Common Misconceptions/Myths

[Saphroneth]

Some people may want to argue for secession under a claim of being a disinterested third party, but the proof is in the pudding.

I mean, I'm British. I'm quite happy to accept the idea that secession is illegal absent the positively established right for it; on that front, how are things in the Crown Colony of Connecticut?


(Yes, this is a joke.)


I do apologize for my use of the first person language which has in some sense 'betrayed' my true feelings, though as I note I tend to prefer thinking in terms of "What is it that is within the flex that people could believe at the time without being knowingly hypocritical?"

For example, on a different contemporary controversial topic, the idea that slavery was less efficient than free-soil farming seems to founder on the fact that slavery was at least generating quite significant wealth for the slave owners at the time; with this in mind we can see why people at the time wanted to avoid the expansion of slavery for fear of economic competition, but arguments based on it being inefficient (made by Adam Smith, among others) would seem to indicate that slave owners should in general be losing money and going bust.
However, I don't think that that means that abolitionists were hypocritical to make that argument; I think it means that when close to an issue it's harder to see the inconsistencies within your own arguments.


I could make an example of a modern controversial topic as well, but I'd rather not because such topics are modern and controversial. In so far as it's possible, when trying to understand why people might think something I try to be permissive towards those arguments, because I am not judging the argument on morality but on "why would people think this?"

 

[CW Buff]

I think the thing to remember is that there have been some pretty out-there interpretations of the law* which have been sincerely held by the people holding them - and that includes some very legally knowledgeable people. Consequently, and given that looking at the text of the Constitution I can see where the argument comes from, I can understand why people might sincerely believe either that they had the legal right to unilateral secession or that the framers of the constitution would not have signed it if they believed that secession was not legal.

Consequently I would at the most accuse them of thesis-driven research (i.e. reading the law trying to find a pro-secession view) rather than deliberately going against clear law.


One only needs to look at modern legal controversies to see the kind of diverging views people can hold.

* measured relative to other conflicting interpretations of the same law

Can we admit they were wrong, chalk it up to some kind of mass hysteria, or does someone want to actually demonstrate how secession complies with the Supremacy Clause? I mean, as far as contemporary secessionists honestly believing in secession, these are the same people who honestly believed in the positive moral good of slavery, after their forefathers, who they presumed to be emulating, had collectively condemned it as no better than a necessary evil. And on the whole, they flip-flopped from:

"The people of Mississippi in Convention assembled, as expressive of their deliberate judgment on the great questions involved in the sectional controversy between the slave holding and non-slave holding States of the American Union, adopt the following resolutions: . . . 4th. Resolved, further, That, in the opinion of this Convention, the asserted right of secession from the Union on the part of a State or States is utterly unsanctioned by the Federal Constitution, which was framed to "establish" and not to destroy the Union of the States, and that no secession, can, in fact, take place without a subversion of the Union established, and which will not virtually amount in its effects and consequences to a civil revolution." -- Mississippi Convention of 1851

to

"In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course. . . . Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England. Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it." -- Declaration of Causes (Mississippi convention of 1861)

As another member pointed out, the 4th Resolution in the first quote was adopted by a vote of 73-17 just 10 years before another state convention presumed to have seceded from the United States.

There were instigators, and there dupes. At best what we have is a case of mass self-delusion, and seeing how the result was the loss of 700,000 lives, I don't see how sugar-coating that or denying it or excusing it or ignoring it helps anything, except maybe a point of pride.

 

[Viper21]

Gentlemen. The topic of this thread is, Common Misconceptions/Myths, while the current discussion of Secession, may have been brought under this topic, in depth discussion of Secession is relegated to a specific forum for discussion. I humbly ask that y'all continue your in depth discussion of that topic, in it's proper forum. There is nothing preventing any of you from starting another thread there. Thank You.

You'll find the Secession Forum here ---> https://civilwartalk.com/forums/SecessionTalk/

 

[Saphroneth]

Understood.


