Questions for those more educated than I am on this issue

David Ireland

Corporal
Joined
Nov 29, 2017
1. Can anyone point out where in the official secession documents, associated legislative proceedings, or otherwise associated contexts that the southerners proclaimed that trade policies (tariffs) were the reason for their secession? I can find very little.

2. Can anyone find other examples of federal overreaches/unconstitutional actions taken by the federal government that the southerners expressly said were their reasons for disunion? Obviously, federal power did in fact expand pretty drastically in the antebellum period, but I want to know if specifics were given as justification for secession. In Lincoln's first inaugural address, he asked them to do so. Did they?

3. What was the southern rebuttal to Lincoln's Cooper Union Speech where he justified the prohibition of slavery in the territories based on precedents set by the founders?

4. Was there a refusal to admit new slave states into the union, or just a prohibition on slavery in the territories?

5. Where can proof of the right to unilateral secession be found in the founding era? Ie, where can it be proven that states can just leave on their own discretion, without the consent of the rest of the union? Is there a southern rebuttal to this,


"My opinion is that a reservation of a right to withdraw... is a conditional ratification... Compacts must be reciprocal... The Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever. It has been so adopted by the other States.”
— James Madison, letter to Alexander Hamilton (July 20, 1788), emphasis added.[8][9]
Hamilton and John Jay agreed with Madison's view, reserving "a right to withdraw [was] inconsistent with the Constitution, and was no ratification."[10] At the outset of the Poughkeepsie convention, anti-Federalists held a strong majority. The tide turned when word arrived that New Hampshire and Virginia had said yes to the Constitution, at which point anti-Federalists proposed a compromise: they would vote to ratify, but if the new federal government failed to embrace various reforms that they favored, "there should be reserved to the state of New York a right to withdraw herself from the union after a certain number of years.”] Federalists emphatically opposed the compromise. In doing so, they made clear to everyone -- in New York and in the 12 other states where people were following the New York contest with interest -- that the Constitution did not permit unilateral state secession. Alexander Hamilton read aloud a letter at the Poughkeepsie convention that he had received from James Madison stating that "the Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever." Hamilton and John Jay then added their own words, which the New York press promptly reprinted: "a reservation of a right to withdraw" was "inconsistent with the Constitution, and was no ratification. The New York convention ultimately ratified the Constitution without including the "right to withdraw" language proposed by the anti-federalists.

6. Where can proof be found that there was an agreement that a breach of the compact gave rise to a right of rescission?

7. Is there a northern equivalent to Albert Bledsoe's "Was Davis a Traitor?"

I'd love for heavy citation and facts!
 
1. Can anyone point out where in the official secession documents, associated legislative proceedings, or otherwise associated contexts that the southerners proclaimed that trade policies (tariffs) were the reason for their secession? I can find very little.

There aren't any I'm aware of. Several states were quite explicit in their justifications for secession that they were acting to protect themselves against what they saw as an existential threat to the "peculiar institution." They didn't hide it. Tension over slavery had been building for years, with loose talk of secession sprinkled here and there, but the election of Lincoln and the rise of "Black Republicans" in November 1860 was the tipping point. Here are the declarations of causes of secession for four of the early states to act -- Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas.

https://deadconfederates.com/causes-of-secession/

Mississippi was refreshingly succinct:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

5. Where can proof of the right to unilateral secession be found in the founding era? Ie, where can it be proven that states can just leave on their own discretion, without the consent of the rest of the union?

There's none in the Constitution, although plenty of opinions about how it might be "implied."
 
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There aren't any I'm aware of. Several states were quite explicit in their justifications for secession that they were acting to protect themselves against what they saw as an existential threat to the "peculiar institution." They didn't hide it. Tension over slavery had been building for years, with loose talk of secession sprinkled here and there, but the election of Lincoln and the rise of "Black Republicans" in November 1860 was the tipping point. Here are the declarations of causes of secession for four of the early states to act -- Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas.

https://deadconfederates.com/causes-of-secession/

Mississippi was refreshingly succinct:

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.



There's none in the Constitution, although plenty of opinions about how it might be "implied."


1. Yeah, I'm aware they talked primarily about slavery. But I'm wanting to see if there can be any proof submitted for the idea that the southerners had other EXPRESSED reasons, such as assumption of unconstitutional power, for their secession. I want to look at all the evidence.

2. Regarding unilateral secession, I'm aware of the absence of express provision in the Constitution, but I wonder if anyone can find any proof in the legislative history, speeches, ratification conventions both in the several states and in Philadelphia, etc, of a mutual agreement that unilateral secession (ie the right to withdraw at will, without a breach of the compact) was to be included.
 
David, there are about a bazillion threads here on the causes of secession and the legality of it. I (mostly) avoid them because no one's offered anything really new to ponder since c. 1867, but you'll find a lot to chew on using the CWT search tool.

Yeah I've done a lot of research myself too. I'm PRETTY MUCH of the belief that rescission/secession was allowable upon a breach of the compact, but of course there's always someone who knows more than you, and so I want to see if someone can show me something I haven't found.

