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.
Hanny, in the US Constitution, there is no provision or right for a "sovereign", and I'm assuming you mean a sovereign state, to secede. What the southern states did when they tried to leave the Union was rebellion.
Your quote...I'm not sure... "books" would be US Constitution? I'm not following you here.
I noted above that I don't think Lincoln "appeased" anybody. There's no comparison between he and Rebel leaders, and Chamberlain and Nazi Germany.
Terry
Terry
If i acept that there is no law covering secesion, then such an act is legal, because it is not disallowed by any law.
Otoh SC has rulled as recently as 1995. "The reservation to the States respectively," says the Supreme Court, "can only mean the reservation of the Sovereignty which they respectively possessed before the adoption of the Constitution of the United States and which they had not parted from by that instrument. And ANY legislation by Congress beyond the limits of the power designated would be trespassing upon the rights of the States or the people, and would not be the supreme law of the land, but null and void."
I think i just covered this in other posts to you, the law of insurection is that it only applies to a part of a state against that state, as codified in the law concerning insurection.
Rebelion only applies when the court rules one has occured, not when a president says one has.
Secesion is not rebelion because it uses no use of arms, invokes no use of force, but is instead the will of the people.
No rebelion haveing ever been rulled to haveing occured by any court means i dont follow you.
jeferson on rebelion.
"God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion." in respect of Shays rebelion.
he also wrote to JQ Adams about in these terms.
"I like a little rebellion now and then.... The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all."
Rebilion can only ocur when a subject takes action against its sovriegn, sovreigns never rebel against equal sovriegns, they exert the right of secesion instead.
Just as the USA can leave the UN at will because every nation is a sovriegn nation and can seccede from the UN Charter at will.
lastly the Constition is explict on where Soverignty is delagted by the states to be, it delagtes to the Constition supremacy in law, no state or states ever made the Constion and or the Union a Sovriegn entity.
__________________ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.
Liberty is a well armed lamb contesting the vote."
Benjamin Franklin, 1759
Appeasement was the true provokator of the Civil War!!
That just eliminates history altogether. I think you're isolating a single moment and giving it magnitude way beyond it's context.
Taking Lincoln's minuscule time in office before the war and blaming his actions as a major cause of open conflict is pretty much closing your eyes to the 1850's.
In my estimation, 99% of CW causation had nothing to do with Lincoln. Conflict was nearly pre-determined by the time he was elected. Had Sewall been elected instead of Lincoln, the exact same thing would have happened.
Would you say the events below were more or less provocation than Lincoln's appeasement?
Wilmot-Proviso (1846) – a political amendment to restrict slavery in territory acquired by Mexico –the bill never passed.
Introduction of California as a free state (1850) - hotly debated in congress as it gave the political advantage to the free states and threatened to tip the north-south power base temporarily.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) - the publication of this book was widespread and did much for the abolitionist cause. It stirred debate on slavery as a moral injustice.
Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) - a bill that would let states decide their own course of action rather than the national government was highly contentious. This new bill abolished the Missouri Compromise.
Formation of Republican Party (1854) - the first party to establish a true anti-slavery expansion platform. The Whig Party had begun to crumble as southern Whigs began to leave the party. Several smaller parties collaborated and combined to make the Republican Party - established mostly within northern states.
John Quitman’s attempt to annex Cuba for the south in order to create a slave state (1854). This military attempt was never actualized even though it was encouraged by then President Pierce. Eventually, the volatile publicity surrounding the Kansas-Nebraska Act discouraged the attempt and Quitman was actually arrested in violation of neutrality laws. He was eventually acquitted and elected to congress.
William Walker’s attempt to create a slave empire in Central America (1855) - Walker was a well-educated soldier of fortune from Tennessee. He had military foray first into Baja, Mexico and then into Nicaragua in 1856. He actually took over the government of Nicaragua with hired mercenaries and Franklin Pierce soon recognized the government as legitimate - even though Central America and several foreign governments did not. Walker made several attempts to have these U.S.-sponsored mercenaries take over all of Central America. However, Walker made several enemies in the process including industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt who spent money organizing his defeat. Costa Ricans finally defeated Walker's mercenaries during that same year (still a national holiday in Costa Rica). After a farcical election in Nicaragua to remain in power, Walker had to leave the country as his mercenary army had succumbed to disease. He returned to America as a hero of the American south. He again returned to Central America in 1860, but was captured by the British in British Honduras. They returned him to an unfriendly Nicaragua which executed him that same year.
