The Quiet Sesquicentennial of the War between the States

Funny enough, we’re now within a couple weeks of the 70th Anniversary of DDay, and I haven’t heard a peep about any commemorations.

We heard so much about the other commemorations because Presidents Reagan and Clinton and Bush went to France for memorial services. It looks like Obama will do the same, so we'll hear something about it in the news.

Cameron, Hollande, and Merkel are also supposed to be there, and Obama is also scheduled to meet with Putin. Something tells me that what happened 70 years ago may not be the focus of coverage this time, though.

So the neglect doesn’t seem to be limited to the Civil War.

The WWI centennial is also coming up. So you get the usual magazine chatter about the outbreak of the war. I doubt the centennial of our own entry will make much of an impression on most people, though. The Spanish-American war centennial passed without comment, and once upon a time, that war was a big event.

D-Day didn’t free anybody. Midway didn’t free anybody. Valley Forge didn’t free anybody. The Alamo didn’t free anybody. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Is the function of the term “Lost Causer” to make you feel absolved from thinking?

The "Lost Cause" is a well-established idiom for a particular strain of thought. Here's the beginning of the Wikipedia entry for it:

The Lost Cause is the American literary and intellectual movement that sought to reconcile the traditionalist white society of the U.S. South to the defeat of the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War of 1861–1865.[1] It forms an important aspect of the Commemoration of the American Civil War.
Those who contributed to the movement tended to portray the Confederacy's cause as noble and most of its leaders as exemplars of old-fashioned chivalry, defeated by the Union armies through overwhelming force rather than martial skill. Proponents of the Lost Cause movement also condemned the Reconstruction that followed the Civil War, claiming that it had been a deliberate attempt by Northern politicians and speculators to destroy the traditional Southern way of life. In recent decades Lost Cause themes have been widely promoted by the Neo-Confederate movement in books and op-eds and especially in its magazine Southern Partisan.

Seems to fit pretty well to me. What's your objection to it?

As for the rest of your points, how do you reconcile this nuanced position (which can be summarized as "It wasn't about slavery! It wasn't! Wasnt! Wasn't!") with the statements I posted from the secessionist leaders saying that, in fact, it was all about slavery? Were they wrong about their motives, or lying about them?

All he has left is insults....lame ones at that.

The Wikipedia "Lost Cause of the Confederacy" page is a good one. I found this quote from William C. Davis, regarding the confederate constitution's stipulation that no state could abolish slavery:

To the old Union they had said that the Federal power had no authority to interfere with slavery issues in a state. To their new nation they would declare that the state had no power to interfere with a federal protection of slavery. Of all the many testimonials to the fact that slavery, and not states rights, really lay at the heart of their movement, this was the most eloquent of all.

This is tedious. The war was about several things, including slavery. Even if one were to assume for the sake of argument that slavery was the only issue for the Deep South, how do you account for the fact that states with more than half the population of the Confederacy remained with the Union until it was clear Lincoln was going to invade if slavery was the only issue? You can’t. The central issue for them was the nature of the Union and the power of the central government. Virginia alone represented roughly 20% of the population of the Confederacy, and here is what it’s proclamation said:

By the Governor of Virginia.

a Proclamation.

