New York

New York

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition

That the powers of government may be resumed by the people, whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness: that every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not, by said Constitution, clearly delegated to the Congress of the United States, or the departments of the government thereof, remains to the people of the several States, or to their respective State Governments.

Rhode Island:

That the powers of government may be resumed by the people whensoever it shall become necessary to their happiness.

Virginia:

That the powers granted under the Constitution, being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury and oppression.

There can be little doubt about the intent of these provisions. They were clearly meant to serve notice that the people of each of those states reserved the right for their state to resume the powers of government on their behalf. If the people of those states had this right, it stands to reason that the people of all the states had this right. Notice that New York's ordinance implied this right belonged to the people "of the several states, or to their respective state governments."

Logically, if "every power, jurisdiction, and right" not expressly delegated to the federal government was to remain with "the people of the several states," or with "their respective state governments," then naturally the people's expressed right to resume the powers of government would be exercised by the people through "their respective state governments."

The people of the Southern states chose to exercise this right. They voted for secession in overwhelming numbers, either in elections for representatives to state conventions or in referendums, and as a result their respective states seceded. McPherson himself acknowledges that the secession process was democratic, and in fact that it closely resembled the process by which the original thirteen states ratified the Constitution (pp. 234-239, 276-283).

Virginia cited the right to resume the powers of government in its ordinance of secession:

The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight . . . declared that the powers granted under said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression. . . .

8. The thirteen states that ratified the Constitution existed as sovereign entities before the Union came into existence, and even before the Declaration of Independence was written. McPherson uncritically quotes Lincoln's dubious arguments against secession, which included the assertions that the Union was older than the states and that no state (except Texas) had ever existed as a state outside the Union::

"The Union is older than any of the States," Lincoln asserted, "and, in fact, created them as states." The Declaration of Independence transformed the "United Colonies" into the United States; without this union then, there would never have been any "free and independent States." "Having never been States, either in substance, or in name, outside the Union," asked Lincoln, "whence this magical omnipotence of 'State rights,' asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself?" (p. 247, original emphasis)

Historians John Garraty and Robert McCaughey point out that the thirteen colonies broke from England and created their own constitutions even before the Declaration of Independence was written:

However crucial the role of Congress, in an important sense the real revolution occurred when the individual colonies broke the official ties with Great Britain. Using their colonial charters as a basis, the states began new constitutions even before the Declaration of Independence. (Garraty and McCaughey, The American Nation: A History of the United States to 1877, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1987, p. 135)

Historians Alan Brinkley, Richard Current, Frank Freidel, and T. Harry Williams:

The formation of state governments began early in 1776, even before the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. . .

Two of the original thirteen states saw no need to produce new constitutions. Connecticut and Rhode Island already had corporate charters which provided them with governments that were republican in all but name; they simply deleted references to England and the king from their charters and adopted them as constitutions. (Brinkley et al, American History: A Survey, Eighth Edition, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1991, p. 150)

Concerning Lincoln's legal arguments against secession, attorney James Ostrowski says,

Lincoln challenges the claim of reserved state powers by asserting that no state, except Texas, had ever "been a State out of the Union." Lincoln argues that the states "passed into the Union" even before 1776; united to declare their independence in 1776; declared a "perpetual" union in the Articles of Confederation two years later; and finally created the present Union by ratifying the Constitution in 1788. There are many problems with his argument.

Lincoln confuses no fewer than four different concepts of "union." Prior to July 4, 1776, the colonies were united by their increasing concern over the violation of their rights by the British government. Their representatives met in a Continental Congress which ultimately issued the Declaration of Independence and organized the Revolutionary War effort. Prior to 1776, no issue of secession from a union could have arisen because the colonies still considered themselves part of Great Britain. Neither was there any legal document agreed to by the Continental Congress which directly or indirectly addressed the issue of secession. Thus, the "union" that existed prior to 1776 is of no importance at all to the issue of secession.

Next comes the union created by the Declaration of Independence. The most notable fact in this context is that the Declaration announces a lawful secession by the colonies from Great Britain based on the right of the people to alter or abolish their form of government. It is thus apparent that the Declaration of Independence establishes that the right of secession is among the inalienable rights of men. The Declaration is therefore literally the last place on earth one would hope to find legal justification for a war against secession. It was adopted by representatives of the thirteen colonies and declared that those colonies had become "Free and Independent States." The Declaration was not, however, a constitution, establishing a particular type of union among the states, or specifying any duties binding on them other than a moral commitment to mutually defend their newly declared independence. (Ostrowski, "An Analysis of President Lincoln's Legal Arguments Against Secession," paper delivered at the "Secession, State, and Economy" conference sponsored by the Mises Institute and held at the College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina, April 7-9, 1995)

Michael Lind, a Whitehead Senior Fellow, also takes issue with Lincoln's argument

Michael Lind, a Whitehead Senior Fellow, also takes issue with Lincoln's argument

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition

On July 4, 1861, President Lincoln said in a message to Congress, "The Union is older than any of the States, and, in fact it created them as States." Political scientist Samuel H. Beer restated this nationalist argument in To Make a Nation: The Rediscovery of American Federalism (1993), when he wrote that "the reallocation of power by the Constitution from state to federal government was simply a further exercise of the constituent sovereignty which the American people had exercised in the past, as when they brought the states themselves into existence."

The argument is flimsy. For one thing, it implies that without permission from the Continental Congress, the colonial populations would not have abolished their colonial governments and created new republican governments. To make matters worse for the nationalist theory, the phrasing of the Declaration of Independence supports the compact theory by referring to the formation of new state governments by the authority of the people of the colonies when it means the people of Massachusetts, the people of Virginia, and so on. And these colonial peoples, which became the peoples of the first states, had come into existence generations earlier--when each colony had been established by royal charter, if not before.

Nationalists also emphasize the description of the United States as "one people" in the Declaration of Independence: "When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands, which have connected them with another." But elsewhere the Declaration refers to the colonies in the plural, and concludes that "these United Colonies are, and or Right ought to be, Free and Independent States." The author of the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson, was a fervent champion of the compact theory. Indeed, the Declaration claims that for generations the individual colonies had been separate states in a federal empire held together only by personal allegiance to the British monarch. During the Constitutional Convention, Maryland’s Luther Martin summarized the view that was implicit in the Declaration: "At the separation from the British Empire, the people of America preferred the establishment of themselves into thirteen separate sovereignties instead of incorporating themselves into one." (Lind, "Do the People Rule?," The Wilson Quarterly, February 1, 2002, from online reprint of article found at http://www.newamerica.net/index.cfm?pg=article&pubID=719)

Two states, North Carolina and Rhode Island, initially declined to ratify the Constitution. They remained free, independent states, and Congress treated them as such until they ratified the Constitution a short time later.

