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.
Three Books That Shed Light On the Causes of Secession in the Lower South: Part I
Setting the Stage
Arguments about why the southern states decided to secede from the Union in the winter of 1860-61 are typically unsatisfying because they so often reduce themselves to two possibilities: (1) it was all about slavery; and (2) it had nothing to do with slavery. Missing from the discussion is recognition of the fact that even the most mundane event is rarely the result of a single cause – the ice on the sidewalk, my inattention and those treadless slippers all contributed to my falling when I went to get that newspaper last winter. Why is it reasonable to think that an event as momentous as secession should be the exception?
Historians, too, sometimes fall into this trap. Pushing particular theories – whether incompetent politicians, differing economic or social conditions or southern honor – some minimize competing considerations. The best, however, offer an alternate way of conceptualizing the tensions that arose between the sections. Collectively, they suggest that there are many different ways, not inconsistent with one another, to understand why secession came to pass.
That said, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that slavery was at the center of the secessionist impulse in the lower south in 1860-61. To begin with, any explanation must account for the fact that the great division in the country became that between the north and the south, rather than, say, between the east and the trans-Allegheny west. All things being equal, the latter division would seem at least as likely, with the interests of urbanizing seacoast eastern elites increasingly diverging from those of rural Mississippi River-oriented westerners. The status of slavery in the sections would seem to be the obvious answer.
In addition, slavery permeates the story of the increasing tensions between the North and the South. Yes, South Carolina got excited about the tariff back in 1832-33, but the tariff issue died down after that. There were some complaints about the tariff now and again, but nothing that seems to have come close to generating the vehemence necessary to serve as a spark for so radical an act as disunion. Other than that, virtually the entire standard story line – from the Mexican War to the Wilmot Proviso and the Compromise of 1850, from Kansas to Harpers Ferry and the election of Lincoln – concerns slavery in one form or another.
Finally, I must say that proponents of the “anything but slavery” view do their case great harm by their categorical denials. It may well be that factors other than slavery figured into secession, but arguments that slavery was utterly irrelevant to the issue just do not pass the smell test. Southerners presenting the case for secession highlighted scenarios of race war and white degradation. Is it really credible to argue that all that was irrelevant?
And Yet . . .
And yet . . . doubts remain. For one thing, at least at the beginning (1860-61), secession seems to have been wildly popular throughout the lower south, and throughout all segments of the lower south. Planters did not have to drag farmers along. To the contrary, in many instances yeomen were in the vanguard. To modern readers, this phenomenon seems to violate all received wisdom about the importance of class-based self-interest. Why would non-slaveholders be inspired to defend property they didn’t own? Why did yeomen so enthusiastically back (or lead) a rich man’s crusade? Were they dolts? Or does it suggest that something else was going on?
Second, the south’s decision to secede in 1860-61 strikes me (and many others) as major-league crazy. What had poor old Abe Lincoln done, for goodness sake? The people elected him president in a fair election, Jacksonian democracy in action. Sure, he had made clear that he wouldn’t permit further expansion of slavery in the territories if he could help it, but he’d made equally clear that he didn’t believe he had the power to touch slavery in the states and had no intention of doing so. Given his reassurances, why on Earth would otherwise normal people (presumably) go so bonkers just because they lost an election, without even giving the poor guy a chance? Does it suggest that even the possibility, however slight, of forced emancipation, was so unthinkable as to drive southerners over the edge? Or does it, again, suggest that something else was going on?
Three books I have recently read shed valuable light on that “something else” and put the pieces in place in ways that make sense.
The Books
J. Mills Thornton’s Politics and Power in a Slave Society: Alabama 1800-1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press 1978) relates the political history of a single lower south state from initial settlement through the decision to secede. In many ways, it is a frustrating book. Portions are extremely detailed, going on, for example, at length about the positions of minor politicians whose names I have already forgotten. Conversely, Professor Thornton (University of Michigan) assumes basic knowledge that I, at least, lack. Where are the “wiregrass counties” – and what is wiregrass anyway? If you refer repeatedly to the “Black Belt”, please tell me which counties you are including in the definition. And if you’re going to refer to towns I’ve never heard of, it would be nice to have a map showing me where they are. Frequent excursions to the internet for maps and other information were necessary. More importantly, I would have liked more economic background. The book makes clear, for example, that there was a substantial economic upturn in the 1850s that had significant impact on the landscape leading to the decision to secede, but I wanted more detail than Professor Thornton provides.
In these respects, Lacy K. Ford’s Origins of Southern Radicalism: The South Carolina Upcountry 1800-1860 (New York: Oxford University Press 1988) has better balance. Professor Ford (University of South Carolina) tells the corresponding political history of the upcountry of South Carolina (which necessarily involves a good deal of discussion about the low country as well). The book does not make unreasonable assumptions about reader knowledge; it is detailed but not to excess; and it successfully interweaves a good deal of economic history that explains and illuminates the political positions taken and battles fought.
