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.
One of the main bugaboos for secessionists was Lincoln's determination to halt the spread of slavery into the territories. Old line slave states, such as Virginia, had become net exporters of slaves and needed an expansion of slavery in order to preserve the price of slaves. Virginia opposed any reopening of the Atlantic Slave Trade because that would depress the price they could obtain for selling off their slaves as their land became less productive through lack of what we now recognize as the need to rotate crops.
If slavery was confined to those states in which it was already practiced and was not allowed to expand, the market would likewise dry up as the market for slaves in Louisiana, Texas, etc. became saturated.
This, along with the need to preserve a blocking minority in Congress, was one of the main arguments for the need for expansion of slavery into the territories and the denial of this was a major, if not the major cause, of secession.
However, unless the new Confederate State of America could expand, either by conquest of territories of the United States such as New Mexico and Arizona, or by conquest of Mexico, Cuba, etc, they faced the exact same dilema as the Lincoln administration blocking further expansion of slavery into the territories.
Therefore, the Confederacy was clearly created with the idea of either (a) an attack on the United States in order to appropriate United States territory or (b) an attack on other neighbors of the Confederacy, probably Mexico and/or Cuba.
Does this not put a lie to the claim that secession was over states rights? Unless it is the right of states to attack and conquer their neighbors in order to annex their territory?
Thoughts?
Hey! My 500th post!
__________________ "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)
Very true, however, IMO the leadership of the south did not do a lot of deep thinking about the ultimate ramifications what would be required of a slave based cotton empire. They did little beyond trying to justify
unilateral secession.
One of the main bugaboos for secessionists was Lincoln's determination to halt the spread of slavery into the territories. Old line slave states, such as Virginia, had become net exporters of slaves and needed an expansion of slavery in order to preserve the price of slaves. Virginia opposed any reopening of the Atlantic Slave Trade because that would depress the price they could obtain for selling off their slaves as their land became less productive through lack of what we now recognize as the need to rotate crops.
Unfortunately, timewalker, you wandered into my twilight zone. At the time, there was much woodland to be cleared for cotton in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana, and there was a demand for slaves, much to the enjoyment of the larger slaveowners in the east who were watching their production peter out along with a very nice market for their surplus slaves.
But I draw a blank when it comes to how expansion of slavery into the territories would benefit anyone. I can't see how permitting slavery in the prairies or deserts would result in slave states joining the Union. Maybe I'm stuck on the idea that those who owned slaves were invariably agrarian. I don't see them opening factories, building railroads, engaging in mining or much other pursuits. Slaves were for farming. Slave-owners were into farming. I just don't see any reason to expand other than the silly hope that they could make slave-states out of any of the territories.
It has been advanced that, at the time, they didn't know that cotton requires rainfall and that the western territories had none. Perhaps they didn't know that cotton doesn't grow in regions without seasonal rain. I don't buy that. The fire-eaters were not totally ignorant of the improbability of actually extending slavery and making it work. So I dismiss the argument that expansion was necessary for the perpetuation and survival of the peculiar practice.
So I don't really understand the argument that slavery, confined to where it was, was an economic disaster. I'll grant that slavery's removal would have been an economic disaster, but the Republican Platform in 1860 insisted only on non-expansion and confirmed non-importation. To me, the entire argument has no merit, unless you consider that a double handful of slaveocrats pushed for a dubious separation for reasons of their own.
Many thaks for opening the thread. I've long wanted to understand the motivations of expansion vs. containment.
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
Very true, however, IMO the leadership of the south did not do a lot of deep thinking about the ultimate ramifications what would be required of a slave based cotton empire. They did little beyond trying to justify unilateral secession.
The usual, thoughtful post, Opn. From here, southern leadership looks pretty stupid. As I'm not inclined to view as stupid, any political interraction, I look for something logical. So far, I have failed to detect any rational thought.
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
Much of the rhetoric of the time seems to focus on what I stated in my original post: That without expansion, slavery was doomed. I concur that slavery in New Mexico was going to be dicey, at best in most places, although there are a few places in New Mexico where it is probably economically feasible to do dryland cotton farming.
The fire-eaters then state that your denial of the expansion of slavery is an attempt to strangle the economic viablity of slavery, therefore we will secede. By doing so, they ensure the very thing they decry, unless they have a plan to expand through territorial conquest.
Thus, like Opn, I end up with a philosophical quandry. Their more logical course seems to be a legal attack following along the lines of Dred Scott, etc., attempting to use constitutional law to allow slavery in non-slave states. But instead, they secede and attack.