The federal government wouldn't have been created had it not been for the states, because each state had to agree to call a ratifying convention. Garraty and McCaughey note that the state legislatures "could have blocked ratification by refusing to call conventions" (The American Nation, p. 158).

For that matter, it was the states that sent delegates to the Constitutional convention in the first place, and that convention was held as a result of an action taken by a state legislature. The Virginia legislature issued an invitation to the other states to send delegates to a convention in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1786. Only five states showed up. The delegates who went to Annapolis drafted a report that recommended that Congress call a convention in Philadelphia the following year. Congress did so, but Congress could not compel the states to send delegates to the Philadelphia convention. However, only Rhode Island declined to send delegates.

9. Thomas Jefferson said in a letter to William Crawford in 1816 that he would allow a state to leave the Union, even if he didn't approve of the state's reason for seceding. Said Jefferson,

The alternatives between which we are to choose [are fairly stated]: 1, licentious commerce and gambling speculations for a few, with eternal war for the many; or, 2, restricted commerce, peace and steady occupations for all. If any State in the Union will declare that it prefers separation with the first alternative to a continuance in union without it, I have no hesitation in saying "let us separate." I would rather the States should withdraw which are for unlimited commerce and war, and confederate with those alone which are for peace and agriculture.

10. The Hartford Convention, consisting of delegates from the New England states, declared in 1814 that a state had the right to assert its own authority over the federal government's authority, and that a state could secede from the Union, even in time of war, in cases of "absolute necessity" (Brinkley et al, American History, p. 230).

11. President John Quincy Adams said that if sectional differences between the states became too severe it would be better for the states to go their own way in peace than to be constrained to remain together:

The indissoluble link of union between the people of the several States of this confederated nation is, after all, not in the right, but in the heart. If the day should ever come (may Heaven avert it) when the affections of the people of these States shall be alienated from each other, the bonds of political association will not long hold together parties no longer attached by the magnetism of consolidated interests and kindly sympathies; and far better will it be for the people of the disunited States to part in friendship with each other than to be held together by constraint. (Speech given at a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of George Washington, April 30, 1839, as quoted in the Hon. Joseph Wheeler, "Slavery and States Rights," reprinted in Richmond Dispatch, July 31, 1894, emphasis added)

12. Renowned legal scholar William Rawle, in his highly regarded book Views of the Constitution, said a state had the right to secede from the Union. Rawle's book was used for a time in the early 1800s at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. The North American Review described the book as "a safe and intelligent guide." Rawle served as a delegate to the Pennsylvania Constitutional Assembly of 1789 and later accepted President George Washington’s request to become the first U. S. Attorney for Pennsylvania. Rawle was also the chancellor of the Pennsylvania Bar Association. Here is a sample of what Rawle taught about the right of secession:

If a faction should attempt to subvert the government of a state for the purpose of destroying its republican form, the paternal power of the Union could thus be called forth to subdue it.

Yet it is not to be understood, that its interposition would be justifiable, if the people of a state should determine to retire from the Union, whether they adopted another or retained the same form of government, or if they should, with the, express intention of seceding, expunge the representative system from their code, and thereby incapacitate themselves from concurring according to the mode now prescribed, in the choice of certain public officers of the United States. . . .

It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed.

This right must be considered as an ingredient in the original composition of the general government, which, though not expressed, was mutually understood. . . .

The secession of a state from the Union depends on the will of the people of such state. The people alone as we have already seen, bold the power to alter their constitution. (Rawle, Views of the Constitution, Second Edition, Philadelphia: Philip H. Nicklin, Law Bookseller, 1829, chapter 32)

13. At no time did the Confederacy attempt to overthrow or destroy the federal government. McPherson acknowledges in a few places that the South was only seeking its independence and wasn't trying to conquer the North (pp. 310, 534, 646-647; cf. pp. 693, 721). However, he repeatedly refers to the Confederates as "rebels" and several times uses the words "rebellion" and "insurrection" in reference to the South's attempt to obtain independence. If the South had sought to overthrow or destroy the federal government, that would have constituted rebellion and insurrection. But the South did not do so. The Southern states only sought to leave the government, not to destroy it. Every single institution of the federal government would have remained the same if the South had been allowed to go in peace. The only differences would have been that there would have been fewer members of the House and Senate and no revenue from tariffs on Southern goods. The form and nature of the federal government would not have changed at all--only its size and the amount of revenue it collected would have been different. Ostrowski makes a good point in this regard concerning Lincoln's claim that secession would "destroy" the government:

We turn next to Lincoln's discussion of the Constitution as he believes it relates to secession. He argues that while states have reserved powers under the Constitution--presumably referring to, but not mentioning, the Tenth Amendment--secession cannot be such a power since it is "a power to destroy the government itself." This is of course hyperbole and abuse of language. To depart from is to destroy, according to Lincoln. If the union government was "destroyed" by secession, what was the entity that put a million troops in the field to stop it?

Secession does not destroy the federal government; it merely ends its authority over a certain territory and sets up a new government to take its place in that territory. (Ostrowski, "An Analysis of President Lincoln's Legal Arguments Against Secession")

14. Hinton Helper spoke approvingly of the possibility of a violent slave insurrection in his famous 1857 book The Impending Crisis of the South. McPherson says a number of things about Helper's book, including the fact that several Southern states attempted to ban its distribution (pp. 199-200). But for some reason McPherson doesn't mention Helper's endorsement of violent slave insurrection. McPherson also fails to mention that Helper was a shameless racist. Professor Francis Simkins said the following about Helper and his book:

Helper made invidious comparisons between the wealth of the sections [the North and the South]. . . . Although he hated the Negroes to the extent of wishing them expelled from the country, he attacked the slaveholders violently and suggested servile insurrection as a means of ridding the white masses of their [the slaveowners'] degradation. (Simkins, A History of the South, Third Edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963, p. 192)

Among other things, Helper told slaveowners that he and his fellow abolitionists would abolish slavery "peaceably or by violence . . . one way or another." He then asked slaveowners, "Do you aspire to become the victims of white non-slaveholders' vengeance by day and of barbarous massacre by negroes by night? Would you be instrumental in bringing upon yourselves, your wives, and your children, a fate too terrible to contemplate?" Perhaps such statements shed more light on why some Southern states sought to ban distribution of the book and why many Southerners were upset over the fact that dozens of Republican leaders signed an endorsement of the book. It is hard for most of us to bear in mind that slavery was legal back then and that it had existed in the states for over two hundred years before the war began. To put this in a modern context, imagine how most Americans would react if dozens of leaders of a major political party endorsed a book that approved of killing abortion doctors and bombing abortion clinics. Many people believe abortion is a serious sin and that it involves the taking of innocent human life. However, no responsible citizen would endorse a book that sanctioned violence against abortion doctors and their clinics.

