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I've been struck by the series of poor decisions by the southern rebels. To wit:
1) After warning the nation that the election of a "black Republican" would trigger secession, the Southern Democrats proceeded to make sure that the Republican candidate would win by splitting their party and producing two nominees. Stephen Douglas drew 29.4% of the vote, VP John Breckinridge drew 18.1. Together that was 47.5%, well ahead of Lincoln's 39.8. The Democrats could have denied Lincoln the White House, instead they opted for fratricide.
Had the party remained loyal to the Douglas nomination, the South would have had a president who was friendly toward slavery and would not have disturbed it in any manner. Douglas was not an advocate of keeping slavery out of the territories/new states, he had championed the idea of popular sovereignty, allowing the residents to vote on whether or not to permit slavery.
The South could have had peace, could have had slavery untouched, but instead brought about the very thing that they said they could not tolerate. It was the South saying "If you provoke us, there will be big trouble" and then behaving in a manner certain to cause the opposition to provoke them.
2. Had there been no secession, slavery would have continued for who knows how long? None of the Republican opposition was claiming that they had a legal right to disturb slavery where it existed. All agreed that the Constitution provided no path for a president or Congress outlawing slavery within a state. It was only because of the war that Lincoln was able to issue the Proclamation as a war measure. No war, no proclamation. The very institution that secession was designed to protect, was destroyed decades prematurely as a consequence of secession.
3. Because the southern states departed and no longer had representatives in Congress, the US Congress was finally able to pass a series of programs the southerners had long successfully frustrated. The Homestead Act, the Transcontinental Railroad, internal improvements and a higher protective tariff..all these became possible as a consequence of the southern absence.
4. The basis of the feud centered on whether or not slavery would be allowed in the new territories and states. By seceding, the Southerners cut themselves off from all of these places. They could not expand the institution into territory that they did not own.
5. Secession caused the South to be removed from the protection of the national Fugitive Slave law. Whereas before the southerners had a legal right to go north and try and reclaim their runaway property, that ended the moment they took themselves out of the Union.
In sum, it seems that everything that the southerners did, wound up causing everything they opposed, to prosper.
It is my hope, but not my expectation, that we can discuss this as a single topic without it being highjacked into yet another rehash of the correctness of the opposing causes.
I am going to approach this from an economic standpoint: Indeed the south had an unsustainable economic model. Based on agriculture and slave labor, it actually held back the south. It was the south putting it's eggs in one basket. Slavery does not spur economic growth. I believe the south - the politicians, and military elite, the landowners particularly as they are the ones that had to power - knew it all well.
The south got rich from cotton and slave labor, but at the same time the north prospered from innovations in manufacturing and got even richer. The south would not, could not, progress from it's economic model. Progress mean innovation. Complacency kills. It would not change, and why would it? The south was run like a feudal society - a few rich land owners making decisions for the rest - not only slaves, but poor whites. But why change that? Slavery only benifited slave owners, those feudal lords in the antebellum houses, and those were growing less and less as a percentage of the population of the south. The poor got poorer, the rich stayed rich, and the slave economy would remain...at least until those fuedal lords were deminished in such number as to eliminate there power. That was already in the process of happening in 1860.
Technology trumps over labor each and every time, and slavery was not totally free labor. There is a cost to holding slaves, political, social, and economic costs. And sooner or later that cost would overtake the benefits of slaves. There was also competition. The south had cotton, but could not compete with the north economically, who were becoming even more prosperous than the south could imagine...all without slave labor. And the markets of Europe were finding alternatives to cotton. The southern economy was doomed.
I have no doubt that slavery would have run it's course and been extinguished in the south by the turn of the century without the civil war, or with a southern victory, perhaps sooner. Actually, with a southern victory or allowed to suceed I suspect the south would have broken apart into various independend countries constantly at war with each other. But that's another "what if" question.
Very interesting, Grandstander, and I'll also add that supposedly even just the general work ethic or energy level was rather lax, and therefore somewhat self-defeating. Frederick Douglass wrote about how surprising it was, when he escaped north, to find people busily, attentively, going about their work.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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There is a parallel between Southern leaders keeping slavery at all costs and North Korea keeping their people in the dark. In both cases once you go too far down on the train there are no more easy exits. As slavery became entrenched and the slave population outnumbered the White population Southern Whites saw no way to transition to a free and democratic society. So they were willing to fight for what they knew was a loosing cause, they saw no other option. Look at the attempts to prevent Black voters from toppling White election power in the South still in 2020.
