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.
From the book, Reluctant Confederates, by Daniel W. Crofts, chapter 5, page 106, paragraph 2:
"First, upper South Unionists saw no economic advantage in joining an independent slave South. They rejected secessionist arguments that an identity of economic interests linked all slaveholding states. Many Unionists hoped that the economy of the upper South would increasingly develop along the pattern of adjoining northern states, with a diversified base of agriculture, industry, and trade. They insisted that the economic interests of the "grain growing states" of the upper South would be sacrificed in a "Cotton Confederacy" led by South Carolina. "Slavery is the great ruling interest of the extreme Gulf States," one Unionist observed, but the states of the upper South had "great interests besides slavery, which cannot be lightly abandoned."
Virginia Unionists insisted that the economic consequences of secession would be bleak. The two leading Unionists in the Virginia convention, John B. Baldwin and George W. Summers, warned repeatedly that Virginia's commercial and industrial interests were "bound up with the free states of the border." Baldwin noted that wheat, tobacco, livestock, and garden crops from eastern Virginia were sold in Baltimore and the cities of the Northeast. Summers explained that customers on both sides of the Ohio and upper Mississippi rivers bought the salt and coal produced in his home region, the Kanawha Valley. In the northwestern Virginia panhandle, wedged snugly along the Ohio River between the two free states of Ohio and Pennsylvania, secession appeared economically suicidal. The editor of the Wheeling Intelligencer predicted that "it would kill us off as a city more completely than a big fire...We should sink day by day until we got to be a poor, miserable, penniless, decayed country town."
Virginia manfacturing interests had no wish to join a southern nation dominated by free traders, <u>who opposed any protective tariff for industry.</u> One Unionist from Alexandria predicted that an independent South would seek close commercial ties with England and France, which would tend to keep the South an agricultural exporter, dependent on a supply of imported manufactured goods. "What will become," he asked, "of the promised manufacturing industry and enterprise of Virginia and the other border States of which we hear so much?" Virginia Unionists also suspected that deep South secessionists intended to reopen the African slave trade, thereby depressing slave prices and benefiting the slave-importing states in the lower South at the expense of the slave-exporting states in the upper South. Virginia Unionists thus dismissed secessionist assertions about the bright economic future their state would enjoy in a cotton confederacy. They concluded instead that the economic interests of the upper and lower South were "irreconcilably antagonistic" and "in direct collision."
Parts of North Carolina and Tennessee had more significant economic ties with the deep South than did Virginia. In Memphis, Charlotte, and Wilmington, secessionists contended that any political seperation between the upper and lower South would prove an economic nightmare. But Unionists in North Carolina and Tennessee echoed many of the same economic themes used by their counterparts in Virginia. They complained that a southern nation based on South Carolina's "Free Trade, and African Slave Trade Doctrines, would be ruinous to us." Many feared that secession would foreclose future industrial development and economic diversification. In Nashville and the adjacent Cumberland Valley region, the largest manufacturing center in Tennessee, secession had few friends. The owner of a Nashville foundry and machine shop complained to Andrew Johnson that "this mad rush after dissolution" was undermining "all commerce and manufacturs and enterprize." Having already laid off many of his hundred-man work force, Thomas M. Brennan implored Johnson "for God sake try to save this Union." and prevent secessionists from completing "the ruin that had been commenced."
Unionists also pointed out that secession directly theatened two major upper South internal improvement projects, the James River and Kanawha Canal and the Southern Pacific Railroad. Virginia's incomplete canal remained an unhappy symbol of how the state government had shortchanged western interests. Extended gradually west to two towns in the Valley by the early 1840s, the canal had never been completed across the thirty-mile gap between the headwaters of the James and the Kanawha, nor had the segment down the latter to the Ohio been built. In 1860, a French and Belgian consortium, Bellot des Meniers and Company, proposed to assume both the assets of the canal company and its obligation to extend the canal to the Ohio. Strongly endorsed by the governor in January 1861, the sale of the canal awaited legislative approval. Unionists complained that the uproar over secession threatened to sabotage the arrangement and "render the entire work utterly useless and valueless."