15. Lincoln approved the Dahlgren Raid, which included a special order to kill Jefferson Davis and the entire Confederate cabinet. Historian William Tidwell provides some details:

This raid was under the command of Brigadier General Judson Kilpatrick, but it was fated to be remembered in history as Dahlgren's raid. . . .

He [Kilpatrick] appears to have gone over his supervisors' heads and won Lincoln's personal approval for the scheme.

As a condition in the plan approved by Lincoln, Kilpatrick was asked to take with him cavalry Colonel Ulric Dahlgren, the son of Admiral John Dahlgren, whom Lincoln greatly admired. . . . Kilpatrick apparently left much of the detailed planning of the raid to Dahlgren, which, in view of the association of Lincoln to the elder Dahlgren, later reinforced the southern belief that the operation was personally sponsored by Lincoln. . . .

Dahlgren led his force around Richmond to the north and tried to get around the Confederates chasing Kilpatrick. During the night of 2-3 March 1864 his group broke into two segments, and Dahlgren was ambushed in King and Queen County and killed leading the smaller segment.

On the morning of 3 March several papers were found on Dahlgren's body and taken to Richmond, where they caused a tremendous uproar. The papers included the draft of an address that he apparently meant to read to his men: "We hope . . . . to destroy and burn the hateful city [Richmond], and . . . not allow rebel leader Davis and his traitorous crew to escape." Also among the papers was a special order stating, "The men must keep together and well in hand, and, once in the city, it must be destroyed and Jeff Davis and his Cabinet killed."

The ferocity of these statements sounded a new note in Union policy toward the war, but it was not unexpected to a growing body of opinion in the South. . . .

The Confederate editorial opinions about the Dahlgren papers cannot be dismissed as mere bombast. The Confederate leaders knew that these papers had been found on Dahlgren's body and they had them in hand. More, their excellent intelligence apparatus in Washington would have been dense in the extreme if it had not picked up the various stories floating around that both Lincoln and Stanton [Lincoln's Secretary of War] were involved in planning the raid. . . .

General Kilpatrick claimed to have read papers similar to those quoted by the Confederates but without the offensive language. There was a general outcry of "forgery" in the North, but the Confederates had photographic reproductions of the papers circulated to the Union and to foreign governments. In the surviving photographs the papers appear to be genuine, and a study of the timing involved indicates it would have been extremely difficult for the Confederates to have fabricated such convincing material in so short a time. (Tidwell, Come Retribution: The Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln, Barnes & Noble Edition, New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1997, pp. 242-243, 245-246. Note: In case some might be wondering about the subtitle of Tidwell's book, Tidwell does not believe Jefferson Davis or the Confederate Secret Service were behind Lincoln's assassination)

16. The South had a vigorous free press during the war. To his credit, Ken Burns included this fact in his well-known PBS documentary series The Civil War.

17. Jefferson Davis never shut down opposition newspapers, even though some of them bitterly attacked him and his policies. Dr. Emory Thomas notes that Davis had "ample opportunity" to suppress hostile newspapers but never did so:

Davis, unlike Lincoln, never closed down opposition newspapers. He had ample opportunity, however. In his own capital, two of five dailies were hostile. (Thomas, The Confederacy as a Revolutionary Experience, University of South Carolina Press, 1991, p. 75)

Lincoln, on the other hand, shut down many newspapers. Chief Justice William Rehnquist discusses some of these cases of suppress

Lincoln, on the other hand, shut down many newspapers. Chief Justice William Rehnquist discusses some of these cases of suppression

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition

Newspaper publishers did not escape the government's watchful eye either. The [Lincoln] Administration was especially concerned about the New York press, which had a disproportionate impact on the rest of the country. In that era before press wire services, newspapers in smaller cities frequently simply reprinted stories which had been run earlier in the metropolitan press. In New York, the Tribune, the Herald, and the Times generally supported the Northern war effort, but several other papers did not. In August 1861, a Grand Jury sitting in New York was outraged by an article in the New York Journal of Commerce--a paper which opposed the war--that listed over one hundred Northern newspapers opposed to "the present unholy war." The Journal of Commerce frequently editorialized in no uncertain words about the malfeasance of the Administration.

The grand jurors inquired of the presiding judge whether such vituperative criticism was subject to indictment. Because the Grand Jury was about to be discharged, the judge did not oblige. Nevertheless, the jurors simply requested that a list of several New York newspapers, including the Journal of Commerce, be called to the attention of the next Grand Jury. They had heard no evidence, and received no legal instructions from the judge; they simply made a "presentment"--a written notice taken by a Grand Jury of what it believes to be an indictable offense.

On this thin reed, the Administration proceeded to act. Postmaster General Montgomery Blair directed the Postmaster in New York to exclude from the mails the five newspapers named by the Grand Jury. This was significant because the newspapers of that day were almost entirely dependent upon the mails for their circulation. Gerald Hallock, the part owner and editor of the Journal of Commerce, was obliged to negotiate with the Post Office Department to see what the paper would have to do to regain its right to use of the mails. The Post Office Department told him that he must sell his ownership in the newspaper. Hallock reluctantly agreed, and retired, thereby depriving the paper of its principal editorialist opposing the war. The New York News, owned by Benjamin Wood, brother of New York Mayor Fernando Wood, decided to fight the ban against his paper. He sought to send its edition south and west by private express, and hired newsboys to deliver the paper locally. The government ordered U.S. Marshals to seize all copies of the paper. In fact one newsboy in Connecticut was arrested for having hawked it. Eventually Wood, too, gave up. (Rehnquist, "Civil Liberty and the Civil War," speech given at the University of Indiana School of Law, Bloomington, October 28, 1996)

