Secession

LECTURE ON ELECTION OF 1860, SOUTH AS MINORITY SECTION, SECESSION

THE MISSOURI CRISIS OF 1819

Please recall that in 1787 the liberals and conservatives had compromised over the issue of slavery. They papered over their differences, for the time being. But the question came back to haunt the nation in recurring crises, such as when Missouri applied for statehood in 1819 and when California applied for statehood in 1850.

EFFORT TO MAINTAIN EQUAL NUMBER OF FREE AND SLAVE STATES, ESPECIALLY 1816-1850 (DATES REFER TO ADMISSION TO UNION)

FREE STATES SLAVE STATES

1. Vermont                                     Virginia
2. Pennsylvania                                 Maryland
3. Massachusetts                                 Delaware
4. New Hampshire                             North Carolina
5. Connecticut                                 South Carolina
6. Rhode Island                             Georgia
7. New York                                 Kentucky (1792)
8. New Jersey                                 Tennessee (1796)
9. Ohio (1803)                                 Louisiana (1812)
10. Indiana (1816)                             Mississippi (1817)
11. Illinois (1818)                             Alabama (1819) (11-11)
12. Maine (1820)                             Missouri (1821) (12-12)
13. Michigan (1837)                             Arkansas (1836)
14. Iowa (1846)                                 Florida (March 1845)
15. Wisconsin (1848)                         Texas (Dec. 1845) (15-15)
16. California (1850) balance of power tipped in favor North
17. Minnesota (1858)
18. Oregon (1859)
Outbreak of Civil War
19. Kansas (1861)
20. West Virginia (1863)

THE CALIFORNIA CRISIS

In 1850 the white people of California adopted a constitution that prohibited slavery. Whites feared that slaveholders would arrive in CA with hundreds of slaves, who could be used for "free" to compete with white workers panning for gold in the rivers. California sought admission to the Union as a free state (a state that did not permit slavery). However there was no territory with nearly that many people that could be admitted to the Union as a slave state. The admission of CA as a free state threatened to upset the balance of political power in the Senate. It would give the free states a 2 vote advantage in the Senate. South Carolina threatened to SECEDE (withdraw from) the Union if CA was admitted. The admission of CA was now held hostage to sectional politics. South Carolina invited the other slave states to a conference (convention) at Nashville, Tennessee in 1850 to discuss a joint, collective secession in the event that CA was admitted to the Union.

COMPROMISE OF 1850

To avert the possible secession of South Carolina and perhaps other slave states, Congress sought a compromise. Ultimately, several pieces of legislation were passed, referred to collectively as the Compromise of 1850.

1. California admitted to union as a free state (favors the North).

2. Slave TRADE (buying and selling of slaves) but not slavery itself abolished in the District of Columbia (something for the North).

3. New Mexico Territory will be divided in two, (New Mexico Territory and Utah Territory), thereby increasing the possibility that some slave states might be created there in the future.(something for the South).

4. Federal Government will pay off the pre-annexation debts of Texas (buys off Texas, wins their votes).

5. Harsh new Fugitive Slave Act. Northern states may no longer give accused runaways a jury trial. A magistrate appointed by President (federal government) will hear and decide the case. Accused runaways may not testify on their own behalf. (Meant to appease the South).

In general, Southerners in Congress voted for items 3,4, and 5 (in this arbitrary list), Northerners voted against. Moderates from the Border States provided the margin of victory. Northerners in Congress voted for items 1 and 2, while Southerners voted against. Moderates from Border States supplied the votes to pass it. There was no genuine agreement between North and South. The Border State moderates joined first with the North to pass some items, and then with the South to pass other items. The Compromise of 1850 basically bought time-10 years until South Carolina seceded.

THE BIRTH OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY

By 1854 the Republican party was born. It began as a Northern party. The Republicans argued that slavery was not just bad for the slaves. It was also bad for the average white person, which was to say the white middle class and white farmers and workers.

