Posted on 08/30/2012 2:40:56 PM PDT by 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...............
There’s something I’ve always wondered about secession.
The issue precipitating the collapse of the national Democratic Party and Lincoln’s election was the expansion of slavery. Southerners insisted on it, claiming that unless slavery could expand it would die, and Republicans were adamantly against it.
Yet when the South seceded, all they had were the same slave states they had before they bailed. IOW, they couldn’t expand.
So if the Union had let them leave peqcefully, would the CSA have just accepted being locked out of the territories, or would they have insisted on some sort of division? Perhaps going to war if necessary to enforce it?
It is core conservative doctrine in our time (and hopefully always) that SCOTUS, whatever its enthusiasts may imagine, is not a source of law-making but an institution which may APPLY constitutional provisions as against state or federal laws when clearly called for.
SCOTUS had no authority to create a "right" to abortion out of whole cloth as it purported to do in numerous cases starting with Roe vs. Wade and Doe vs. Bolton, or to add homosexual perversion to the 14th Amendment protected classes of citizens as it did in several cases starting with Martin vs, Lawrence, or to prohibit prayer in public schools or teaching about the Bible in public schools or prayer before football games in public schools, all the while neglecting many of its manifest obligations in many other cases.
The notion that the SCOTUS should serve as a trial court in a matter between the United States and a state that has withdrawn its involvement with and membership in the United States may appeal to SCOTUS activists, dreamers and imperialists but not to originalists. When South Carolina and ten other states, passing resolutions and stating their reasons before mankind for declaring their independence of the United States, they had withdrawn from the United States and were no longer subject to its jurisdiction for any purpose whatsoever. The "Union" refused to accept that withdrawal just as the British had rejected the American Revolution which withdrew 13 colonies from British jurisdiction.
No language of the constitution provides for SCOTUS to chase after departed states and ordering them to re-submit to the Northern yoke when they had already decided otherwise. I always thought it was the liberals who were forever trying to micromanage the lives of others and to remove their freedoms.
I have not read Texas vs. White but SCOTUS also handed down the Dred Scott decision, Plessy vs, Ferguson, Roe vs. Wade, Doe vs. Bolton, Webster vs. Planned Barrenhood, Griswold vs. Connecticut and a leftist cornucopia of other bad decisions that were not rooted in the Constitution itself. In fact, the entire notion of "declaring matters "'unconstitutional'" was a power grab of the first order by Chief Justice John Marshall in Marbury vs. Madison, a matter which, under modern standards of ethics and avoidance of conflict of interest, he had no business participating in, just as Elena Kagan had no business participating in the Obozocare decision.
I don't suppose you have a "constitutional" rationalization for how West Virginia could be created out of the territory known as Virginia without Virginia's consent which had not been given and without recognizing (as Lincoln and Congress did not) that Virginia was no longer part of the USA. Of course not. Simply, might makes right. Right?
To hear some (not necessarily thee and certainly not me) tell it, there are numerous ways to "amend" the constitution other than the one you mention and the route of a constitutional convention with its proposals ratified by a sufficient number of states.
OTOH, most constitutional "amendment" nowadays results from renegade and lawless SCOTUS decisions which effectively invent what they please and distinguish away what does not please them in the text of the constitution.
The reasons were racial, not altruistic, Republicans wanting the new territories kept exclusively for the white race.
That was certainly a factor with some, not all, Republicans.
The South, of course, wanted to use these territories to expand and perpetuate the institution forever.
Such territories (and future states) as Idaho, Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, and most others were simply not going to be slave states but they were going to become states. No provision of the constitution guaranteed in perpetuity the "rights" of slave owners to hold slaves and when enough new anti-slavery states were added, slavery might be prohibited by constitutional amendments legally adopted. Kansas, not overly suited to slavery, became "bleeding Kansas" when pro-slavery Southerners moved in as farmers to affect the outcome of a referendum on the matter. There were also expansionist schemes to conquer territory in Latin America to preserve what balance remained by carving up conquered territory into additional slave states.
The South and its slave owners were running out of options. They were beginning to feel like the new equivalent of the Cherokee when threatened by growing abolitionist clout. Therefore, seeing the handwriting on the wall, they seceded which had other benefits as well in getting out from under Northern tariff policy and allowing the South to continue its existing way of life without further and unwanted Yankee interference.
I do not believe that the Confederate states, left to be entirely independent of the North, would have cared about the territories. They certainly would not have gone to war over the territories. One cultural difference between North and South was that the abolitionist jihadists would not be satisfied unless the entire nation toed their line. The South did not care to waste breath, resources and effort trying to make Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Wisconsin, etc., into slave states or even to make those states make their peace with the Confederate states on the slavery issue. The Confederates simply wanted the most essential of rights---the right to leave.
