What the Civil War was really about
"When in the course of human events, it becomes
necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with
another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to
which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect of the
opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the
separation. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to altar or to abolish
it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and
organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their
safety and happiness." The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
"I would have our children's children to know not
only that our cause was just, but to have them know that the men who sustained it were
worthy of the cause for which they fought. It is our duty to keep the memory of our
heroes. We want our side of the war so fully and exactly stated that the men who come
after us may compare and do us justice…." Jefferson Davis, 1882
"From time to time the Tree of Liberty must be
refreshed with the blood of tyrants and patriots." Thomas Jefferson
"We had, I was satisfied, sacred principles to
maintain and rights to defend for which we were in duty bound to do our best, even if we
perished in the endeavor." General Robert E. Lee
"History has informed us that bodies of men, as well
as individuals, are susceptible of the spirit of tyranny." Thomas Jefferson, 1774
"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to
accidental opinions of the day; but a series of oppressions, began at a distinguished
period, and pursued unalterably…too plainly prove a deliberate and systematical plan
of reducing us to slavery." Thomas Jefferson, 1774
"The State Legislatures…ought to have some
means of defending themselves against encroachments of the National Government." George
Mason of Virginia
Secession - Definition: The act of 11 states
withdrawing from the Union in 1860-1861 which directly led to the American Civil War.
Civil War – Definition: when to powers compete
for control of the same government.
The American Civil War cannot be classified, in the
technical sense, as a "Civil War"—it was a war for "States
Rights."
How it started
From the early through to late middle 1800's the North
was in a great recession. Immigrants were flooding in at an ever-increasing rate this
added to he unemployment in the industrialized north. The northern states economy was
based on hard money. Representation grew for the northern states "a problem we still
have today" due to efflux of immigrants.
…the North favored a loose interpretation of the
United States Constitution. They wanted to grant the federal government increased powers.
The South wanted to reserve all undefined powers to the individual states. The North also
wanted internal improvements sponsored by the federal government. This was more roads,
railroads, and canals. The South, on the other hand, did not want these projects to be
done at all. Also the North wanted to develop a tariff. With a high tariff, it protected
the Northern manufacturer. It was bad for the South because a high tariff would not let
the south trade its cotton for foreign goods. The North also wanted a good banking and
currency system and federal subsidies for shipping and internal improvements. The South
felt these were discriminatory and that they favored Northern commercial interests.
This in itself fueled resentment for Southerners. Then
the south was told it would follow the "New" Federal rules of a central
government. In other words, the states could not rule themselves. Then the garrison at
Fort Sumter this was to impede shipping in and out of Charleston. When found out Lincoln
was to send troops and supplies to the fort "even after a promise he would not"
it really lit the fuse. The very thing he and the northern bankers wanted.
The south based its economy in agriculture
"trade." Most southerners grew their own food, made his cloths and tools, and
99.9% did all this without salves. The south was doing just fine during this time period.
This made the folks losing money in the north angry "most of them bankers." They
knew if war started, they would get rich off loans to the "New" Federal
Government. The fuel they used to lobby the Republicans was slavery. Neither Lincoln nor
any of the money in the north could care less for the blacks' welfare. Lincoln despised
them.
When Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston called the
Civil War the "War Against States" he was echoing the feelings of most
Southerners. That what was at issue was not the practice of slavery, per se, but the
relationship between the states and the federal government. In the opinion of many in the
South, Northerners, who now outnumbered Southerners and therefore controlled Congress,
were attempting to enforce their will upon Southern states in the name of the national
government. The doctrine of states' rights is based on the 10th Amendment to the
Constitution, which stipulates that the "powers not delegated to the United States by
the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the states
respectively, or to the people."
To strict readers of that clause the federal government
has the right only to declare war and conduct diplomacy in the name of the states. All
other matters, including the right to allow slavery to exist within a state's borders, are
to be decided by the population of each individual state. Those who believe in broad
national powers find their proof in the "elastic clause" in Article 1, Section 8
of the Constitution, which says that the federal government can make any laws that are
"necessary and proper" for enforcing its power.
The controversy over the relation between states and
federal rights arose shortly after the Constitution was adopted in 1787 and has never
diminished. In 1798, the proposed Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, passed in opposition
to the Alien and Sedition Acts enacted by the federal government, pitched Thomas Jefferson
and James Madison, who believed that individual states could decide whether or not to
enforce federal legislation, against the Federalists' advocacy of strong central
government.
Another prominent states' rights controversy took place
in 1814 at the Hartford Convention, when New England Federalists used the states' rights
argument to claim that the national government had no right to enforce federal shipping
policies that were the cause of the War of 1812. Starting in the 1820s, as the country
began to expand westward, the states' rights argument centered more and more upon the
practice of slavery. The most extreme states' rights position was taken by South Carolina
Senator John Calhoun, who developed the doctrine of nullification, which asserts
that a state can nullify within its own borders any act of the federal government which it
considers an invasion of its own rights.
South Carolina officially adopted the doctrine in 1832.
Such a theory led logically to the doctrine of secession, which viewed the Constitution as
a contractual agreement between states and the federal government that could be
invalidated as public sentiment within each individual state dictated. In many ways, the
South's insistence on states' rights weakened its position in the Civil War, since it
limited its ability to organize a coordinated military and economic front.
The Civil War marked a turning point toward government
centralization; constitutional amendments enacted since then have tended to limit the
authority of the states and/or expand federal authority. Perhaps the most sweeping change
in the relationship between states and the federal government resulted from the passage of
the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, which granted due process and equal protection under
the law to all United States citizens. This led to the landmark Supreme Court decision,
Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas (1954), which held segregation in public
school across the country unconstitutional.
As the civil rights movement grew during the 1950s,
advocates of states' rights in the South insisted that each state had the right to
"interpose the sovereignty of a state against the encroachment upon the reserved
power of the state." Under this doctrine, which was struck down by the Supreme Court
in 1960, a state would have the power to overrule a decision of a federal agency if it
conflicts with a state law doctrine remarkably similar to nullification.
To these States, the reserved sovereign right of
secession was the only peaceable choice between the two alternatives of submission to
a central government that had become the judge of its own authority, or being forced to
remain in the Union under coercion by this same central government (MLD p.52).
"But by 1861, the political divisions between North
and South regarding constitutional exegesis were so entrenched that the Constitution
ceased to be the instrument of a 'more perfect union' and rather served as the vehicle for
dissension and separation…Northerners insisted upon a model of federalism consisting
of a national community of individuals, with sovereignty being a national
phenomenon–that is, nationalism–whereas Southerners adhered to a model
consisting of a community of states, with the citizens in their respective states
functioning as the repositories of sovereignty and thereby controlling the bulwarks of
their social and economic interests–that is, state sovereignty." (MLD p.8-9)
On November 26, 1860 Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune
wrote, "If the cotton states unitedly and earnestly wish to withdraw peacefully from
the Union, we think they should and would be allowed to do so. Any attempt to compel them
by force to remain, would be contrary to the principles enunciated in the immortal
Declaration of Independence–contrary to the fundamental ideas on which human liberty
is based." (SDC p. 86)
Horace Greeley, expressing the majority of Northern
sentiment at the time, stated in the December 17, 1860 New York Tribune, "If
the Declaration of Independence justified the secession from the British Empire of
3,000,000 of colonists in 1776, we do not see why it would not justify the secession of
5,000,000 of Southerners from the Federal Union in 1860." (GE p. 164)
President Buchanan had declared that he could find no
constitutional authority for using force against any State that seceded. However, contrary
to the views he held as a Congressman in 1848, President Lincoln declared, in effect,
"I have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution, which means, in my opinion, a union
of the states. I shall do anything in my power to sustain the Constitution and the union,
regardless of the constitutional aspect of what I do." (WEW p. 525)
Commercial interests in the North were greatly disturbed
over the secession of the Southern States, fearing great financial harm to Northern
shipping from the lower import tariffs at Southern ports. An editorial in the February 19,
1861 Manchester, New Hampshire Union Democrat voiced the common concerns of
Northern shipping interests.
