Was the Civil War Actually About Slavery?

Salon.com ^ | 8/29/12 | James Oakes

[PeaRidge]

On 6 November 1860, the six-year-old Republican Party elected its first president. During the tense crisis months that followed – the “secession winter” of 1860–61 – practically all observers believed that Lincoln and the Republicans would begin attacking slavery as soon as they took power.

Democrats in the North blamed the Republican Party for the entire sectional crisis. They accused Republicans of plotting to circumvent the Constitutional prohibition against direct federal attacks on slavery. Republicans would instead allegedly try to squeeze slavery to death indirectly, by abolishing it in the territories and in Washington DC, suppressing it in the high seas, and refusing federal enforcement of the Slave Laws. The first to succumb to the Republican program of “ultimate extinction,” Democrats charged, would be the border states where slavery was most vulnerable. For Northern Democrats, this is what caused the crisis; the Republicans were to blame for trying to get around the Constitution.

Southern secessionists said almost exactly the same thing. The Republicans supposedly intended to bypass the Constitution’s protections for slavery by surrounding the South with free states, free territories, and free waters. What Republicans called a “cordon of freedom,” secessionists denounced as an inflammatory circle of fire.

Continued...............

[x]

Mobs? Agitators? It was the eleven Confederate States and their elected officials (and sometimes their people at popular referenda as well) that seceded.

There was no agreed upon process for secession. Some state conventions rejected secession, then reconvened and accepted it. One state promised to hold a convention and didn't -- the state legislature simply declared the state seceded. Another state promised to hold a referendum and didn't. There were charges of fraud and intimidation in the Texas voting, and Georgia historians later concluded that they couldn't tell what the actual result of the election was because of all the confusion and corruption.

Now I suppose we could say that secession represented the "will of the people" in many or most of those states, but that wasn't at all clear at the time. The impression of many was of panic -- a hurried process manipulated by secessionists to get the results they wanted. The idea that a state could vote down secession (one way or another) multiple times until by hook or by crook secession won was suspect, as was the absence of impartial observers at the polling places. We've learned a lot since then about how to run and monitor fair (and unfair) elections. To many at the time, though, the result of the elections was by no means certain.

And consider that Rousseauistic "will of the people" idea. Our Constitution acts to limit power, government power and the power of the masses. The 1860-1861 secession process goes against a lot of our ideas about good and responsible government.

South Carolina's hotheads at the time were easily matched by the abolitionist jihadists of Massachusetts although their perspectives were polar opposites.

One set of extremists may have been as extreme as the other, but it was South Carolina that actually seceded. Edward Everett was Bell's running mate on the Constitutional Union ticket. By contrast, Lincoln wasn't even in the running in most Southern states, and South Carolina still didn't allow popular voting for electors. So I'd have to say that extremism was more established in South Carolina

[Delhi Rebels]

An interesting find but the Richmond Enquirer and the Commonwealth of Virginia were not identical--- the first was a private newspaper (I gather) and the latter an actual government which reclaimed its sovereignty by secession under quite different circumstances.

The first is a indication of public opinion. I guess one's support or opposition to secession depends on whose ox is being gored at any given time.

[Delhi Rebels]

3. I have not considered whether the Congress would have the authority to expel a state from the "Union." I suspect not since such a power is not specifically granted to Congress and would therefore be prohibited by the Tenth Amendment.

What is Congress but the voice of all the states? So don't look at is as whether Congress has the power to expel another state. Ask yourself if the states themselves, expressing their desires through a vote of their members in Congress, have the right to expel a single state from the Union. And if your answer is 'no' then please point out the clause of the Constitution that forbids it.

And if it is your position that the government only has powers explicitly granted to it by the Constitution then how can organizations like NASA, the Department of Veteran's Affairs, the air traffic control system, USDA Food Safety and Inspection, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Federal Park System be Constitutional since none of those are explicitly authorized by the Constitution?

