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.
Concerning your post dated Thursday, January 08, 2004 - 04:37 pm.
Your question as follows: With that in mind, please allow me to ask another question of the first sergeant. If, as you submit, during the secession crises of 1803 and 1860, the advantage within the general government sought after, by whomever, was either to escape slavery or to facilitate it, what was the reason for that of 1814 and 1832?"
From the report of the Hartford Convention, 1814 - 1815.
"...But it is not conceivable that the obliquity of any administration could, in so short a period, have so nearly consummated the work of national ruin, unless favoured by defects in the constitution. To enumerate all the improvements of which that instrument is susceptible, and to propose such amendments as might render it in all respects perfect, would be a task which this convention has not thought proper to assume. They have confined their attention to such as experience has demonstrated to be essential, and even among these, some are considered entitled to a more serious attention that others. They are suggested without any intentional disrespect to other states, and are meant to be such as all shall find an interest in promoting. Their object is to strengthen, and if possible to perpetuate, the union of the states, by removing the grounds of existing jealousies, and providing for a fair and equal representation, and a limitation of powers, which have been misused."
"The first amendment proposed, relates to the apportionment of representatives among the slave holding states. This cannot be claimed as a right. Those states are entitled to the slave representation, by a constitutional compact. It is therefore merely a subject of agreement, which should be conducted upon principles of mutual interest and accommodation, and upon which no sensibility on either side should be permitted to exist. It has proved unjust and unequal in its operation. Had this effect been foreseen, the privilege would probably not have been demanded; certainly not conceded. Its tendency in future will be adverse to that harmony and mutual confidence which are more conducive to the happiness and prosperity of every confederated state, than a mere preponderance of power, the prolific source of jealousies and controversy, can be to any one of them. The time may therefore arrive, when a sense of magnanimity and justice will reconcile those states to acquiesce in a revision of this article..."
And, the very first amendment offered by the Hartford Convention:
"First. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several states which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers of free persons, including those bound to serve for a term of years; and excluding Indians not taxed, and all other persons."
Slavery and the three-fifths clause had its impact on the Hartford Convention above all other considerations.
As for the Nullification crisis of 1830 I give you a statement by John C. Calhoun, who in a letter to a Northern friend said:
"The tariff is the occasion, rather than the real cause of the present unhappy state of things."
(Calhoun to Virgil Maxcy, Sept. 11, 1830, Papers of Calhoun, 11:229.)
And another statement by Senator William Preston:
"The slavery question will be the real issue...Will Louisiana cling to her sugar and give up her negroes?"
The following is taken from the book, The Road To Disunion, by William W. Freehling.
"The reason behind the Nullification crisis of 1832 was Henry Clay's Distribution Plan/colonization proposal, which would transfer the federal surplus to state coffers. The size of each state's share would be based largely on federal numbers, meaning the slaves would count three-fifths in swelling southern whites new cash. While laying down "no compulsions," Clay prayed that Southerners would give "special consideration" to using their specially large share for colonization/emancipation. The nullification of the tariff was simply a vehicle with the real goal being that of being able to nullify any attempt of the federal government to attempt any action on slavery, either colonization or relocation. Slavery's consolidation would be achieved by avoiding the slavery issue and also lessen federal resources and power against future interference with the institution."
Slavery's footprints are unmistakenly here as they were in 1803 and 1860.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
(Message edited by Unionblue on January 10, 2004)
(Message edited by Unionblue on January 10, 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
Oh my goodness, Neil! You've caught me out! One of my top New Year's Resolutions was to exasperate YOU even more than last year. Well, so far, so good.
No time to lallygag this a.m. though..time just for a quick "cuppa" and I'm off! Think of me, 10:30 a.m at our Capitol on ol' Jeff's star singing "Dixie". After all, I'M SECEDING from the Union today!
There will be plenty of women there in hoop skirts, but not me. Far too cold for this ol' gal! I'm wearing everything but fur-lined body armor!
Now if I can just refresh my memory on the lyrics to "Alabama" all will be well. LOL
Have a splendid week-end, Neil, and the same to ALL my fellow board members!
P.S. I think Hal is getting under your Unionblue skin! Great news indeed! Bravo, Hal!
Until we meet again,
__________________ Thea
No one has permission to use any material from any of my posts on any CWT forum, the archives, or any other forum without my express written permission.
