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.
One thing that has been bothering me of late is the reaction to the seizure of a US Arsenal by John Brown. THere is no doubt nor argument that he was formenting a rebellion. There was no outcry that his punishment overstepped bounds. Yet what he did was little different than what was done by the states a few years later. My own belief is that he was a complete nutbar... then again my opinion of Jeff Davis is that he was just better spoken, more powerful and slicker than John Brown.
The states seized arsenals, mints, commerce cutters, forts etc and not all of the seizures were bloodless. Could those who ordered and accomplished such not have looked to John Brown's raid and wondered if the Federal govt would react differently to them?
The "Mormon War" and John Brown's Raid both set precedent and left ominous indicators of the US Govt actions to real or perceived rebellion. The leaders of Rebellion, must have seen this and if competent should have prepared for it. Am I completely off my rocker or is their something to be looked at with this train of thought?
__________________ 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
Nailed another one Johan. I hadn't made the connection. Somewhere in there is an answer, but I'll have to give it some thought. Perhaps, somewhere in there, is the thought that Harpers Ferry was a U.S. installation raided by an insurgent wannabe. And that Sumter was a thorn in the side of another nation altogether.
Ole
There was ideed some consternation among abolitionists and Northerners concerned over the political power of the slaveholding class about Brown's trial and punishment. His Northern friends wanted to use information about insanity in his family history at his trial in his defense, but Brown refused to consider it. By this time, Brown considered himself as good as dead, which by the way he believed an absolute good- being a martyr, dying for his cause- and he intended to use his trial as a platform to again take on slavery and slaveholders, and hopefully 'take them down with him.' By that I mean- to illustrate that no lover of freedom and free men can ever negotiate with or accommodate slavery, and that it can only be overcome and eradicated by taking it by the throat and throttling until it was quite dead. The Northern 'extremists'- the abolitionists, saw this, and quite clearly the Southern slaveholding class saw all this from beginning to end of Brown's raid, trial, and execution... and aftermath.
There was also some question as to how it was that Brown, attacking and holding a Federal institution, the Harper's Ferry Armory and Grounds, and taken by Federal troops, Marines under the command of Col. RE Lee, was tried by a Virigina court, of a Federal charge- treason. And quite frankly, it doesn't add up. If treason against the State of Virginia, he would have to be a citizen of the state to betray it, and he was not. He was also charged with fomenting servile insurrection. This last, of course, was quite intolerable to the South, and could only end one way. So how is it that he ended up in Virginia court? Was it the Buchanan administration, knowing Brown's act was indefensible, turned Brown over to the Virginia authorities to appease the South, as it had been doing at every turn? And thus clean its' own plate of an ugly mess that had every indication of only getting uglier and uglier?
As to the unique Southern view of attacking Federal installations- they saw the raid of Harper's Ferry as an attack on themselves. As indeed it was, and Brown made no bones about it. Their own 'attack' on federal installations at the time of secession they never considered an 'attack.' To them, it was simply the just, and reasonable, taking over of what no longer belonged to the Federal authority, which they had revoked, but to themselves. Therefore, any opposition to these seizures they considered an 'attack.' As a consequence, these Southerners entirely failed to see that Brown's taking over an armory and their own taking over of Federal property amounted to the same thing. As far as I'm concerned, if the Civil War did not start with the secession of South Carolina and the Deep South, it did with the taking of these forts, arsenals, customhouses, etc. It was very much an act of war no matter how it is sliced and diced, and as Shane says, how did they not understand it to be so? I can only answer in this way- that the South perceived it was the persecuted party and was merely acting in its own defense. The Federal government and President Buchanan as well as the mass of the Northern people disavowed Brown's action, still it was proof of the hostile intent of the North. Again proved by the perfidy of Senator Stephen Douglas not upholding slavery extension into the territories, his refusal to back down on Kansas and the Democratic conventions, and finally the ultimate insult of a Black Republican presidency. Really, just too much for a good Southerner to bear. Recalls to mind Yosemite Sam, turning beet red, shaking and steaming, howling " I stood all I can stand!! And I can't stand no more!!!"
Thank you for posting this thread, Shane. I was thinking this exact same thought last week. I am a Unionist at heart and feel that what the Southerners did with taking over Federal property was actually quite similar to Brown's actions, even if the motives weren't the same. I have a hard time understanding how it was okay for the Southerners to just take over Federal property when it belonged to all of the States (since every state contributed tax dollars for the maintenance of those properties), just because it happened to be in their State. Yes, perhaps the logistics of keeping a Federal fort supplied in Confederate territory wouldn't have worked out (as we saw with Ft. Sumter), but it still doesn't give those States any rights to just take it over. I believe that Sam Houston had a HUGE problem with the governors of the Southern States so easily giving in when this happened.