[rockrr]

BlackElk: You are certainly free to question the political decision-making of James Buchanan as POTUS but I note that you are not expounding any theory that he was lawless in his exercise of his powers or any alleged failure to exercise his obligations.

X: Give me time and maybe I will. Or maybe I won't since I'm so tired of years of this sh#t. My point was he was a failure as President in pragmatic terms. He was passive. He was inactive. He did neglect his responsibilities to the country and the Constitution. You could call that a violation of his oath and the laws if you like, but that's not the main point here.

I wouldn't call it lawless - I would call it negligent. If he hadn't been such a feckless coward he would have either stood up for the United States - defending the oath of office he swore to uphold - or stood with the rebels against our nation. Instead, in true limp-wristed dhimmicrat fashion he attempted to dance between the raindrops and leave the heavy lifting for his successor. And what a mess he left!

By kicking the can down the road he encouraged the true lawlessness that was the southern insurrection.

[campaignPete R-CT]

It is time for someone to request the denouement. Excuse my French.

When the LEFTY states secede in terror at the right-wing congress of 2023, who gets to leave?

ILL, MICH, Maryland and everything North of Baltimore. This is not contiguous ... Blackelk might sue, They may want a strip from CHICAGO to Buffalo to tie it together. Blackelk can move across the border to WISC and coordiate border raids into Cook County. Upstate NY will object as will the rural rebels in NH and ME.

Lefty-Illinois will not allow Southern ILL to be usurped.

We came very close with the Quebec deal. The western provinces would have been a constitutional enclave. A cold enclave, but worthwhile in the summer months.

[BlackElk]

By that standard, the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, SeeBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, Huffington Post, DU and Daily Kos would be voices of public opinion just not voices that I or most here would agree with. How about you?

And remember that it was THEIR Gore that was oxed by our SCOTUS in 2000. Could not resist!

[donmeaker]

Secession is a controversy between the federal government and the state(s), and is required by Article 3 to be settled peacefully by court case with the SCOTUS as original jurisdiction. Of course if a state starts an insurrection, that insurrection is put down before the controversy is settled.

And so it was.

[BlackElk]

11 Secessions were secessions and NOT a lawsuit. Nothing more was required.

[BlackElk]

The Illinois solution would be for most of us to stay put while cutting out Chicago, its heavy voting cemeteries and much of C(r)ook County and perhaps Chicago's fashionable elite leftist northern suburbs, float them via Lake Michigan to Canada. If the Canadians want to resist accepting them as sensible people should, we can fight Canada over that.

Similarly, take Detroit and Wayne County out of Michigan and float them north to Windsor, Canada and fight any attempt to send them back.

That should convert Illinois and Michigan into permanent conservative states. Presto!: Mark Nancyboy Kirk becomes Canadian along with Jesse Jackson, Jr., and the Chicago Congressional delegation and Robert Dolt. No more worries about Granholm, Senator Stabenow and and Senator Levin. I gather you want to keep Maryland north of Baltimore. Baltimore has a harbor and can be contiguous to all or parts of Maryland south of Baltimore. Turn over to Canada those parts of Vermont not known as The Northeast Kingdom. Say goodbye to Leahy and Bernie Sanders. Annex a southern sliver of Vermont to New Hampshire to make a contiguous land connection to Appleknocker territory in Upstate New York, thence to Ohio and Indiana. Indiana remains connected to the remainder of Illinois. Keep the rest of the country to the West Coast but float Seattle, San Fransicko, Oakland, Berserkely, Los Angeles and so much of Oregon as necessary to include Portland and also the worst of college towns in California, Oregon and Washington out into the Pacific. Remove Houston and New Orleans floating them out to the Gulf of Mexico. Cleveland, Gary, Indiana and Buffalo can be floated away as well. We would gladly take the Western Prairie Provinces of Canada as well. In that event, we will need a border wall and strong defensive weaponry to separate us from the remainder which will then be known as Soviet Canada.

BTW, the largely rural Northwestern Illinois Congressional District (16th) in which I live is more reliably Republican and conservative than any other in Illinois and nearly any other in the nation.

