Money; THE Cause?

[Battalion]

1)"Union means so many millions a year lost to the South; secession means the loss of the same millions to the North. The love of money is the root of this as of many other evils" -Charles Dickens

... -a perfect description of the motivation for the war.

[Battalion]

2) "...one of the principal reasons why the North is so resolved upon the continued vigorous prosecution of the war, is that her people now know by experience the inestimable value to them of the Southern trade....The mercantile marts of New England and the Middle States will be hopelessly ruined. Nothing can possibly save them except the recovery of that magnificent trade....the people of the North think their only chance of getting back Southern trade--or making our country evermore tributary to their growth and aggrandizement, is to conquer us, hold us as subject provinces, and compel us to resume the former channels of mercantile communication. They freely acknowledge that the war [secession/an independent South] injures them terribly..."

New Orleans Bee, 21 September 1861

[ole]

Charles Dickens, a popular English author, and an editor for the New Orleans Bee -- we've been reading the wrong historians! We should be studying foreign commentators and secesh newspapers. Long live Barnwell Rhett!
Ole

[Battalion]

3)"POLITICS AND FINANCE"

"...If the government of a country has no credit, its individuals will not be likely to stand in good odor in the markets of the world. When 'the faith of the United States' is protested in Wall street or Lombard street, the faith of all the citizens of the United States is protested. But however grave a calamity this might be, it is a minor circumstance as compared with the wide-spread and irreparable disasters to result from the violent shock to our domestic commerce and the utter overthrow of mutual confidence consequent upon disunion. Every consideration, pecuniary, moral and legal, points to a firm maintenance of the Constitution and geography of the United States.
Is it not time that the citizens of Chicago and other commercial centres in the Northwest were giving an expression of their views on these questions?
The interests to be affected one way or another are their interests. We are confident that the press will do its duty in the premises. We believe that Congress will do its duty, but we have no guaranty half so sure as the voice of the people publicly proclaimed. Let it be sounded abroad that the Northwest declares 'the Union must and shall be preserved,' and a thousand echoes will be awakened...repeating and reiterating the glorious words."

Chicago Tribune, 14 December 1860




4)"COLLECT THE REVENUES"

"...if the 'peace policy' of the Secessionists prevail, bankruptcy of the Government and ruin and convulsion of business are certain consequences. The Government would not only be destroyed but the Free States would virtually be reduced to the condition of plundered and conquered provinces of his Majesty, Jeff Davis..."

5)"SELF PROTECTION"

"The national existence of the Government depends upon the collection of the imposts, and consequently that is its first and highest duty. To preserve peace by permitting a usurper to seize its revenues is to make war on itself...is to commit suicide and end its existence with its own hands. When a government declines to collect its revenues it begins to die, as a man begins to die when he refuses to eat. The sort of 'peace' which will be obtained by the non-collection of Federal duties in Southern ports, will be the peace of the grave yard....If Lincoln's administration fails to collect the revenue throughout the whole Union, it will cease to be. Jeff Davis' government will collect them and reign in its stead. The whole matter resolves itself into the simple question of which of these governments shall collect the revenues in the Southern ports. The one that don't, dies. The one that does, rules..."

Chicago Tribune, 25 March 1861 (both)



6)"We learn through private sources that there are indications of a marked change of sentiment on the part of those connected with the great commercial interest of New York city. Heretofore that class have been the staunchest upholders of the pro-slavery policy of the Democracy....
But these great interests have become seriously alarmed at the present aspect of commercial affairs....By the adoption of a lower tariff of duties than is in force in the United States, foreign imports are likely to seek the ports of the seceding States, and the commercial supremacy of New York is seriously threatened. This is more than the flunkeys of that city bargained for or expected. The objection to enforcing the laws is daily growing weaker. The very men who clamored so lustily against their execution thirty days ago, now begin to ask, 'Have we a Government?' We shall be surprised if, within the next thirty days, the merchants of New York are not calling loudly upon the Administration to enforce the laws, to blockade the ports of the rebel States, to reinforce the forts, and to disperse the rebels who have taken up arms against the Federal Government."

