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.
The post from cw1865 was pulled out of the "Natural Right of Revolution" thread and used to start this one to create a different topic. Please read all the way to the end and reflect on the post as a complete whole before responding, as the idea here is one complete unit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cw1865
That's rather emphatic. Notwithstanding I continue to practice law in one of the few jurisdictions that maintains a distinction between law and equity. While its admittedly watered down, NJ continues to maintain the Chancery Division.
Since South Carolina points to a 'breach of the compact' the best example to illustrate my point would be contracts law.
In any contracts case, you will always plead any statutory/administrative code violations, followed by basic breach of contract/covenants/warranties, etc. all followed by the various equity based 'quasi-contract' theories
If you're the 'South' arguing in favor of secession, your first, best argument, is to appeal to law (ie. we have every legal right to do what we're doing) followed by appealing to equity (ie. even if our secession is not sanctioned by law, the equities justify secession because of x,y,z)
I suppose the South had a chance if they claimed that the "compact" had been broken and they were seceding as a "remedy" to the violation. I don't agree with their meaning of the "Constitution as a compact" that equates to a gentleman's club, but a court might still relieve them of their obligations if they could convince the court that the other parties had violated the agreement and that those violations were severe enough. Courts have been known to do such things (of course, they are also usually accused of exceeding their authority when they do).
But if they were correct in their accusation, we would still have to point out that they acted improperly in seceding and violated the agreement far worse than those they accused did. No court would be likely to approve their actions.
Why? Because even assuming they could provide strong evidence and argument to sway the court, a "remedy" must be proportionate and appropriate to correct the injury done. In 1861, effectively NOTHING had been done to the South. No slaves had been freed. No crushing tariff had been levied. No "states' rights" had been interfered with -- unless you count the "states' rights" of the free states that were being trampled under by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (which was probably unconstitutional even in the opinions of Fire-Eaters like Rhett and Yancy). There was NO violation of the "compact" for the South to complain about other than their own fears of what might happen and thwarted desires to expand slavery by "manifest destiny". No objective court could have upheld the claims of the secessionists, nor agreed with the "remedy" of secession based on the evidence.
This, of course, is the great dilemma facing the Fire-Eaters and secessionists. They really had no great violation of their "compact" to complain about, certainly none that was sufficient to justify secession as a "remedy" under the law -- even assuming their "compact theory" was found to be correct. They had two choices: remain in the Union and obey the law -- or violate it and declare a rebellion. They could not find it in themselves to abide by either choice, so they invented a "right of secession" theory to make it seem they had another way.
Now the existence of that "right" was highly speculative and debatable. Before the Civil War it was certainly possible to argue it, and many did. After the Civil War, secession as attempted by the Confederate States was clearly denied de facto by the Union victory in that war and severely weakened de jure by the cases and constitutional Amendments from after that war we have discussed ad nauseam in this forum.
But if the secessionists truly believed in this "right of secession" there were two clear ways to get it recognized as legal right under the United States Constitution.
1) They could pass a Constitutional Amendment clearly affirming the existence of the "right of secession" and perhaps the conditions under and methods by which it was to be used. While there may have been an attempt to propose such an Amendment among the 10,000 or so that have been proposed in the last 220 years, I have never seen a mention of one. Certainly none ever got out of Congress or was seriously discussed and debated in Congress.
2) They could bring a case to the Supreme Court and have the matter resolved. By agreement among ALL the parties, the Supreme Court has jurisdiction over all such controverses as the existence of this "right of secession". ALL of the states had agreed to this in accepting the US Constitution. Each and every state appointed and elected official, every single military officer, had sworn a personal oath to support and uphold that Constitution. Not one of them has an excuse for violating this binding oath.
This then was the heart of their dilemma. They did not believe they could get the theory of "right of secession" as they saw it recognized under the law -- or they would have tried to use the law and obeyed their oaths and fullfilled their responsibilities. Yet they could not and would not admit they simply wanted to violate their oaths and duties, to rebel and break away from the United States, to pursue different policies and goals than the People of the United States as a whole wanted.
If Southerners could have openly admitted that, they probably could have come to a political solution, a non-violent means of separation that might have been achieved in a few years of effort. The South and the slave states still had plenty of power, particularly defensive power, in the courts and the Congress. It was only dominance they were losing as the country grew, not participation. They could certainly have exerted strong influence on Federal government action and decisions if they had chosen to do so.
