1815-1860: Years Leading Up To War

[samgrant]

Were the average attitudes of U.S. Citizens, North and South in 1860, that of great consternation and hostility toward each other?

Rob Adams (Alabaman)


I have gotten the impression, from various reads, that the average citizen was somewhat ambivalent about those issues the Politicos were shouting about. In both North and South, most folks were in favor of a preserved Union and also had no big objection to slavery where it existed.

Just finished a good book which explores just that (and other) average citizen opinions, etc. In the Presence of Mine Enemies by Edward L. Ayers. See also:

http://valley.vcdh.virginia.edu/

However, those source cited above reflect similar communities of the Shenandoaha Valley, one in the Southernmost part of the North , the other in the Northernmost part of the South.

Would the attitudes of those in Maine vs. Mississippi have been so similar?

[samgrant]

Originally Posted by Alabaman

What decade preceeding the war did the radical Northern abolition movement begin with great vigor?

Cedar,

In the 1830's, according to David M. Potter in The Impending Crisis. "Abolitionism was nourished by a pervasive humanitarianism which made this whole era a period of reform; it was stimulated by the fervor of a great evangelical revival; and it was encouraged by the British abolition of West Indian slavery in 1837."

[elektratig]

William Lloyd Garrison published the first issue of "The Liberator" on January 1, 1831. This is traditionally considered the beginning of the abolition movement.

http://www.sewanee.edu/faculty/Willi...Liberator.html

[matthew mckeon]

I think you can't speak of the North as a monolith, any more than you could of the South.

Among Northerners, the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 engendered resentment that hadn't been there before, especially in New England. It wasn't just the cruelty of the act, but that it was forcing Northerners to cooperate with slavery.

Among Southerners, I have always read that John Brown's raid, and the apparent approval of that raid by many Northerners was a key turning point about their feelings about the Union

I think as the 1850s progressed, incidents after incident pushed the country towards secession and war. The actions of 1860 wouldn't have been conceivable in 1850.

[MobileBoy]

Hey guys,
Well the Methodist,Babtist ,and Presbyterian churches split along North
South divisions I believe in the mid 1840s but somebody check on those dates.
That was big sign to me that trouble was in the air.
Ashley

[Alabaman]

Hi SamGrant,

Good point and thank you for the provided info. Again good points by you. Whether Maine or Mississippi would carry similar opinions over their current woes would be very debatable. I'm inclined to say, regarding the North--the ****her away to the subject the more apathetic the view. It's only my opinion. But...enter the Garrisonian factor! This added liberal amounts of whale oil to the comfortable, family fireplace.

Matthew,

Even Frederick Douglass the Abolishionist incarnate, disapproved John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Virginia. It would appear that most applause of this raid came primarily through staunch abolishionist? Again, only my opinion.

Elektratig,

Thanks for the link!

Ashley,

Yes, sir! Even our respective same denominational Churches had began to split the sheet. Mr. Wm. L. Garrison saw to that!

The 'wheels of time' roll slowly along insidiously, and then suddenly click into another gear. 1860 was when the U.S. switched it's gear. As Southern men, we don't see slavery as THE PRIMARY cause of hostilities, do we?

Regards All,
Rob Adams

[matthew mckeon]

Dear Rob,
"Respectable" northern opinion, like Lincoln, officially disapproved of the raid. But you're right, many abolitionists(besides the "secret six" that directly supported Brown), thought Brown was right to strike a blow against slavery. I think Douglass' opposition was more that he thought it wouldn't work, rather than it was wrong.

Brown strikes me as the proto American terrorist. He commited a act of violence to gain maximum publicity for his cause, apparently without caring whether he personally survived. Or even his "martyrdom" could serve the greater cause. I think its a mistake to think of Brown as crazy, I think he knew what he was doing every step of the way.

His act wasn't exactly the kind of terrorism of the 20th century. He didn't kill(at Harper's Ferry) indiscriminantly(although his killings in Kansas have a distinctly modern ring. There the men he had killed weren't even slaveowners, just some of "them"). Apparently he did think he could arm a force of slaves rallying to his cause and then fade into the mountains as a permanent guerilla force, so the raid wasn't an end in itself. But either he abandoned it deliberately, or when the local and federal troops boxed him in, decided on martyrdom for maximum publicity.

And it worked. A wedge was driven between North and South. This guilty land would be purged with blood.

[Alabaman]

Hi Matthew,

I thought the first unarmed citizen of Harper's Ferry killed by Brown's raiders, was a negro man?

It seems any peaceful black or white, following the law and not encompassing a slave uprising was immediately perceived as a problem to Brown's 'solution' plus becoming a victim.

Old John Brown's raid certainly caused division and became the 'unofficial' marching song of Sherman's men. This perhaps suggests that the 'silent' majority of the North truly supported insugency and the sectional issues had already benn decided upon. But...when the South seceeded peacefully, before Ft. Sumter...this act of secession was quickly labeled as hostility, treason and the legal reason for invasion and etc.. Was this a double-standard in your view?

Sincerely,
Rob Adams

[matthew mckeon]

Dear Rob,
You are absolutely correct, the first person killed at Harper's Ferry was the baggage master, a free black man, gunned down by one of the raiders.

The aim of the Harper's Ferry was to seize the arsenal and arm the crowd of slaves that would rally to Brown, then fade into the mountains to form a guerilla force to harass and disrupt slavery in the border states. Brown didn't engage in indiscriminate killing. He took hostages, threatened them, in the event, didn't murder them. In this he differs from modern terrorists for whom mass killing, and the resulting official and media reaction is the objective.

When no force of slaves materialized, Brown deliberately waited in the town, as the local forces, and finally marines boxed him in. He didn't make an attempt to kill hostages or kill townspeople, except to hold the position he had seized. I believe he waited in order to martyr himself and his followers, and thus gain the maximum publicity for his cause: the destruction of slavery.

This was a deliberate choice, because he was certainly capable of brutal, indiscriminate killing, as he did in Kansas. What's scary about Brown is not his craziness, but his rationality. He killed, not from bloodthirstiness, but policy.

As to comparing Harper's Ferry and Sumter, Brown's raid, an unofficial, almost personal effort, with little backing, and none by any government body, differs from the assault on Fort Sumter.

Brown, after all was suppressed by the federal government itself, and widely condemned by northern public opinion. I think of it as the last act of the violence in Kansas, while Sumter was the first act of the coming war.

However perception can become reality, and after Brown's raid, Southerners worried that a Lincoln presidency would mean many Brown's raids, tolerated, or perhaps promoted by the Northern dominated government. In this I don't think they were correct.

If an abolitionist friendly adminstration took office, they persumably could attack slavery with legislation and other legal means and wouldn't need to launch raids.

In the war, blacks were formed into regular regiments and fought conventionally. Federal cavalry raiders, like Grierson didn't distribute guns to the slaves and encourage revolts. Federal secret service agents didn't smuggle guns into the South.

I think the Union soldiers singing John Brown's Body and doing a thousand times more damage to the South than a hundred John Browns could ever have, comes from their experience in fighting the war. In 1859 the same men probably disapproved of Brown's raid. Three years later, it was a different story.

The same probably holds true for the South. Before Harper's Ferry, secessionist fire eaters looked like extremists to the average Southerner. After it, secession may have seemed to the safest course.