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.
There was a bill before the US congress in 1862 which would have abolished slavery.
It was "defeated", even though the Southern States were not in the union.
Not that this has anything to do with the question at hand.
Got a reference to the alleged bill by any chance?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Beowulf
The Annals of America,” Vol. 9, published by Encyclopedia Brittannica, Inc. : “Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation actually did not free a single slave, since the regions in which it authorized emancipation were under Confederate control, and in the border states where emancipation might have been effected, it was not authorized.“
Again, this doesn't deal with the question at hand. There's a thread devoted to the EP I just bumped to the top. If you transfer this to that thread, I'll answer it for you.
So then you knew what you were saying was wrong when you said it. Hmmmm.
Regards,
Cash
Let me ask you a question, Cash....
What protection did any state have against the Federal government if not the threat of Secession?
The Constitution would have been as thick as a New York Phone Book, and as well-thumbed, were it to protect
states with a forced membership!
The very idea of a Constitution was that it was a Union of willing candidate states!
When the voluntary part goes out, we are just like any other empire!
Don't you see this?
B-
__________________ If the South accepted Sectional Left Wing Republican Rule, their property would be devalued, by being outlawed unconstitutionally in the territories, and suffer terrorism by Brown's mob ,... their economy would be in shambles... The effect is that the South is not any longer an equal part of the Union.
If the South tried to gain independence from these Left wing Republicans, the North will destroy them all... and curse their memory for all eternity....
Dear Hanny,
In reference to post 11 above:
The worry of the slaveowners was not Lincoln restricting them from the territories, as much as Lincoln using patronage to create a southern Republican party.
This southern Republican party would attract voters dissatisfied with the domination in many states by an elite of wealthy slaveowners. It would provide a democratic(small d) alternative to slave-based politics, and slave-based economies.
Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, and Kentucky were all nominally slave states, but slavery was declining in all these states, and in the eyes of slaveowners, and the practice of slavery was becoming more difficult.
In Maryland, slaves were escaping into free territory. Missouri faced free territory on two sides, north and east, and with Kansas becomine a free state, the west.
Inside the border states, populations were less willing to defend and protect smaller and smaller numbers of slaveowners. But states like Virginia, Tennessee and even South Carolina had large numbers of citizens angry with the special privileges and powers the slaveowners had given themselves. A southern Republican party would have challenged all that.
Slaveowners had stifled debate about slavery everywhere they could. The use of violence against anyone suspected of heresy on the institution was swift. I don't mean abolitionists or underground railroad people, but anyone.
Some people have commented on the Republicans being a sectional party. Well, when slaveowners prevented any Republican political activity, they shouldn't complain about a sectional party.
Secession was an elite trying to hold on to its special position, and using the crudest type of racism to rope in as many non elites as they could. They never showed any particular respect or regard for the Constitution or any other law antebellum, and its hard to respect their new found concern for Constitutional issues.
All that you say is broadly correct, its equally correct that the 2% of the top of the southern polulation as planer elite held 50% of the wealth, while the social pyriamid of the North was wider, but not by a lot. So each elite had a lot invensted in getting their own way in national politics, its important to note the roughly 3:1 voting pattern for secesion, so either the voters actaully did believe the Republicans were breaking the constion or were persuaded by the elite, either way a lot voted
__________________
"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
All that you say is broadly correct, its equally correct that the 2% of the top of the southern polulation as planer elite held 50% of the wealth, while the social pyriamid of the North was wider, but not by a lot. So each elite had a lot invensted in getting their own way in national politics, its important to note the roughly 3:1 voting pattern for secesion, so either the voters actaully did believe the Republicans were breaking the constion or were persuaded by the elite, either way a lot voted
Hanny,
Did you look at the election process in each state that seceded. Some states the had elections after the fact the state seceded from the union. Other states held only elections authorizing a convention to discuss secession. The last group held votes after Lincoln call up the troops so your 3to1 voting pattern is not telling the whole story.