I'll instead bring up something else entirely, which is that I think a surprisingly common misconception is that McClellan was directly replaced by Grant in command of the Union army in the East. This is not a thing that comes up on this forum much, but it turns up in the newspapers quite often whenever they reach for a metaphor about the firing of a general.


From an article on the subject:


Invoking a common comparison, the timidity of McClellan contrasted with the killer instinct of Ulysses S. Grant, one op-ed writer queried acidly, "Is this the sour grapes of a failed McClellan shown up by a U. S. Grant?" "McClellan," the writer continued, "was famously fired by President Lincoln after being repeatedly outwitted by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in the Civil War. Once Gen. Ulysses S. Grant was placed in charge, things soon turned around—kind of like Iraq today under Gen. David Petraeus."


When General Stanley McChrystal replaced General David McKiernan as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan in June 2009, Investor's Business Daily compared McKiernan's relief favorably to Grant's replacement of McClellan. "Changing commanders in the middle of a war is sometimes a necessary prelude to victory," noted the editorial. "Union fortunes were bleak in the summer of 1864 until President Abraham Lincoln sacked the pedestrian Gen. George McClellan and chose Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to command Union forces and pointed Gen. William T. Sherman toward Atlanta."



In the 1964 movie In Harm's Way, one Admiral Broderick (Dana Andrews) fails to drive the Japanese from a key island in the South Pacific, complaining that he has an inadequate number of troops and aircraft. "CINCPAC II," a thinly veiled version of Admiral Chester W. Nimitz played by Henry Fonda, summons Rear Admiral Rockwell Torrey (John Wayne) to his headquarters. After reviewing Broderick's overcaution, CINCPAC II lectures Torrey: "Lincoln once found himself in the same predicament with General George B. McClellan. McClellan was a great little organizer but he couldn't make up his mind when to fight. And indecision is a virus that can run through an army and destroy its will to win or even to survive. Lincoln called in a hard-headed Yankee named Grant. And Grant didn't give a **** about organization but neither was he afflicted with the virus. He just pointed his battalions in the right direction and shoved off." "Torrey," he concludes, "you're going to be my Grant." Sure enough, Torrey gets the job done in short order.




As Grimsley notes:





Myths matter because of the lessons they teach, and at the most basic level the standard retelling of the Lincoln-McClellan relationship, which I suggest is in large part a mythic retelling, functions as a powerful object lesson, frequently invoked for two main purposes. The first is the need for boldness in war. Pundits often cite McClellan's timidity as the reason Lincoln sacked him in November 1862, and they sometimes mangle history to underscore the need for aggressiveness. They forget that Lincoln replaced McClellan with the bungling Major General Ambrose E. Burnside, as that hardly makes the desired point. Thus the Investor's Business Daily 2009 editorial on President Barack Obama's replacement of General Stanley McChrystal with General David Petraeus simply skipped two years of intervening history and declared Grant replaced McClellan in 1864."

 

[CW Buff]

I mean, I'm British. I'm quite happy to accept the idea that secession is illegal absent the positively established right for it; on that front, how are things in the Crown Colony of Connecticut?


(Yes, this is a joke.)


I do apologize for my use of the first person language which has in some sense 'betrayed' my true feelings, though as I note I tend to prefer thinking in terms of "What is it that is within the flex that people could believe at the time without being knowingly hypocritical?"

For example, on a different contemporary controversial topic, the idea that slavery was less efficient than free-soil farming seems to founder on the fact that slavery was at least generating quite significant wealth for the slave owners at the time; with this in mind we can see why people at the time wanted to avoid the expansion of slavery for fear of economic competition, but arguments based on it being inefficient (made by Adam Smith, among others) would seem to indicate that slave owners should in general be losing money and going bust.
However, I don't think that that means that abolitionists were hypocritical to make that argument; I think it means that when close to an issue it's harder to see the inconsistencies within your own arguments.


