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.
Being Southern is a very personal thing. I'm Southern because I was born in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. The magnetism and majesty of that place will remain forever in my being.... Southern is a feeling deep inside. A yankee just wouldn't understand.
I don't think any person here will say that one can completely embrace the same feelings, sentiments and passions of another (even among fellow Southerners). That does not mean, however, that that person cannot understand those feelings and sentiments. A "yankee" does not have to have the same reverence of the Blue Ridge Mountains to know that they hold a "magnestism and majesty" for you. Similarly, you do not have to be from New York to gain an understanding and appreciation for what a New Yorker may believe or hold deeply.
Understanding a person's ideologies, feelings and interests does not mean agreeing with them or adopting those same issues. It means, very simply, becoming aware of what that person wants, likes and embraces. Understanding can be aided by comparing or analogizing one's own ideologies and feelings to another. Thus, I may try to link your passion for the Blue Ridge Mountains to an element of my own home to have a sense of how you see them.
But if you want to say, for example, there was a legal election in Tennessee on the matter, there is a lot of reason to doubt it. Certainly the TN governor and legislature had prejudiced the case in April when they concluded arrangements to support the Confederacy two months before the referendum, and offered troops to the Confederacy.
On June 8th 1861, Tennessee voted 104,913 to 47,238 in favour of secession, so 47,000 Tennesseans voted not to secede despite anything that Isham Harris might have done to prejudice the decision. (On the other hand, you could just as well make a case that Abraham Lincoln had prejudiced the referendum by calling out troops to force the seceded States back into the Union.) I do not see any evidence that more anti-secession voters were intimidated in pro-secession districts than pro-secession voters were intimidated in anti-secession districts. Do you have any evidence that this was the case? If so, I’d love to see it. (Note that I am not saying that voter intimidation didn’t happen anywhere, just that it was likely to have happened as much in the former cases as the latter; the net effect would be to polarize voting in strongly pro-secession and anti-secession districts.) In the absence of such evidence, I would say that the vote reflects the general sentiments of the people of that state at that time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
If you want to look at Texas, well, there simply was no legal election of delegates to the secession convention, because the legislature never voted for such an election and the governor never signed any such bill. Many secessionist delegates were simply elected by voice votes in small groups, while many Unionists boycotted an election that was not called for by the governor and legislature. Not all areas of the state sent delegates to the convention.
People in several counties assembled at the county court house, and selected delegates to a State Convention if held. I would suggest that if some delegations were improperly selected, that opponents of the selected delegation would hold a proper election, and then present their delegation at the Convention, and contest the elections of the original delegation from that county. I am unaware of any contested delegations at the Texas State Convention. In Texas and Tennessee, I would wager that the advocates of secession felt enough concern over the legitimacy of secession, that (probably at the behest of moderates) they agreed to refer the issue to the people of the State, just so no one could say that they State had been stampeded out of the Union. In Texas, there were 46,129 votes for secession, and 14,697 votes against or 60,826 total (source, Journal of the Secession Convention, pg. 88-90). This level of participation is not wildly different from the voting in the Presidential election; Breckinridge – 47,548, Bell – 15,438 or 62,986 total votes (Source: Texas Secretary of State). This means that 96.5% of those who voted in the Presidential election also voted in the referendum. Certainly nothing that occurred in any (eventual) Confederate compares with the travesty which occurred in Maryland in which the army arrested (on orders from the President) State legislators because of how they might vote.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
Given the high emotional atmosphere and the threats being bandied about in some places (such as Texas), one thing no one can say is that the South conducted a calm, well-mannered, unbiased vote on this issue.
Of course, they did. In South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, local assemblies put forward candidates for delegate to the Convention. Delegates declared their positions, people voted for them based on those positions, then they went to the State Conventions, and generally voted as they said they would. Texas may have been the exception, but the procedures in the other States were imminently proper (unless one is opposed to the principle of self-government). And in Texas, just to be sure, the Convention directed the election, so no one could later say that the decision to leave the Union was not a popular one.
__________________ "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
Larry, thoughtful & wellspoken as usual. I agree wholeheartedly that this was a complicated time... any who claim to truly understand are just guessing. Southern is a feeling deep inside, I like that. And not being a Yankee I'm tempted to agree that those north easterners ain't got a clue about being southern... neither does this midwesterner. I think the feeling is likely mutual.
Quote:
Originally Posted by larry_cockerham
Being Southern is a very personal thing. I'm Southern because I was born in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. The magnetism and majesty of that place will remain forever in my being. My Civil war ancestors were all Southern. They were also all different individuals with different thoughts and circumstances. One fought valiantly for both sides, serving the Confederacy for two years before joining the US Army. One was a US Army officer who chose his path because folks in upper East Tennessee remained loyal to the nation they had helped build. Another from North Carolina decided that the Union was worth perserving, so he joined the US Army, even though his brother and most of his cousins and neighbors were sympathetic to the Confederacy or at least their homeland of North Carolina. Another Virginia ancestor chose to help defend his native state. He instead wound up spending a very brutal winter in 1864 in Middle Tennessee with Gen. Hood after being shelled by Sherman in Atlanta. This was a complicated time to say the least. Southern is a feeling deep inside. A yankee just wouldn't understand.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
Oh, trying to play a race-card huh? Not really, merely trying to understand a slippery position and trying to read the intention behind the repeated implication that blacks were not Southern...
Please see post #29 of this thread- Thanks for the reference, hadn't noted the edit.
