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.
__________________ 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
Just to expound your point a little bit; not only do the Southerners see the handwriting on the wall with the admission of additional free states, I think the South sees that it is failing in its attempts to get additional slave states and feels stymied by efforts to bring slaves into territories. If you cannot bring slaves into territories, its clear that those territories are likely to go free as well.
If the institution was doomed, say within 40 years as ole suspects, then why secede over it? Why make it the primary reason to leave the Union over?
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
Ahem. I'm not picking on you CW, just a shot across the bow.
The idea that territories could be made into slave states doesn't strike me as very realistic. It might be that the expansionist/secessionist faction thought it was possible, but someone is going to have to convince me that they really, really believed that New Mexico and Arizona and Kansas and Nebraska could be made into slave states.
Meanwhile, I consider it smoke. Expanding into the territories was smoke. The fire-eaters wanted a country they could rule and played the crowd with remarkable skill. There was never a genuine complaint about slavery being barred from the territories--but it sounded real good in the speeches and editorials--and it played on resentment.
Just a thought.
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
What Congress did reluctantly and slowly, the cotton gin and corn picker (combine) accelerated. That took care of the business part, it was the social thing that was a hang-up. Too many humans in the mix.
__________________ 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
The idea that territories could be made into slave states doesn't strike me as very realistic.
Well, the point is that they're trying and failing, because its clear that if you're going to get additional slave states you would absolutely have to get slaveholders into the territory with slaves, otherwise it just isn't going to happen; and you see this in the Resolutions of Secession with references to the South being deprived of the territories because slavery was banned, etc, etc. etc.. And like I said, its just expounding on Tim's point that the handwriting is on the wall for the South politically, and when they look into the future, they really don't see any opportunity to regain it
...it was the social thing that was a hang-up. Too many humans in the mix.
A most excellent observation, Johnny.
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
Well, the point is that they're trying and failing, because its clear that if you're going to get additional slave states you would absolutely have to get slaveholders into the territory with slaves, otherwise it just isn't going to happen; and you see this in the Resolutions of Secession with references to the South being deprived of the territories because slavery was banned, etc, etc. etc..
Perzackle.
Quote:
And like I said, its just expounding on Tim's point that the handwriting is on the wall for the South politically, and when they look into the future, they really don't see any opportunity to regain it
And here we diverge. I lean to the idea that the fire-eaters were, first and foremost, in favor of their rule of a country they might possibly create. There was a good chance of maintaining a union and they would have none of it.
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
If the institution was doomed, say within 40 years as ole suspects, then why secede over it? Why make it the primary reason to leave the Union over?
"Doomed" is the wrong word to use. "Likely to end" is a better way to put it.
To understand secession, you have to look at it from the viewpoint of a Southern slave-holder in the 1850s. They see nothing wrong with slavery; many see it as a positive good. They see their entire society and economy as based on slavery. They see it as the natural order of things. They see it as the source of their wealth and the underpinning of their way of life.
Any change to that is a threat to them and theirs, at least in Southern eyes. They see financial disaster, possible slave revolts, social chaos. They see their children growing up to mean an unknown and unsettling future. And they see all of this as something that is going to be forced upon them by "the North".
Some Southerners would have been more upset by all that than others. Poor Southerners might not have been all that bothered by what happened to the planters, but upset about what the end result for them would be when hundreds of thousands, or millions, of slaves were freed. Financial problems -- labor competition, hoardes of destitute blacks burdening the state, etc., etc. -- would seem huge. The people who made up the Fire-Eaters seem to have generally been those who stood to lose heavily.
Now if someone is determined to prevent that, he needs to find a method. All the peaceful, legitimate ones seem to lead to eventual emancipation, to the limitation and end of slavery, even if in a dim and far off future. The only exception might be a negotiated separation from the rest of the country.
That's a problem. The Fire-Eaters wanted to expand slavery, not limit or end it. They wanted slavery everywhere, not slavery confined. They rejected this vision coming towards them. They insisted slavery would continue. We may not think this very realistic, but that's how they saw it.
Compounding all this is an attitude that was common in America, and apparently more so in "the South" than "the North". Today we might describe this with a phrase like "his way or the highway". In the South, the individual as a man ready to defend his honor at a moment's notice was even more prevalent than in the North. Picture Jeff Davis, Braxton Bragg, Joe Johnston, and a host of others, ready to duel, ready to quarrel, over the slightest public difference; realize that these same men were often regarded as courtly and gentile in their private lives. (Realize as well that the North had plenty of similar men; they just seem to have been a bit better at getting past the public aspect to negotiate compromises.)
So you have a large group of men, powerful ones, who are unwilling to compromise on slavery -- and any future within the Union means they must compromise on slavery. Up North you have a growing group of people who believe slavery must eventually end, and they seem determined to limit slavery as a step towards the eventual limitation of it. This is the immovable object-irresistable force conundrum. If they don't work together to find a solution, the resulting collision will be catastrophic. It was; we call it the American Civil War.
Regards,
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
Ahem. I'm not picking on you CW, just a shot across the bow.
The idea that territories could be made into slave states doesn't strike me as very realistic. It might be that the expansionist/secessionist faction thought it was possible, but someone is going to have to convince me that they really, really believed that New Mexico and Arizona and Kansas and Nebraska could be made into slave states.
Meanwhile, I consider it smoke. Expanding into the territories was smoke. The fire-eaters wanted a country they could rule and played the crowd with remarkable skill. There was never a genuine complaint about slavery being barred from the territories--but it sounded real good in the speeches and editorials--and it played on resentment.
Just a thought.
Now this I think isn't quite so. In the 1840s, almost nobody East of the Mississippi knew much about what was out in those territories. Fantasies about Santa Fe and California were easy to conjure. By 1860, those fantasies still lingered, but it was pretty obvious that expansion into the upper teritories was going much faster, that agriculture was much easier there, etc.
Even on something like the Transcontinental RR, people were still thinking the winter weather might make a northern or central route impossible. That was the reasoning (in part) behind the 1853 Gadsden Purchase from Mexico, to get access to water for a New Orleans to southern California RR route. If that was what ended up being built first, Southern ideas might have looked a lot different, and the Southern economy might have been quite different. (Think of how the ports along the Texas coast and New Orleans might have changed.)
It wasn't until all those survey expeditions mapped the country, and all those 49ers and settlers went west to California and Oregon, that the blank spots on the map began to fill in. Arizona doesn't look so good then. California rejects slavery. Texas shows no interest in splitting up. Need new slave-states somewhere. What is available?
Regards,
Tim
__________________ "Let us, then, consider all attempts to weaken this Union, by maintaining that each state is separately and individually independent, as a species of political heresy, which can never benefit us, but may bring on us the most serious distresses."
Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina, 1740-1824, Revolutionary War soldier, one of the authors of the US Constitution in 1787, speaking at the South Carolina Ratifying Convention in 1788.
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