"The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships
or buy our goods. What is our shipping without it? literally nothing. The transportation
of cotton and its fabrics employs more ships than all other trade. It is very clear that
the South gains by this process, and we lose. No–we MUST NOT let the South go!"
(JRK p. 52)
In an attempt to keep Southern States from leaving the
Union, a thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, very different from the current
one, was whittled out of the Crittenden Compromise by both Republicans and Democrats. It
was approved by Congress on February 28, 1861 and submitted to the States for ratification
on March 2, 1861. It declared in part that "no amendment shall be made to the
Constitution, which would abolish or interfere with slavery wherever it is already
established." The States of Maryland and Ohio ratified it before the War broke out.
On March 12, 1861 three Confederate commissioners, who
had come to Washington seeking negotiations toward a peaceable separation, addressed
Secretary of State William Seward with an official letter of intent. Seward, speaking only
through Supreme Court Justice John A. Campbell, assured the Confederate commissioners that
the Union troops in Fort Sumter in Charleston and Fort Pickens in Pensacola would not be
sent supplies without due notification and led them to expect that the forts would be
evacuated in a few days. As the commissioners were departing for home, they learned that
supplies and military reinforcements were already assembled and ready to depart the port
of New York for Fort Sumter.
The April 5, 1861 New York Tribune reported,
"Many rumors are in circulation to-day. They appear to have originated from movements
on the part of the United States troops, the reasons for which have not been communicated
to the reporters at Washington as freely as the late Administration was in the habit of
imparting Cabinet secrets. There can be no doubt that serious movements are on foot."
The authorities at Charleston were informed that an
unarmed supply ship was to be sent to Fort Sumter. Fearing that the Federal fleet would
enter the harbor, they signaled their intent to fire upon the ship should it enter the
harbor, but the United States sent the ship anyway. The ship was reported off Charleston
on April 10, 1861. In response to the presence of the ship, the Southern military in
Charleston prepared to attack the Fort, anticipating the use of force by the Federal fleet
to send reinforcements to the fort.
An article in the April 15, 1861 New York Tribune mentioned
that "[t]he armed ships which accompanied the supplies took no part in the
contest." While the attention of the South was on Fort Sumter, the Federal fleet
succeeded in reinforcing Fort Pickens in Pensacola with men and supplies. This plan had
the additional result of provoking and inducing the South into firing on Fort Sumter. The
April 15 New York Post reported, "...Gen. Scott has been averse to the attempt
to reinforce Fort Sumter. He saw that it would cost men and vessels which the Government
could not spare just now... He saw that the two keys of the position were Fort Pickens, in
the Gulf, and Washington, the Capital.
His plans, based on these facts, were at once laid...
Every hour the traitors spent before Sumter gave them more surely into the hands of the
master. To make assurance doubly sure, he pretended to leave Fort Pickens in the lurch...
The Government said not a word–only asked of the traitors the opportunity to send its
own garrison a needed supply of food... Scarce had they begun their attack [on the Fort],
when they saw with evident terror, ships hovering about the harbor's mouth;... but no
ships came in to Anderson's help... The position of affairs is this–Charleston is
blockaded–Fort Pickens is reinforced by troops, which the traitors foolishly believed
were destined for Sumter... The traitors have, without the slightest cause, opened the
war.…"
By defining the secession of the Southern States from the
Union as a "rebellion", Lincoln was able to justify mustering an army to quell
the "insurrection" under the Act of Congress of 1795 which limited the
use of the specially called militia to thirty days after the beginning of the next session
of Congress. Lincoln delayed calling Congress into special session for at least two and a
half months, thus prolonging his use of the militia against the South before he had to
gain their approval for his actions.
The reasoning
Along with their position within the Union, the Southern
States were turning their backs on what they perceived as the deterioration of American
constitutional federalism as originally set in place by the Founding Fathers.
"The contest is really for empire on the side of the
North and for Independence on that of the South." (London Times. 7 November 1861)
"If I ever disown, repudiate, or apologize for the
Cause for which Lee fought and Jackson died, let the lightning's of Heaven rend me, and
the scorn of all good men and true women be my portion. Sun, Moon, Stars, all fall on me
when I cease to love the Confederacy. 'Tis the cause, not the fate of the Cause, that is
glorious!" (Maj. R.E. Wilson, CSA)
"The Declaration was the outcome of prolonged
discussion, and of hopelessness in resisting arbitrary measures, while in union with the
mother country. When no other course was compatible with self-respect, the pressure of
liberty compelled the tearing asunder of the ties of allegiance and union, and Virginia
and Massachusetts went hand in hand in leading the rupture." (JLMC p. 33)
"The members of the Second Continental Congress were
not members of a governing body, but were delegates and ambassadors sent by governors and
legislatures of the thirteen States, independent States that tenaciously asserted and
guarded their respective sovereignty." (WEW p. 232; JLMC p. 64-65, 68-82)
"John Adams, Massachusetts delegate to the Second
Continental Congress, wrote to his wife of the stark differences between the two peoples
of the Northern and Southern colonies, and that the proposed union could not be held
together "without the utmost caution on both sides." (JRK p. 24)
"The sovereignty of each of the individual thirteen
States was recognized by King George III after the "Articles of the proposed
Treaty" of peace were signed between England and "Commissioners of the United
States of America" in Paris on November 30, 1782. As stipulated by Benjamin Franklin
in the preamble of the treaty with England, and in cooperation with France, formal
independence from and peace with England for each of the thirteen individually recognized
States was finalized as peace was made between France and England. This definitive
"Treaty of Peace" between England and "the United States of America"
was signed on September 3, 1783. The entire transaction for peace was referred to as the
"Peace of Paris." (WEW p. 212-13; SEM p. 266-67)
Article I of both documents contain these words:
"His Britannic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz. New Hampshire,
Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, [Delaware,] Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and
Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent States; that he treats with them as such;
and for himself, his heirs and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government,
propriety, and territorial rights of the same, and every part thereof." Given their
history of inter-colonial rivalries, many observers doubted that any compact between the
newly independent thirteen States would last. "Josiah Tucker, dean of Gloucester, who
was one of the leading economic and political authorities of Great Britain, said, 'The
mutual antipathies and clashing interests of the Americans... their difference of
governments, habitudes, and manners, indicate that they will have no centre of union and
no common interest. They never can be united into one compact empire under any species of
government whatever.'" (WEW p. 213)
"Alexander Hamilton, a staunch Federalist strongly
opposed to democracy, and even a republican form of government, lobbied during the
Constitutional Convention of 1787 for a government patterned after the European
monarchies. He proposed that the government of the United States consist of a president
and senate who were to be elected by electors, with the members of the senate serving for
life, and a lower house consisting of persons elected by popular vote for a three year
term. He also proposed that the governors of the States be appointed by the federal
administration and that the president or congress have veto power over the State
legislatures." (WEW p. 234-35, 294)
"In summary, the Hamiltonians, or Federalists,
distrusted the Individual State governments' for judicious self-government, and argued for
a strong central government with a corresponding decrease of States' rights." (WEW p.
267; SEM p. 328-29; MLD p. 62-63, 69-70)
Thomas Jefferson, a Democratic-Republican and staunch
advocate of democracy, and believing that the Union was a group of sovereign States that
had carefully delegated specific powers to an administrative agent, stated his view of
States' rights within the Union as follows, "My plan would be to make the states one
as to everything connected with foreign nations, and several as to everything purely
domestic." (WEW p. 294)
"The Antifederalists of the Pennsylvania delegation
to the Constitutional Convention opposed ratification saying that "the powers vested
in Congress by this constitution, must necessarily annihilate and absorb the legislative,
executive, and judicial powers of the several States" resulting in "iron-handed
despotism" of the central government." (MLD p. 123)
"During the ratification process of the proposed
constitution, George Mason, in a letter to the Virginia Ratification Convention dated June
4, 1788, warned of the inevitable tension in the union of States of "so extensive a
country, embracing so many climates, and containing inhabitants so very different in
manners, habits, and customs" under a National Government." (JRK p. 24; PBK ch.
