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.
Hmm. You'd like to differ with Ole's opinion that Virginia would in time join her sister slave states without having to be bumped off the fence. No problem there. But I am having difficulty finding in your post a meaningful reason for your attitude to that question. What there is is a collection of somewhat disconnected one sentence paragraphs that ramble around, never quite touching the issue.
What am I missing in your editorializing at large?
Cash's post did state that Virginia had resolved to take her place with the confederacy if attempts at resolution fell through. I take it from your post that you must disagree with that?
Cedarstripper
Virginia is Virginia.
She would have remained Neutral, and stayed in the Union, with no dog in the fight. In joining the Union, she did not agree to attack other states who left the Union.
As Lee would say, "That is clear."
She would leave the Union before she would attack another nation composed of sister states.
If she was forced to leave the Union, she would have to join the Confederate South, or be destroyed almost at once.
She could no longer remain Neutral.
So Lincoln forced the South to join the Confederacy in whose cause she was not ashamed to defend.
Read Baldwin's account.
Beowulf
Funny, but in this entire exchange, the word slavery did not appear once....
And Yet, Davis tried to trade emancipation for foreign recognition. Davis was willing to risk insurrection or invasion, even if his people was not.
Even unto this very day, if Beowulf is any example, some are four-square against emancipation.
Of course it mattered, Battalion. Or why the desperate attempts and hopes to involve England and France in the war through all that diplomatic effort?
The South needed to be recognized as an independent nation if it ever hoped to survive in the long-term.
The situation beind discussed is Charleston April 1861..a bit too early for an exchange of diplomatic couriers.
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Originally Posted by unionblue
And yet, in spite of all those efforts in England and France, the Confederacy's own representatives in Europe said it was the institution of slavery that was denying them the very recognition they sought.
Unionblue
According to England and France that was not the case.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
Even unto this very day, if Beowulf is any example, some are four-square against emancipation.
You mean Beowulf still has slaves?
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
ROFL. If you live in your own little cave and don't wish to be a part of the world, I suppose it does not. If you would like to take your place as a nation in the community of nations, free and sovereign and independent -- as the Confederacy said it wanted to do -- then it is indispensible. Your comment only places you in that cave, and shows that you already know the Confederacy never was a nation, nor was South Carolina, and wish to hide from the light of that truth.
Tim
South Carolina: "we haven't received foreign recognition so we must not defend ourselves" (sniffle,sniffle/wring hands)
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
The situation beind discussed is Charleston April 1861..a bit too early for an exchange of diplomatic couriers.
Well, no. Mexico had sent a representative to Montgomery to observe and discuss potential diplomatic recognition with the supposed new nation. This is before Ft. Sumter was attacked. Despite the importance of getting the first diplomatic recognition, President Davis refused to see the man. He felt it would be embarassing to treat with Mexico if he ended by invading them in a year or two.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
South Carolina: "we haven't received foreign recognition so we must not defend ourselves" (sniffle,sniffle/wring hands)
Please stop being so silly. The people of South Carolina were in rebellion against their government, trying to force their will upon others, and would soon be attempting to kill Federal troops -- as they were when they fired upon the Star of the West in January.
If they were successful in establishing their sovereignity, they would get diplomatic recognition. Until and unless they could convince someone to take a chance on that, they would not get it. Your point about their firing on a US ship is clearly false until that time. Truth doesn't change because you want to run around in rhetorical circles.
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
She would have remained Neutral, and stayed in the Union, with no dog in the fight. In joining the Union, she did not agree to attack other states who left the Union.
Your claim does not agree with the following VA resolution supplied by Cash:
"JOINT RESOLUTION concerning the position of Virginia in the event of the dissolution of the Union. Adopted January 21, 1861.
"Resolved by the General Assembly of Virginia, That if all efforts to reconcile the unhappy differences existing between the two sections of the country shall prove to be abortive, then, in the opinion of the General Assembly, every consideration of honor and interest demands that Virginia shall unite her destiny with the slave-holding States of the South." [OR Series IV, Vol. I, p. 77]
So.....who is off base - you or the Virginia General Assembly? This resolution did not require that Virginia be asked to supply troops - after all, it was passed at the beginning of the first secession movement, almost four months prior to the attack on Sumter. All it gave as a reason to secede was a failure of reconcilliation.
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If she was forced to leave the Union, she would have to join the Confederate South, or be destroyed almost at once.
She was never forced to leave the Union, nor did her resolution require her being forced.
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So Lincoln forced the South to join the Confederacy in whose cause she was not ashamed to defend.
"Forced the South to join the confederacy"?
Quote:
Funny, but in this entire exchange, the word slavery did not appear once....
Thanks for the informative post. Just for the heck of it, had Anderson surrendered Ft Sumter and Davis been denied his "blow", do you think the seizure of the fort could have been enough of an upper to cure the malaise....and would Virginia continue to remain in the Union? Or to put it another way, would Lincoln have had a better chance of maintaining the status quo by letting the fort go?
Might Tennessee have eventually gone confederate anyway had there been no attack on Sumter?
Cedarstripper
In my opinion, if Anderson had surrendered the fort it would have increased confederate morale and led to an attack on Fort Pickens. So the war starts a few weeks later--again, in my opinion.
Lincoln offered to evacuate the fort in return for Virginia's dissolving its secession convention. Apparently they weren't interested.
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