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 see First Manassas without any Fort Sumter, at all.
I see something without Ft. Sumter. Maybe a First Manassas, maybe something else entirely -- blockades, sanctions, international arbitration ...
Without Sumter inflaming northern civilians, Lincoln would have had to go through international courts to settle the debts southern entities owed to northerners. However, without Sumter, while Lincoln was trying to iron out the intricacies, I suspect that Louisiana would have asked back in. Then, Texas, hurting from loosing the large numbers of US Regulars riding down Indians and banditos, would move to ask back in. Who's next? My guess would be a race between Mississippi and Texas.
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
I see something without Ft. Sumter. Maybe a First Manassas, maybe something else entirely -- blockades, sanctions, international arbitration ...
Without Sumter inflaming northern civilians, Lincoln would have had to go through international courts to settle the debts southern entities owed to northerners. However, without Sumter, while Lincoln was trying to iron out the intricacies, I suspect that Louisiana would have asked back in. Then, Texas, hurting from loosing the large numbers of US Regulars riding down Indians and banditos, would move to ask back in. Who's next? My guess would be a race between Mississippi and Texas.
ole
I cannot see Lincoln agreeing to go through the international courts. To do so would be to recognize that the Confederacy was a separate country which I do not think he would do without a military loss. I think Lincoln would have sent the navy to patrol off Confederate ports to collect customs duties and would have looked for some way to "enforce the law" in the rebel states.
One way or another, there would be blood.
__________________ "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)
I cannot see Lincoln agreeing to go through the international courts. To do so would be to recognize that the Confederacy was a separate country which I do not think he would do without a military loss. I think Lincoln would have sent the navy to patrol off Confederate ports to collect customs duties and would have looked for some way to "enforce the law" in the rebel states. One way or another, there would be blood.
Great post, timewalker: sane, reasoned, logical. I don't think Lincoln desired war -- he just knew it would come to that, eventually. If the tug has to come, let it start here.
If the CSA had simply ignored Sumter and Pickens, Lincoln would have had no hook to hang his "union forever" hat on. (I'm speculating here.) If the CSA had offered no act of war, it would have been difficult to force the seceding states back into the Union. Then, there would remain the questions of debts and trade between the two "nations." When two nations cannot agree, it becomes time for arbitration by whatever international law existed.
Secession per se is not rebellion. Legal or illegal, secession did not justify a shooting war. (Davis is on record as cautioning Pickens against getting too absorbed in what was no more than a point of honor.)
Without Sumter, the likely next step would have been to post customs vessels outside CSA ports to collect Federal duties. How long would the CSA have put up with that? A shooting war had to follow secession one way or another.
But, I ramble. Thanks again for a marvelous, thoughty post.
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
Great post, timewalker: sane, reasoned, logical. I don't think Lincoln desired war -- he just knew it would come to that, eventually. If the tug has to come, let it start here.
If the CSA had simply ignored Sumter and Pickens, Lincoln would have had no hook to hang his "union forever" hat on. (I'm speculating here.) If the CSA had offered no act of war, it would have been difficult to force the seceding states back into the Union. Then, there would remain the questions of debts and trade between the two "nations." When two nations cannot agree, it becomes time for arbitration by whatever international law existed.
Secession per se is not rebellion. Legal or illegal, secession did not justify a shooting war. (Davis is on record as cautioning Pickens against getting too absorbed in what was no more than a point of honor.)
Without Sumter, the likely next step would have been to post customs vessels outside CSA ports to collect Federal duties. How long would the CSA have put up with that? A shooting war had to follow secession one way or another.
But, I ramble. Thanks again for a marvelous, thoughty post.
ole
According to Frank Conner on page 118 of SIEGE, Davis had three choices. Three possible responses...
1). He could Surrender, dissolve the Confederate states, and return the Southern states to the jurisdiction of the USA. (And we could have shot him!)
2). Davis could proclaim the autonomy of the CSA, but allow the US to reinforce Sumter, unimpeded, pretending that this was not an act of war. If Davis allowed Lincoln to get away with that, Lincoln would reinforce Fort Pickens (which he did) and then re-occupy the other southern coastal forts now manned by Confederates - until by some means or other, he finally forced Davis to fight.
The longer Davis delayed, then the stronger that the US forces would become militarily. And the more difficult it would be for the South to win anything...
(And, as I see it, allowing Lincoln to collect taxes actually negates one of the true reasons for Secession, which was
money, and tariffs. Why should the South pay tariffs and get even less than they were getting under the Union plan?
This was about as arrogant a move as Lincoln could have ever made! This is a masterstroke of left-wing annoyance, par excellence! And Textbook Abraham!).
