Civil War History - Secession and PoliticsWas it Slavery, or was it States Rights? Perhaps it was the election of Lincoln? What were the real reasons for Southern Secession and what were the political issues in this time of war? Find your answers here in the Secession and Politics Disussion.
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and not either to save or to destroy slavery.
If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union."
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The confederates who were writing and speaking at the time of secession.
You mean the ones who said these things?
"The one great evil, from which all other evils have flowed, is the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States. The Government of the United States is no longer the Government of Confederated Republics, but of a consolidated Democracy. It is no longer a free government, but a Despotism. It is, in fact, such a Government as Great Britain attempted to set over our fathers; and which was resisted and defeated by a seven years' struggle for independence....
The Southern States now stand exactly in the same position towards the Northern States that the Colonies did towards Great Britain....
Thus, the Government of the United States has become a consolidated Government; and the people of the Southern States are compelled to meet the very despotism their fathers threw off in the Revolution of 1776. "
"And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British Parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States, have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue - to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures."
"The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected, three- fourths of them are expended at the North."
"Yet, by gradual and steady encroachments on the part of the people of the North, and acquiescence on the part of the South, the limitations in the Constitution have been swept away; and the Government of the United States has become consolidated, with a claim of limitless powers in its operations."
"The experiment has been fairly made. The Southern States, from the commencement of the Government, have striven to keep it within the orbit prescribed by the Constitution. The experiment has failed. The whole Constitution, by the constructions of the Northern people, has been absorbed by its preamble. In their reckless lust for power,"
"That equality in the Government between the two sections of the Union which once existed, no longer exists."
"Your object is to subjugate the Southern States, and requisition made upon me for such an object--an object, in my judgment, no within the purview of the Constitution or the act of 1795-will not be complied with. You have chosen to inaugurate civil war, and having done so, we will meet it in a spirit as determined as the Administration has exhibited toward the South."
"Your dispatch is received, and if genuine, which its extraordinary character leads me to doubt, I have to say in reply that I regard the levy of troops made by the administration for the purpose of subjugating the States of the South as in violation of the Constitution and a gross usurpation of power. I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of the country, and this war upon the liberties of a free people."
"Your requisition, in my judgment, is illegal, unconstitutional, and revolutionary in its object, in human and diabolical, and cannot be complied with."
"The despot's heel is on thy shore,
Maryland! His torch is at thy temple door, Maryland!
Avenge the patriotic gore
That flecked the streets of Baltimore, And be the battle queen of yore,
Maryland! My Maryland! "
"In answer I say emphatically Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked purpose of subduing her sister Southern States."
"In answer to you requisition for troops Arkansas to subjugate the Southern States, I have to say that none will be furnished. The demand is only adding insult to injury. The people of this commonwealth are freemen, not slaves, and will defend to the last extremity their honor, lives, and property against Northern mendacity and usurpation."
"The right to [secede] is denied by her Northern confederates. They desire to establish a sectional despotism, not only omnipotent in Congress, but omnipotent over the States; and as if to manifest the imperious necessity of our secession, they threaten us with the sword, to coerce submission to their rule."
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I believe they were telling the truth when, at the time of secession, they very clearly told us why they were seceding.
Better yet, a quote from the web site, Through The Looking-Glass. The Confederate Constitution.
"A noble experiment? Hardly. In attempting to establish the so-called Confederate States of America, Southern zealots broke up a government that Alexander Stephens had said, "Comes nearer the objects of all good governments than any other on the face of the earth." and precipitated a war that snuffed out 600,000 lives, all in the unworthy cause of slavery."
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
It is a worthy goal, I will admit, trying to distract the patient from his life-threatening disease by talking about the weather, but it doesn't really affect the course of the disease or its cause.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
No, I'm afraid you don't. Anyone who claims the fact that the EP didn't apply to Union territory shows that it wasn't about slavery doesn't understand the factors surrounding the EP.
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Originally Posted by hawglips
You mean the ones who said these things?
"The one great evil, from which all other evils have flowed, is the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States. The Government of the United States is no longer the Government of Confederated Republics, but of a consolidated Democracy. It is no longer a free government, but a Despotism. It is, in fact, such a Government as Great Britain attempted to set over our fathers; and which was resisted and defeated by a seven years' struggle for independence....
Nice try, but this was not a document whose purpose was to explain why they were seceding.
I was about to post a message about somethings I found in William C. Davis' Look Away about the Confederate Govmt. restricting the rights of states in regard to slavery, but some searching found that Neil covered that in his Post #108 of 10-20-2004. Check it out.
Maybe I'll post it under Secession, or Slavery the Cause.
Oh, heck, here it is; in more words and probably more effectively than I could have related it:
Bill,
In all truth, I cannot look at Article V, Section 1, as a separate issue because of the entire document it resides in. It would be like trying to decide what kind of person you are from a fragment of thumbnail.
