The Confederate Navy was only in its early stages. I doubt that it could in and of itself pose much of a threat to the North any time soon. It was more the mixture of an army, a very bellicose rhetoric and real or feared subversive activity.
If South Carolina and the other states had signaled their intentions and simply asked the US what the terms for leaving would be perhaps things would have turned out differently, but unilateral secession, the formation of a national government and the call for an army did made war far more likely.
Of course, you can always come up with arguments to justify the actions of Davis and the others. But it looks to me that they made the wrong choice at the beginning and then dug themselves ever deeper into the same hole.
The idea of the greedy Northeasterners exploiting the South and the West doesn't fly either, at least as far as I can see. It was true of late 19th century America, but not of the antebellum period. Those troubles were more a result of the war, than a cause of it.
In any case, the Great Lakes States didn't do badly under the tariff. Those states were pretty good at combining agriculture and industry under a protectionist system. It was the new Plains states further to the West that had the greatest complaints.
Some Southerners had a similar view of how to benefit from tariffs. That's why Madison and Monroe had favored protection in the early 19th century. Protective tariffs weren't regarded as essentially exploitative or "sectionally aggrandizing" in those years. It was the cotton boom that led Southerners to the mistaken notion that they could put all their eggs in the same basket and gamble everything on plantation agriculture.
I feel as though we've all been through this before, and going over it again won't add much.
You are correct that I do feel that the South had a right to withdraw from the Union and form a national government that was more to their liking. And I feel that they could form an army and have their own foreign policy, etc. IMO, once they had seceded the Southern states were no longer subject to any constraints in the US Constitution. They were no longer part of a Union that had ceased to be conducive to their happiness.
I agree that we will probably not convert each other to the other's viewpoint. I appreciate and learn from calm discussions of history. Thanks for that.
If South Carolina and the other states had signaled their intentions and simply asked the US what the terms for leaving would be perhaps things would have turned out differently, but unilateral secession, the formation of a national government and the call for an army did made war far more likely.
Here again I must respectfully disagree. Why should they ask? Northern states had been blocking the return of fugitive slaves for some years, effectively nullifying the Constitution. They had basically broken a key compromise that permitted the ratification of the Constitution in the first place. I believe that some states would have never ratified the Constitution if it had said that states couldn't leave the Union unless other states said OK.
Lincoln had said that he would enforce the fugitive slave law. I would have been willing to see if he kept his word. However, like Sam Houston, I would have said throw the rascal out of office if he violates the Constitution over this matter.
As I remember, South Carolina sent commissioners to Washington in December or January right after they seceded to negotiate how much they owed of the national debt and what they might owe for forts and other property. They were rebuffed.
Of course, you can always come up with arguments to justify the actions of Davis and the others. But it looks to me that they made the wrong choice at the beginning and then dug themselves ever deeper into the same hole.
I've argued that Davis and company made the wrong decision in attacking Fort Sumter. They should have showered the fort with food and let Lincoln violate international maritime law by stopping foreign ships to collect tariff duties that were due him. But what do I know?
The idea of the greedy Northeasterners exploiting the South and the West doesn't fly either, at least as far as I can see.
I've seen the following referenced but not seen the original newspaper so I can't verify it. The Chicago Times supposedly editorialized on December 10, 1860:
The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country. Last year she furnished seventy-two percent of the whole . . . We have a tariff that protects our manufacturers from thirty to fifty percent, and enables us to consume large quantities of Southern cotton, and to compete in our whole home market with the skilled labor of Europe. This operates to compel the South to pay an indirect bounty to our skilled labor, of millions annually.
I've done some simple calculations myself to determine the effect of protective tariffs on the transfer of wealth to the North, and the editorial point above seems correct to me. I've also read some of Kettell's Southern Wealth and Northern Profits. I think it was from Kettell's economic analysis by sections of the country that I learned how the West was also affected by the tariff.
As you say, we probably have been through these issues before, so I'll sign off. Thanks again for the discussion.
You said that the North took the words of the South seriously. Well, here are the words of the March 6, 1861 act of the Confederate Congress that authorized Jefferson Davis to call for up to 100,000 volunteer troops (Source: Link [see page 45]; emphasis below is mine).
The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact, That in order to provide speedily forces to repel invasion, maintain the rightful possession of the Confederate States of America in every portion of territory belonging to each State, and to secure the public tranquility and independence against threatened assault, the President be, and he is hereby authorized to employ the militia, military and naval forces of the Confederate States of America, and to ask for and accept the services of any number of volunteers, not exceeding one hundred thousand, who may offer their services, either as cavalry, mounted riflemen, artillery or infantry, in such proportion of these several arms as he may deem expedient, to serve for twelve months after they shall be mustered into service, unless sooner discharged.
This act doesn't say that the volunteer troops were intended to invade Washington or the North -- that would have been threatening.
Instead, the volunteers were intended to
- protect against invasion
- maintain possessions (no doubt including forts) within the Confederacy
- secure independence against threatened assault
It sounds like the callup of volunteers might indeed have been in response to Lincoln's inaugural, which was widely interpreted as threatening war as I posted above. I'd never made the connection to Lincoln's inaugural before, but it makes a lot of sense.