Secession also rudely interrupted a grandiose effort to build a southern transcontinental railroad from east Texas to southern California. Most of the chief promoters of the scheme were from Tennessee, which had just experienced a fast-paced decade of railroad construction that gave it rail links extending to the seaboard and up and down the Mississippi Valley. By 1860, managers of the Southern Pacific Rail Road Company were negotiating with the same European consortium that had bid to finish the Virginia canal. Only a twenty-seven mile segment of the railroad had been completed, enabling cotton planters in fertile Harrison County, Texas, to move their crops to the Red River west of Shreveport, Louisiana. But the state of Texas had pledged substantial assistance, and even more liberal aid from Congress was judged a realistic possibility. Compared to the canal project, which included two hundred miles of finished waterway that had been functioning for decades, the railroad would appear to have been more visionary and speculative. It was, however, more in tune with the economic trends of the era. The James River and Kanawha Canal would never be completed, whereas a southern transcontinental railroad eventually would. <u>But the Southern Pacific's 1861 promoters found to their dismay that the spread of secession blighted hopes for congressional aid and European investment. Congress lost interest in subsidizing the project when Texas seceded from the Union, which in turn discouraged the Europeans.</u> Directors of the Southern Pacific, hoping to salvage something, threw themselves into the campaign to save the Union. They hoped that if the upper South remained in the Union, the deep South might be persuaded to return."
Again, more evidence that the tariff was not a reason for the South to leave the Union, as it appears that it was not mainly just a Southern issue, as shown with Virginia and its attitude about the tariff. In chapter six, page 140, another example that tariffs were more of a national than sectional/Northern interest:
"By the end of January, perceptive secessionists recognized the likelihood of a "defeat in Virginia and all the rest of the border States." An observer from Georgia reported that several economic issues had aided (Southern) Unionists. The "manufacturing interest of Virginia" suspected that a southern Confederacy would destroy tariff barriers and "establish free trade." Worries that "navigation of the Mississippi will be obstructed and that the slave trade will be reopened" had also weakened the secession cause in the upper South."
As for the transcontinental railroad, seems like the South had something going there for a while, didn't it?
Unionblue
(Message edited by Unionblue on August 28, 2003)
(Message edited by Unionblue on August 28, 2003)
__________________ "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
From the published essay entitled, Incidental Protection: An examination of the Morrill Tariff, by Jane Flaherty at Texas A&M.
"...the Morrill Tariff did not introduce much higher incidence upon consumers. Under the Tariff of 1846, the highest average ad valorem rate of duty on free and dutiable goods reached 23.5 percent in 1854; Under the Tariff of 1857, 17.3 percent in 1858. Yet in 1861, the rate reached only 14.1 percent. Nor did the Morrill Tariff introduce protective tariff rates...As Morrill claimed, the duties imposed reflect those of the Tariff of 1846, with incidental protection on iron and wool."
"The Morrill act is often spoken of as if it were the basis of the present protective system. But this was by no means the case. The legislators who struggled to resolve the fiscal problems that arose during the Buchanan administration were not implementing a new form of 'industrial capitalism.' Rather, through the passage of the Morrill Tariff, they attempted to correct what appeared as a short-term disruption in an otherwise prosperous era. Wedded to a system of tariff financing, the options available to restore the flow of revenue into the Treasury were limited. Revising the tariff provided the most practical answer. Both Republicans and Democrats supported tariff revision, the solution urged upon Congress repeatedly by President Buchanan...The Morrill Tariff does not represent an attempt by the Republican party to establish a new economic program; instead, it represents a <u>bi-partisan</u> effort to resolve a fiscal crisis."
The following are the tables of rates for the Tariffs mentioned:
.18-24/lb 1846: 30%
1857: 24%
Morrill: 16% (Ad valorem)
>.24/lb 1846: 30%
1857: 24%
Morrill: 37%
Note: Ad valorem is the tax assessed on the value of the goods or property, not the quantity, weight, extent, etc.
These rates are drawn from Hays Importer Guides, Hunts Merchant Magazine 44, no. 4 April 1861, The Shipping and Commercial List and New York Price Current, 47-48, January 2, 1861 - July 30, 1862.
Morrill's presentation of the/his bill is in the Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 1st Session, April 23rd, 1860, pp. 1830-1836.
To quote Ms. Flaherty from her essay; "The Senate vote on the above bill was 25-14 on February 20, 1861. The withdrawal of the Southern senators gave the Republicans a majority in the chamber. Eight Northeastern Democrats supported the measure, as well as six Border State Opposition Unionist party members. Four Republicans voted nay. Eleven Republicans who voted in favor of the Morrill Tariff also voted for the Tariff of 1857. President Buchanan who had urged passage of the Morrill Tariff in his final Annual Message, signed the bill on March 2, 1861. Thus, higher tariff rates that protected manufacturing did not constitute the sole reason Republicans favored the Morrill Tariff. As with the Tariff of 1857, the government's fiscal needs, in this case raising rather than lowering government income, inspired the call for tariff revision."