Yes, I do believe that a right to rebellion exists under certain circumstances. If it doesn't then it would appear that the United States has no right to exist...in which case please hoist the Union Jack over the White House, forward the keys to the U.S. Treasury and we'll say no more about it.
Assuming that you aren't actually arguing that you are really British, I take it as common ground between us that a right to rebellion does exist - at least in certain circumstances. In which case the onus would appear to be on you to explain precisely why the American rebellion of 1776 was so righteous and the Southern rebellion of 1861 so wicked.
And I think the onus is also on you to demonstrate how "government of the people, by the people etc." was threatened by the C.S.A. I can't see it myself. If the independence of the Confederacy had become an established fact, you would have had two broadly democratic republics co-existing in a territory which was large enough to house a dozen countries, let alone two. Where exactly would the problem have arisen?
Many Unionists appear to have believed that any reduction in the size of the United States was synonymous with its complete destruction. From a European perspective this seems a hysterical overreaction. Spain and Portugal were separate countries. Then, for a period, they united. When Portugal reasserted its independence, did Spain somehow cease to exist? Norway and Sweden were one country until Norway seceded in 1905. Upon the dissolution of the Union did Sweden disappear? Were the rights and liberties of Swedish citizens fatally harmed? No. These are two examples taken at random...the fact is that nations are born, they sometimes expand, they sometimes contract, they sometimes die. It's all perfectly normal, and the idea that it is somehow divinely ordained that, for example, Alabama and Massachusetts will always be part of the same country is quasi-mystical ho*** which non-Americans cannot possibly get to grips with.
The Americans in 1776 commited Treason against England; there is no doubt about that in my mind, but they made something good out of that Treason; I daresay better. In 1860 w/ the Secession of the CSA treason was again commited. Would the CSA have made something better? I don't know, I don't think it's really possible to know. The point is that they failed and were not given a chance to. I've never seen the link or correlation between the American Revolution with England and the creation of the CSA. America was poorly represented at best w/in the halls of power of England. Those states that would become the CSA were quite well represeneted in the halls of power of the United States.
Is England stronger today than when it controlled India, Australia, South Africa, Canada etc. The dissassembly of the Empire has made England a small and somewhat insignificant power that was at the mercy of Germany twice in the last century. The sun now sets on the British Empire. If independence had not been granted, the glory of the Empire might never have passed into history. It was passing in 1860 and many realized it. The breakup of nations often spells their demise as the example of the British Empire shows.
Many in England seemed quite eager that The "Great Experiment" of the United States might fail. Some historians have even gone so far as to directly state that the American Revolution was the beginning of the end for the British Empire. Though to be honest I don't really think so.
President Lincoln took an oath to protect the United States, he didn't take an oath to protect Illinois or Wisconsin or any other individual state he took an oath to defend the United States. Which he did.
If he had let the CSA succesfully secede, would the United States even exist today or would we see amess as in the Balkans? Would England have reasserted itself in North America? If the CSA would have survived it could only have been with the assistance of England and France. Thus indebted to England and France where would the CSA have gone? Where would it's destiny have lain?
Slavery was illegal in the Empire by the time of the Civil War and it was an integral reason for the American Civil War. A touchy conflict in ideals from the start between England and the CSA. While the Queen might have welcomed the breaking up of the US because the failure of the United States would have strengthened England in both the long & short run. I don't think she would have liked the political fallout from backing a nation that embraced slavery and would have likely expanded it upon a Confederate victory. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall for some of the discussions in the palace during the early months of Civil War.
But in the long run, into the 20th Century, support from the US to England would have been cool at best... something I think the Queen understood. All in all the ACW was a win win situation for the Empire, regardless of the outcome England would profit, as she did.
A surviving US, humbled by defeat would have been easily dealt w/ and would not have been a serious competitor. And a succesful CSA would have been too industrially weak to be a threat. A definate win for the Continent in general.
The fact is the United States is a great experiment that has, largely, succeeded. It's not perfect; in fact our very freedoms may one day be our downfall. Today the United States is the most powerful, most wealthy, most free and above all else the most culturally diverse nation on Earth. Citizens of the US can boast heritages from every nation and culture on Earth.