Lincoln not only shut down newspapers he viewed as unpatriotic, he also ordered the arrest and imprisonment of some of their editors and publishers, without due process of law. Lincoln issued the following order to General John Dix:

You will take possession by military force, of the printing establishments of the New York World and Journal of Commerce . . . and prohibit any further publication thereof . . . You are therefore commanded forthwith to arrest and imprison . . . The editors, proprietors and publishers of the aforementioned newspapers. (Order of Abraham Lincoln to General John Dix, May 18, 1864)

Lincoln suppressed newspapers even in states that were far from the fighting and in which local courts were functioning. Historian James Rhodes, though an ardent Lincoln defender, found it necessary to condemn this suppression of the freedom of the press:

For my own part, after careful consideration, I do not hesitate to condemn the arbitrary arrests and the arbitrary interference with the freedom of the press in States which were not included in the theatre of the war and in which the courts remained open. (Rhodes, History of the Civil War, 1861-1865, New York: Bartleby.com, 2000, electronic reprint of 1917 edition, chapter 11, page 19)

18. Major Anderson, the commander of the federal garrison at Fort Sumter, questioned the wisdom of trying to resupply the fort. Anderson also said that he had been led to believe by Colonel Lamon, one of Lincoln's confidential agents, that Captain Fox's plan to resupply the fort would not be carried out, and that the South had been led to believe the fort would not be resupplied. Anderson said these things in a letter that he wrote to "Colonel L. Thomas, Adjutant-General Unites States Army." Anderson wrote the letter on the same day South Carolina's governor was informed about the coming of the resupply mission, the day after Anderson himself learned of the mission. Said Anderson,

I had the honor to receive, by yesterday's mail, the letter of the Honorable Secretary of War, dated April 4th, and confess that what he there states surprises me greatly--following, as it does, and contradicting so positively, the assurance Mr. Crawford telegraphed he was "authorized" to make. I trust that this matter will be at once put in a correct light, as a movement made now, when the South has been erroneously informed that none such would be attempted, would produce most disastrous results throughout the country. . . .

I ought to have been informed that this expedition [to resupply the fort] was to come. Colonel Lamon's remark convinced me that the idea, merely hinted at to me by Captain Fox, would not be carried out.

We shall strive to do our duty, though I frankly say that my heart is not in this war, which I see is to be thus commenced. (Letter from Major Anderson to Colonel Thomas, April 8, 1861, reproduced in Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol. 1, pp. 243-244)

19. Charles Dana, the Assistant Secretary of War during the Lincoln Administration, said "the evidence proves that it was not the Confederates who insisted on keeping our prisoners in distress, want and disease, but the commander of our armies" (as quoted in Lynn Tyler, A Confederate Catechism, Dahlonega, Georgia: Crown Rights Book Company, 2000, reprint, p. 36, quoting "Treatment of Prisoners During the War Between the States," Southern Historical Papers, Vol. 1, pp. 112-327). Dana also said the following to the New York Sun:

We think after the testimony given that the Confederate authorities and especially Mr. [Jefferson] Davis ought not to be held responsible for the terrible privations, suffering, and injuries which our men had to endure while kept in Confederate Military Prisons, the fact is unquestionable that while Confederates desired to exchange prisoners, to send our men home, and to get back their own men, General Grant steadily and strenuously resisted such an exchange. (As quoted in Mildred Rutherford, Truths of History, Dahlonega, Georgia: Crown Rights Book Company, reprint of original 1920 edition, p. 21)

McPherson blames the Confederacy for the prolonged failure to resume prisoner exchanges, which in turn led to the unintended deaths of thousands of Union prisoners of war (p. 792). Many Northern soldiers and civilians placed the majority of the blame on Lincoln and General Grant because they refused the Confederacy's repeated offers to exchange nearly all prisoners and instead insisted on an all-or-nothing arrangement. McPherson accepts the official explanation for the delay in the resumption of prisoner exchanges, i.e., that Lincoln and Grant refused to resume exchanges because the Confederacy refused to release black Union prisoners as part of those exchanges. There are arguments that can be made for and against the Confederacy's policy on black prisoners. Confederate authorities argued that former slaves who had taken up arms against the South were guilty of federally sanctioned slave insurrection. They also argued that slaves did not have the right to be soldiers since slavery was still legal, even under the U.S. Constitution, and since those slaves had either run away and/or had been forced to fight for the Union. In any case, I have my doubts that the Confederate policy on black prisoners was the real reason for Lincoln and Grant's opposition to a resumption of exchanges. I suspect their real reason was that they didn't want to replenish the Confederate army's manpower. They knew the Union could replace captured soldiers much more easily than could the Confederacy.

In fact, in August 1864 Grant said it was better not to exchange prisoners and that "if we release or exchange prisoners captured it simply becomes a war of extermination." McPherson denies this was the real reason behind the suspension of exchanges, and he notes that Grant made these comments "more than a year after the exchange cartel had broken down over the Negro prisoner question" (p. 800). However, one could certainly make the argument that Grant was expressing his real reason for opposing the resumption of exchanges, regardless of when he made the statement. Some find this the more plausible view, given the rather uncaring attitude that Grant had already shown and expressed toward blacks, and given Lincoln's own well-known views on blacks.

It is true that when the Confederacy finally offered to include black prisoners in exchanges, Lincoln and Sherman accepted the offer. But this occurred in January 1865, and by that time there was no doubt the Union was going to win the war and win it soon. It would have been interesting to see what the response would have been if the Confederacy had offered to exchange all prisoners several months earlier. In any case, Assistant Secretary of War Dana spoke for many of his fellow Northerners when he blamed General Grant for the long suspension of prisoner exchanges.

20. Lincoln refused to sell medicines to the Confederacy, even though Jefferson Davis offered to pay for them in gold and even though Davis explained that the medicines would be used to care for sick and wounded Union prisoners of war. The Confederacy had a very hard time obtaining medical supplies. Although McPherson mentions in passing (and without condemnation) that Lincoln resorted to the cruel step of blocking medicines from entering the Confederate states, he doesn't mention that Lincoln refused Davis's request to buy medicines for Union prisoners. Captain Samuel Ashe, the last officer commissioned in the Confederate army, complained about this refusal:

As Lincoln declared medicines contraband of war, Davis asked for permission to buy at the North medicines for the Northern prisoners, but his request was refused. (Ashe, A Southern View of the Invasion of the Southern States, Crawfordville, Georgia: The Ruffin Flag Company, reprint of 1938 edition, p. 57)

Some Northerners criticized Lincoln's policy of preventing medical supplies from going to the South:

The United States government early declared . . . all medicines, surgical instruments and appliances contraband of war, and they were so regarded to the end of the struggle.