8, doc.37)
"The June 26, 1788 Virginia Act of Ratification of
the United States Constitution contained clarifying language stating that the
people of Virginia reserved the right to recall the powers they delegated to the newly
formed federal government if "the same shall be perverted to their injury or
oppression, and that every power not granted thereby remains with them and at their
will." (JRK p.189; GLD p. 65)
"Prior to ratifying the U.S. Constitution,
the States of New York and Rhode Island reserved the right to recall the powers they were
delegating to the new federal government by stating that "the powers of government
may be reassumed by the people whenever it shall become necessary to their
happiness." (GLD p. 65-66)
"Dissenting States would not ratify the Constitution
without the assurance that a Bill of Rights to the Constitution, declaring the
privileges inviolably retained by the people of the States and limiting the reach of the
Federal government, would be put through in the first session of the new Congress."
(WEW p. 247; MLD p. 58)
"The Federalist position argued against a bill of
rights in the new Constitution, stating that it was "unnecessary" since
sufficient restraint upon the government already exists within the body of the Constitution,
being understood by the prominent phrase "WE THE PEOPLE" and inherited respect
for British common-law. They also surmised that a specific list of rights would provide a
rationale for the national government to violate other rights not listed. The Federalist
were especially opposed to a declaration of rights which exclusively placed limits on the
national government, while not similarly addressing the State governments."
(Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Papers, Number 84; MLD p. 58-60)
"As typified in New York State's ratification
document, the Antifederalist position argued that a bill of rights was a "legal
weapon to keep the national government within its specified sphere of constitutional
trust... in the event of a constitutional contest between [a State] and the national
government." (MLD p. 61) This document reads in part, "That the sovereignty,
freedom, and independency of the several states shall be retained, and every power,
jurisdiction, and right which is not by this constitution expressly delegated to the
United States in Congress assembled."
Raphael Semmes in his 1869 work, Memoirs of Service
Afloat, writes of the nevousness of the States toward the proposed new government in
relation to the retained powers of the States (JRK p. 206).
Prior to ratifying the new constitution, the State of
Massachusetts insisted "that it be explicitly declared, that all powers not delegated
by the aforesaid Constitution are reserved to the several States, to be by them
exercised." Pennsylvania likewise insisted that the new constitution be amended to
include language guaranteeing that "All the rights of sovereignty which are not, by
the said Constitution, expressly and plainly vested in the Congress, shall be deemed to
remain with, and shall be exercised by the several states in the Union."
The Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the Constitution
addressed the basic Antifederalist distrust of a central government to not usurp the
reserved rights of the States. (MLD p. 5; JRK p. 206)
James Madison, "the father of the Constitution",
expressed his view of the proposed new government and the sovereign status of the States
as they ratified the new constitution when he stated, "In order to ascertain the real
character of the government, it may be considered in relation to the foundation on which
it is to be established; to the sources from which its ordinary powers are to be drawn; to
the operation of those powers; to the extent of them; and to the authority by which future
changes in the government are to be introduced. On examining the first relation, it
appears, on one hand, that the Constitution is to be founded on the assent and
ratification of the people of America, given by deputies elected for the special purpose;
but, on the other, that this assent and ratification is to be given by the people, not as
individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent
States to which they respectively belong. It is to be the assent and ratification of the
several States, derived from the supreme authority in each State, the authority of the
people themselves. The act, therefore, establishing the Constitution, will not be a
NATIONAL, but a FEDERAL act. That it will be a federal and not a national act, as these
terms are understood by the objectors; the act of the people, as forming so many
independent States, not as forming one aggregate nation... Each State, in ratifying the
Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be
bound by its voluntary act." (James Madison, Federalist Papers, Number 39)
In 1798, the legislatures of Kentucky, inspired by Thomas
Jefferson, and Virginia, inspired by James Madison, asserting their belief that they had
the sovereign right to nullify any illegal or harmful acts of the Federal government,
declared that both the Alien and Sedition Acts, passed by the Federalist controlled
Congress, were unconstitutional and would not be enforced in their States. (WEW p. 289;
SEM p. 354; JRK p. 164-65; MLD p. 22)
"During debate in Congress on Jan. 14, 1811 over the
admission of Louisiana as a state, Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts declared, "If this
bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of the Union;
that it will free the States from their moral obligation; and as it will be the right of
all, so it will be duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation–amicably if
they can, violently if they must." (WEW p. 331; GLD p. 28)
The governors of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and
Connecticut, exercised their sovereign States' rights by refusing President Madison's call
for their State militias to aid in the war effort against the British (WEW p.327)
New England newspapers boldly advocated secession during
the War of 1812, arguing that "the Federal constitution is nothing more than a treaty
between independent sovereignties... and that any state had a right to withdraw."
(WEW p. 333)
"On August 17, 1821 Jefferson wrote to General Henry
Dearborn: "I rejoice with you that the State of Missouri is at length a member of our
Union. Whether the question it excited is dead, or only sleepeth, I do not know. I see
only that it has given resurrection to the Hartford Convention men. They have had the
address by playing on the honest feelings of our former friends to seduce them from their
kindred spirits, and to borrow their weight into the Federal scale. Desperate of regaining
power under political distinctions they have adroitly wriggled into its seat again in the
ascendency, from which their sins have hurled them." (SDC p. 47)
The famous Senate debate between Daniel Webster and
Robert Y. Hayne in January of 1830 epitomized the continuing Federalist vs.
Antifederalist, or nationalistic vs. States' rights, battle of interpreting the
Constitutional authority of the Federal government. Hayne, speaking first, emphasized the
understanding that the citizens who gathered to create a federal government were
representing the interests of the citizens of their respective States. In rebuttal,
Webster minimized the fact that these founding citizen's first concern was to the welfare
of their own State and, instead, emphasized their coming together en masse. By
de-emphasizing the State as a political entity, Webster attempted to minimize the
relationship between a State and its citizens and sought to build up the importance of the
Federal government over that of the States. While the issue was still not resolved, the
nationalists inched their way forward while the States' rights advocates seemed to lose
some influence, thus placing the South even more on the defensive. (WEW p. 389-92)
Unlike most leading politicians of the day, some
abolitionists were unwilling to compromise on the issue of slavery to the point of
disolving the Union. Abolitionist Garrison proclaimed, "This Union is a lie! The
American Union is an imposition–a covenant with death, and an agreement with
hell!...I am for its overthrow!...Up with the flag of disunion, that we may have a free
and glorious Republic of our own…."
In 1832 South Carolina exercised the belief in States'
rights by passing an Ordinance of Nullification in response to the new federal tariff law
of 1832. The federal tariff law of 1832 was declared "null, void and no law, not
binding upon this state, its officers or citizens." It was further stated that should
the Federal government attempt to enforce the tariff act, the people of South Carolina
would be absolved from their political connection to the United States. President Jackson
threatened to send in troops to force South Carolina to collect the new tariff. Jackson
finally backed a compromise tariff, while South Carolina wasn't able to muster support
from other Southern States. In an 1833 retrospective statement to a friend, Jackson
accused South Carolina of trying to form a Southern Confederacy. (WEW p. 393-94)
The election of 1860 "placed Northern interests in
control of the national government, their nationalism and the Southern commitment to state
sovereignty crystallized." (MLD p. 8).