Finally, in Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country (New York: Oxford University Press 1995), Stephanie McCurry (currently at the University of Pennsylvania) conducts a similar study of the South Carolina Low Country. In particular, she sets out to identify the invisible yeomanry of the Low Country and to explore their conditions and values. She identifies, among other things, gender – in particular, the power that yeomen exercised over their wives – as an important, overlooked factor in understanding that world.
Power and Politics in a Slave Society
Despite its faults, Professor Thornton’s book is a revelation. The buildup of detail in fact serves a purpose, supporting the author’s thesis as to why a southern state dominated by yeoman farmers seceded. The key lies in Alabamans’ understanding of freedom and the purposes of government. Freedom was the ability not to be dependent on any other person or group, an atomistic, indeed anti-social vision of society in which every white male citizen was equal to every other. The paradigm was the yeoman on his farm, acting as his own master and, in theory, utterly free from outside influence. “The society was structured so as to demand, and to appear to allow, the achievement of individual autonomy. Therefore, each man’s self-respect was absolutely essential to his existence as a part of the social organism.” (p.219)
This conception of freedom saw any accumulation of power, however benign we might think it, as tyranny. The role of government and politicians was to identify and destroy any potential threats to individual autonomy and equality. It was for this reason, for example, that in the 1840s Alabama had virtually no railroads and no banks. They were perceived as dangerous combinations by which men were trying to become tyrannical masters over others. Even in the prosperous 1850s, when railroads and banks finally began to expand, the most popular politician in the state became so by waging war against them.
Alabamans were obsessed with liberty and equality because they saw every day the state to which they would be reduced if they ever relaxed their vigilance: slavery, the absence of autonomy. An Alabaman’s entire sense of self-worth and self-respect depended on his being free and equal as he understood it. To lose autonomy and self-government was “to abandon the substance of liberty – to slip screaming down towards the [********] black mass which formed the sum of all hatred and fear.” (p. 444)
The free soil movement thus attacked the Alabaman at precisely his most vulnerable point: his sense of dignity and self-worth. Even Alabamans who owned no slaves viewed barring slavery from the territories as limiting their freedom. The Alabaman atomistic vision of liberty depended on the existence of a society based on slavery. Without chattel slavery, the territories would resemble the north, a society based on dependence where tyrannical combinations and forces ruled and white men were enslaved by other white men. As the south grew weaker, the rich and the landless might be able to flee, but the Alabaman yeoman would be trapped, overwhelmed and ultimately annihilated in a race war. In the alternative – because “slavery promotes equality among the free by dispensing with grades and castes among them, and thereby preserves republican institutions” – the white yeoman would himself become a slave. As the Montgomery Advertiser argued as early as 1851 (pp. 206-07):
“The total abolition of slavery would affect more injuriously the condition of the poor white man in the slaveholding States than that of the rich slaveholder; for the slaveholder, having the means which attends upon the possession of slaves, would be able to maintain his position, whilst the poor man would have to doff that native, free-born and independent spirit which he now possesses, and which he prizes above all wealth, and would have to become a virtual slave (barring color) of the rich man.”
But far more important was the fact that the free soil movement represented a direct threat to the core value of equality, which defined the farmer’s very existence. Northerners insulted and exhibited contempt for Alabamans, their institutions, even their churches. They made clear that they believed they were morally superior to Alabamans. This perceived degrading contempt was, perhaps, the most intolerable of all, for it showed that northerners believed that Alabamans were inferior, less than citizens. But if Alabamans were not equal citizens, they were slaves. Were northerners not treating Alabamans as such? And if Alabamans accepted this state of affairs were they not confirming their slavehood?
The election of Lincoln – not any acts he took – was the straw that broke the camel’s back because it represented the final confirmation, the proof, of all of these suspicions. The prosperity of the 1850s had, paradoxically, disoriented and shaken many Alabamans. For the first time, many entered the market economy; railroads, banks and some industry began to appear; towns were growing. These phenomena contradicted most Alabamans’ atomistic understanding of freedom. Even in their home state, tyranny seemed to threaten. At the same time, and related to these developments, there was increased intercourse with, and awareness of, the north. Now northerners were about to impose on Alabamans as master a man who had not even appeared on their ballot. The north was determined to enslave Alabama and the rest of the south; the shackles were already on, and they were about to snap shut. Although the December 1860 Alabama Convention included both “cooperationists” as well as “immediatists”, former Whigs as well as Democrats, there were no unionists. The citizenry – yeoman and planter, the Black Belt resident and the hill country denizen – uniformly believed that there was no choice but to secede. The alternative was slavery.
