Southern Secession Was One Thing-The War To Prevent It Was Another

Mises.org ^ | August 24, 2017 | Ryan McMaken

[Secret Agent Man]

Heres my take.

There are valid/good reasons for secession and invalid/bad ones.

The south seceded for a rather poor reason, given slavery was going to have to go away soon because it was getting less economically feasible as the industrial revolution propelled non-slave states economies and growth. The immoral aspect of not being regarded as true people for different skin color is not defensible either.

A different reason for secession, a better one, a moral one, would have me holding a different opinion about cw1. Lets say the northern states demanded slavery and the south seceded because they didnt want slaves. Now that would be a good/moral reason to secede. Our self secession from Great Britain was good and moral.

[Secret Agent Man]

San Franfreako has also suckceded.

[ExTxMarine]

Although I have not heard this angle until today, and I will definitely think about and study on this angle, you also seem to forget that the United States was NOT doing their part in protecting many part of what became the Confederate states.

In Texas, the US Army was all but completely pulled away to protect the gold in California, which left the border areas of Texas open to increased raids from Mexicans, Native Indians and the general refuse that could now band together to raid entire towns - this was noted in the Texas Secession letter. In general, the taxation on the southern states was OPPRESSIVE (with the south paying nearly 80% of ALL taxes into the Government treasury) and this too was mentioned in several State secession letters.

To act like slavery was the ONLY reason there was a Civil War goes back to the heart of what this article is stating: there were reasons for mass SECESSION and then there were reasons for the WAR.

There were MANY reasons the Confederate states left the Union. Yes states rights was among them, even the RIGHT to slavery, but also the right to be protected as was required in the Constitution, the right to equal taxation as in the Constitution, etc... Slavery was in every State secession letter, but so too were many, MANY more reasons (all of which were as dangerous to the Confederate states as the possibility of losing slavery).

The glorious and always conscience-cleared history of the United States says that the WAR was over slavery, and yet there was still slavery in the United States. The Commanding General of the (fighting against slavery) Union HAD slaves. While the Commanding General of the (we are fighting to keep slavery) Confederates had NONE. Talk about an INCONVENIENT TRUTH! Our history books just gloss over this and act like it isn’t important - but it is VERY important, because it is PROOF that the whole “Civil War was over Slavery” is a stretching of the truth. Leaving out details to weave your version of the truth - is to LIE!

The cause of both the secession of the Confederate states and the actual Civil War that followed is multifaceted. The SECESSION looks to have been caused PRIMARILY because of slavery - no doubt that was one of the main reasons the South departed ways. However, the WAR looks to have been caused by the North’s refusal to give up the agricultural income, the ports, the land, etc... of the South. Slavery was USED by the Union, towards the END of the war, in an effort to continue support for a war that was supposed to only take 90 days!

The fact that only ONE of the MANY reasons for secession is mentioned in the history books, is because the WHOLE TRUTH would make the cause of the Civil War look “less than pristine”. And the WHOLE TRUTH would further undercut our self-congratulatory history!

How would the victory of the Union look if history told how 600K fellow Americans were killed for nothing more than the basic imperialistic purposes of taking land, taxes and ports; not imperialism against those “wild savage Native Indians” and not against those “other outsiders” (Mexicans, French, etc...), but imperialism against our own FELLOW FREE AMERICANS?!?

Nope, let’s keep it simple. Everyone agrees slavery was bad, so “WE FOUGHT TO END SLAVERY” became the WHOLE History.

[Mase]

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[Hootowl]

In every civil war there are two agendas, the popular cause and the hidden purpose. For the south the popular cause, the one for which Johnny Reb marched away to war, was states’ rights. The hidden purpose, the one which most affected the pocketbooks of the south’s leadership, was to preserve the “peculiar institution” of slavery. For the north the popular cause was preservation of the union. The hidden purpose was to eradicate slavery. The hidden purpose of the union became the stated purpose as the conflict evolved. For the southern soldiers, states’ rights remained their primary focus.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

The draft was first instituted by the Confederates, and resistance to the Confederate draft was endemic to the rebel system. And the Confederate desertion rate also shows that devotion to the slaveowners’ war was very limited.

[DiogenesLamp]

A different reason for secession, a better one, a moral one, would have me holding a different opinion about cw1. Lets say the northern states demanded slavery and the south seceded because they didnt want slaves. Now that would be a good/moral reason to secede. Our self secession from Great Britain was good and moral.

Your fallacy of logic here is in the establishment of "moral" reasons that make it acceptable, and "immoral" reasons that cause it to be forbidden.

My argument is that the Founders articulated a principle as justification for their own Independence from England, and that justification was "consent of the governed."

The principle, which they articulated as a right based on Natural Law, is

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

There are no "if they have the right morality" qualifiers in there. "Morality" is in the eye of the beholder.