Chicago Tribune, 27 March 1861

[cash]

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery." [Mississippi Declaration of Causes]

"For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery." [Georgia Declaration of Causes]

"What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North-was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery." [Henry Benning of Georgia to the Virginia Secession Convention, 18 Feb 1861]

"In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States." [Texas Declaration of Causes]

"On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States." [South Carolina Declaration of Causes]

"Our people have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it." [Lawrence Keitt in South Carolina Secession Convention, taken from the Charleston, South Carolina, Courier, dated Dec. 22, 1860]

"The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution -- African slavery as it exists amongst us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the 'rock upon which the old Union would split.' He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact." Alexander H. Stephens, vice president of the CSA, 21 Mar 1861, Savannah, Georgia]

"The South had always been solid for slavery and when the quarrel about it resulted in a conflict of arms, those who had approved the policy of disunion took the pro-slavery side. It was perfectly logical to fight for slavery, if it was right to own slaves." [John S. Mosby, _Mosby's Memoirs,_ p. 20]

"The Confederacy had come into existence over slavery, and with slavery as its fundamental social institution. It is impossible to imagine the breakup of the Union without the presence of slavery. Seceding southerners spoke about building a slaveholding republic, and the Confederate Constitution declared slavery a bedrock of the new nation. The southern white conception of liberty had long been intimately tied to slavery for blacks. That connection was central in the initial formation of Confederate identity. The widespread mention of slave soldiers in the winter of 1865 underscored the feelings of desperation seeping through the Confederacy." [William J. Cooper, Jr., _Jefferson Davis, American,_ p. 554]

The southern states sent secession commissioners to other slaveholding states to persuade them to join the secession movement. Prof. Charles Dew, in his book, _Apostles of Disunion: Southern Secession Commissioners and the Causes of the Civil War,_ has gathered together all the surviving speeches and letters of the secession commissioners. Every one of them identified the reason for secession as the protection of slavery.

"Therefore it is that the election of Mr. Lincoln cannot be regarded otherwise than a solemn declaration, on the part of a great majority of the Northern people, of hostility to the South, her property and her institutions-- nothing less than an open declaration of war-- for the triumph of this new theory of Government destroys the property of the South, lays waste her fields, and inaugurates all the horrors of a San Domingo servile insurrection, consigning her citizens to assassinations, and her wives and daughters to pollution and violation, to gratify the lust of half-civilized Africans. Especially is this true in the cotton-growing States, where, in many localities, the slave outnumbers the white population ten to one.

"If the policy of the Republicans is carried out, according to the programme indicated by the leaders of the party, and the South submits, degradation and ruin must overwhelm alike all classes of citizens in the Southern States. The slave-holder and non-slave-holder must ultimately share the same fate-- all be degraded to a position of equality with free negroes, stand side by side with them at the polls, and fraternize in all the social relations of life; or else there will be an eternal war of races, desolating the land with blood, and utterly wasting and destroying all the resources of the country.

"Who can look upon such a picture without a shudder? What Southern man, be he slave-holder or non-slave-holder, can without indignation and horror contemplate the triumph of negro equality, and see his own sons and daughters, in the not distant future, associating with free negroes upon terms of political and social equality, and the white man stripped, by the Heaven-daring hand of fanaticism of that title to superiority over the black race which God himself has bestowed? In the Northern States, where free negroes are so few as to form no appreciable part of the community, in spite of all the legislation for their protection, they still remain a degraded caste, excluded by the ban of society from social association with all but the lowest and most degraded of the white race. But in the South, where in many places the African race largely predominates, and, as a consequence, the two races would be continually pressing together, amalgamation, or the extermination of the one or the other, would be inevitable. Can Southern men submit to such degradation and ruin? God forbid that they should." [Letter of Stephen F. Hale, Secession Commissioner from Alabama, to Gov. Magoffin of Kentucky, 27 Dec 1860]

"This population outstrips any race on the globe in the rapidity of its increase; and if the slaves now in Alabama are to be restricted within her present limits, doubling as they do once in less than thirty years, the children are now born who will be compelled to flee from the land of their birth, and from the slaves their parents have toiled to acquire as an inheritance for them, or to submit to the degradation of being reduced to an equality with them, and all its attendant horrors. Our people and institutions Must be secured the right of expansion, and they can never submit to a denial of that which is essential to their very existence." [Letter from Isham Garrott and Robert H. Smith of Alabama to the Governor and legislature of North Carolina]

"They have demanded, and now demand, equality between the white and negro races, under our Constitution; equality in representation, equality in the right of suffrage, equality in the honors and emoluments of office, equality in the social circle, equaliity in the rights of matrimony."