The ill temper and inhumanity of the time in the North extended even to the medical profession, as evidenced at the convention of the American Medical Association, held in Chicago, in 1863, when Dr. Gardner, of New York, introduced preamble and resolutions petitioning the Northern government to repeal the orders declaring medical and surgical supplies contraband of war; arguing that such cruelty rebounded on their own soldiers, many of whom, as prisoners in the hands of the Confederates, shared the suffering resulting from such a policy, while the act itself was worthy of the dark ages of the world's history. It is lamentable to have record that this learned and powerful association of the medical men . . . in their senseless passion hissed their benevolent brother from the hall. (Rutherford, Truths of History, p. 22)

In spite of the omissions discussed above, I still believe The Battle Cry of Freedom should be read by every serious student of the Civil War. McPherson discusses many issues fairly and thoroughly, and he provides a significant amount of information that supports the Southern view of the war to varying degrees. I would especially recommend the book to Southern heritage defenders, partly because McPherson refutes myths that continue to appear in their books and articles.

The Confederate dead died for states rights guaranteed under the Constitution

The Confederate dead died for states rights guaranteed under the Constitution

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition 

States rights are in fact guaranteed under the Constitution. They are expressly guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which reads:

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.

The whole purpose of this amendment was to prevent the federal government from usurping powers that were not assigned to it, including powers that were reserved for the states. Constitutional scholar Bruce Findlay said the following:

Because of widespread fear that the new government might try to employ powers that were not granted, this amendment was added. It makes clear that the federal government was to have only those powers assigned to it, and no more. Some other powers were left to the states. (Your Rugged Constitution, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1950, pp. 216-217)

The main reason for opposition to the ratification of the Constitution was the fear that the federal government would eventually grow so large that it would destroy the states. Historians John Garraty and Robert McCaughey point out that most of the opposition to ratification only subsided after backers of the Constitution agreed to add amendments that would prevent the federal government from usurping civil liberties and states rights:

Aside from a few doctrinaires, most were ready to give the new government a chance if they could be convinced that it would not destroy the states. When backers agreed to add amendments guaranteeing the civil liberties of the people against challenge by the national government and reserving all unmentioned power to the states, much of the opposition disappeared. (Garraty and McCaughey, The American Nation: A History of the United States to 1877, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1987, p. 159)

Even Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio, a notorious "South-hater," said in 1855 that if the states were not the ones who could ultimately decide if a law violated the Constitution, then the states would be deprived of their right to defend their citizens and the general government would become a "miserable despotism":

Who is the judge in the last resort of the violation of the Constitution of the United States by the enactment of a law? Who is the final arbiter, the General Government or the States in their sovereignty? Why, sir, to yield that point is to yield up all the rights of the States to protect their own citizens, and to consolidate this government into a miserable despotism. (As quoted in Mildred Rutherford, Truths of History, Dahlonega, Georgia: Crown Rights Book Company, reprint of original 1920 edition, p. 4)

James Madison, one of our founding fathers, an author of the Federalist Papers, and our fourth president, said the federal government's powers were delegated, defined, and few in number, and that the powers that were to remain with the states were "numerous and indefinite":

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. (Federalist Paper Number 45)

Of course, one of the states rights for which the South fought was the right of a state or a group of states to voluntarily and peacefully leave the Union. Thomas Jefferson tacitly recognized this right in his first inaugural address in 1801:

If there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed, as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.

In 1816 Jefferson gave a stronger endorsement of the principle that a state should be able to peacefully leave the Union:

If any state in the Union will declare that it prefers separation . . . to a continuance in the union. . . . I have no hesitation in saying, "Let us separate." (Letter from Thomas Jefferson to William Crawford, June 20, 1816)

In 1839 President John Quincy Adams said that if sectional differences between the states became too severe it would be better for the states to go their own way in peace than to be constrained to remain together:

The indissoluble link of union between the people of the several States of this confederated nation is, after all, not in the right, but in the heart. If the day should ever come (may Heaven avert it) when the affections of the people of these States shall be alienated from each other, the bonds of political association will not long hold together parties no longer attached by the magnetism of consolidated interests and kindly sympathies; and far better will it be for the people of the disunited States to part in friendship with each other than to be held together by constraint. (Speech given at a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the inauguration of George Washington, April 30, 1839, as quoted in the Hon. Joseph Wheeler, "Slavery and States Rights," reprinted in Richmond Dispatch, July 31, 1894, emphasis added)

None other than Horace Greeley, a leading Republican and abolitionist and the owner of the then-influential New York Tribune, said the South had the right to leave the Union in peace:

We hold, with Jefferson, to the inalienable right of communities to alter or abolish forms of government that have become oppressive or injurious; and, if the Cotton States [the Deep South states] shall decide that they can do better out of the Union than in it, we insist on letting them go in peace. . . .  And, whenever a considerable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to go out, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep her in.  We hope never to live in a republic where one section is pinned to the residue by bayonets. (New York Tribune, November 9, 1860)

Numerous other Northern newspapers voiced the view that the Southern states had the right to secede and that it would be wrong to use force against them to compel them to return. The Detroit Free Press editorialized as follows:

An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful could produce nothing but evil -- evil unmitigated in character and appalling in content. (Detroit Free Press, February 19, 1861)

Congressman Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland echoed this view shortly before the war broke out:

Any attempt to preserve the Union between the States of this Confederacy by force would be impractical, and destructive of republican liberty. (As quoted in Walter Williams, "Do States Have A Right of Secession?", Capitalism Magazine, April 19, 2002; NOTE: Prior to the Civil War, many leaders and writers occasionally referred to the U.S. as a "confederacy.")

In his final regular message to Congress, given a few months before Lincoln was inaugurated, President James Buchanan said the government had no right to use force against a state that had seceded, and he cited founding father James Madison in support of his point:

The question fairly stated is: Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coerce a State into submission which is attempting to withdraw or has actually withdrawn from the confederacy? If answered in the affirmative, it must be on the principle that the power has been conferred upon Congress to declare and to make war against a State. After much serious reflection, I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress or to any other department of the federal government. It is manifest, upon an inspection of the Constitution, that this is not among the specific and enumerated powers granted to Congress; and it is equally apparent that its exercise is not "necessary and proper for carrying into execution" any one of these powers. So far from this power having been delegated to Congress, it was expressly refused by the convention which framed the Constitution.