[Stingray51]

I think it is important to remember how close the Civil War era was to the Revolution and the adoption of the Constitution. Robert E. Lee’s father Light-Horse Harry fought in the Revolution. To me, what follows from this is a certain closeness to the meaning of the Constitution and thoughts about revolution and secession that are difficult to fully appreciate today. It is hard today to imagine learning about the founding of the country from parents and grandparents with direct knowledge of the events rather than from a book or teacher or someone whose thinking was formed very remotely in time. I also think we tend to forget how the concept of nationality was at least for many not as locked in solely on the USA as it is today; that is many people had a loyalty and attachment to their native state which compelled them to fight for it regardless of how they might have felt about the merits of the disputes that led to war. Thus, the most common explanation for Robert E. Lee switching to the Confederate military after serving 30+ years in the US Army is that he was unwilling to raise his sword against his fellow Virginians. Anyway, just some thoughts FWIW.

[DiogenesLamp]

In every civil war there are two agendas, the popular cause and the hidden purpose. For the south the popular cause, the one for which Johnny Reb marched away to war, was states’ rights. The hidden purpose, the one which most affected the pocketbooks of the south’s leadership, was to preserve the “peculiar institution” of slavery.

Here I disagree with you. The South already had slavery. It was actually impossible for the North to do anything about it had the South remained in the Union. "Slavery" is the stated purpose from many people of the time, but it was not the hidden purpose of which you speak.

The hidden purpose was economic independence from the control of Washington DC and the Cartel of the North East. (The group we today refer to as "the establishment."

The South was paying between 73-83% of all taxes used to finance the government, and it was getting heavily gouged by Northern Shipping, Banking, Insurance, and Warehousing industries, and being forced to pay higher prices for Northern goods as a consequence of protectionist laws that made Northern products competitive when they would not otherwise be.

The South could not do anything about the conditions which hurt it economically because it couldn't get a majority in Congress to overturn the protectionist legislation that was put in place to help Northern Industry.

Going independent of the control of the Washington/NorthEast cartel, made them a serious economic threat to the cartel. To give you an idea of how big of an economic threat Southern independence was to the North East, I'll show you this map.

See that money which represents tariff collections? 75% (or more) of that money was earned by the South. Look at where that money ended up.

Independence would transfer 75% (or more) of that coin pile to Southern ports, and there it would have capitalized Southern industries and spurred much other sorts of growth.

Southern Independence was obviously a threat to New England robber barons who had been making their fortunes off of intercepting the trade between Europe and the South due to the protectionist laws that were then in place.

The War was about Money and future economic competition.

[ALongRoadAhead]

We’d care after it became a giant failed state/nation/whatever and/or aligned with hostile nations. Same situation as with the Confederacy. To let it exist was to almost assuredly sign our own death warrants or best case kick the can down the road to different problems later.

[ExTxMarine]

DING! DING! DING!

We have a winner!!

[Tallguy]

“The abolitionists were actually a small minority of the Northern population. Most of the North didn’t care one way or the other.”

Very true but with one notable exception —Massachusetts harbored a lot of abolishionist sentiments. Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass and much of the manpower that became the 5th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment.

[DiogenesLamp]

Very true but with one notable exception —Massachusetts harbored a lot of abolishionist sentiments. Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass and much of the manpower that became the 5th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment.

Puritan influence, in my opinion. They had the same "I'm doing the Lord's work!" fanaticism when they were rooting out all of those witches up in Salem too.

[Chewbarkah]

“The bigger question is would anybody actually care if California left?”

“I bet the Social Security and Medicare recipients of California might care when their benefits stopped.

[x]

I like how he only mentions the fact that the secessionists actually started the war in a footnote and even then tries to dismiss that embarrassing fact.

[x]

Don't be daft. Don't follow the madman.

Here's a map of population density in 1860.

The free population of the free states was 18.5 million.

There were 5.5 million free people in the Confederacy and another 2.5 million free people in the border states.

Obviously, the free states imported more than the slave states and paid more in taxes.

[Bull Snipe]

Particularly since Southerners that owned 20 or more slaves were exempt from being drafted into the Confederate Army.

[DiogenesLamp]

Obviously, the free states imported more than the slave states and paid more in taxes.

No. It isn't even possible. Unless you are using specie, you can't pay for European products unless you earn European money.

The South was earning 75-83% of all the European money. Therefore they were paying for the imports.

[Bull Snipe]

Actually it is a good example of an”Activist Decision” on the part of the Supreme Court.
The only issue before the Court in Scott V. Sanford was whether Scott could sue in Federal Court for his freedom.
This could have been answered in a one page opinion, i.e.,
Dred Scott was not a citizen of the United States and therefore had no standing to sue in Federal Court for his freedom. Instead we got copious pages of opinion including that The Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, that was not an issue presented in the suit to the court. The Federal Government has no Constitutional authority to interfere with slavery in any state where slavery is legal. That was also an issue that was not in the suit. The Federal Government must enforce the Fugitive Slave Act. Again that was not an issue in the suit. And finally, there is no way that a slave can become a citizen of the United States. That per se was not in the suit. Only Dred Scott’s status as a slave and citizenship was the question to be interpreted per the Constitution. That seem to be pretty activist jurisprudence to me.

[Secret Agent Man]

In life there are good reasons to do things and bad reasons to do things. People and governments do things for good reasons and they do them for bad reasons.

We all know this to be a self evident reality.

Just because you are allowed to make a decision doesn’t mean you ought to, if you are doing it for an idiotic or immoral reason.

And with any decision there are consequences. No one stopped them seceding. But there were consequences. I personally believe if they had done it for good moral reasons they would have ultimately wound up winning and would have been a separate nation.