Feeling that the economic, political, and sovereign
interests of the States of the South were in danger, a conference of South Carolina state
leaders in October of 1860 decided to secede from the Union if Lincoln were elected
President. On December 20, 1860, prior to Lincoln's swearing in, the state convention
declared South Carolina to be out of the Union. Along with their position within the
Union, the Southern States were turning their backs on what they perceived as the
deterioration of American constitutional federalism as originally set in place by the
Founding Fathers. (MLD p. 1-5; WEW p. 511)
Robert Barnwell Rhett of South Carolina, on the day of
his State's secession from the Union, cited Wisconsin State Supreme Court Judge Smith in
the Booth case as precedent for State action in response to wrongs committed by the
Federal Government. "Sir, the North threaten to fight us back into the Union, after
we shall have taken our stand for Southern Independence. They now deny the right of a
State to judge of its own grievances and to apply its own remedies, notwithstanding for
years, many Northern States, Wisconsin in particular, have asserted this right for
themselves. I want no better license for our action to-day than the decision of Judge
Smith in the Rescue cases of Wisconsin." (SDC p. 85)
"…to the belief, which they are endeavoring to
impress upon their readers, that the seceded States, be they few or many, will be whipped
back in the Union...but the drift of opinion seems to be that, if peaceable secession is
possible, the retiring States will be assisted to go, that this needless and bitter
controversy may be brought to an end. If the Union is to be dissolved, a bloodless
separation is by all means to be coveted. Do not let us make that impossible."
Secretary of State William Seward, during a Cabinet
meeting in the first month of the Lincoln administration, stated that "[t]he attempt
to reinforce Sumter will provoke an attack and involve war. The very preparation for such
an expedition will precipitate war at that point. I oppose beginning war at that point. I
would advise against the expedition to Charleston. I would at once, at every cost, prepare
for war at Pensacola and Texas. I would instruct Major Anderson to retire from
Sumter." (GE p. 160)
Lincoln biographer, J. G. Holland, explained in his 1865
work, Life of Lincoln, why Lincoln did not call for armed force to suppress the
secession of Southern States before the fall of Fort Sumter. "Up to the fall of
Sumter, Mr. Lincoln had no basis for action in the public feeling. If he had raised an
army, that would have been an act of hostility, that would have been coercion. A thousand
Northern presses would have pounced down on him as a provoker of war. After the fall of
Sumter was the time to act." (GE p. 167)
Rumor and speculation as to Lincoln's intentions toward
the South led the March 6, 1861 edition of the New York Herald to write, "We
have no doubt Mr. Lincoln wants the Cabinet at Montgomery to take the initiative by
capturing the two forts in its waters, for it would give him the opportunity of throwing
upon the Southern Confederacy the responsibility of commencing hostilities. But the
country and posterity will hold him just as responsible as if he struck the first
blow..." (GLD p. 95)
In the Constitution of the Confederate States of
America, its framers sought to eliminate ambiguities that gave rise to the grievances that
led to the secession of the Southern States, at the core of which was the centralization
of government to the detriment of the states. The issue of States' rights as a major cause
of the secession of the Southern States becomes clear in the issue of the Confederate
States Supreme Court. Although Article III of the C.S. Constitution, adopted on
March 11, 1861, establishes the Supreme Court, federal encroachment upon States' rights
fostered by rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court were still fresh in the minds of the C.S.
Congress. Author Marshall L. DeRosa relates, "In response to a bill introduced in the
C.S.A. Senate to organize the Supreme Court, William Yancey of Alabama remarked in no
uncertain terms that 'when we decide that the state courts are of inferior dignity to this
Court, we have sapped the main pillars of this Confederacy.'" As a result of this
mindset, the actual establishment of the C.S. Supreme Court never took place. (MLD
p.75-77)
The C.S. Constitution did not explicitly provide
for the right of secession because it was assumed that secession was an act of sovereignty
that the States had not delegated or otherwise abdicated. In the preamble to the C.S. Constitution,
using the words "each State acting in its own sovereign and independent
character," the framers implicitly allowed for secession by emphasizing the
understanding of each State's sovereign nature. (MLD p. 53)
On July 4, 1861 before a special session of what was left
of the Congress, Lincoln rationalized his actions against the South as he said,
"These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon under what
appeared to be a popular demand and public necessity, trusting then as now that Congress
would readily ratify them." The legislature of Maryland was to convene on September
17, 1861.
The military commander of the district was instructed by
the secretary of war to arrest all members who were suspected of disloyalty. Many of them
were seized and imprisoned, although there was no charge against them of having committed
overt acts of disloyalty or treason. They appealed to Chief Justice [Roger B.] Taney who
decided that they were held illegally, but they were not released. In this action of
President Lincoln's a most dangerous precedent was created. Through the acquiescence of
Congress, then in session, the president had become a dictator.
The reason for the incarceration of certain members of the Maryland legislature was the
fear of the administration that the state might secede and join the Confederacy. On the
face of the record that would appear to be a most unfortunate contingency, for in case of
the secession of Maryland the capital city of the federal government would have been
surrounded by the seceded states. But, on the other hand, it could not have had any
practical effect, as the state of Maryland was held by Union troops as tightly as if it
had been conquered territory." In 1861 John Hughes, Archbishop of New York, warned
the U.S. War Department that his flock was "willing to fight to the death for the
support of the constitution, the government, and the laws of the country, [but not] for
the abolition of slavery."
In vindication of her right to secede, she appealed to
the essential doctrine, "the right to govern rests on the consent of the
governed," and to the right of independent action as among those reserved by the
States. The South appealed to the acts and opinions of the Fathers and to the report of
the Hartford Convention of New England States asserting the power of each State to decide
as to the remedy for infraction of its rights.
The South maintained with the depth of religious
conviction that the Union formed under the Constitution was a Union of consent and not of
force; that the original States were not the creatures but the creators of the Union; that
these States had gained their independence, their freedom, and their sovereignty from the
mother country, and had not surrendered these on entering the Union; that by the express
terms of the Constitution all rights and powers not delegated were reserved to the States;
and the South challenged the North to find one trace of authority in that Constitution for
invading and coercing a sovereign State.
A textbook used at West Point before the Civil War, A
View of the Constitution, written by Judge William Rawle, states, "The secession
of a State depends on the will of the people of such a State."
The first union of the original 13 colonies was effected
by the Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1781. The articles established a
confederation of sovereign states in a permanent union. The "permanence" lasted
only until 1788, when 11 states withdrew from the confederation and ratified the new
Constitution, which became effective on March 4, 1789. The founding fathers recognized the
defects in the Articles of Confederation, learned from these defects, and scrapped the
articles in favor of the "more perfect union" found in the Constitution.
Nowhere in the Constitution is there any mention of the
union of the states being permanent. This was not an oversight by any means. Indeed,
when New York, Rhode Island, and Virginia ratified the Constitution, they specifically
stated that they reserved the right to resume the governmental powers granted to the
United States. Their claim to the right of secession was understood and agreed to by the
other ratifiers, including George Washington, who presided over the Constitutional
Convention and was also a delegate from Virginia. In his book Life of Webster Sen.
Henry Cabot Lodge writes, "It is safe to say that there was not a man in the country,
from Washington and Hamilton to Clinton and Mason, who did not regard the new system as an
experiment from which each and every State had a right to peaceably withdraw."
The nullification crisis of the 1830s was a dispute over
Northern-inspired tariffs that benefited Northern interests and were detrimental to
Southern interests. The legal basis for the Southern call for nullification of the tariff
laws was firmly rooted in states'-rights principles. Northern proposals to abolish
or restrict slavery- an institution firmly protected by the Constitution- escalated the
regional differences in the country and rallied the Southern states firmly behind the
doctrine of states' rights and the sovereignty of the individual states. Southerners
viewed the Constitution as a contractual agreement that was invalidated because its
conditions had been breached. The Confederacy that was subsequently formed by the seceded
states was patterned on the doctrine of states' rights. That doctrine, ironically, played
a large role in the destruction of the country that it had caused to be created.
