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.
Is your post # 919 directed to my attention? If so, would you be so kind as to place a few personal comments upon this post with an elaboration of your perceived thoughts? I have read your post with care but I will hold off commenting on your post until so. Thank You.
It is incorrect that "all" abolitionists were terrorists. I do not hold that as my position and am sorry that I have made that impression. I am well aware that abolitionists were split into "moderate" and "extreme" wings. All of us should be aware that the extreme wing won and became agents in bringing on the war.
Since many replies to my posting of 1859 newspaper editorials seem serious in their reluctance to accept the evidence that the people of 1859 viewed abolitionists as dangerous to the peace and unity of the nation and since many have indicated they do not recognize any of the names listed in those editorials as men of violence I will address the matter again.
First, it is said, I have given only one name, John Brown, of one who used violence. This is a literalistic reading of the issue and I will respond in kind. Brown had over 20 followers whose names are known, so I have already given over 20 names.
On a more serious note, in the editorials I quoted there appear the names of James Lane and James Montgomery. Their acts of violence in Kansas and Missouri, along with those of C. R. Jennison, are well known to all Civil War students. Before you raise the cry "They only responded to what the pro-slavery settlers did" read on.
Eli Thayer organized the New England Emigrant Aid Company sending about 1300 people to Kansas. James G. Randall and David Donald, CIVIL WAR AND RECONXTRUCTION, p. 98, say "The activities of the New England Emigrant Aid Company furnished the excuse, and some messure of the provocation, for the Missouri invasion of Kansas." In short, these Revisionist School scholars say the abolitionists were the first to turn to violence in Kansas.
Randall and Donald add, "it was the officers of the company, if not the company itself, that armed the Free-State party." p. 99 Among those officers was Henry Ward Beecher, mentioned in the editorials. Sending weapons, Beecher's Bibles, to an illegal para-military group is an act of violence and of terrorism. The governor of Kansas certainly considered it to be such.
Brown was financed by abolitionists sometimes called "the secret six" and sometimes "the secret seven." Financing terrorists involves one in a conspiracy to commit terrorism. The names of this group of supporters is readily available--look it up. Michael Fellman, Lesley Gordon, and Daniel Sutherland have a good discussion of Brown, and Lincoln's ambivalent attitude toward Brown, in THIS TERRIBLE WAR, pp 1-11.
The editorials cited point out that Seward and Chase embraced violence, though historically Chase was more moderate than Seward. Such advocacy makes understandable the linking of their names with terrorism. Legally, there is a fine line between exercising free speech to point out that certain policies will lead to violence and the prosecutable act of advocating violence. In 1859 the sources cited felt Seward and Chase had crossed that line.
Now I have given more than one name. I have also cited original and secondary sources. North and South many people viewed abolitionists as terrorists. Reaction to the threat of terrorism fueled the move to secession and to war.
Besides John Brown, what law was broken, and what violence did they incite? If we're to accept the proposition that the abolitionists turned to terrorism and lawlessness, then we're going to have to have more than an isolated incident.
Regards,
Cash
The Dred Scott decision said neither the president nor congress could end slavery, only the states. Indeed, that is the way slavery was ended, by action of the states ratifying the 13th amendment.
In all the ways in which abolitionists did not accept the "'moderate" position that only political action--replacing a Justice to overturn "Scott" or adopting a Constitutional amendment--the "extreme" abolitionists were advocating violence. Violence directed against an established law and the agents of the law is terrorism.
John Brown was the individual who took action but he was not an isolated individual. The 1859 newspaper editorials cited show a wide-spread perception at that time that abolitionists were ready to embark on a campign of terrorism. Lincoln, in the Cooper Union speech, warned that if the ballot box was not used to end or limit slavery then the South could expect numerous terrorist attacks led by abolitionists. See Fellman, Gordon, & Daniel, THIS TERRIBLE WAR, pp 1-11 for a discussion of Brown, terrorism, and Lincoln's use of Brown in move toward the presidency.
The evidence cited from original sources is sufficent to demonstrate that abolitionists were viewed as dangerous to peace and security. The abolitionists had become the victims of their own extreme wing--something which frequently happens to any resistance movement.
