All monuments and flags honoring or memorializing the Confederacy are symbols of treason to the United States of America

All monuments and flags honoring or memorializing the Confederate States of America represents symbols of treason to the United States of America

President Abraham Lincoln clearly stated that the Confederate States of America and all of its soldiers, who raised weapons of war against the United States, were officially guilty of treason against America.

Robert Edward Lee was the commander of the Confederate States Army and the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War, from 1862 until his surrender in 1865. Robert E. Lee was never pardoned during the remainder of his living life, nor was his citizenship ever restored during the remainder of his living life.

On June 13, 1774 Rhode Island became the first of the original Thirteen British American Colonies to introduce anti-slavery laws that would accentuate the divide between Northern and Southern states.

On July, 1776 Thomas Jefferson draws up the Declaration of Independence to assert the sovereign rights of the American colonists. In approving the Declaration, Congress set a precedent that outlined the rights of a people to abandon their former political allegiances and ‘to institute new government.’

On January 1, 1808 The United States banned the import and export of enslaved African people, one year after Great Britain abolished the slave trade. Northern states begin a gradual process of ending slavery, but the institution strengthens in the Southern states.

On March 3, 1820 the more populous Northern states dominated the House of Representatives and the South sought to redress the balance. Missouri was admitted to the Union as a slave state but in the future, states north of Missouri and the 36°30′ latitude line would be admitted only if they were free. The exception was California, which was admitted to the Union in 1850 as a free state despite the parallel divide. This is known as the The Missouri Compromise.

The Fugitive Slave Act was passed by the United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern slave-holding interests and Northern Free-Soilers.

The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 penalized officials who did not arrest an alleged runaway enslaved African descent people, and made them liable to a fine of $1,000. Law-enforcement officials were required to arrest people suspected of being a runaway enslaved African descent people. The suspected enslaved person could not ask for a jury trial or testify on his or her own behalf. In addition, any person aiding a runaway enslaved African descent person by providing food or shelter was subject to 6 months’ imprisonment and a $1,000 fine. Officers who captured a fugitive enslaved African descent people were entitled to a bonus or promotion for their work. Free African descent people were also be arrested and sent to the South to enter enslavement.

In 1855, the Wisconsin Supreme Court became the only state high court to declare the Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional. In 1859 in Ableman v. Booth, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

The 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act overturned the Missouri Compromise by ceding rights to individual states to decide whether to be free or slave-holding through the process of Popular Sovereignty. Enslavers flocked into Kansas, sparking clashes with free-state Northerners on a scale that could lead to a civil war.

On November 6, 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected President of the United States as a Republican Party candidate. Lincoln won the presidential election without carrying a single Southern state.

On December 20, 1860 South Carolina became the first to secede from the United States of America in the immediate aftermath of Lincoln’s election. The Ordinance of Secession cites Northern hostility to slavery.

On April 12, 1861 the first exchange of war in the Civil War took place off the coast of South Carolina at Fort Sumter, a garrison that had been occupied by Kentuckian Unionists. Lincoln, under public pressure, sends provisions to the previously unmanned garrison and notifies the Secessionists of his intentions. Jefferson Davis took the decision to fire on the United States’ vessel, which led to the surrender and evacuation of United States’federal troops.

On April 15, 1861, just 3 days after the attack on Fort Sumter, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation calling forth the state militias, to the sum of 75,000 troops, in order to suppress the rebellion in South Carolina.

Lincoln’s proclamation also summoned Congress to return for an extraordinary session beginning on July 4, “to consider, and determine, such measures as, in their wisdom, the public safety, and interest, may seem to demand.”

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Abraham Lincoln, Proclamation [Draft], April 15, 1861

By the President of the United States

A proclamation

To the People of the United States of America.

Whereas the laws of the United States have been, for some time past, and at the present and now, are opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the states of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the Marshals by law, therefore, I, as Abraham Lincoln President of the United States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws, have thought fit to call out forth, and hereby do call out forth the militia of the several states, of the Union, to the aggregate number of seventyfive thousand, in order to suppress said combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed. The details, for this object, will be made known immediately communicated to the State authorities, through the War Department.