I am quite interested to hear others' opinions on this. I'm slowly working through the other threads (you guys sure have been busy with the discussions!) and hope to be able to contribute to some of those soon.
Maybe I am missing something, or oversimplifying. If we can agree that both John Brown and the secessionists thought they were doing the proper thing when they took over United States property, or FORMERLY United States property in the South's case, and the Federals thought they were doing the wrong thing, the results were similar although on a different scale. John Brown was tried and punished, and the seceding states were subjected to punishment in the form of military force. I consider military force to be the application of any means humanly possible to try to bend an opponent to one's will.
It is interesting to consider John Brown's trial. Was it in Virginia jursdiction only, or was it in a Federal court that happened to be located in Virginia?
Sources say a "Virginia Court." Mine don't explain why an attack on Federal property would be tried in a state court, but the supposition that Buchanan gave it as a peace offereing to the South. Sounds as good as anything I've heard.
Crimes of murder would be state crimes, prosecuted in state court, wouldn't they? Frederal crimes (treason) would then be prosecuted in federal court. Is that correct?
Crimes of murder would be state crimes, prosecuted in state court, wouldn't they? Frederal crimes (treason) would then be prosecuted in federal court. Is that correct?
IIRC he was charged with murder, insurrection and treason against the state of Virginia or similar. But also if I am not mistaken Wise had a choice of handling it in Virginia, either under military court or civil, or handing him over to Federal authorities since he was caught on federal property attempting to steal weapons. In the end it was a really bad move on Wise's part. Been far better to have turned him over to the feds, since no northern state had any interest in investigating the various, equally as guilty co-consperators on behalf of Virginia. Not that the feds would have had any more real interest as no one was ever even brought to trial even years later when they bragged about it. Even those like Frederick Douglass who fully confessed he knew what was going to happen (John Brown hid out at Douglass' home making the final plans) and had helped by raising money suffered not even the slightest recriminations from the future Republican governments. One would think given their acclaimed stance on Federal Forts they'd have at least frowned on that. But perhaps it only mattered if a Southerner did it.
To me the irony is John Brown murdered men in Kansas who were not slave owners and the first he killed in Harpers Ferry was a free black.
From the book, Lincoln At Cooper Union, by Harold Holzer, the results of the Senate investigating committe that looked into the Harper's Ferry affair:
A Committee of five, consisting of Messrs. Mason, Davis and Fitch, (Democrats,) and Collamer and Doolittle, (Republicans,) was appointed Dec. 14, 1859, by the US Senate, to investigate the Harper's Ferry affair. That Committee was directed, among other things, to inquire:
(1.) Whether such invasion and seizure was made under color of any organization intended to subvert the government of any of the States of the Union.
(2.) What was the character and extent of such organization.
(3.) And whether any citizen of the United States, not present, were implicated therein, or accessory thereto, by contributions of money, arms, munitions, or otherwise.
The majority of the Committee, Messrs. Mason, Davis, and Fitch, reply to the inquiries as follows:
1. There will be found in the Appendix, a copy of the proceedings of a Convention held at Chatham, Canada, of the Provisional Form of Government there pretended to have been instituted, the object of which clearly was to subvert the government of one or more States, and of course, to that extent, the government of the United States. By reference to the copy of Proceedings it appears that nineteen persons were present at that Convention, eight of whom were killed or executed at Charlestown [site of John Brown's execution--ed.], and one examined before the Committee.
2. The character of the military organization appears, by the commissions issued to certain of the armed party as captains, lieutenants, &., a specimen of which will be found in the Appendix. (These Commissions are signed by John Brown as Commander-in-Chief, under the Provisional Government, and by J.H. Kagi as Secretary.) It clearly appeared that the scheme of Brown was to take with him comparatively but few men; but those had been carefully trained by military instruction previously, and were to act as officers. For his military force he relied, very clearly, on inciting insurrection amongst the Slaves.
3. It does not appear that the contributions were made with actual knowledge of the use for which they were designed by Brown, although it does appear that money was freely contributed by those styling themselves the friends of this man Brown, and friends alike of what they styled the cause of freedom, (of which they claimed him to be an especial apostle,) without inquiring as to the way in which the money would be used by him to advance such pretended cause.
In concluding the report the majority of the Committee thus characterize the "invasion:" It was simply the act of lawless ruffians, under the sanction of no public or political authority--distinguishable only from ordinary felons by the ulterior ends in contemplation by them,&c.
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
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