But we need to remember that "a few" means more than two. The more time passes in reasonable debate, the more people tend towards compromise rather than extreme solutions to a dilemma. What the core of the Fire-Eaters and secessionists saw, IMHO, was that the writing was on the wall about the fate of slavery and their own expansionist desires. If they remained in the United States, they would never see the Southern "empire" many of the hard-core extremists among them wanted, and slavery would eventually be limited, dwindle and fade. This was intolerable to them for a host of reasons, but has very little to do with the law and far more to do with personal desires and fears. Allowing years of debate and compromise was not to their benefit.
As a result, the Fire-Eaters, the secessionists, and the extremists in the South worked to whip up a ferment of anger, and to bring the sentiment for secession to a roiling boil. They succeeded. They achieved enough power to implement their goals on the crest of that wave of emotion. But they understood that time and compromise was their enemy; that proceeding through the courts was not likely to lead to secession being recognized as a "states' right" because it did not exist; and that they must therefore "strike while the iron was hot". So they intentionally worked to develop "secession fever" and to rush the people and the states into hasty action, creating many of the issues they used to justify their actions. And so the United States suffered through four years of unnecessary bloodshed, IMHO.
Now, naturally enough, the rest of the country had their own extremists who saw a competition and conflict with the South developing, and sought to impose their own will upon it. To a certain extent, they followed the same patterns of political tactics the Fire-Eaters did, inflaming rhetoric with propaganda and pushing for policies and laws the most Southern of Southerners found extremely objectionable. Some violated laws; some actually did things similar to the claims of Southern propaganda. But those extremists NEVER achieved the power in their states the Southern extremists did before the war, and they NEVER were in a position to impose the laws and restrictive policies the Southern extremists used as a basis for their "secession". That is why the South could not pursue the "remedy" of the "right of secession" through the courts: they would have lost because there was NO "injury" to "remedy".
Now MAYBE there would have been if the Southern extremists had waited for 5 or 10 or 20 years. MAYBE they were right to take counsel of their fears. But when they acted, there was no basis for them to act upon in fact. This puts them in the wrong, under the law.
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.
But if they were correct in their accusation, we would still have to point out that they acted improperly in seceding and violated the agreement far worse than those they accused did. No court would be likely to approve their actions.
Great post....just to expound a little bit, even if they prove a breach, they still would have an adequate remedy at law - monetary damages.....
The parties to the compact deside the breach, they could have said we think tall men in tall hats constitutes a breach and we shall secede, take that to the statepoulation and sell it to them as breach and obtain a secesion ordicnce, or not be able to sell it asa breach.
Only the parties themselves are qualified or legaly entitled to determine what they found as a breach and if it required secesion as a remedy.
Law of proportonlaity does not apply to secesion, the mode of redrese allowed to parties in compact is up to them to determine.
your use of lawis baffaling there is no law now nor has there ever been a law to prevent secesion, it is an action not prevented by law, ergo it is by all lawfull defintions, lawfull.
__________________ "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
If they forcibly secede, they can reneg on their share of the national debt (by my research about $78,000,000 at the time) and they can seize Federal Property without just compensation.
If there is a negotiated separation, imagine the "divorce proceeding" that ensues. Imagine the concessions the remainder of the United States demands such as trade rights, leases on forts and other installations, etc.
In many ways, armed secession, especially if they think any war will last 60-90 days, may be much cheaper and easier (of course, they lost that bet).
Further, it has the advantage of being immediate - before emotions have a chance to cool. The fire-eaters may have feared that in the time it took to work through a political solution they would have lost their political base. I am sure that Lincoln, et al would have done a full court press throughout the South - and especially in the border states - during the interim to tug at the cords of memory and the heartstrings to show the non-slaveholders of the South that Union was better then secession. Further, if they gave Lincoln time in office and it was clear that he was not going to be the ogre that they had painted him to be, and he did nothing to end slavery where it existed, again passions could cool and the press for secession could pass.
I think the fire-eaters saw Lincoln's election as their last, best shot at secession. They had to do it now and do it quickly or inertia and the ties that bound the country together would have defeated their plan. They no doubt saw that they had a narrow window and they jumped through it - head first.
