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.
The causes of secession and the issues non-secessionists attempted to address to reconstruct the Union are two separate things: two separate target audiences, to separate agendas. If you are a secessionist trying to convince the majority of the people of your State to leave the Union, you adopt one agenda (they chose slavery-related issues, and some issues not slavery-related). If you are a Unionist trying to prevent secession, you address a separate audience (Crittenden selected slaveholders) with a separate agenda (making slavery secure).
Funny how when addressing both slaveholders and nonslaveholders both secessionists and unionists concentrated on slavery. Makes me think there was only one issue with enough reason to fight over.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnTaylor
And yet about one third of the Georgia Declaration of Secession addresses issue other than slavery. Were they being insincere in the declaration?
Only if one reads superficially and merely counts words without regard to what those words are referring to. When they got around to saying why they were seceding, 100% of the reasons dealt with slavery.
Funny how when addressing both slaveholders and nonslaveholders both secessionists and unionists concentrated on slavery. Makes me think there was only one issue with enough reason to fight over.
Only if one reads superficially and merely counts words without regard to what those words are referring to. When they got around to saying why they were seceding, 100% of the reasons dealt with slavery.
Regards,
Cash
The real issues at stake were political power and money- who has the power gets the money.
Slavery in the Territories-
When you boil away the fat the real issue is power (control of Congress).
~
Except for a minority of misguided fanatics (some verging on insanity) the North cared nothing about slaves.
Has anyone read "Arguing About Slavery" its a fascinating account of the Congressional debates about slavery in the 1830s and 40s. For such a dry subject(it is nearly 100 % guys arguing), William Lee Miller is such a witty writer that its actually quite gripping.
Criticism or attacks on slavery, just verbal or written at this point, were so offensive to slaveowning members of Congress that a "gag rule" against debating or even submitting petitions on the subject. Its an issue that raised the temperature and emotions--when just talking about it, when there was no realistic chance of any abolitionist measures ever passing. When you have slavery, you're not just getting an economic activity, you're buying a whole package of beliefs and anxieties.
In Battalion's point that the issue of slavery going into the Territories was about the balance of power between North and South, isn't he saying that the South=slavery. There is no South without slavery, and any territory or state, regardless of its location becomes part of the South when it has slavery, and part of the "other" when it doesn't.
The real issues at stake were political power and money- who has the power gets the money.
Slavery in the Territories-
When you boil away the fat the real issue is power (control of Congress).
Please note that even if what you are saying is true, what the South wanted to DO with the "power" you are talking about was to extend slavery throughout the United States, and they intended to use slavery to get the "money" you are talking about.
There is no hiding from this. However, you have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to do so.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
Except for a minority of misguided fanatics (some verging on insanity) the North cared nothing about slaves.
This, of course, is known to be false and misleading. The North made no attempt to go to war over slavery, and white people in that time generally did not see blacks as equals, North or South, nor did the people of the North particularly care to have them among them. However, it is very clear that there was a strong anti-slavery movement in the North, and that the issue of slavery was a very strong one in the North. You already know this as a fact. You are trying to act as if the second part of that didn't exist; again, that is clearly false.
In Battalion's point that the issue of slavery going into the Territories was about the balance of power between North and South, isn't he saying that the South=slavery. There is no South without slavery, and any territory or state, regardless of its location becomes part of the South when it has slavery, and part of the "other" when it doesn't.
Yes, that is exactly what Battalion is saying. He just finds it offensive to admit it clearly.
The real issues at stake were political power and money- who has the power gets the money.
"Because by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union; put it under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out of the protection of Federal law everywhere" [Georgia Declaration of Causes]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
Slavery in the Territories-
When you boil away the fat the real issue is power (control of Congress).
So you think the Georgians were liars?
"Because by their declared principles and policy they have outlawed $3,000,000,000 of our property in the common territories of the Union; put it under the ban of the Republic in the States where it exists and out of the protection of Federal law everywhere" [Georgia Declaration of Causes]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
Except for a minority of misguided fanatics (some verging on insanity)
So you think someone had to be a misguided fanatic verging on insanity to think slavery was immoral?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
the North cared nothing about slaves.