John Brown and the Pottawatamie killings (1856) – This massacre of slave owners by abolitionist John Brown and his brothers in Kansas created an unmanageable guerrilla warfare in that territory. It took several different territorial governors before one was found who could control the territory.
Dred Scott decision and the Supreme Court Judge Taney's ruling (1856) - Although Taney ruled in favor of the south (concerning the Fugitive Slave Law where fugitive slaves were ordered sent back to their southern masters if they entered a free state), his ruling went beyond the scope of the law itself and was interpreted as a pro-slavery referendum. His ruling would be enormously divisive.
John Brown at Harper’s Ferry (1859) - John Brown's overthrow of national property and his intent on creating a slave rebellion created enormous public discourse in both the north and south. He would be hanged a few days after his capture.
Crittenden Compromise and Lincoln’s rejection (1860) - In order to avoid war, this compromise in 1860-61 made several concessions for the south including the right of expand slavery in some areas of the south. Since Lincoln had been elected on the anti-slavery platform, he made his desires for rejection of the bill known. The bill was tabled by Congress and never resurfaced.
your exampes are of insurection, and nulification, insurection as defined in law are just that, examples of insurection. Secesion is not now nor was then, insurection, which was why Jackson was forced to obtain a force act through Congress because nulification was not insurection either.
When you take up arms against, take property, and renounce the laws of our sovereign government by any definition it is an insurrection and if an insurrection is allowed to last to long it becomes a rebellion, like our CW. The southern states that seceded from the union easily meets the definition of an insurrection
Hanny you try to hide behind the law but after the CW our courts rules that secession is illegal. I can not name the case but I know someone on this board will know it; so Hanny the of our land does state secession is illegal.
A note: The nullification crisis also has all the ear marks of an insurrection.
That just eliminates history altogether. I think you're isolating a single moment and giving it magnitude way beyond it's context.
Taking Lincoln's minuscule time in office before the war and blaming his actions as a major cause of open conflict is pretty much closing your eyes to the 1850's.
In my estimation, 99% of CW causation had nothing to do with Lincoln. Conflict was nearly pre-determined by the time he was elected. Had Sewall been elected instead of Lincoln, the exact same thing would have happened.
Would you say the events below were more or less provocation than Lincoln's appeasement?
Wilmot-Proviso (1846) – a political amendment to restrict slavery in territory acquired by Mexico –the bill never passed.
Introduction of California as a free state (1850) - hotly debated in congress as it gave the political advantage to the free states and threatened to tip the north-south power base temporarily.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) - the publication of this book was widespread and did much for the abolitionist cause. It stirred debate on slavery as a moral injustice.
Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854) - a bill that would let states decide their own course of action rather than the national government was highly contentious. This new bill abolished the Missouri Compromise.
Formation of Republican Party (1854) - the first party to establish a true anti-slavery expansion platform. The Whig Party had begun to crumble as southern Whigs began to leave the party. Several smaller parties collaborated and combined to make the Republican Party - established mostly within northern states.
John Quitman’s attempt to annex Cuba for the south in order to create a slave state (1854). This military attempt was never actualized even though it was encouraged by then President Pierce. Eventually, the volatile publicity surrounding the Kansas-Nebraska Act discouraged the attempt and Quitman was actually arrested in violation of neutrality laws. He was eventually acquitted and elected to congress.
William Walker’s attempt to create a slave empire in Central America (1855) - Walker was a well-educated soldier of fortune from Tennessee. He had military foray first into Baja, Mexico and then into Nicaragua in 1856. He actually took over the government of Nicaragua with hired mercenaries and Franklin Pierce soon recognized the government as legitimate - even though Central America and several foreign governments did not. Walker made several attempts to have these U.S.-sponsored mercenaries take over all of Central America. However, Walker made several enemies in the process including industrialist Cornelius Vanderbilt who spent money organizing his defeat. Costa Ricans finally defeated Walker's mercenaries during that same year (still a national holiday in Costa Rica). After a farcical election in Nicaragua to remain in power, Walker had to leave the country as his mercenary army had succumbed to disease. He returned to America as a hero of the American south. He again returned to Central America in 1860, but was captured by the British in British Honduras. They returned him to an unfriendly Nicaragua which executed him that same year.