__________________ "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)
If they forcibly secede, they can reneg on their share of the national debt (by my research about $78,000,000 at the time) and they can seize Federal Property without just compensation.
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I stopped reading at this point, the entire national debt in 1860 was 65 million, and is freely availble in many books.
If they forcibly secede, they can reneg on their share of the national debt (by my research about $78,000,000 at the time) and they can seize Federal Property without just compensation.
If there is a negotiated separation, imagine the "divorce proceeding" that ensues. Imagine the concessions the remainder of the United States demands such as trade rights, leases on forts and other installations, etc.
In many ways, armed secession, especially if they think any war will last 60-90 days, may be much cheaper and easier (of course, they lost that bet).
Further, it has the advantage of being immediate - before emotions have a chance to cool. The fire-eaters may have feared that in the time it took to work through a political solution they would have lost their political base. I am sure that Lincoln, et al would have done a full court press throughout the South - and especially in the border states - during the interim to tug at the cords of memory and the heartstrings to show the non-slaveholders of the South that Union was better then secession. Further, if they gave Lincoln time in office and it was clear that he was not going to be the ogre that they had painted him to be, and he did nothing to end slavery where it existed, again passions could cool and the press for secession could pass.
I think the fire-eaters saw Lincoln's election as their last, best shot at secession. They had to do it now and do it quickly or inertia and the ties that bound the country together would have defeated their plan. They no doubt saw that they had a narrow window and they jumped through it - head first.
Couple problems with your theory:
1). Lincoln was not going to negotiate with the Southern Confederates at all. Ever. He was quite clear on this point.
To the point of arrogant non-feasance of duty,
2). Colonel Baldwin tried to keep the Unionist Virginians with Lincoln and the Union. Lincoln 'would none of it'. He was hot to provoke and unify the North against the South,
so he could pass virtually unnoticed as the cause of secession.
3). Lincoln was a party sectional politician, and nothing else. Without a war, he (like Hitler) would have fizzled out. As a peacetime president, he would have been a dismal failure, and forgotten, just as he was in the Congress. He had offered his party something that the South had removed from his grasp. It (the South) actually split him from his original party. Fortunately for Lincoln, he saw on his desk a paper with the words TEAR ALONG DOTTED LINE, and in his solitude, he began to work at those borders. Again, it kept the focus off him.
4). 78 million? A drop in the bucket compared to spending per day on a war effort. Baldwin asked Lincoln about Sumter, and Lincoln said, Annually? Some 50-60 millions in lost revenue by giving up the fort. Baldwin said that the 240 million was NOTHING compared to what a war would cost him...
5). They tried to compensate the North for Federal property. The North actually began hostilities here, at this point, long before Sumter. (I don't see Secession as a hostility, because I was not raised a Yankee!)
I do not have "many books" available here so I did a quick internet search.
Its still a lot of money at the time.
__________________ "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 stopped reading at this point, the entire national debt in 1860 was 65 million, and is freely availble in many books....
Your chart either is unintelligably mashed up by your cut-and-paste, or simply wrong and missing too much information to be useful.
In rough terms, $78 million would be about the national debt at the end of 1860. At that time the Federal fiscal ended on June 30. You'll note this is part of a trend; it is roughly 50% higher than the number you give for 1860 and 50% lower than the number you give for 1861 -- and it is about 50% of the way through the Federal fiscal year. So your criticism of timewalker's post is incorrect and not relevant.
You should also note that the Federal debt had quadrupled from 1857 to 1861, exactly the period of the Buchanan Administration, which was clearly dominated by Southern politicians. They arrived with a budget surplus, money in the Treasury, and a national debt of about 20 million dollars. By mismanagement, failed policies, and some large scandals, they severely damaged the government's credit and Lincoln arrived to find no cash on hand, with banks either refusing to load the Federal government money or raising their rates to cover the risk that the Federal government would default. If you are trying to imply that this did not happen, you are outrageously wrong.
But what does any of that have to do with the topic of this thread? Please relate it, or post this sort of stuff in some other thread.
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.
Couple problems with your theory:...
Some thoughts...
Beowulf
Your post appears to have nothing to do with the topic. Please refrain from creating such digressions and post all such elsewhere.
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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