Origins of Southern Radicalism
Professor Ford reaches similar conclusions about the decision of the South Carolina hill country to secede. He emphasizes even more than Professor Thornton the unnerving contradiction between the new economic forces sweeping the state in the 1850s and the atomistic view of freedom. He also emphasizes somewhat more the fear that “abolitionism” would drown the yeoman in a sea of blood. But he, too, insists that South Carolinians’ understanding of freedom as based on absolute autonomy and equality was the crucial factor. Yeomen were freemen and expected and demanded to be treated as such. They were voters who exercised their franchise, they expected and demanded that they would be courted, and they punished candidates who failed to do so.
In the end, it was these values, Professor Ford argues, that compelled South Carolinian upcountry yeomen to secede (p. 372):
“Almost literally, Upcountrymen saw secession as the required defense of basic republican values. The republican citizen’s most cherished possession, his own independence and that of his household, was threatened by powerful external forces. One set of those forces [increasing economic activity and market participation during the 1850s] threatened to force him into slavery and degradation through the loss of his economic independence. The other set of forces threatened to free the entire black slave population to violate his home and family. Secession offered the independent citizen a chance to meet this challenge at the threshold, to defend the autonomy of his household by literally throwing himself across the doorway in defiance. This was the secessionist appeal that reached not just planters and slaveholders, but all whites who considered themselves entitled to liberty, and personal independence.
“In the final analysis, a unified South Carolina could secede because the dominant ideal in her society was not the planter ideal or the slaveholding ideal, but the old ‘country-republican’ ideal of personal independence, given peculiar fortification by the use of black slaves as a mud-sill class. Yeoman rose with planter to defend this ideal because it was not merely the planter’s ideal, but his as well.”
Three Books That Shed Light On the Causes of Secession in the Lower South: Part II
Masters of Small Worlds
In the third book under consideration, Stephanie McCurry finds many similar phenomena in the South Carolina Low Country. Even there, property ownership was broadly distributed, and yeomen constituted a majority of the voters. “By current definition, the Low Country was as much a Republican society as any other area of the slave South.” Planter politicians had to court yeomen votes, and yeomen demanded that planters treat them as equals. Like their counterparts in Alabama, Low Country “[y]eomen were independent men and masters, entitled to the respect and public rights accorded such men in slave society, and they insisted on that identity in every exchange with planters.”
Nonetheless, the Low County was different in important respects. Although land and slave ownership were widely spread, there was a far greater concentration of wealth and political power than elsewhere in the south. The top decile of propertyholders controlled some 70% of the wealth, and planters occupied about 70% of the Low Country seats in the state house – and that figure is misleadingly low, because professionals and sons of planters occupied virtually all the remainder. Professor McCurry argues that these gross disparities did create tensions, suggesting that there were other factors at work reinforcing farmer-planter solidarity.
The key, Professor McCurry believes, lies in the hierarchical nature of Low Country society. Farmers embraced the rules and values that allowed planters to dominate the economic and political life of the Low Country because those rules also conveyed great benefits on farmers. Those same rules authorized yeomen, as “freemen”, to exercise virtually limitless masterly authority over their fenced homesteads and their households, including wives, minor children and, in some cases, slaves. This power extended into the common sphere, where yeomen had equal political rights and were entitled, by law and custom, to enforce these rules even against planters.
In the final crisis of 1860, pro-secession forces skillfully managed their campaign by emphasizing themes that touched on these core values. “The free white man here stands above and superior belonging to the master ruling class,” the Charleston Mercury proclaimed. Images of freedom or slavery, manly resistance versus slavish submission, repelling the invader at the threshold abounded. Men should manfully resist, not slavishly submit to, the abolitionists. The fact that much of the campaigning took place in militia settings increased white male solidarity and seems to have had a significant impact on voting patterns. Religion also played a significant role (“virtually every prominent minister . . . stood squarely for disunion”), and increasingly violent vigilante squads played a part as well.
Still, for all it insights, Masters is not perfect. First, while one of Professor McCurry’s major theses is that there was substantial tension between planters and yeomen, the evidence is not fully convincing. She does a good job documenting planter resentment toward and concern about the loyalty of yeomen; but the proposition that [i/]yeoman[/i/] resented planters is based largely upon the assertion that yeoman must have been dissatisfied given planter economic and political dominance. While it may well be true that yeomen were aware of these gross disparities, Professor McCurry’s own evidence suggests that they reacted by insisting all the more adamantly that that they were, and that they be treated as, “freemen” who were absolute political equals of planters.
