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.
OK - kind of boring here. Let's try a few different Lincoln quotes regarding his unbending stance on Slavery so all my friends, starting with UnionBlue can tell me that Lincoln was never a threat to the institution BECAUSE he so believed in the Constitution.
First one - 1852: "If as the friends of colonization hope, the present and coming generations of our countrymen shall by any means, succeed in freeing our land from the dangerous presence of slavery; and, at the same time, in restoring a captive people to their long-lost father-land, with bright prospects for the future; and this too, so gradually, that neither races nor individuals shall have suffered by the change, it will indeed be a glorious consummation."
1859: "Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it."
1855: "The Autocrat of all the Russias will resign his crown, and proclaim his subjects free republicans sooner than will our American masters voluntarily give up their slaves."
again, 1855:"The slave-breeders and slave-traders, are a small, odious and detested class, among you; and yet in politics, they dictate the course of all of you, and are as completely your masters, as you are the master of your own negroes."
1858: (this was speaks of the war that was to come) "If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.
We are now far into the fifth year, since a policy was initiated, with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation.
Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only, not ceased, but has constantly augmented.
In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed."
1858:"That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, 'You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle."
1859:"Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it."
Now - before the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune pierce me to the core, I am NOT stating that I support slavery. This is about Abraham Lincoln and why the Southern Man feared his presidency. That said, there is my start. What say you friends?
Hmmm....brace yourself. I happen to agree with you. Lincoln was opposed to slavery. Most specifically the spread of slavery into the new territories.
I fail to see how this made him a threat to southerners however; even slaveholders. Lincoln made numerous statements that he had no intention of interfering with slavery as it existed in the the states it was already legal in.
Regardless of his intentions in these areas, the fact remains that Lincoln could not have done anything about slavery in the states where it already existed.
Congress, even after Lincoln's election, was not in Republican control. The Democrats controlled the Senate and, though the Republican's had a very small majority in the House, the balance of power in the House was held by a group of independents widely known as "south Americans." The Republicans couldn't even elect a Speaker for the House without the help of the independents.
With these facts in mind, Why did the Southern Man fear Lincoln's presidency? or maybe the better question is: Did the Southern Man have any realistic fear of Lincoln's presidency?
I honestly try and put myself if the southerners shoes sometimes so I can feel what they felt; but I have a hard time. The way I see it is that they did not want change that was inevitably coming. The "Old South" was a way of life that they loved and did not want it to be interfered with. So maybe it is not about slavery and non slavery but simply about Two Americas ( North and South ) that could not see eye to eye. Plus, People had more allegiance to their own state than the national government as it is today. So I guess the idea of secession was not an insane one, but I am glad the question of secession was answered and that the nation was united. Lincoln, in all what people may say about him,- whether he was a good president or not- he did do what he set out to do; to save the union and abolish Slavery ( not that he wanted to abolish slavery immediately, but definitely eventually ). That is some legacy.
Some of these questions are really tough to answer from a southern point of view. I had the honor to work for three summers at Booker T. Washington National Monument. After working there and absorbing the Burroughs' phenomena, this is how I feel they felt. The Burrough's plantation was really a tobacco farm. it was about 207 acres and owned by John and Elizabeth Burroughs. As I recall they had three children. They owned 5 or 6 slaves. In their case master and slave worked alongside one another to cultivate the farm.
Put yourself in John Burrough's shoes in 1856. You fed and clothed your slaves. You worked in the fields alongside them to make your farm a paying proposition. Now some Northerner comes along who claims he does not want to free the slaves that you have fed and clothed, but most of his supporters are antislavery.
You as Mr. Burroughs hear all kinds of things over the years, you know about the compromises, you know in your heart that slavery is wrong and you are beginning to worry about those crazed abolitionists up North. Even Lincoln who said he would not free the slave where slavery existed, once supported the American colonization Society.
SO where does that leave the Burroughs? If their slaves are outright freed, they have no money to hire hands because it was all tied up in feeding and clothing the slaves they currently owned.