"From the Original Seven Confederate States
White troops.......11,600 (Over 4 yrs. the equivalent of ONE brigade)
Black troops........56,929 IIRC would be roughly equivelant to the average strength of the CS AoT... though as I noted Davis had no intention of tapping that resource. Well not until the very end at least.
Eleven Confederate States (Running Total-)
White.................54,137 again; see above
Black..................98,398 (includes 5,052 at-large from seceded states) Roughly the size of the AoP
Total................152,535..."
OK, just the 11 states of the CS... 152,535. A rather poignant indication that not all were pleased w/ the ideals or a future under the leadership of Mr Davis. Of coarse not including deserters, conscription evaders, anti CS men etc. How should we say... hardly an indication of solidarity with a united front against the US? Perhaps an indication of Southern sentiment against the Confederacy?
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
This means that 96.5% of those who voted in the Presidential election also voted in the referendum.
Extreme nit-pick. That conclusion cannot be reached. Needs a weasel word: This could mean that ....
Just keeping my fingers limber.
Ole
__________________ I never knew a man who wished to be himself a slave. Consider if you know any good thing that no man desires for himself. A. Lincoln
Why aren't foreign born residents, and people who moved into a Southern state considered Southern? (Previous posts seem to want to exclude them).
Many foreign born residents(Cleburne being the most famous) fought for the Confederacy. I would think that someone deliberately moving to the South might(if not necessarily), be in sympathy with Southern ideas and culture.
Its true many or most German immigrants, who formed large communities in Texas and Missouri, and well as elsewhere, were not in sympathy with secession or slavery. But many were long term residents: why aren't they Southerners?
No, I think our main difference is there were Southerners and then there were Confederates. The two are not always the same.
For example, 5,000 Ohioians fought for the Confederacy and they were not Southerners. Tens of thousands of Canadians fought for the Confederacy, and they were not Southerners. Thousands of foreigners fought for the Confederacy, and they were not Southerners.
And there were hundreds of thousands of Southerners who did not fight for the Confederacy. Whether they came from a Border State, black, etc., they were Southerners, had always considered themselves such, were always recognized by the North as such, they just all weren't Confederates, as there was no such thing as a 'solid' South for the Confederacy.
Sincerely,
Unionblue
__________________ "The American people and the Government at Washington may refuse to recognize it for a time but the inexorable logic of events will force it upon them in the end; that the war now being waged in this land is a war for and against slavery." Frederick Douglass
"Loyalty to our ancestors does not include loyalty to their mistakes." George Santayana
Where have I implied that blacks (from the South) are not Southern?
"Please see post #29 of this thread-" Thanks for the reference, hadn't noted the edit.
No, it wasn't edited to include blacks...the part that I posted and re-posted was original.
Correct, I had not noted the edit. The "over 4 years" I believe is what caught my eye.
The implication; that those Southerners who fought for the Union were not Southern, by belittling and repeatedly failing to acknowledge the contributions of black Southerners in the Union Army. Not the first to do so, likely not the last.
__________________ Few take the trouble to understand or to view the American scene with perspective. And we Americans love to find ourselves guilty of something. However, it is never I who am guilty, but those other Americans, the past or present government or the other political party. Americans almost never find other countries guilty. It is always ourselves or our fancied influence in other countries. Louis L'amour
Extreme nit-pick. That conclusion cannot be reached. Needs a weasel word: This could mean that ....
Quote:
Originally Posted by ole
Just keeping my fingers limber. Ole
Ole, good catch. Thanks. I would restate that the over-all voter turn out in the secession referendum was 96.5% of the voter turnout for the Presidential election. The numbers were remarkably similar. 75.5% Breckenridge to 24.5% Bell in November, and 75.8% for secession versus 24.1% against in February. Texas had 420,891 white people in 1860, of whom 228585 were male (Population of the United States in 1860: Recapitulation of the Tables of Population, Nativity, and Occupation). Take out those under voting age, (118,960 under the age of 20 according to the 1860 census) leaves 109,625 white men over the age of 20. 63,000 voters in the Presidential probably means a lot of non-voters (although the former number includes those not yet naturalized, those who did not meet Texas voting requirements, lived too far from a polling station, etc.). If there were no voters in the referendum that hadn't voted in the Presidential election, then 741 Bell voters and 1419 Breckenridge voters that sat out the February referendum. This is a pretty consistent voting record. If some did drop out, then they were generally replaced by a voter who did nto vote in November. Given the similarity between the vote totals and results between November and February, I would wager that there were few who fit this category. In Alabama, there were some counties in which many Presidential voters sat out the vote for the State convention. In some cases, it was because no Cooperation candidates could be fielded, so Bell (or Douglas) voters declined to vote for the convention. In other cases, heavily Breckenridge counties who fielded no Cooperationist ticket experienced a drop-off of voting because an Immediate Secessionist was the only candidate running (again, no Cooperationist candidate could be found), so Breckenridge voters decided not to bother. In north Alabama counties, where Breckenridge had won in November (yeoman farmers voting against privileged Whiggish Black Belt slaveowners), in December, the yeomen voted strongly for Cooperationist delegates (presumably to stick a thumb in the eye of privileged Whiggish Black Belt slaveowners) and voter turnout stayed pretty close to the level seen in the Presidential election. There is an interesting article in the Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, (by McCrary, Miller and Baum, Winter 1978) which details changes in voting behavior in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana that winter.
__________________ "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
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