A bit of collaberation on the above essay can be found at the following web site, The Tariff History of the United States, Part I, by F.W. Taussig:
The following is an excert from the section titled Part II. Tariff Legislation, 1861-1909. Chapter 1. The War Tariff.
Starting near the last third of page 98:
"The crisis of 1857 (Everyone on the board is clear on the Panic of '57?) had caused a falling off in the revenue from duties. This was made the occasion for a reaction from the liberal policy of 1846 and 1857. In 1861 the Morrill tariff act began a change toward a higher range of duties and a stronger application of protection. The Morrill act is often spoken of as if it were the basis of the present protective system but this is by no means the case (sounds like Ms. Flaherty copied her essay from this paper, doesn't it?). The tariff act of 1861 was passed by the House of Representatives in the session of 1859-60, the session preceding the election of Abraham Lincoln. It was passed, undoubtedly, with the intention of attracting to the Republican party, at the approaching Presidential election, votes in Pennsylvania and other States that had protectionist leanings (I do not omit this passage just so you can see it, Thea!). In the Senate the tariff bill was not taken up in the same session in which it was passed in the House. Its consideration was postponed, and it was not until the next session--that of 1860-61--that it received the assent of the Senate and became law. It is clear that the Morrill tariff was carried in the House before any serious expectation of war was entertained; and it was accepted by the Senate in the session of 1861 without material change. It therefore forms no part of the financial legislation of the war, which gave rise in time to a series of measures that entirely superseded the Morrill tariff. Indeed, Mr. Morrill and the other supporters of the act of 1861 declared their intention was simply to restore the rates of 1846 (Which you can check from the tables above in this post, by the way). The important change which they proposed to make from the provisions of the tariff of 1846 was to substitute specific for <u>ad-valorem</u> duties...The most important direct changes made by the act of 1861 were in the increased duties on iron and on wool, by which it was hoped to attach to the Republican party Pennsylvania and some of the Western States. Most of the manufacturing States at this time still stood aloof from the movement toward higher rates."
"Hardly had the Morril tariff act been passed when Fort Sumter was fired on. The Civil War began. The need of additional revenue for carrying on the great struggle was immediately felt; and as early as the extra session of the summer of 1861, additional custom duties were imposed (Not with the Morril Tariff of 1861 as many wish it were, but with subsequent, additional revenue legislation AFTER the war had started)."
If anyone who wants to, you can read the rest of the paper which goes on to detail these additional war-time measures for the government to finance the war. But the Morrill Tariff is not the smoking gun some wish it to be. The facts speak for themselves.
Comments?
Unionblue
(Message edited by Unionblue on January 22, 2004)
(Message edited by Unionblue on January 22, 2004)
(Message edited by Unionblue on January 22, 2004)
__________________ "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
The majority of the political and social leaders of Southern society, before and during the war, were much more honest about why they seceded and what they were fighting for, than the revisionists who try to mask the cause of the Civil War behind the cant of economic necessity for the sake of "political correctness".
I agree with the first part of your post, but do not begin to believe in the title of 'revisonists' for those who believe with a passion of other reasons for the war here on this board.
As I have explained to my Southern friends on the other side of the fence, it is not really fair to lump anyone who disagrees with their version of Civil War history as a 'typical Yankee.'
It seems the premise of that type of 'catagorization' is simply designed to try and put a person's views in a box so we can shut them down and place them out of sight and go on to the 'real' reasons of the war.
As you have observed, here is the place where you can debate ideas and reasons, making sure you back up your claims with historical items and facts vs just your opinion. Makes for a very exciting debate and makes sure you know what you are talking about when it comes your turn.
My advice, assume nothing, be prepared to defend your conclusions and have fun.
Enjoy,
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
You seem to be catagorizing, both the people here and the people then. I firmly believe that people rarely, if ever, have a single reason for much of anything. Those stated reasons you refer to, I assume slavery, were an issue. Economics were an issue, however, for the majority, I believe invasion was the major issue.
Again I am sorry for stepping on sensitive toes. But, it has to be wondered how much the "tariffs was the real cause of the Civil War" is really believed by those who espouse it, because otherwise their arguments in defense of the Confederacy? would seem to be supporting slavery?
It will take a little time to not catagorize so bear with me.
Speaking strictly for myself. To believe any argument regarding slavery can be construed as a support of slavery, or maybe better said as defending the Confederacy is defending slavery. Is nonsense.
IF you believe, as you appear to, that slavery was the one and only, or at least major, cause of the war then yes.