[BlackElk]

Your last paragraph first: None of those functions (or many, many more) are constitutional, given the Tenth Amendment. We have them because the ever internally imperialistic power-grubbing federales have been empire building for a very long time now in a period of general constitutional illiteracy. Since we are massacring the Tenth Amendment anyhow, the good news for us greybeards is that the massacre included the creating and maintenance of Social Security and Medicare and the Interstate Highway system (even if it would have pleased Whigs).

As to Congress expelling even a single state from the "Union," the Tenth Amendment stands for the proposition that no clause of the Constitution OTHER than the Tenth Amendment is necessary to forbid such action. The only relevant question is whether Congress has specifically received the power under the Constitution to exercise itself to expel a state. The answer, as you well know, is NO.

[BlackElk]

Time to retire for the evening at least in my house. I had written an extensive reply to your #301, but lost it in my role as Old Fumblefingers when I exited the site without posting. I shall try again tomorrow.

[BroJoeK]

BlackElk post 270 item 3: "As I understand it, Buchanan (without much if any objection from his Attorney General Edwin Stanton who was later to be Lincoln's Secretary of War) voluntarily turned over many forts located in the south (save Fort Sumter, South Carolina, and Fort Pickens, Florida) to the states in which they were located, and also voluntarily turned over weapons, food supplies, uniforms and other military material to the southern state militias."

x post 282 responding to BlackElk post 270 item 3: "To argue as Buchanan did that states could not legally secede and the federal government could not legally lift a finger to stop them was a recipe for disaster, a rationalization of weakness, incompetence, and indecisiveness, an abandonment of duty and responsibility and the oath he had taken."

To BlackElk: Outgoing President Buchanan did not "voluntarily turn over many forts...", he simply allowed secessionist forces to unlawfully seize them, without any Federal response.
But Buchanan held onto whatever he could, wherever there were enough loyal Union forces to defend them, and those places included Fort Sumter in South Carolina and Fort Pickens in Florida.

In Texas, as x pointed out, Buchanan fired the treasonous general who surrendered US forces to secessionists.
In Washington DC, he refused to meet directly with secessionists, and Buchanan did publically oppose secession as unconstitutional and unlawful.

So, even though Buchanan was a "Dough-faced" Northern Democrat, highly sympathetic to the slave-owners who helped elect him, he did not agree with, and did not support secessionists.

To x: Thanks for a great answer!

Election of 1856, Dough-faced Northern Democrat Buchanan elected by solid Democrat southern support:

[BroJoeK]

sorry, intended to address BlackElk in post 312.

[BroJoeK]

BlackElk post 284 on Lincoln: "...after he had soaked the nation in an ocean of unnecessary bloodshed..."

rockrr: "That blood is squarely on the hands of the slavocrisy that instigated the war against the United States..."

I have several times here detailed dozens of secessionists acts of increasing rebellion, insurrection and war, culminating on their assault on Fort Sumter (April 1861) and formal declaration of war on May 6, 1861.

Again I point out: before the secessionists declaration of war, no Confederate soldier was killed directly in battle with any Union force, and no Union force had "invaded" any Confederate state.

[Delhi Rebels]

As to Congress expelling even a single state from the "Union," the Tenth Amendment stands for the proposition that no clause of the Constitution OTHER than the Tenth Amendment is necessary to forbid such action. The only relevant question is whether Congress has specifically received the power under the Constitution to exercise itself to expel a state. The answer, as you well know, is NO.

All powers not reserved to the government or forbidden to the states are reserved to the states. In order for the 10th Amendment to prevent the states from expelling one of their number from the Union then doesn't that prohibition have to be explicitly included in the Constitution? Yet it isn't there. So by your own definition under the 10th Amendment then such an expulsion is possible. Not impossible as you claim.

[rockrr]

A war, much misery, and a Supreme Court decision disagree with your opinion.

[BlackElk]

You have to try not to be sooooo specific.