3). Davis could prevent Lincoln from reinforcing Fort Sumter. If Davis waited until the five warships (The Pocahontas, The Pawnee, The Harriet Lane, The Baltic, and The Star of the West (which had been fired upon, already, some days earlier, {and this started no war, but hey, it doesn't say HANES until Lincoln says it says HANES!} arrived...
These ships were being outfitted for sea travel and of the four, three are known to have shown up - of them which did show up (The Pocahontas getting sent to Pensacola by mistake).
These ships carried 500 additional troops, powder, shot, food, and other supplies. The warships were sent by Cameron, but the sea voyage was under the complete control of the treacherous Captain Gustavus Fox, of the Navy.
Once the firing started, and the ships showed up, Fox ordered the captain of The Pawnee to enter the harbor and engage the Confederate artillery, but he refused, saying he was under orders of the captain of the still-absent Pocahontas, and he was 'not about to start a war on his own initiative'. - CONNER P.118
So the US Navy did not participate and the Confederates permitted the garrison soldiers to board the navy ships and return to the United States.
By capturing the fort in a pre-emptive strike, the South averted a war with the United States.
The real war was started by the North, later, in Virginia.
(I shall be posting Anderson's telegraph 'confession', as I call it, later... You'll love that!).
Beowulf: The post gives me an overwhelming desire to take a nap. You've presented nothing of substance. And you have again exposed the paucity of your argument. Wake me up when you have something of substance to say.
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
By Beowulf: By capturing the fort in a pre-emptive strike, the South averted a war with the United States. The real war was started by the North, later, in Virginia.
So firing cannons at a fort for hours, clearly trying to kill the garrison (you do not fire guns at someone without an intent to kill) is not an act of war?
I dearly love revisionist history!
__________________ "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)
Lincoln put Davis into the position of trying to ignore Sumter, and losing credibility, and firing on Sumter and committing the overt act of aggression.
Davis ordered the fort fired on in order to push Lincoln into military measures(finally calling out the militia), and thus push the upper south states into secession. Without the upper south, a CSA of only lower south states is in a weak position.
However, once the upper south secedes, border states like Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland, as well as regions like eastern Tennessee and western Virginia, which contain large populations who don't wish to secede, will(did) start their own civil wars. Violence was inevitable and "grassroots."
Davis realized from the beginning that it was going to be a tough fight, no illusions there. He wanted to strengthen his postition. He may have miscalulated the consequences, but he understood there would be a reaction.
By Beowulf: By capturing the fort in a pre-emptive strike, the South averted a war with the United States. The real war was started by the North, later, in Virginia.
So firing cannons at a fort for hours, clearly trying to kill the garrison (you do not fire guns at someone without an intent to kill) is not an act of war?
I dearly love revisionist history!
Uhhm, sir. I would have to say that, if killing those men was the goal, not a one of them would have walked away alive.
The goal was to destroy the usefulness of a fort that Anderson did not wish to surrender his career in resigning.
I wish SOMEBODY would revise your ideas on the subject!
Even the yanks knew better than that!
Lincoln put Davis into the position of trying to ignore Sumter, and losing credibility, and firing on Sumter and committing the overt act of aggression.
Davis ordered the fort fired on in order to push Lincoln into military measures(finally calling out the militia), and thus push the upper south states into secession. Without the upper south, a CSA of only lower south states is in a weak position.
However, once the upper south secedes, border states like Missouri, Kentucky, and Maryland, as well as regions like eastern Tennessee and western Virginia, which contain large populations who don't wish to secede, will(did) start their own civil wars. Violence was inevitable and "grassroots."
Davis realized from the beginning that it was going to be a tough fight, no illusions there. He wanted to strengthen his postition. He may have miscalulated the consequences, but he understood there would be a reaction.
I would read the Sumter dispatches and the RISE AND FALL and the WAR CONSPIRACY before I just assumed what Davis was 'thinking'...
It's a whole lot easier than trying to invent history from the dust of the ground, and using a one-sided Evolution to explain the wherefores and the whys... These people left their reasonings! Read them...
Of course, using their math, we don't end up, mathematically, with your answer!!!
When your checkbook is off, the bank is most always right!
Timewalker and Ole,
In reading your posts about alternatives to what played out at Fort Sumter, I remembered something from reading William Lee Miller, in "Lincoln, Duty of a Statesman." Miller said that if the SC guns had waited and fired on the supply ships, probably Anderson would have fired to protect the ships, and the CS would have than proceeded to reduce the fort, which was now shooting at them.
The Confederates could then plausibly argue they were acting defensively. Whether that would have made any real difference to Unionists, or makes any real difference at all, I don't know, but it would looked less like naked aggression.
Timewalker, you probably know this, but stationing navy and revenue ships outside of Charleston harbor was Andrew Jackson's solution to the nullification crisis.
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