Second, and more subtlely, the book’s emphasis on white-white and male-female relationships may inadvertently downplay the effects on whites of the black majority. Professor McCurry carefully records that blacks constituted a large majority of the Low Country population (over 66% in 1860), and she notes (p. 47) that “the demographic predominance of black slaves is the crucial context for every other calculation and inquiry,” but the importance of that conclusion tends to get lost. It would certainly seem logical that the presence of a large slave population encouraged white male solidarity and provided a powerful incentive to yeomen to embrace a system that identified them as freemen and sharply distinguished them from slaves, however planter-dominated that system might be as a practical matter. Indeed, Professor McCurry herself notes that planter appeals to yeomen, such as those by John Townsend in two 1860 pamphlets, included pointed warnings that the consequences of emancipation would include loss of political rights, home invasion and rapine (p. 283):
“[In both pamphlets, Townsend] went to great lengths to elaborate the effects of emancipation on ‘the non-slaveholding portion of our citizens’ and the loss ‘to the non-slaveholder equally with the largest slaveholder’ of the ‘important privileges’ conferred by slavery. Among those privileges he listed political ones prominently: the right to militia duty, to serve on juries, to testify in court, and ‘to cast his vote equally with the largest slaveholder in the choice of his rulers.’ ‘In no country in the world,’ Townsend concluded, ‘does the poor white man whether slaveholder or non-slaveholder occupy so enviable a position as in the slaveholding states of the South.’ These propertied poor men, these yeoman farmers, could be counted on, if only to preserve their own privilege. In calling on all freemen to defend ‘an injured South . . . the peace and prosperity of their homes . . . the security of their property . . . and the cherished safety of their wives and daughters and sons,’ Townsend and many others nurtured the unity of the body politic.”
Implications
There is no doubt that the three works find differences. Professor McCurry in particular identifies gender as a powerful unifying force among white male freemen. So, too, does she contend that economic and political inequality created potential divisions and that secession required corresponding powerful additional forces to bridge those gaps. Professors Thornton and Ford suggest that increasing economic activity and market entanglements in the 1850s made yeomen more nervous and inclined to see enslavement around the corner. Professor McCurry downplays this factor in the Low Country but suggests that increasing economic disparity during that period, if anything, created increased tensions between the groups.
Nonetheless, the most striking thing about the three works is how similar their conclusions are. All three identify the white yeoman’s perception of himself as a freeman as central to his sense of self-worth and the foundation of his worldview. Both Professors Thornton and Ford see chattel slavery as the fundamental paradigm that shaped this view by making painfully apparent what slavery – the opposite of freedom – was. Professor McCurry might, at first blush, appear to differ, since she contends that mastery over homestead and subordinate household members was a principal reason that yeomen valued and supported the system. But the difference is more apparent than real, for, as suggested above, she too contends that slavery was crucial and encouraged the development of the rules that yeomen valued so much (p. 16):
“There can be no doubt that slavery gave shape to plantation households. Its reach, however, did not end there. For notwithstanding the fact that planters desired, in part, to repel the intrusions of other classes of free men, they could not simultaneously establish the requisite legal and customary basis of household integrity and masters’ authority without making more general claims. Rooted in notions of property rights, those claims extended inexorably to the household of every free and propertied man. Slavery thereby gave shape to yeoman households as well, to their legal boundaries, and, most important, to the gender and class relations that prevailed within them.”
So where does that leave us? At least in the regions covered by these three books, did chattel slavery “cause” secession or not? In one sense, these three works suggest that the answer is, “Not exactly.” Yeoman did not enthusiastically embrace secession in order to defend or support slavery perse. Rather, they did so to defend a system that gave them rights and status as freemen against outsiders who were threatening to deprive them of freedom and equality – their rights as citizens – and enslave them.
At the same time, however, all three books demonstrate that slavery was a crucial factor. Professors Thornton and Ford would assert that slavery directly shaped and gave meaning to white yeoman existence and values and that the perceived threat to the institution thus constituted an immediate threat to those values. Professor Thornton sums up the connection as follows (p. 449):
“The fear was general in Alabama that the Republicans intended, at least eventually, to adopt such a policy [of forced emancipation] for the South. And emancipation would rob equality of the substance which made equality worth having: the pride and self-assurance that flow from a sense of one’s political and social worth. Who would attribute dignity to, and seek to maintain, a position to which even a Negro could aspire? An equality with former slaves, far from generating pride, would be a source of shame – would become itself a form of slavery for whites.”
While Professor McCurry might place slavery one step further removed, she too recognizes that slavery generated the society and social rules that yeoman valued. In addition, she emphasizes that Low Country planters, who were directly motivated by fears about the threat to the institution, worked very hard – and successfully – to make yeoman understand that forced emancipation would destroy their status as well.
For those interested, all three books are available through Amazon (I purchased all three used through Amazon). There is also a fine review of the Ford and McCurry books at H-South.
Stephanie McCurry, Masters of Small Worlds: Yeoman Households, Gender Relations, and the Political Culture of the Antebellum South Carolina Low Country (New York: Oxford University Press 1995): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/019...e=UTF8&s=books
Masters of Small Worlds ...
So where does that leave us? At least in the regions covered by these three books, did chattel slavery “cause” secession or not? In one sense, these three works suggest that the answer is, “Not exactly.” Yeoman did not enthusiastically embrace secession in order to defend or support slavery perse. Rather, they did so to defend a system that gave them rights and status as freemen against outsiders who were threatening to deprive them of freedom and equality – their rights as citizens – and enslave them.
Thanks for that.