Those who have studied the history of this period will know that "the North" didn't secede. The secessionists cared a great deal about retaining slavery, which is why they seceded and started the war.
"If the policy of the Republicans is carried out, according to the programme indicated by the leaders of the party, and the South submits, degradation and ruin must overwhelm alike all classes of citizens in the Southern States. The slave-holder and non-slave-holder must ultimately share the same fate-- all be degraded to a position of equality with free negroes, stand side by side with them at the polls, and fraternize in all the social relations of life; or else there will be an eternal war of races, desolating the land with blood, and utterly wasting and destroying all the resources of the country.
"Who can look upon such a picture without a shudder? What Southern man, be he slave-holder or non-slave-holder, can without indignation and horror contemplate the triumph of negro equality, and see his own sons and daughters, in the not distant future, associating with free negroes upon terms of political and social equality, and the white man stripped, by the Heaven-daring hand of fanaticism of that title to superiority over the black race which God himself has bestowed?" [Letter of Stephen F. Hale, Secession Commissioner from Alabama, to Gov. Beriah Magoffin of Kentucky, 27 Dec 1860]
"Who can look upon such a picture without a shudder? What Southern man, be he slave-holder or non-slave-holder, can without indignation and horror contemplate the triumph of negro equality, and see his own sons and daughters, in the not distant future, associating with free negroes upon terms of political and social equality, and the white man stripped, by the Heaven-daring hand of fanaticism of that title to superiority over the black race which God himself has bestowed?" [Letter of Stephen F. Hale, Secession Commissioner from Alabama, to Gov. Beriah Magoffin of Kentucky, 27 Dec 1860]
Regards,
Cash[/quote]
One thing remains constant. This notion is still crap.
__________________ Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
"Who can look upon such a picture without a shudder? What Southern man, be he slave-holder or non-slave-holder, can without indignation and horror contemplate the triumph of negro equality, and see his own sons and daughters, in the not distant future, associating with free negroes upon terms of political and social equality, and the white man stripped, by the Heaven-daring hand of fanaticism of that title to superiority over the black race which God himself has bestowed?" [Letter of Stephen F. Hale, Secession Commissioner from Alabama, to Gov. Beriah Magoffin of Kentucky, 27 Dec 1860]
Regards,
Cash
One thing remains constant. This notion is still crap.
For us, yes. However, for them, it was a generally held reason to go to war and fight.
"Better, far better! endure all the horrors of civil war than to see the dusky sons of Ham leading the fair daughters of the South to the altar." [William M. Thomson to Warner A. Thomson, Feb. 2, 1861, in James M. McPherson., _For Cause & Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War,_ p. 19]
"A captain in the 8th Alabama also vowed 'to fight forever, rather than submit to freeing negroes among us. . . . [We are fighting for] rights and property bequeathed to us by our ancestors.' " [Elias Davis to Mrs. R. L. Lathan, Dec. 10, 1863 in Ibid., p. 107]
"Even though he was tired of the war, wrote a Louisiana artilleryman in 1862, ' I never want to see the day when a negro is put on an equality with a white person. There is too many free ******s. . . now to suit me, let alone having four millions.' " [George Hamill Diary, March, 1862, in Ibid., p. 109]
"A private in the 38th North Carolina, a yeoman farmer, vowed to show the Yankees ' that a white man is better than a ******.' " [Jonas Bradshaw to Nancy Bradshaw, April 29, 1862 Ibid.]
"A farmer from the Shenandoah Valley informed his fiancée that he fought to assure 'a free white man's government instead of living under a black republican government.' " [John G. Keyton to Mary Hilbert, Nov. 30, 1861, Ibid.]
"The son of another North Carolina dirt farmer said he would never stop fighting the Yankees, who were 'trying to force us to live as the colored race.' " [Samuel Walsh to Louisa Proffitt, April 11, 1864, Ibid.]
"Some of the boys asked them what they were fighting for, and they answered, 'You Yanks want us to marry our daughters to the ******s.' " [Chauncey Cook to parents, May 10, 1864, Ibid.]