Hanny you will have to bring down each election held in each state to prove some point you are trying to make. Heck! look at TN. it had something like three elections before secession and Va had one election to vote for a convention.
VA. convention was dead lock until Lincoln called out the troops then it voted for secession and then months later they held another election confirming the convention decision after the war started.
Hanny, you will need again to brake down the when each state had election for secession before you can argue your point.
In general. the elite hoodwink the other social and economic classes in the south to join their false cause.
__________________
"States Rights are about States Wrongs" - Jesse Jackson
Did you look at the election process in each state that seceded. Some states the had elections after the fact the state seceded from the union. Other states held only elections authorizing a convention to discuss secession. The last group held votes after Lincoln call up the troops so your 3to1 voting pattern is not telling the whole story.
The 3 to 1 is roughly the number of ratifications to secede, SC had just fought its state elections simply on the posistion of secesion in teh event of a Republicn voctory in the next election and did not then ratify since it had already fought and won on that principle, the rest seceded after debate and ratifications.
the point i was answering was the number of people who belived secesion was the right answer, not being a couple of 000 elitist, but a broad range of the entire poulation.
Quote:
Hanny you will have to bring down each election held in each state to prove some point you are trying to make. Heck! look at TN. it had something like three elections before secession and Va had one election to vote for a convention.
Ok, Va secedded over coercion and slavery does not even get a mention, is my point on Va relavent to the point of how widespread the idea of secesion over coercion important?, quite likly. i made agenberal comment bon the scope and scale of those who acepted thright and need to secede, which would not be borne out by specific states.
Quote:
VA. convention was dead lock until Lincoln called out the troops then it voted for secession and then months later they held another election confirming the convention decision after the war started.
Yes, i agree. the state had spent $500,000 arming an upgrading its militia ( VMI got 12 pnds instead of 6 pndrs) in the precedeing 12 months in excption of secesion.
Quote:
Hanny, you will need again to brake down the when each state had election for secession before you can argue your point.
I dont see why, its a generlisation to be sure but its not likly to be inacurate as to the scale of those acepting the right of secesion, by voteing for it, be it over slavery or coercion as the principle motivation for doing so.
Quote:
In general. the elite hoodwink the other social and economic classes in the south to join their false cause.
Well so you post, persoanlly i think the evidence is the complete oposiste, you dont get a a military participation ratio as high as the CSA in wars very often, and you never get them unless those doing so belive what they are doing is right and proper.
__________________
"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
Even IF one could separate secession and slavery. Secession or Slavery were equally pernicious doctrines.
Historically, it was no accident that to Kill one, would be to kill the other.
Hanny,
Thanks for taking the time to answer my post.
My point is that a "loyal opposition" or divergent views on slaveowning, and the possible negative effects of slaveownering on the economy and society were not allowed in the deep south and often in the border states. When I say "not allowed" I mean anyone not lockstep with slaveowners faced mob violence.
Pro-secessionist votes are unsurprising in a climate where contradicting slaveowners was considered racial treason and a possible incitement for slaves to revolt. Years of uncontradicted propaganda, built anger against the north, for interfering with the South, insulting the South, restricting the South from the western territories.
The South wasn't being insulted, interfered with or restricted. Slavery and slaveowning was.
Some northerners recognized this. Harriet Beecher Stowe made Simon Legree a transplanted Yankee. Other(but not all) Southern whites in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" are protrayed as well intentioned, but caught and forced to act cruelly by the slaveowning system.
As far as 19th century American history is concerned, Opn Downfall is right to link secession and slavery. Slavery is not an incident in the long history of secession, secession was the last incident in the long history of slavery.
The rhetoric racheted up the anger. If an antislavery type is making the point that slavery has a negative effect on the slaveowning society and the people living in it, he is also criticizing a proud people whose first, and second reaction is going to be: (in polite terms) buzz off.
Two excellent posts saying clearly something that I wish I had.
I enjoyed reading them.
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
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