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.
1860's election told the South that it must accept national consolidation, industrial capitalism, and a more democratic social order. The South lost the struggle for equality in the central government, Calhoun had admitted as much in 1850. It would remain a minority after that time. And the Northern men who had once opposed and criticized consolidation and capitalism now accepted them and had transferred their fight against wealth obtained by exploiting labor and against sin, to the Southern slaveholder.
Kansas and California showed that the South had lost the fight for equality in the territories. Now the North turned it's eyes on the extinction of slavery and white supremacy in the South.
The South was supposed to accept what the majority, now living in the North, called "progress". William Seward made it clear "that slavery must give way, and will give way, to the salutary instructions of economy, and to the ripening influences of humanity; that emancipation is inevitable, and is near; that it may be hastened or hindered; and that whether it shall be peaceful or violent depends on the question whether it be hastened or hindered; that all measures which fortify slavery or extend it, tend to the consummation of violence; all that check its extension and abate its strength, tend to its peaceful extirpation."
Southern people saw this as the Republican position. As one wrote: "The Republican creed after March 4, 1861, will be the Constitution of the country. Its High Priest presents the South as the sacrifice on its altar, with the poor privilege to choose a slow or a violent death...". Another said, "The question before the country is the extinction of slavery. No man of common sense, who is not prepared to surrender the institution with the safety and independence of the South, can doubt but that the time for action has come--now or never!"
The Republican assumptions, which, though not always stated, implied a program for ultimate achievment, but that program carried absolutely no promise of cooperation, and it was evidently to be achieved by the traditional course of the sinner merely giving up his sins. They overlooked the fact that slavery was an economic institution involving millions of dollars; that it carried with it a race question of everlasting proportions; that it had to do with political clout through the three-fifths rule; and that it was hopelessly threaded into the Southern pattern of life.
The social and economic threats involved were staggering. But the air of superiority and self-righteousness which came along with them was, perhaps, even a greater force in producing angry and unreasonable reactions. As Judah P. Benjamin said, "it was not so much what the Republicans had done or might do, as the things they said." It was the assumptions made by what Benjamin called "that pestiferous breed--the fools and knaves of New England--that the Earth belongs to the Saints and they are the Saints of the Lord." Not only that it was the way the North constantly tried to belittle the South to anyone who'd listen. Edward B. Bryan could shrug off the material threats, but what made his blood boil was "the untiring efforts which are constantly made by the people of the North to degrade the South in the eyes of all who come within their reach......." They ignored the feelings of slaveholders; denounced "the state of religion"; denied "the piety of ministers"; and "cast odium on the state of morals at the South." They didn't stop there, they even slandered the Negroes' "character by charges of ingratitude."
The attitude exhibited by the North must certainly have contributed to the extreme attitude in the South since I don't think men would like their Congressman called "desperadoes"; that "we would sooner trust the honor of the country....in the hands of the inmates of our penitentiaries and prisons than in their hands....they are the meanest of thieves and the worst of robbers....We do not acknowledge them to be within the pale of Christianity, or republicanism, or humanity." The South met these statements with emotional statements of their own. Statements such as: ...the Republican party and the President "have proclaimed hatred, abhorrence, scorn, and loathing of the Southern men and women."
Although the South is condemned for her "fire-eaters" their extreme attitudes and words have been quoted so often that the majority of Southerners are nearly forgotten.
Like most rural-agricultural peoples the majority of the men and women who lived in the South were orthodox and conservative. In religion they agreed with their great preacher, James H. Thornwell, that Christianity had "no commission to construct society afresh, to adjust its elements in different proportion, to rearrange the distribution of its classes, or to change the forms of its political constitutions." His idea that the business of Christianity was not to change the world into a paradise but to ease the harshness of poverty, sickness, and slavery was embraced by Southerners.
The Missouri Compromise struggle has to be considered the point at which the North-South conflict first broke into the open, in my opinion. Speaking of Southern public opinion at that time,Professor Glover Moore, the historian of the event, says: "It might be supposed that the introduction of the Tallmadge amendment in February, 1819, and the sulphurous debate that followed would have electrified the whole South. Instead only the Southern members of Congress were electrified! During the summer of 1819, after the first Missouri debate, Southerners appeared to be blissfully unaware of the fact that they were engaged in a mighty sectional contest. Nowhere was popular indifference more marked than in Charleston, the future citadel of secession....Not until antislavery meetings were called in the free states and Northern legislatures and pamphleteers became active did the South begin to evince anything remotely resembling public interest in the Missouri question."