BAD FOR FAMILY FARMERS
They argued that if Southern slaveholders came to the West, and brought their slaves with them, the slaveholders would monopolize the land and establish plantations. How could white men who needed land for family farms get land if the slaveholders bought it all up or caused the prices of land to rise? How could a white man on a family farm compete with a plantation where a rich slave-owner had 100 slaves to do the work?

BAD FOR WORKERS SEEKING JOBS
How could white men who worked in the industrial sector get jobs if employers could get slaves to do the work for nothing? The use of slave labor destroyed the availability of jobs for white wage workers and limited job opportunities for white working men. The spread of slavery would lead to more white unempoyment.

BAD FOR WAGES FOR THE REMAINING JOBS
And if one was fortunate enough to get or keep a job, what would happen to the wages? What employer would pay a white man or an immigrant any decent wage, if the employer could get slaves to work for "free" (no wages). It was argued that slavery dragged down the wages of white workers. The problem was not the slaves themselves, but the slave owners who used them to the detriment of the economic interests of the white middle class and white farmers and workers.

KEEPING THE WEST "WHITE"

The Republican Party appealed to the economic self interest of whites. Slavery was bad for them too, not just for the slaves. Furthermore, whites in the West wanted to keep the West "white." Slave-owners bringing slaves into the West threatened to bring about a situation where the neighborhoods (rural counties) would no longer be white. This was not the fault of the slaves, but the slaveholding whites who brought the slaves there from the South. The Republican Party (represented by men such as Abraham Lincoln of Illinois) was absolutely opposed to the SPREAD of slavery into the West. Slave holders felt they should be able to take their slave into the territories of the West (such as Kansas and Nebraska). Lincoln was not advocating any immediate action against slavery IN THE SOUTH. But he did absolutely oppose the SPREAD OF SLAVERY INTO THE WEST.

The South was traumatized by John Brown's raid. John Brown was white man who tried to give guns to the slaves and start a slave revolt, in which the slaves would rise up and kill the white slaveholders of the South and mount a guerilla war. When John Brown was hanged, church bells rang in the North, and the abolitionists mourned him as a hero. For the South, the fear was that there would be more John browns in the future. And what if the next one succeeded? What if the next one met up with a Nat Turner? John Brown was like a man with a cigarette standing next to the home of a man with tons of dynamite in his basement. One can understand why the latter felt menaced.

THE ELECTION OF 1860

By 1860 the United States of America stood at a fateful crossroad. The nation was polarized into two camps, and the Union hung by a few threads. 1860 was a presidential election year. What I will do first is tell you what happened. Then we will discuss the question of why.

The Democratic Party split apart over the question of whether the people of a territory had the right to exclude slavery from a territory before it became a state. Stephen Douglas and Northerners who supported popular sovereignty believed that the people of a territory ought to have this right. Southerners believed that only a state had the power to decide about slavery: territories and the people of a territory did not. Territories did not rate or rank as highly as states, and under the states rights doctrine of John C. Calhoun only a state could abolish slavery or enact emancipation, except that the federal government has jurisdiction over the District of Columbia.

I repeat again, the quarrel between the northern Democrats and Southern Democrats was over the expansion of slavery into the territories of the West: it was NOT a fight about slavery in the South. And more generally, the quarrel between North and South was over the EXPANSION of slavery into the West. It was NOT a quarrel about slavery in the South.

It was also a question of how willing whites-who-did-not-own-slaves were to tolerate the presence, in their midst, of whites who did own slaves: and how willing non-slaveholding whites were of the slaves themselves. Many non-slaveholding whites did not want to have to live alongside blacks. They didn't want any blacks in their states or counties or neighborhoods, and that were mad at slaveholding whites for bringing blacks into all-white regions in the west.

