One could draw an analogy to what’s going on now. The few Southerners passionate about industrialization were a little like the Flake-Romney Republicans passionate about globalization or the Ocasio Democrats passionate about socialism. Most people lived in the world as it was and were concerned about what was immediately around them. I don’t think Jefferson Davis had any ambitious hopes for industrialization.
You would be wrong about that. Jefferson Davis commented several times about how the sectional partisan legislation in Washington was draining money out of the South and hampering the South’s industrialization. Most people by the 1850s realized industrialization was the way to go. The largest and most successful economies like Britain and France were some of the first to industrialize.
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You do realize that saying “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists” was not going to satisfy Southern slaveowners.
They believed slavery was a good thing that ought to be spread. They wanted what they thought was their share of the new territories. They wanted to be able to take their slaves with them when they went west. Or even when they went North.
A President who wanted to exclude slavery from the territories was a slap in the face of slaveholders and their pride. They thought it made them second class citizens (as strange as that sounds to sane people now).
Southerners did feel as though they were not being treated equally (once again) with respect to the territories. That said, THE big concern was votes in the Senate - not some holy crusade to spread slavery. They knew that due to immigration they could not match the North’s population and thus were always going to be outvoted in the House and in most cases for the presidency so the Senate was the Southern States’ last chance to prevent really harmful tariffs and really unequal expenditures from being passed by the federal govt. It was a power struggle plain and simple. Once they seceded, suddenly the territories became unimportant. They no longer needed votes in the Senate.
Lincoln was the head of the American Colonization Society and twice got Congress to appropriate funds for the purpose of settling Blacks elsewhere. The point was that Lincoln himself was not opposed to slavery where it existed. He was perfectly willing to provide additional fugitive slave laws. There was no widespread popular sentiment in the North to abolish slavery. So even if Lincoln had been hostile to it he wouldn’t have had the power to do anything about it anyway. And in any event the 15 slaveholding states could have blocked any constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. In case anybody was in any doubt, the Republicans put forward the Corwin Amendment which Lincoln endorsed.
Slavery simply was not threatened.
Plenty of things would threaten the self-image of slave owners and make them feel like it wasn’t their country any more. You didn’t need a constitutional amendment to make the slave power feel the heat. If you owned slaves, you were used to getting your own way. When you didn’t, it would peeve you something terrible.
If anything the Southern states were used to being outvoted. They had been for quite some time. Tariffs far higher than a revenue tariff (ie max 10%) had been the norm for decades. Massive corporate welfare and infrastructure spending benefitting the Northern states had been the rule for decades.
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Some Northerners brought slaves to the South. But Britons brought more, I believe. So did the French, Dutch, and Spaniards. They were all satisfying the demand.
You’re completely wrong about this. New England was the epicenter of the slave trade industry for the entire western hemisphere - not just North America. The US refused to allow the Royal Navy to search its vessels when the Royal Navy was trying to stamp out the slave trade. The US was almost alone among nations which refused to allow it at that time. Ostensibly it was for “patriotic” reasons but the real reason was of course, Yankee slave traders were making huge profits. This was laid out by 3 New England Journalists a few years ago in their NY times best seller “Complicity: how the North Promoted, Prolonged and Profited From Slavery”. You should read it some time.
There was a small elite in Charleston or New Orleans that dreamed of the South as an industrial power. They were the Hamiltonians of what was a very Jeffersonian (agrarian) region, and more intellectual than effective. There were also actual industrialists in Virginia and Tennessee, but they weren't for secession in the beginning. Before Sumter, they were willing to take their chances in the US.
Further South, people wanted to rely on cotton. Think about it for a minute: all those books and pamphlets about King Cotton and how valuable it was and how the world couldn't live without it. And all those books and articles about how horrible and cold and miserable Northern urban life and factory work were. People who write and think that way usually aren't thinking first and foremost about industrializing their region.
Slavery simply was not threatened.
Lincoln was the head of the American Colonization Society and twice got Congress to appropriate funds for the purpose of settling Blacks elsewhere. The point was that Lincoln himself was not opposed to slavery where it existed.