Whereas, seven of the States formerly composing a part of the United States, have, by authority of their people, solemnly resumed the powers granted by them to the United States, and have framed a Constitution and organized a Government for themselves, to which the people of those States are yielding willing obedience, and have so notified the President of the United States by all the formalities incident to such action, and thereby become to the United States a separate, independent and foreign power; and, whereas, the Constitution of the United States has invested Congress with the sole power ‘”to declare war,”’ and until such declaration is made the President has no authority to call for an extraordinary force to wage offensive war against any foreign power; and, whereas, on the 15th inst., the President of the United States, in plain violation of the Constitution, has issued a Proclamation calling for a force of seventy-five thousand men, to cause the laws of the United States to be duly executed over a people who are no longer a part of the Union, and in said Proclamation threatens to exert this unusual force to compel obedience to his mandates; and, whereas, the General Assembly of Virginia, by a majority approaching to entire unanimity, has declared, at its last session, that the State of Virginia would consider such an exertion of force as a virtual declaration of war, to be resisted by all the power at the command of Virginia; and subsequently, the Convention now in session, representing the sovereignty of this State, has re-affirmed in substance the same policy, by almost equal unanimity; and, whereas, the State of Virginia deeply sympathizes with the Southern States, in the wrongs they have suffered, and in the position they have assumed, and having made earnest efforts peaceably to compose the differences which have severed the Union, and have failed in that attempt through this unwarranted act on the part of the President; and it is believed that the influences which operate to produce this Proclamation against the seceded States will be brought to bear upon this Commonwealth, if she should exercise her undoubted right to resume the powers granted by her people, and it is due to the honor of Virginia that an improper exercise of force against her people should be repelled: Therefore, I, John Letcher, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, have thought proper to order all armed volunteer regiments or companies within this State forthwith to hold themselves in readiness for immediate orders, and upon the reception of this Proclamation to report to the Adjutant General of the State their organization and numbers, and prepare themselves for efficient service. Such companies as are not armed and equipped will report that fact, that they may be properly supplied.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the Commonwealth to be affixed, this 17th day of April, 1861, and in the 85th year of the Commonwealth. John Letcher.

Letcher sent a notice to the Governor of North Carolina about Lincoln’s preparations for war, who responded:

North Carlina Gov. John W. Ellis wrote:

“Your dispatch is received, and if genuine, which its extraordinary character leads me to doubt, I have to say in reply, that I regard the levy of troops made by the administration for the purpose of subjugating the states of the South, as a violation of the Constitution, and as a gross usurpation of power. I can be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of this country and to this war upon the liberties of a free people. You can get no troops from North Carolina.” -—N.C. Gov. John W. Ellis, April 15, 1861

I could continue in this vein, but I really don’t have much time for this. To take just one example from the first seven states to secede, Texas had only been part of the Union for 15 years before the crisis. Many Texans wanted to resume independence. Slavery was not the issue you assume because it existed only in the far eastern part of the state that adjoins Louisiana. Much of the state’s population consisted of ethnic Germans who despised slavery and, in any event, very little of the state had a climate amenable to the plantation system. To take another example, South Carolina had a long history of secessionist sentiments, which mainly centered on economic and federalism issues. An intelligent understanding of South Carolina politics cerca 1860 would be informed by, among other things, the influence of John Calhoun, the nullification controversies, the Fire-Eaters, etc. In which case, one would understand that both a rejection of a “Nationalist” view of the Union and slavery were what formed attitudes toward the issue of secession. Now, it would be possible to rip quote after quote from documents and speeches of the “Fire-Eaters” to try to reduce everything to “Slavery!”, but it would be very poor historiography. While they were politically very active at the time, they didn’t mirror the views of the population.

As for Wikipedia...why would anyone rely on that source for anything interpretive? I will say that the quote pretty much reflects a slightly toned down, partial Unionist/leftist point of view. The phrase actually is the title of Pollard’s book on the war, which I own, among many volumes by Northern and Southern authors, and which I doubt you’ve even read (or Benson Lossing’s book written roughly during the same period, for that matter). If you know much about the planter class in the South, you know that they were very influenced by Walter Scott’s novels and in general tried in some degree to pattern their society after their interpretation of a chivalric ideal. It is quite clear that that part of what your Wiki guy (who may be living in his parents’ basement writing in his underwear) was actually, to the extent I specify, true, even if we would agree that it was very strange. AND of course, the aspirations of 90% or so of Southerners at that time had nothing to do with, for example, Ivanoe.