When the Democratic convention met at Baltimore, in June (Garraty, p. 379), the two sides could not agree. The Northern wing of the party nominated Stephen Douglas of Illinois, champion of the principle of popular sovereignty. The Southern wing nominated John C. Breckinridge, and the southern wing adopted a platform that stated explicitly that they believed that neither the federal government nor a territorial government has the right to exclude slaveholders from settling in a territory. But please understand, Northerners migrating to the West did not want slavemasters bringing black slaves into the heretofore white West and settling next door to them and competing with them economically.How can the family farm compete with the plantation? And why is anybody going to pay a decent wage to do a job when he can get slaves to do it for free? Slavery was not just bad for the African American slaves. Many white people who did not own slaves began to feel that the spread of slavery to the West was bad for the average white person too, economically. The dispute here was not about the MORALITY of slavery, but the ECONOMIC IMPACT of slavery on whites. Completely apart from any moral question, there was the matter of money and economic interests.

THE OUTCOME OF THE ELECTION

In the end, four candidates ran. They were:

PARTY CANDIDATE POPULAR ELECTORAL.

VOTE VOTE

Republican Abraham Lincoln 1,866,000 180

Dem. (Northern) Stephen Douglas 1,383,000 12

Dem. (Southern) John Breckinridge 848,000 72

Constitutional John Bell 593,000 39
Union

The country split apart in how it voted (see map on p. 380 of Garraty). Lincoln carried almost every state in the North, except that New Jersey split its 7 electoral votes: 4 to Lincoln, 3 to Douglas. Lincoln also won in California and Oregon.

Breckinridge carried all of the deep South, including NC, SC, GA, Florida, Ala, Miss, LA, Ark and Texas. Bell carried the Border States of Delaware, MD, VA, KY and TN. Please recall that in 1860 Delaware was still a slave state.

Stephen Douglas carried only Missouri, and the three electoral votes from New Jersey.

If one combines the votes of Douglas, Breckinridge and Bell together, the contrast in electoral votes would be

Lincoln 1,866,000 180

Others 2,824,000 123

If we look at the popular vote, we might say that Lincoln and the Republicans won because the Democrats divided.

When a person wins a majority of the popular vote in a state, they win all of the electoral votes for that state. This is the "winner take all" system.

THE NORTH HAD NUMERICAL SUPERIORITY

However, what the election of 1860 really revealed was that the Northern and Western states, or the free states, alone, by themselves, had enough population and enough electoral votes to control and determine the presidency. Lincoln was not even on the ballot in 10 Southern states. It didn't make any difference to the outcome. If the free states of the North and West were unified, and voted as a bloc, they could elect a president even if all of the South disagreed--because the North and West had more people than the South and had numerical superiority over the South (repeat).

North and West approx. 17 million

South approx. 12.6 million

However, this 12.6 million included 3.5 million African American slaves.

If we are comparing the white population, it would be a contrast of about 17 million for the free states to 9.1 million for the slave states. In other words, almost a 2-1 margin in favor of the free states.

THE SOUTH AS A POLITICAL MINORITY SECTION

Politically, the South said that it had become a [political] "minority section." The South did not mean it had a large racial minority population (although that was true). The real problem was not Lincoln. The real problem was the unequal balance of power. The South felt that it had become a political minority, in the sense that it no longer "counted." The North and West together could disregard the South politically. The South did not count as much with respect to POLITICAL POWER. In this sense, it was in the "minority" and was a "minority section."

Politically, the South said that it had become a "minority section." The real problem was not Lincoln. The real problem was the unequal balance of power. Before 1860, no one had ever won the presdiency without support from both sections of the country (North and South). Lincoln was the first man to be elected president with support from one region (section) only. No president befoe had Lincoln had been elected without getting some support from the South. But with the North unified, the South no longer "counted" politically. In 1790 the South had counted as half. It was an equal partner. By 1860 it counted as little more than a third. It had been demoted. The South could not adjust to this chnaged reality.

Lincoln was abhorrent to slaveholders. He was not an abolitionist. But he was absolutely opposed to the spread of slavery into the West. He was on record as having said that a house divided cannot stand, and the Union cannot permanently endure half slave and half free. He had said publicly that eventually, slavery should be placed in the course of ultimate extinction. He had said that if slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong.

But fundamentally, the South was losing the struggle for power. Initially, back in 1787, SC and GA had said they would vote to adopt the Constitution and ratify it and form the new federal government only if slavery was safe. Now it seemed that slavery might not be safe. In 1878 the South had been a equal partner in the nation. By 1860 it had been demoted.