None of my posts are meant as a defense of slavery as such. If the South had heeded some of its own generals, it would have freed the slaves and even enlisted them in the Confederate military. That would have taken the slavery issue off the table and the world's nations would have been much more inclined to support the Confederacy. The leaders of the South would have none of it much to their defeat. My issue is their right to leave the "Union" on their own terms. For retaining slavery, they would still have faced the moral opprobrium that would surely have been visited upon them by most other nations.
It was also a time when even significant prior service in the US military (such as experienced by Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson) did not guarantee primary loyalty to the "Union." Stonewall Jackson, as a VMI professor, had campaigned politically in Virginia before the war began against secession by Virginia because he believed the Union should remain intact, but his primary loyalty and Lee's was to Virginia which was a common attitude at the time. Many on both sides felt compelled to follow the policy of their respective states and to enlist and fight accordingly.
central_va post 341: "The reasons were racial, not altruistic, Republicans wanting the new territories kept exclusively for the white race."
No, the reasons were less racial than fear of economic competition.
From the beginning, American labor -- called "free labor" -- was paid more than any other in the world.
That's because of the relative scarcity of workers, compared to endless opportunities offered by free or cheap farm land out west.
But "free labor" could not compete with slave labor, or with other ethnic groups -- Irish & Chinese in those days come to mind -- who were forced or willing to work dirt cheap.
So Northern opposition to expanding slavery wasn't racism so much as economic self preservation.
In Pennsylvania, Lee was without the services of Stonewall Jackson who had died. Jackson was a particular genius in getting the jump on his Northern opponents by getting to the scene of battle in the middle of the night and striking early. With Jackson dead, US Brigadier General John Buford, Jr., was the indispensable officer who arrived first at Gettysburg, correctly intuited the locale where the battle would be fought and arranged for the Northern forces to hold all of the best strategic points to facilitate victory over the Army of Northern Virginia. Lee should not have fought there but he did and Pickett's Charge (a total disaster) is to be laid to Lee in his incredible stubbornness. Together with Grant taking Vicksburg and with it controlling the Mississippi, Gettysburg sealed the fate of the Confederacy. That Lee held out for nearly two more years is a testament to his quality as an officer but Gettysburg was a guarantee that his efforts would fail.
When Grant was on offense in Virginia or anywhere, he seemed not to care as much about casualties as he did about prompt and effective results. Given the outcome, it is hard to disagree with his tactics. I regard him more highly than I used to. He was a decent man in the presidency. He was quite the generous victor in his reception of Lee at Appomattox. He cannot very well be blamed for his enthusiasm as a commander or for his results.
Mostly inaccurate. Kansas bled not because pro-slavery settlers moved in (mostly they didn't), but because pro-slavery Missourians illegally crossed the border to vote and easily outvoted the mostly free-soil legitimate settlers in the sparsely settled territory.
Eastern Kansas is essentially identical in soil and climate to western Missouri, where slavery seemed to be doing fine.
The South did not care to waste breath, resources and effort trying to make Vermont, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Wisconsin, etc., into slave states or even to make those states make their peace with the Confederate states on the slavery issue.
Not quite correct either. There is considerable evidence that there was a movement (or conspiracy, depending on your POV) to get a Dred Scott decision making slavery legal in all states. After all, if property could not be banned in a territory, then how could it be banned in a state? It's seldom remembered that Dred Scott was held as a slave in the free states of WI and IL, and the Court refused to rule this had made him free. Why couldn't other slaveowners do the same?
Also, the South did indeed want to impose its views on a slave code for the territories and fugitive slave laws on other states. Up to the point where they decided they wanted out.
With the above caveats, I generally agree with your comments. The South would have had a much better moral, political and diplomatic case for independence had they agreed to free their slaves, or even to set a timetable for doing so. But the Congress erupted in fury at the mere suggestion of freeing black men who fought for the CSA, even in early 1865.
As several Congresscritters put it (paraphrasing), the whole reason they wanted to be free was so they could keep their slaves. Losing the war was preferable to agreeing to emancipation.
Righto. The Brits had their hands pretty damn full in Europe and really didn’t need the distraction of a war with a minor power on the other side of the ocean.
In fact, they fought almost exclusively on the defensive (on land, anyway) till after Napoleon fell in 1814.
The Chesapeake invasion was never intended to be anything more than a raid.
However, the invasion thru New Orleans probably did have ideas behind it of taking over parts or all of Louisiana Territory and even some of the central states on the east of the Mississippi.
You are both quite correct that little of the opposition to expansion of slavery was altruistic in nature. There were notable and honorable exceptions, but few white Americans held much fellow feeling for blacks.
And most of them, even in the North, especially the lower North, absolutely hated abolitionists.
Economics was a key issue, of course. It was also a key issue in the argument over tariffs so often brought up by CSA-apologists. Tariffs were not just to protect profits of manufacturers, they were intended to protect the jobs and wages of workers.
