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.
The Confederate Constitution was pro-slavery. The U.S. Constitution was pro-slavery as little as possible. It neither forcefully approved nor made slavery illegal. The U.S. Constitution gave slave populations some weight in Congressional elections.
If you want to know slavery, read the Confederate Constitution. It's very much about slavery and the right of citizens to own slaves. The U.S. Constitution never uses the word slave. To make a nation, the founding fathers did all they could to minimize the effect of slavery.
In the end slavery did not support a good industrial economy. Slavery hindered industry and by the time Southerners saw a loss of power in the Congress, their states were too weak, industrially, to wage a long war effectively
Yes, Taney did rule as much in Dred Scot.
And yes, I believe Douglas was trying to have his cake and eat it too on the issue.
What strikes me is that the ground for compromise on the slavery-related issues got smaller and smaller over time. In 1850, there seemed to be plenty of room for compromise. Kansas-Nebraska shrank the potential ground for compromise. As did Dred Scot, Harper's Ferry, the 1860 Democratic Conventions, the election of 1860. The proceedings of the Virginia Convention of 1860 show that the majority was searching desperately for some way to strike a compromise that would keep the Union together. Finally, after Fort Sumter, any ground for compromise was gone forever, even though Kentucky and Maryland still tried to find some common ground for compromise.
Anyway, to get back on topic, Southern Democrats refusal in 1860 to accept Douglas as the Democratic candidate and the 1856 Cincinnati Platform was a result of Douglas' Freeport Doctrine. Douglas was trying to have the Democratic platform mean one thing north of the Mason-Dixon, and the opposite south of that line. Southern Democrats wanted a straight, honest decision on the issue of slavery in the Territories. And that issue, on top of the other sectional differences, finally split the Democracy.
Democrats had agreed that the Supreme Court decision would resolve the issue, but, when the USSC ruled in Dred Scot, Northern Democrats realized that they would get slaughtered electorally (which they did) if they endorsed allowing slavery to expand into the territories, so they tried to go back on that deal.
Southern Democrats in Charleston in 1860 demanded a plank stating that the Federal Government was required to protect the property of citizens in the Territories (a euphomism for slave property). Northern Democrats refused (knowing that such a plank would destroy the northern Democracy). The party split, followed by the Union.
Respectfully,
John Taylor
__________________ "In this Constitution, the citizens of the United States appear dispensing a part of their original power in what manner and what proportion they think fit. They never part with the whole; and they retain the right of recalling what they part with." James Wilson of Pennsylvania, October 28th, 1787
Matthew, one final point. The point at which the people of a territory could enact a constitutional provision outlawing slavery was a serious bone of contention. Some (including Douglas) felt that when they drafted a Territorial Constitution, they could prohibit slavery. Others (Southern Democrats), feeling that the Territorial Government was an agent of Congress, and could not enact a power that Congress did not have, felt that any anti-slavery provision would have to wait until the Territory had enough residents to ask for admission as a State. At that point, and only at that point, the people of the Territory could draft a State Constitution that outlawed slavery. Nobody that I know of denied the power of a State to prohibit slavery within its boundaries. Allowing a Territory to outlaw slavery would have the effect of prohibiting a slaveholder from emigrating to the territory, or at the very least seriously inconveniencing him. Thus, only non-slaveholders could emigrate into the territories. If that condition applied, it would have meant that every new State would come into the Union as a free State.
Along those lines, I have always thought that the Republicans made a serious tactical mistake in not allowing Kansas to enter the Union under the Lecompton (pro-slavery) Constitution. If they had, (and assuming that the Lecompton Constitution was fraudulent because most Kansans were in fact anti-slavery), nothing would have prevented Kansas from coming into the Union, and then enacting a law prohibiting slavery the next day. And the Southern Democrats could have done nothing about it.
At any rate, when a Territory enacted anti-slavery provisions was a matter of serious debate before the war.
Respectfully,
John Taylor
__________________ "In this Constitution, the citizens of the United States appear dispensing a part of their original power in what manner and what proportion they think fit. They never part with the whole; and they retain the right of recalling what they part with." James Wilson of Pennsylvania, October 28th, 1787
Dear John Taylor,
In reference to your post 23, the 1850s have a feeling of being boxed in, or lines drawn, for me as well. I read recently about the concept of "deeper contingency" that nothing is inevitable, including the CW. Doesn't feel like it though.