You would be hard pressed to find a serious historian who would dispute that. You would also be hard pressed to find a serious historian who would deny that it was the North’s overwhelming advantage in population (and willingness to import mercenaries) and industrial capacity that ultimately turned the tide of battle. I don’t think even Lincoln would dispute that the South had, on the whole, and with some egregious exceptions, better general officers. Where your “basement dweller” does, I think, point to something in what he calls the “Lost Cause” view that I would agree is part of the Lost Cause view by the survivors of the war, and that I believe is wrong, is the claim that the war “had been a deliberate attempt by Northern politicians and speculators to destroy the traditional Southern way of life.” This part of Southern thinking after the war was a reaction to the behavior of Northern politicians and financial interests during Reconstruction. It was opportunism and revenge after the fact. Before the war, only the tiny sect of abolitionists had any interest in destroying the “traditional southern way of life” (which was really the “planters’ way of life”). The financial interests in the North before the war just wanted the continuation of their tariffs and corporate welfare.

I’m surprised that “the basement dweller” didn’t include state’s rights and federalism as a part of the “Lost Cause” view. Perhaps it is in a part that you didn’t quote. In any event, that, too, was part of the “Lost Cause” histories, and it is correct. Normally, the left, lacking any real Constitutional basis for its arguments on the nature of federalism, simply argues the “guilt by association” fallacy: “The South stood for states’ rights and slavery, so anyone who disputes the legitimacy of the leviathan federal government is pro-slavery or a racist.”

By the way, “Neo-Confederate” is just a bit of rhetoric for smearing those who recognize that states have the Constitutional and natural right to disassociate themselves from the federal government. I guess that makes Jefferson a Neo-Confederate.

As for myself, I think Horace Greeley was right in 1860.

Even if one were to assume for the sake of argument that slavery was the only issue for the Deep South, how do you account for the fact that states with more than half the population of the Confederacy remained with the Union until it was clear Lincoln was going to invade if slavery was the only issue? You can’t.

Sure, I can. Post hoc ergo proctor hoc is a logical fallacy, and Virginia's ordinance of secession says:

"The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitition were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States"

So,they are associating themselves on the basis of a shared interest in slavery.

You talk about Texas and how slavery was a small factor there, and yet here's what their declaration says:

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated States to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility [sic] and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery--the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits--a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time
(...)
In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon the unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of the equality of all men, irrespective of race or color--a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of the Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and the negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States

Were there long-simmering tensions between north and south? Of course there were. As I said above, the tensions go back to colonial times and some trace them back to England and the English Civil War. It can be said to be a form of class warfare--a hereditary aristocracy defending their privileges against the rise of a capitalist class. Southern rhetoric about the "money-grubbing yankees" has been a fixture of America from colonial times down to these FR threads.

Did some states hesitate before declaring secession? Obviously, but in the end they sided with their economic interests in slavery, and there's abundant evidence of this. Virginia's case is particularly interesting, since they actually joined the confederacy and began raising troops several weeks before getting around to holding a referendum on the matter.

Normally, the left, lacking any real Constitutional basis for its arguments on the nature of federalism...

Accusing anyone who doesn't agree that the founding fathers intended for states to have the ability to secede from the United States unilaterally at will, and to have the right to start shelling forts if they aren't abandoned promptly of being leftists is simply absurd and does you no credit.

The Constitution would not have been ratified if the states had had any reason to believe it was a “roach motel”. The “Perpetual Union” language that was in the Articles was NOT included in the Constitution, and it was generally understood that the reservation of powers in the Bill of Rights included the reserved power to withdraw. This was the clear understanding in the Founding generation, and the New England states, contemplated seceding over the War of 1812. The “roach motel” lie was something that surfaced beginning in the 1820s, and “Nationalists” such as Daniel Webster pushed it. Even in the 1860/ early 1861 period, as I pointed out, the majority sentiment in the North was that the South had the right to leave. Your handling of sources reminds me of the kind of irresponsible “proof-texting” I see among many evangelicals.

There is not much that can be done about invincible ignorance. If Lincoln hadn’t decided to invade the South, Virginia, etc. would have stayed in the Union. There is no way to honestly deny that. “Slavery” was not the main issue for those states, and they were content stay until Lincoln began acting like the dictator he became. As for the reference to “slave holding states”, that only identifies the states; it does not show that slavery was the only issue. The corrupt neo-mercantilism of the “American System” did unlawfully oppress slave states and benefitted the North. The federal government was increasingly being used to loot the South for the benefit of the North.