The first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution, known
collectively as the Bill of Rights, were adopted as a single unit two years after
ratification of the Constitution. Dissatisfaction with guarantees of freedom listed in the
Constitution led the founding fathers to enumerate personal rights as well as limitations
on the federal government in these first 10 amendments. The Magna Carta, the English bill
of rights, Virginia's 1776 Declaration of Rights, and the colonial struggle against
tyranny provided inspiration and direction for the Bill of Rights.
The 10th Amendment states: "The powers not delegated
to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved
to the States respectively, or to the people." This amendment was the basis of the
doctrine of states' rights that became the ante-bellum rallying cry of the Southern
states, which sought to restrict the ever-growing powers of the federal government. The
principle of states' rights and state sovereignty eventually led the Southern states to
secede from the central government that they believed had failed to honor the covenant
that had originally bound the states together.
In May, 1865 Confederate POWs held at Point Lookout,
Maryland were being released if they took oaths of allegiance to the United States.
In light of the famous 1850 Congressional oratories of
Senators John C. Calhoun, William H. Seward and others over the admission of California
into the Union and the slave status of the territories of New Mexico and Utah, it became
evident that the famous and unresolved Federalist versus Antifederalist debate over the
nature of American federalism that began during the writing and ratification of the United
States Constitution was among the core issues of the South's War for Independence.
By now, a North-South division within the Congress of the United States had taken place, a
division which took place between Northern Republicans and Southern Democrats. John C
Calhoun argued for Southern self-determination, and contended that the Northern States
were using the national government to aggressively move against slavery and Southern
commercial prosperity through protectionist policies that favored Northern interests. (MLD
p. 9)
During a message to the Wisconsin legislature in 1858
Republican Governor Alexander W. Randal denounced the encroachment of the Federal
Government upon the reserved rights and sovereignty of the States, as typified in the
enforcement of the Federal Fugitive Slave Laws.
"The tendency of the action of the Federal
Government has been for many years, aided by the Federal Courts, to centralization, and to
an absorption of a large share of the sovereignty of the States. It has trespassed (sic)
upon the reserved rights of the States and the people – assuming a jurisdiction over
them in their exercise of power undeligated. The Federal Government, so far as there is
any sovereignty under our form of Government, is sovereign and independent in the exercise
of its delegated powers, and the States are sovereign and independent in the exercise of
their reserved powers. The safety of the States in the exercise of these powers, in
defense of the lives and properties and liberties of the people, demands a fair,
deliberate opposition and resistance to any attempt at usurpation or aggression by the
Federal Government, its Courts, its officers, or agents upon the reserved rights of the
States or its people." The United States Supreme Court reversed the Wisconsin Supreme
Court on March 7, 1859.
Therefore, contrary to popular belief, Lincoln did not
"free the slaves." Emancipation of the slaves throughout the North and South was
due to the ratification of the current Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
by both the Northern and Southern States. Only in this way could an acknowledged internal
matter of the States be constitutionally dealt with at the federal level, that is, with
the States delegating authority that had been previously reserved by them.
Constitutionally, this was not a matter for Lincoln and the Executive branch of the
federal government. During Congressional debate on January 8, 1863 Thadeous Stevens of
Pennsylvania declared on the floor of Congress that the States of the Confederacy were a
"belligerent nation" and no longer in the Union. As such, they were no longer
entitled to the protections of the U. S. Constitution. Therefore, the taxes he
proposed as Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee were to be levied upon
"conquered provinces, just as all nations levy them upon provinces and nations they
conquer." He went on to say that he would "as a necessary war measure, take
every particle of property, real and personal, life-estate and reversion, of every
disloyal man, and sell it for the benefit of of the nation in carrying on this war."
Stevens further stated that "this war must be carried on upon principle wholly
independent of [the Constitution]" and that the United States "must treat those
States now outside of the Union as conquered provinces and settle them with new men, and
drive the present rebels as exiles from this country. They have such determination,
energy, and endurance, that nothing but actual extermination or exile or starvation will
ever induce them to surrender to this Government." (GLD p. 151; The Congressional
Globe, January 8, 1863, p. 239-40, 243).
On May 16, 1863 a convention of Democrats gathered in
Albany, New York to protest the military arrest of Clement Laird Vallandigham, Ohio
Democrat Congressman and candidate for governor of Ohio, along with many other such
military arrests of civilians, and the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus. According
to findings of the military trial, he was found guilty of accusing Lincoln "and his
minions" of rejecting a chance at peace with the South "the day before the
battle of Fredericksburg" because "the men in power are attempting to establish
a despotism in this country, more cruel and more oppressive than ever existed
before." As reported in The American Annual Cyclopedia and Register of Important
Events of the Year 1863
Lincoln answered the criticism of the Democrats by letter
on June 12, 1863. "... Ours is a case of rebellion... and the provision of the
Constitution that 'the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended
unless when in case of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it,' is the
provision which specially applies to our present case. This provision plainly attests the
understanding of those who made the Constitution that ordinary courts of justice are
inadequate to 'cases of rebellion'–attests their purpose that, in such cases, men may
be held in custody whom the courts, acting on ordinary rules, would discharge... and its
suspension is allowed by the Constitution on purpose that men may be arrested and held who
cannot be proved to be guilty of defined crime... arrests are made, not so much for what
has been done, as for what probably would be done... The man who stands by and says
nothing when the peril of his Government is discussed cannot be misunderstood. If not
hindered, he is sure to help the enemy; much more if he talks ambiguously–talks for
his country with 'but,' and 'ifs,' and 'ands'" (GLD p. 119; GE p. 209-13; SDC p.
201-03).
In answer to Lincoln's letter of reply, the Democrats
harshly criticized his usurpation of power in a letter dated June 30, 1863. "... You
seem aware that the constitution of the United States, which you have sworn to protect and
defend, contains the following guarantees, to which we again ask your attention
[recitation of the first four Amendments to the Constitution]... You are also, no
doubt, aware that, on the adoption of the constitution, these invaluable provisions were
proposed by the jealous caution of the states, and were inserted as amendments for a
perpetual assurance of liberty against the encroachments of power... The fact has already
passed into history that the sacred rights and immunities... have not been preserved to
the people during your administration. In violation of the first of them, the freedom of
the press has been denied. In repeated instances newspapers have been suppressed in the
loyal states, because they criticized, as constitutionally they might, those fatal errors
of policy which have characterized the conduct of public affairs since your advent to
power. In violation of the second of them, hundreds, and we believe thousands, of men have
been seized and immured in prisons and bastiles, not only without warrant upon probable
cause, but without any warrant, and for no other cause that a constitutional exercise of
freedom of speech... For all these acts you avow yourself ultimately responsible... These
repeated and continued invasions of constitutional liberty and private right have
occasioned profound anxiety in the public mind. The apprehension and alarm which they are
calculated to produce have been greatly enhanced by your attempt to justify them, because
in that attempt you assume to yourself a rightful authority possessed by no constitutional
monarch on earth...believing as we do, that your forbearance is not the tenure by which
liberty is enjoyed in this country, we propose to challenge the grounds on which your
claim of supreme power is based. While yielding to you as a constitutional magistrate, we
cannot accord to you the despotic power you claim, your meaning is, that, while the rights
of the citizens are protected by this constitution in time of peace, they are suspended or
lost in time of war, when invasion or rebellion exists. You claim to have found within the
constitution, a principle or germ of arbitrary power, which, in time of war, expands at
once into an absolute sovereignty, wielded by one man; so that liberty perishes, or is
dependent on his will, his discretion, or his caprice. An act of Congress approved by you
on the 3d of March 1863, authorized the President to suspend it [the writ of habeas
corpus] during the present rebellion. That the suspension is a legislative, and not an
executive act, has been held in every judicial decision ever made in this country, and we
think it cannot be delegated to any other branch of the government." (SDC p. 204-06)
Declarations of Causes of Seceding
These reasons have been capsulated by me in order to
bypass unimportant verbiage connected with politics. What we're after is the
"reasons" for the war of states rights.