Reading your exposition on the works, I was reminded of 2 things:
1) The "Mudsill Theory" presented by Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina in a speech on March 4, 1858: "In all societies that must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life." Essentially, he says, even the poorest white could look down at the slave because he was free and the slave ... wasn't.
2) The theory that the cult of individual honor in the South was more intense/important than in the North (hence the larger number of duels, etc.) and that this led to a feeling that any disagreement was a threat/insult that must be aggressively countered, leading to constant conflict. This in turn led to such excessive posturing, supposedly, that it was impossible to compromise.
Southern complaints against the north were indeed liberally laced with honor-related themes, and the books make clear that these themes were closely related to and expressions of the core value of republican equality as southerners understood that value. I had previously dismissed rhetoric about disrespect and dishonor as mere window dressing; but it now seems to me that those complaints were the heart of the matter.
Taking southern complaints about disrespect seriously may place other incidents in a different light. I suspect, for example, that the south so vigorously lionized Preston Brooks for his caning of Charles Sumner because it exemplified the southern honor system in action. When insulted by an equal, a gentleman issued a challenge to a duel. When insulted by an inferior, a gentleman displayed his contempt by whipping or caning the offender. In acting as he did, was Brooks not acting perfectly in accordance with those rules and demonstrating that he viewed Sumner as beneath contempt?
By sheer coincidence, I have encountered a fourth book that argues that southern devotion to republicanism as southerners understood it was a principal cause of secession. Here’s a taste:
“More important, however, the core of the secessionist persuasion was aimed at . . . republican values . . .. Although the secessionists and their allies did, indeed, warn of the dangers of abolition and escalate demands concerning slavery in the territories, the essence of their appeal had less to do with black slavery than with protecting the rights of Southern whites from despotism. The central issue was neither race nor restriction, but republicanism. . . . [S]ecessionists identified [the antirepublican monster] with the Republican party, which they labeled a threat to self-government, the rule of law, Southern liberty, and Southern equality. . . .
“Southerners had long boasted that theirs was the most egalitarian and free society on earth because it was based on black slavery. . . . Not only would the success of Republican abolition schemes undermine the basis of this egalitarian society, argued secessionists, but a Republican victory even without abolition would destroy the glories of that society. . . . Because the Republicans organized exclusively as a Northern party, government by the Republicans could not possibly be government of, by, or for the Southern people. By insisting that the Northern majority rule, moreover, the Republicans persistently identified the South as a minority that was inherently unequal and inferior. Southerners, insisted the secessionists, could not and would not tolerate that degradation.”
Michael F. Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s at pp. 240-41 (Wiley 1978; Norton 1983).
Professor Holt (UVA) cites and obviously found persuasive the 1974 Yale Ph.D. thesis of J. Mills Thornton. That thesis bore the same title as and presumably served as the basis for Thornton's book Power and Politics in a Slave Society, discussed above, which also was originally published in 1978.
By sheer coincidence, I have encountered a fourth book that argues that southern devotion to republicanism as southerners understood it was a principal cause of secession. Here’s a taste:
“More important, however, the core of the secessionist persuasion was aimed at . . . republican values . . .. Although the secessionists and their allies did, indeed, warn of the dangers of abolition and escalate demands concerning slavery in the territories, the essence of their appeal had less to do with black slavery than with protecting the rights of Southern whites from despotism. The central issue was neither race nor restriction, but republicanism. . . . [S]ecessionists identified [the antirepublican monster] with the Republican party, which they labeled a threat to self-government, the rule of law, Southern liberty, and Southern equality. . . .
“Southerners had long boasted that theirs was the most egalitarian and free society on earth because it was based on black slavery. . . . Not only would the success of Republican abolition schemes undermine the basis of this egalitarian society, argued secessionists, but a Republican victory even without abolition would destroy the glories of that society. . . . Because the Republicans organized exclusively as a Northern party, government by the Republicans could not possibly be government of, by, or for the Southern people. By insisting that the Northern majority rule, moreover, the Republicans persistently identified the South as a minority that was inherently unequal and inferior. Southerners, insisted the secessionists, could not and would not tolerate that degradation.”
Michael F. Holt, The Political Crisis of the 1850s at pp. 240-41 (Wiley 1978; Norton 1983).
Professor Holt (UVA) cites and obviously found persuasive the 1974 Yale Ph.D. thesis of J. Mills Thornton. That thesis bore the same title as and presumably served as the basis for Thornton's book Power and Politics in a Slave Society, discussed above, which also was originally published in 1978.
I would agree completely with the premise that secessionists presented their case in this manner. That is a given and can be shown time and again in the speeches and editorials of their strongest advocates. My biggest problem with this argument is whether or not what they said stands the light of day and the test of Occam's Razor. It is my feeling that it does not.
I do not think that you can consistently argue "... that theirs was the most egalitarian and free society on earth because it was based on black slavery..." This seems to me to be a major contradiction that invalidates the premise that you actually have an "egalitarian and free society" in the first place.