And Bill, I understand that you are NOT trying to play down the significance of slavery in the Confederate States. But it does trouble me that you have not uttered one word on that particular subject on this thread, as I consider this document the base on which the Confederacy was built and that the bedrock was slavery. It is an inescapable historical fact when reading this constitution. Now I just have to convince you of that fact and why Article V, Section 1 has no meaning when discussing the issue of slavery as it relates to this consitution.
What I do not understand is why, when trying to prove a point on how wonderful the Confederate constitution is, that we are trying to concentrate on a few points, when taken by themselves, would NOT give the true flavor of the entire document and ignore those parts which portray it in a less than favorable light.
This is almost as fantastic as trying to explain the good of the Nuremberg Laws on anti-Semitism by focusing on one, positive section of that law, such as no spitting on the sidewalks, and ignoring the tremendous wrongs committed elsewhere in these laws. And yes Bill, the sections in the Confederate constitution concerning the perpetual nature of slavery and the inability to change that nature is just as monstrous to me as the use of the Nuremberg Laws against the Jews.
And I do not agree that only Article V must contain the words that state that slavery cannot be amended in the Confederacy. Research on many Southern State constitutions of the period have shown me that Articles on slavery are often separate from other sections and yet carry the same meaning. NO emancipation, NO restrictions on anyone bringing slaves into the state, etc. Hence, I have no problem with the idea that Articles concerning slavery are given their own space in other areas of the constitution and that their meanings are clear to those who put them there.
I take it you have taken the time to read the FindLaw article/link above concerning the Confederate constitution and its take on slavery. This site concerns itself with the law and they seem to have no problem with the idea that the Confederate constitution was making slavery a permanent part of the system and that it would be unable to change or effect it in the future.
I also inclue the following from the book Look Away, by William C. Davis. In Chapter 4, The Struggle for a Confederate Democracy, page 97, in describing the actions of the framing committee for a permanent Confederate constitution, this section in part reads:
"In the end Rhett's (the head of the committee) only significant changes that were retained were his six-year presidential term limit and the guarantee of slavery in the territories, though the committee provided this only during the territorial state and thus left the door open to possible free states being formed. They also accepted his prohibition against the reappointment of rejected prsidential appointees, a small victory at best. A few matters they ignored, leaving them to the floor debates.
For the moment the committee settled on a clause merely protecting slavery everywhere in their nation, <u>regardless of state legislation</u>. Significantly, in a movement that all declared to be predicated on the sovereignty of the states, the one area in which now and again in the future they would <u>deny state sovereignty would be slavery</u>. To the old Union they had said that Federal power had no authority to interfere with slavery issues in a state. To their new nation they would declare that the state <u>had no power to interfere with a federal protection of slavery</u>. Of all the many testimonials to the fact that slavery, and not state rights, really lay at the heart of their movement, this was the most eloquent of all. States had the right to embrace slavery <u>but not to reject it once embraced</u>. And as if further evidence were needed, after much discussion they also decided not to include any specific provision recognizing explicitly the right of a state to secede. None of their number should have the right to do to them what they had just done to the Union."
On page 102 of the same chapter, during the debate in which the draft of the constitution was debated before Southern delegates, it states:
"In another shot at reform, they agreed on an iron-clad fugitive slave law, and adopted the clause guaranteeing any citizen the right to take his slaves with him <u>to any part of the Confederacy</u>.
Finally they had to face the issue that many dreaded most of all, and that Stephens would dub the "Great Debate." How should they admit new states, and just what sort of states should be welcomed into their Confederacy?....William Porcher Miles commenced the debate with a motion that only slave states ought to be admitted, which would protect slavery indefinitely, revealing yet again the black bedrock on which they were building their new temple. The debate continued into the next day, March 8, and so did the rising blood of partisans on both sides. South Carolina stood immovable on a free state ban, and Florida dutifully followed that lead, while four other states defeated them at every turn. Georgia deadlocked in a tie vote, infuriating Tom Cobb, who favored the free state prohibition. But it was much closer than that. In fact, despite the vote by states, a shift of just one vote each in Texas and Georgia would have sided them with South Carolina and Florida and the ban would have passed. After what Stephens thought to be the most tense and potentially dangerous debates of the whole business, they finally left the wording on admission to be settled later.
March 9 would be the last day of debate...Rhett still had an amendment in play to expel any state that should <u>abolish slavery</u>. Stephens tried to kill it by tabling but lost on a close vote that revealed scant backing for the measure itself, only to have William Barry of Mississippi introduce yet another version. Clearly the Rhett forces had this campaign well organized, but Stephens demanded the question which resulted in an immediated vote, and 'Little Aleck' had counted head well. Three states voted for and three against, and Louisiana was split, making a tie, and defeat.