Most of the states backed their position by the example
of the Revolutionary War.
"In the year 1765, that portion of the British
Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion
composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government
ensued, which resulted, on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies,
"that they are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that, as
free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract
alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent
States may of right do."
For example:
The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention
assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of
the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments
upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing
from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other
slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right. Since that time,
these encroachments have continued to increase, and further forbearance ceases to be a
virtue.
We affirm that these ends for which this Government was
instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them
by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of
deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of
property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they
have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open
establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to
eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted
thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by
emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection. For twenty-five years this
agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of
the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party
has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of
subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union,
and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high
office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to
slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because
he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half
free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course
of ultimate extinction.
On the 4th day of March next, this party will take
possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the
common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must
be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States. The guaranties
of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be
lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or
self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.
We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our
delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the
rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing
between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State
of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate
and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances,
establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of
right do. Adopted December 24, 1860
Mississippi, reasoned…It has recently obtained control of
the Government, by the prosecution of its unhallowed schemes, and destroyed the last
expectation of living together in friendship and brotherhood. Utter subjugation awaits us
in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice,
but of necessity. We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth
four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure
this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers
separated from the Crown of England. Our decision is made. We follow their footsteps. We
embrace the alternative of separation; and for the reasons here stated, we resolve to
maintain our rights with the full consciousness of the justice of our course, and the
undoubting belief of our ability to maintain it. (1861)
The people of Georgia having dissolved their political
connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their
confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten
years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding
confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.
The Presidential election of 1852 resulted in the total
overthrow of the advocates of restriction and their party friends. Immediately after this
result the anti-slavery portion of the defeated party resolved to unite all the elements
in the North opposed to slavery an to stake their future political fortunes upon their
hostility to slavery everywhere. This is the party two whom the people of the North have
committed the Government. They raised their standard in 1856 and were barely defeated.
They entered the Presidential contest again in 1860 and succeeded.
The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility
to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all
constitutional guarantees in its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and
applauded by its followers. With these principles on their banners and these utterances on
their lips the majority of the people of the North demand that we shall receive them as
our rulers.
To avoid these evils we resume the powers which our
fathers delegated to the Government of the United States, and henceforth will seek new
safeguards for our liberty, equality, security, and tranquillity. [Approved, Tuesday,
January 29, 1861]
Texas reasoned that: The Federal Government, while but
partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years
almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against
the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of
banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has
expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refuse reimbursement
therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the
existence of the Republic of Texas.
For these and other reasons, solemnly asserting that the
federal constitution has been violated and virtually abrogated by the several States
named, seeing that the federal government is now passing under the control of our enemies
to be diverted from the exalted objects of its creation to those of oppression and wrong,
and realizing that our own State can no longer look for protection, but to God and her own
sons-- We the delegates of the people of Texas, in Convention assembled, have passed an
ordinance dissolving all political connection with the government of the United States of
America and the people thereof and confidently appeal to the intelligence and patriotism
of the freemen of Texas to ratify the same at the ballot box, on the 23rd day of the
present month. Adopted in Convention on the 2nd day of Feby, in the year of our Lord one
thousand eight hundred and sixty-one and of the independence of Texas the twenty-fifth.
Even before the war Lincoln believed it was
constitutional for any state to "revolutionize" if it wished.
On January 20, 1848 Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln
affirmed the spirit of the Declaration of Independence during a portion of a speech
to Congress. "Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the
right to rise up and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them
better. This is a most valuable, a most sacred right – a right which we hope and
believe is to liberate the world. Nor is this a right confined to cases in which the whole
people of an existing government may choose to exercise it. Any portion of such people,
that can, may revolutionize, and make their own of so much of the territory as they
inhabit." Congressional Globe, Volume XIX, page 94 (GLD p. 67; SDC p. 87)
It was not at all over slavery as we have been led to
believe
According to author Lorenzo Johnson Green, in his 1966
book The Negro in Colonial New England 1620-1776, John Adams insisted that the
abolition of slavery in Massachusetts was due to the protest of competing white laborers
rather than for ethical or moral reasons. "Argument might have some weight in the
abolition of slavery in Massachusetts, but the real cause was the multiplication of
laboring white people, who would no longer suffer the rich to employ these sable rivals so
much to their injury. The common people would not suffer the labor, by which alone they
could obtain a subsistence, to be done by slaves. If the gentlemen had been permitted by
law to hold slaves, the common white people would have put the slaves to death, and their
masters too perhaps" (JRK p. 84)
"Some states began to act with the purpose of
eventually ending slavery almost as soon as independence from Britain was declared. In
1776, Delaware prohibited the importation of slaves and removed all restraints on their
manumission (freeing by the owners). Virginia stopped slave imports in 1778."
(Clarence B. Carson, The Beginning of the Republic 1775-1825)
In 1804, New Jersey adopted a mode of gradual
emancipation of slaves that was to take effect in 1827. Slaves born before 1804 were to
remain slaves for life. These remaining slaves were referred to as "colored
apprentices for life." Children of slaves born after July 4, 1804 were
"free," but had to remain as servants of their masters. Females had to labor in
this way until age 21, and males until age 25. The 1860 United States census still
enumerated 18 slaves in New Jersey. (JRK p. 75; GKW)
The Missouri Compromise of 1820, limiting slavery to
South of the 36°30' parallel, while couched in terms of slavery, was really a political
compromise over a balance of Congressional power between the industrial North and agrarian
South. It was not concerned with the plight of slaves. Balance was maintained with the new
free State of Maine offsetting the new slave State of Missouri. This debate served to
reinforce the sectional consciousness between North and South (WEW p. 352-53)
Thomas Jefferson saw a scheme of defeated Federalists
behind the Missouri Compromise, using it as a means back into power. He asserted that they
were attempting to fan the flames of passion over slavery and capitalize on the deepening
North-South geographical consciousness that the Compromise fueled in order to win back the
Presidency. On September 20, 1820 he wrote to William Pinckney, Senator from Maryland:
"the Missouri question is a mere party trick. The leaders of Federalism, defeated in
the schemes of obtaining power, by rallying partizans to the principle of
monarchism–a principle of personal, not if local division, have changed their tack...
They are taking advantage of the virtuous people, to affect a division of parties, by a
geographical line. They expect that this will insure them on local principles, the
majority they could never obtain on principles of federalism; but they are still putting
their shoulder to the wrong wheel–they are wasting jeremaids(sic) on the evils of
slavery, as if we were advocates for it." (SDC p. 46)
The industrial North, no longer needing such labor, was
still in the process of weaning itself of slavery before the War. Abolitionists insisted
that the South do so overnight, even though it was still a more integral and vital part of
the Southern economy. In January of 1831 the famous Boston abolitionist, William Lloyd
Garrison, urged immediate emancipation of slaves with no compensation to the slave owners.
Failing this, he advocated secession by the Northern States from the Union. Labor union
leaders sought his attention regarding the slavery-like conditions of Massachusetts cotton
mill workers who worked much longer hours that did slaves, and whose meager pay kept them
in living conditions worse than those of slaves. Garrison, bitterly opposed to labor
unions, was not interested. In the first issue of his newspaper the Liberator
Garrison lashed out against union organizers for trying to "inflame the minds of our
working classes against the more opulent and to persuade them that they are contemned and
oppressed by a wealthy aristocracy" (WEW p. 414-15).
