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.
It’s entirely possible that you mix with a more respectable crowd than I do….
Hmmm.....its entirely possible I don't. Maybe I ride on the back of a garbage truck every morning.
Quote:
You see, the premise you put forward just doesn’t gel with human nature, as I understand it. People, in the mass, are naturally lethargic. A government really has to treat them pretty shockingly to get them to complain, let alone to indulge in revolutionary activity. This whole notion of countries flying apart if you concede the right of people to determine their own nationality just doesn’t ring true to me.
My mistake. I was under the impression you were discussing principles with Neil. And without resorting to a teleporter and a bullhorn, I have never suggested that nations would suddenly fly apart if there were no compulsion. I merely suggested that states have no more an absolute right to unilaterally remove themselves and their property from a nation than do every subset below. You complain of the Union not recognizing what you maintain was the slave state's absolute and legal right to declare their states no longer part of the Union, yet to the idea that these slave states would not have honored such a right to any level below them, you dismiss it with 'Nah, its not part of human nature' and 'nations don't just fly apart.' So much for the principles of it.
Quote:
The position of Unionists living in the C.S.A. during a war with the United States was bound to be pretty hairy. There would seem to be a straightforward choice between treating them as traitors or as enemy aliens. Being a reasonably civilised sort of guy (don’t laugh), I would favour the latter approach and intern them
Once again, it seems the absolute right to self-determination begins at the state level for you.
Your answer does bring up another question to mind though. I do not know your views towards the military arrests, suspension of habeas corpus, etc., but if the South would be justified to intern or exile Unionists during the war, why would the Union not be similarly justified to arrest suspected spies, sabateurs, etc.?
Quote:
Now don’t push it. I made a very reasonable concession, but I’m not inviting you to walk all over me.
I don't mean to test your bursting strength, but it seemed like a fair question, and it still does.
By the way, Central America is not a continent, but a region of North America, and even it is generally accepted as beginning below Mexico.
By the way, Central America is not a continent, but a region of North America, and even it is generally accepted as beginning below Mexico.
As I suggested in a previous post, geography is taught differently over here. Central America is regarded as distinct from North America, which consists solely of Canada and the U.S. You’re going to have to accept that the way things are taught and viewed in the U.S. isn’t necessarily the way they’re seen elsewhere. A bitter pill to swallow, but do your best.
Quote:
Once again, it seems the absolute right to self-determination begins at the state level for you.
Well, it isn’t workable at the level of the individual. You cannot assert the sovereignty of the Republic of Cedarstripper, population: 1. In principle, a county has a right to leave a state, but it is highly doubtful whether its inhabitants would ever regard it as large enough an entity to be meaningfully independent.
Quote:
I merely suggested that states have no more an absolute right to unilaterally remove themselves and their property from a nation than do every subset below. You complain of the Union not recognizing what you maintain was the slave state's absolute and legal right to declare their states no longer part of the Union, yet to the idea that these slave states would not have honored such a right to any level below them, you dismiss it with 'Nah, its not part of human nature' and 'nations don't just fly apart.' So much for the principles of it.
To repeat, I agree that smaller units than states can assert their independence. In principle, the right to do so applies equally at micro level. But what is clearly questionable is the practicality of the exercise. My argument about human nature pertained to the point I thought you were trying to make, which I understood to be that the nations of the earth would fly apart if their populations weren’t kept in place by government goons loaded down with military hardware.
I've been reading this thread for nearly an hour! And boy, do I have nothing really valuable to add. But that's never stopped me before!
Its seems to me there is a disconnect between principles and "the facts of the case." The principle being asserted is a tricky one: secession. If you look at secession crisises in democratic states: Quebec, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the seceding minority is usually an entirely different ethnic, and language group then the majority group, and therefore the majority group is not seen as legitimate, but as "the other." In the examples given, the borders are determined by outside groups, without participation by the minority.
This is not the case in the United States of the 1850s. North and South were similar in language, ethnic background and practicing Christianity. Both had similar economic ideologies, and political beliefs. All had fought against England to achieve independence.
So, what was secession supposed to achieve? Did the South secede to demonstrate the right of secession? No, it seceded to achieve a goal. To protect its way of life, which in the eyes of its leaders, who based their wealth and status on slave labor, meant preserving slavery. Slavery that was supported by a particularly harsh racism. That's the cause, the 'facts of the case".
The great achievement of the Confederacy was to create a real Southern nationalism, and a functioning nation-state, in the midst of a major war. If it was a rich man's war and a poor man's fight, if Davis conscripted soldiers, and taxed heavily and silenced opposition, well, that's what nations at war look like.
Yet the CSA shrank from freeing and arming slaves, which the slaveholder Washington had done in the Revolution.