The 1832 S.C. Nullification episode is viewed by many as a direct step toward secession, but, as a matter of fact, it might be looked at as a revelation of growing nationalism. Calhoun's Exposition and Protest was an effort to find a strictly legal/Constitutional method of getting rid of an unsatisfactory law. A Harvard professor of government has said Calhoun's theory was "a conservative theory."
But the nullification can't be viewed, in any way, as an expression of Southern sectional consciousness because not a single other Southern state approved of it. Oh, they disliked the tariff as much as S. C. but didn't view nullification as a remedy. Some of their views on the topic were:
Virginia: "a mischievous and absurd heresy" Georgia: "a ridiculous and reckless plan" North Carolina: "completely deluded"
South Carolina did not lack in moderate men. The Enquirer spoke of "the struggle" between extremists such as Hamilton, McDuffie, Preston, Turnbull, Barnwell, and Smith and the moderates: Petigru, Drayton, Poinsett, Huger, Blair and Mitchell.
We look so intently at the events of 1860 we're inclined to give too much attention to the radicals and to forget that Poinsett and his Charleston friends kept President Jackson well informed as to what steps were best; that men in the western part of the state resolved that they would "never obey any call on her militia to march against the government of the United States," and that they defied the "tyranny of the nullifiers," scorned "their insolence" and despised "their menaces."
And in keeping our eyes on 1860 we have ignored the young editor of a South Carolina newpaper who wrote: "We will advocate and advance, to the best of our abilities, the doctrines professed and acted upon by the Union Party throughout our State. We oppose everything savouring of nullification and Disunion; for we do not believe that any State has a right to nullify an Act of Congress...." His name was William Lowndes Yancey.
Certainly it is plain to see that a lot of serious changes occurred between the Nullification Act of 1832 and the year 1860 that led directly to the WBTS.
With this thread let us try to advance our ideas on what happened that led to the bloodiest war this country has ever seen, a war that changed forever the face of the government of the United States.
(to be cont'd)
__________________ 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.
In 1860, as the political turmoil hastened quickly toward Southern secession, the average non-slave holding Southerner was undoubtedly toiling in labor providing a living for their family. Exactly the same circumstance was being repeated by their fellow Countrymen in the North. My very basic understanding is the respective economies were good and anyone who wished to work and prosper, could and did. Observing the U.S. Census of 1860, there seemed almost a lack of strict-poverty cases if you observe each Head-of-Households "taxable property" column of the original census. I can't fathom that in only four short years, 650,000 men would die in a Civil War! To understand the personal viewpoint of the average soldier-to-be, in 1860, I propose to begin Thea's interseting thread with a series of questions.
Were the average attitudes of U.S. Citizens, North and South in 1860, that of great consternation and hostility toward each other?
We have been told of the official positions of respective Local, State & Federal elected officals in 1860, but what was the thought of the average person during 1860? Looking through modern eyes upon 1860, was 1860 basically the same as today in that current events unfold and are decided/acted upon by our leaders, while we willingly/hesitatingly follow along?
I have often given my opinion of how Southern people felt toward Northern people, right or wrong; how did the average Northern man or woman 'view' the average Southerner in 1860?
My third question is partially a statement:
I cannot at this moment cite the 'creditable source' (I'll find it) but wasn't there MANY more Southern Abolition Agencies operating in the Southern States in 1860 than in Northern States? These 'Societies' were located in Tennessee and other mid-South regions but the Deep Southern States had many according to my source; plenty more than Northern States. I can't understand why level-headedness by a moderate position, didn't prevail or at least be presented to the scene by our leaders. This doesn't appear to be what transpired, however?
Hopefully this will give this great thread a well deserved momentum forward.
"... I can't understand why level-headedness by a moderate position, didn't prevail or at least be presented to the scene by our leaders. This doesn't appear to be what transpired, however?"
That is a poser, isn't it? I like Gallagher's comment (from memory): There wasn't that much real difference between north and south; but they thought there was."
As humans, we can understand the belief that the world would be better off without the (insert favorite name here. Suggestions: white power, black power, PC pirates, abolitionists, slave-holders). But I am convinced that only a very few in the nation would do anything violent about it. Which only makes your observation more perplexing.