1790 (first Census) 1860

Population
50 % in North 61% (19 million)
50% in South 39% (12 million)

House of Rep.
35 Northern votes 163 votes
30 Southern votes 85 votes

Senate
5 Free States 18 Free States
8 Slave States 15 Slave States

Electoral 183 Northern voters
College 120 Southern votes

In 1820 the South was already lagging behind the North in political power in the House of Representatives. In 1850 the admission of California as a free state tipped the balance of political power in the Senate in favor of the free states of the North and West. The North, joined by the West, could now, theoretically, dominate both houses of Congress. In 1860, it became apparent that the free states of the North and West had enough electoral votes, by themselves, to determine the president. The Democrats still controlled the H. of R. and the Supreme Court, but in the long run the population of the North was growing much more quickly than the population of the South. This, together with John Brown's raid at Harper's Ferry, created panic and hysteria in the South. The South was afraid that its way of life would be lost. It was afraid that over time the Republicans would win control of the House, and Republican presidents would appoint abolitionists to the Supreme Court, and there might be an amendment to the Constitution to abolish slavery. Southern leaders BELIEVED THAT LINCOLN AND THE REPUBLICANS AND THE NORTH INTENDED, BY ONE MEANS OR ANTHER, TO USE FEDERAL POWER EVENTUALLY TO ABOLISH SLAVERY. The leaders of the South saw a noose closing around their necks. They decided not to just sit there and wait for it to close. They jumped.

THE SOUTHERN STATES BEGIN TO SECEDE

In December 1860 the S. Carolina state legislature ordered an election to elect delegates to a state convention. On December 20, the convention voted to secede from the Union. S. Carolina proclaimed itself an independent country, no longer part of the United States--politically.

Between January 1 and February 1, 1861, GA, Fla, Ala, Mississippi, LA and Texas voted to secede. The Union was coming apart. In Feb. 1861 these states met at Montgomery, Alabama and formed a new country called the Confederate States of America, or CSA. They adopted a constitution and formed a new government, with Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as president. The Confederacy was an IDEA: the idea of an independent nation in the South. Thus, the so-called Civil War was the abortive or unsuccessful War of Southern Independence.

North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee and Arkansas did not secede at first. But they said that if the Federal Government of the USA used force against the CSA, this would provoke them to secede too. Meanwhile, Lincoln would not be inaugurated until around March 21st.

In December 1860, after SC adopted an ordinance of secession, at the eleventh hour, Senator John Crittenden of Kentucky offered a new compromise. He proposed an amendment to the Constitution to extend 36'30 to the Pacific Ocean, and recognize slavery as existing in all territory below that line. Lincoln rejected this, and the Republicans in the Senate defeated it by a vote of 25-23. Those voting for the compromise were Democrats. Lincoln thought SC was bluffing. By March, he realized that the South was not bluffing.

FORT SUMTER

The US Federal Government still had forts and arsenals in the South. Southerners occupied most of these, but two naval sites were still in Union hands. One of these was at Fort Sumter, on an island in Charleston harbor, in South Carolina. South Carolina claimed the fort as part of its territory. (The other site was Fort Pickens. near Pensacola, Florida). The US said that the fort was part of US territory. The fort was low on food and supplies. The Federal Government faced a decision. It could re-supply the fort by ships, which would provoke SC. Or it could withdraw its men and relinquish the fort. If it did not re-supply the fort, the men would starve. Lincoln had to do one thing or the other. Lincoln decided to send a naval expedition to supply food. Before the relief ships arrived, S.C. opened fire on the fort, on April 12, 1861. It surrendered 34 hours later. Northerners were indignant, and Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers. Virginia, NC, Arkansas and Tennessee saw this as needless provocation, and they seceded. The governor of Maryland, who favored secession, ordered a meeting so that Maryland could secede. Lincoln sent the army to prevent them from doing so.

