Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
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.
Last edited by Grandstander; 10-05-2020 at 09:27 PM..
I possible, they could have divided Texas into several small states thus increasing the number of southern senators and possibly an extra representative or two and controlled Congress for a decade longer. They would have fended off abolition efforts and maybe extended slavery into new territories.
While slavery was the foremost issue leading up to the civil war, it was not the only issue.
There were also economic isues such as the cotton tarrifs by which the south could not sell cotton directly overseas, but was forced to sell it domestically for less money.
The South realized their political power was waning because all new states were going to be free states. The number of slave states was locked in. They could read the tea leaves that they were going to be dominted over by the free states in short order.
There were other States Rights issues that also go along with the secessation of the southern slave states.
It is not as if all slave holding states seceeded either. Maryland and Delaware were slave states that did not seceed, so it was not just about slavery.
I possible, they could have divided Texas into several small states thus increasing the number of southern senators and possibly an extra representative or two and controlled Congress for a decade longer. They would have fended off abolition efforts and maybe extended slavery into new territories.
By what legal means does a state get divided into several smaller states?
There were other States Rights issues that also go along with the secessation of the southern slave states.
It is not as if all slave holding states seceeded either. Maryland and Delaware were slave states that did not seceed, so it was not just about slavery.
Ironically, slavery was also still legal and practiced in the Union capital (DC) at the start of the War.. Kentucky and Missouri were also slave-holding states that stayed in the Union, and fought (in part) for the Union. Like u stated, Delaware was a slave-holding Union state.. and they rejected Lincoln's offer of compensated emancipation.
My opinion, the entire core of the War was about States Rights (vs Federal power). Control over slavery & abolition happened to be the most conspicuous & immediate struggle between States Rights' secessionists and Federal power Unionists. Secessionists believed that if they conceded (formerly state) control of abolition to the Federal government, they would eventually concede any/all power to the Federal government. And it large part they were prophetic. peace
OK, folks. The topic here is the matter of poor decisions made by the states that made up the Confederacy. We've had numerous threads (many probably still open) discussing whether slavery was the reason for the Civil War. Rehashing that topic will surely cause the issue of poor decisions to become lost.
If you have something to say about the cause of the Civil War that hasn't already been said, feel free to find one of those threads and add to it.
The south could have used the 1845 joint congressional resolution admitting Texas into the Union. They still can since it remains in effect. It says: “New States of convenient size not exceeding four in number, in addition to said State of Texas and having sufficient population, may, hereafter by the consent of said State, be formed out of the territory thereof, which shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution.”
The south was aware of its limitations, but was hoping on a quick victory. My guess is they were not counting on Lincoln's political genius for forge a coalition. Their decision to choose Davis was also a mistake. He was hard working and intelligent, but sick and authoritarian.
I possible, they could have divided Texas into several small states thus increasing the number of southern senators and possibly an extra representative or two and controlled Congress for a decade longer. They would have fended off abolition efforts and maybe extended slavery into new territories.
The admission of new states requires an act of Congress (and either a presidential signature or a veto override). Free states comprised a significantly larger population than did slave states, and would not have gone along with such an obvious plot to increase Southern influence.
Now, there is of course the aforementioned clause in the admission act of Texas which specifically states that such proposed states 'shall be entitled to admission under the provisions of the Federal Constitution'. Those provisions, as noted, require an act of Congress. The problem is that this sort of pre-approval contravenes all concepts of republican governance. Imagine, for example, it is December 1994. The Democrats have just lost both houses of Congress in that year's mid-terms. Congress - still Democratic for the moment - passes an act stating that President Clinton's next five nominees for the Supreme Court (and/or cabinet positions, or lesser judgeships, or ambassadors, whatever) are automatically approved, valid for the duration of his presidency. Or you can run the same hypothetical around the GOP loss of Congress in 2006. There is no way such pre-approvals would ever pass constitutional muster. The specific proposal - whether it be a specific person in the case of a nominee, or a specifically-described state (borders, etc.) - must be voted upon.
I think that any effort to divide Texas into multiple states might have been accomplished early, probably when Texas was admitted. Perhaps they were short-sighted. Waiting until the run-up to the slavery-abolition crisis years would have met with too much opposition in Congress.
Texas was annexed in 1845 and the war with Mexico brought in a huge new land addition by 1848 so the southern states probably expected to carve slave states out of the new territories. So why mess with Texas?
You raise some good points in your short essay, though it remains difficult to be comprehensive on any complex subject on these kinds of forums which are designed for quick quips.
I will offer a summary in a quick quip.
The crux of the matter was that technological change was moving the economy toward an epoch-making revolutionary change from a largely agricultural base worked by largely slave-labor (going back ten thousand years) to a largely industrial base worked by wage labor.
Was war necessary? Not really a historical question, because it happened.
It may be useful to point out that the US fought the first industrial war on its own soil when industrial war technology was still relatively primitive, then some 50 years later the Europeans fought their first industrial war and really clobbered one another when the technology was that much deadlier, and outdid themselves some 20 years later in a second industrial war on their own soil with even more devastating results, to the advantage of the US who had already solved the issue some eighty years before.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
