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.
Just browse through the page of this section of the forum and you will find all kinds of information, both pro Union and pro Confederate. Makes for great reading.
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
You will see that there are three web sites listed on this post which will explore the economics of the Civil War, the cost of the Civil War, and explore the idea of instead of using all that money to fight the war to use it instead to buy the slaves from the South.
Now, as to the last post, buying out the Confederacy, I wonder why the author of the article considers this point when he thinks buying such a valuable workforce would might have prevented the war?
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
25) "The New York Journal of Commerce thinks it would probably be no exaggeration to estimate the number of persons thrown out of employment since election day 25,000, a large portion of whom are young women. One clothing establishment in New York has discharged 1,000 workmen; a hat establishment has discharged nearly 1,000; a saddlery firm has reduced its force about 500, and curtailment is very general. At Newark, especially, the crisis is severely felt, on account of their extensive connections with the Southern trade."
"OUT OF WORK.-- The Philadelphia Press, commenting on the effect of the panic, says that within six weeks not less than 15,000, and perhaps 20,000 persons in that city have unexpectedly been discharged from situations where they enjoyed the privilege of earning their bread by the sweat of their brows. Directly and indirectly, probably not less than 50,000 persons depended upon the exertion of these operatives for subsistence."
Banner of Liberty, December 1860
#2 bears a repeat here-
2) "...one of the principal reasons why the North is so resolved upon the continued vigorous prosecution of the war, is that her people now know by experience the inestimable value to them of the Southern trade....The mercantile marts of New England and the Middle States will be hopelessly ruined. Nothing can possibly save them except the recovery of that magnificent trade....the people of the North think their only chance of getting back Southern trade--or making our country evermore tributary to their growth and aggrandizement, is to conquer us, hold us as subject provinces, and compel us to resume the former channels of mercantile communication. They freely acknowledge that the war [secession/an independent South] injures them terribly..."
25) "The New York Journal of Commerce thinks it would probably be no exaggeration to estimate the number of persons thrown out of employment since election day 25,000, a large portion of whom are young women. One clothing establishment in New York has discharged 1,000 workmen; a hat establishment has discharged nearly 1,000; a saddlery firm has reduced its force about 500, and curtailment is very general. At Newark, especially, the crisis is severely felt, on account of their extensive connections with the Southern trade."
"OUT OF WORK.-- The Philadelphia Press, commenting on the effect of the panic, says that within six weeks not less than 15,000, and perhaps 20,000 persons in that city have unexpectedly been discharged from situations where they enjoyed the privilege of earning their bread by the sweat of their brows. Directly and indirectly, probably not less than 50,000 persons depended upon the exertion of these operatives for subsistence."
Banner of Liberty, December 1860
#2 bears a repeat here-
2) "...one of the principal reasons why the North is so resolved upon the continued vigorous prosecution of the war, is that her people now know by experience the inestimable value to them of the Southern trade....The mercantile marts of New England and the Middle States will be hopelessly ruined. Nothing can possibly save them except the recovery of that magnificent trade....the people of the North think their only chance of getting back Southern trade--or making our country evermore tributary to their growth and aggrandizement, is to conquer us, hold us as subject provinces, and compel us to resume the former channels of mercantile communication. They freely acknowledge that the war [secession/an independent South] injures them terribly..."
New Orleans Bee, 21 September 1861
Battalion,
Where people are involved, money is often an issue. What strikes me, though, is that you consistently find quotes that do not represent the mainstream view of the country and present them as if they prove your point. OTOH, you ignore the biggest "money" issue involved, the wealth Southerners had sunk into their "slave property" and apparently felt was in danger. Why is it that you feel Southern motivation is not one of "money" in creating this entire mess?