[BroJoeK]

BlackElk, in his listed item #1, post 270: "The Tenth Amendment specifically limited the federales to those powers and only those powers specifically granted to the federales by the constitution.
Specific language of the CONSTITUTION delegating to the federales the power to force the 11 departing states to rejoin the "Union?" "

This is just one place where your problem of "mind... set in cement and... wish not to be confused by the facts" is breath-taking.
No matter how often the real facts are posted here, they can't penetrate your mind-set-in-cement thinking, can they?

The truth is: no war -- none, zero, zip, nada war -- no Confederate army deaths, and no "invasion" of the Confederacy resulted just from the Slave Power's declarations of secession and formation of new Confederate government.

Yes, all of those things did result -- but from secessionists many acts of increasing rebellion, insurrection and war, culminating in their assault on Fort Sumter and formal declaration of war on the United States, May 6, 1861.

And the reason for this is simple and obvious: in his first inaugural address, on Day One of his administration, President Lincoln announced to Confederates that there could not be a war unless they started it.
So the Confederacy clearly believed that starting war was preferable to all alternatives.

BlackElk's comment 2: "Ignoring the rule of law (the Articles) and specifically the requirement of Article XIII of the Articles of Confederation that any change required a vote of Congress AND ratification by each and every state, may be many things but "a natural death" of the Articles of Confederation is not one of them."

You obviously know nothing about the end of the old Articles of Confederation.
"A natural death" is exactly what happened:

"According to their own terms for modification (Article XIII), the Articles would still have been in effect until 1790, the year in which the last of the 13 states ratified the new Constitution.

The Congress under the Articles continued to sit until November 1788, overseeing the adoption of the new Constitution by the states, and setting elections.[41][42]
By that date, 11 of the 13 states had ratified the new Constitution.

On September 13, 1788, it published an announcement that the new Constitution had been ratified by the necessary nine states, set the first Wednesday in February 1789 for the presidential electors to meet and select a new president, and set the first Wednesday of March 1789 as the day the new government would take over and the government under the Articles of Confederation would come to an end.[43][44]
On that same September 13, it determined that New York would remain the national capital"

The truth is: "death" of the old Articles was as natural as a parent preparing his or her affairs and will for the benefit of beloved children.

BlackElk still in comment 2: "One figure resisting such schemes was Virginia Governor Patrick Henry and there were numerous anti-Federalists."

This actually refers to an important point for everyone to understand: anti-Federalists who voted against the new Constitution were defeated and therefore their opinions on it are of no concern to those of us who defend the Constitution and our Founders' Original Intent.
Patrick Henry's opinions on the Constitution were not Founders Original Intent, and should never be treated as such.

BlackElk, still in comment 2: "Conquering the Confederacy and forcing its residents under the federal yoke was an echo of this original lawlessness by which the constitution had been imposed in 1789 in derogation of law."

Again, facts of history don't support your opinions, which clearly seem to be anti-Federalist, anti-Constitution and anti-United States of America.

Those seem unusual views for someone posting on Free Republic.

BlackElk's comment #3 is well addressed in x's post 282 with my further comments in #312.

BlackElk comment #4: "In raising 100,000 troops, President Jefferson Davis was acting and doing his duty with wise foresight as to Yankee intentions."

Until President Lincoln's call for 75,000 troops after the surrender of Fort Sumter (April 1861), the United States Army consisted of about 16,000 total, most scattered in small forts out west.
The US Army then represented no threat to any individual state, much less the entire Confederacy.

And yet, beginning in South Carolina even before declaring secession in December 1860, the Legislature raised an army of 10,000.
Arkansas alone had eight brigades -- about 30,000 troops -- under arms, long before any hint of Federal response.

So, beginning even before Lincoln's inauguration, when Jefferson Davis ordered preparations to assault Fort Sumter and raise another 100,000 Confederate troops, these were additional to Confederate state militias which already outnumbered the United States Army by a factor approaching ten to one.

And as Lincoln announced in his inaugural, war could only come by secessionists choice, it's obvious that the war secessionists first started and declared, they had also long premeditated.