"An Arkansas captain was enraged by the idea that if the Yankees won, his 'sister, wife, and mother are to be given up to the embraces of their present dusky male servitors.' " [Thomas Key, diary entry April 10, 1864, Ibid.]
"Another Arkansas soldier, a planter, wrote his wife that Lincoln not only wanted to free the slaves but also 'declares them entitled to all the rights and privileges as American citizens. So imagine your sweet little girls in the school room with a black wooly headed negro and have to treat them as their equal.' " [William Wakefield Garner to Henrietta Garner, Jan 2, 1864, Ibid.]
"[If Atlanta and Richmond fell] we are irrevocably lost and not only will the negroes be free but . . . we will all be on a common level. . . . The negro who now waits on you will then be as free as you are & as insolent as she is ignorant.' " [Allen D. Cndler to wife, July 7, 1864, Ibid.]
"The New Heresy", published by Southern Punch periodical, 1864
Please note the last line of the article. (All capital letters are the author's)
The New Heresy
Southern Punch was a satirical publication based on the original English Punch. The editor was John Wilford Overall, a prominent Richmond journalist, and it began publication in August, 1863. Overall published many satirical cartoons of Lincoln, along with war news and commentary. This article appeared in the September 19, 1864 issue. Paper shortages caused publication to cease in early 1865.
"The people of the South," says a contemporary, "are not fighting for slavery, but for independence."
Let us look into this matter. It is an easy task, we think, to show up this new fangled heresy --- a heresy calculated to do us no good, for it cannot deceive foreign statesmen nor peoples, nor mislead any one here nor in Yankeeland.
If we have read aright, the slavery agitation commenced in Philadelphia in the infancy of the United States. The members of Congress from the Southern States were much "pestered by the Quakers with petitions to free their slaves." This pestering was one, among other reasons, why the Southern members desired that the seat of government should be removed from Philadelphia.
New England with her fanatical Puritan element, finding slavery unprofitable on a soil naturally rocky and barren, transplanted the seeds sown by the Quakers of Pennsylvania, and nursed the abolition growth until she became universally and notoriously anti-slavery. Her leaders were foremost in the troubles which took place on the admission of Missouri into the Federal Union. So disgusted was John Randolph on that occasion and so prophetic of coming sectional difficulties, that, although not on speaking terms with Mr. Clay, he proposed that the Southern members of Congress should go home and declared if Mr. Clay would leave the Speaker's chair, he would follow him to Kentucky or to any part of the world.
Every reader knows by heart the history of that incessant slavery agitation in the Federal Congress afterwards. Every discerning man saw the cloud, at first no bigger than the hand of Elijah, swell into overshadowing proportions. The abolitionists stole our negroes by hundreds of thousands, flooded Congress with petitions for the emancipation of the rest, and kept up a perpetual agitation both inside and outside of the Federal capital on the subject.
At last the devilish aggressions of the North culminated in the election of Lincoln, a radical abolitionist who had made public declaration that, "the Union could not remain half white, half black" --- that slavery must give way to free labor.
Need we repeat what followed? Does not every one know this war was inaugurated because the Southern people felt that more silly compromises, more bartering away of principles, more concessions on our part, would lead to still greater aggressions on the part of the Yankees? Does not everybody know that the first gun fired at Sumter was a States' Rights gun which thundered forth the doctrine that each State was a sovereignty and as such had a right to set up or pull down any institution within its limits, and that the Federal Congress had nothing in the world to do with the domestic institutions of a State? And did not that gun vindicate the right of separate State secession, and did not secession take place because we all felt that if we remained in the Union an abolition President and an abolition Congress would, before the end of four years, jeopardize our great institution slavery?
"The people of the South are not fighting for slavery, but for independence." Why this is tantamount to saying that the South is fighting for independence at the expense of slavery. It is an acknowledgement that slavery is either an evil or unimportant --- a doctrine which we hold to be opposed to the experience of ethnologists and of every agriculturalist of the South.