Your problem is that you don’t want to read anything that will threaten your “received” schoolbook history. As far as I can tell, you evidently haven’t read even Charles Adams’ “When In The Course of Human Events”. Charles Dickens who followed the events as a contemporary viewed the war as strictly a fiscal dispute. The Canadians tended to see the conflict as a drive for empire by the North that involved trampling the Constitution. There are, of course many other sources, but I don’t think any amount of evidence will matter to you.

As I have said before, the reasons for the conflict weren’t strictly, fiscal, taxation, usurpation of power, or slavery, but a combination of all of these things in degrees that varied from state to state. I do admit that one contemporaneous commentator who took a similar position to yours was Karl Marx in his “analysis” pieces for the New York Tribune.

I think you have a need for “white hats” and “black hats” in historical explanations. If you admit that it wasn’t only a matter of slavery, then it deprives you of a tidy morality play, which puts Lincoln’s sainthood in play and raises the possibility that Northern politics were driven to an unseemly extent by crony-capitalists and men wanting a central bank. The South had its own set of flaws beyond slavery. Serious history isn’t a matter of cheerleading for a “team”.

There is not much that can be done about invincible ignorance.

I bet you could make some inroads against it - if you tried ;')

I’ve tried, but it hasn’t worked with you or the other Jaffaite.

From all outward appearances you are quite “comfortably numb” in your invincible ignorance.

And you probably believe that SS has a trust fund that you “paid into”, sent your children to government schools, and think George W. was a real “conservative.”

And that is exactly why you are losing in this conversation. You show a willingness (almost to obsession) with assuming.

The plain, unvarnished truth is that neither one of us is apt to change the others mind. This thread has pretty much run its course and there are only a tiny handful that are refreshing the page. No one is going to "win" this argument. And I don't think that is even the point. To me, the point is that we have a fundamental difference of opinion. It's where we take the disagreement that makes the difference.

You've ably demonstrated that you are inclined to take the conversation in the direction of insult, slander, and ad-hom. That's OK by me but you should recognize that it tosses any promise of persuasion right out the window.

The reason why I'm here is because I am interested in the topic and what you have to say (less the stupid insults). Your arguments are better thought out than many of the Lost Causers I've seen at FreeRepublic. They do have value - even if your conclusions are wrong.

You would do your POV a favor if you ratcheted-down the insults. IMO.

achilles2000: "The South didn’t go to war to defend slavery."

As always, our pro-Confederates are working hard to throw sand in the eyes of the unwary.

In 1860 and early 1861, the Deep South was under the control of its Slave-Power Fire Eaters, who first demanded and got the splitting of their previously majority Democrat party, thus engineering Republican victory in November 1860.
Next they demanded and got declarations of secession from all seven Deep South states -- South Carolina through Texas.
Finally, they demanded and got a new Confederate government, which all the seceding states immediately joined.

All of this was done for one serious reason only: to protect their "peculiar institution" of slavery against Abraham Lincoln's "Black Republicans".

At that point -- by March 1861 -- "Fire Eaters" began to fade from center stage, and "moderates" like Jefferson Davis took over the new Confederate government.
Davis, of course, intended to protect slavery, but that was not his immediate concern in March 1861.
Davis' most pressing concern was to assert the sovereignty & rights of his new country, against the property and interests of the United States government.
He also intended to expand the Confederacy from those seven states of the Deep South into four states of the Upper South (North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Arkansas) and the four Border States (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland & Delaware).
He also claimed US territories of Oklahoma, New Mexico & Arizona.

In short, in March 1861, Davis intended the utter destruction of the United States as it had been heretofore known.
But so far, he was having no success -- all eight of the Upper South and Border states rejected calls for secession.
Virginia was especially firm in opposition to secession.
So Davis was forced to act to save his Confederacy from failure & humiliation.