It appears from the proceedings of that body that on the 31st May, 1787, the clause "authorizing an exertion of the force of the whole against a delinquent State" came up for consideration. Mr. [James] Madison opposed it in a brief but powerful speech, from which I shall extract but a single sentence. He observed: "The use of force against a State would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment, and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound." Upon his motion the clause was unanimously postponed, and was never, I believe, again presented. Soon afterwards, on the 8th June, 1787, when incidentally adverting to the subject, he said: "Any government for the United States, formed on the supposed practicability of using force against the unconstitutional proceedings of the States, would prove as visionary and fallacious as the government of Congress," evidently meaning the then existing Congress of the old confederation.

Without descending to particulars, it may be safely asserted that the power to make war against a State is at variance with the whole spirit and intent of the Constitution. . . .

The fact is, that our union rests upon public opinion, and can never be cemented by the blood of its citizens in civil war. If it cannot live in the affections of the people, it must one day perish. Congress may possess many means of preserving it by conciliation, but the sword was not placed in their hand to preserve it by force. (President James Buchanan, Presidential Message, read in the U.S. House of Representatives, December 4, 1860, Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, 1860-1861, pp. 19-20)

Conservative scholar Joseph Sobran observes that the right of secession is implied in the Tenth Amendment:

The Tenth Amendment implies the right of secession, since it reserves to the states and the people "the powers not delegated to the United States [i.e., the federal government] by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states." The Constitution doesn’t prohibit the states from seceding, so that power remains with them. . . .

During the debate over ratification of the Constitution, opponents of ratification made many dark predictions: the Constitution would enable the federal government to impose tyranny, it would lead to "consolidated" – centralized and monolithic – government, and so forth. But nobody complained that the Constitution would prevent the states from reclaiming their independence, as they certainly would have done if the Constitution had been understood to rule out secession. (Sobran, "Slavery, No; Secession, Yes," Sobran's, January 16, 2001, p. 1)

The North resorted to coercion

The North resorted to coercion

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition

I believe the correctness of this statement is beyond dispute. The historical record makes it clear that the North was the aggressor and that it resorted to coercion against the South. As mentioned earlier, the reason the states of the Upper South decided to secede was that Lincoln chose to use force. The four states that formed the Upper South, i.e., Arkansas, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee, did not join in the first wave of secession. They made it known that they would remain in the Union if Lincoln did not use force against the newly formed Confederacy. And those states joined the Confederacy only after Lincoln announced he was going to wage war against the seceded states (see McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, pp. 137-138, 150-151).

As stated earlier, Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, tried to establish peaceful relations with the North as soon as he took office. He sent a letter to Lincoln expressing a desire for peaceful relations, and he sent a delegation to Washington to meet with Lincoln for the specific purpose of establishing peaceful ties with the Union (see, for example, Kenneth C. Davis, Don't Know Much About the Civil War, New York: Avon Books, 1997, pp. 156-157; see also Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, pp. 212-213). Lincoln would not even meet with the delegation.

Lincoln gave his reply to the Confederacy's peace overtures in his first inaugural address. In that speech, Lincoln threatened to invade the Confederate states if they didn't pay the tariffs and if they didn't allow the federal government to occupy and maintain federal installations that were in Confederate territory (see, for example, Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 31-32) . This was in spite of the fact that the Confederate states were prepared to pay compensation for the federal forts and property that were located within their boundaries.

The first large-scale battle of the Civil War took place in the South, because Lincoln sent a large military force into Virginia. For that matter, nearly all the battles of the war took place in the South. The South's strategy was defensive. The South hoped the North would eventually grow tired of casualties and would decide to allow the Confederacy to exist in peace. Jefferson Davis did not desire to conquer the North. He said repeatedly that the South simply wanted to be allowed to go in peace, and that the Confederacy wanted peaceful relations with the Union (see William Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, New York: Vintage Books, 2000, pp. 379-380). Davis expressed this position many times. For example, he said the following in his proclamation to the people of Maryland in 1862:

First, that the Confederate Government is waging this war solely for self-defense; that it has no design of conquest, or any other purpose than to secure peace and the abandonment by the United States of their pretensions to govern a people who have never been their subjects, and who prefer self-government to a union with them.

Second, that this Government, at the very moment of its inauguration, sent commissioners to Washington to treat for a peaceful adjustment of all differences, but that these commissioners were not received, nor even allowed to communicate the object of their mission; and that, on a subsequent occasion, a communication from the President of the Confederacy to President Lincoln remained without answer, although a reply was promised by General Scott, into whose hands the communication was delivered. . . .

Fourth, that now, at a juncture when our arms have been successful, we restrict ourselves to the same just and moderate demand that we made at the darkest period of our reverses, the simple demand that the people of the United States should cease to war upon us, and permit us to pursue our own path to happiness, while they in peace pursue theirs. (Proclamation of Jefferson Davis to the People of Maryland, September 7, 1862)

Some might ask, "But didn't the Confederacy fire the first shot by shelling Fort Sumter in South Carolina?" In point of fact, Lincoln deliberately provoked the South into firing on Fort Sumter, and then he used the attack as a pretext for invading the seceded states. Several historians have noted that Lincoln knew that if he tried to resupply Fort Sumter, the Confederacy would probably decide to use force to prevent it. The Confederacy had been trying for weeks to arrange for the peaceful evacuation of the fort. And before the Confederacy took over the Fort Sumter negotiations, South Carolina had been trying for several weeks to negotiate a peaceful resolution. As mentioned, the Confederacy was prepared to pay compensation for all federal forts and property that were in Southern territory. Furthermore, Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Seward, had promised the Confederacy the fort would be evacuated, but that promise was broken. Lincoln's own comments indicate he deliberately provoked the attack on Fort Sumter. I quote historian Francis Simkins,

By the time Lincoln took office Confederate authorities, fearing hasty action from South Carolina, had assumed control of the delicate Fort Sumter negotiations. . . . Would Lincoln pursue the dilatory course of Buchanan or would he be aggressive and forthright as the leader of the party which had condemned Buchanan's policy? He did neither. Instead, he carried out a plan of his own which was so devious, so subtle, and perhaps so confused that it is almost as difficult for the historian to understand as it was for the men of the times. Some scholars believe that he blundered into war, overestimating the strength of the Union party in the South. It is more likely that, with a subtlety approaching the diabolical, he provoked the Confederates into firing upon Fort Sumter in order to solidify North public opinion. . . .