Great point! I'm following your line of thinking with zeal,...well, not with the zealousness of a 'strong' abolitionist. :-) That would be taking it a tad too far.
IMHO these abolitionists caused great un-necessary trouble via their rhetorical style contained in their newspapers, circulars, etc. I fully concur with you, RebProf!
One thing bugs me, as almost all abolisionist circulars were banned or supressed in the South... how did the average Southern Farmer learn about abolitionists? Was it stricly through reports and info put forth in Southern Newspapers about the "evil Abolitionists?" if so might the blame for the animosity towards the North be placed squarely on the shoulders of the southern media? Just a thought.
The 1860 census shows that many Southerners had regular access to Northern newspapers. Also, "banning or supressing" abolitionist material meant efforts were taken to keep the material out of the hands of slaves, a few of whom could read and would become the agents of spreading the material to other slaves. Certainly the examination of libraries in the South shows the presence of material critical of slavery; the first anti-slavery newspaper was printed in Jonesboro, TN. I have cited the Nashville Whig in my list of 1859 editorials. Read the files of that paper and you will see plain opposition to the extreme defenders of slavery.
The average "Southern Farmer" was better informed and had more opportunities for accessing information than is generally conceived.
I recommend FLOWERING ON THE CUMBERLAND by H. S. Arnow for an accurate picture of Southern yeoman society in the years before the Civil War.
First, it is said, I have given only one name, John Brown, of one who used violence. This is a literalistic reading of the issue and I will respond in kind. Brown had over 20 followers whose names are known, so I have already given over 20 names.
But it is only one incident.
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Originally Posted by RebProf
On a more serious note, in the editorials I quoted there appear the names of James Lane and James Montgomery. Their acts of violence in Kansas and Missouri, along with those of C. R. Jennison, are well known to all Civil War students. Before you raise the cry "They only responded to what the pro-slavery settlers did" read on.
But that's exactly what they did.
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Originally Posted by RebProf
Eli Thayer organized the New England Emigrant Aid Company sending about 1300 people to Kansas. James G. Randall and David Donald, CIVIL WAR AND RECONXTRUCTION, p. 98, say "The activities of the New England Emigrant Aid Company furnished the excuse, and some messure of the provocation, for the Missouri invasion of Kansas." In short, these Revisionist School scholars say the abolitionists were the first to turn to violence in Kansas.
That's a misrepresentation. Sending people to Kansas is not the same as turning to violence. The record is clear that it was the proslavery faction who turned to violence first.
"For many Southerners, Kansas was an all-or-nothing proposition. If it went for slavery, the rest of the territories would so so as well. If it went for Abolition, slavery extension was stymied, perhaps doomed. Warren Wilkes, a South Carolinian who led an armed force of Southern settlers in Kansas, wrote, 'Kansas is ... the turning-point in the destinies of slavery and abolitionism. If the South triumphs, abolitionism will be defeated and shorn of its power for all time. If she is defeated, abolitionism will grow more insolent and aggressive, until the utter ruin of the South is consummated. If the South secures Kansas, she will extend slavery into all territory south of the fortieth parallel of north latitude, to the Rio Grande; and this, of course, will secure for her pent-up institution of slavery an ample outlet, and restore her power in Congress. If the North secures Kansas, the power of the South in Congress will be gradually diminished, and the slave population will become valueless. All depends upon the action of the present moment.' ... Forcing slavery upon Kansas was [Missouri Sentator David R.] Atchison's cause célčbre. Atchison had persuaded Stephen Douglas to make the repeal of the Missouri Compromise a part of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which, as acting vice president, he signed into law along with President Pierce. Atchison encouraged Missourians to go to nearby Kansas and vote for proslavery candidates to counteract antislavery emissaries from the East. He declared: 'If a set of fanatics and demagogues a thousand miles off [in New England] can afford to advance their money and exert every nerve to abolitionize Kansas and exclude the slaveholder, what is your duty, when you reside within one day's journey of the Territory, and when your peace, quiet, and property depend on your action?'
"It mattered little to Senator Atchison and his ilk that interstate voting was illegal. As one of his Missouri confederates, General B. F. Stringfellow, said in a speech, 'To those who have qualms of conscience as to violating laws, state or national, I say the time has come when such impositions must be disregarded, sinc eyour rights and property are in danger. And I advise you, one and all, to enter every election district in Kansas ... and vote at the point of the bowie-knife and revolver.'