So he began, in March 1861 by ordering up a 100,000 man Confederate Army, and simultaneously ordering preparations for a military assault on Federal troops in Federal Fort Sumter.
His purpose was to not only take the fort, but also create conditions where Upper South slave-states were forced to decide which side to take in a war over slavery.
The results, as expected, caused Virginia to change from Union to Confederate, and along with Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas.

Still, the Border States did not secede, and so Davis did what he could to support Confederates in those Union states, including sending military hardware into Missouri.
At the same time, the Confederate Congress formally declared war on the United States -- May 6, 1861 -- such that by the time Virginia voted to join the Confederacy, it was also voting to join a formally declared war on the Union.

And remember, all this happened before a single Confederate Soldier was killed directly in battle with any Union force, and before any Union Army invaded a single Confederate state.

So the sequence of events can be summarized as:

The Deep South slave-power declared its secession in order to protect slavery.
But secession alone did not cause Civil War, nor did forming a new Confederate government.
The Confederacy provoked, started and formally declared war on the United States, then sent military aid and eventually units into every Union state it could reach, for the purpose of asserting its own sovereignty while destroying or reducing the United States as a potential threat.

So the real question here is whether the Confederacy was utterly insane to pick a fight with a Union which had four times its white population, and ten times its industry?
The answer is, not necessarily -- when you consider that Southerners had decades of experience dealing with Northerners, knew the Northerners weaknesses, saw them as generally "Dough-faces" and didn't believe them capable of serious, bloody opposition.

Leaders like Jefferson Davis believed it would only take a few bloody battles to convince Northerners to give up the fight.
Based on that, they were eager to start a war they expected to quickly win.

I’ve provided many more sources than the caliber of the postings I’ve received have deserved. As a famous economist once said, when the facts change, I sometimes change my mind. What do you do? Based on what you’ve posted so far, you seem to cherish your received prejudices. Facts and analysis that might render the prejudices uncomfortable don’t matter.

Interesting post. I recently started reading the 3-volume history of the Civil War by Shelby Foote. A very good read so far.

Despite the huge advantage in manpower, materials and industry, the North came close to losing this one. I often wonder how history would have turned out if the Confederacy prevailed and were able to establish themselves as an independent nation.

I'm thinking it might not have turned out so well. The western states would likely have been next to establish their own nation and we would probably be a lot like the Balkans today - a continent of fighting and bickering nations.

There you go again - assuming details. Don't you ever tire of being wrong?

A pretty good summation.

I’d suggest, however, that from election to Sumter, Lincoln and Davis were engaged in a contest by war of nerves for allegiance of the Upper South and Border States.

Had the Union gotten them all, the Deep South states might have negotiated their way back into the Union. If they had instead chosen to fight, the war would have been short. CSA loses.

Had the CSA gotten all these states, the Union might very well have accepted secession. Had it chosen to fight, the war would again have been relatively short. Union loses.

Instead, these states split almost exactly down the middle, resulting in a long bloody war.

As you say, Davis expected to win. He believed the South’s propaganda that northerners couldn’t/wouldn’t fight. Though one would think the results of Bleeding Kansas would have given them second thoughts. Jefferson long before had pointed out how the petty despotism encouraged by the institution of slavery tended to encourage megalomania and delusions of invincibility in slaveowners.

He expected to win, as most European military and political leaders expected. That they didn’t was quite largely due to the enormously improved logistics made possible by the railroad net. Without the railroad the Union would not have been able to keep its forces supplied deep in hostile territory in the numbers needed to win.

The great difference this made in warfare was demonstrated for the first time in this war.

Do you really mean to resort to strawman argumentation? Anyone who has read my posts surely understands that I have often stated my position: a mono-causal view of the War Between The States is untenable. There were various factors on both sides that led to the War, including, but by no means limited to, slavery. That hardly makes me “pro-Confederate”, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

As for your account of the beginning of hostilities (complete with an artist’s rendering!):

1. The Union was a voluntary association that didn’t contain any provision prohibiting any state from leaving the Union. I’ve pointed out elsewhere that even in the North this was the view. You might be surprised to know that Lincoln himself made a speech when he was in Congress affirming the right of any people anywhere to “shake off” a government that didn’t suit them and form one to their liking.