In NK once the economic gap between NK and SK got so large there are no reforms that would satisfy the people of NK because along with reform comes the knowledge of how bad the people suffered. So any loosening up in NK means the leaders and disposed and executed.
I am going to approach this from an economic standpoint: Indeed the south had an unsustainable economic model. Based on agriculture and slave labor, it actually held back the south. It was the south putting it's eggs in one basket. Slavery does not spur economic growth. I believe the south - the politicians, and military elite, the landowners particularly as they are the ones that had to power - knew it all well.
If they knew that it was headed for extinction for internal reasons rather than a threat from the North, secession would seem a highly illogical step since it was designed to protect the institution from Northern incursions.
It was something more, it was their political power which they saw as immediately threatened. As long as there was a balance between free and slave states, the southerners could enjoy oversized political power since every state got two Senators irrespective of the population. From the presidency of Andrew Jackson, up to the election of Lincoln, the South wielded their oversized power to frustrate higher tariffs, to block internal improvement bills, to block a transcontinental railroad with an eastern terminus in the North, to stack the Supreme Court with southern justices, and to exercise veto power over major party nominees for the presidency who were not friends of slavery.
That was what was threatened by the election of the "black Republicans". If slavery ceased to expand, the South would eventually lose their ability to be overly influential in the Senate. They would lose control of the Supreme Court. They would no longer be able to frustrate Northern agendas for the nation.
That is why secession made sense to them, but it only made sense if you also recognize that the South believed that it could be accomplished without a war. They badly underestimated the Northern will to fight.
If they knew that it was headed for extinction for internal reasons rather than a threat from the North, secession would seem a highly illogical step since it was designed to protect the institution from Northern incursions.
It was something more, it was their political power which they saw as immediately threatened. As long as there was a balance between free and slave states, the southerners could enjoy oversized political power since every state got two Senators irrespective of the population. From the presidency of Andrew Jackson, up to the election of Lincoln, the South wielded their oversized power to frustrate higher tariffs, to block internal improvement bills, to block a transcontinental railroad with an eastern terminus in the North, to stack the Supreme Court with southern justices, and to exercise veto power over major party nominees for the presidency who were not friends of slavery.
That was what was threatened by the election of the "black Republicans". If slavery ceased to expand, the South would eventually lose their ability to be overly influential in the Senate. They would lose control of the Supreme Court. They would no longer be able to frustrate Northern agendas for the nation.
That is why secession made sense to them, but it only made sense if you also recognize that the South believed that it could be accomplished without a war. They badly underestimated the Northern will to fight.
Off-topic post here, at least for the specifics of this thread.
I chose this reply to quote because of the poster and the topic. Grandstander was a regular contributor in the History forum and one whose posts disproportionately added to the conversation. He was particularly interested in, and knowledgeable of, the Civil War. Per a post from his nephew in the Baseball forum, in late October he passed way unexpectedly.
Grandstander will be missed, and I think this forum will be the worse for his absence.
Off-topic post here, at least for the specifics of this thread.
I chose this reply to quote because of the poster and the topic. Grandstander was a regular contributor in the History forum and one whose posts disproportionately added to the conversation. He was particularly interested in, and knowledgeable of, the Civil War. Per a post from his nephew in the Baseball forum, in late October he passed way unexpectedly.
Grandstander will be missed, and I think this forum will be the worse for his absence.
Oh my God!
He was a huge contributor to this forum and extremely knowledgeable and articulate. When he commented, you bet I read it. Wow. Indeed he will be missed.
Grandstander was one of the most prolific and knowledgeable posters on the History Forum. I always found his contributions to be must-reads. He added so much to our experience here.
While another poster, Ovcatto, may have started the Today in the Civil War thread, Grandstander made it by far (for me) the best thread in the entire City-Data forum. Of all his contributions, I consider that thread to be his opus here.
I will so miss Grandstander. Today seems so diminished, knowing that he's gone.
Last edited by djmilf; 11-05-2020 at 01:36 PM..
Reason: Typos
Oh my God!
He was a huge contributor to this forum and extremely knowledgeable and articulate. When he commented, you bet I read it. Wow. Indeed he will be missed.
I remember Grandstander from other forums. I first posted with (and against) him nearly 20 years ago. At the time I was still basically a kid.
He had a lot of usually very well-informed input on a lot of subjects. I disagreed with him probably 60% of the time, but his arguments weren't easily dismissed.
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