"Our fathers made this a government for the white man, rejecting the negro, as an ignorant, inferior, barbarian race, incapable of self-government, and not, therefore, entitled to be associated with the white man upon terms of civil, political, or social equality.

"This new administration comes into power, under the solemn pledge to overturn and strike down this great feature of our Union, without which it would never have been formed, and to substitute in its stead their new theory of the universal equality of the black and white races. ...

"Mississippi is firmly convinced that there is but one alternative:

"This new union with Lincoln Black Republicans and free negroes, without slavery, or, slavery under our old constitutional bond of union, without Lincoln Black Republicans, or free negroes either, to molest us.

"If we take the former, then submission to negro equality is our fate. if the latter, then secession is inevitable ...

"Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, the part of Mississippi is chosen, she will never submit to the principles and policy of this Black Republican Administration.

"She had rather see the last of her race, men, women and children, immolated in one common funeral pile [pyre], than see them subjected to the degradation of civil, political and social equality with the negro race." [Address of William L. Harris, Secession Commissioner of Mississippi, to Georgia Legislature, 17 Dec 1860]

Regards,
Cash

[Battalion]

7)"In one single blow our foreign commerce must be reduced to less than one-half what it now is. Our coastwide trade would pass into other hands. One-half of our shipping would lie idle at our wharves. We should lose our trade with the South, with all of its immense profits. Our manufactories would be in utter ruins. Let the South adopt the free-trade system, or that of a tariff for revenue, and these results would likely follow"

Chicago Daily Times, 10 December 1860


8)"The government cannot well avoid collecting the federal revenues at all Southern ports, even after the passage of secession ordinances; and if this duty is discharged, any State which assumes a rebellious attitude will still be obliged to contribute revenue to support the Federal Government or have her commerce entirely destroyed"

Philadelphia Press, 21 December 1860


9)"The millions of people who inhabit the vast and fertile region tributary to the trade of the Mississippi, will never permit themselves by any contingency to be cut off from the commerce of the world. To the great marts beyond our own borders they must and will go--'peaceably if they can--forcibly if they must.' Such is the spirit of the Northwest, and when secession attempts to eject the jurisdiction of the United States from that great outlet, there will be a tornado of indignation there which will force its way to the Gulf in spite of all opposition."

Buffalo Morning Express, 24 December 1860


10)"What we have before said, we now say again: The Northwest will be a unit in maintaining its right to a free and unobstructed use of the Mississippi river throughout its entire course....the Mississippi will not pass into the hands of a foreign power, or our trade and intercourse up and down that river be left at the mercy of a mere treaty, until after a long and desperate struggle, in which the Northwest shall have been vanquished....We are not to be coerced by South Carolina, or Louisiana, or Mississippi, into a dishonorable surrender of our indisputable Rights....This is our position; and be the result what it may, this position we shall maintain."

Cincinnati Daily Gazette, 14 January 1861


11)"It is the enforcement of the revenue laws, not the coercion of the State that is the question of the hour. If those laws cannot be enforced, the Union is clearly gone; if they can, it is safe"

Philadelphia Press, 15 January 1861


12)"It is very clear that if the secessionists, in their madness, insist upon a blockade of the Mississippi river, a bloody conflict must be the result. The potent voice of the Northwest, speaking by the tongue of a Democratic member from Illinois, (Mr. McClernand,) has already declared that the free people who inhabit the region of the Mississippi Valley will never consent to the destruction of their commerce....'Will an empire of ten million people in the West be content to become subordinate--a nation of herdsmen? Perish rather;' said Mr. McClernand in the House. 'The slightest obstruction or annoyance offered by real or pretended sovereignties to navigation upon the mighty thoroughfare of northwestern commerce would arouse a spirit that would cuts its way to and through the mouths of the Mississippi, or sacrifice tens of thousands of lives in the attempt'..."

New York Evening Post, 23 January 1861


13)"The free navigation of the Mississippi will never become the subject of treaty between the people of the Northwest and any other people whatsoever. It will never be accepted as a gratuity. It is their right, and they will assert it to the extremity of blotting Louisiana out of the map....This overrunning and exterminating may be a shocking thing, but if it becomes necessary to put an entirely new race of men in possession of Louisiana, to secure the great national right...the thing will be done. Call it by what name you choose it will be done."