The only victory that the Rhett camp could get on the free state issue came when they finally settled the admission question. Since this was intended as a vehicle for admitting states already formed and a part of the old Union, they dispensed with provisions for territorial status which were moot in this instance. Instead, they settled on a means by which a state would need a vote of two-thirds of the members of the House of Representatives, and two-thirds of the Senate, though in the Senate the balloting would be one state, one vote. The required concurrence in the Senate was the guarantee. Even if all the existing fifteen slave states eventually became a part of the Confederacy, as few as six in opposition could kill statehood in the Senate, and the Deep South states could be expected to stand firm on admitting only slave states. The important point to Stephens and others in defeating an outright ban on free states was essentially one of public posture. Already the more thoughtful were sensitive about their movement being perceived by the world at large as exclusively driven by slavery, and a ban would have reinforced that idea. But having accomplished this, they then went right on to provide in another clause <u>that all territory that should be aquired in the future by the new nation, and any new states formed from that territory, should include slavery, not by the choice of the inhabitants, but by constitutional mandate</u>. <u>There would be no popular sovereignty to allow territorial governments to choose to become free states</u>. Here as throughout, <u>preservation of slavery was the driving force behind most of the variations from the Constitution of the United States</u>.
...for they made their most vital issue, slavery, <u>a part of their constitutional fabric and thus untouchable</u>, while otherwise providing some protection from majority will even on their own floor. Indeed, while the United States Constitution had merely recognized slavery as an existing institution, their new charter <u>entrenched it as a fundamental right</u>, one of those "blessings of liberty" spoken of in their preamble. On this issue alone, they knowingly violated all the arguments about state rights that their section had been making for generations, for they set slavery above <u>state sovereignty: inviolate, untouchable</u>. Their fugitive slave law was <u>ironclad</u>. No Supreme Court could <u>touch it</u>. In all practicality, <u>no free state really stood a chance for admission</u>."
I submit the above as further evidence that the Confederate constitution could NOT be amended in regard to slavery.
You cannot pick and choose which part of the beef is good after it has been infected. The whole animal is tainted. I'm sorry I cannot bring myself to pick and choose which of the document is fine and which is not. To me, to do so, would be to dodge the real issue of the document.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ -
"It was a very peculiar time." - Franklin D. Cossitt
Ancestors in USA Army: 6th IA Inf, 11th IL Cav, 1st AL Cav; 122nd NY Inf; 6th MI Cav; 35th MA Inf; 100th IL Inf; 1st CO Inf/Cav; 22nd IN Inf
Neil,
Beef supposedly being infected?A tainted animal?Are you okay?Seriously was all that necessary?It doesn't seem too unreasonable to evaluate the good with the bad.Just about everything has positives and negatives.
__________________ "The sword is mighty, but principles laugh at swords. Overwhelming force may crush truth to earth but, crushed or not the truth is still the truth." Regards, Ashley
Nice post. Other scholars have noted that the Confederate Constitution was not a states' rights document when it came to slavery:
"Professor [Arthur] Bestor rightly concluded that the new Confederacy was hardly dedicated to states' rights. Instead, at least as far as the institution of slavery was concerned, 'the Confederacy was a unitary, consolidated, national state, denying to each one of its allegedly sovereign members any sort of local autonomy with respect to this particular one among its domestic institutions.'"
Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Slaveholding Republic, at p. 307, quoting Arthur Bestor, "State Sovereignty and Slavery: A Reinterpretation of Proslavery Constitutional Doctrine, 1846-1860", Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 54 (1961) at 178.
In the times of the Civil War, people were encouraged to take doses of arsnic to cure some ailments. Ignorance can forgive them as they really did not know the danger of taking such substances.
Ignorance of the ills of the Confederate constitution can not be considered an excuse today for anyone aware of its poisonous parts that infect it. The posion is there for anyone to read.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Nice post. Other scholars have noted that the Confederate Constitution was not a states' rights document when it came to slavery:
"Professor [Arthur] Bestor rightly concluded that the new Confederacy was hardly dedicated to states' rights. Instead, at least as far as the institution of slavery was concerned, 'the Confederacy was a unitary, consolidated, national state, denying to each one of its allegedly sovereign members any sort of local autonomy with respect to this particular one among its domestic institutions.'"
Don E. Fehrenbacher, The Slaveholding Republic, at p. 307, quoting Arthur Bestor, "State Sovereignty and Slavery: A Reinterpretation of Proslavery Constitutional Doctrine, 1846-1860", Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 54 (1961) at 178.
That could not be further from the truth. Southern states were entirely free to abolish slavery within their respective states. They were not free to deny travellers with their slaves from crossing their land nor could they prevent slave owners from visiting (temporarily) inside their state, but the states themselves were not required to be slave states. And, if these conditions did not appeal to the states they had the right NOT to join the Confederacy. No state was being forced. And, I might add, the Confederate Government was straight forward and up front about this. There would be no surprises to the states once they joined the Confederacy.
Regards,
Rose
__________________ "Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names".--J.F.K.
The War Between the States established... This principle that the Federal Government is, through its courts, this final judge of its own powers.
-- Woodrow Wilson
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