I could make an example of a modern controversial topic as well, but I'd rather not because such topics are modern and controversial. In so far as it's possible, when trying to understand why people might think something I try to be permissive towards those arguments, because I am not judging the argument on morality but on "why would people think this?"

It doesn't matter where you're from. I seen individuals from the most northern regions of the US advocate secession, viz-a-viz the ACW, if not in a modern sense. It appeals to a certain mindset.

Joke or not, you've made the reference to the American Revolution before. And as @thomas aagaard tried to point out before, the colonists openly declared the fact that they were pursuing the moral right to revolution for just cause, not some presumed constitutionally sanctioned method of withdrawal.

If attributed something to you unfairly, I apologize. I'll simply accept the first person was used inadvertantly.

We seem to to be addressing the same point. And we are talking past each other at this point, posting replies at the same time. My last post presents my understanding a la "the flex that people could believe at the time without being knowingly hypocritical." As @Piedone tried to explain to me, we are probably more on the same page than I realized. However, based on the cost of the ACW, I do believe that the validity of their beliefs must be assessed together with the actual belief.

That slave owners could not part with slavery does not mean that it was as or more efficient than free labor. They were invested in it, to the tune of $1,000 per slave (so the contemporary belief went, I don't believe it was nearly that much on average). They could not part with it because most of their wealth was sunk into it. As per the MI declaration, $4 bollion (again, not actually that much, perhaps only $3 billion). They had, as Jefferson described it, a wolf by the ears (meaning they were riding a wolf, and holding on by its ears, which by the rather flawed logic somehow suggests that the wolf can't turn on you -- but Jefferson may have also been thinking of Santo Domingo). In addition, work on cotton plantations was not very desirable, and what would have happened if their employees were free to seek other work.

At any rate, my apologies for any false assumptions on my part, and I look forward to future discussions.

 

[Saphroneth]

That slave owners could not part with slavery does not mean that it was as or more efficient than free labor. They were invested in it, to the tune of $1,000 per slave (so the contemporary belief went, I don't believe it was nearly that much on average). They could not part with it because most of their wealth was sunk into it. As per the MI declaration, $4 bollion (again, not actually that much, perhaps only $3 billion). They had, as Jefferson described it, a wolf by the ears (meaning they were riding a wolf, and holding on by its ears, which by the rather flawed logic somehow suggests that the wolf can't turn on you -- but Jefferson may have also been thinking of Santo Domingo). In addition, work on cotton plantations was not very desirable, and what would have happened if their employees were free to seek other work.

I think the question is more that, if slavery was less efficient than free labour, it rather raises the question as to why they were so wealthy to begin with, unless they were making money by other means.

If on the other hand more money could have been generated by the same number of free-soil farmers, we should expect to see the free soil farms generating a lot of money in and of themselves.

Now, I think what's going on here is that there's an amount of labour which is being expended by (say) 40 slaves, and an amount of labour being expended by (say) 41 free-soil farmers, and it would take some more careful analysis to see which amount of labour was larger. I don't think however that it can be contested that the slave owner is getting more total benefit from the labour of those 40 slaves than he would have by being free-soiler 41 - even if the farm is not in fact a cotton plantation, since cotton planting while common was not the only form of slave field labour. (Itself, perhaps, a misconception).

My view is that slavery persisted and was considered in danger of expansion at least in part because it was a system which economically functioned, or did so well enough to persist.

Hmm... it'd be interesting to compare cotton production before and after the Civil War in an area of land with comparable population density, number of people working in the fields, and area under cotton cultivation. I know absolute cotton production in the US was pretty high for decades thereafter, of course; the trick is avoiding confounding variables like "new agricultural machine introduced".

 

[archieclement]

I think the question is more that, if slavery was less efficient than free labour, it rather raises the question as to why they were so wealthy to begin with, unless they were making money by other means.