Interesting thought in your next post about accepting Lecompton, then immediately changing it: I believe Lecompton had some provisions to forestall that course of action, although I suppose they could be overridden as well. But if the Lecompton constitution was accepted, isn't the bar for changing that constitution(or any constitution) relatively high? The minority of slaveowners would have, in effect, veto power.
Dear John Taylor,
In reference to your post 23, the 1850s have a feeling of being boxed in, or lines drawn, for me as well. I read recently about the concept of "deeper contingency" that nothing is inevitable, including the CW. Doesn't feel like it though.
Interesting thought in your next post about accepting Lecompton, then immediately changing it: I believe Lecompton had some provisions to forestall that course of action, although I suppose they could be overridden as well. But if the Lecompton constitution was accepted, isn't the bar for changing that constitution(or any constitution) relatively high? The minority of slaveowners would have, in effect, veto power.
Matthew, It is commonly accepted that Lecompton was a fraudulent constitution. Just how big the Free State majority was is not clear. Lecompton did include a provision that the slavery question could not be re-examined for five years (if memory serves), and I am not sure how hard it was to reconvene a Kansas State Constiutional Convention, but a State Convention can do whatever it wants, including over-riding the provision of a previous State Convention that had (fraudulently) agreed not to re-examine a question for five years.
If the Free State vote was so much larger than the Slave State vote (which Northerners insisted was the case, and I believe they were generaly correct on this question), the Free Staters in Kansas could easily have over-ridden the Lecompton Convention, and abolished slavery whenever they wanted after statehood. It certainly would have called the Southerners bluff (that most Kansans wanted to be a slave State), and would have avoided a huge political logjam in Congress.
Respectfully,
John Taylor
By the way, Lecompton is now a tiny, sleepy village in northeast Kansas, with two small but interesting museums.
Lawrence's best pub, The Free State Brewery (great name), is a good place to get excellent micro-brewery beer and decent pub food. Plus they have a t-shirt of The Nutbag Himself, John Brown, recommending their beer. I recommend it if you're ever in Kansas.
__________________ "In this Constitution, the citizens of the United States appear dispensing a part of their original power in what manner and what proportion they think fit. They never part with the whole; and they retain the right of recalling what they part with." James Wilson of Pennsylvania, October 28th, 1787
In deciding whether you think the Constitution is pro-slavery or not, you may consider many things. But please, do NOT hold against the Constitution the conclusions that Justice Taney reached in Dred Scott v. Sanford.
There seems to be a widespread misperception that Justice Taney was dragged against his will to the conclusions he reached by the text and history of the Constitution. In fact, exactly the opposite is true: he reached the conclusions he did only by ignoring and distorting both the plain meaning of the text of the Constitution and the relevant history.
Some of my previous posts concerning particular aspects of the case are listed below, but for an overall conclusion I'll rely upon the summation of David P. Currie, Edward H. Levi Distinguished Service Professor and Shure Scholar at the University of Chicago Law School:
"From a lawyer's viewpoint Scott was a disreputable performance. The variety of feeble, poorly developed, and unnecessary constitutional arguments suggests, if nothing else, a determination to reach a predetermined conclusion at any price."
David P. Currie, The Constitution in the Supreme Court: The First Hundred Years, 1789-1888 (Univ. of Chicago Press 1985, 1992) at p. 272.
I would agree that Taneyhill already had his mind made up.However a majority of the Supreme Court members agreed with his opinion.That lends credibilty to his decision.He wasn't twisting the law to suit his views in my humble opinion.I'm not saying he wouldn't have done it ,but his ruling was a fair reading of the law.I think the constitution was proslavery to answer the original intent of the post.There was really no legal way to do away with it.That's why ideas that Lincoln could outlaw it were so ridiculous.I know the Southern elite knew he couldn't do it,but did John Doe think he could?I don't think so as poeple then were much more political minded than my generation,but I could certainly be wrong. Sorry to get off the subject,just an unresolved issue in my mind.
__________________ "The sword is mighty, but principles laugh at swords. Overwhelming force may crush truth to earth but, crushed or not the truth is still the truth." Regards, Ashley
In the abstract, I'd agree that a 7-2 decision conveys more authority than, say, a 5-4 decision. But in the end you have to look at the reasoning of each decision to see whether it makes sense. Taney's decision was intellectually dishonest and was not "a fair reading of the law."