I cannot at this moment cite the 'creditable source' (I'll find it) but wasn't there MANY more Southern Abolition Agencies operating in the Southern States in 1860 than in Northern States? These 'Societies' were located in Tennessee and other mid-South regions but the Deep Southern States had many according to my source; plenty more than Northern States. I can't understand why level-headedness by a moderate position, didn't prevail or at least be presented to the scene by our leaders. This doesn't appear to be what transpired, however?
If you find the reference, let us know. I, for one, would be shocked if there were any such societies in the South. As of 1860, there may have been some southerners who continued to hope that slavery would eventually somehow fade away, with blacks colonized in Africa or elsewhere, but even that had become a dangerous opinion to hold.
Rob,
You make an excellent point about the economics of the pre-war days.I've always been surprised by how many poeple view the antebellum /south as composed of basically rich plantation Lords, and the poor white trash without slaves.Most poeple seem to view the yeomen farmers as a families huddled together in a one-room shack barely able to feed themselves and barely surviving from year to year.How or why this stereotype emerged I can only conjecture.I guess it helped Northern authors put their own spin on the wicked slaveowners and on the reasons Southerners had for fighting the war.A mass of yeomen farmers living in poverty I assume follows were too ignorant to think for themselves and thus blindly followed the slaveowner's lead.Where as a middle class by its stature demands more intellectual respect and were ignored for the convenience of blaming this war solely on slavery and slaveowners.You are exactly right that most Southerners made a descent living.They also had their own brains and formed their own opinions .Have a great one buddy.
Ashley
I talked to many 'older people' in the early 1970's regarding history in general. I was a very curious youngster especially re: the Cvil War. Some of my posts on CWT carry direct 2nd person narratives from the 1970's from people who talked directly with frmer CS soldiers, etc... My distinct impression of the South's economy during ante-bellum days was one of 'booming' times. I cannot find good sources for a Northern 'sectional' economical situation, in the years preceding the war of '61. A very small percentage of Southern yeomen held slaves but were progressing well before the war. The generations after the war, small yeomen in particular, tell an ENTIRELY different story. My entire family from the war forward replaced the slave labor with the job as 'share-croppers.'The South was totally ruined by the war.
How was the Northeastern economy during the dates encompssed within this thread? I would appreciate the reply.
I cannot at this moment cite the 'creditable source' (I'll find it) but wasn't there MANY more Southern Abolition Agencies operating in the Southern States in 1860 than in Northern States?
No, not in 1860. It was true in 1829, but by the end of the 1840s they were all gone. In 1860 there was not a single abolition society operating in the south. See Avery Craven, The Coming of the Civil War.
My distinct impression of the South's economy during ante-bellum days was one of 'booming' times.
From what I remember, cotton prices had taken a nosedive in the midforties, bottoming out in 1845 at around four cents/lb, and prices didn't start back up much until 1849. During the 1850s though, this reversed and demand for and price of cotton was booming, bringing ten to twelve cents/lb.
Quote:
How was the Northeastern economy during the dates encompssed within this thread?
Things seemed to be doing quite well on the Great Lakes, anyways. This excerpt is concerning 1855-56.
"There is nothing in the history of the commerce of the world that will bear any comparision to the increase of the commerce of the lakes for the past years. As the Western States become settled, and their resources developed, additional facilities are required for transporting to market their surplus productions; and enormous as is the increase in the new tonnage added from year to year, it is still barley adequate to meet the wants of the Western trade. Excepting a few weeks during the summer, when farmers are busy in securing their crops, and but little produce is brought into Western markets, the large fleet of vessels, numbering between twelve and thirteen hundred, find all they can do in transporting to market the produce of the great West, and carrying back merchandise, manufactures, &c."
Thank You. I'll certainly take your word for it. In 1829, the South had many more abolishion agencies than the North. By the end of the 1840's there were NO abolition agencies in the South.
What decade preceeding the war did the radical Northern abolition movement begin with great vigor, Cash?
Cedar,
Thanks for posting the economic reports of both sections. Economies were booming in both sections. I apologize for my almost total lack of sources. Even my computer has negligable (creditable) sources from which to draw info.
Respectively Best Regards,
Rob Adams
Thank You. I'll certainly take your word for it. In 1829, the South had many more abolishion agencies than the North. By the end of the 1840's there were NO abolition agencies in the South.
What decade preceeding the war did the radical Northern abolition movement begin with great vigor, Cash?
It really got into gear in the 1820s, beginning with the debates over the admission of Missouri. In the mid-1820s we saw the very beginnings of the "slavery as a positive good" movement among southerners, which got into higher gear in the 1830s. I'll have to check Craven again for more exact dates.
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