If on the other hand more money could have been generated by the same number of free-soil farmers, we should expect to see the free soil farms generating a lot of money in and of themselves.

Now, I think what's going on here is that there's an amount of labour which is being expended by (say) 40 slaves, and an amount of labour being expended by (say) 41 free-soil farmers, and it would take some more careful analysis to see which amount of labour was larger. I don't think however that it can be contested that the slave owner is getting more total benefit from the labour of those 40 slaves than he would have by being free-soiler 41 - even if the farm is not in fact a cotton plantation, since cotton planting while common was not the only form of slave field labour. (Itself, perhaps, a misconception).

My view is that slavery persisted and was considered in danger of expansion at least in part because it was a system which economically functioned, or did so well enough to persist.

Hmm... it'd be interesting to compare cotton production before and after the Civil War in an area of land with comparable population density, number of people working in the fields, and area under cotton cultivation. I know absolute cotton production in the US was pretty high for decades thereafter, of course; the trick is avoiding confounding variables like "new agricultural machine introduced".

The real trick would be look at cost of slave and upkeep for say 30 years, compared to paying free market wages for 30 years and which is more cost effective......though that comparison wouldn't be all that applicable to larger plantations.

Nor would it account for other factors in favor of slavery

 

[Piedone]

I did some reading lastly and came upon a somehow interesting idea:
There´s the thesis that plantation economy resembled the first society thoroughly shaped by capitalism - in disregard of any social or moral limitations - following the sole principle of producing wealth for the proprietors and investors.
And they said it was pretty successful that way - allowing the planter´s class to accumulate a tremendous wealth.
They even drew the conclusion that plantation economy was everything but inefficient - using their "human property" as banking security they could obtain nearly unlimited credit, something competing companies that paid wages to their workforce could not do.
I remember @wausabob contributed in another thread that the business competition of slave owners in the developing West was dreaded...

 

[Piedone]

though as I note I tend to prefer thinking in terms of "What is it that is within the flex that people could believe at the time without being knowingly hypocritical?"

That´s exactly what I am also trying to find out - but I got the impression that it´s sometimes hard to make others believe that stance is authentic.
There seems to be a certain tendency to distinguish only between people being critical towards the South and "Lost Causers" and to class everyone into one of those two categories....

 

[Saphroneth]

That´s exactly what I am also trying to find out - but I got the impression that it´s sometimes hard to make others believe that stance is authentic.
There seems to be a certain tendency to distinguish only between people being critical towards the South and "Lost Causers" and to class everyone into one of those two categories....

I mean, I think McClellan could have won the war. That more than anything else exposes how that dichotomy can't cover all the possible angles...

 

[archieclement]

I did some reading lastly and same upon a somehow interesting idea:
There´s the thesis that plantation economy resembled the first society thoroughly shaped by capitalism - in disregard of any social or moral limitations - following the sole principle of producing wealth for the proprietors and investors.
And they said it was pretty successful that way - allowing the planter´s class to accumulate a tremendous wealth.
They even drew the conclusion that plantation economy was everything but inefficient - using their "human property" as banking security they could obtain nearly unlimited credit, something competing companies that paid wages to their workforce could not do.
I remember @wausabob contributed in another thread that the business competition of slave owners in the developing West was dreaded...

That's what I meant earlier in a 30yr comparison wouldn't really apply to large plantations as their is no initial cost for the slaves as they are self reproducing...

And in not accounting for other factors, in the slave is also an economic asset also, and slave prices were generally increasing over time.

Say in free labor a 10 man work force may have to fire 5 to cut costs. The slave work force, simply selling one could offset the costs and prevent having to let more go

Its the same as is one better renting horses for 30 years, or owning them where they become an investment, equity, and another source of income?

 

[Piedone]

Indeed...some bleak examples in our times may illustrate how very well brutal exploitation of indentured workers goes with massive profits. I am somehow convinced that plantations would have thrived as long as they could have found a cash crop - as long as they couldn´t be economically produced and harvested by mechanical devices.

