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.
Large slaveholders were not evenly spread out over the South, that's for certain.
But the idea, no matter what their number or location, that they did not exert influence over their fellow citizens or their politics is not in dispute.
Besides, aren't we missing the idea of cheap slave labor vs free white labor?
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
... The rich folks, rich by any standard, sent their kids to Harvard and Yale, literally. (That's how they lose them funny accents.)...
As an aside, Southerners tended to favor Princeton over Harvard and Yale. NJ had been a slave state long after CT and MA; had extensive contacts with the South, business and personal; generally aligned with the South on most issues in Congress (except for the protectionist tariff). Heck, part of the state is actually below the Mason-Dixon Line, and NJ was the only Northern state where most emigrants went to slave territories/states when they moved.
The protectionist tariff support largely came from the northeast corner of the state (Newark-Patterson). But even those people did a lot of business with the South in manufactured goods (clothes, stoves, farm implements, etc.)
Besides, aren't we missing the idea of cheap slave labor vs free white labor?
Sincerely,
Unionblue
I'm not consciensously trying to veer from the topic at this philosophical level.
I don't personally believe the idea of cheap slave labor vs free white labor had much to do with the vast majority of subsistance farmers, the folks who actually fought the war.
A man with 50 acres and a good mule didn't need free labor if he had some sons. When the yanks came down and stole his mule, he was perturbed enough to join the war.
__________________ Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
As an aside, Southerners tended to favor Princeton over Harvard and Yale. Regards,
Tim
Tim I gotta wonder if there was a tuition difference between Princeton and Harvard and Yale in 1860? Harvard might have been more of a vanity issue with the planters?
__________________ Ancestors in US Army: 13th TN Cav; 10th TN Cav; 3rd NC Inf
Ancestors in CSA Army: 48th VA; 63rd VA, 5th NC Cav; 37th NC
Wife and Grandson's CSA: 15th AL, 51st GA, 41st TN; 36th TN; GA Mil 1197 Dist
Tim I gotta wonder if there was a tuition difference between Princeton and Harvard and Yale in 1860? Harvard might have been more of a vanity issue with the planters?
I don't know about the tuition. I have always seen it said that the main reason was that there was a lot less trouble with slaves and slaveowners in NJ, while Yale and Harvard seem to have been more closely associated with abolitionism. Boston in particular was a hotbed of abolitionism.
NJ still had a few slaves in 1860 (about 35, IIRR), concentrated in one county by from Princeton. The evidence of NJ being the only state where more people moved to territories below the Mason-Dixon line in the 1850s also shows the familiarity between the peoples. Even the Jones of A Rebel War Clerk's Diary was living in NJ before the war.
NJ was also the state that split on electoral votes, 4 to 3 for Lincoln. The 3 came from areas that decided on a united fusion anti-Lincoln vote; the 4 came from areas where the Bell-Breckinridge-Douglas people couldn't agree.
Cities in the South were relatively small and did not foster industry. The plantation slave was a blessing for the slaveowner in peace, but a severe detriment in war to a fledging nation.
The South had too few foundries, rolling mill iron plants and boiler factories. It lacked the ability to manufacture both iron sheeting for ironclad ships and iron rails for railroads. It lacked the ability to match the North in the manufacture of ironclad ships for their fresh-water navy on the waterways of the South. Lack of a navy would make it impossible for the Confederacy to adequate hold and defend Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Once Memphis fell, the North could supply itself from St. Louis, Illinois and as far away as Pittsburgh by water and steamship.
The Confederacy should have remembered that the first steamship on the Mississippi River was built in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which steamed down the Ohio River to the Mississippi River.
The North had ship building facilities on the Ohio River for decades and the easy availability of iron sheeting from Pittsburgh, a short trip down the Ohio River. Even if it were partially successful, the Confederacy was going to lose much of its claimed territory in the first or second year of the war. The Confederacy lacked too much important industry.
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