I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union and the perpetuity of popular government; and to redress its injurious [in]sults, and injuries wrongs, already too long endured.

I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places and property, which have been seized from the government; Union; and, in every event, the utmost care will be observed, consistly with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation; any destruction of, or interference with, property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens, in any part of the country–

And I hereby command the persons composing the combinations aforesaid to disperse, and retire peaceably to their respective abodes, within twenty days from this date–

Deeming that the present condition of public affairs presents an extraordinary occasion, I do hereby in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution, I do hereby convene both Houses of Congress,– Senators and Representatives are therefore summoned to assemble at their respective chambers, at 12. o,clock, noon, on Thursday the fourth day of July, A. D. 1861 next, then and there to consider, and determine, such measures as, in their wisdom, the public safety, and interest, may seem to demand.

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By the President of the United States

A Proclamation

Whereas &c

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the city of Washington, this 15th day of April in the year of our Lord … and of the Independence of the United States the

By the President

Sec State.

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The Confederate States of America or the Confederacy or the Confederate South, was an unrecognized country in North America that existed from 1861 to 1865. Each state declared its secession from the United States of America, which was referenced as the Union.

The Civil War in the United States began in 1861

The order of secession resolutions and dates leaving the United States of America:

1. South Carolina (December 20, 1860)
2. Mississippi (January 9, 1861)
3. Florida (January 10, 1861)
4. Alabama (January 11, 1861)
5. Georgia (January 19, 1861)
6. Louisiana (January 26, 1861)
7. Texas (February 1; referendum February 23, 1861)
Bombardment of Fort Sumter (April 12) and President Lincoln’s call up (April 15, 1861)
8. Virginia (April 17; referendum May 23, 1861)
9. Arkansas (May 6, 1861)
10. Tennessee (May 7; referendum June 8, 1861)
11. North Carolina (May 20, 1861)

On May 29, 1865, President Andrew Johnson issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Pardon to persons who had participated in the rebellion against the United States. There were fourteen excepted classes, though, and members of those classes had to make special application to the President.
Lee sent an application to Grant and wrote to President Johnson on June 13, 1865:

“Being excluded from the provisions of amnesty & pardon contained in the proclamation of the 29th Ulto; I hereby apply for the benefits, & full restoration of all rights and privileges extended to those included in its terms. I graduated at the Mil. Academy at West Point in June 1829. Resigned from the U.S. Army April ’61. Was a General in the Confederate Army, & included in the surrender of the Army of N. Va. 9 April ’65.”

On October 2, 1865, the same day that Lee was inaugurated as president of Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, he signed his Amnesty Oath, thereby complying fully with the provision of Johnson’s proclamation.

But Lee was not pardoned, nor was his citizenship restored.
He died a non-citizen of the United States.

It was not until 1975, that Lee’s full rights of citizenship were posthumously restored by a joint congressional resolution effective June 13, 1865.

At the August 5, 1975, signing ceremony, President Gerald R. Ford acknowledged the discovery of Lee’s Oath of Allegiance in the National Archives.

National Archives | General Records of the Department of State
Amnesty Oath of Robert E. Lee

The Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA:
A PROCLAMATION.

WHEREAS, in and by the Constitution of the United States, it is provided that the President “shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment;” and

Whereas, a rebellion now exists whereby the loyal state governments of several states have for a long time been subverted, and many persons have committed, and are now guilty of, treason against the United States; and

Whereas, with reference to said rebellion and treason, laws have been enacted by congress, declaring forfeitures and confiscation of property and liberation of slaves, all upon terms and conditions therein stated, and also declaring that the President was thereby authorized at any time thereafter, by proclamation, to extend to persons who may have participated in the existing rebellion, in any state or part thereof, pardon and amnesty, with such exceptions and at such times and on such conditions as he may deem expedient for the public welfare; and

Whereas, the congressional declaration for limited and conditional pardon accords with well-established judicial exposition of the pardoning power; and

Whereas, with reference to said rebellion, the President of the United States has issued several proclamations, with provisions in regard to the liberation of slaves; and