Ironically, I am not arguing about the final result in the case, but rather the legal and constitutional analysis that Taney employed to reach the result. In restrospect, once the case reached the Supreme Court, the question was not whether Scott would be freed but whether the Court would reach out and decide the case on constitutional grounds.
In an earlier post (#2 in this thread), I summarized some of the arguments of Professor Amar and others in support of the conclusion that the Constitution was “pro-slavery”. Via the Three-fifths Clause, the Constitution gave the slave states excess representation in the House; via the Electoral College, in the Executive; and via the Executive, in the Judiciary.
In fact, the pro-slavery effects of the Constitution were even greater. The Constitution allowed the States to skew the House even further in favor of pro-slavery interests than the three-fifths rule would otherwise suggest; and the Constitution allowed the States to skew the Senate in favor of pro-slavery interests.
The House
Article I, Section 2 addressed how to apportion House seats among the States (interstate allocation). However, it said nothing about allocation of House seats within each State (intrastate allocation). That is, except to the extent that the Republican Form of Government Clause might be relevant, nothing forbade the States from drawing Congressional Districts in grossly disproportionate ways.
In fact, the southern States repeatedly used this freedom to skew their Congressional representation in favor of slaveholding areas and interests:
“Unconstrained by any explicit intrastate equality norm in Article I, and emboldened by the federal [3/5] ratio, many slave states in the antebellum era skewed their congressional-district maps in favor of slaveholding regions within the state. Thus the House not only leaned south, but also within coastal slave states bent east, toward tidewater plantations that grabbed more than their fair share of seats. After the 1820 census, Virginia carved itself into twenty-two House districts, one of which encompassed Richmond in the plantation belt and another of which surrounded Wheeling on the state’s northwestern rim. Although the Richmond district had less than half the Wheeling district’s free population – 16,000 compared to 42,000 – each sent one member to the House. In effect, Richmond’s master class got full (five-fifths) credit for their 25,000 slaves, as compared to 2,000 slaves in the Wheeling region. Overall, the fifteen Virginia districts with the highest percentage of slaves averaged only 25,000 free folk compared to an average 37,000 in the other districts, all in the west. Meanwhile, North Carolina opted for a pair of high-slaveholding districts averaging only 24,000 free persons, five moderate-slaveholding districts averaging 33,000 free persons, and six low-slaveholding western districts averaging 38,000 free persons. South Carolina’s numbers looked even worse. Other large differentials distorted the House maps in other states and in other decades. The very foundation of the Constitution’s first branch was tilted and rotten.”
Akhil Amar, America’s Constitution: A Biography, p. 97 (footnote omitted).
The Senate
Article I, Section 3, Clause 1 provided that Senators would be chosen by the State legislatures. Here, too, structural pro-slavery bias appeared, because southern legislatures tended to be dominated by pro-slavery interests. Indeed, there is evidence that southern States used the three-fifths clause to legitimate the dominance of those interests:
“Even state legislatures began to mimic the Article I model. In 1798, Georgia decided to use three-fifths as the apportionment ratio for its own state house, thereby giving plantation belts extra credit within the state. Thus one inapt borrowing begot another. In the years following the Missouri Compromise, Virginia reformers’ plans for reapportionment based on white population were defeated by opponents who argued that such plans would undermine the case for three-fifths at the federal level. Then came new apportionment rules in Louisiana, Florida, Maryland, and North Carolina, all of which started to count slaves at three-fifths or more in one or both houses of their legislatures, even though no slave state had done so prior to 1787. In turn, these slavery-skewed state legislatures chose the men who would represent these states in the U.S. Senate. By the 1840s, the corrosive effects of the three-fifths clause had seeped into every branch of the federal government."
Id., p. 98 (emphasis added and footnotes omitted).
This may solve the mystery as to why it was the Senate, rather than the House, that tended to block anti-slavery initiatives. So long as the division of Senators between free and slave states was anywhere near to close, it was recognized that senators elected by skewed southern legislatures were, and would continue to be, solidly pro-slavery. Northern senators were not similarly chosen by state legislatures apportioned to maximize anti-slavery interests. Northern senators with national ambitions, in particular (and how many Senator's don't have national ambitions?), knew that they would have to give way on slavery-related issued. Thus, southern Senators would generally be able to control the slavery agenda.
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