John Minor Botts
In the wake of my post, yesterday, at Southern Unionists Chronicles (and recalling the suspension of habeas corpus and declaration of martial law, under the administration of Confederate President Jefferson Davis)…
An Interesting Document – Why John Minor Botts was Imprisoned.
From the Richmond Republic. [as reprinted in the January 22, 1866 edition of the New York Times].The sayings and doings of a distinguished political prisoner during his imprisonment are ever after a subject of interest. The document below, in the handwriting of Hon. JOHN M. BOTTS, was sent us sometime since by a gentleman in the county, to whom Mr. BOTTS had given it. It will be found interesting when we remember when and where it was written. Read it:
Reasons, as they passed through my mind on the night of the 27th April, 1862, as I lay after eight weeks’ solitary confinement in a negro jail, as the causes of my confinement:
1. Because I would not aid in the breaking up the Union formed by WASHINGTON and his compeers, which, from infancy, I had been taught to venerate and adore as the only sheet-anchor of national greatness, prosperity and freedom.
2. Because I would not aid in the destruction of the best government the world has ever looked upon.
3. Because I would not aid in bringing civil war, desolation and famine upon my own section of the country.
4. Because I would not aid in the dismemberment, impoverishment and ruin of my native State, and desolation of the whole South.
5. Because I would not aid in the slaughter of the hundreds of thousands that have been and will be sacrificed.
6. Because I would not aid in breaking up the social ties and life-long and personal and family intimacies that for generations have existed.
7. Because I would not aid in making widows and orphans unnumbered and untold.
8. Because I would not aid in turning the instincts of humanity into that of wolves and other brutes.
9. Because I would not practice a low deception and an unworthy trick, as thousands have done, from motives of selfishness, ambition or fear.
10. Because I would not adopt for myself, or recommend for others, a policy by which the fruits of a country’s labor must be thrown away.
11. Because I had the firmness to adhere with fidelity to the principles I had cherished, and labored for thirty years to establish, and which my State had just adopted at the polls, but which she renounced and repudiated at the dictation of a daring and corrupt Democracy.
12. Because I preferred living under a permanent and enduring government to one that was constructed on the principles of a bomb-shell, containing the elements of destruction within itself, and sooner or later must explode and leave a wreck behind.
13. Because I preferred a government that would protect its citizens and their property, to one that would oppress and rob them.
14. Because I preferred rational civil liberty under a constitutional form of government to a hateful military despotism.
15. Because I would not sacrifice the best interests of the people, to perpetuate the power of Democracy under a Southern Confederacy, when they lost it under the national government.
16. Because I cared more for the interests and freedom of the people than I did for their caresses, and tried to take better care of them than they did of themselves.
17. Because I would not become a rebel and a traitor to my country when it had done no harm to me or my State.
18. Because I was honest, in earnest, and patriotic when I voted for “the Union, the constitution, and the enforcement of the laws,” and will not now stultify myself by repudiating all.
19. And lastly – because I was not born either a fool or a knave.
Bob Pollock
February 28, 2011
This is awesome Robert. Can you clarify no. 11? “…which my State had just adopted at the polls…” To what canvass is he referring?
Robert Moore
February 28, 2011
Bob, That part does seem a bit unclear, and caused me to stop and think, also. I have a few thoughts on it, and will see if I can offer a possible explanation this evening. Essentially, I think it’s the one point that really forces us to see things as an unconditional Virginia Unionist
Robert Moore
February 28, 2011
Bob,
Here’s what I think Botts is saying…
“Because I had the firmness to adhere with fidelity to the principles I had cherished, and labored for thirty years to establish”
I get the impression that Botts is describing unconditional Unionism.
“and which my State had just adopted at the polls”
This sounds like he may be referring to Virginia citizens’ vote in early February, for representatives to the Virginia Convention. The result of that vote was strong for Unionists, but while Botts’ idea of Unionism was firm, the idea of Unionism, to the representatives, varied.
“but which she renounced and repudiated at the dictation of a daring and corrupt Democracy.”
Ultimately, Virginia voted for secession, but I think Botts wants to make it clear that the state had only done so because of the deceptive and underhanded efforts of those who had been in favor of secession all along.
That’s my take on it. Do you see the same, or perhaps a variation of what I described?