"Now it is palpable that if any considerable number of Southern States go before the Charleston Convention with the unflinching resolve to compel the formal recognition and endorsement of the theory of federal protection of slavery and a Congressional slave code for the Territories--tenets which the Democracy of the North will never sanction--there is a complete end to all prospect of harmony. A national Democratic nomination will be rendered impracticable. The refusal of the majority of the Convention to adopt the Alabama platform will be the signal for the withdrawal of most of the Southern delegations. The remaining members of the Convention may nominate candidates, but they will be to all intents and purposes sectional nominations. The South, in its turn, will select its champions, and then we shall have precisely that condition of things which the Charleston _Mercury_ long since counseled and advocated--viz.: a sectional Democracy confined to the South, while everywhere else parties will be considered as more or less tainted with Abolitionism." [_The New Orleans Bee,_ 18 Jan 1860]
"Particularly does the mission of Col. Memminger commend itself to the people of Virginia, from the fact that it looks to the protection of the interests of no particular Southern State, but to the welfare of every State where slavery exists.--Interested as we all are in the same species of property, menaced as we all are by the same dangers, the only difference between us being that some are frontier States and others not. ... A demand for the repeal of all laws passed by the free States nullifying those acts of Congress which have simply carried out the provisions of the Federal Constitution for the protection of the property of the South, would be considered by the Convention. It would also secure concert of action upon the part of the Southern States with reference to the solution of the problem of Southern commercial independence by the encouragement of direct trade and domestic manufactures. To secure the success of such measures, unity of action among the Southern States is indispensable; for whilst one slave State favors commercial independence of the North, and the rest of the Southern States enrich the Abolition States by their trade, nothing of importance can be accomplished." [_Richmond Semi-weekly Examiner,_ 24 Jan 1860]
"The bond of Union must include an unequivocal pledge to maintain and enforce the laws, especially the fugitive slave law of Congress, and an unconditional repeal of all State laws which practically nullify the act of Congress, or hinder its enforcement.--In addition the party must commit itself plainly to the decision of the Supreme Judicial tribunal of the land, which declares that the only right of Congress over the question of slavery in the Territories is the right coupled with the duty of extending to the owner adequate protection for his property, whenever the same becomes necessary. It must set its face determinedly against the unconstitutional heresy which clothes the creature, (the Territorial Legislature) with more power than the Creator (Congress) itself possesses, and under the specious plea of popular sovereignty, surrenders the constitutional rights of the citizens to the arbitrament of those who are not sovereigns. This doctrine of popular sovereignty is only another name for freesoil, and its advocates wherever found are freesoilers at heart, and only deterred by fear from so declaring themselves." [Augusta, Georgia _Daily Chronicle and Sentinel,_ 13 Feb 1860]
"The right to have [slave] property protected in the territory is not a mere abstraction without application or practical value. In the past there are instances where the people of the Southern States might have colonized and brought new slave States into the Union had the principle been recognized, and the Government, the trustee of the Southern States, exercised its appropriate powers to make good for the slaveholder the guarantees of the Constitution ... When the gold mines of California were discovered, slaveholders at the South saw that, with their command of labor, it would be easy at a moderate outlay to make fortunes digging gold. The inducements to go there were great, and there was no lack of inclination on their part. But, to make the emigration profitable, it was necessary that the [slave] property of Southern settlers should be safe, otherwise it was plainly a hazardous enterprise, neither wise nor feasible. Few were reckless enough to stake property, the accumulation of years, in a struggle with active prejudices amongst a mixed population, where for them the law was a dead letter through the hostile indifference of the General Government, whose duty it was, by the fundamental law of its existence, to afford adequate protection--executive, legislative, and judicial--to the property of every man, of whatever sort, without discrimination. Had the people of the Southern States been satisfied they would have received fair play and equal protection at the hands of the Government, they would have gone to California with their slaves. ... California would now have been a Slave State in the Union. ...
"What has been the policy pursued in Kansas? Has the territory had a fair chance of becoming a Slave State? Has the principle of equal protection to slave property been carried out by the Government there in any of its departments? On the contrary, has not every appliance been used to thwart the South and expel or prohibit her sons from colonizing there? ... In our opinion, had the principle of equal protection to Southern men and Southern property been rigorously observed by the General Government, both California and Kansas would undoubtedly have come into the Union as Slave States. The South lost those States for the lack of proper assertion of this great principle. ...
