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.
Well said! Of course you made no mention of goose-stepping armies, but alluding to "Aryan destiny" is certain to invoke the image.
Very few people wanted free blacks in their back yard. I suppose they expected the owners to free the slaves and keep them there. Seward's quote (presumably he wasn't trying to sell newspapers) about sums up the prevailing attitude; hence the colonization movement which no one seemed to be willing to pay for.
You can quote anything from anyone and I will believe you. That was the way it was. The ante-bellum Republicans didn't have a lock on the feeling, the noise was made for political reasons.
The opposing pressures came from the desire to carry slaves to new territories and the resistance to it. Not from concern for blacks.
Thanks for your always important contribution.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
While I am not suggesting that those in the South who wanted to advance the cause of slavery had a secret handshake or met twice a year to lay out their secret course for slavery, I do feel there was a general understanding that the institution was to be advanced at the cost of others, to include the North.
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
They pursued their interests with purpose, ferocity and single-mindeness to the point of causing the Civil War.
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
"Congress has no power to limit, restrain, or in any manner to impair slavery, but on the contrary, it is bound to protect and maintain it in the States where it exists, and wherever else the flag floats and its jurisdiction is paramount."
Robert Toombs, "Slavery: Its Constitutional Status, and Its Influence on Society and the Colored Race," De Bow's Review 20 (1856: 581.
Haven't had the heart to go back to the Congressional Globe site and fish out his comments you are looking for yet. Hang on, I'll get there.
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
Sorry. You're going to have to give the dumb limey a helping hand here.
Are you seriously suggesting that Northerners did not pursue their own interests with "purpose, ferocity and single-mindedness"? Or are you suggesting that their pursuit of self-interest was somehow intrinsically good while Southern pursuit of the same was intrinsically bad?
It could accurately be said that the Southerners were primarily interested in protecting their rights as citizens to emigrate with their property to the common Territories, and to transit with said property in the Free States without fear of losing their property in the process to holier-than-thou slavery cops, vigilantes and the like. It would also appear that it was primarily Northerners who were attempting to take this a step further and conjure up imaginings of slavery being forced on them and "Africanizing" their lily white free-state communities.
Lincoln was not unaware of the power inherent in playing the black card, and suggested a "lily white North" ideal more than once to garner support for his party.
It appears the "not in my backyard" syndrome was a common one among the leaders and inhabitants of the freedom-loving North:
From a speech on emancipation, by Sen. J.R. Doolittle of Wisconsin, March 19, 1862 [Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, 2nd session, vol. IV, appendix, p.84, col. 3]
I can give you a case directly in point. A very distinguished gentleman from Vermont was first elected to Congress, I believe, about 1843. One of the well-to-do farmers in his neighborhood called upon him, the evening before he was to leave for Washington, to pay his respects. He found him in his office, and told him that he came for that purpose, and to bid him good bye.
"And now, judge," said he, "when you get to Washington, I want to have you take hold of this negro business, and dispose of it in some way or other; have slavery abolished, and be done with it."
"Well," said the judge, "as the people who own these slaves, or claim to own them, have paid their money for them, and hold them as property under their State laws, would it not be just, if we abolish slavery, that some provision should be made to make them compensation?"
He hesitated, thought earnestly for a while, and, in a serious tone, replied: "Yes, I think that would be just, and I will stand my share of the taxes." Although a very close and economical man, he was willing to bear his portion of the taxes.
"But," said the judge, "there is one other question; when the negroes are emancipated, what shall be done with them? They are a poor people; they will have nothing; there must be some place for them to live. Do you think it would be any more than fair that we should take our share of them?"
"Well, what would be our share in the town of Woodstock?" he inquired.
The judge replied: "There are about two thousand five hundred people in Woodstock; and if you take the census and make the computation, you will find that there would be about one for every five white persons; so that here in Woodstock our share would be about five hundred."
"What!" said he, "five hundred negroes in Woodstock! Judge, I called to pay my respects; I bid you good evening;" and he started for the door, and mounted his horse. As he was about to leave, he turned round and said: "Judge, I guess you need not do anything more about that negro business on my account." [Laughter.]
Mr. President, perhaps I am not going too far when I say that honorable gentleman sits before me now.
Mr. COLLAMER. As the gentleman has called me out, I may be allowed to say that the inhabitants of the town were about three thousand, and the proportion was about one to six.
Sorry to be late on this one, been a bit busy with some personal issues.
Hal, how does the US Constitution define slaves as property? What does the Constitution have to say about property in general, in your opinion?
Bill, I never said the South was 'bad' in the pursuit of it's objective to have slavery recognized throughout the United States, to include the Free States and the Territories, nor did I state the North was 'good' in it's pursuit of it's sectional goals.