"Such calls for violent lawbreaking fell on willing ears. Thousands of Missourians were ready at election time to go into Kansas, take over the polling booths there, and cast their ballots for proslavery candidates. Armed with bowie knives, shotguns, and pistols, they crossed over on horses or in wagons stocked with whiskey jugs and festooned with hempen rope brought along to hang any 'd----d Abolitionist' who got in the way." [David S. Reynolds, John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights, pp. 139-141]
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Originally Posted by RebProf
Randall and Donald add, "it was the officers of the company, if not the company itself, that armed the Free-State party." p. 99 Among those officers was Henry Ward Beecher, mentioned in the editorials. Sending weapons, Beecher's Bibles, to an illegal para-military group is an act of violence and of terrorism. The governor of Kansas certainly considered it to be such.
Again, this was done in reaction to the violence already being perpetrated on antislavery settlers by the proslavery forces. Self-defense is not terrorism.
"The Missourians did their assigned work. In the election for a Kansas delegate to Congress on November 29, 1854, they elected a proslavery candidate by casting 1,729 fraudulent votes. The election on March 30, 1855 saw even worse fraud, as the invaders cast more than 80 percent of the 6,307 recorded votes, ensuring that thirty-nine of Kansas's forty representatives supported slavery. The border ruffians terrorized the few polling officials who dared to try to stop the outrage.
"The proslavery leaders 'elected' by the ruffians organized a bogus legislature that passed stringent laws protecting slavery in Kansas. These so-called black laws mandated absurdly severe punishments for antislavery activity: two to five years of hard labor for anyone possessing an Abolitionist publication; five years of hard labor for writers or publishers of antislavery writings; and the death penalty for those who induced slaves to revolt. To speak against slavery was a felony. B. F. Stringfellow boasted in September 1855, 'We now have laws more efficient to protect slave-property than any state in the Union'; he insisted that the laws 'have already silenced Abolitionists; for in spite of their heretofore boasting, these know they will be enforced to the very letter and with the utmost rigor.' " [David S. Reynolds, John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights, pp. 141-142]
"A number of Free State figures had already met death or humiliation at the hands of the border ruffians. In the spring of 1854 the Kansas courts denied the self-defense case of the Free State settler Cole McCrea in the shooting of a border ruffian simply because his lawyer, James H. Lane, refused to swear allegiance to the proslavery legislature. Around the same time a proslavery committee commanded the prominent Free State lawyer William Phillips of Leavenworth to leave Kansas. When Phillips refused to obey, he was seized and taken to Rialto, Missouri, where his head was shaved and he was disrobed, tarred and feathered, and ridden on a rail before being sold for a dollar by a black man forced to conduct the mock auction. Phillips remained uncowed and returned to Kansas but later was killed by Missourians." [David S. Reynolds, John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights, pp. 144-145]
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Originally Posted by RebProf
Brown was financed by abolitionists sometimes called "the secret six" and sometimes "the secret seven." Financing terrorists involves one in a conspiracy to commit terrorism. The names of this group of supporters is readily available--look it up. Michael Fellman, Lesley Gordon, and Daniel Sutherland have a good discussion of Brown, and Lincoln's ambivalent attitude toward Brown, in THIS TERRIBLE WAR, pp 1-11.
Far from being ambivalent, Lincoln denounced Brown. The Secret Six are involved in the Brown incident, which is still one incident.
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Originally Posted by RebProf
The editorials cited point out that Seward and Chase embraced violence, though historically Chase was more moderate than Seward.
But the truth is that neither Seward nor Chase embraced violence.
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Originally Posted by RebProf
Such advocacy makes understandable the linking of their names with terrorism.
Neither of them advocated violence, so your charge is a false one.
The Dred Scott decision said neither the president nor congress could end slavery, only the states. Indeed, that is the way slavery was ended, by action of the states ratifying the 13th amendment.
Actually, what the Dred Scott decision said was that Dred Scott was not a citizen of the United States and therefore had no standing to bring suit in a federal court. Case closed. Everything after that was obiter dictum, and Lincoln was willing to take the issue to the Supreme Court again to get a ruling that applied to the territories.