Once you have that said, their criticism of Republicans and abolitionists falls apart, IMHO. I begin to get the impression they were wrapping their need for slavery in things that sounded more noble, so that they could sell it better. They may have believed in what they said, but that does not make their claim hold water.
Elektraig,
That's exactly it.For Southerners to submit to rule by the Republicans meant to submit to Northern rule.It meant they would be ruled by the North and were in the position of a subjucated poeple if they remained in the Union.That and not slavery per say had much more relevance on secession than slavery.To Southern politicains(most of who were slaveowners) slavery was their main concern, but not so with the yeomen farmers.The Republicans as we all know were a completely sectional party and they made no effort to even pretend to cater to Southern needs or desires.That was why Lincoln was hated and despised because of the party he represented.Sure his views weren't liked either, but in my opinion the major factor was his party.To be ruled by the Republican Party was cowardice the way most Southerners saw things.I also think it is silly to believe that Southerners generally feared that Lincoln would abolish slavery.Most full well knew that Southerners could block that in the Senate.It is just convenient for those wishing to exonerate the North of any guilt in the conflict to pretend that slavery was all Southerners cared about and makes for a simple explanation.Without slavery there probably wouldn't have been the major differences in society North and South and in that sense it was clearly the most important but not the only factor.Slavery has been long gone and it couldn't be more obvious the South and North still have different views of government.A white liberal in the South for instance is generally not socially acceptable.I'm not saying I agee with that attitude but it is a well known fact.
Another thing overlooked by many is the immigration factor.The vast overwhelming majority of Southerners were native born and very proud of it.We all know about the "No Nothing Party" and its anti-immigrant attitude both North and South.Well the South full well knew most immigrants lived up North.They also knew the population of the North continued to boom mainly due to the immigrant influx as there was little if any difference in natural growth rate between the two regions.They full well knew this meant the South was not only outnumbered now, but would be even more outnumbered in the future and see their power decline further.The immigrants were pegged as the culprits.Many immigrants voted Republican so you have a heavy resentment by Southerners of immigrants as they saw it influencing their country and its laws.The debate over the mass Hispanic influx today would be similar.We all know that many Confederates considered themselves and their views of government as consistent with our nation's founders.Poeple just don't seem to take into account the immigrant-native born populations of the regions and how that affected that belief.Some Southerners felt foreigners by their numbers and voting power would change our government and they didn't like that idea at all.That's why many Confederates had no issue with secession as treason because they felt they were truly fighting for the America our founders shed blood for.Again I don't necessarily agree , but I think the attitude of Southerners toward immigrants is never justly mentioned.
__________________ "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
Elektraig,
That's exactly it.For Southerners to submit to rule by the Republicans meant to submit to Northern rule.It meant they would be ruled by the North and were in the position of a subjucated poeple if they remained in the Union.That and not slavery per say had much more relevance on secession than slavery.To Southern politicains(most of who were slaveowners) slavery was their main concern, but not so with the yeomen farmers.The Republicans as we all know were a completely sectional party and they made no effort to even pretend to cater to Southern needs or desires.That was why Lincoln was hated and despised because of the party he represented.Sure his views weren't liked either, but in my opinion the major factor was his party.To be ruled by the Republican Party was cowardice the way most Southerners saw things.I also think it is silly to believe that Southerners generally feared that Lincoln would abolish slavery.Most full well knew that Southerners could block that in the Senate.It is just convenient for those wishing to exonerate the North of any guilt in the conflict to pretend that slavery was all Southerners cared about and makes for a simple explanation.Without slavery there probably wouldn't have been the major differences in society North and South and in that sense it was clearly the most important but not the only factor.Slavery has been long gone and it couldn't be more obvious the South and North still have different views of government.A white liberal in the South for instance is generally not socially acceptable.I'm not saying I agee with that attitude but it is a well known fact.
Another thing overlooked by many is the immigration factor.The vast overwhelming majority of Southerners were native born and very proud of it.We all know about the "No Nothing Party" and its anti-immigrant attitude both North and South.Well the South full well knew most immigrants lived up North.They also knew the population of the North continued to boom mainly due to the immigrant influx as there was little if any difference in natural growth rate between the two regions.They full well knew this meant the South was not only outnumbered now, but would be even more outnumbered in the future and see their power decline further.The immigrants were pegged as the culprits.Many immigrants voted Republican so you have a heavy resentment by Southerners of immigrants as they saw it influencing their country and its laws.The debate over the mass Hispanic influx today would be similar.We all know that many Confederates considered themselves and their views of government as consistent with our nation's founders.Poeple just don't seem to take into account the immigrant-native born populations of the regions and how that affected that belief.Some Southerners felt foreigners by their numbers and voting power would change our government and they didn't like that idea at all.That's why many Confederates had no issue with secession as treason because they felt they were truly fighting for the America our founders shed blood for.Again I don't necessarily agree , but I think the attitude of Southerners toward immigrants is never justly mentioned.