However I, and many others, do not buy in to that notion.
Do I actually believe what I say? Of course I do. Otherwise I would not say them. I say what I believe here, and in my classroom. And if you know anything about academia, you know that to say things like "Slavery is not the single, or even major, cause of the civil war" in a college classroom, shows I have no fear of political correctness.
By the way, that classroom is in Cleveland Ohio, not the south, and my student body is approximately 80% black.
So believe me, I do not say what I do for reasons of political correctness. Political correctness be ****ed. It's just another word for lies and as an educator truth is all.
This is what makes this board so fun. I myself believe slavery was THE issue and the root cause of the war.
But I did not always believe this to be so. In high school, I got the same chapter everyone else does, Civil War, slavery, Lincoln shot, next chapter, please.
When I began reenacting with a Confederate Unit, got told by friends I would trust my life to that Tariffs and State's Rights were the reasons the South went to war. After getting a chance to march across the actual field at Gettysburg and see what those men had to go through, I thought to myself, how could these men risk so much and die for something as terrible as slavery?
So I began to read and research on my own so that I could defend this position in talks and school presentations that I give. And there was the rub. I found too much concerning slavery and all its problems that it caused the South to believe it was any other cause.
That's what I like about this board. It keeps me honest and keeps me looking and checking. You never know which new nugget of information is going to rock you back on your heels and make you reconsider your position.
Nicolo, don't worry about stepping on toes, we all do it at one time or another. Just be aware that none here have assumed anything. Proof and historical fact are what people want to see if you can back up your opinions. And, as you see, we all have opinions!
Ray, may I ask what school do you teach at? I'll understand if you don't wish to discuss it here on the board.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
(Message edited by Unionblue on January 24, 2004)
__________________ "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 have no doubt as to the facts that caused you to come to the conclusions you arrived at. I just do not agree with the conclusion.
YES slavery was a cause, I just do not believe it was THE cause. As I walk over that same battlefield I find it hard to believe people were willing to die to free some "insert period epitaph here" in Georgia.
I subscribe to the many reasons version of events. I find there is rarely if ever a single reason for any war. For example, the United States did not enter WWII because of Pearl Harbor. It was just the final impetus. Otherwise we wouldn't have declared war on Germany the same day. Etc.
Raymond & Nicolo, my own belief is that slavery was the cause in the minds of those in power w/in the CSA. It was the overriding reason for Secession. However, the rank and file saw things a bit differently. instead of worrying about losing slavery as an income the average soldier, who likely didn't own slaves, saw the Union as trying to horn in on business they shouldn't be meddling in. The average Confederate soldier was every bit as used to democracy as his Union equivelant and they saw the North as trying to horn in on southern business. A view certainly reinforced by the wealhty Southern slaveholders who stood to lose everything in the event of a Northern victory.
Whereas the cause of Secession among the powerful and influential was slavery, among the average joe who did the fighting and dieing it was a belief that the Union would control the destiny of the south... a feeling reinforced by the politicians of the CSA.
I believe the enormous desertion rates among many regiments of the CSA was caused by homesickness, lack of pay, a realization that the outcome of the war was hopeless, and a realization by many that the CSA politicians (the majority who were wealthy slaveholders) were more interested in their pocketbooks than the lives of the men doing the fighting. The conscription efforts only cemented this idea.
However, on the same note you can use many of the same arguments for Union desertions, though they were never as high as Confederate desertion rates.
The average Union soldier did not believe he was fighting to abolish slavery. I don't believe the average Confederate soldier believed he was fighting to maintain slavery. I think more in line w/ the beliefs was the understanding that the Confederacy either would or wouldn't abolish slavery in their own time w/out any meddling from those blank blank Yanks.
What I don't understand is the blind belief that slavery had nothing to do with the whole equation. It wasn't an issue about racism as both north and south were equally guilty on that point. Neither side (the majority of) saw the black man as equal to the white man. Neither side treated the black man all that well. I've never understood the Lost Cause mentality that it was inevitable the South would lose due purely to numbers... It was still a very close thing up until at least the fall of Vicksburg.
The CSA did quite well on guts and pluck; improvisation can only go so far w/ inept & outright incompetant Generals like Bragg at the helm. Of note is the fact that the Union was hampered every bit as much as the South w/ inept & incompetant Generals.
To me the ACW proves one valid point: wars are not won by the most competant army, but by the least incompetant.
__________________ Shane Christen
American Legion Post 352
SUVCW Camp Abernethy# 48
Lifetime NRA member
3rd MN VI
For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. Eccl 1:18
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