California: The Prize of Secession and the following War of Southern Aggression

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James Lutzweiler

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Mar 14, 2018
When I taught American history (1492--present) a decade or so ago, I used to begin my discussion of of the Civil War with a Rohrschach polling of my students. I asked them: What is the first state that comes to your mind, when I say the words "Civil War"? Invariably they would say things like South Carolina, North Carolina (where I taught), Virginia, Georgia, or even northern states like Massachusetts and New York. Of all of them, totally saturated with grade school drivel, not one student ever mentioned California; but at the conclusion of the poll, I did. I told them that the reason they named the states that they did is because that is where most of the battles were fought, i.e., in the eastern United States. I told them what the war was really about was the prize of California, that after all was said and done it was a war for real estate, a war for soil more than slavery --not excluding slavery, of course, but just more over soil than slaves. South Carolina's Declarations about slavery was just a cheerleading pretext for the South to do something it had wanted to do for thirty previous years. California was clearly and simply the prize both sides were fighting for, as that Golden State possessed ports on the Pacific for trade with Peking that both sides were striving for in order to achieve permanent commercial hegemony. The war was really not much different than the American Revolution, when the Colonists were disgusted with Britain's monopoly on tea and other trade, and so the war was on. Right after the conclusion of the war, one of the first things the new states did was to engage in the trade with China. As Don Doyle points in his fine book, The Cause of All Nations, by late 1864 into early 1865, Jefferson Davis and others were ready to throw in the towel on slavery, if only the Union would let them go in peace. Lincoln, an old land surveyor like the "Father of His Country" (who according to one wag said was also "the father of Governor Posey of Indiana"), said "No deal." The clear implication of this Confederate capitulation was --and still is-- that simple independence was the core goal of the seceding states.

To pre-empt one complaint against this view, it is true that I do not recall seeing the words "California" or "China" in the Secession declarations of any of the states. I could be wrong, as I am going by recall rather than re-reading them all. However, California is clearly in view in light of the frequent reference to "western territories" in these Declarations. It is axiomatic that the South had no intention of stopping with New Mexico and Arizona, to say nothing of Colorado, Nevada, and Utah. But most of all: California.

Are there other posters out there who agree with me?

James
 
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