Posted on 05/01/2017 1:52:30 PM PDT by detective
The Union was letting the Confederacy be. There had been no hostile actions taken until the South fired on Sumter.
They would have abolished slavery peacefully eventually, just like almost everywhere else in the world, and without .6 million dead.
Probably true, which makes the Confederate initiation of the war to defend it that much more tragic.
South’s white supremacist system and the South’s articles of secession make it clear the South fought over slavery, they committed massacres of blacks.
They wrote the tariff laws in 1856; saying it was about tariffs is neo-confederate hogwash.
Then it took another 100 years and hundreds of lynchings, denying voting rights after that to establish a just system.
You can't know that. It is far more likely that threat would have been met by threat and war broken out before Lincoln was inaugurated rather than after.
The “media” dodo’s don’t really love and read history. History to them is a series of black and white slogans.
“The states that made up the confederacy had one party Democrat controlled legislatures that were actually run by a very small group of people.”
If they had “one party” legislatures, that would require a majority of the voters in the state to support that party. That means it’s not a “small group” of people by a long shot. These were representative democracies, not communist dictatorships.
“The votes were all very quick. The secessionists were organized. There were no public debate or popular vote.”
Nonsense, there was public debate over secession since the election of 1860, and plenty of time for people to publish all sorts of pamphlets about it arguing the pros and cons, and even for Northern politicians to weigh in with their views on the matter too. It wasn’t some lightning quick, in the dead of night affair. Perhaps in some legislatures there was some parliamentary maneuvering to make sure they got the votes passed, but that kind of thing was (and is still) par for the course in the USA.
“Some state conventions rejected secession, then voted for it.”
So what? A vote requires a majority to pass. You can’t claim a “small minority” passed secession when they got a majority to vote for it. That’s inane.
“At least one state was supposed to have a referendum on secession and didn’t.”
“Supposed to” according to who? Secession was not a legally defined process, so there was no precedent about how it was “supposed to” happen, save perhaps the American Revolution, which was initiated by legislatures and not referendums.
**”Slavery was pressed upon the southern colonies by the Crown many decades before the Union was formed.”**
The Brits made slavery lawful in every colony, but slavery prospered in each to the degree it made economic & social sense.
Some colonies used more slaves than others and were later more reluctant to abolish it.
**” While there were still advocates of slavery in the southern states at the time of the civil war, very few southerners even owned slaves, much less were willing to give their lives in defense of the institution. “**
Only true if you look only at individual slave-holders.
But if you ask how many family households owned slaves, then the answer is nearly 50% in Deep South states, declining to fewer that 5% in a Border State like Delaware.
**” The northern abolitionists were not all morally superior - for many it was an economic position rather than a moral one - slavery devalued their labor and they did not want it extended westward. “**
No, long before 1860 all Northerners opposed slavery in their own States, for both moral and economic reasons.
But slavery in the South was a precondition for Union so Northerners were willing to leave it be there.
**” There were other concerns that caused the southern states to resist abolition even though few owned slaves - “**
But even Border States like Delaware which had very few slaves and the numbers declining over time still refused to abolish slavery voluntarily in the 1860s.
So slavery was more than mere economics, it was also a state of mind and ideology impervious to mere cost/benefit analysis.
**”I agree with those who say the war was completely avoidable and a huge failure in leadership. Lincoln was not a tyrant but neither can he be considered a great president. “**
War was only avoidable through surrender and destruction of the United States to the CSA. In that event millions of white Unionist in Southern states would be sacrificed to the Slave Power.
**”For those who insist the South fought the Civil War to keep slavery, one question needs to be answered: During all but the last months of the Civil War, Lincoln had the following offer always on the table: withdraw articles of secession and you can keep slavery and end the war.
**”If the South were seceding and fighting to keep slavery, why would they not take that offer? Obviously, the decision to secede was due not to fear of losing slavery but rather due to the many abusive trade tariffs, price controls and other economic coercions perpetrated on them by the Northern States.”**
Good point, but Secessionists were totally clear in their original documents that protecting slavery was the reason.
It was also the reason they refused to offer slaves freedom in exchange for military service.
But Civil War, not slavery, was the reason Upper South states (i.e. Virginia) joined the Confederacy, and protecting slavery alone could not bring them back to Union.
“You can’t know that. It is far more likely that threat would have been met by threat and war broken out before Lincoln was inaugurated rather than after.”
That is why I said likely, no one can know for certain.
What we do know was that President Buchanan and his administration worked with the secessionists and helped the secession.
Had there been a strong president from 1857 until 1861 who was dedicated to preserving the union and who threatened to use force against the secessionists, the Civil War might have been avoided. The lives of over 500,000 men would have been saved and the enormous cost and human suffering might have been prevented.
