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.
Having wasted years on the politics of secession, that simple question never occurred to me.
One could argue that the greater threat to the sovereignty of the states probably arose during the New Deal and has continued since. We can forgive the centralisation of the CSA under Davis, as the needs of war probably necessiated it. Encroachment in peacetime, on domestic matters, is another debate for another forum.
I agree that it was under FDR's administration we begin to see what some would call an 'intrusive' federal government, where we begin to see a reversal of State involvement and power and the rise of federal intervention in traditional State matters and concerns.
Yes, I also agree that Davis should be forgiven for efforts at centralizing the CSA, after all, there was a war on. 'Died of a theory' was Davis saying that States Rights would put that epitath on the tombstone of the Confederacy. He was right.
Returning to the original question - nothing had been passed other than a tarrif but they had been disputed several times before. I think it is the threat of what Mr Lincoln and the Republicans might have done which swung it. It's important to remember the geographical concentration of Lincoln's support in the northern states, and his entry to the White House on a minority popular vote (he had 59% in the Electoral College however). So I guess I'd be interested in attempts by others to answer the question too.
I see where you are coming from when you make the statement the threat of what Mr. Lincoln and the Republicans MIGHT have done was a big and real threat to the South. But what MIGHT they have done and to what is the question?
Oxkern,
Thank you for your thoughts on the subject. I look forward to exploring them further with you.
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
This is a point that's never flown well with me. However real the fear was, it was still an apprehension. Doesn't make much sense, does it? Well .... he's on record as opposing slavery therefore he must be planning something we won't like, so let's just start our own country. Does this pig fly?
No logic in there. There must be something else.
oole
__________________ 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
Dear Beowulf,
Thank you for responding to my post.
Washington who fought on the battlefield, presided at the Constitutional Convention and was president of the United States is, by your definition, a collectiveist left wing Unionist. Lincoln replied in a 1861 pleas to just let secession happen, that there was "no Washington" in such an idea.
In your post 165, you express concern about "suddenly" ending slavery and releasing all the former slaves and that chaos would ensue. Strangely you point the finger at the small groups of already free blacks was the resentful ones, somehow missing that it was whites that would resent a race they despised becoming their political and social equals.
But its a real concern. Suddenly millions of mostly illiterate, mostly unskilled farmhands, with unfamiliar religion practices are let loose on the countryside. It is a worrying prospect. Yet no one suggested Irish immigrants become slaves(for 200 plus years).
Lincoln never left the Republicans. and he was killed by a resentful Southern sympathizer with a drinking problem and a horror of blacks becoming voters.
Well. I started a whole new thread on White Irish Slavery, but it got removed from among us for some reason...
The irish and many of the Whites were dragged over here as slaves, but we can't talk about it here. Our job here is to figure out why the NEGRO is so important one way or the other, as our institutions have taught us to do!
There are NO SLAVES BUT BLACK SLAVES! Got it! I fully understand now! As Cool Hand Luke said, "I got my mind right now, Boss Man!'
(AHEM!)
Lincoln did leave the Republicans. The Union Party in 1864 was what re-elected him, not the RRL's.
Booth feared Negro citizenship, not because of the negroes (he had grown up around them as slaves in Maryland) but because of the power they would have to affect the VOTE.
I didn't think I had to mention the whites who would resent having their votes diluted by these people who owned no land, were not about to be given any by a lying Yankee government, who promised them 40 acres and a mule, and
what idiot wants any competition of any color at a ballot box?
Certainly not the altruistic bleeding heart abolitionists, who had tasted the short end of the stick and were willing to pad it with ANY VOTES they could get, from anywhere!
If landowners were the only ones voting (not women, blacks, and little kids, as vagrant art forms who owned no land!) Negro citizenship would not have held near the horror for Southern (and Conservative Northern) societies that it did.
Union Blue keeps asking the same questions, and those who were there keep giving him the same answers, which he can't accept as logical to him.
Well, it ain't about him! It's about people who want to see the states remain sovereign, and not have to be under an empire which will doubtless be run by Romans such as these Yankees!
The South realized they had made a mistake when the
Second Party would not be killed off during the early 1800's.
As the South saw it, like the plague it was, The Second party continued until it was either one thing, or the other, as Lincoln said.
And that fight still goes on till this moment.
And everyone said Washington was in their party, and on their side. Washington was on neither side; Washington was for Washington. He got along with everyone while Lincoln couldn't get along with anyone!
Well. I started a whole new thread on White Irish Slavery, but it got removed from among us for some reason...
The irish and many of the Whites were dragged over here as slaves, but we can't talk about it here. Our job here is to figure out why the NEGRO is so important one way or the other, as our institutions have taught us to do!
The American Civil War was not fought over the issue of WHITE or IRISH SLAVES.
There are NO SLAVES BUT BLACK SLAVES! Got it! I fully understand now! As Cool Hand Luke said, "I got my mind right now, Boss Man!'