 

[Saphroneth]

Indeed...some bleak examples in our times may illustrate how very well brutal exploitation of indentured workers goes with massive profits. I am somehow convinced that plantations would have thrived as long as they could have found a cash crop - as long as they couldn´t be economically produced and harvested by mechanical devices.

I think the things to remember are:

- Not all slave enterprises were plantations. (There were also manufactories, for example, as well as large conventional farms.)
- Not all slaves worked in large slave enterprises. (Many of them worked on small farms - Grant's farm being one example - or in household duties etc.)
- Systems of coerced and unfree labour still exist and function today.

 

[Quaama]

It doesn't matter where you're from. I seen individuals from the most northern regions of the US advocate secession, viz-a-viz the ACW, if not in a modern sense. It appeals to a certain mindset.

Joke or not, you've made the reference to the American Revolution before. And as @thomas aagaard tried to point out before, the colonists openly declared the fact that they were pursuing the moral right to revolution for just cause, not some presumed constitutionally sanctioned method of withdrawal.

If attributed something to you unfairly, I apologize. I'll simply accept the first person was used inadvertantly.

We seem to to be addressing the same point. And we are talking past each other at this point, posting replies at the same time. My last post presents my understanding a la "the flex that people could believe at the time without being knowingly hypocritical." As @Piedone tried to explain to me, we are probably more on the same page than I realized. However, based on the cost of the ACW, I do believe that the validity of their beliefs must be assessed together with the actual belief.

That slave owners could not part with slavery does not mean that it was as or more efficient than free labor. They were invested in it, to the tune of $1,000 per slave (so the contemporary belief went, I don't believe it was nearly that much on average). They could not part with it because most of their wealth was sunk into it. As per the MI declaration, $4 bollion (again, not actually that much, perhaps only $3 billion). They had, as Jefferson described it, a wolf by the ears (meaning they were riding a wolf, and holding on by its ears, which by the rather flawed logic somehow suggests that the wolf can't turn on you -- but Jefferson may have also been thinking of Santo Domingo). In addition, work on cotton plantations was not very desirable, and what would have happened if their employees were free to seek other work.

At any rate, my apologies for any false assumptions on my part, and I look forward to future discussions.

Jefferson Davis also relied upon "just cause" in addition to a "constitutionally sanctioned method of withdrawal" in his inaugural address when he said:
"our career as a Confederacy may not be obstructed by hostile opposition to our enjoyment of the separate existence and independence which we have asserted";
Our present condition, achieved in a manner unprecedented in the history of nations, illustrates the American idea that governments rest upon the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish governments whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established; and
"But, if this be denied to us, and the integrity of our territory and jurisdiction be assailed, it will but remain for us, with firm resolve, to appeal to arms and invoke the blessings of Providence on a just cause."

 

[Saphroneth]

This has reminded me of an interesting misconception, which is the misconception about what the Anaconda plan actually was.


There was no formal plan which was labelled "the Anaconda plan" by the drafters. Instead, Scott's then-current plan for subduing the Confederacy was labelled "Scott's Anaconda" by the newspapers.
That plan was to defeat the Confederacy by blockade only, and for the only offensive campaigns to consist of:

1) A column of men (at first he says 60,000 men, then 80,000) fighting their way down the Mississippi to take control of it. (Note, down, not up.) This would start in November 1861.
2) The navy to blockade the South.

Scott expected that this would not require a large number of troops to be raised, and that it could be done without waging any kind of offensive war in the east. They would just blockade by land and sea, and then wait for the South to come to their senses.

Functionally this was never even tried. The idea was being floated in May, and McDowell's "Bull Run Campaign" was not in keeping with the idea; subsequently Scott and McClellan argued over what should be done (Scott favouring an offensive down the Mississippi only) and McClellan won out.