"New Mexico, it is asserted, is too barren and arid for Southern occupation and settlement. ... Now, New Mexico ... teems with mineral resources. ... There is no vocation in the world in which slavery can be more useful and profitable than in mining. ... [Is] it wise, in our present condition of ignorance of the resources of New Mexico, to jump to the conclusion that the South can have no interest in its territories, and therefore shall waive or abandon her right of colonizing them? ...
"We frequently talk of the future glories of our republican destiny on the continent, and of the spread of our civilization and free institutions over Mexico and the Tropics. Already we have absorbed two of her States, Texas and California. Is it expected that our onward march is to stop here? Is it not more probable and more philosophic to suppose that, as in the past, so in the future, the Anglo-Saxon race will, in the course of years, occupy and absorb the whole of that splendid by ill-peopled country, and to remove by gradual process, before them, the worthless mongrel races that now inhabit and curse the land? And in the accomplishment of this destiny is there a Southern man so bold as to say, the people of the South with their slave property are to consent to total exclusion. ... ? Our people will never sit still and see themselves excluded from all expansion, to please the North." [_The Charleston Mercury,_ 28 Feb 1860]
"A few days since, we endeavored to show, that the pictures of ruin and desolation to the South, which the submissionists to Black Republican domination were so continually drawing, to 'fright us from our propriety,' were unreal and false. We propose now to reverse the picture, and to show what will probably be the consequences of a submission of the Southern States, to the rule of Abolitionism at Washington, in the persons of Messrs. LINCOLN and HAMLIN, should they be elected to the Presidency and VicePresidency of the United States.
"1. The first effect of the submission of the South, to the installation of Abolitionists in the offices of President and VicePresident of the United States, must be a powerful consolidation of the strength of the Abolition party at the North. Success, generally strengthens. If, after all the threats of resistance and disunion, made in Congress and out of Congress, the Southern States sink down into acquiescence, the demoralization of the South will be complete. Add the patronage resulting from the control of ninety-four thousand offices, and the expenditure of eighty millions of money annually, and they must be irresistable in controlling the General Government.
"2. To plunder the South for the benefit of the North, by a new Protective Tariff, will be one of their first measures of Northern sectional domination; and, on the other hand, to exhaust the treasury by sectional schemes of appropriation, will be a congenial policy.
"3. Immediate danger will be brought to slavery, in all the Frontier States. When a party is enthroned at Washington, in the Executive and Legislative departments of the Government, whose creed it is, to repeal the Fugitive Slave Laws, the under-ground railroad, will become an over-ground railroad. The tenure of slave property will be felt to be weakened; and the slaves will be sent down to the Cotton States for sale, and the Frontier States enter on the policy of making themselves Free States.
"4. With the control of the Government of the United States, and an organized and triumphant North to sustain them, the Abolitionists will renew their operations upon the South with increased courage. The thousands in every country who look up to power, and make gain out of the future, will come out in support of the Abolition Government. The BROWNLOWS and the BOTTS', in the South, will multiply. They will organize; and from being a Union party, to support an Abolition Government, they will become, like the Government they support, Abolitionists. They will have an Abolition Party in the South, of Southern men. The contest for slavery, will no longer be one between the North and the South. It will be in the South, between the people of the South.
"5. If, in our present position of power and unitedness, we have the raid of JOHN BROWN-- and twenty towns burned down in Texas in one year, by Abolitionists-- what will be the measures of insurrection and incendiarism, which must follow our notorious and abject prostration to Abolition rule at Washington, with all the patronage of the Federal Government, and a Union organization in the South to support it? Secret conspiracy, and its attendant horrors, with rumors of horrors, will hover over every portion of the South; while, in the language of the Black Republican patriarch-- GIDDINGS-- they 'will laugh at your calamities, and mock when your fear cometh.'
"6. Already there is uneasiness throughout the South, as to the stability of its institution on slavery. But with a submission to the rule of Abolitionists at Washington, thousands of slaveholders will despair of the institution. While the condition of things in the Frontier States will force their slaves on the markets of the Cotton States, the timid in the Cotton States, will also sell their slaves. The consequence must be, slave property must be greatly depreciated. We see advertisements for the sale of slaves in some of the Cotton States, for the simple object of getting rid of them; and we know that standing orders for the purchase of slaves in this market have been withdrawn, on account of an anticipated decline of value from the political condition of the country.