Unlike most leading politicians of the day, some
abolitionists were unwilling to compromise on the issue of slavery to the point of
dissolving the Union. Abolitionist Garrison proclaimed, "This Union is a lie! The
American Union is an imposition–a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell! I
am for its overthrow! Up with the flag of disunion, that we may have a free and glorious
Republic of our own; and when the hour shall come, the hour will have arrived that shall
witness the overthrow of slavery." (SDC p. 100)
While some in the North decried slavery, Northern
industrial demand, Northern and European consumer demand, and Northern financiers kept
slavery viable in the South. The English received over 80% of exported American cotton and
employed about four hundred thousand workers in their cotton mills. (WEW p. 526)
The great majority of Confederate soldiers owned no
slaves. The 1860 United States census revealed that about 25% of white Southern families,
or about 6% of the total white Southern population held slaves. (WEW p. 529; JRK p. 83)
As recorded in the Congressional Globe, on
February 11, 1861 the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution with
unanimous Republican support that stated in part, "Resolved, that neither the Federal
Government, nor the people, or Governments of non-slave holding States, have a purpose or
a Constitutional right to legislate upon, or interfere with slavery in any of the States
of the Union." (SDC p. 150)
As slavery was legal in the United States, so it was in
the Confederate States. Under the C.S. Constitution, slavery was explicitly
recognized as an institution of the States, whereas in the U.S. Constitution the
issue of slavery in general was intentionally vague. As in the United States, the federal
government of the Confederate States was prohibited from interfering with slavery within
the States. The States of the Confederacy, however, were not constitutionally required to
recognize or continue the practice of slavery within their own borders. In fact, several
proposals to require that each State continue to recognize slavery were not adopted during
the Constitutional Convention. The consensus, as voiced by Senator Albert G. Brown of
Mississippi, was that "each State is sovereign within its own limits; and that each
for itself can abolish or establish slavery for itself." (MLD p. 68-71)
The loyalty of free blacks and even slaves toward the
Southern cause was counted on in some parts of the South. Along with their white
counterparts, there were free blacks who were anxious to prove their bravery and
patriotism against the invading Yankees.
To the surprise of many Yankee soldiers, many Southern
blacks were free men. Knowing of the South only through stereotypes and often thinking
that all Southern blacks were slaves, Yankee soldiers sometimes accused free blacks of
hiding their masters, especially if the person's home were nicely furnished.
During such encounters, the Yankees would often steal the
free black's food and belongings, and even destroy their homes. (JRK p. 134)
The loyalty of Southern blacks in the presence of Yankee
soldiers was varied. Some slaves went over to the Union troops, while others remained
loyal to their white families. (JRK p. 133-34)
Rarely, though, did Southern blacks give Yankee soldiers
their complete trust. Union soldiers reporting on the June 1862 battle of Seven Pines
claimed that two black Confederate regiments proved themselves ruthless opponents, showing
no mercy to either dead or wounded Yankee soldiers. (ELJ p. 223)
During the battle of Antietam in September of 1862 fully
armed black Confederate soldiers were observed as an integral part of Robert E. Lee's Army
of Northern Virginia. (ELJ p. 223)
In 1862 the citizens of Illinois amended their State
Constitution to say that "No Negro or mulatto shall immigrate or settle in this
state." (JRK p. 55)
With the war losing its popularity in the North in 1862,
the people of the North were not so willing to send their husbands and sons to die in
"Mr. Lincoln's war" to restore the Union, let alone for the emancipation of
slaves. It was not until well into the War that Lincoln began to link abolition of slavery
with the War itself. He began to use the issue of slavery as a political tool to give the
War a moral cause to help bolster Northern support, distance England and France from the
South, solidify his support with the growing abolitionist movement, and possibly foster a
slave revolt in the South. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863, issued
under his war powers, declared only slaves in those States that seceded to be free. Those
still enslaved in Northern or otherwise Union States (Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland,
Missouri) were not freed by Lincoln's proclamation since he knew he could not legally
deprive United States citizens of their "property." Not one slave was actually
freed through Lincoln's Proclamation. (WEW p. 545; SEM p. 654; ELJ p. 255; PMA p. 264-66)
Black African slavery had existed in the North American
English colonies for 168 years before the U.S. Constitution was drafted in 1787. It had
existed all across colonial America, but by 1804 most Northern states, finding that
slavery was not profitable for them, had effectively abolished the institution. In the
South, however, especially after the 1793 invention of the cotton gin, the institution
grew, becoming an inextricable part of the economy and way of life.
Whether slavery was to be permitted and continued under
the new Constitution was a matter of conflict between the North and South, with several
Southern states refusing to join the Union if slavery were disallowed. Thus, in spite of a
warning from Virginian George Mason that slaves "bring the judgment of Heaven on a
country," the continuance of slavery was clearly sanctioned in the U.S. Constitution,
although the words slave and slavery are not found anywhere in the document.
Section 2 of Article I states that apart from free persons "all other persons,"
meaning slaves, are each to be counted as three-fifths of a white person for the purpose
of apportioning congressional representatives on the basis of population. Section 9 of
Article I states that the importation of "such Persons as any of the States now
existing shall think proper to admit," meaning slaves, would be permitted until 1808.
And Section 2 of Article IV directs that persons "held to Service or Labour in one
State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another," meaning fugitive slaves, were
to be returned to their owners.
Human slavery dates back to antiquity and was an integral
part of most of the ancient empires. The ancient Greeks and Romans enslaved whomever they
conquered, regardless of race. Hebrews enslaved other Hebrews. When the black race became
singled out for slavery is unclear. Andre Horn, a 13th century Chamberlain of London,
said, "Yet 'serfage' in the case of a black man is a subjugation issuing from so high
an antiquity that no free stock can be found within human memory." The Portuguese
began trading in black slaves in earnest in the 15th century, followed by the Spanish and
the English. Black slavery in North America began in 1619, when the English colonists in
Jamestown, VA, bought 20 black slaves from a Dutch trader, and slavery remained legally
sanctioned for more than 200 years.
By the end of the Civil War, the Protestant churches in
the United States had split into Northern and Southern factions over the issue of slavery.
Proslavery clergymen could cite biblical references that sanctioned slavery and
particularly the enslaving of the black race. The primary citation was Genesis 9:25-27, in
which Noah, upset over an indiscretion of his son Ham, who was supposed to be black,
cursed all the descendants of Ham's son Canaan. They were to be slaves for eternity and
were to serve the other six-sevenths of the population. Canaan's descendants were said to
have populated Africa, and the clergy had only to point to history to demonstrate that the
prophecy had been fulfilled. Therefore, it was supposedly the divine decree of God that
gave the black people the liability of being enslaved by white people and justified the
degradation of the entire race. Divine law and natural went hand in hand. It was obvious
to the clergy that blacks were inferior to whites and that slavery was the black man's
natural state. Indeed, slavery was rationalized as beneficial to the black race. White
masters, it was said, gave them sustenance, Christianized them, and offered them hope for
salvation. The Babylonian Talmud states that Negroes were the children of Ham, who was
cursed with blackness. Ancient Arabs considered black people to have been born to slavery.
Utilizing the broad range of powers the Constitution
gives presidents during national emergencies, Lincoln was able to issue the Emancipation
Proclamation as a measure to help the North win the war. Slavery was an asset to the
South's war effort in that it provided a readily available labor force for the Confederate
armies and allowed production to continue on the home front while the men fought the
battles. Telling the slaves that they were free could possibly incite them to rebel
against their masters, thus opening a new front in the prosecution of the war. Also, once
Lincoln took this major step, any hopes the Confederate states may have had of foreign
intervention on their side were immediately dashed. Once slavery became a central issue in
the war, England and France could no longer contemplate aiding the Confederacy.
When the Constitution was adopted and the Union formed,
slavery existed in practically all the States; and it is claimed by the Southern people
that its disappearance from the Northern and its development in the Southern States is due
to climatic conditions and industrial exigencies rather than to the existence or absence
of great moral ideas.