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Originally Posted by RebProf
Violence directed against an established law and the agents of the law is terrorism.
And John Brown's Harpers Ferry raid remains the only case.
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Originally Posted by RebProf
John Brown was the individual who took action but he was not an isolated individual.
The truth is, that he and his men were in fact isolated. There was no other instance of abolitionist terrorism.
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Originally Posted by RebProf
The 1859 newspaper editorials cited show a wide-spread perception at that time that abolitionists were ready to embark on a campign of terrorism. Lincoln, in the Cooper Union speech, warned that if the ballot box was not used to end or limit slavery then the South could expect numerous terrorist attacks led by abolitionists.
No, he didn't. You are misrepresenting what Lincoln said again. First, he very clearly disclaimed any Republican involvement in Harpers Ferry:
"You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper's Ferry! John Brown! John Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper's Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need not be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is simply malicious slander. Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged the Harper's Ferry affair; but still insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it. We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which were not held to and made by 'our fathers who framed the Government under which we live.' You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this affair. When it occurred, some important State elections were near at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in those elections. The elections came, and your expectations were not quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at least, your charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it to cast his vote in your favor. Republican doctrines and declarations are accompanied with a continual protest against any interference whatever with your slaves, or with you about your slaves. Surely, this does not encourage them to revolt. True, we do, in common with 'our fathers, who framed the Government under which we live,' declare our belief that slavery is wrong; but the slaves do not hear us declare even this. For anything we say or do, the slaves would scarcely know there is a Republican party. I believe they would not, in fact, generally know it but for your misrepresentations of us, in their hearing. In your political contests among yourselves, each faction charges the other with sympathy with Black Republicanism; and then, to give point to the charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply be insurrection, blood and thunder among the slaves.
"Slave insurrections are no more common now than they were before the Republican party was organized. What induced the Southampton insurrection, twenty-eight years ago, in which, at least, three times as many lives were lost as at Harper's Ferry? You can scarcely stretch your very elastic fancy to the conclusion that Southampton was 'got up by Black Republicanism.' In the present state of things in the United States, I do not think a general, or even a very extensive slave insurrection, is possible. The indispensable concert of action cannot be attained. The slaves have no means of rapid communication; nor can incendiary freemen, black or white, supply it. The explosive materials are everywhere in parcels; but there neither are, nor can be supplied, the indispensable connecting trains." [Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Cooper Union, Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Vol 3, pp. 538-540]
Then, he said very clearly that the Republican Party was the party where antislavery people expressed their opposition to slavery peacefully through the ballot box, and that if the Republican Party were to be broken up there would be no peaceful way for antislavery people to express their opposition to slavery:
"John Brown's effort was peculiar. It was not a slave insurrection. It was an attempt by white men to get up a revolt among slaves, in which the slaves refused to participate. In fact, it was so absurd that the slaves, with all their ignorance, saw plainly enough it could not succeed. That affair, in its philosophy, corresponds with the many attempts, related in history, at the assassination of kings and emperors. An enthusiast broods over the oppression of a people till he fancies himself commissioned by Heaven to liberate them. He ventures the attempt, which ends in little else than his own execution. Orsini's attempt on Louis Napoleon, and John Brown's attempt at Harper's Ferry were, in their philosophy, precisely the same. The eagerness to cast blame on old England in the one case, and on New England in the other, does not disprove the sameness of the two things.
"And how much would it avail you, if you could, by the use of John Brown, Helper's Book, and the like, break up the Republican organization? Human action can be modified to some extent, but human nature cannot be changed. There is a judgment and a feeling against slavery in this nation, which cast at least a million and a half of votes. You cannot destroy that judgment and feeling---that sentiment---by breaking up the political organization which rallies around it. You can scarcely scatter and disperse an army which has been formed into order in the face of your heaviest fire; but if you could, how much would you gain by forcing the sentiment which created it out of the peaceful channel of the ballot-box, into some other channel? What would that other channel probably be? Would the number of John Browns be lessened or enlarged by the operation?" [Abraham Lincoln, Cooper Union Speech, Collected Works, Vol 3, pp. 541-542]
Your assertion remains unproven. Other than John Brown and his followers, the abolitionists had not turned to terrorism.