If the slaves are freed, where will they go? Did the North beckon them forth to work in the cities? No they would have probably stayed near where they were freed. Some were skilled labor such as blacksmithing, etc. But by in large they were illiterate and unskilled. WHO would have cared for them? The Burroughs and their ilk would now be penniless.
Hunger would motivate the slave to rob to eat and live, would it not (Please note this is all being said from a paranoid southern state of mind). So now what do you do? Whom do you support? Fears are being planted in your mind daily. You know one thing, if your slaves are freed and you are not re-imbursed for them, your farm and crops will fail.
That Ladies and Gentlemen, Is what I think was going through the mind of the average southerner. Not all slaves were treated like the Burroughs treated theirs to be sure. But this much i do know, the Burrough's 2 sons went off to fight for the Confederacy. One was wounded and one was killed. In both cases the slaves cared for the wounded brother and grieved for the killed brother.
I am only trying to demonstrate here how close some of these people were to the situation. I think they had a lot more at stake in the situation then many of us feel today. I think we are not doing a credible job of putting ourselves in their position to try to understand them more. If we did, we might take a different view.Just my opinion.
Bill, A very good idea, this thinking from a Southern point of view. And I also agree it is very hard for us of today to put ourselves into the shoes of those most affected by the politics of the times. I have often wondered at all the people who are so smug in their knowledge of what should have been right and what was wrong.
But in the final shove, I cannot bring myself to understand why the South, or it leaders, felt it had to jump off that cliff of secession. Like the man said,
"We trust that reason and reflection may carry to the minds of our Fellow Countrymen, in every section of our widely extended and diversified territory, the conviction that there can be no grievance, which may not be better and more certainly redressed, in the Union, that out of it; and that the sum of all existing evils, real or supposed, is but the dust of the balance when weighed against a single one of the dreadful consequences, which must inevitably follow in the track of dissolution."
Marcus Morton, April 8, 1861, in a letter to Major Robert Anderson at Fort Sumter, Charleston, SC.
__________________ "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
To Rick, please don't agree with me. It puts me off balance and off my feed. I like it more when I know where the next arrow is coming from --- oops, that from Neil, I forgot.
Bill, great post. I have tried and tried to say this to no apparent avail. And try this. Lincoln said in 1858, the country could not prevail half-slave and half-free. And while he did not expect the Union to fail, he did expect this situation to be resolved. (paraphrased) Exact quote: "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half-slave and half-free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other."
If this is not stating that he opposes slavery as it exists, then I guess I just don't understand English.
Neil, I have tried for five years to drag you into thinking like a southerner. Sometimes, you are almost at the precipice when your **** yankee blood kicks in and you go screaming back to being Union Blue.
As was stated somewhere, I think it was Frank's post, this was really not slave and anti-slave. It was North and South. Yes, the southerner wanted to hang on to what he had. Hell, we do the same thing today. Americans are consistently opposed to any change in the status quo. That is why we have monthly diversity training in our corporations so we can develop a mind set that just does not exist in the American culture today.
After the war, the southern man knew he had been defeated in battle. But I assure you, I do not believe the southern man was ever defeated in spirit. when the men (all 67 of them) of the 17th Mississippi Infantry surrendered at Appomattox, they were informed by the Union officer in charge that a "negro" would be placed over them to guard them. The men held an impromptu meeting and determined that if the Union placed them under "Negro" guard, they would do their best to overpower the guard, and make a break for it. This was after four years of intense fighting, and after a decline in the regiments strength from 1663 men to 67. Defeated, not by a long shot. I hope this might help you and others to put on our brogans, our mocassins and take a walk in them.
That cliff of Secession was not as tall as you think my dear friend. It was really a molehill. It was the men in Washington that made it a mountain.
Ron, I cannot agree that 'molehill' was created by the North more than the South. Now I do believe that the majority of the South was whipped up to a fury by those who had the most to lose, slaveowners. But doggone it Ron, I just cannot go with the idea that Lincoln was about to go after slavery where it already existed.