History has taught us that life and civilization is a giant circle. It repeats itself because of the ignorance of man. The Civil War, like all Civil Wars has nothing to do with righteousness or even really who was right and who was wrong. Slavery the one thing that can be pointed at as truley evil was LEGAL in both the Union & the Confederacy at the beginning of the war. But by the end it was not. As Shelby Foote put it before the Civil War it was United STATES and after it was UNITED States. While I think that is a good thing, some would disagree.
The reason so many viewed the CSA actions as so bad was that they could and would literally destroy the United States. The destiny of the nation would be decided by a minority acting against the majority. A govt for the people by the people, did survive and it might well not have if the CSA had suceeded.
Was Lincoln right in everything he did? I don't know, after all he was both a lawyer and a politician and that stands against him from the start. But at the same time, he weathered a political storm that would make the devil blanch. I know some on this board would have us believe that President Lincoln and the men who put down the rebellion were the spawn of the devil; they managed to perservere and keep the United States alive. For that alone this nation owes their memory a debt of gratitude.
A peaceful split and coexistance was not an option, read the rhetoric of the politicians who controlled the CSA and you'll see what I mean. Civil War was going to happen, it was only a matter of time and it was over slavery, not Tarriffs or the division of wealth. The Confeds didn't like the idea of not being able to expand the institution and went to any means, including Civil War, to accomplish its spread. They failed, thank God.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
"The reason so many viewed the CSA actions as so bad was that they could and would literally destroy the United States."
I don't see it that way. The various states which formed the Confederacy did not wish to destroy the United States; they wished to leave it. To my mind the two actions are distinctly different. When you leave the parental home you do not destroy your family. When you leave your job you do not destroy your former employer. When you leave your wife you do not kill her.
"If he had let the CSA succesfully secede, would the United States even exist today or would we see amess as in the Balkans?"
With the departure of most of the South, the remaining United States would have been more politically and culturally homogeneous than before, not less. And they would have had both the population and the industrial infrastructure to have intervened in the two World Wars of the 20th century in much the same way as the "whole" U.S.A. did, as things actually turned out. I cannot see how losing a largely agricultural region would have hurt the U.S.A. that much
What they would have lost is territory. And in this context it is interesting to note what William H. "Bull Run" Russell wrote in June 1861 about the conversations which he had been having with Northern citizens. He recorded that they were "furious with England because she does not deny their own famous doctrine of the sacred right of insurrection. 'We must maintain our glorious Union, sir.' 'We must have a country.' 'We cannot allow two nations to grow up on this Continent, sir.' 'We must possess the entire control of the Mississippi.' These 'musts' and 'can'ts' and 'won'ts' are the angry utterances of a spirited people who have had their will so long that they at last believe it is omnipotent."
The sentiments which Russell dutifully recorded seem to relate mainly to territory. Unionists did not act as they did because of any regard for their Southern fellow-countrymen; you do not kill people to prove your kinship with them. They fought the Civil War in order to hang on to territory, and so their cause was classically imperialistic. From the moment that Union troops crossed the Potomac the relationship between the Federal government and the people of the seceding states became a colonial one, and that relationship continued until either (a) the end of Reconstruction or (b) the present day, depending on your point of view.
Your view of a Machiavellian England waiting in the wings to exploit the results of the Civil War is pure 19th century American paranoia. You are entirely right to state that there were elements in Britain which hoped to see an end to the democratic experiment in the former colonies. Their attitude was essentially malicious. But anti-slavery sentiment was so strong in this country that - much as it pains me to admit it - there was at least as much support of the Union as for the Confederacy...in fact, probably more. The social prominence of some English pro-Confederates has tended to distort the picture, and the truth is imperfectly understood in America to this day.
As for Queen Victoria's preferences...a constitutional monarch is a mere figurehead who exercises no personal power at all. British policy between 1861 and 1865 was determined by the government. If members of the Royal Family exerted any influence at all you would have to say that Prince Albert's conciliatory intervention in the Trent Crisis was entirely to the benefit of the North.
"Thedissassembly of the Empire has made England a small and somewhat insignificant power that was at the mercy of Germany twice in the last century."
Small and somewhat insignificant? Yes, of course. At the mercy of Gemany? No, that is historically illiterate.
My country is a shambolic post-imperial backwater which is, nevertheless, still culturally and intellectually vibrant. Your hypothesis about what might have been achieved if the American colonies had remained a part of the Empire is interesting, but I can only thank God that I am not a citizen of a Global Power. I mean, think about the hassle...how is that supposed to improve your quality of life? Britain has been the most powerful nation on earth, and it has also given the world soccer, The Beatles & Monty Python. Personally, I think the later achievementsare more important than the former.