Hmm. Much of the reason for immigrants in the North as opposed to the South was local choice. The South did not want to receive large numbers of immigrants, and structured their society to accomplish that in many ways. The North offered better opportunity, better education, better facilities (in developing towns, RRs, etc.), better access to the heirarchy of government, etc.. It was much easier for a man to build a business or become successful there.
The South chose to obstruct those things. Society there was structured to optimize the slave-owning class, the large plantation, and an aristocratic society that limited the development of a middle class intentionally. Indeed, in the South the concept was that only a slave would work for another man, so only a man who owned the "means of production" was truly free; employees were generally considered lesser beings. Since the "means of production" were generally limited to agriculture, that meant you needed to own land and slaves to be really successful. This is the impact of the Southern societal vision.
That being the case, it is hard to look at Southern complaints on this matter of immigration without being suspicious that the claims are self-serving. They acted themselves to make immigration to their states less attractive to foreigners. To then claim that the immigrants in the North were a threat to them seems a bit two-faced, IMHO.
All these claims that the election of Republicans threatened the freedom of the South seem way overblown to me. Even if you take them at face value, they paint the people of the South as intensely insecure and fearful individuals, manic about getting their own way. What had the Republicans actually done to them? Isn't the answer "not much" or "nothing yet"? If so, what excuse do the Southerners have for their radical actions?
Southern complaints against the north were indeed liberally laced with honor-related themes, and the books make clear that these themes were closely related to and expressions of the core value of republican equality as southerners understood that value. I had previously dismissed rhetoric about disrespect and dishonor as mere window dressing; but it now seems to me that those complaints were the heart of the matter.
Taking southern complaints about disrespect seriously may place other incidents in a different light. ...
I do think you have to take them seriously; I think the South (or many Southerners and among them almost all the Fire-Eaters and leading secessionists) probably felt that way. That does not mean their feeling was appropriate, or realistic, or accurate.
Partly, it seems to have been their custom even among themselves to violently resent any public dispute of their positions. Contradicting someone in public apparently was considered an insult that might lead to an "affair of honor". This extended into violent quarrels in the streets and taverns as well as the formal sending of seconds and exchange of pistol balls at ten paces. It doesn't matter whether we are talking about Arkansas (where Pat Cleburne saved the life of Thomas C. Hindman before the war in an ambush on the streets) or Virginia (where editor, Fire-Eater, and Congressman Roger Pryor fought a number of duels, including putting a round into the ribs of a citizen of Baltimore), or South Carolina (where the nephew Rhett would be promoted to command of Ft. Sumter after killing his commanding officer in a duel during the war). Southern culture saw the individual as a bristling creature willing to defend his "honor" at all times, no matter the provocation, at the risk of his life.
If you look, you will find many accounts of Jefferson Davis as an argumentative man ceaselessly involved in quarrels, writing scathing letters to people who contradicted or criticized him. If you look further, you will also find accounts of what a courteous and kind gentleman Davis was. The difference seems to be that the cantankerous Davis is the public one; the mild and quiet one is the private one. Any public difference provoked swift and aggressive response -- and this seem to have been a characteristic of Southern society in general.
Northerners had their share of hot-tempers and fools as well, of course. But I would think the larger share of incidents involving duels, feuds, etc. went to the South. There are certainly some idiotic incidents in the Union chain-of-command during the war, times where personality conflicts and politics bollixed up the war effort, and the outright murder of "Bull" Nelson to look at. I do not think, however, that it holds a candle to the Army of Tennessee back-stabbing, or the various feuds Bragg had with other officers to the detriment of the service, or the Davis-Beauregard or Davis-Joe Johnston messes.
Southern complaints against the north were indeed liberally laced with honor-related themes, and the books make clear that these themes were closely related to and expressions of the core value of republican equality as southerners understood that value. I had previously dismissed rhetoric about disrespect and dishonor as mere window dressing; but it now seems to me that those complaints were the heart of the matter.
Taking southern complaints about disrespect seriously may place other incidents in a different light. I suspect, for example, that the south so vigorously lionized Preston Brooks for his caning of Charles Sumner because it exemplified the southern honor system in action. When insulted by an equal, a gentleman issued a challenge to a duel. When insulted by an inferior, a gentleman displayed his contempt by whipping or caning the offender. In acting as he did, was Brooks not acting perfectly in accordance with those rules and demonstrating that he viewed Sumner as beneath contempt?
In relation to Brooks caning Sumner, there are a number of points to consider that highlight this "disrespect" aspect.