Chicago Tribune, 25 February 1861


14)"The States of Mississippi and Louisiana, and the Montgomery Convention, have deemed it worth while to assure the commercial world that they guarantee the freedom of the Mississippi, 'in times of peace.' This reservation implies a right of the rebel Confederacy over that river--an assumption as unfounded as it is impudent, and one which will not be conceded for a moment, either by the General Government, or by anyone of the half dozen States directly interested in its uninterupted navigation.

Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, 4 March 1861


15)"Blockade Southern Ports. With no protective tariff, European goods will under-price Northern goods in Southern markets. Cotton for Northern mills will be charged an export tax. This will cripple the clothing industries and make British mills prosper. Finally, the great inland waterways, the Mississippi, the Missouri, and the Ohio Rivers will be subject to Southern tolls"

Philadelphia Press, 18 March 1861


16)"...The government...is bound to collect the revenue duties on every ship which enters a Southern port. Its revenue cutters can and will hover out of reach of the shore guns round the mouth of the ports, and compel the payment of the Federal tribute...."

The Living Age, Boston, 23 March 1861


17)"...That either the revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the port must be closed to importations from abroad, is generally admitted. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe. There will be nothing to furnish means of subsistence to the army; nothing to keep our navy afloat; nothing to pay the salaries of public officers; the present order of things must come to a dead stop...."

New York Evening Post, March 1861


18)"The predicament in which both the Government and the commerce of the country are placed, through the non-enforcement of our revenue laws, is now thoroughly understood....If the manufacturer at Manchester [England] can send his goods into the Western States through New Orleans at less cost than through New York, he is a fool for not availing himself of his advantage....If the importations of the country are made through Southern ports, its exports will go through the same channel. The produce of the West, instead of coming to our own ports by the millions of tons, to be transported abroad by the same ships through which we received our importations, will seek other routes and other outlets. With the loss of our foreign trade, what is to become of our public works, conducted at the cost of many hundred millions of dollars, to turn into our harbor the products of the interior? They share in the common ruin. So do our manufacturers....Once at New Orleans, goods may be distributed over the whole country duty free....

We were divided and confused till our pockets were touched..."

New York Times, 30 March 1861

[samgrant]

In the Battle of the Editorials, by my own count, Cash still leads Battalion 22 to 18 at the end of the 1st Quarter.

[unionblue]

Battalion,

In the title of this thread, in that it depicts THE cause of the Civil War, I am in complete agreement with you.

Four million slaves valued at four billions of dollars plus the amount in dollars value rendered at extremely low cost for maintence, clothing, food and shelter minus the money that was not paid them for such labor.

By 1860, the dollar value of slave property is greater than the dollar value of ALL of American railroads, ALL of America's banks, ALL of America's manufacturing put together.

This also does not take into account the millions earned by the products produced by this valuable enslaved labor force, which accounted for the most valuable cash crop produced during the pre Civil War days, cotton.

Did you realize that the American South by 1860 produces seven eighths of the world's cotton? That's the equivalent of OPEC today and oil production.

But again, this does not take into account other cash crops produced by the valuable, enslaved, labor force, such as sugar, rice, hemp, tabacco, etc., & etc.

The following information at this website might help with this view also:

http://faculty.weber.edu/kmackay/sel..._slavery_i.htm

Yes, I am inclined to agree with you, Money; THE Cause, with a side order of greed at the expense of human suffering. Those that had the most to lose, definately left the Union over the over-riding, all consuming, all important issue of money.

Good luck with your new thread and I hope you explore every aspect of this point of view.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

[cash]

In the Battle of the Editorials, by my own count, Cash still leads Battalion 22 to 18 at the end of the 1st Quarter.

I would point out that my quotes came from those who actually led the way in secession and in the war. They weren't sitting in armchairs in newspaper offices guessing what policy should be. They were the ones determining the policy, and they were the ones who were determining the policy for the side that actually started the war.

Regards,
Cash

[Battalion]

19)"...after Boston, Chicago has been the chief instrument in bringing war on this country. The Northwest has opposed the South as New England has opposed the South. It is you who are largely responsible for making the blood flow as it has.

You called for war until we had it....