BlackElk: "The establishment of the new government in 1789 (regardless of the ultra vires provision of ITS constitution requiring less than unanimity) cannot honor the rule of law AND ignore the requirement of unanimity in the Articles."

Aside from being flat-out false, your statement here clearly identifies you as anti-Federalist, anti-Constitution and anti-United States of America.

Again, those are very unusual views for Free Republic posters.

BlackElk's comment #6 rehearses various pre-Constitution meetings and conventions.

BlackElk comment #7: "It does contain the Tenth Amendment reserving to the states and the people respectively those powers not specifically delegated by the constitution to the central government.
That and not some crystal ball as to the intent of the Founders generally or of James Madison individually is dispositive."

It was not considered "dispositive" in your sense by our Founders.
They were clear and consistent on words like "disunion" or "dissolving the compact" -- the word "secession" was not used in those days.

We can see that, not only in Madison's clear statements, but also in such items as New York and Virginia Constitution ratifying statements -- disunion had to be "necessary" and for such reasons as "usurpations", or in Virginia's words: powers

"perverted to their injury or oppression."

No such condition existed in early November 1860, when South Carolina first called its secession convention.
And that's what made their declarations unconstitutional.

BlackElk comment #8: "Speaking of James Madison, where do you claim to find his "formulation?" ...Their personal opinions are just that: personal opinions and lack the force of law. "

For our true Founders (which excludes anti-Federalists like Patrick Henry), their opinions expressed in the Federalist Papers and elsewhere, are used to establish Original Intent for many Constitutional purposes.

Neither the Constitution nor Federalist Papers discuss "disunion", doubtless for the same reasons young people don't usually discuss divorce at the time of their weddings (second marriages are a different matter ;-) ).

But, we do have a record from Madison and others on the subject, and it is consistent -- dissolving the compact had to be by mutual consent or for some "material" breach of contract.

Indeed, South Carolina's Declaration of the Causes for secession attempted to make a case there had been "material" breaches.
But their facts are false, and their argument ludicrous.

Since there was no material breach of contract, all secessionists' declarations were unconstitutional and unlawful.

BlackElk: "The Constitution is the Constitution and not a mere "contract," and likely not a "contract" at all, but, just to humor you, are you familiar with the concept of "anticipatory breach of contract?" Or estoppel?
For just two examples."

Madison's word for the Constitution is "compact".
I use the word "contract" in the same sense as a marriage "contract" -- a solemn agreement, not to be broken for any trivial reason.

No "anticipatory breach of contract" or "estoppel" existed in early November 1860, when South Carolina first called its secession convention.

Nor did either condition exist for any state before the Confederacy's assault of Fort Sumter and declaration of war on the United States, on May 6, 1861.

[x]

. Having re-established sovereignty, South Carolina, for instance, would have to take over such federal properties as Fort Moultrie on the mainland at Charleston and, IIRC, nine other federal forts on the mainland at Charleston, as well as the newly constructed Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. It is reasonable that the federales assert peacefully claims for reimbursement (by South Carolina or by the Confederate States of America) for the value if forts seized. It would make no sense for SC or CSA to tolerate the continued existence of "union" military facilities on its turf or attempts by vessels such as the Star of the West to re-provision the federal garrison at Sumter. Like wise Florida, the CSA, and Fort Pickens.

We know a lot more about inclaves and exclaves now. We know, for example, that just because the government or regime in Cuba or Panama or China or Spain changes it doesn't change the status of Guantanamo or the Canal Zone or Hong Kong or Gibraltar. Of course, that has a lot to do with power. Whatever rights Goans or East Timoreans had didn't count for much if they or the Portuguese didn't have the force to back them up (and with changes in the balance of power and other conditions the status of Hong Kong and the Canal Zone eventually did change).

But it also has something to do with character and forbearance. We respect a new government more if it doesn't expect to have everything its own way, if it doesn't believe that all its demands must be met. And that's especially true in this case. If you were an American citizen yesterday and had loyalty and good memories and feelings, you shouldn't be treating your country -- or former country -- as some alien and hostile power. Some patience and decency goes a long way in crises like the one we're talking about.