To begin with, Sumner's speech 3 days earlier (the immediate cause of this) could be justly considered to be insulting. The subject was "Bleeding Kansas". Sumner criticized President Pierce, Southerners as a group, opposing Senators wholesale, and Senator Andrew Butler of SC in particular. He compared slavery to a harlot. He compared Senator Butler to Don Quijote for supporting the pro-slavery violence there, and mocked Butler personally for a physical handicap. Listening during the speech, Senator Douglas of Illinois murmured to a colleague that Sumner was likely to get himself shot in a duel for his language (Sumner was also ridiculing Douglas in the speech, BTW; Sumner compared him to Sancho Panza; Butler and Douglas were co-sponsors of the Kansas-Nebraska Act). If someone wanted to say Sumner was insulting or disrespecting or challenging the Southerners, you'd have to pretty much agree (but then there had been a lot of "disrespect" going both ways on the floor of Congress at that time).
The reason it was Preston Brooks who took action here is also of interest. Senator Butler was absent from Congress on the day of the speech. He was an older man (born in 1796, died within a year of Sumner's speech). The immediate Butler family (including future Confederate cavalry general Mather Calbraith Butler) was gathering to see which one of them was going to seek satisfaction for Sumner's insults, since Senator Andrew was considered too old and unwell to do it himself) when the Senator's cousin, Brooks, took action ahead of them. I present this only as evidence of how important this concept of personal honor and "disrespect" was to Southerners; if Brooks had not caned Sumner, one of the other Butler's would probably have challenged Sumner to a duel in a day or so.
Brooks was a Mexican War veteran, 36 years old, standing 6 feet tall, and an active, powerful man. There can be no doubt that Brooks, who had fought duels before, was a bold man who took his honor seriously. So why did he choose to strike Sumner without warning, and bludgeon him into insensibility with his cane?
Apparently Brooks, seething with anger over the insults to his relative, sought the advice of another SC Congressman, Laurence Keitt, on what was the proper way to proceed with the challenge. Keitt expressed the opinion that a duel was an affair between equals, and that Sumner's behavior had been so attrocious as to rob him of the presumption of being a gentleman. As a result, he should not be challenged, simply beaten like a poltroon in a tavern who acted in an insulting manner, thrashed for his insolence, and left to resent it if he could.
Brooks first inclination was to stride into the Senate chamber with a whip and lash Sumner like a slave. Upon reflection, he decided that Sumner might simply wrench the whip from his hands, putting an end to that plan. I think that what we should note here is that Sumner was also a large, powerful, and active man, a little older at 44, but apparently even bigger than Brooks. It seems Brooks considered that he might find himself on the losing end of a physical struggle if he took that approach. It was at this point that Brooks adopted the plan of approaching him suddenly and unawares, to thrash him into insensibility with the cane. (Personally, I find it hard to conceive of this as an honorable course, but there seems little doubt Brooks thought it was, or many other Southerners.)
So Congressman Brooks entered the Senate, came up to Sumner at his desk in the nearly empty chamber, and began his speech. “Mr. Sumner, I have read your speech twice over carefully. It is a libel on South Carolina, and Mr. Butler, who is a relative of mine", he said.
Sumner began to rise. Brooks began striking him in the head with the cane. Stunned, with his legs trapped in the desk, Sumner attempted to come to his feet while Brooks beat the defenseless man. Finally, blinded by his own blood, Sumner ripped the desk loose from the floor and staggered up the aisle, Brooks following, Sumner collapsing under the beating. In a fury, Brooks continued to beat his unconscious victim until his cane broke into unusable fragments.
It took Sumner 3 years to recover from the beating and the shock, but he eventually returned to his place, remaining a staunch abolitionist. Brooks was lauded in the South, condemned in the North. While the Richmond Examiner crowed “We consider the act good in conception, better in execution, and best of all in consequences. These vulgar abolitionists in the Senate must be lashed into submission.” , crowds in Boston's Fanueil Hall listened to speeches describing Brooks act as “not only a cowardly assault upon a defenceless man, but a crime against the right of free speech and the dignity of a free State.”
Brooks died in January 1857 of the croup. His death was widely mourned in the South. In the North it was seen as a divine judgement on his evil act.
There, in a microcosm, is the picture of this honor-and-disrespect picture. IMHO, Southerners were often at an almost unreasonable extreme in their concept of it, as shown here -- and the language of the day was often insulting in argument on both sides. Still, I have little doubt that there were many Southerners who saw Brooks' act as entirely justified and would have done the same or something similar if they had been in his position. I feel such attitudes and behavior must be considered in any analysis of how these people would act, irrespective of whether or not I think the attitude itself is worthwhile or reasonable or appropriate. They were who they were.
BTW, the reason Brooks walked with a cane was that he had previously fought a duel with Louis Wigfall, noted secessionist and Fire-Eater, appointed Senator from Texas just before the Civil War, and later a Confederate Senator (briefly serving both positions simultaneously until expelled from the US Senate in July of 1861). During his time in the US Senate he was often referred to as the "third Senator from South Carolina" because of his adherence to his native-birth state. Wigfall put a pistol ball into Brooks' hip.
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Three Books That Shed Light On the Causes of Secession in the Lower South: Part I 
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