I know you are sick of reading it, but Lincoln said to Alexander Stephens, "Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would, directly or indirectly, interfere with their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears. The South would be in no more danger in this respect than it was in the days of Washington. I suppose, however, this does not meet the case. You think slavery is right AND SHOULD BE EXTENDED; WHILE WE THINK SLAVERY IS WRONG AND OUGHT TO BE RESTRICTED. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us. Yours very truly, A. Lincoln."
Where I think Lincoln went wrong was in underestimating the fear whipped up by those few who wanted secession. I feel that he and his party thought this was just another nullification bluff or ploy the South was using to get political mileage out of.
What scares me about the whole thing is just how far the South was willing to go to have its own way, no matter what the consequence to the majority or rest of the nation.
Consider that, prior to the election of Lincoln, the Presidency had been held by a succession of Southerners and "doughfaces". The South also controlled the federal judiciary and (for much of the prewar period) had significant influence in Congress. During that period the minority controlled the majority of the country. And that is just the truth/fact of the matter.
In 1833, the minority threatened secession over the tariff. The majority gave in, by reducing the tariff. In 1835, it threatened secession if Congress did not prohibit discussions of slavery during its own proceedings. In one of the most shameful periods of American history, the majority gave in and passed a "Gag Rule." Freedom of speech was restricted in the Congress itself and the right of citizens to petition was denied, OVER SLAVERY. In 1850, the minority threatened secession unless Congress forced the return of fugitive slaves without a prior jury trial. The majority agreed to pass a Fugitive Slave Act. In 1854 the minority threatened secession unless the Missouri Compromise was repealed, opening Kansas to slavery. Again, the majority acquiesced rather than see the Union smashed.
But the majority could only go so far in permitting minority blackmail to override the constitutional will of the majority. At the Democratic Convention in Charleston, held in April 1860, the majority finally refused the blackmailers demad--for a federal guarantee of slave property in all US territories. The delegates from the deep South walked out, splitting the Democratic Party and ensuring that Lincoln would be elected by a plurality.
There are two ironies here. The first is that the real "secession" was that of the South from the Democratic Party. The resulting split in the Party was instrumental in bringing about the election of Lincoln. All this after the South had went to the trouble of seeing no Republican electors was on the ballot during the 1860 Presidential election. The second is that the South's demand at Charleston, far from having anything to do with States rights, was instead a call for an unprecedented expansion of FEDERAL power. The seven states of the Deep South demanded as a plank in the Democratic platform a slave code for the territories.
This was a demand for the greatest increase of federal power prior to the NEW DEAL of the 1930's. The greatest demand for an increase in federal power was made by the Southern States in 1860! And the MAJORITY in the convention refused to adopt this, knowing that nobody could be elected dogcatcher in a free state who supported a federal police power over slavery in the territories.
IF this demand had been acceded to, that meant that every territory in the United States which would become a state would have become a slave state (15 new states in the continential US). Even if one slave owner went to North Dakota with his slave, the federal police power would follow him to make sure that he could hold that slave securely in that place. This in effect was an indefinite extension of slavery, so the choice facing the country was whether slavery will be restricted or whether it will be extended indefinitely with the whole power of the federal government behind the extension of slavery.
Now all this seems to me that it was OK for the South to use any branch of government, any type of maneuver during the convention, to get what it wanted. When it had control of the machine, all was well. And it did not seem to care much about anyone elses position, feelings, rights, etc.
Just what in hell did the South want? Egg in its beer? For years leading up to the war, everyone, and I mean everyone, had bent over backwards to appease, please, reassure, calm and whatever the hell else it took to let them keep slaves. And it still didn't work.