Union general William Tecumseh Sherman wrote in 1858,
"I would not if I could abolish or modify slavery." The Republican presidential
platform of 1860 advocated no slavery in the territories of the United States, but
stressed a noninterference policy regarding slavery in the States where it already
existed. (WEW p. 505; SEM p. 602).
The wife of Union general Ulysses S. Grant, a slave owner
herself, kept her slaves until the close of the War. (WEW p. 518, 543)
Abraham Lincoln: hypocrite or hero?
During the Civil War, Lincoln decided, after much
agonizing, to declare that slaves in the seceding states were free. The Emancipation
Proclamation didn’t apply to slaves in the states that remained within the Union. So
it didn’t really "free the slaves." It had little immediate effect on
slaves in the Confederacy, of course, since they were beyond Lincoln’s reach. Wags
quipped that Lincoln had freed the slaves he couldn’t help, while doing nothing for
the slaves he could have helped.
Throughout his political career, President Abraham
Lincoln had opposed slavery as a moral wrong, but he knew slavery was sanctioned by the
Constitution and he respected the law.
Lincoln says:
"I can not but hate [the declared indifference for
slavery's spread]. I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate
it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world --
enables the enemies of free institutions, with plausibility, to taunt us as hypocrites --
causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it
forces so many really good men amongst ourselves into an open war with the very
fundamental principles of civil liberty -- criticizing the Declaration of Independence,
and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest." (Speech
at Peoria, Illinois October 16, 1854)
But then Lincoln says:
"I cannot make it better known
than it already is that I strongly favor colonization." (Lincoln's Second Annual
Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.)
In Lincoln's first inaugural address, he said, "I
have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in
the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so." (PMA p. 215)
In August 25, 1862 Lincoln wrote a letter to Horace
Greeley of the New York Tribune in which he stated in part, "If I could save
the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all
the slaves, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others
alone; I would also do that" (WEW p. 508).
In an 1862 letter to New York Tribune editor
Horace Greeley, Lincoln said, "My paramount object in this struggle is to save the
Union, and is not either to save or destroy slavery." In December of 1862, Lincoln
sought to alleviate the fears that emancipated slaves would come into the North and
compete for the labor of white workers by assuring Congress that each State can
"decide for itself whether to receive them" (JRK p. 55).
"What then? Free them, and keep them among us as
underlings? Is it quite certain that this betters their condition? I think I would not
hold one in slavery, at any rate; yet the point is not clear enough for me to denounce
people on." "What then? Free them, and make them politically and socially our
equals? My own feeling will not admit of this; and if mine would, we well
know that those of the great mass of white people will not... A universal feeling, whether
well or ill-founded, cannot be safely disregarded." (Abraham Lincoln)
Lincoln says the North obeys the constitution in regards
to slaves.
"You ought rather to appreciate how much the great
body of the Northern people do crucify their feelings, in order to maintain their loyalty
to the constitution and the Union." (A letter to his friend Joshua Speed, August 24,
1855)
"I will say, then, that I am not, nor have ever been
in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and
black races ... I am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white
race." (Abraham Lincoln)
" ...but in this broad continent not a single man of
your race is made the equal of a single man of ours." The purpose of the meeting was
to find a place (another country) to export all the blacks to after the war, because
"ours (race) suffers from your presence." (Abraham Lincoln, On August 14, 1862,
during a meeting with prominent free blacks in Washington)
"I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have
been, in favor of bringing about, in any way, a social and political equality of the white
and black races, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of
Negroes, or of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people. And I
will say in addition to this, there is a physical difference between the white and black
races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together in terms of social
and political equality. And in so much as they cannot so live, while they so remain
together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other
man, I am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race."
(Abraham Lincoln, in a debate with Stephen Douglas in Charleston, South Carolina on 18
September 1858)
"In an April 16, 1863, letter to the War Department
regarding the fate of ex-slaves should emancipation become a reality, Lincoln wrote,
''They had better be set to digging their sustenance out of the ground."
"My paramount object in this
struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could
save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing
all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others
alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I
believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe
it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing
hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the
cause." (The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler,
Volume V, "Letter to Horace Greeley" (August 22, 1862), p. 388.)
"I have no purpose to introduce political or social
equality between the white and negro race. There is a physical difference between the two,
which probably will forever forbid their living together on the same footing of equality.
I, as well as any other man, am in favor of the race to which I belong having the superior
position. I have never said anything to the contrary." (Abraham Lincoln)
"I am not in favor of making voters or jurors of
Negroes, or of qualifying them to hold office." (Abraham Lincoln September 15, 1858)
"I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to
interfere with the institution of slavery." (Abraham Lincoln March 4, 1861)
"If I could save the Union without freeing any slave
I would do it." (Letter to Horace Greeley, By Abraham Lincoln August 22, 1862)
What others said about Abraham Lincoln
"The Man Who Would Be King? On every hand Lincoln
was denounced as a Tyrant, a shedder of blood, a foe to liberty, a would-be dictator, a
founder of an empire." (Theodore Roosevelt)
"Do not perceive that Lincoln is not only an
absolute monarch, but that this is an absolute uncontrollable government, a perfect
military despotism?" (Joel Parker, Harvard Professor of Law)
On August 39, 1861, Gen. John C. Fremont declared freedom
for the slaves of all secessionists in Missouri. Lincoln revoked the order.
Several of Lincoln's military commanders had attempted to
emancipate the slaves in their districts, but each time Lincoln countermanded the orders.
In war it is common practice to show respect and honor to
a dead foe left on the field. Not so if that foe was Confederate! Following the Battle of
Gettysburg, the Confederate dead were buried along the roads, shoved into trenches, or
consigned to common graves. If it were not for the stench these brave men would not have
received this. The Southerners were seen as traitorous invaders and their bodies were not
accorded the respect afforded the men in blue. One newspaper reporter wrote: The
Confederate dead was left in the fields as outcasts and criminals, that did not merit
decent sepulture. King Lincoln's immortal words were not spoken over their unattended and
unmarked graves.
In Summary
"We owe it to our dead, to our living and to our
children to preserve the truth and repel the falsehoods, so that we may secure just
judgment from the only tribunal before which we may appear and be fully and fairly be
heard, and that tribunal is the bar of history." (Robert E. Lee)
"The forbearing use of power does not only form a
touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is
a test of a true gentleman. The power which the strong have over the weak, the employer
over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding,
even the clever over the silly -- the forbearing or inoffensive use of all this power or
authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the gentleman
in a plain light. The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender
of a wrong he may have committed against him. He can not only forgive, he can forget; and
he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character which impart sufficient
strength to let the past be but the past. A true man of honor feels humbled himself when
he cannot help humbling others." (Robert E. Lee)
"Were these things real? Did I see those brave and
noble countrymen of mine laid low in death and weltering in their blood? Did I see our
country laid waste and in ruins? Did I see soldiers marching, the earth trembling, and
jarring beneath their measured tread? Did I see the smoldering cities and deserted homes?
Did I see the flag of my country, that I followed so long, furled to be never unfurled
again? Surely these are but vagaries of my imagination...But hush! I now hear the approach
of battle. That low, rumbling sound in the west is the roar of cannon in the
distance." (S. Watkins 1st.Tn. CSA)
"In great deeds something abides. On great fields
something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to
consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and
generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom
great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field, to
ponder and dream; and lo! The shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom,
and the power of the vision pass into their souls." (Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain,
Gettysburg, October 3, 1889)
In deed we do not hate the union solders—they were
simply doing their duty. Many good men on both sides suffered and often times died in
unbelievable pain and destruction to the body. Both had "causes" to which they
resigned themselves and died for those causes. We must understand the position of Union
and Confederate causes and educate ourselves as to the truth of their intentions, and then
make up our own minds as to the firmness of our resolve.
Finally
"The principle for which we contend is bound to
reassert itself, though it may be at another time and in another form." Jefferson
F. Davis
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