Thanks for posting
 
1. Yeah, I'm aware they talked primarily about slavery. But I'm wanting to see if there can be any proof submitted for the idea that the southerners had other EXPRESSED reasons, such as assumption of unconstitutional power, for their secession. I want to look at all the evidence.

Oh, sure, there was lots of shouting about unconstitutional power, states' rights, and all the rest. But the slaveholding states didn't secede (and subsequently take up arms) because of an abstract principle of governance -- those are the philosophical justifications cited, not the actual, concrete thing that moved them to act. They saw the threat to slavery as a threat to their entire economic and social structure, and secession as the only way to protect themselves.

2. Regarding unilateral secession, I'm aware of the absence of express provision in the Constitution, but I wonder if anyone can find any proof in the legislative history, speeches, ratification conventions both in the several states and in Philadelphia, etc, of a mutual agreement that unilateral secession (ie the right to withdraw at will, without a breach of the compact) was to be included.

Again, there are TONS of speeches, arguments, editorials, and all the rest arguing for the legality of secession. The Constitution itself is silent on the matter.
 
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I think that every justification for secession that elides slavery is simply a euphemism for it.

"Tariffs," for example, is not just factually in error (76% of tariffs were collected in the port of New York and one of the highest levies was on sugar imports -- protectionism on behalf of Louisiana), but to the extent the impact on northern and southern states would have differed it would have been due to the differences in their sources of wealth -- factories and food crops raised by free labor vs. cash crops raised by the enslaved. In short, slavery.

"Sectional animosity" never refers to, say, western vs. eastern economic differences, but free and slave states. Slavery again.

"States rights," in 1860 similarly seems to refer to the rights of slaveholding vs. nonslaveholding states. It's also, like tariffs, factually misleading. Slaveholding states were not concerned about the rights of, say, Massachusetts not to catch their runaways, and the CS constitution explicitly forbids the new Confederacy's states from interfering with the enslavement of African Americans. Slavery once more.

A young historian once told me something that I think of every time this sort of question comes up: When you know very little about the civil war, it's all about slavery. When you learn a bit more about it, it's complicated and all sorts of factors come into play. But when you learn a lot more about it, it's slavery, slavery, slavery all the way...

This discussion will probably engender several pages of back and forth posts, but please let me know in a week or two if it really covers any more ground than that... :wink:
 
1. Can anyone point out where in the official secession documents, associated legislative proceedings, or otherwise associated contexts that the southerners proclaimed that trade policies (tariffs) were the reason for their secession? I can find very little.

2. Can anyone find other examples of federal overreaches/unconstitutional actions taken by the federal government that the southerners expressly said were their reasons for disunion? Obviously, federal power did in fact expand pretty drastically in the antebellum period, but I want to know if specifics were given as justification for secession. In Lincoln's first inaugural address, he asked them to do so. Did they?

3. What was the southern rebuttal to Lincoln's Cooper Union Speech where he justified the prohibition of slavery in the territories based on precedents set by the founders?

4. Was there a refusal to admit new slave states into the union, or just a prohibition on slavery in the territories?

5. Where can proof of the right to unilateral secession be found in the founding era? Ie, where can it be proven that states can just leave on their own discretion, without the consent of the rest of the union? Is there a southern rebuttal to this,


"My opinion is that a reservation of a right to withdraw... is a conditional ratification... Compacts must be reciprocal... The Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever. It has been so adopted by the other States.”
— James Madison, letter to Alexander Hamilton (July 20, 1788), emphasis added.[8][9]
Hamilton and John Jay agreed with Madison's view, reserving "a right to withdraw [was] inconsistent with the Constitution, and was no ratification."[10] At the outset of the Poughkeepsie convention, anti-Federalists held a strong majority. The tide turned when word arrived that New Hampshire and Virginia had said yes to the Constitution, at which point anti-Federalists proposed a compromise: they would vote to ratify, but if the new federal government failed to embrace various reforms that they favored, "there should be reserved to the state of New York a right to withdraw herself from the union after a certain number of years.”] Federalists emphatically opposed the compromise. In doing so, they made clear to everyone -- in New York and in the 12 other states where people were following the New York contest with interest -- that the Constitution did not permit unilateral state secession. Alexander Hamilton read aloud a letter at the Poughkeepsie convention that he had received from James Madison stating that "the Constitution requires an adoption in toto, and for ever." Hamilton and John Jay then added their own words, which the New York press promptly reprinted: "a reservation of a right to withdraw" was "inconsistent with the Constitution, and was no ratification. The New York convention ultimately ratified the Constitution without including the "right to withdraw" language proposed by the anti-federalists.

6. Where can proof be found that there was an agreement that a breach of the compact gave rise to a right of rescission?

7. Is there a northern equivalent to Albert Bledsoe's "Was Davis a Traitor?"

I'd love for heavy citation and facts!

Some of the secession documents that contain complaints about the tariff include: South Carolina's Address to the Slaveholding States of Dec. 1860, Florida Declaration of Causes of Secession in 1861 and Georgia Declaration of Causes of Secession of Jan. 1861.

Also see Rep. John H. Reagan's Speech to the U.S. Congress, Jan. 15, 1861 and Jefferson Davis' First Message to the Congress of the Confederate States of America, April 29, 1861.
 
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