strife and draw closer and closer the bonds of this glorious union.’ Two years later Lieutenant McCreery resigned from the army and joined the forces of his native Virginia. He died in action at the Battle of Gettysburg.

In September 1860 an unknown group of cadets held a mock election in the Corps for President. Some 214 of the 278 cadets voted, 99 of them for the Southern Democrat candidate John C. Breckinridge, 47 for the Northern Democrat Stephen A. Douglas, 44 for the Constitutional Union candidate John Bell, and 24 for Republican Abraham Lincoln. Southerners were jubilant, but Yankee cadets were furious. Second classmen Emory Upton of New York claimed that Southerners had prevented Northerners form voting, there was talk that all the tellers were Southerners, and the Yankees dismissed the whole thing as a Southern project
 

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Here some stats... http://clevelandcivilwarroundtable.com/articles/military/west_point.htm

Nine hundred and seventy-seven West Point graduates from the classes of 1833 through 1861 were alive when the Civil War began. Of these men, 259 (26%) joined the Confederacy and 638 (65%) fought for the Union. Eight did not fight for either side. Thirty-nine graduates from these classes who had come to West Point from Southern states fought for the Union and 32 who had come from Northern states fought for the Confederacy.

Snip...

Ninety-five graduates of West Point were killed in the Civil War and 141 were wounded
. The largest number of casualties came from the class of 1854 of which almost half were killed or wounded. The most famous class was that of 1846 which included George McClellan, "Stonewall" Jackson, A.P. Hill, Cadmus Wilcox, George Stoneman, and last in the class, George Pickett.

Most West Point graduates who served in the Civil War did not reach the status of a Lee, Jackson, Grant, or Sherman, nevertheless, they did clearly demonstrate the military value of West Point training.
 

5fish

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@O' Be Joyful here are some souls that spent there last night together...

The party was just the sort of thing that George ‘Fanny Custer, who often pushed the limits, liked to instigate. Although drinking was forbidden for cadets at West Point, the impetuous Midwesterner was determined to give his graduating friends, especially Dod Ramseur, a proper send-off. Other second-year classmen helping to host the bash included burly Texan and fellow hell-raiser Tom Rosser and Alabamian John Pelham. Maine’s Adelbert Ames and probably Henry Du Pont, scion of a Delaware fortune and Rosser’s roommate, ably represented the North. In addition to Ramseur, a North Carolinian, the guests of honor included Yankees Wesley Merritt and Alexander Pennington. On the appointed night in the spring of 1860, the young men left dummies in their beds to conceal their absence and met at nearby Benny Havens’ Tavern for a last carousal. Over mugs of flip (rum, sugar and eggs), they sang: In the army there’s sobriety, promotion’s very slow/ So we’ll sing our reminiscences of Benny Havens, oh! Everyone there knew by now that war was coming, but that night had been set aside for comradeship.

The article is about Custer and Ramseur ... https://www.historynet.com/americas-civil-war-george-custer-and-stephen-ramseur.htm
 

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Here some stats... http://clevelandcivilwarroundtable.com/articles/military/west_point.htm

Nine hundred and seventy-seven West Point graduates from the classes of 1833 through 1861 were alive when the Civil War began. Of these men, 259 (26%) joined the Confederacy and 638 (65%) fought for the Union. Eight did not fight for either side. Thirty-nine graduates from these classes who had come to West Point from Southern states fought for the Union and 32 who had come from Northern states fought for the Confederacy.

Snip...

Ninety-five graduates of West Point were killed in the Civil War and 141 were wounded
. The largest number of casualties came from the class of 1854 of which almost half were killed or wounded. The most famous class was that of 1846 which included George McClellan, "Stonewall" Jackson, A.P. Hill, Cadmus Wilcox, George Stoneman, and last in the class, George Pickett.

Most West Point graduates who served in the Civil War did not reach the status of a Lee, Jackson, Grant, or Sherman, nevertheless, they did clearly demonstrate the military value of West Point training.
Took a lot of training before Southern Soldiers wanted to follow the rules of the Southern West pointers.

An interesting read.
Rebels from West Point : The 306 U.S. Military Academy Graduates Who Fought for the Confederacy by Gerard A. Patterson (2002) Hardcover


 
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