Go home and raise your six thousand extra men. And you, Medill, you are acting like a coward. You and your Tribune have had more influence than any paper in the Northwest in making this war. You can influence great masses, and yet you cry to be spared at a moment when your cause is suffering. Go home and send us those men!"

....- Abraham Lincoln to a delegation from Chicago (sent to Washington to protest a call for more troops). The delegation included Joseph Medill editor of the Tribune.

[Battalion]

20)"...every bill will be passed which they can pass and may deem necessary to strengthen the arm of Government and to enable Mr. Lincoln to enforce payment of revenue at Southern ports or to blockade them..."

Clement C. Clay, 7 January 1861




21) "They [the South] know that it is their import trade that draws from the people's pockets sixty or seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interest.... These are the reasons why these people do not wish the South to secede from the Union. They [the North] are enraged at the prospect of being despoiled of the rich feast upon which they have so long fed and fattened, and which they were just getting ready to enjoy with still greater gout and gusto. They are as mad as hornets because the prize slips them just as they are ready to grasp it."


New Orleans Daily Crescent, January 21, 1861




22)"... the mask [of protecting slavery] has been thrown off and it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding states are now for commercial independence. They dream that the centres of traffic can be changed from Northern to Southern ports. The merchants of New Orleans, Charleston, and Savannah are possesed of the idea that New York, Boston, and Philadelphia may be shorn, in the future, of their mercantile greatness, by a revenue system verging on free trade....The government would be false if this state of things were not provided against."


Boston Transcript, March 18, 1861





23) GOODS ENTERING FREE AT ST. LOUIS.
The St. Louis Republican, of the 23d says: "Every day our importers of foreign merchandise are receiving, by way of New Orleans, very considerable quantities of goods, duty free. The goods are landed at the port of New Orleans-no Custom-house notice is taken of them-no bonds are executed for the payment of duties on their arrival there; and on many articles the saving of one half the duty only, would afford a handsome profit. If this thing is to become permanent, there will be an entire revolution in the course of trade, and New York will suffer terribly. Our merchants have capital enough to justify them in making their purchases in Europe, and shipping to New Orleans, and in that city, because of the difference in the tariff, goods can be bought cheaper than in New York. With these advantages, we shall be able to sell cheaper than any other city in the Valley of the Mississippi."

Harper's Weekly, 6 April 1861.

[unionblue]

Battalion,

I'm confused. How does the above post conerning the draft and the Tribune fit into, 'Money; THE Cause?' theme?

Curious,
Unionblue

[Battalion]

Battalion,

I'm confused. How does the above post conerning the draft and the Tribune fit into, 'Money; THE Cause?' theme?

Curious,
Unionblue

I think it has something to do with the previous post and the subject of those that influence public policy.

[Battalion]

24) "Free trade is the soul and life of a people without manufactures, and dependent on the soil for their support, and, with the exception of sugar, the South could and would adopt free trade, which would add greatly to their prosperity. It would force that system on the North, and thus cripple the Eastern manufactories, while it would swell the trade of Charleston, Mobile and New Orleans vastly, as great ports of entry, and in proportion as their trade increased, the commerce of Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, would decrease. The spring trade of Philadelphia is almost exclusively confined to the Southern States. Nearly one half of the jobbing of New York is done with Southern retailers and sub jobbers. Boston depends to a great extent on the Southern and Cuba trade, while the shoe-mongers of Lynn would starve out were it not for the Southern trade, a fact fully proven by the disasters they are now experiencing from a partial suspension of that traffic."

Evening Patriot, Madison, WI, 21 February 1861

[unionblue]

Battalion,

The previous post? Does it concern itself with a specific Tribune article or editorial? Your previous posts have been quite long and detailed. Mind giving me a post number so I can check it out?

Sincerely,
Unionblue

[samgrant]

With only a few minutes left in the 2nd Quarter, Battalion has moved ahead of Cash 24 to 22 in the Battle of the Editorials. Oh, to be a fly on the walls of those halftime locker rooms! This looks to be a smash-mouth battle to the end.

[ole]

Let's see if I can make the cut and paste work:

Volume II
AMERICAN WAR. Speech II.
ROCHDALE, NOVEMBER 24, 1863.[At the general election of 1859, Mr. Cobden was returned for the borough of Rochdale, and sat for this town during the rest of his life. The following was one of his annual addresses to his constituents.]