"7. We suppose, that taking in view all these things, it is not extravagant to estimate, that the submission of the South to the administration of the Federal Government under Messrs. LINCOLN and HAMLIN, must reduce the value of slaves in the South, one hundred dollars each. It is computed that there are four million, three hundred thousand, slaves in the United States. Here, therefore,is a loss to the Southern people of four hundred and thirty millions of dollars, on their slaves alone. Of course, real estate of all kinds must partake also in the depreciation of slaves.
"8. Slave property, is the foundation of all property in the South. When security in this is shaken, all other property partakes of its instability. Banks, stocks, bonds, must be influenced. Timid men will sell out and leave the South. Confusion, distrust and pressure must reign.
"9. Before Messrs. LINCOLN and HAMLIN can be installed in Washington, as President and Vice-President of the United States, the Southern States can dissolve peaceably (we know what we say) their union with the North. Mr. LINCOLN and his Abolition cohorts, will have no South, to reign over. Their game would be blocked. The foundation of their organization, would be taken away; and, left to the tender mercies of a baffled, furious and troubled North, they would be cursed and crushed, as the flagitious cause of the disasters around them. But if we submit, and do not dissolve our union with the North, we make the triumph of our Abolition enemies complete, and enable them to consolidate and wield the power of the North, for our destruction.
"10. If the South once submits to the rule of Abolitionists by the General Government, there is, probably, an end of all peaceful separation of the Union. We can only escape the ruin they meditate for the South, by war. Armed with power of the General Government, and their organizations at the North, they will have no respect for our courage or energy, and they will use the sword for our subjection. If there is any man in the South who believes, that we must separate from the North, we appeal to his humanity, in case Mr. LINCOLN is elected, to dissolve our connection with the North, before the 4th of March next.
"11. The ruin of the South, by the emancipation of her slaves, is not like the ruin of any other people. It is not a mere loss of liberty, like the Italians under the BOURBONS. It is not heavy taxation, which must still leave the means of living, or otherwise taxation defeats itself. But it is the loss of liberty, property, home, country-- everything that makes life worth living. And this loss, will probably take place under circumstances of suffering and horror, unsurpassed in the history of nations. We must preserve our liberties and institutions, under penalties greater than those which impend over any people in the world.
"12. Lastly, we conclude this brief statement of the terrors of submission, by declaring, that in our opinion, they are ten-fold greater even that the supposed terrors of disunion." [_The Charleston Mercury,_ 11 Oct 1860]
"We fight for independence. But this independence is itself valuable only as a means to a higher ends. The institutions which we cherish, and which by means of independence we hope to secure and perpetuate for the advancement of civilization, and the elevation and consequent happiness and dignity of ourselves and posterity, are the true objects of the struggle. They are the only worthy ones. Independence, with social degredation, and hopeless national poverty, is not worth the cost. It is a curse. For ourselves we wish none of it. Independence with anarchy and continual fluctuation of governments is hardly more desirable. ...
"The great conservative institution of slavery, so excellent in itself, and so necessary to civil liberty and the dignity of the white race, is one of the grand objects of our struggle. It should never be lost sight of, nor under any pressure should we ever take any step incompatible with the relation of master and slave. No entering wedge to emancipation should ever be allowed. It should not be held forth to the slave as a boon for his services. Our theory is, that he is better off as a slave; and even if he were not, we could not safely have an emancipated class of them amongst us. Much less can we put arms in his hands. That would ruin him forever. Slavery afterwards would became impossible." [Washington, Arkansas _Telegraph,_ 13 Jan 1865]
"We are on the eve of a most important event. The result of the election just at hand may be fraught with momentous consequences. A determination is openly proclaimed in many quarters not to abide by the decision of a majority, if it secure a sectional triumph; and a great nation, blessed beyond all others in its basket and its store, but unfortunately torn by hostile and contending factions, seems on the very verge of revolution.
