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.
On the opening day of the 1858 convention there were over 300 delegates with more arriving each day. Another reporter estimated about 600.
In 1859 there are less than 100. What happened?
What could be the reason?
So you plan to continue your policy of avoiding direct questions and arguing by innuendo. It will do you no good.
FOR THE THIRD TIME, please answer the question: The means of selecting delegates changed over the years. Not all states attended in all years. But by 1858, the means of selecting delegates had been formalized and specific. Do you know what it was? If so, please describe it for us and discuss your point about delegates in relation to it.
If you don't know, just say so. Because the 1858 convention established the rules for selecting delegates in the 1859 convention, and if you don't know what was done, you have no clue why the number of delegates changed.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
...Fort Wayne Weekly Republican, 9 June 1858
...Weekly Gazette and Free Press (Janesville, Wisconsin), 20 May 1859
So? You quote partisan Northern papers about Southern motivations and expect to be taken seriously?
BTW, you can find examples of delegates walking out of Southern Commercial Conventions in many different years before this; it had been a highly acerbic political atmosphere for many years, since at least 1850. One of the delegates who walked out in an earlier year was the governor of a state. Nothing new about such behavior in the South -- it is exactly the sort of tactic Southern Democrats use to split the Democratic Party at Charleston in 1860 and throw the election to the Republicans. In short, you are describing actions that seem representative of some Southerners: this is how they acted in such situations.
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.
So you plan to continue your policy of avoiding direct questions and arguing by innuendo. It will do you no good.
FOR THE THIRD TIME, please answer the question: The means of selecting delegates changed over the years. Not all states attended in all years. But by 1858, the means of selecting delegates had been formalized and specific. Do you know what it was?
No...and I see no evidence of such.
Please explain what sort of "formalized and specific" selection of delegates came up with this group-
Mississippi, 55 (about 70% from one state)
Texas, 1
South Carolina, 11
Georgia, 9
Tennessee, 4
Alabama, 1
Louisiana, 5
Florida, 1
Kansas 1
~
Please explain why "historians" and yourself give so much attention to this pot-luck convention of un-elected delegates that had about 15% (88/600) of its previous numbers.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
OK, so you have no clue as to how delegates were selected, but want to insist you know what the numbers mean. Good to see you know you are simply making it up as you go along.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
Please explain what sort of "formalized and specific" selection of delegates came up with this group-
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
Mississippi, 55 (about 70% from one state)
Texas, 1
South Carolina, 11
Georgia, 9
Tennessee, 4
Alabama, 1
Louisiana, 5
Florida, 1
Kansas 1
Please explain why "historians" and yourself give so much attention to this pot-luck convention of un-elected delegates that had about 15% (88/600) of its previous numbers.
The numbers above are dictated by things you simply haven't bothered to think about. Among them:
Ever been to a convention? Ever notice that a convention gets a lot more attendees when it is in a popular destination (like Las Vegas or Hawaii) instead of a place no one wants to go to (like Sandusky or Camden)? Ante Bellum Southerners were no different. Conventions in New Orleans drew well. Conventions in places like Vicksburg didn't.
Note also that this was a private -- not governmental -- convention. People paid their own way unless they found a sponsor somewhere. Wives were excited by going to New Orleans and husbands found excuses to go so they could take them -- or men found excuses to leave their wives behind as character dictated. Somehow, Vicksburg, MS didn't seem to have the same appeal.
As to the dominance of Mississippians in a convention held in Mississippi ... well, duh. What else would you expect? When they held it in Richmond, 189 Virginia delegates showed up. Are you somehow surprised? Study all 14 ante-bellum conventions and you'll probably find similar dominance by the host state.
Besides, numbers of delegates do not indicate a well-organized or successful convention of this type. The amount of work accomplished does. New Orleans looks to be a collection of good-timers in town to enjoy themselves; they didn't accomplish much.
By 1859, they had voted for a system that allocated delegates according to the number of Congressional districts in a state, who were to be appointed by the Governors in each states. They had committees assigned to each state who were trying to convince the legislatures to have the delegates elected directly by the people. The 1860 convention was cancelled because of the election campaign, but the Confederates held one in 1861 using that method.
As to why people who care to study the issues pay attention to the Southern Commercial Conventions, it is for exactly the reasons always given. They were the longest-running, biggest, most well-known gatherings of Southern thought in their day. Major figures attended and publicly debated the important issues of the day. What happened there was widely reported on and discussed by people throughout the country. They were, effectively, the only such regional gathering of Southern thought there was.