Whereas, it is now desired by some persons heretofore engaged in said rebellion to resume their allegiance to the United States, and to reinaugurate loyal state governments within and for their respective states: Therefore–

I, ABRAHAM LINCOLN, President of the United States, do proclaim, declare, and make known to all persons who have, directly or by implication, participated in the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter excepted, that a full pardon is hereby granted to them and each of them, with restoration of all rights of property, except as to slaves, and in property cases where rights of third parties shall have intervened, and upon the condition that every such person shall take and subscribe an oath, and thenceforward keep and maintain said oath inviolate; and which oath shall be registered for permanent preservation, and shall be of the tenor and effect following, to wit:–

“I, , do solemnly swear, in presence of Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully support, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Union of the States thereunder; and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all acts of congress passed during the existing rebellion with reference to slaves, so long and so far as not repealed, modified, or held void by congress, or by decision of the supreme court; and that I will, in like manner, abide by and faithfully support all proclamations of the President made during the existing rebellion having reference to slaves, so long and so far as not modified or declared void by decision of the supreme court. So help me God.”

The persons excepted from the benefits of the foregoing provisions are all who are, or shall have been, civil or diplomatic officers or agents of the so-called Confederate government; all who have left judicial stations under the United States to aid the rebellion; all who are, or shall have been, military or naval officers of said so-called Confederate government above the rank of colonel in the army or of lieutenant in the navy; all who left seats in the United States congress to aid the rebellion; all who resigned commissions in the army or navy of the United States and afterwards aided the rebellion; and all who have engaged in any way in treating colored persons, or white persons in charge of such, otherwise than lawfully as prisoners of war, and which persons may have been found in the United States service as soldiers, seamen, or in any other capacity.

And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known that whenever, in any of the States of Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, and North Carolina, a number of persons, not less than one tenth in number of the votes cast in such state at the presidential election of the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty, each having taken the oath aforesaid, and not having since violated it, and being a qualified voter by the election law of the state existing immediately before the so-called act of secession, and excluding all others, shall reestablish a state government which shall be republican, and in nowise contravening said oath, such shall be recognized as the true government of the state, and the state shall receive thereunder the benefits of the constitutional provision which declares that “the United States shall guaranty to every state in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or the executive, (when the legislature cannot be convened,) against domestic violence.”

And I do further proclaim, declare, and make known that any provision which may be adopted by such state government in relation to the freed people of such state, which shall recognize and declare their permanent freedom, provide for their education, and which may yet be consistent as a temporary arrangement with their present condition as a laboring, landless, and homeless class, will not be objected to by the National Executive.

And it is suggested as not improper that, in constructing a loyal state government in any state, the name of the state, the boundary, the subdivisions, the constitution, and the general code of laws, as before the rebellion, be maintained, subject only to the modifications made necessary by the conditions hereinbefore stated, and such others, if any, not contravening said conditions, and which may be deemed expedient by those framing the new state government.

To avoid misunderstanding, it may be proper to say that this proclamation, so far as it relates to state governments, has no reference to states wherein loyal state governments have all the while been maintained. And, for the same reason, it may be proper to further say, that whether members sent to congress from any state shall be admitted to seats constitutionally rests exclusively with the respective houses, and not to any extent with the Executive. And still further, that this proclamation is intended to present the people of the states wherein the national authority has been suspended, and loyal state governments have been subverted, a mode in and by which the national authority and loyal state governments may be reestablished within said states, or in any of them; and while the mode presented is the best the Executive can suggest, with his present impressions, it must not be understood that no other possible mode would be acceptable.

Given under my hand at the city of Washington the eighth day of December, A.D. one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-eighth.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN.

By the President:
WILLIAM H. SEWARD, Secretary of State.

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Video: A Confederate monument to pro-slavery forces was destroyed in Durham, North Carolina

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Video: A Confederate monument on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill was toppled

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Video: Confederate Flag removed from South Carolina state capitol building

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Video: University of Alabama coach Nick Saban talks about the state of Alabama removing the Confederate flag from state capitol building

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Video: More states join movement against Confederate flag

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