I suggest you consult the 1860 US census and determine the number of WHITE and IRISH SLAVES versus the number of BLACK SLAVES. It's a real eye-opener. Might even help you get your 'mind right.'
(AHEM!)
Lincoln did leave the Republicans. The Union Party in 1864 was what re-elected him, not the RRL's.
Here is an on-line article that may be a bit more informative than the two sentences you supply above:
Booth feared Negro citizenship, not because of the negroes (he had grown up around them as slaves in Maryland) but because of the power they would have to affect the VOTE.
So, Booth feared Negro citizenship, not because they were Negroes, but because they were Negroes who could suddenly VOTE. That about right?
I didn't think I had to mention the whites who would resent having their votes diluted by these people who owned no land, were not about to be given any by a lying Yankee government, who promised them 40 acres and a mule, and
what idiot wants any competition of any color at a ballot box?
1. There were lots of whites who owned no land and were not about to be given any by anyone, let alone a 'lying Yankee government.'
2. The 'Yankee government' never promised freed blacks 40 acres and a mule, Sherman did and had instituted such a plan, when President Johnson killed it and gave all the land back to former slaveholders.
3. "And what idiot wants any competition of any color at a ballot box." EXACTLY.
Certainly not the altruistic bleeding heart abolitionists, who had tasted the short end of the stick and were willing to pad it with ANY VOTES they could get, from anywhere!
Source?
If landowners were the only ones voting (not women, blacks, and little kids, as vagrant art forms who owned no land!) Negro citizenship would not have held near the horror for Southern (and Conservative Northern) societies that it did.
Did ALL States require land ownership in order to be considered a qualified voter?
Union Blue keeps asking the same questions, and those who were there keep giving him the same answers, which he can't accept as logical to him.
And I'll keep asking them as long as I get no answers backed up by proof, historical evidence or some form of verifiable evidence, instead of the continued rants of personal opinion and neoconfederate, partisan nonsources.
Well, it ain't about him! It's about people who want to see the states remain sovereign, and not have to be under an empire which will doubtless be run by Romans such as these Yankees!
Never was about 'me.' My problem is the continual, ongoing, neverending, overwhelming mass of twisted garbage and revisionist clap-trap that seemingly must be substituted for actual, factual, historical events. My other problem is with those who seem to confuse a modern-day political agenda with events of the past that have nothing to do with present-day reality. It's a pet peeve of mine, so I guess that could be about 'me.'
The South realized they had made a mistake when the
Second Party would not be killed off during the early 1800's.
Meaning?
As the South saw it, like the plague it was, The Second party continued until it was either one thing, or the other, as Lincoln said.
ANY Meaning?
And that fight still goes on till this moment.
Pretty quiet fight as many, many others have moved on with their life.
And everyone said Washington was in their party, and on their side. Washington was on neither side; Washington was for Washington. He got along with everyone while Lincoln couldn't get along with anyone!
Washington was the father of his country, an amazing man who gave up much of his life in order to see to it's birth.
Lincoln preserved his country at the cost of his life.
No one ever likes to say that, but it is true.
Beowulf
No, what people don't like to say is anything that doesn't jibe with their preconceived notions over a period of history that took place over 140 years ago.
Again, once more, WHAT specific rights of the States were being threatened by the election of Lincoln?
We know for a fact, Lincoln did not advocate the immediate release of all the slaves.
We have yet to see any evidence that freed blacks would resent the freeing of millions of fellow blacks.
We have yet to see what exactly the North was agitating or what Northern idealoligies the South was afraid of and trying to escape.
Still waiting.
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
No, what people don't like to say is anything that doesn't jibe with their preconceived notions over a period of history that took place over 140 years ago.
Again, once more, WHAT specific rights of the States were being threatened by the election of Lincoln?
We know for a fact, Lincoln did not advocate the immediate release of all the slaves.
We have yet to see any evidence that freed blacks would resent the freeing of millions of fellow blacks.
We have yet to see what exactly the North was agitating or what Northern idealoligies the South was afraid of and trying to escape.
Still waiting.
Unionblue
You know, Blue, it's funny. Historically, the 'Union' has always been worried and fretted over by those most determined to divide it, and cancel out the effects of the
Conservatives who see Union as strictly voluntary, and
as post-Revolutionary War as possible.
Adams and Hamilton and the Second Party of Federals, with a forced Union no one wanted.
Henry Clay and the Whigs, and again a forced Union no one wanted.
Lincoln and his twin demons of capitalism and abolition, which divided the nation (how, when, and why really do not matter; it happened, and because of them) each bent on destroying the South financially, so they could control the nation as a forced Union, which those who didn't want were forced to shut up over, and accept, because the Confederacy was somehow 'evil' eighty years after Yorktown...
These two Second parties ended up splitting until they could get rid of Lincoln... (I read you wiki thing.)
And now we have a one party system with two halves!