Although Lincoln did not confess his part in provoking the Civil War with the cynical honesty of a Bismarck, he did speak certain revealing words. He consoled the commander of the Fort Sumter relief expedition for that officer's failure: "You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it should fail, and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result.” Shortly after the fall of the fort he was quoted by a close personal friend: "The plansucceeded. They attacked Sumter--it fell, and thus, did more service than it otherwise could.” A few of his party friends congratulated him upon his masterful stroke. The New York Times believed that "the attempt at reinforcement was a feint--that its object was to put upon the rebels the full and clear responsibility of commencing the war. . . .” Jefferson Davis, others exulted, "ran blindly into the trap.” (Simkins, A History of the South, Third Edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963, pp. 213, 215-216, emphasis added)

Just two weeks before the first shot was fired at Fort Sumter, Secretary of State Seward warned Lincoln in a memorandum that any effort to resupply the fort would provoke a hostile response, and he advised Lincoln to evacuate the facility:                    

The dispatch of an expedition to supply or reinforce Sumter would provoke an attack and so involve a war at that point. . . . I would instruct Maj. Anderson [the commander of the federal troops at the fort] to retire from Sumter, forthwith. (Memorandum from Seward to Lincoln, "Opinion on Fort Sumter," March 29, 1861)

In fact, according to accounts of one of Lincoln's cabinet meetings in which the resupply of Fort Sumter was discussed, Lincoln told his cabinet that if South Carolina's artillery opened fire on the fort or on the resupply ship, "he could blame the Confederacy for starting a war" (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 45).

So, yes, the Confederacy did fire on Fort Sumter. But, the Confederacy did this (1) only after Lincoln's Secretary of State had broken his promise to evacuate the fort, (2) only after the Confederacy had tried for weeks to arrange for the peaceful evacuation of the fort, (3) only after Lincoln had refused to meet with the peace delegation that Jefferson Davis had sent to Washington, (4) only after Lincoln had threatened an invasion if the Confederacy didn't allow the federal government to occupy and maintain federal buildings in Confederate territory (even though the South had offered to pay compensation for them), and (5) only after it became known that Lincoln had sent a naval convoy to resupply the federal troops garrisoned at the fort. It should be mentioned that Lincoln didn't merely send a supply ship to Fort Sumter--he also sent warships. It should also be mentioned that not a single Union soldier was killed in the attack on Fort Sumter, and that the soldiers were permitted to return in peace to the North after they surrendered.

Even the attack on Fort Sumter did not have to lead to war. The Confederacy made no hostile moves against any Northern state. But, two months after the Fort Sumter incident, a large Union force marched into Virginia, which led to the first major battle of the war, the Battle of Bull Run (or Manassas).

The people of the South, animated by the spirit of 1776, to preserve their rights, withdrew from the federal compact in 1861

The people of the South, animated by the spirit of 1776, to preserve their rights, withdrew from the federal compact in 1861

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition

Southern leaders made it clear they believed they were following in the footsteps of the founding fathers and that they were protecting their rights. They quoted the Declaration of Independence on the right to form new governments and on the principle that governments derive their just powers "from the consent of the governed." They also quoted the founding fathers on the sovereignty of the states.

The Southern states believed they were seceding to protect their constitutional rights, and that their rights had been violated by the North. They believed their rights had been violated in five areas, namely, tax policy, federal spending, the fugitive slave law, border security, and equal access to the territories.

For decades prior to the secession crisis, the South had complained about the imposition of tariffs. Tariffs usually had a negative impact on the South's economy, while they tended to have a positive impact on the North's economy. Because the South's economy was heavily dependent on imports and exports, the South paid the majority of the tariffs. In 1832 South Carolina and the federal government nearly came to blows because South Carolina refused to pay the recently increased tariffs. Eventually a compromise was reached and the tariffs were gradually reduced. The issue of tariffs continued to be a sore point between North and South right up to the start of the Civil War. Southern leaders also objected to the misuse of tariff revenue by the federal government. They viewed as unfair and unconstitutional the use of tariff money for "internal improvements." Admittedly, many more of these "internal improvements" went to the North than to the South. The South had a valid complaint here, and the situation only stood to get worse with the election of Lincoln, who favored higher tariffs and increased spending on internal improvements. We must bear in mind that there was no income tax back then. The tariff was a huge source of revenue for the federal government at the time. It's fair to say that in most cases the South favored free trade and that the North favored protectionism. The South's desire to control its own economic destiny and to trade directly with Europe without having to pay the federal tariff was an important factor in its decision to secede.

When the states of the Deep South seceded and formed the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, in one of his first acts as president of the Confederacy, sent an official letter to Abraham Lincoln expressing a desire for peaceful relations (Letter from Jefferson Davis to Abraham Lincoln, February 27, 1861). Davis also sent a peace delegation to the city of Washington to meet with Lincoln for the purpose of establishing friendly relations. Lincoln would not even meet with the delegation. A short time later, in his first inaugural address, Lincoln threatened to invade the South if the South didn't pay the tariffs (or if the South didn't allow the federal government to maintain and occupy federal forts and property that were in Confederate territory). So Lincoln certainly viewed the collection of tariffs from the South as a critical issue, one over which he was willing to go to war (and it should be noted that Lincoln made no such threat over any issue relating to slavery). Jefferson Davis explained the tariff issue in these words:

Under the power of Congress to levy duties on imports, tariff laws were enacted, not merely "to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States," as authorized by the Constitution, but, positively and primarily, for the protection against foreign competition of domestic manufactures. The effect of this was to impose the main burden of taxation upon the Southern people, who were consumers and not manufacturers, not only by the enhanced price of imports, but indirectly by the consequent depreciation in the value of exports, which were chiefly the products of Southern states. The imposition of this grievance was unaccompanied by the consolation of knowing that the tax thus borne was to be paid into the public treasury, for the increase of price accrued mainly to the benefit of the manufacturers. Nor was this all: a reference to the annual appropriations will show that the disbursements made were as unequal as the burdens borne--the inequality in both operating in the same direction [i.e., against the South in both cases]. (Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 1, New York: De Capo Press, 1990, reprint of 1881 edition, p. 28)