As for you being a 'dumb limey' if I were to assume that bit of fantasy, I would need help. The South was in agreement with the general goal to preserve slavery, maybe not on the specific details or in regard to a 'master plan' but to say they did not wish the institution of slavery protected and expanded, even at the point of disregarding the Constitution, is a fact that will not be explained away.
As I am at home on sick leave, I will go into detail a bit later when I have access to some reference material not readily at hand.
Until that time, my decidedly NOT, dumb limey friend.
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
I will try not to turn this posting into the equivalent of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but I still find the Civil War much too complicated, and even abstract to believe that slavery was a moral issue, or the issue. It was a huge issue, but the Republican Party managed to blend personal and sectional interests with "morality" so well that it became the most potent political force in the nation. It seems to me that the Northern slavery ideal was not all it appeared to be, but if slavery is a system built on the fundamental premise that the worst white man can own the best black man, at some point the morality of this would have had to been addressed.
Frederick Douglass constantly reminded white Americans that "a tragic limitation of the freedom they envisioned was that this freedom included whites only." No where is this more apparent than in the Manifest Destiny's lofty ideal that it was "God's will that the United States take full control of the territory stretching to the Pacific in the West, Mexico in the South and Canada in the North. It's unfortunate that the Manifest Destiny was a principal based on exclusivity and expansion at all costs.
Conservative Republicans, radical ex-Democrats and former Whigs all agreed that slavery was the major issue of the 1850's and Orville H. Browning summed up the politics of the 1860's by saying, "It is manifest to all that there is an unusual degree of political interest pervading the country - that the people everywhere are excited, and yet, from one extremity of the Republic to the other, scarcely any other subject is mentioned, or other question discussed...save the question of negro slavery." And this from Horace Clark, during the 1860 campaign: It is not to be controverted that all the slavery agitation is not at rest. It has absorbed and destroyed our national politics. It has overrun state politics. It has even invaded our municipalities; and now, in some form or other, everywhere controls the elections of the people."
The Southern emotional factor rings clear in so many of their diaries and letters, along with their deep-rooted Southern sense of honour. How could this not push the South into a corner when the Northern abolitionists began attacking them on moral grounds, especially when their own moral grounds were somewhat flawed? It is interesting to note that despite their criticisms of the Republican Party, leading abolitionists of the time kept close personal relationships with Republican leaders, and most outside of Garrison's circle voted with the Republican party. Even Garrit Smith, who insisted that he could "never vote for any person who recognizes a law for slavery," contributed a large sum of money to the Fremont campaign.
On the other hand, Northern fear of a "slave power conspiracy" was growing and reached fever pitch by the time of the CW. There was nothing to stop the slave states from taking over the territories and the new states in the west, or slave power over the government. It's easy to understand how such paranoia was dredged up between the sections. And even though Lincoln's inaugural address ensured that "the federal government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the states," Lincoln as president was totally unacceptable to the South. To me, the Republican Party pretty much soft-peddled the slavery issue by refusing to oppose it where it was and by opposing it where it wasn't.
It really isn't surprising that Southerners did not seriously believe that the Republican Party would not attack slavery in the states. And an even more dangerous concern was the possibility that President Lincoln might turn poor whites in other states against the existing slaveholders, or simply use indirect action against slavery. By the time of the secession crisis, a former Whig observed, "The people of the North and South have come to hate each other worse than the hatred between any two nations in the world. The moral basis on which the government is founded is all destroyed."
The political wars of the 1850's had done a great deal to erode whatever good feeling existed between the North and South, and there is no doubt that both sections were only too happy to flag each other's faults. And the suspicions, jealousy, resentments, sense of difference, estrangement, misunderstandings, and irreconcilable differences (all spawned by political hotheads on both sides) were the perfect breeding ground for the Civil War.
I still sit on the fence because I honestly do not see any other logical response by the South to the confrontation of their ideals. Nor do I see that the United States had any other choice in the actions they took to maintain their idealogy. The tragedy of course is that it wasn't the politicians dying by the thousands to save their country.
Bill: Having been dragged to every English pub between Leicester and Scheffield during the Holidays, I have to ask you...what's up with the warm beer? Thinking my server had made a mistake, I discreetly asked if he would mind dropping an ice cube in my glass, and apparently they're still laughing about that one at the Rising Sun!
Am similarly perplexed with the complexity and inability to define an actual cause.
I'm reminded of a log in a river. It follows the current, bouncing from bank to bank. It will snag, stop, turn, and continue. Occasionally it will ground on a sandbar and wait for the next rain to keep it moving inexorably to its proscribed destination.
It seems the northern interests and the southern interests were invested in that log. Snag here, sandbar there, free-flowing water on this or that side. Somewhere, before the log went adrift, the die was cast. Suspicion, fear, anger, hubris, arrogance, inferiority complexes, politics, et alii, entered the equation.
Somewhere before the log went adrift, humans entered the equation. And there they were. No one able to stop it.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
Linear Mode