With few exceptions, whites, even abolitionists, believed whites and blacks would never be able to live together in peace and harmony.
150+ years later, it appears they had a point.
Perhaps your focus has been on the "center of the action" and not the west because if you had you would realize how absurd your point was. There wasn't a corner of the western territories that wasn't the subject of an activist effort to join the confederacy. They ambitiously sought to extend their presence in direct opposition to the United States. You don't think that if the impossible occurred and the south had won there wouldn't be intense - and violent competition for control of these territories?
One cultural difference between North and South was that the abolitionist jihadists would not be satisfied unless the entire nation toed their line.
The absolutist "my way or the highway" extremism of the southern fire-eaters is a much closer analogy to "jihadists".
Of all the Civil War generals, the one who had the highest percentage of his men become casualties was... RE Lee.
My best reguards and apologies to your wife. ;-)
BlackElk: "In Pennsylvania, Lee was without the services of Stonewall Jackson who had died. Jackson was a particular genius..."
I have a very interesting book on Gettysburg which goes into great detail about what RE Lee coulda, shoulda, woulda done to win that battle, and who is to blame for why he didn't.
It's key point is that Lee could have won, and is not solely to blame for losing.
BlackElk: "When Grant was on offense in Virginia or anywhere, he seemed not to care as much about casualties as he did about prompt and effective results."
The myth of "Grant the butcher" dies hard, regardless of facts.
Yes, when Lee was on defense at the Wilderness, his total casualties (dead & wounded) were 13% of his force, and at Spotsylvania 18%.
Grant on offense in those battles lost 22% each battle.
So Grant was a "butcher", right?
But when Lee was on offense at Gettysburg, his total casualties were 37%, and Lee on offense/defense at Antietam/Sharpsburg lost 26%.
So Grant was the "butcher" and Lee the brilliant tactician?
No, it just that armies on offense usually suffered a lot more casualties than those dug in on defense.
"Peace and harmony" are relative terms.
I would argue that blacks & whites get along better than, for example, blacks get along with each other these days -- i.e., black on black crime rate is higher than any other.
Indeed, all you have to do is add the word "most" to "whites & blacks" and you can say we live in perfect harmony.
As for 1860s, most Northerners viewed blacks -- slave or free -- in the same light as other minorities such as Irish and Chinese.
Aside from looking "different", they were serious economic competitors and therefore not welcomed.
Indeed, comparing black Southern Baptists to Irish Catholics or Chinese Confucians, it's not clear to me if blacks weren't more welcome than those other "ferners".
;-)
Your last sentence eloquently makes obvious why I have not been responding to you and will avoid doing so hereafter on this thread. If you actually believe that last sentence, there is nothing to discuss.
I won’t question the factual allegation of your post but I suspect that one explanation would be that Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia bore the brunt of the fighting in the East and lost which is not inconsistent with Lee’s concern for the well-being of his men.
Quite right.
My point is that Grant, whose men suffered massive casualties, is often called a butcher because of it.
Lee, who had an even higher casualty rate, never is. Odd.
I don’t think either man had no concern for his men, but both, being great generals, were willing to do what was necessary to win.
During the last phase of the war, when they faced each other directly, Grant had to attack and Lee only had to defend. Offense under Civil War conditions almost always had much higher casualty rates.
The situation was reversed in the earlier days of the war, when Lee often defended Virginia by a tactical offensive. The Army of Northern Virginia generally had a higher casualty rate in its victories, and quite often a higher absolute number lost, despite usually being outnumbered.
A good part of this was due to technological changes which continued and intensified, eventually resulting in the slaughter of WWI.
I don't see where you see #347 as a criticism of Grant, much less a statement that he was "Grant the Butcher." Just as I think that Lee's decision against the advice of Longstreet to insist on the disastrous "Pickett's Charge" but nonetheless regard Lee with great respect as a man and as a military officer and commander, so too I exempt Grant from the reputation he acquired as a "butcher" for the unnecessary carnage of his men at Vicksburg, recognizing his high quality as an officer and commander of US troops and later as president (when many would deprive him of credit as I do not).
Sometimes, I get the impression that you are looking for a fight over anything and everything including the fact that I share a computer with my wife.
I have an intense aversion to the “most” meme. All it actually means is that 50% plus one of a group aren’t trying to kill me.
By that definition we have nothing at all to worry about with Muslim terrorism. After all, the number of radical Islamic fundamentalists is certainly well under 50%, possibly much lower, depending on your definition. “Most” Muslims aren’t a problem, therefore the group isn’t.
Most mentally ill people are not a threat to others, therefore we shouldn’t worry about them. It’s just that a far higher percentage of MI people than non-MI people are dangerous, and you can’t tell who is and isn’t in advance.
That’s fine. No problemo.
I will continue to call them as I see them.
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