2. The South seceded in a peaceful orderly way. Northerners were generally disposed to let them go, as pointed out previously.

3. Once protected, subsidized industries figured out that the Confederate States of America would have the indirect consequence of costing them their corporate welfare and forcing them to compete, Lincoln began obsessing about the tariff issue. The South, after all, was paying more than 50% of all federal taxes.

4. Through 1860 and early 1861 secession was not opposed by the Northern people. Lincoln knew that time would ripen secession into a permanent state of affairs. To get popular support, he needed an “event”, and Sumter was it. South Carolina was willing to wait out Major Anderson at the Fort. Nevertheless, while Lincoln publicly promised not to reprovision and reinforce the Fort, he sent a supply ship and flotilla of warships to Sumter, apparently to do exactly that. That is how the conflict began. If a foreign power sent a battle fleet to enter Long Beach Harbor, it would be considered an act of war.

Now, I know that none of this is popular with the Lincoln worshippers on FR (you may or may not be one, but others will read this post), but historians generally recognize that Lincoln deliberately brought about the hostilities at Fort Sumter. Even popular historians such as Shelby Foote and Bruce Catton have written about it. For that matter, many Northern papers at the time knew exactly what Lincoln was doing. The Providence Daily Post, for example, wrote on April 13, 1861: “For three weeks the Administration newspapers have been assuring us that Fort Sumter would be abandoned...[but] Mr. Lincoln saw an opportunity to inaugurate civil war without appearing in the character of an aggressor.” An other example - The Jersey City American Standard wrote on April 12, 1861: “There is a madness and ruthlessness in... [Mr. Lincoln’s behavior] which is astounding..this unarmed vessel...is a mere decoy to draw the first fire from the people of the South, which act by the predetermination of the government is to be the pretext for letting loose the horrors of war.” Even Lincoln’s personal secretaries, Nicolay and Hay, admitted after the War that Lincoln had sought to provoke the firing at Sumter: “Abstractly it was enough that the government was in the right. But to make the matter sure, [Lincoln] determined that in addition the rebellion should be put in the ‘wrong’”

5. In early April of 1861 Col. John Baldwin ( a representative to Virginia secession convention) met with Lincoln to assure him that if he exercised forbearance toward the seceded states that all 8 of the border states would stay in the Union and would work to eventually get the Deep South to return. Lincoln’s response to Baldwin’s advice against Lincoln’s plans for war was: “And open Charleston, etc., as ports of entry, with a 10% tariff? What then would become of my tariff?” A few days later, one day after the firing on Sumter, a three man commission came from the Virginia secession conference urging Lincoln to set aside his war plans so that Virginia would remain in the Union, Lincoln essentially repeated what he had told Baldwin: “If I do that, what will become of my revenue? I might as well shut up housekeeping at once.”

6. Sumter, by the way, provided Lincoln with a means of enforcing the tariff on the Port of Charleston, which is what he ultimately wanted. The South Carolinians were not going to tolerate a Federal fort in their harbor collecting taxes any more than Massachusetts would have willingly tolerated a British fort in Boston Harbor after the British had been driven from Boston.

7. Lincoln wanted a war because he saw it as the only way to preserve the system of taxes and subsidies that sustained the financially powerful elements of his base.

8. The Fire-Eaters were only one faction - one that I’ve mentioned before. One can quote them all day long on the issue of slavery, but they didn’t represent even close to a majority, ever. In that sense, they were like the Abolitionists, who were few in number but enormously vocal and who, at times, sounded unhinged and genocidal.

Because you seem reasonable, I’ll add that Robert Toombs’ advice on Sumter should have been taken. If they had left it alone, Lincoln would have been in a quandary, and war might well have been avoided. At the least, it might helped keep the border states in the Union.

Do you have anything useful to add? I didn’t think so...