Bob Pollock
February 28, 2011
Yes, that makes sense. I don’t know enough about how secession was accomplished in Virginia. The “Democracy” of course is the Democratic Party. How unified was the Democratic Party in Virginia? What other parties were there? What party did Botts identify with?
Robert Moore
February 28, 2011
Actually, I think he was referring to the Democratic system. The way it was operating wasn’t actually working as defined.
Bob Pollock
February 28, 2011
I wouldn’t think it would be capitalized if he was referring to the system, and it was pretty common to refer the Democrats as the “Democracy,” but you may be right.
Robert Moore
March 1, 2011
You have a point regarding the capitalization, but I’m still under the impression that he was thinking about the system and not so much the party.
I’m going to have to look it up, but I have a hunch he was a Bell man.
Commodore Perry
March 2, 2011
This might be answered by looking at #15: “Because I would not sacrifice the best interests of the people, to perpetuate the power of Democracy under a Southern Confederacy, when they lost it under the national government.”
Based on these writings, it wouldn’t make sense for him to wish to uphold a national government under which the people lost the process of democracy. If he believed that the Southern Confederacy had a democratic government, and that the national government lost its democratic process, wouldn’t he more likely have been a secessionist? I think it makes more sense in this context for him to uphold a national government without the Democratic party, which had lost national power there, but held on in the South. In short, the capitalization, I think, matters, and he may be using the word “Democracy” in sarcasm.
Mike Simons
March 2, 2011
I wonder if he believed #3,4,5 before the shooting started or is he stating what he saw after the war in 1866.
He is well spoken Southern Unionist !
Robert Moore
March 2, 2011
Mike, Take a closer look at the beginning. This was believed to have been written in 1862, at the end of his eight weeks in solitary.
Tom Powers
April 30, 2011
“The Democracy” was an oft-used term for the Democratic Party. I’m sure that’s how Botts meant it. He opposed Democrats to the end of his life.
He was indeed a Bell man in 1860, as were so many still-trying-to-hang-on “Old Whigs”. He believed the whole secession movement was being used by Democrats in order to have some place they could continue to control, as they had effectively controlled the entire political system of the United States since Jackson, but now had lost that with the election of Lincoln.
To answer an earlier question, the Democratic Party in Virginia was in a disordered condition. The coming of Universal Manhood Suffrage (or whatever it really was) in the Constitution of 1851 had changed the entire way of campaigning for office. Virginia had long been ruled by “The Organization” of long-time Democratic gentlemen. The charismatic Henry Wise had overcome “The Organization” to win the Democratic nomination for Governor in 1855 by campaigning in more modern fashion for the votes of the mass of citizens who had previously been excluded, and who tended to respond better to passionate and angry appeals (of which Wise was a master) than calm, reasoned ones. Between these two extremes a temporary faction of moderates, fearful of what might happen to the party if either of the others won, drove to nominate John Letcher in the 1859 election. Letcher, a “common man” (once a shoemaker’s apprentice) but no friend of Wise’s way, won as a compromise candidate whom the other factions could unite behind. They needed something like that.
But they always won anyway, because once the Whig Party collapsed, there was no effective organization opposing them. The so-called “Opposition”, whose leadership was nearly all ex-Whig, still carried the non-Democratic banner. It as never able to elect a governor, but it did usually have a substantial block of votes in the General Assembly. Botts identified with these people, most of whom had also been “Bell Men”. And yes, Botts himself had run for the “Know-Nothing” nomination for a congressional seat, but had lost that nomination.
Republicans were not a problem, though some feared they might become so. They were too few and too disorganized even to get Lincoln on the ballot in nearly all of Virginia’s counties in the 1860 Presidential election (and remember, that includes what is today West Virginia).
Thomas L. Powers
Professor of History
University of South Carolina Sumter
Sumter, SC 29150
usctpowers@yahoo.com
Robert Moore
April 30, 2011
Thanks for your comment, Professor Powers. I particularly enjoyed your comparison of Wise and Letcher.
“Republicans were not a problem, though some feared they might become so.”
No doubt, but the fear of what Republicans might do was enough of a motivator in a good many who were instrumental in pushing the matter of secession, especially in those with a sincere interest in the preservation of slavery, and what that entailed in Southern economics and social strata. Additionally, these same folks, I believe, turned the Republicans of 1860 into a “bogeyman” that they used (depending on how it is examined, the effectiveness of that influence might be considered questionable) in influencing support among the common folk.