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I went through Fry and Neely to see if I could find another reference to this, and the hunt was largely unsuccessful. To tell the truth, this isn’t an issue I have heard in discussion before. Are you sure Johnson is wrong? He seems pretty adamant. Can you point me towards your source? Johnson seems pretty definate when he claims that the decision to seceed and then to go to war was made by those most likely to gain from it, and not those who did not own slaves (the poor and working poor).

When he says that the reasons for secession “made no sense” he finishes the statement with: :...and merely reflected the region’s paranoia.” and then goes on to quote some of them. I must agree with him here, but I also must admit, I have not read these documents for myself (my area of concentration is the Cold, and not the Civil War). I think most of those who have a knowledge of history from this time understand the hatreds and passions that were ruling the day. The declarations were probably more a reflection of that then any attempt to be “statesman-like”. “Hatred” in politics...who would’a thunk it?

You are absolutely right that the South’s economy rested on the backs of slaves and that the South was worried that it would end. In retrospect, we can see that there were other ways and means, but it is hard to see the big picture from the ground. Here I must disagree with ANY court, anywhere that would equate human beings with personal property. Here, one can only think that the offending courts, in their never-ending adherence to “precedent”, CHOSE to rule for slaves as property. The debate over whether the courts can make “people” chattel rather than respecting them as people was, to my mind, as wrong then as it would be now. I canNOT ever agree that this justified the South’s OR the courts’ actions. Arguments have been made in ANY number of books and journal articles, that the Founders intended, knew, or hoped that slavery would be a temporary condition and were embarrassed by it. Certainly the Northeastern states raised a howl...The Constitution is very clear about private property- it just isn’t very clear regarding people as property. I will always believe they (the Founders) did that for a reason.

I must tell you, in the interest of full disclosure ;), that Paul Johnson is one of my all-time favorites. I love his American history because he just likes Americans SO much. “Intellectuals” is wonderful and his “History of Art” weighs a ton! I love it, the pics are beautiful and it makes a great booster seat for my granddaughter!

Are you sure Johnson is wrong? He seems pretty adamant. Can you point me towards your source? Johnson seems pretty definate when he claims that the decision to seceed and then to go to war was made by those most likely to gain from it, and not those who did not own slaves (the poor and working poor).

Johnson says, "No state held a referendum. It was decided by a total of 854 men in various secession conventions, all of them selected by legislatures, not by the voters."

Here is some information about the election of delegates to the Texas secession convention: Link. Here is an old post of mine with more details from the State Gazette newspaper of Austin, Texas: Link #2

Texas voters elected delegates to the secession convention. The convention voted for secession and then put the question before the voters of the state. This is a greater confirmation of an action by the sovereignty of a state (the voters) than the original 13 states did in their ratifications of the US Constitution. I don't think any of the original 13 put the ratification of the Constitution directly to their voters, as Texas did with the secession question.

Interestingly, the the popular vote for secession by the voters of the state in late February 1861 very closely matched the votes in the presidential election the previous fall. Breckenridge, the Southern Democrat, got 47,548 to 15,463 for Bell, the Southern Unionist vote. The secession vote of the state was 46,129 for to 14,697 against. (My numbers come from Lone Star by T. R. Fehrenbach.) The state then formally seceded on March 2, Texas Independence Day (the day of the Texas Declaration of Independence from Mexico in 1836).

I've read in various old newspapers where the large slaveholders in some regions were against secession. Probably they felt that they stood a better chance to hold on to their slaves by staying in the Union than risking losing them in the war that might come.

No one believed that slaves were not human beings but
most Southerners believed slaves were human beings who
were condemned by circumstances of birth to a lifetime
of servitude.
This attitude was common during antiquity. It was as natural a belief as is that of modernity which holds chattel slavery to be immoral. Even the most sensitive of men accepted slavery, as it flows through the writings of St Paul. By the 19th Century this attitude was no longer tenable, especially in the United States, which on paper was committed to political equality. Whether the Founders intended their proclamations to apply to black people can only be speculated but nonetheless the Founders proclaimed all men to be created equal.
Those who founded this country did so in the knowledge that slavery existed. Some, perhaps most, wished it abolished, but they wanted union more than abolition. Such a notion is understandable. They were men of the 18th Century, not the 19th, and they were old men (for their time) by 1787. They knew that any attempt at abolition meant no union. Faced with an unpleasant situation, they hedged, they compromised. They set a time after which the slave trade could be abolished. They insisted that slaves be counted as 3/5 of a person. Were they wrong to chose as they did? In our present situation condemnation is easy, but if they had chosen abolition what we have now would not exist.