John Brown and the Pottawatamie killings (1856) – This massacre of slave owners by abolitionist John Brown and his brothers in Kansas created an unmanageable guerrilla warfare in that territory. It took several different territorial governors before one was found who could control the territory.
Dred Scott decision and the Supreme Court Judge Taney's ruling (1856) - Although Taney ruled in favor of the south (concerning the Fugitive Slave Law where fugitive slaves were ordered sent back to their southern masters if they entered a free state), his ruling went beyond the scope of the law itself and was interpreted as a pro-slavery referendum. His ruling would be enormously divisive.
John Brown at Harper’s Ferry (1859) - John Brown's overthrow of national property and his intent on creating a slave rebellion created enormous public discourse in both the north and south. He would be hanged a few days after his capture.
Crittenden Compromise and Lincoln’s rejection (1860) - In order to avoid war, this compromise in 1860-61 made several concessions for the south including the right of expand slavery in some areas of the south. Since Lincoln had been elected on the anti-slavery platform, he made his desires for rejection of the bill known. The bill was tabled by Congress and never resurfaced.
I am impressed by this effort to correct us. Thanks!
I must add. You state the secession moment was coming no matter who was in office so Lincoln action would not change the outcome.
I defer. Lincoln's wiliness to appease the southern slavers only embolden them to push harder for secession. If he had followed Washington and Jackson lead and stated he would use force if needed to preserve the union then the Southern Slavers might have rethought their option.
Lets say appeasement set the clock ticking towards war then.
The apologists for secession and attacking the garrison at Fort Sumter should look around the world. There are many examples of foreign outposts in, or near unfriendly countries that haven't been resolved by violence, just as the issues used to say, oh no it wasn't slavery, are routinely resolved politically.
A good point. By this argument, by the United States failing to abandon Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Cubans can argue that the United States "started the war" when the Cubans attack them.
__________________ "There must be more historians of the Civil War than there were generals figthing in it... Of the two groups, the historians are the more belligerent." David Donald, Lincoln Reconsidered (1961)
By coincidence, I'm reading an excellent book that bears on some of these issues: Lincoln and the Decision for War: The Northern Response to Secession. For those of you who are familiar with Daniel Crofts' Reluctant Confederates, which deals with the upper south, it covers the same period focusing on the north.
In fact, northerners had some of the same debates that are reflected here. On one end of the spectrum, Republican hard-liners argued that threats of secession were humbug and that the best way to deal with them was to stand firm and make no concessions. On the other end, recently-converted Republicans and Douglas Democrats desperately explored compromise proposals, both because they feared for the Union and in response to the equally desperate pleas of upper south conditional unionists (Crofts' "Reluctant Confederates") who were begging for concessions in order to avert secession of their own states. In between, there were combinations of opinion of every sort.
Within this range, Lincoln was as advertised -- a moderate Republican. He was prepared to make some concessions, but he was not prepared to concede on the core principle of the Republican party -- freedom in the territories. I don't think that a firmer stand would have averted secession, but it's an interesting debate that's worth having, provided you present evidence and reasoned arguments. But its hard to criticize Lincoln for displaying precisely the moderation that got him nominated and elected.
Apeasement did not exist in that time frame, and the whole thrust of your argument is that secesion is insurection, when only a soveriegn has the atribute of secesion asa right, and sovriegns do not commit insurection, they use the right of secesion, instead.
Appeasement always been around but our historians like to use the words like compromise and concession instead of appeasement.
Because appeasement is the correct word but it is harshly and honestly describes how our congress behaved toward the southern slavers of the 1850's.
As they say "the truth hurts" and using the word appeasement truthfully hurts our nation soul too.
It can be argued that Lincoln's magnanimity, patience and calm appeals to logic and reason, was misconstrued by southerners as being signs of weakness, thus provoking them to overreach themselves.