They jumped Ron, big time and just for no good reason in my book. Not the restriction of slavery or over tariffs. Just found a bit of news on that one too. Protective tariffs were first instituted by Jefferson and Madison (Democrats), not by the Hamiltonian (Federalist) party. Protective tariffs first entered our system in the wake of Jefferson's embargo, which put the New England shipping interests out of business. And the first protective tariffs were put in under Madison's administration and supported by John C. Calhoun, who agreed at that time it was owed to New England people to give their infant industries protection because they had been put out of business by the embargo, and later by the War of 1812.
What happened in 1828 was a crucial moment in the history of the tariff, because the national debt was just being paid off, and so the income from the tariff would produce a surplus in the treasury. And at that time, there was a great fear that a surplus in the federal treasury might be used to buy the freedom of the slaves.
So the slave issue really underlaid the tariff issue. But it also happened that in the committee which was scheduling the tariffs, the people in South Carolina, and other Southerners, moved to raise the tariffs to the abominable level on the assumption that they would be voted down on the floor of the House. Instead of being voted down, it was voted in. Hence your tariff and nullification crisis of 1828 and 1833. (That bit supplied by Harry Jaffa during a debate with Thomas DiLorenzo.)
When the day is done and I am through scanning the net for information and research on our debates with one another, I sit alone in the dark, shaking my head, wondering just what it would have taken to satisfy "those people". I don't doubt their bravery, their courage and spirit of sacrifice, no way in hell! But I cannot fathom any other reason for rebellion than this one. The South thought they could get away with it by armed force. Not because they were right or wrong in their cause, but because they thought they could win a fight. You don't need right or wrong if you think you can win.
Time to turn off the light and go home. Now you've made my head hurt, my heart pound and for that, I thank you. Good night Ron.
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
Neil,
I have no desire to be inflammatory. My question is sincere. If you are going to use Jaffa as means to solidify and validate your arguements does it mean you will, like him, start misquoting Hitler to substantiate your view? Jaffa is well known for twisting everything to suit his needs. He is a past master at it.
You and I are in agreement on the fact Lincoln misjudged. He misjudged a lot of things. Yet in defence of him, which as you know, is no easy deed for me, so did everyone else.
I am going to do a very foolhardy thing here. I am going to say a personal opinion. I think that we can get caught up in facts. When one does an experiment, you create an abstract model. when Newton was alive. His genius was not adhering to established "facts" but creating an abstract model. for an analogy..intead of angels pushing the earth through space..he broke it down to it's sum..a series of calculations..etc..the forces involved..not what caused them per se'. Now, these numbers no more move the earth than the angels do, yet it does help understand the movement via effect. I know that probally makes little sense but if you use that methodology you Can understand the south's postion.
First one needs to discount the angels..forget all the preconceived ideas. I think the very thought of slavery is so repugnant that it makes it difficult to understand that until that date it had existed constantly since history of mankind began. If you let it color your thinking, using our ideals today..then understanding of the truth(s) as to why the south seceded will forever escape you. In short..you have not created an abstract model but still see the angels.
That said I will add some equations. Lincoln was a politition. He was a protectionist whig who saw the growing power of the republicans and joined them. He played both sides like a fiddle. He was a consumate politition who had honed his skills as he made his way to being the highest paid lawyer in Illinois.
He did have plans to get rid of slavery. But since that may be a southern angel I will omit it. Yet for the fact he radically and uncomprimisingly opposed any slavery in the new states..by power of the federal government...it did mean that after the 33 states etc would be free states, it meant no southerner could move there with the possesions they invested most of their income into. It meant to the southerner that he was excluded from interstate travel...It meant, no matter what Lincoln promised...no matter what assurances were given, that once the electorial balance had swung to the free states..they could dictate Anything they wanted. Right?
As to belief. The facts I hear is that the south was all stirred up by a small section of weathly slave owners. Yet that fact is never coupled with the north had same thing. They liked wage slaves. They liked being rich. They liked tariffs. (Lincoln plaintive question "what about my tariff") The south felt paying 80% of tariffs when it was going for northern fishing bounties, railroads, canals etc was tantamount to paying tribute. And no matter how humble a person you were, no matter if you loathed slavery ... those tarriffs hit every southerner. As with today...the poorer you are, the more keenly taxes are felt.