Global domination? Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt. It's not all its cracked up to be. I think you are about to discover that, if you haven't already.
(walks away humming "And in the end, the love we take, is equal to the love we make...)
__________________ Thea
No one has permission to use any material from any of my posts on any CWT forum, the archives, or any other forum without my express written permission.
(Starts writing to the chords of "Yesterday" by the Beatles.)
Aphillbilly & Thea I thank you for appreciating an articulate well spoken disagreement. A pity you seem incapable of contributing anything more than cheers from the wings.
Mr Torrens, thank you for the reply, If I seemed to imply in any way that England was culturally backwards or a shambles I apologize if that is how I came across, that was not my intent. Frankly, England today is a vibrant nation and one of the preeminent powers of Europe. As to the accuracy of whether the England has twice in the last century been at the mercy of the Huns... that is another conversation entirely. But suffice it to say England felt it neccessary enough to have the United States on their side in WWI that they would do it by hook or crook. And in WW2... at the very least w/out Lend Lease I think England would have had a wee bit more of a problem w/ Adolf and his cronies. If that makes me historically illiterate, so be it.
What the CSA was attempting was not the same as a child leaving home. As a business comparison I can see you aren't all that versed in the art of the hostile takeover. In a sense you are more correct in drawing a comparison between the Civil War and a divorce, a particularly vicious one I might add. Who was going to get the house, kids and everything else had to be decided. The Civil War decided it.
I don't think if the South had left that we would have been stronger for it. If the CSA had indeed been left alone, how long before Texas split away from the CSA? They were all but completely abandoned by the CSA in the last year of the war. All was not peaches and cream w/in the CSA. W/out that first shot at Ft Sumter would some of those states dragged in by Lincolns call for 75,000 troops stayed neutral and not joined the CSA? I don't know but in the Machiavellian sense It was a 100% win win scenario for England. A CSA, USA in North America and frankly I would imagine other states leaving the Union and others refusing to join either the Union or the Confederacy. A fragmented batch of small relatively weak nations...
Ironically, from some of the reading I've done recently I've come to a similar conclusion about the populace of Englands opinion of the American Civil War. A near 50/50 split, an interesting point that I admit being unaware of until recently. Some would say that was merely the want of American cotton.
The Queen merely a figurehead? That I have to admit seems a bit off to me, though I admit to my knowledge of English politics being less than perfect. Regardless as to whether or not the Queen was a powerful figure in English politics I would still have loved to have been a fly on the wall of some of the early policy discussions about the CSA.
I'm not certain I follow your line of reasoning that once the Union Army crossed into the CSA it became a Colonization issue. Men in Wisconsin and Iowa and in a host of other Staes of the North didn't feel they were subjugating the South, far from it they felt they were fighting to hold together their nation and putting down treason etc. Whether they were right or wrong that was certainly a strong belief. For that reason alone I don't see it as a colinization issue.
I assure you that England's reputation as a manipulator is well earned. Look to Englands treatment of India and China of the 19th century if you think I'm speaking purely through the haze of 19th Century American propoganda.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It's time we stop, hey, what's the sound
Everybody look what's going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you're always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, now, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
Stephen Stills, 1996
William, fascinating posts, I will get back to you as soon as I am able. At present I am posting from my home and my computer there is constantly crashing and going off-line. I wish to respond to you with the detail your questions and points deserve.
Tommy, nice to see you back. I do hope you will do more than cheer from the sidelines in future.
Thea, how do you like THIS song? It is one of my favorites as it has so much to say, even on this board and this day and age, don't you think?
Shane, good to see you staying active and researching your posts. Talk at you very soon.
Unionblue
(Message edited by Unionblue on January 12, 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
Thanks for your most interesting post. I'm going to mull over the points you have made before replying.
But in the meantime I need to ask you to make me a promise. Believe me, this is important. Please give me your solemn word that, if you ever meet an Englishman, you will not slap him on the back, smile expansively and say "Well, I guess we saved your <font color="ff0000">•</font><font color="ff0000">•</font><font color="ff0000">•</font> in 1942." This will go down about as well as bacon at a bar mitzvah.
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