There is a debate on this board about if the south was provoked or not by Abe Lincoln into insurrection, secession, war and firing the first shots.
I ague:
Abe Lincoln did provoke the southern leaders into committing following acts of insurrection, secession and war.
A background to this argument.
Our nation had two earlier acts of insurrection before 1860. There was the Whiskey rebellion 1790's and the Nullification crisis 1832 in both the president at that time acted forcefully and made it clear that any acts of insurrection were illegal and they would use military force to end the insurrection. Neither insurrection lasted and both presidents Washington and Jackson made it clear an insurrection is illegal and set the present that the union must be preserved.
Now lets move the 1859 the Southern leaders see a weak waffling president in Buchanan and the fires of insurrection are lighted. In 1860, Southern leaders see a country lawyer from IL. become president and again they believe they have a weak president to contended with and the fires of insurrection explored.
President Lincoln reinforces this view(of weakness) with his first inaugural address where he tries to appease the leaders of the insurrection. This act appeasement reinforced Southern leaders view he was weak and fueled the fires of the insurrection that will lead to war.
I argue again:
Abe Lincolns act of appeasement(show of weakness) to leaders of the insurrection only provoked the leaders to increase their demands and set our nation toward civil war.
If only Lincoln had followed the precedents set by Washington and Jackson and forcefully rejected the insurrection demands and show resolve the war might never had happen.
It was Lincoln's appeasement to the Southern slavers, like England's appeasement to Hitler, fueled the Civil war as it fueled WWII.
Appeasement was the true provokator of the Civil War!!
I understand what you're getting at, but I have to disagree with your interpretation. Lincoln's approach was necessarily limited by the Border States. In 1861 and for most of 1862, every move he made was made with an eye on the Border States. Every decision he made took into account the reaction the Border States would have. Had he taken an overly aggressive approach a la Jackson he would have pushed the Border States directly into the secessionist camp. Jackson had the fortune of having to deal with an isolated South Carolina that had no support for its nullification or secessionist rhetoric from any other state. At that time the idea of secession was still seen as akin to treason. Lincoln faced an entirely different situation which called for a far more gentler approach than Jackson's.
Ok, this is, of course, my opinion. I have read this elsewhere by an historian but I can't think of where at this moment, but I agree with it regardless: Lincoln could see the writing on the wall. He knew what was coming. Everyone who was in government or politically active at all, on both sides, knew it was coming. Lincoln did not provoke the war by appeasement of any kind. He did not supplicate himself before representatives/emissaries of the South and promise them anything they wished, at all costs, so as to avoid the coming conflict. He was as conciliatory as he could be in his First Inaugural, even promising to leave slavery alone, but I see conciliatory and appeasement as different things.
What he did do was put the South in the position of having to fire the first shot of this war they so desperately wanted. The fire-eaters would have their war, and also the blood of the nation on their hands in the calamitous conflict that was to follow, all attempts by Lincoln to reassure them that their beloved slave system would be allowed to thrive undisturbed, aside. The South was not provoked into a war they insisted on having regardless of any provocation. Oh, they'd find their provocation somewhere, for sure, and Lincoln made that fairly easy for them.They were going to have their war regardless, come hell or high water.
Having been unable to dissuade them from their long sought-after conflict..unavoidable, irrepressible, whatever term you want, Lincoln was able to make them fire the first shots of the war, there in Charleston harbor, where he knew, (paraphrasing) "If the push is to come, let it come now." Various theories about the resupply of Fort Sumter etc. can be valid or invalid still, today, whichever view one wishes to take. If the bombardment of the Fort had not occurred, the war would have started elsewhere, possibly on a much bloodier note, but it would have started regardless. The leaders of the Confederate South would have full responsibility now, for the devastation and blood-letting that was to follow, when they alone were the only ones who could have stopped it.
Terry
Your argument would mean that Lincoln had to have truly great foresight to predict the course the nation was on so to manipulate the Southern leaders in firing the first shots of the war.
Concilitory or Appeasement being different yes but what would was Lincoln and congress truly doing during the period before the war, Appeasement.
In your scenario as in mine Lincoln still provokes the south into firing the first shot. True?
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