As to to secession...facts
The Declaration, after all, was a Declaration of Secession from England. The American Revolution was a war of secession, just as the War for Southern Independence was. Massachusetts Senator Timothy Pickering, who served as George Washington’s adjutant general, Secretary of War, and Secretary of State, once said that secession was "the" principle of the American Revolution – the very right that the revolutionaries fought for.
Lincoln’s political triumph was, if anything, a repudiation of the Jeffersonian philosophy of government and a victory for his political adversaries, the Hamiltonians, who by 1861 had morphed into the Republican Party. Like all the founding fathers Jefferson wanted the Union to thrive, but he also agreed with his colleague Timothy Pickering that secession was a fundamental right. In his First Inaugural Address he declared, "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this union . . . let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it." He was championing the right of free speech here, but also the right of secession.
In a letter to James Madison in 1816 Jefferson reiterated his support of the right of secession by saying, "If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation . . . to a continuance in union . . . I have no hesitation in saying, let us separate."
Alexis de Tocqueville, whom everyone regards as a brilliant observer and chronicler of the American system of government, wrote in Democracy in America that "The Union was formed by the voluntary agreement of the States; and in uniting together they have not forfeited their nationality . . . . If one of the states chooses to withdraw from the compact . . . the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly either by force or right." (Tocqueville could never have imagined that barely thirty years later an American president would commit the barbaric act of having his armies murder 300,000 fellow citizens and destroy their economy to deny them the right of secession).
Even Abraham Lincoln voiced support for the right of secession when it served his political purposes. He enthusiastically embraced (and orchestrated) the secession of western Virginia (a slave state) when it joined the Union. And on January 12, 1848, he announced that "any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. . . . Nor is this right confined to cases in which the whole people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people, that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they inhabit."
As of 1860 most Northerners and Southerners believed in the Jeffersonian right of secession as enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. In Northern Editorials on Secession Howard Cecil Perkins surveyed about 1,000 Northern newspapers and found that the majority of them agreed basically with what the Bangor Daily Union wrote on November 13, 1860: "The Union depends for its continuance on the free consent and will of the sovereign people of each state, and when that consent and will is withdrawn on either part, their Union is gone." A state that is coerced to remain in the Union becomes a "subject province" and can never be "a co-equal member of the American Union."
New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley, a prominent Republican, editorialized on December 17, 1860, that if tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then "we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." On February 5, 1861, Greeley continued on that "The Great Principle embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration is . . . that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed." Therefore, if he Southern states want to secede, "they have a clear right to do so." At this time, Northerners knew that if there was to be a war it was not a war "to free the slaves," but to deny Southerners the right of secession. In an 1862 letter to Horace Greeley Lincoln himself declared that his "paramount objective" in the war was to destroy the right of secession or, as he rephrased it, to "save the Union," and that if he could do that without freeing a single slave he would gladly do so.
I have read often regarding the Confederacy..."Died of a theory" ...but the sad fact is, the Union was the theory that died. Lincoln did not preserve the union. It was destroyed and replaced by a nation. A nation with a strong central government.
Right or wrong, good or bad...it happened. that's a fact
I suppose i should have prefaced this by saying...this is merely my opinion and by stating it i am not denegrating other people for their veiws.
and..NO...once again..I am not now nor have ever been in favor nor advocate in any way, shape nor form slavery in any fashion.
Ok..it's time to put out the fire and call in the dogs, cause this hunt's over.
Friend Nomad,
Some brilliant points, and very good insight, and I mean that sincerely.
But I wonder if you realize that as soon as one reads a phrase such as "[Lincoln had] his armies murder 300,000 fellow citizens" that your credibilty is instantly downgraded to the point where one can't take anything else you say seriously. You're too smart a man not to realize the difference between murder and warfare. So why ruin your argument with such nonsense?
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