Hint: Compensated emancipation and colonization were perceived as a threat by militant slave owners. Anything that undercut the power of the slave owners was seen as a threat. By 1860, anything that suggested that slavery was a temporary and passing phase provoked hostility.
So even if Lincoln had been hostile to it he wouldn’t have had the power to do anything about it anyway. And in any event the 15 slaveholding states could have blocked any constitutional amendment to abolish slavery. In case anybody was in any doubt, the Republicans put forward the Corwin Amendment which Lincoln endorsed.
You've said that loss of the Senate was seen as a threat. One of the things that it threatened was the power and peace of mind of the slaveowning elite. As I said, there were many things a president could do - and many things a Congress could do - short of a constitutional amendment that would make slaveowners uneasy, and make them feel that they could do better on their own in a new nation dedicated to the preservation of slavery.
By contrast, Southerners could usually count on the support of Northern Democrats to keep the tariff from rising too high. If it were all about tariffs and economics, the new Western agricultural states would be seen as allies by the South, rather than as a threat. Western farmers didn't want to pay high import taxes either.
If anything the Southern states were used to being outvoted. They had been for quite some time. Tariffs far higher than a revenue tariff (ie max 10%) had been the norm for decades. Massive corporate welfare and infrastructure spending benefitting the Northern states had been the rule for decades.
The US tariff rate in the 1840s was about 20%. That's not "far higher" than 10%. The rate reflected a country where agricultural interests had to be balanced against the interests of infant industries. The tariff had to pay for the costs of collecting the tax as well as the revenue it generated and 10% wouldn't go very far in paying for customs houses, warehouses, and clerks. The 1846 tariff was written by Democrats with considerable Southern input. And what "massive corporate welfare and infrastructure spending" before the Civil War? Just what are you talking about that fits that description?
New England was the epicenter of the slave trade industry for the entire western hemisphere - not just North America. The US refused to allow the Royal Navy to search its vessels when the Royal Navy was trying to stamp out the slave trade. The US was almost alone among nations which refused to allow it at that time. Ostensibly it was for “patriotic” reasons but the real reason was of course, Yankee slave traders were making huge profits.
If there was an epicenter it was more likely to be Liverpool or Bristol or Glasgow than Boston or Salem or New Haven. But if you consider the transatlantic slave trade as a whole there was no center. Spanish, Portuguese, French, Dutch, Danish, British and US slave traders competed with each other in a network that extended across four continents.
The US and Britain abolished the slave trade at about the same time, 1807-1808. Most of the slaves sent to the US did not arrive in American ships or under the US flag. Most likely their ancestors arrived in colonial times or shortly afterwards.
After the ban, the US fleet was active in trying to stop slave ships. There were always illegal traders after the ban from a variety of countries - some were Southerners - but the notion that the trade was turning in massive profits for New Englanders or that foreign traders weren't doing the same thing looks shaky.
The US did refuse to make a treaty granting the British the right to board and search US ships. That had as much to do with national pride and the wishes of the Southern states as anything to do with the Northern states. I also notice that things didn't always go smoothly between Britain and other countries. It was as much British strong-arm tactics as any humanitarian concerns that made other countries give in to British demands, and the other countries pushed back when they thought they could.
New England was the epicenter of the slave trade industry for the entire western hemisphere - not just North America
Not really:
The following information is from the “Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database”. This database can be found at www.slavevoyages.org
The country listed below is the flag of the ship transporting slaves.
Country total voyages % of slave voyages
Portugal 35,994 61.6 %
Britain 12,010 20.5 %
France 4,199 7.2 %
USA 2,268 3.9 %
Spain 1,893 3.2 %
Holland 1704 2.9 %
Denmark 411 .7 %
Total 58,449 100 %
The website estimates that the database represents about 80 % of the total slave trade voyages from 1514 to 1866.
Looking at the country’s ships transporting slaves and the destination of the voyage shows the most of the slave voyages were ships of a specific country bound for the colonies of that country in the Western Hemisphere. As an example, most, but no all, Portugal’s slave voyages ended in Portuguese Brazil. Most, but not all, Britain’s slave voyages went to British colonies in the Caribbean. American slave ships transported mostly to the United States, and after 1808, to Cuba.