Beyond that, many Southerners of that time thought they were important. You don't care about that, because it gets in the way of your desires. It remains true. Trying so hard to avoid accepting what Southerners said and did surely brands your positions as bankrupt more than anything I will ever say.
They didn't accomplish a whole lot, although a few of their ideas were workable; mainly they debated and made speeches complaining about things or positing grand ideas. The 1854 Charleston convention was perhaps the most diligent in its work, particularly on the RR to the Pacific (Albert Pike pushed a very detailed plan for it and a corporation was chartered to build it afterwards; the North snickered at the finances of it).
The one that strangely seemed to be working out just as the Civil War started was the solution to the first issue they had -- how to break the Northern dominance of shipping. The corporation was founded, the steamships contracted for, the first one about to arrive in Southern ports direct from England -- when the South seceded, the war came, and the entire thing fell apart. Bitter ashes for those who had worked more than 20 years to make it so.
Other issues came and went over those 14 conventions: Fishing Bounties, Northern dominance of school texts and teachers, lack of good colleges in the South, tariffs, slavery in the territories, etc. The same issues that were important in the eyes of the Southern people of the day. But in the end, the question of slavery came to dominate: the expansion of slavery, the protection of slavery, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Personal Liberty Laws, the re-opening of the slave trade across the Atlantic. Just as it came to dominate Southern politics and civil life in the late 1850s. Just as it split the nation, as it brought about slavery, and as it led the sides to war.
Were there Fire-Eaters at the conventions? Did they come to dominate it? Obviously there, and a strong force -- just as they came to dominate the Southern states by 1860, just as they split the Democratic Party to throw the election to the Republicans to further their goals of secession. In short, what happened at the conventions mirrors what happened in Southern society, which is why people who study the period find it important -- and why you want to hide from it, heap scorn upon it, and deny it. If there is fraud here ... you'd best look in the mirror to find it.
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.
The numbers above are dictated by things you simply haven't bothered to think about. Among them:
Ever been to a convention? Ever notice that a convention gets a lot more attendees when it is in a popular destination (like Las Vegas or Hawaii) instead of a place no one wants to go to (like Sandusky or Camden)? Ante Bellum Southerners were no different. Conventions in New Orleans drew well. Conventions in places like Vicksburg didn't.
Note also that this was a private -- not governmental -- convention. People paid their own way unless they found a sponsor somewhere. Wives were excited by going to New Orleans and husbands found excuses to go so they could take them -- or men found excuses to leave their wives behind as character dictated. Somehow, Vicksburg, MS didn't seem to have the same appeal.
In other words you are saying that the convention, its resolutions, &etc., are meaningless...and "historians" are committing fraud by claiming otherwise.
Quote:
Originally Posted by trice
As to the dominance of Mississippians in a convention held in Mississippi ... well, duh. What else would you expect? When they held it in Richmond, 189 Virginia delegates showed up. Are you somehow surprised? Study all 14 ante-bellum conventions and you'll probably find similar dominance by the host state.
True. The 1858 Montgomery convention was dominated by delegates from Alabama and Georgia.
This skews the results of the convention and makes them, again...meaniningless.
~
By the 1850s the SCC became, basically, a Fire-Eaters political convention...a minority faction within the South.
The "pro slave trade" group was unable to pass its resolution until there was a significant dropoff in attendance to the convention- 600 to 88 (1859).
Prior to that date they had failed by large majorities.
The group promoting the slave trade was a minority within a minority.
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
In other words you are saying that the convention, its resolutions, &etc., are meaningless...and "historians" are committing fraud by claiming otherwise.
Nope. You have just made up a lie to suit yourself and tried to attribute your falsehood to me.
What I did was to attempt to talk to you about how the real world works. What I received in return was your usual tactic of deliberate distortion, putting words never said into the mouths of others, etc. If you paint yourself as totally unreliable in this fashion, you only damage your own credibility and make it obvious you are determined to deceive others.
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.
"Historians" focus on this chicken pot-pie convention of unelected delegates to represent the views of the South.
Let's see what they ignored from Elected representatives:
~
"...nearly all the Southern States, ten at least, have laws against the introduction of African negroes. That these laws, Federal or State, will ever be abolished cannot be anticipated." (Charleston News)
At least 10 Southern states had laws against the slave trade in addition to Federal laws (bear in mind that 11 states touch the Atlantic and Gulf, four are landlocked).