"The gravity of the occasion suggests the inquiry, what is the extent of the wrongs suffered, that so arouse the fears and passions of men as to obliterate the influence of patriotism, and outweigh every consideration of public and private interest? What cause have men of the South to appeal to the god of battles for justice? On what issue is the determination made up to seek safety in a disruption of the government which has only shown an almost unlimited capacity for good?
"Those who now strive to excite a tempest of popular passion, declare the election of the chief of a sectional party sufficient cause for resistance; but, as if conscious of the weakness of such an issue before a people reverencing constitutional forms of action and taught the duty of yielding to the voice of a majority, they triumphantly ask, in the manner of the most positive assertion, has not the constitution been often violated? Has not outrage followed on the heels of outrage, and forbearance but encouraged aggression, until honor, and manliness, and safety, are only to be maintained by resistance? Aroused to jealousy by the fact that the free States, if united in sentiment, can control the majority of numbers, in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and have in their power the distribution of the spoils of office and the direction of the policy of the government -- excited beyond measure by the aggressive tendency of this Northern sectional party, that even now exults in the prospect of victory, and proclaims its irreconcilable hostility to slavery, they look back on the closed issues of the past, and all the bleeding wounds, cicatrized by time, open afresh. They seem to see but one continued series of assaults and weak defenses; one perpetual chain of concessions to be followed by those still more vital to the rights of the States, and these united in one bill of complaint are presented to the people, as an irresistible argument to stir them up to immediate and concerted resistance.
"But can men of the South revive the strifes of the past to render the present issue with the North more strong? Is our cause of complaint so serious? Have the slave States been constantly suffering wrong, while possessing themselves in patience, always yielding yet never satisfying the grasping demands of the free States? Let us appeal to facts for a decision.
"From the adoption of the constitution to the election of Martin Van Buren -- from 1789 to 1841 -- a period of sixty-two years, a Southern man occupied the honored post of Chief Executive of the nation, with the exception of the single term of each of the two Adams' from Massachusetts.
"During this period -- that of nearly two generations -- two-thirds of the foreign missions and the more important of domestic offices were enjoyed by Southern men.
"From 1841 to 1860, but two Presidents have been elected -- Harrison and Fillmore -- who were not emphatically the choice of the South and really nominated and elected by the South. Of the six Presidents since 1841, three were Southern men.
"It was the boast of Southern statesmen as late as ten years ago that the South had dictated the domestic policy of the nation. The purchase of Louisiana Territory was at the instigation of the South.
"The annexation of Texas was conceived by Southern minds and achieved by Southern votes.
"The war of 1812, from which the country emerged with so much glory, was voted and sustained by the South.
"The war with Mexico, which added an empire in extent to the territory of the Republic, is due to the policy of men of the South thus extending our Southern boundaries from the western limits of Texas to the Pacific Ocean. Of all this has the South reason to complain?
"But our position is scarcely less improved in these series of years in regard to the question of slavery. If, under the operation of the laws of climate and production, slavery has been extinguished in that little patch of States denominated New England, in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, the purchase of the Territory of Louisiana has given us Louisiana, Arkansas and Missouri as slave States -- a region of country much larger than that from which State sovereignty has eradicated human bondage.
"The annexation of Texas, in 1845, devoted to slavery a territory equal to all New England, New York and New Jersey, and the acquisition of New Mexico by conquest, in which slavery has been established by territorial law, carries the institution two degrees above the line of the Missouri Compromise. Can we complain that the territorial limits of slavery have been circumscribed, or go back to this history of its extension to strengthen the catalogues of our grievances ?
"But, it is said, the perpetual agitation of this question in and out of Congress has driven the South to unjust concessions, every one of which should have been made the cause of resistance to the Federal Government; and that each as it followed the other in the order of succession increased the intolerance and aggressions of the free North. The Missouri Compromise was the first in order. If it was wrong, the South has to blame only itself; for it came from a representative of a slave State, and was supported by the almost unanimous vote of Southern delegates in both Houses of Congress. It was ratified again and again by the popular vote of the slave States, until it came to be regarded to have almost as binding a character as the constitution itself.