Pertinent excerpt:
I have travelled--and it is for this that I am now going to mention, that I touch upon the subject at all--I travelled in the United States in 1859, the year before the fatal shot was fired at Fort Sumter, which has made such terrible reverberations since. I travelled in the United States--I visited Washington during the session of the Congress, and wherever I go, and whenever I travel abroad, whether it be in France, America, Austria, or Russia, I at once become the centre of all those who form and who avow strong convictions and purposes in reference to Free_trade principles. Well, I confess to you what I confessed to my friends when I returned, that I felt disappointed, when I was at Washington in the spring of 1859, that there was so little interest felt on the Free_trade question
There was no party formed, no public agitation; there was no discussion whatever upon the subject of Free Trade and protection. The political field was wholly occupied by one question, and that question was Slavery.
Now, I will mention an illustrative fact, which I have not seen referred to. To my mind, it is conclusive on this subject. In December, 1860, whilst Congress was sitting, and when the country was in the agony of suspense, fearing the impending rupture amongst them, a committee of their body, comprising thirty_three members, being one representative from every State then in the Union,--that committee, called the Committee of Thirty_three, sat from December 11th, 1860, to January 14th, 1861. They were instructed by Congress to inquire into the perilous state of the Union, and try to devise some means by which the catastrophe of a secession could be averted. Here is a report of the proceedings in that committee [holding up a book in his hand]. I am afraid there is not another report in this country. I have reason to know so. There are forty pages. I have read every line.
The members from the Southern States, the representatives of the Slave States, were invited by the representatives of the Free States to state candidly and frankly what were the terms they required, in order that they might continue peaceable in the Union; but in every page you see their propositions brought forward, and from beginning to end there is not one syllable said about tariff or taxation. From the beginning to end there is not a grievance alleged but that which was connected with the maintenance of slavery.
There were propositions calling on the North to give increased security for the maintenance of that institution; they are invited to extend the area of slavery; to make laws, by which fugitive slaves might be given up; they are pressed to make treaties with foreign Powers, by which foreign Powers might give up fugitive slaves; but, from beginning to end, no grievance is mentioned except connected with slavery,--it is slavery, slavery, slavery, from the beginning to the end.
Is it not astonishing, in the face of facts like these, that any one should have the temerity, so little regard to decency and self_respect, as to get up in the House of Commons, and say that secession has been upon a question of Free Trade and Protection? Well, this is a war to perpetuate and extend human slavery. It is a war not to defend slavery as it was left by their ancestors--I mean, a thing to be retained and to be apologised for,--it is a war to establish a slave empire,--a war in which slavery shall be made the cornerstone of the social system,--a war which shall be defended and justified on scriptural and on ethnological grounds.
Well, I say, God pardon the men, who, in this year of grace 1863, should think that such a project as that could be crowned with success. Now, you know that I have, from the first, never believed it possible that the South should succeed; and I have founded that faith mainly upon moral instincts, which teach us to repudiate the very idea that anything so infamous should succeed. No; it is certain that in this world the virtues and the forces go together, and the vices and the weaknesses are inseparable. It is, therefore, that I felt certain that this project never could succeed. For how is it? There is a community with nearly half of its population slaves, and they were attempting to fight another community where every working man is a free man. It is as though Yorkshire and Lancashire were to enter into conflict, and it was understood that in the case of one, all the labourers who did the muscular work of the country, whether in the field or in the factory, whether in the roads or in the domestic establishments--in the one case, you would have that bone and muscle, the sinew of the country, eliminated from the fighting population, and not only eliminated from the fighting population, but ready to take advantage of this war, either to run away or fight against you.
How could we, so circumstanced, fighting against a neighbouring country, where every working man was fighting for his own--how could we have a chance, if our physical force was crippled, and we were devoid of all moral influences? That is the condition in which these two sections of the United States are now placed. In the one case, you have a condition in which labour is held honourable. Have we not heard it used as a reproach by some people, who fancy themselves in alliance with the aristocracy--some of our Ministers, who would lead us to suppose they are of the aristocratic order?
Now, we hear it used as an argument against the North, that their President, Mr. Lincoln, was a 'rail_splitter.' But what does that prove with regard to the United States, but that labour is held in honour in that country? And with such a conflict going on, and with such an example as I feel no doubt will follow, I cannot, if I speak of such a contest as that, say that it is a struggle for empire on the one side, and for independence on the other. I say it is an aristocratic rebellion against a democratic Government.
That is the title I would give to it; and in all history, when you have had the aristocracy pitted against the people, in a hand_to_hand contest, the aristocracy have always gone down under the heavy blows of the democracy. When I speak this, let no one say I am indifferent to the process of misery and destitution, and ruin and bloodshed, now going on in that country. No. My indignation against the South is, that they fired the first shot, and made themselves responsible for this result. I take, probably, a stronger view than most people in this country, and certainly a stronger view than anybody in America, of the vast sacrifices of life, and of economical comfort and resources, which must follow to the North from this struggle. They are mistaken if they think they can carry on a civil war like this, drawing a million men from their productive industry, to engage merely in a process of destruction, and spending their two or three hundred millions sterling--I say they are mistaken and deluded if they think they can carry on a war like that without a terrible collapse, sooner or later, and I am sure that there will be a great prostration in every part of the community. But that being so, makes me still more indignant and intolerant of the cause; but of the result I have no more doubt than I have on any subject that lies in the future.
And now I would ask you--why do some people wish that the United States should be cut up in two? They think it desirable that it should be weakened. Will that view bear discussion for a moment? I hold not. I am of the opinion which our statesmen held in the time of Canning, who thought it desirable for Europe that America should be strong; desirable that she should be strong, because it would thereby prevent European Powers from interfering in American affairs. American States which have not been so prosperous or so orderly as the United States. And now see what has followed. See what has happened already from this disruption of the United States.
You have France gone to Mexico; you have Spain gone to San Domingo..Why, there are horrors unutterable now going on in San Domingo, because Spain has gone and invaded that country with the view to re_conquest; and the French Government has embarked in a career in Mexico which I will only characterise as the greatest mistake committed by the monarch of that country. This enterprise would never have been undertaken if the United States had not been in the difficulties of this civil war; and it is the least creditable part of those enterprises that they have been undertaken because America was weak. But it only required that the North should have been a little weaker, and then these silly people would have been going about for an interference in America, and then they would have carried out their project, and you would have had France and other Powers going over to America to meddle in that quarrel.
Now, is that desirable? Don't you think we have enough to do at home? Do you think, now, that Europe has so much wisdom to spare in the management of her affairs, that she can afford to cross the Atlantic to set the new world in order?.......