~
Resolution introduced by James Orr of South Carolina in the U.S. House of Representatives (1856): "Resolved, That it is inexpedient, unwise, and contrary to the settled policy of the United States, to repeal the laws prohibiting the African slave trade."
Passed by a vote of 183 to 8.
~
Alabama Secession Convention
"WHEREAS, the people of Alabama are opposed, on the grounds of public policy, to the rëopening of the African Slave Trade: therefore,
Resolved, That it is the will of the people of Alabama that the Deputies elected by this Convention to the Southern Convention, to meet at the city of Montgomery on the 4th day of February next, to form a Southern Republic, be and they are hereby instructed to insist on the enactment by said Convention of such restrictions as will effectually prevent the rëopening of the African Slave Trade.
The Resolution was adopted with only three votes against it [out of 100]."
~
Mississippi Secession Convention
"Resolved, That in the opinion of this Convention, it is not the purpose or policy of the people of the State of Mississippi to re-open the African slave trade."
Passed 67-13 (10 of this 13 later signed a document indicating their vote was for other reasons than being for or against the slave trade)
__________________ POWER & MONEY
"Your New-York bankers and merchants are shrewd people, but I never gave them credit for so much sagacity as when they took the Government Loan. It was not merely patriotism, it was a high stroke of policy. It has saved the Government, and what they will regard as equally important, saved them from a great financial disaster."
True. The 1858 Montgomery convention was dominated by delegates from Alabama and Georgia.
This skews the results of the convention and makes them, again...meaniningless.
Nope.
You spend all your effort trying to deny what others say, hiding from facts that interfere with what you want to believe, and refusing to accept things that don't fit the particular spin on Southern actions. You will never understand Southerners and the Civil War that way.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Battalion
By the 1850s the SCC became, basically, a Fire-Eaters political convention...a minority faction within the South.
So? The same thing happened to the South as a whole. Why else do you think we had secession and Civil War? You are saying that the SCC *DO* fairly represent what was happening in the South as you deny it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by battalion
The "pro slave trade" group was unable to pass its resolution until there was a significant dropoff in attendance to the convention- 600 to 88 (1859).
Prior to that date they had failed by large majorities.
Actually, if you follow the pattern of the conventions, you will see a significant increase in support for this measure year over year throughout the period it was being discussed. At the same time, you see mainstream Southern politicians coming out in support of the same measure in one form or another -- men like Toombs of GA, Slidell of LA, and Stephens of GA. Just as the Fire-Eaters came to dominate Southern politics by 1859-60 (particularly in the Deep South), you see the same trend in the conventions. Why? Because they were where Southern political thought was openly debated in 1852-59.
Also, as hopefully you are aware, the 1858 Southern Commercial Convention in Montgomery did not reject the concept of re-opening the slave trade. It spent many days in discussion of it, could not come to a peaceful resolution on it, and decided to continue the debate in 1859 with a committee appointed to continue work on it. Just as had happened in 1857, which is why Pryor and Yancey were debating it in Montgomery in 1858.
Instead the Montgomery convention voted this point: "3. That it is inexpedient for any State or its citizens to attempt to reopen the African slave trade while that State be in the Union." That's pretty weak. "Inexpedient" while still in the Union is essentially saying "we can't get this done unless we secede". Son of a gun, that is what the Southern states did do less than three years later! Sounds like just more evidence the SCCs are in sync with Southern political thought.
Quote:
Originally Posted by battalion
The group promoting the slave trade was a minority within a minority.
Everyone discussing this has long ago acknowledged that the movement to re-open the slave trade was a strong and vocal minority within the South. If you search the board, I'd guess you'll find me saying that 10 or 12 times in the last year, with discussion to show it. Why bother acting as if your saying this changes anything?
That minority was very powerful politically, and much of their power continued right up to the formation of the Confederacy. Many Fire-Eaters became powerful members of the government. Many politicians who did not want to be officially considered Fire-Eaters made statements supporting the import of Africans in the late 1850s. Jefferson Davis was another one of those: he thought it was a bad idea for Missisippi, but that was the only reason he would vote against it; he did not want to impose his views on others who might want to re-open the trade. A lot like the "personally-opposed-to-abortion-but-voted-for-it" politicians of a later century, he and others straddled the fence because they wanted votes.
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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