Was the ante bellum South, with its slaves, and hierarchy among whites, its admiration for aristocracy, worth hundreds of thousands of lives to preserve? Was the federal government, a union that included powerful industrialists, huge cities, immigrants with a hundred languages and religions, its egalitarianism, and all it entailed, worth hundreds of thousands of lives to preserve? That's the question the thoughtful people of 1860s fought for.
Given Lincoln's interpretation of his duty, and the South's determination to secede, its difficult to see how war would not have broken out, even if Ft. Sumter never existed. Mary Chesnut writing that Major Anderson and his 50 odd soldiers caused the crisis is shifting the blame from her husband and the ruling class of the South.
Many Southern Unionists wanted to achieve Southern goals, without leaving the Union. If Lincoln would not compromise on restricting slavery, or on upholding federal authority, those Unionists would have to take the sides I described above.
I hesitated from posting on this thread, because many of the other posters seem better informed, and I'm afraid of repeating some of the points others have brought up. But these are my thoughts on the topic.
Please jump in any time you wish. By your post above, you have much to contribute.
Sincerely,
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
Matthew don't be afraid to contribute, I see nothing lacking in your views.
__________________ 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
I echo the earlier opinions. Your post was exceptionally interesting and well expressed. You have absolutely no reason to feel inhibited about posting as often as you like.
Your point about ethnicity is well taken. But I think it would be difficult to construct a logical argument against secession/revolution built on the premise that it is something you can only undertake against a different race. After all, the American revolutionaries of the 1770s belonged (in the main) to precisely the same race as the people they were fighting.
Matthew,
I wish to give you props as well.Now that we've got that behind us,I have one question.Does a common language and a common religion make poeple one nationality?I'm not sure that it does.On the outside sure,but did these Americans see themselves the same way in 1860.I'm not sure that they did.As an aside to the religion note I recall reading that several church denominations split prior to the war.That is to say they broke up into Northern and Southern factions independent of one another where as they were formerly united.Being a Christian myself, I may have placed too much emphasis on this issue.Personally I saw that as a major warning sign of trouble brewing.Economically I thought that the two sections couldn't really have had a different philosophy.The South was based for the most part on chattel slavery,while the North was focused on free labor for the most part.These two sections of the country also had very different visions for the future.The North was modernizing in a big way.The South on the other hand was sternly resistant to change and meant to extend the past into the future so to speak.Ethnically the South were made up mainly of English and other British blood.The North meanwhile was much more multi-cultural.These cultural differences were noted by poeple in both the North and the South at that time.Since I'm off subject already again(sorry guys) I might as well continue.When you look at migration in the years before the war a very noticeable pattern is apparent.Obviosly , we all know many more foreigners migrated to the North.A significant number of Southerners moved to the North.Americans from everywhere moved to the West, but hardly any group period moved to the South.This seemed to reflect to me a very closed society where most outsiders weren't welcome.That's just my opinion and certainly not factual, but I think the mindset of Southern and Northern citizens had enough significant differences that they weren't necessarily the same quote nationality.Just my thoughts.
Regards,
Ashley
Dear Bill,
While England and the colonies shared a common language and culture, they were geographically seperated. The Americans' beef with England boiled down to they were officially, constitutionally and legally 2nd class citizens--in fact not really citizens at all, since they weren't represented in Parliament, and even if Americans MPs were elected, the distance preluded effective representation.
As far as ethnicity being a logical argument, ethnicity is an illogical argument, not really an argument, but a prejudice. But real and influential for all of that. My point is during the 1850s the "usual suspects" were missing in the secession crisis--so why secession? What was it for? Why has the US been successfully reunited after the War?
Ashley,
There are important regional or sectional differences in the US then(and now). But the similarities IMO, outweigh the differences. Even slavery, the major difference, was practiced in a particularly rational and captialist way.
I got interrupted, so to complete my thought.
Legalistic arguments about secession weren't motivators in the 1860s. If there had been a clause in the Constitution that specifically stated, "no secession," would there have been no secession? If the South had genuine grievances and fears they were doomed to Northern tyranny, would guys like Davis or Yancey shrugged their shoulders and said, "I would secede from the Union, but gosh, the Constitution says I can't."
This thread could be called "The irrelevancy of secession, in the secession crisis"
Individual motivation could be mixed. Lee was a proud Southerner to be sure, and as racist as 90% of white Americans of the time. But his own writing show his Washington like disapproval of slavery, and his doubts to the wisdom and right of secession. He fought to defend his country, not exactly his country right or wrong, but more like, his country warts and all. Other Virginians, like George Thomas, decided differently. I don't think legal arguments motivated guys like Thomas, or Lee, or the mass of Confederate or Union soldiery. They thought they were saving something worth saving. Was it?
CivilWarTalk.com -
A free and friendly Civil War community. 
Linear Mode