Perhaps my problem is that I am trying to view the matter logically when they viewed it emotionally. Or am I missing some logical step here?
__________________ "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)
Timewalker, I ran across a letter by a Hon. L.W. Spratt entitled "The Philosophy of Secession; A southern View,Presented in a Letter addressed to the Hon. Mr. Perkins of Louisiana, in criticism of the Provisional Constitution addressed by the Southern Congress at Montgomery, Alabama" 13th February, 1861.
It is very prescient, in anticipating the fatal flaw in the lack of any deep rationale for the existence of the Confederate States of America outside of slavery. He indeed accurately predicts that the Provisional Constitution (of which this particular letter concerns itself) will contain the germ of the confederacy's own destruction and will most likely be grafted into the formal Constitution later.
Although only the Editor of the Charleston Mercury, Mr Spratt is the only Philosophical description and defence of what a slave society means and its future, that I have read.
I was particularly impressed by his reasoning that led to his conclusion that the confederacy was probably already doomed, because of its lack of any deep philosophical thought concerning what a country built on slavery really meant.
That is why slaves and slavery took a more important place in the Constitution of the Confederate States. Read it sometime. One need only compare its difference with the U.S. Constitution.
No state under that Confederate Constitution could ever ban slavery in its state. The Confederacy has not voted for democracy, but for a slave oligarchy.
The seceding states saw the existence of slavery as the important keystone of its life.
Ironic, that the Confederacy would lose the Civil War, because of the inherent weakness of Southern wealth, directed at slavery, instead of industry.
Timewalker, I ran across a letter by a Hon. L.W. Spratt entitled "The Philosophy of Secession; A southern View,Presented in a Letter addressed to the Hon. Mr. Perkins of Louisiana, in criticism of the Provisional Constitution addressed by the Southern Congress at Montgomery, Alabama" 13th February, 1861.
It is very prescient, in anticipating the fatal flaw in the lack of any deep rationale for the existence of the Confederate States of America outside of slavery. He indeed accurately predicts that the Provisional Constitution (of which this particular letter concerns itself) will contain the germ of the confederacy's own destruction and will most likely be grafted into the formal Constitution later.
Although only the Editor of the Charleston Mercury, Mr Spratt is the only Philosophical description and defence of what a slave society means and its future, that I have read.
I was particularly impressed by his reasoning that led to his conclusion that the confederacy was probably already doomed, because of its lack of any deep philosophical thought concerning what a country built on slavery really meant.
Spratt was a leading advocate of re-opening the African Slave Trade in the 1840s and 1850s, well known throughout the South, and chairman of the committee on the subject at the Southern Commercial Conventions of the late 1850s. Men like Yancy of Alabama and Pryor of Virginia served on that Committee, so Spratt was in the class of movers-and-shakers of the day. He was particularly associated with the Fire-Eaters of Charleston and Florida.
__________________ "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.
I was particularly struck by Spratt's philosophical wariness of Va. and other Border States, because of his perception that they were more likely to be a threat to the unity of the nascient confederate nation, rather than bulwarks for southern nationalism, i.e., they had too long exposed to and therefore, already more infected by the heresy of Democracy.
Free Soil & Slavery ExpansionThe Free Soil and Slavery Expansion topic contains the subtopics listed below. Each subtopic includes a narrative with hyperlinked text [resources] ... www.upa.pdx.edu/IMS/currentprojects/TAHv3/Content/FreeSoil_Slavery.html - 51k - Cached - Similar pages
This link I posted shows the Northern and Midwest embracing the industrial revolution and the south was addicted to cotton.
The south of yesteryear addiction to cotton is like our Nation today addiction to oil. The south was willing to protect cotton at any cost, even war and self destruction. Our nation today is willing to protect oil at any cost, even war and self destruction.
The south was unwilling to diverse their economy just as our nation unwilling to find alternate fuel choices..
The south's addiction to cotton ended badly for them as well as for our nation. Will our nation addiction to oil end as badly of our nation as south addiction to cotton did.
Have you ever seen how addicts behave when their supply of the desire is threaten. They will lie, cheat, threaten, manipulate even fight to protect their desire. Think of how our nation leadership has behaved over the last six years much like an addict so are we fighting terrorist or protecting our desire(OIL)..
Most addiction end badly for the addict....
I see a scary future for our nation...
__________________
"States Rights are about States Wrongs" - Jesse Jackson
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