The only element of the Anaconda plan which was followed was the naval blockade, and that was basically because it's not like the Navy was going to do anything else, now...

 

[Piedone]

I think the things to remember are:

- Not all slave enterprises were plantations. (There were also manufactories, for example, as well as large conventional farms.)
- Not all slaves worked in large slave enterprises. (Many of them worked on small farms - Grant's farm being one example - or in household duties etc.)
- Systems of coerced and unfree labour still exist and function today.

Yes, you are absolutely right.
I am currently reading "Slaves in the Family" by Edward Ball (which I can really recommend by the way....but most probably you know it already...)
- where it became clear how cheap it was to build any desired structure (houses, barns, mills...) with the use of forced labour in the South - resulting in such structures being way more expensive in the North.
Most of that luxurious residences eg. were seemingly built and artfully decorated by enslaved carpenters. Their owners had only to pay for the building material...
Maybe they ran into problems with highly sophisticated structures (like steam-driven factories) - but even then there were enslaved blacksmiths (especially in the Upper South) as I read in another thread.

 

[Saphroneth]

And this one's persistent enough that I think it's worth mentioning. The idea that McClellan was prone to retreat.


I will certainly concede that there are occasions when McClellan is static, and in fact that there are many of them - though I'd argue it's nothing unusual for any Civil War general in command of an army, since they were all static for significant periods of time. But what you will not find in McClellan's career is any significant number of retreats, in fact there's only one true retrograde movement each on the operational and strategic levels and the latter was one he actively argued against.

(If anyone's keeping score, the operational level retrograde movement is the Seven Days and the strategic level one is the pull back from Harrisons Landing to northern Virginia.)

You can get to a third if you consider the movement back to Washington post Second Bull Run to count.


The reason why I put it that way is that while tactical retreats (i.e. movements to the rear on a single battlefield) do happen more than that, it also starts to get a little silly because you can parse out a failed assault as a retreat. The retreats which matter to an amy commander are the ones on a wider scale than that.

 

[Piedone]

Maybe that´s another misconception? The traditional picture of the South represents only the plantations (in the main)
(although it is undisputed that they were broadly the decisive factor in Southern economy...)

 

[Saphroneth]

Maybe that´s another misconception? The traditional picture of the South represents only the plantations (in the main)
(although it is undisputed that they were broadly the decisive factor in Southern economy...)

They were kind of the key driver of the American economy. The cotton crop made up 60% of exports, plus a lot of it was used domestically in textile mills (mostly in the North); given that the country imported something like a third of their iron from British manufactories and felt they needed significant tariff walls to protect their manufacturing industry, it's cotton (i.e. a plantation crop) which is the American USP.

 

[Piedone]

And this one's persistent enough that I think it's worth mentioning. The idea that McClellan was prone to retreat.


I will certainly concede that there are occasions when McClellan is static, and in fact that there are many of them - though I'd argue it's nothing unusual for any Civil War general in command of an army, since they were all static for significant periods of time. But what you will not find in McClellan's career is any significant number of retreats, in fact there's only one true retrograde movement each on the operational and strategic levels and the latter was one he actively argued against.

(If anyone's keeping score, the operational level retrograde movement is the Seven Days and the strategic level one is the pull back from Harrisons Landing to northern Virginia.)

You can get to a third if you consider the movement back to Washington post Second Bull Run to count.


The reason why I put it that way is that while tactical retreats (i.e. movements to the rear on a single battlefield) do happen more than that, it also starts to get a little silly because you can parse out a failed assault as a retreat. The retreats which matter to an amy commander are the ones on a wider scale than that.

I deem there´s much truth in your idea.
The alleged incompetence of northern generals in the East is in general maybe exaggerated.
McClellans peninsula campaign most probably would likely have resulted in a crushing victory against Joseph E. Johnston´s troops.
And even after Lee took command he had to pay a dreadful price in the Seven Days to break up Mc Clellans offensive.