Agreed. I call Buchanan “The Feckless one”. However, it should be noted that in the waning days of his administration he did stand up to his cabinet - half of whom promptly resigned.
But the secessionists didn't come into play until Lincoln was elected. Strong or weak, the outgoing president couldn't prevent the election and he wouldn't have been able to prevent the Southern reaction to Lincoln's election. Negotiations would not have prevented Southern secession when they had no interest in negotiations, and threats of force would only have caused them to meet that threat with force of their own. The only thing the could have prevented Southern secession in 1860 was a Democrat victory.
True. There were slaves in all the colonies.
“While there were still advocates of slavery in the southern states at the time of the civil war, very few southerners even owned slaves, much less were willing to give their lives in defense of the institution.”
In the deep south the economy was based on slavery. Slaves did much of the work and non slave owners had very few opportunities. While most did not own slaves the economy was dependent on slavery.
In the states further north slavery was less common. In Maryland, for example, the tobacco farms in southern Maryland depended on slave labor. In the rest of the state there were few slaves.
“The northern abolitionists were not all morally superior - for many it was an economic position rather than a moral one - slavery devalued their labor and they did not want it extended westward”
There were actually very few abolitionists in the north. They were not popular. The northern states very gradually ended slavery. The Republican base was in the Midwest. They opposed creating a slave based economy in the Midwest and the west. They did not call for abolishing slavery in the southern states.
Most people who opposed slavery were Christians and did so on religious grounds. The head of the campaign to abolish slavery in Great Britain was an former slave ship captain who converted to Christianity and wrote the hymn Amazing Grace. Almost all opposition to slavery was on religious grounds but few wanted an immediate end to slavery.
Some southern slave owners thought slavery was a bad system. George Washington ordered his slaves freed after the death of his wife Martha.
“There were other concerns that caused the southern states to resist abolition even though few owned slaves - the slave population had continued to grow long after slave trade ended - there were questions of what would happen under abolition. Many wanted to find a way to unravel it in a way that left them safe and financially whole. A common analogy was that of holding a poisonous snake - how do you let it go with out getting bitten? The northern colonies and various European countries had phased slavery out over say, 20 years or the life of the slave, but the South was given no such compromise.”
Southerners did not have a single view on slavery. Most were not slave owners.
There were a group of Democrats who wanted to create slave based economies in the Midwest and the west. There were secessionists who wanted to use slavery and the threat of abolition as a motivation to leave the union.
“Slavery was (is) an awful blight on our history but it is important to remember it far pre-dated the states and far pre-dated any of the 600k who died in the civil war.”
Slavery was never an “awful blight on our history.” Every civilized society in the history of the world had slaves. Slavery is in the bible. Slavery was present in every country in the world and is still present in much of the world today. America is unique in that it abolished slavery not in that slavery existed.
“I agree with those who say the war was completely avoidable and a huge failure in leadership. Lincoln was not a tyrant but neither can he be considered a great president.”
The Civil War was avoidable. It was caused by very small group of secessionists. Lincoln was an outsider with almost no political experience who was able to preserve the union when the Washington establishment said it was impossible to do. Lincoln was great for preserving the union and preventing the Civil War from bankrupting the country.
“For those who insist the South fought the Civil War to keep slavery, one question needs to be answered: During all but the last months of the Civil War, Lincoln had the following offer always on the table: withdraw articles of secession and you can keep slavery and end the war.
If the South were seceding and fighting to keep slavery, why would they not take that offer? Obviously, the decision to secede was due not to fear of losing slavery but rather due to the many abusive trade tariffs, price controls and other economic coercions perpetrated on them by the Northern States.”
The decision to secede was never publicly debated or put to a popular vote in the south. A small group Democrat Party activists pushed secession through the state legislatures in very quick votes. Most secessionists thought that the government would not fight to preserve the union. Southerners suffered severely because of secession. Had they been able to think through the consequences, been able to vote and understood the Lincoln would fight to preserve the union they probably would not have voted to secede.
They also thought that England and France would join the fight on their side. They were wrong about that too.
“the secessionists didn’t come into play until Lincoln was elected”
That is simply not true. The secession was planned in the 1850’s long before Lincoln. Read The Road to Disunion: Volume II: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854-1861.
https://www.amazon.com/Road-Disunion-Secessionists-Triumphant-1854-1861/dp/019537018X
Read about the Knights of the Golden Circle. Read about Jefferson Davis, Caleb Cushing and the many others involved in the secession.