I don't have any sympathy with someone like Jefferson Davis who was talking rebellion as early as 1850 -- even talking about back then about heading up the new government -- but who went on to serve as Senator and Secretary of War for a country that he would abandon and vilify if the circumstances were favorable. I don't have any respect for a person like that. Such behavior was contemptible, especially in a West Point graduate who'd sworn allegiance to the country and Constitution.

One final observation. I lived under the evil governorship of one Lowell Palmer Weicker, Jr., in Connecticut and now under the People's Revolutionary Government of Dunces and Thieves known as Illinois. Trust me I can spot evil in state governments much more easily than you give me credit for.

State governments can be repellent in different ways, but very different state governments may be equally repellent. What I see in state government where I live doesn't fill me with hope in politicians in another part of the country. I'm not saying the federal government is any better, but there's a tendency to assume that rebels who say "no" to the federal government and status quo are somehow going to be more moral and more committed to freedom for all. Sadly, it's not often the case. With time, politicians do sink back to the usual low moral standard -- and a government dominated by slave owners who really believed in slavery wasn't much above that level to begin with.

[BlackElk]

Your post is incomprehensible. Would you like to expand on it? Explain, for instance, how the Commonwealth of Virginia, if so inclined, could be imagined to have the power on its own to "expel" Wisconsin or Massachusetts from the Union?

Would this be in the category of a claim that since the Tenth Amendment provides as it does that all powers not specifically delegated to the fedgov are reserved to the states and people respectively, that only the states can create square circles or construct boulders so large that even the states cannot roll them up the steepest parts of the Rocky Mountains.

You appear to be striving mightily to concoct a scenario of a clash of incompatible reserved rights between states in order to justify imagining the central government to be constitutionally justified in ignoring the Tenth Amendment. In this, you fail as you must.

This is something of an academic argument in any event because the Tenth Amendment, as noted elsewhere above, has been routinely ignored for many decades but that does not change the fact that it is still a part of the constitution and has been since coming into effect on December 15, 1791.

One of the reasons for the American Revolution was a desire for a written constitution to shackle government and not to be subject to the whims of courts, legislatures or, in our case, an executive branch. Great Britain has long been governed by its "unwritten constitution" which seems to have been and to be whatever a transient majority of Parliament will say it is.

Our system is one that was intended to differ from that of the Brits at least if we read and rely on the written words of our constitution. Of course, Congress, the Executive and particularly our court system have regularly treated our constitution like toilet paper and not just the Tenth Amendment.

Obozo is actively persecuting the Roman Catholic Church and every other pro-life church by forcing payment in almost all employment provided medical insurance for surgical abortion, chemical abortion, abortion by IUD, "gender reassignment treatment and surgeries," abortifacient birth control, and a variety of other perversions. Romney did the same thing under "Romneycare" in Massachusetts. So much for Freedom of Religion in th 1st Amendment.

Our politicians and courts have regularly ignored the Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Recently, the SCOTUS, in a stunning upset, having apparently gotten reading lessons and breaking out their unused copies of the constitution, have rediscovered the Second Amendment and began to enforce it.

This year's campaign recently featured the Secret Service moving College Republicans protesting VPOTUS Biden on a college campus to a "free speech zone" half a mile from Biden's speech and audience, presumably solely based on the content of their speech which is supposed to be protected activity under the First Amendment Freedom of Speech. This sort of thing has been happening with increasing regularity in recent years. It happened at Gonzaga University in Washington State in 2000 when pro-lifers tried to protest Al Gore and were put in a cattle pen a substantial distance from the crowd, again presumably because of the content of their speech.

Unlike Britain's unwritten constitution, ours was written to have a fixed meaning so as to shackle the fedgov and, on certain issues (generally contained in the first eight amendments to restrain state governments as well, at least after the enactment of the fourteenth amendment).