The Confederates moved their capital to Richmond, VA. Lincoln insisted that the Union formed in 1787 was perpetual. Moreover, the Articles of Confederation of 1777 had said explicitly that the United States were perpetual. Lincoln took the view that once the states entered the Union it was forever, and a state could not come into the Union and then change its mind. The decision was irrevocable. Lincoln said that secession was illegal and violated the Constitution. He said that the Southern states were suffering from domestic insurrection or disturbance. There was no secession because legally there could be no secession. He said that the Southern states had not left the Union, rather they were still in the Union. These states simply did not have a proper government. Lincoln felt that slaveholders had hi-jacked the governments of the Southern states. In any event, the US Army attacked the Confederate Army at Manassas, 20 miles south of Washington, on July 21, 1861, and it turned into a fiasco for the US.

THE WAR TO STOP SECESSION (SAVE THE UNION)

Southerners asked to be allowed to go their own way, in peace. They said they wanted a peaceful secession, like a divorce. But most Northerners believed that no state has the right to secede. Northerners saw this as a betrayal of the American Revolution. An election had been held. Southerners had voted like everybody else. The North said that you can't withdraw from the country just because you disagree with the majority. Democracy means that the majority rules. The South was unwilling to accept the outcome of the election--and seceded. Northerners said no one can secede, and if a state does so this is a violation of the Constitution and the Federal Government will use force if necessary to stop it. The North as a whole--and not just Lincoln as an individual--refused to allow the South to go in peace. Northerners regarded secession as treason--and regarded the act of taking up arms against the Federal Government of the US as treason. The US fought a war to stop secession, or, in the phrase of the time, "to save the Union." That is what the war initially was over: it was over whether or not a state can secede: it was over the question of SECESSION. The North was trying to force the South to remain a part of the US and accept the will of a national majority whether it wanted to or not. And when men can't agree ort resolve their differences, they resort to fighting and to violence. The history of the world and the history of the human species, sadly, is the history of fighting and violence.

Fast forward: There are people who mangle history, and say that the South seceded BECAUSE Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation and freed the slaves. This is absolutely false. Secession occurred in December 1860 and through the spring of 1861. The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation was issued in September 1862. The future cannot cause the past. The Emancipation Proclamation of September 1862 could not have caused secession in 1860-1861. rather, Lincoln made a gesture of freeing the slaves IN 1862 as a means to the end of WINNING THE WAR THAT HAD BEGUN IN 1861. Only over time did the "war to save the Union" turn into the "war to free the slaves and end slavery."

SECESSION AS AN ACT OF PANIC AND MISCALCULATION

The South seceded in 1860-61 because its leaders said that they feared and believed and suspected thaat Lincoln was an abolitionist who intended to attack slavery in the South, perhaps soon. And the leaders convinced the masses of the people that this was true. They didn't know exactly when, but they feared "soon." Lincoln was a man who kept his card "close to his vest." He was a pokerface persoanlity who rarely "tipped his hand." In December 1862, in his state of the Union address (annual message to the Congress), Lincoln revealed his secret plan for resolving the issues of slavery and racism in America. He asked Congress to pass an amendment to the constitution that provided that states would phase out slavery over 37 years, from 1863 to 1900, and the freed slaves would be deported out ofthe country. The Federal Government would PAY compensation to the slaveholders for the loss of their slave property, using federal bonds to generate the money. in other words, Lincoln proposed a "buy-out."

This proposal suggests that the fears of the South, that Lincoln INTENDED to abolish slavery "soon," were entirely misplaced. Their fears were VASTLY EXAGGERATED. Lincoln did NOT intend quick or immediate abolition. His real preference was for gradual emancipation, over 37 YEARS, with the mass deportation of blacks. Congress never accepted Lincoln's proposal. In retrospect, we might see that secession was an act of exaggerated panic and hysteria. The South OVER-REACTED in 1860-61. In retrospect, the secession crisis is an example of how people can panic and make rash decisions that lead to war. The South MISCALCULATED. The lesson of history is that miscaluclation and misunderstanding can lead to disastrous mistakes.