"The next great struggle on the question of slavery resulted in the compromise bill of 1850. Here again the South gave birth to the act, and it was sustained, not only by the Southern vote in Congress, but was ratified by the people themselves. Georgia and Mississippi and South Carolina made the issue of resistance against it, and the people, with majorities unprecedented in any political contest, sustained the work of the noble patriots of that gloomy day. The South is then precluded by its own action from reopening the issues then settled and making them living questions at this time. Right or wrong, they belong to the dead past. A golden era of peace and general accord followed, until the elements of sectional strife were again let loose from their sealed cavern by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise and the Kansas and Nebraska bill.
"Whether the South originated this act or not, it united in almost solid phalanx to sustain it, while the North was almost alone in opposition to the measure.
"This reopened the agitations happily set at rest, and again plunged the country into an excitement which has resulted in the birth of a party that now stands avowedly sectional, openly aggressive, and by its doctrines, insults and defies the South. But it has to make a forward step to present a tangible issue that can be met only by a revolution. Its principles are dangerous if an attempt be made to put them in practice. No man with a Southern heart will defend its fanatical fury, or excuse its menacing attitude towards those States coequal with the free commonwealths. But can we look back upon the history of the past and find serious reason to complain, except it be of our own blindness and folly? Can we hope to strengthen the issue now proposed by accumulating with it the series of acts, or any one of them, alluded to in this brief sketch?
"The very agitation of which we complain has in one respect accrued to our benefit. It has evolved the true principles on which the institution of slavery is based. It has convinced all Southern men of the moral right, the civil, social and political benefit of slavery. It has done more; it has modified the opinion of a large number of men in the free States, on this subject, and is gradually changing the opinion of the world -- bringing it to regard slavery with more liberality.
"The number of slaves has increased in a remarkable ratio, and today is stronger on the whole frontier line of the free States than it was ten, nay five years ago.
"These notes of history cannot be denied, and when we meet the crisis created by the ballot of the nation about to be cast, let it be remembered that we have no cause to resist, except the unconstitutional, the weak, the untenable one of having lost our choice for the President of the Republic. The movement of demagogues and politicians to make this election, if adverse to the South, an opportunity for secession -- which we have previously shown is but a word to mask the idea of revolution -- is full of imminent peril to the South, not to the Union as we have been supposed to have asserted. Upon an issue so weak, to go into a contest which involves all the consequences of treason, the South must fail, for she cannot hope for accord among the citizens of anyone State. The time may come when disunion, with all its consequences, must be chosen, but a failure now precludes future confidence in leaders or hope in resistance.
"Let every Southern man feel it to be a duty he owes not simply to his country, but to his family and himself, to vote in the coming election so that he shall in no manner countenance the idea that his State or his parish is in favor of resisting the decision of the ballot. The home perils which a contrary course involve are of the most terrible character. Nations die a terrible death, just in proportion to their strength and vitality. If it be the destiny of the Union now to perish, none can estimate the throes of agony, the terrible scenes of distress, which will precede it. If the fires of civil war be kindled -- and kindled they must be by any formidable movement in hostility to the Federal Government -- they will burn until all is consumed that is perishable, and the land become a waste over which shall brood the silence of another and hopeless desolation." [New Orleans _Daily Picayune,_ 4 Nov 1860]
Where people are involved, money is often an issue. What strikes me, though, is that you consistently find quotes that do not represent the mainstream view of the country
Incorrect.
I consistently find them that don not represent the mainstream view of...Northern "historians"
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
and present them as if they prove your point.
I find no shortage of them...so how is it not mainstream?...how does it not prove my point?
How did your Northern "historians" manage to totally ignore this matter?
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
you ignore the biggest "money" issue involved, the wealth Southerners had sunk into their "slave property" and apparently felt was in danger. Why is it that you feel Southern motivation is not one of "money" in creating this entire mess?
Tim
Both sides have self-interest involved.
It is you and your cohorts that have shrugged off and repeatedly denied any motive of self-interest on the part of the North.
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