I don't think Freehling viewed secession as inevitable as you do. Sure it was talked about by various states in moments of frustration, but even during the Hartford Convention in 1814 or the Nullification Crisis in 1832 secession was not the primary goal. It wasn't until the Republican win in 1860 did the South put actions behind their words. Had Douglas or Breckenridge won then secession wouldn't have been mentioned much less acted upon.
bfl
The Democrats were ready to secede in early 1860. They did not act until Lincoln was elected but the plans were already in place.
Secession was never put to a popular vote or publicly debated in the southern states. It was put through the legislatures in very quick votes by a small, highly organized group of secessionists.
The southern people suffered greatly from secession. If they understood the consequences and it had been put up for a vote I wonder if they would have voted to secede from the union.
Depends on the state. Some, like North Carolina, but the matter to a popular vote. Others had elections for delegates to a secession convention. It believe it was more popular and more widely debated than you seem to think.
The southern people suffered greatly from secession. If they understood the consequences and it had been put up for a vote I wonder if they would have voted to secede from the union.
Depends on region. Western North Carolina, northwestern Virginia, northern Alabama and eastern Tennessee all had strong unionist sentiment throughout the war.
“War was only avoidable through surrender and destruction of the United States to the CSA. In that event millions of white Unionist in Southern states would be sacrificed to the Slave Power”
The Confederacy was not the aggressor, but thank you for reminding me of another point I wanted to make:
History is written by the conqueror, and never was that more the case than with The War of Northern Aggression. For 150 years our children have been taught the North’s rationale for the War and what led up to it:
The corrupt and treacherous South wanted to protect the evils of slavery and expand it westward and split the union in two, while the morally superior North wanted to free the slaves and hold the union together.
If the South had won the war a completely different history would have been taught:
Secession was the South’s only remaining peaceful response to the economic tyranny the North imposed on the southern states at every turn. The South could purchase industrial equipment from Europe for less than what the Northern states wished to charge, and could get more for their agricultural and textile produce than what the North wished to pay. So the North used legislation to coerce the south through tariffs, price controls and other political mechanisms. The northern states schemed to finance a transcontinental railway with the proceeds from tariffs on Southern exports. One of the northern railroad lawyers got himself elected president by promising the powerful railroad lobby that he would advance that scheme once in office, namely, Abraham Lincoln, esq.
The North refused to accept the South’s secession and chose to wage war. 600k lives were lost, but the real casualty was the hard-fought independence from a tyrannical government which the states had won in the American Revolution less than 100 years previous. The War of Northern Agression proved once and for all that the States were not willing partners joined by mutual consent, but were subjects yet again.
We would be wise to doubt our understanding of the two sides of the story when only one side is taught.
Look, I’m not defending slavery; good riddance to it. I’m defending the South which has been demonized for 150 years while the North has sanctified itself for all posterity with a self-serving version of the truth.
Consider this: Slavery came to a quick end in Haiti while the slave population in the American southern colonies continued to grow. Was this because Haitian owners were more enlightened and morally superior? No, quite the contrary. In the American south the population increased because conditions were better. More slave families were kept intact, reproduced and flourished while in Haiti and elsewhere the slaves were all-male work camps unable to reproduce and either dwindled through attrition, desease or starvation, or ended even more abruptly through slave rebellion, NOT because the owners were more enlightened.
In the industrial northern colonies, slavery was unpopular NOT due to moral superiority, but because the non-slave population needed the work and understood that slavery devalued their labor.
When slavery was abolished in the northern colonies and states, and in Europe it was often phased out in a way that did not cause loss of wealth or hardship to slave owners - slave trade ended, but existing slaves would continue to be owned until their death or for 20 years whichever came first, and children born to slaves after a certain date would be free. Many southern slave owners advocated and would have gladly accepted such a phase out.
Another perspective: one of the grievances that led to the American Revolution was slave trade forced upon the colonies by the Crown. By 1776 slave trade was mostly outlawed but the slave population in the southern colonies was rising due to reproduction. Among the many justifications for why the American colonies should not be allowed their independence was the British accusation that American colonies depended on slavery, which was immoral. This was the height of hypocracy since the British had so recently abolished slavery and had along with the Dutch been the driving force behind the slave trade for nearly a century.
The point being that if we had lost the revolutionary war rather than won it, history would not depict the North on its high horse laying the blame on the south for slavery and the civil war. Ironically, history would depict England on its moral high horse laying the blame on the American colonies (both north and south) for both slavery and the war itself. And the war would certainly not be called the American Revolution, but rather the colonial rebellion - and the reason for the rebellion? We wanted to preserve slavery. Oh, the irony.
In war, to the victor goes the spoils, including the exclusive right to tell only their self serving version of the story.
You are correct. A few states did have popular votes.
I think you will agree that the southern people suffered greatly from the decision to secede from the union.
Do you think that they understood the consequences of secession?
The British consider it a mutiny.
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