There's more, but he talked on about European politics.This from an Englishman -- not a story teller or journalist, a member of Parliament.

Now for the silly editorial...
Ole

[ole]

Almost had it.

Late 1861, the editor of the "Louisville Courier" wrote:

"We are not the brothers of the Yankees, and the slavery question is merely the pretext, not the cause of the war. The true irrepressible conflict lies fundamentally in the hereditary hostility, the sacred animosity, the eternal antagonism between the two races engaged. The Norman cavalier can not brook the vulgar familiarity of the Saxon Yankee, while the latter is continuously devising some plan to bring down his aristocratic neighbor to his own detested level. Thus was the contest waged in the old United States… [and] when the Yankee hirelings placed one of their own spawn [Lincoln] over us, political connection became unendurable, and separation necessary to preserve our self-respect. As our Norman kinsmen in England, always a minority, have ruled their Saxon countrymen in political vassalage up to the present day, so have we, ‘the slave oligarchs,’ governed the Yankees till within a twelvemonth. We framed the Constitution, for seventy years moulded the policy of the government, and placed our own men, or ‘Northern men with Southern principles’ in power. On the 6th of November, 1860, the Puritans emancipated themselves, and are now in violent insurrection against their former overseers. This insane holiday freak will not last long, however, for, dastards in fight, and incapable of self-government, they will inevitably again fall under the control of the superior race. A few … thrashings will bring them once more under the yoke as docile as the most loyal of our Ethiopian Chattels.”

One common thing about all these editorials: they're fortune-telling talents were woefully inadquate.

Ole

[unionblue]

Battalion,

We've been down this same road before on a different thread of yours.

"We were divided and confused until our pockets were touched..."

http://civilwartalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24633

Thought it might help make it easier for you to find some old source and reference material for this new thread.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

[rock city guard]

I think all of this is great stuff, I have learned a ton. I think it should keep going. just my 2 cents worth.

Is there a site I can look at that has more editorials ?