Again, dividing what should be a CONSERVATIVELY Jeffersonian Republican nation into a system where the loser does not become vice president!
The war, as you have stated AD NAUSEUM, was over the Secession of the South, Lincoln's refusal to act with sense, his allegiance to his sectional belief in a forced Union, and
his provocations at Sumter, (which were repelled without incident) until Lincoln started the war in Virginia.
NOT NEGROES...
Heard ya!
Just because we have the OFFICIAL Federal government version backing you up, to maintain this aura of freeing negro slaves and preserving a union, so you can justify your assault upon the states who withdrew from your political party's intolerant Liberalism
of the period... does not mean that is ALL that happened, nor even WHAT actually happened.
When we can talk about all slavery and all races, and everything that went on, we can then help you to understand why the South had had enough of YOUR PEOPLE as Lee called them.
Lincoln wanted a forced Union. This was the 'stream' he was crossing when he advised them not to change horses, concerning. The FORCED Union would be lost otherwise....
Not the integrity of each of the states, but the ultimate death of the Second Party...
State Sovereignty... The REAL idea of AMERICA... (Cue the music. Raise, and fade to black...)
The south would not secede (or nullify, the Constitution) over taxes, but they would, to protect their slaves.
The right that the south was most worried about losing (to the exclusion of everything else, they found offensive about the north) was the right of white men to own black slaves.
The war started over secession, But secession started over slavery.
Which came first slavery or secession?
You know, Blue, it's funny. Historically, the 'Union' has always been worried and fretted over by those most determined to divide it, and cancel out the effects of the
Conservatives who see Union as strictly voluntary, and
as post-Revolutionary War as possible.
Adams and Hamilton and the Second Party of Federals, with a forced Union no one wanted.
Henry Clay and the Whigs, and again a forced Union no one wanted....
Beowulf
What are you talking about?
No US state was forced into any Union of the United States of America that was first mentioned in the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
The Union that came out of 1777 and ratified in 1781 as The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was not forced on any US state.
The Union that came out of 1787, ratified in 1788, and effected in 1789 as the Constitution of the United States was not forced on any US state.
Like the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union the US Constitution was ratified by every US state.
Read those documents!
__________________ "Those who forget to remember the past are condemned to repeat it", George Santayana.
The south would not secede (or nullify, the Constitution) over taxes, but they would, to protect their slaves.
The right that the south was most worried about losing (to the exclusion of everything else, they found offensive about the north) was the right of white men to own black slaves.
The war started over secession, But secession started over slavery.
Which came first slavery or secession?
Slavery came first. Slavery built this great country of our's. It built Britain. It built the New England states and the Yankee North. It built the South. It made it possible for enough wealth to come through this country so that other established countries took us seriously, here.
A great many (and from what I am finding out, now, a preponderance) of those slaves were not negro.
Negroes have always cost more than white slaves, and were the circumstance of wealthy white people, and wealthy African kings (guess how they got that way?) not
the poor white trash what came here first, and most!
Slaves were money. Slaves were also very dangerous.
So are politicians who sectionalize and side with
abolitionists and others who have no clue, and try to reform things they don't understand....
It was about control. The South was losing it to those who would be king, without the divine right necessary to rule with the benefit of all their subjects at heart.
And, like the Union party and the radical republicans, once the Conservatives had been defeated in the war, they turned on each other...
Secession was an attempt to delay the development of assassination, as an art form, in order to get away from unwanted government (whatever the reason).
Lee said the South would have done everything exactly the same way, had it to do again...
But I wonder if everyone would have followed suit... The Secession would have happened, because that (rebellion against government) is what Americans are noted for... but the South might have tried a few other tricks, to accomplish their goals, if they could see what has happened to their people, these days...
Exactly. The Second party had tried to force this on us, for years. Always with the same result... They failed.
Until Secession, and then they wrapped themselves in the flag, and threatened to destroy anyone who disagreed with them!
Now, WE CAN'T fight it because SECESSION is CONSTITUTIONALLY ILLEGAL.
But it wasn't at the time, no matter WHAT you say! THAT was a gift from THEM.
What a lot of nonsense you post. It doesn't even make sense in terms of what you, yourself, say. Intimidation by armed force, seizure of property without due process and finally violent assault with intent to kill -- what the actions of "the South" showed it meant by "secession" in the Winter of 1860-61 -- has always been illegal in this country. "Secession" as attempted in that day was illegal under the constitutions and laws of the states that seceded themselves. Had they tried to work legally, through the Federal courts and/or the Legislative branch of the government, they stood a good chance of success. It was the very arrogance and folly of their own actions that doomed them to failure. If a state were to try to leave the Union legally today, they would still have a decent chance of success. Make at least some attempt to pay attention to reality in these interminal political diatribes you polute the ether with.
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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The Secession would have happened, because that (rebellion against government) is what Americans are noted for... but the South might have tried a few other tricks, to accomplish their goals, if they could see what has happened to their people, these days...
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