If the new heresy is intended to conciliate European nations it will fail for it does not tally with our history as the Southern people know. The first are not to be hoodwinked by so transparent a fallacy; the second cannot agree to hold our great industrial institution at so low a figure. Is the new heresy intended to conciliate the Yankees? If so, worse still, as we should never consent to eat our words and our principles face to face with that negro stealing race.
Our doctrine is this: WE ARE FIGHTING FOR INDEPENDENCE THAT OUR GREAT AND NECESSARY DOMESTIC INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY SHALL BE PRESERVED, and for the preservation of other institutions of which slavery is the ground work.
__________________ "In this great struggle, this form of Government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed. There is more involved in this contest than is realized by every one." Abraham Lincoln - August 18, 1864 Speech to the 164th Ohio Regiment
These are the reasons why some Tennesseans went to war - and slavery was a part of it, but according to this - it was not THE cause.
April 22, 1861- “At a public meeting of the citizens of Putnam, County, Tenn., held in Cookeville April 22, 1861, Hon. E. L. Gardenhire was unanimously chosen chairman and William J. Reagan and B. B. Washburn secretaries of the meeting. Enthusiastic speeches were made by Hon. John H. Savage, Hon. S. S. Stanton, Hon. E. L. Gardenhire, Col. S. H. Combs, Col. T. B. Murray, Judge James T. Quarles, W. H. Botts, and others to a large and eagerly listening audience. The subject discussed was about the crisis in our government and the course to be assumed by the slave states.
The chairman appointed H. H. Dillard, Col. John P. Murray, Benton Marchbanks, W. Q. Hughes, Holland Denton, Tim H. Williams, and J. C. Apple a committee on resolutions. It was perhaps the largest meeting ever held in Putnam County, and there was great enthusiasm. Only three persons in the assembly voted against the resolutions. The preamble stated:
‘The antislavery party is the enemy of the Union and the Constitution, advocating the equality of the negro and the white races and the abolition of slavery. To accomplish this the antislavery party has been organized and now constitutes the dominant party in all the free States. And now, having possession of the Federal government in all its departments, it is attempting by conquest and coercion to carry out its ****able heresies entertained for many years toward the South and its institutions. The North has turned a listless ear to all supplication of the South in behalf of their cherished constitutional rights and treated with contempt every proposition for the honorable pacification of our difficulties. A civil war, with its untold horrors and consequences, is now commenced by the sending of an armed fleet by the Federal government to enforce its will upon the Southern Confederacy. Counsel and reason having been in vain exhausted in an honorable effort to secure our rights under the Constitution, we are now driven to the deplorable necessity of the sword and that God who rules the battles; therefore
“Resolved: 1. That we indorse every effort that has been made by convention and otherwise to bring about a peaceable settlement of our existing difficulties, and thereby preserve the Union intact; but having failed and all reasonable hopes of pacification being extinct, we do now deem it the wisest policy in Tennessee to unite her future destiny with the Southern Confederacy.
“2. That we regard the war now waged upon the Southern Confederacy by the administration as unnational, unwise, and unholy, without authority under the Constitution; that we look upon this act of the President of the United States in calling out troops and making war without the sanction of Congress as an unjustifiable assumption of power.
“3. That the position assumed by our Representatives in the State Legislature to use all means to speedily get Tennessee from under the tyrannical rule of Abraham Lincoln meets our unqualified approbation, and they are hereby directed to use all means in their power to dissolve the connection of this State with the general government and unite her fortunes with the Confederate States, and that we will ratify their action when submitted to us for approval.
“4. That the duplicity of Lincoln has our contempt; we detest his tyranny and defy his power.
“5. That we will resist his usurpation unto death; that we have no compromise with tyranny or with the tyrant who has trampled our Constitution and now seeks to enslave us.
“6. That we are opposed to Andrew Johnson for any place or position, and think him unworthy the position he now occupies, and we hereby request our Senators in Washington to no longer attempt to represent us in the Lincoln Congress.”
The Foregoing is a copy of the preamble and resolutions read at Cookeville April 22, 1861, copied then by me.”
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