Why should they want to return to the Union? Northern states were nullifying the Constitution with respect to the return of escaped slaves. Northern congress critters passed the Morrill Tariff that extracted money from the South to pay for Northern jobs and protect Northern industry. The Federal government was not adequately protecting Texas from indians or invasion from Mexico, constitutionally the job of the Federal government. Congress wouldn't fully reimburse Texas for expenditures to fight the invaders. Among other things, the people of Brownsville had to hire the Mexican army to protect them.
Despite a Supreme Court ruling to the contrary, the North wanted to reserve the territories to free white settlers (Lincoln's words as I remember), the constituents of Northern politicians. This in effect excluded slavery and Southern slave owners from the territories despite the fact that Southern blood and money had been used to obtain the territories.
It is easy to see the North's interest in retaining the South in the Union despite there being no Constitutional prohibition against secession. From de Tocqueville:
If it be supposed that among the states that are united by the federal tie there are some which exclusively enjoy the principal advantages of union, or whose prosperity entirely depends on the duration of that union, it is unquestionable that they will always be ready to support the central government in enforcing the obedience of the others.
Thank you for agreeing that southern extremists had been in favor of an expansion of federal power (as long as they controlled that power and could use it in their interest) and infringement on the states' rights of northern states.
Northern congress critters passed the Morrill Tariff that extracted money from the South to pay for Northern jobs and protect Northern industry.
This bill did not precipitate secession. It was a result of secession. It passed after the slave states seceded and pulled their congressmen out, giving the tariff proponents a majority. The bill never extracted money from the south.
Some facts on the tariff history prior to 1861: "The Democrats won in 1844, electing James K. Polk as president. Polk succeeded in passing the Walker tariff of 1846 by uniting the rural and agricultural factions of the country for lower taxes. They sought minimal levels of a "tariff for revenue only" that would pay the cost of government but not show favoritism to one section or economic sector at the expense of another. The Walker Tariff remained in place until 1857, when a nonpartisan coalition lowered them again with the Tariff of 1857 to 18 percent. The United States thus had a low-tariff policy that favored the South until the Civil War began in 1861." Wikipedia.
So the increasing burden of tariffs did not cause secession. They were lower at the time of secession than for many years previously.
I'm curious. Had secession won, the Confederacy would have had to pay for a separate government structure, and a military establishment probably much more expensive than that maintained by the Union before 1860. It would have to do this from about 1/4 the population of the 1860 Union. Yet somehow this would result in lower tariffs? If revenues were not raised by tariffs on imports, how would the Confederacy have financed per capita expenditures at least four or five times greater than in the 1860 Union?
The Federal government was not adequately protecting Texas from indians or invasion from Mexico, constitutionally the job of the Federal government.
So the added expense of this additional military, spread out over a much smaller population, would somehow reduce taxation in the South?
Congress wouldn't fully reimburse Texas for expenditures to fight the invaders. Among other things, the people of Brownsville had to hire the Mexican army to protect them.
Not familiar with this one, but I'll take your word on it. It's only fair to point out that Texans raided into Mexico just about as much as Mexicans raided into Texas.
Despite a Supreme Court ruling to the contrary, the North wanted to reserve the territories to free white settlers (Lincoln's words as I remember), the constituents of Northern politicians. This in effect excluded slavery and Southern slave owners from the territories despite the fact that Southern blood and money had been used to obtain the territories.
What a truly evil policy! Replicating that enacted by the evil Founders even before the Constitution.
Southerners wouldn't be prohibited from entering the territories. They just couldn't take in their slaves, so they'd have to actually work for a living just like the northerners.
BTW, I thought conservatives were supposed to be opposed to Supreme Court rulings where the justices impose their own values on the rest of society. The Scott decision was the first and still the most egregious of these. It was wrong constitutionally, morally and historically.
It has recently been shown that Chief Justice Taney was working on a decision that would invalidate state laws against slavery, a perfectly logical extension of the principles in the Scott decision.
Working on a decision without a case before the Court. A truly fine example of the honor of slaveowners!
A much wiser man than I addressed these attempts to "negotiate peace" a few years later.
"While the inaugural address was being delivered from this place, devoted altogether to saving the Union without war, urgent agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without war—seeking to dissolve the Union and divide effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came."
Hardly. Fugitive slave laws were federal laws, and it was up to the federal government to enforce. Individual states could not be made to enforce them, and Congress granted federal authorities all the powers they needed for enforcement.
Northern congress critters passed the Morrill Tariff that extracted money from the South to pay for Northern jobs and protect Northern industry.
The Morrill Tariff hit the South no harder than it hit the North. And would not have been passsed in the first place had the South not gone off and rebelled.
The Federal government was not adequately protecting Texas from indians or invasion from Mexico, constitutionally the job of the Federal government.
Considering that
For more than ten years prior to the rebellion the Secretary of War had been a Southerner - Charles Conrad, Jefferson Davis, and John Floyd. For 9 of the 11 years the Speaker of the House had been a Southerner - Howell Cobb, Linn Boyd, James Orr. Half the presidents had been Southerners, and the other two had Southern sympathies. Most committees were headed by Southerners. If Texas did not have adequate protection then they have only Southern leaders to blame.
Despite a Supreme Court ruling to the contrary, the North wanted to reserve the territories to free white settlers (Lincoln's words as I remember), the constituents of Northern politicians.
A gross misstatement. Southerners were fine with blacks in the territories so long as they were property. They weren't thrilled with free blacks anywhere.
It is easy to see the North's interest in retaining the South in the Union despite there being no Constitutional prohibition against secession.
But as the Supreme Court pointed out there is a Constitutional prohibition against unilateral secession.