Cash contends that no pattern of violence on the part of abolitionists has been established. This is an attempt to set up a degree of proof for the past which the past does not require of itself.
Cash may not think the abolitionists were violent or terrorists but the people of 1859 thought they were and behaved accordingly. Cash, and no one else, has refuted, or can refute, the beliefs stated by the newspapers I cited from 1859. All attempts to ignore them or to claim that they do not prove the case is merely an attempt to spin the argument to ignore the obvious. In 1859 many people, north and south, saw the abolitionists as dangerous and as contributing to disunion.
I would also point out that I have shown other instances of abolitionist violence which have been ignored in replies. I also point out that any attempt to limit violence to physical acts is playing semantic games. Advocating violence and financing violence certainly fall under the criteria of violence.
As to the Cooper Union speech, Cash quotes words but ignores meanings. I invite all to look at Sutherland, et al., for what other historians say about Lincoln and the Cooper Union speech.
Cash does not appear to have read the Dred Scott Decision. He certainly misrepresents it. Any basic history of the period shows that the Scott Decision ruled the Missiour Compromise unconstitutional and stated that only states could end slavery; the president and congress were ruled to have no power in the matter. There is no need to play semantic games--if the president and congress could have ended slavery there would have been no need for the 13th Amendment.
I stand by my position on Cooper Union and Cash's quotation from Lincoln proves my point. Look at the last lines of Lincoln's remarks. If the Republican Party's Moderate branch does not prevail will the number of John Browns be increased or decreased? Lincoln argued that "my way is best and more abolitionist violence is the alternative." I suggest that you go read Sutherland, et al., on Lincoln and his attitude toward John Brown.
I have cited numerous instances of abolitionist violence. I also invite any of youi to refute the demonstrated fact (see newspaper editorials from 1859) that the people of that day perceived abolitionists as violent and dangerous to the unity of the nation. It is impossible to argue that this was not the feeling of the people of that day--I have allowed them to speak in their own words. All denials are impotent in the face of the facts.
Cash contends that no pattern of violence on the part of abolitionists has been established. This is an attempt to set up a degree of proof for the past which the past does not require of itself.
Perhaps, then, you can show us which abolitionists, besides John Brown and his followers, were violent terrorists? So far you haven't.
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Originally Posted by RebProf
Cash may not think the abolitionists were violent or terrorists but the people of 1859 thought they were and behaved accordingly.
You were the one who claimed here that the abolitionists turned to terrorism and lawlessness. You've yet to show where they did, with the singular exception of John Brown and his followers.
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Originally Posted by RebProf
Cash, and no one else, has refuted, or can refute, the beliefs stated by the newspapers I cited from 1859.
No need to refute them, since they don't support your assertion. They didn't name any other abolitionists who were violent terrorists, unless you count "Old Brown" and "Ossowatomie Brown" as different from "John Brown."
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Originally Posted by RebProf
All attempts to ignore them or to claim that they do not prove the case is merely an attempt to spin the argument to ignore the obvious. In 1859 many people, north and south, saw the abolitionists as dangerous and as contributing to disunion.
What you're doing is attempting to run away from your assertion by trying to distract from what you said. The editorials don't support your assertion.
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Originally Posted by RebProf
I would also point out that I have shown other instances of abolitionist violence which have been ignored in replies.
Such as?
You do realize that violence used in retaliation for proslavery violence doesn't support your assertion either, don't you?
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Originally Posted by RebProf
I also point out that any attempt to limit violence to physical acts is playing semantic games. Advocating violence and financing violence certainly fall under the criteria of violence.
Which violence, other than John Brown at Harpers Ferry?
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Originally Posted by RebProf
As to the Cooper Union speech, Cash quotes words but ignores meanings.
No, I clearly showed you misrepresented what he said.
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Originally Posted by RebProf
I invite all to look at Sutherland, et al., for what other historians say about Lincoln and the Cooper Union speech.
I invite all to look at what Holzer, one of the top Lincoln scholars alive today, has to say about Lincoln and the Cooper Union speech.
Better still, I invite all to look at the Cooper Union speech:
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