[unionblue]

rock city guard,

Yes there is under this section of the forum.

Newspaper Articles of the day.

http://civilwartalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19415

Newspapers, Lincoln, Opinions, Oh My!

http://civilwartalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22028

Just browse through the page of this section of the forum and you will find all kinds of information, both pro Union and pro Confederate. Makes for great reading.

Sincerely,
Unionblue

[unionblue]

Battalion,

Found another old post of mine that concurs with your view that Money;THE Cause, is a good viewpoint when trying to determine the cause of the war.

http://civilwartalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24458

You will see that there are three web sites listed on this post which will explore the economics of the Civil War, the cost of the Civil War, and explore the idea of instead of using all that money to fight the war to use it instead to buy the slaves from the South.

Now, as to the last post, buying out the Confederacy, I wonder why the author of the article considers this point when he thinks buying such a valuable workforce would might have prevented the war?

Sincerely,
Unionblue

[larry_cockerham]

Why the connection of slavery to the war? Simple. Money!

[Battalion]

25) "The New York Journal of Commerce thinks it would probably be no exaggeration to estimate the number of persons thrown out of employment since election day 25,000, a large portion of whom are young women. One clothing establishment in New York has discharged 1,000 workmen; a hat establishment has discharged nearly 1,000; a saddlery firm has reduced its force about 500, and curtailment is very general. At Newark, especially, the crisis is severely felt, on account of their extensive connections with the Southern trade."

"OUT OF WORK.-- The Philadelphia Press, commenting on the effect of the panic, says that within six weeks not less than 15,000, and perhaps 20,000 persons in that city have unexpectedly been discharged from situations where they enjoyed the privilege of earning their bread by the sweat of their brows. Directly and indirectly, probably not less than 50,000 persons depended upon the exertion of these operatives for subsistence."

Banner of Liberty, December 1860


#2 bears a repeat here-

2) "...one of the principal reasons why the North is so resolved upon the continued vigorous prosecution of the war, is that her people now know by experience the inestimable value to them of the Southern trade....The mercantile marts of New England and the Middle States will be hopelessly ruined. Nothing can possibly save them except the recovery of that magnificent trade....the people of the North think their only chance of getting back Southern trade--or making our country evermore tributary to their growth and aggrandizement, is to conquer us, hold us as subject provinces, and compel us to resume the former channels of mercantile communication. They freely acknowledge that the war [secession/an independent South] injures them terribly..."

New Orleans Bee, 21 September 1861

[trice]

25) "The New York Journal of Commerce thinks it would probably be no exaggeration to estimate the number of persons thrown out of employment since election day 25,000, a large portion of whom are young women. One clothing establishment in New York has discharged 1,000 workmen; a hat establishment has discharged nearly 1,000; a saddlery firm has reduced its force about 500, and curtailment is very general. At Newark, especially, the crisis is severely felt, on account of their extensive connections with the Southern trade."

"OUT OF WORK.-- The Philadelphia Press, commenting on the effect of the panic, says that within six weeks not less than 15,000, and perhaps 20,000 persons in that city have unexpectedly been discharged from situations where they enjoyed the privilege of earning their bread by the sweat of their brows. Directly and indirectly, probably not less than 50,000 persons depended upon the exertion of these operatives for subsistence."

Banner of Liberty, December 1860


#2 bears a repeat here-

2) "...one of the principal reasons why the North is so resolved upon the continued vigorous prosecution of the war, is that her people now know by experience the inestimable value to them of the Southern trade....The mercantile marts of New England and the Middle States will be hopelessly ruined. Nothing can possibly save them except the recovery of that magnificent trade....the people of the North think their only chance of getting back Southern trade--or making our country evermore tributary to their growth and aggrandizement, is to conquer us, hold us as subject provinces, and compel us to resume the former channels of mercantile communication. They freely acknowledge that the war [secession/an independent South] injures them terribly..."

New Orleans Bee, 21 September 1861

Battalion,

Where people are involved, money is often an issue. What strikes me, though, is that you consistently find quotes that do not represent the mainstream view of the country and present them as if they prove your point. OTOH, you ignore the biggest "money" issue involved, the wealth Southerners had sunk into their "slave property" and apparently felt was in danger. Why is it that you feel Southern motivation is not one of "money" in creating this entire mess?

Tim