Southern leaders vehemently opposed the Morrill Tariff. But, the tariff was passed in the 1859-1860 session of the House of Representatives, and when Lincoln's Republican Party gained control of the Senate, the bill passed in that chamber in 1861. The Morrill Tariff called for a drastic increase in the tariff rates. During Congressional debates on the bill, Representative G. S. Houston of Alabama voiced some of the objections that the South had to the Morrill Tariff, and he made it clear that he viewed this issue as being as important as the issue of slavery, if not more so. He pointed out that the Morrill Tariff would further benefit the manufacturing interests. Most manufacturers were in the North. Since the South's economy was largely based on imports and exports, any increase in the tariff was of great concern to Southerners. Representative Houston, along with many other Southern members of Congress, argued that the government should cut spending rather than raise the tariff. Representative Houston:

The question is an important one. The taxing power of the Government, and its duty growing out of the exercise of that power, in view of the constitutional grant, present questions which, in my judgment, are not surpassed in importance by any ever agitated in an American Congress. I at once acknowledge the vast magnitude and importance of the questions growing out of African slavery. I am satisfied that upon its adjustment and final settlement the fate of the Government depends, and properly depends. Yet no question connected with the Government can be of more interest or importance than those growing out of the bill under consideration [the Morrill Tariff bill].

I was pleased to hear the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Sherman) admit so fully and distinctly that a duty levied upon imports is a tax upon those who consume such imports. . . . I am pleased that the protectionists are now disposed to deal more frankly and candidly with the subject, and admit that the taxes proposed in this bill--exorbitant and unjust as I know them to be--are to be paid (if the bill shall become law) by the consumers of this country for the benefit (as I am sure will be admitted by candid debaters) of the manufacturers. That is a correct statement of the case, and presents to our constituents the true and precise question, whether they are willing to be thus taxed in their necessary consumption, not because the Government needs the money, but to prosper and enrich the manufacturing interests.

The pretext presented by those who want protection is, that we are not receiving, under the existing law, sufficient revenue to meet the just and proper demands of the Government. That is a mere pretext, as I propose to show. In 1857 our receipts, under the [tariff] law of 1846, were said to be too large. I was then satisfied they were too large. I have not changed that opinion; and while the present law, passed in that year [1857], did not suit me in some of its provisions, yet I voted for it as the best I could get. It was a reduction of the receipts into the Treasury, as well as a reduction of the taxes upon the people. An effort is now being made to increase the duties to a point much higher than they were under the law of 1846, upon the alleged ground that our receipts into the Treasury are too small. . . .

If they are, if our receipts are not sufficient to meet the just demands of the Government, what is the proper remedy? . . . They should, if practicable, curtail the expenses of the Government, and in that way bring its expenditures to a point where they could be met by its income. Let us adopt that course. Let us cease to waste the money of the Government. Let us dispense with unnecessary and extravagant appropriations and see if in that way we cannot avoid an increase of taxation. . . .

The difficulty, Mr. Chairman, is not that the law does not produce revenue enough, but that Congress unnecessarily expends and wastes the money. Let us correct that abuse, and we will have ample means, not only to meet current expenses, but to pay the public debt in a few years. (Rep. G. S. Houston, U.S. House of Representatives, May 8, 1860, Appendix to the Congressional Globe, p. 449)

Another Southern member of the House of Representatives, Representative Moore of Alabama, likewise expressed strong opposition to the tariff bill. He noted that the burden of a tariff increase would fall mainly on the South, and that, on the other hand, it would benefit the manufacturers in the North. And Rep. Moore made it clear the tariff issue was a crucial topic:

Regarding the tariff bill now under consideration as the most important measure, so far as the interests of my constituents are concerned, of any which has been introduced into Congress since I have had the honor of a seat on this floor, I cannot in silence permit it to become a law. . . . I feel impelled by a sense of duty to enter my most emphatic and indignant protest against the passage of this bill. . . . From the examination I have been able to give this bill, I consider it highly objectionable; and if, unfortunately, it should become a law, my opinion is that it will prove scarcely less oppressive than did the memorable tariff act of 1828, known throughout the South as the bill of abominations.

Mr.Chairman, any material change in our revenue laws affects, in some degree, the interests of every individual. . . . It is for this reason that the question of the tariff has always been justly regarded as one of the greatest importance. . . . The public mind has of late been, and is now, absorbed by another question of more perilous import [slavery]; but let none think that this of the tariff has been overlooked or forgotten by the protectionists. . . .

Who introduces it here and now, and, as it seems to me, so unnecessarily and unseasonably? Not those upon whom the taxes are most heavily imposed by the tariff laws, and who might be expected to be weary of bearing their endless burden, but the manufacturers themselves, for whose support and profits nearly every individual and industrial interest in the country is now compelled to contribute. . . .

Mr. Chairman, the honorable gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Morrill), and all who have thus far spoken in favor of this bill, openly advocate protection for the sake of protection. It seems, indeed, strange that at this enlightened day the principles of protection should find any advocates here. I can only account for it from the fact, admitted by the honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Florence) the other day, that the tariff question was no longer a financial question, but a sectional question. The gentleman well knows that while the chief burdens will fall on the South, his constituents will be benefited by a high protective tariff. (Rep. S. Moore, U.S. House of Representatives, April 30, 1860, Appendix to the Congressional Globe, pp. 272-273)

The Declarations of Causes of Secession issued by Georgia and Texas included complaints about unfair economic policies that favored the North at the expense of the South. These were obvious references to the South's anger over tariffs, over the misuse of tariff revenue, and over other economic policies that the South opposed. In fact, Georgia's declaration includes a specific complaint about the protectionist policies of the North. Jefferson Davis mentioned the South's objections to federal tariffs in his first message to the Confederate congress (he cited the North's imposition of "burdens on commerce as a protection to their manufacturing and shipping interests"). Representative John Reagan, who would later become the Postmaster General of the Confederacy, strongly complained about unfair economic policies that hurt the South in a speech that he gave on the floor of the House on January 15, 1861. In speaking to Northern leaders in general, he said:

You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you annually under the operation of our revenue laws, our navigation laws, your fishing bounties, and by making your people our manufacturers, our merchants, our shippers. You are not satisfied with the vast tribute we pay to build up your great cities, your railroads, and your canals. You are not satisfied with the millions of tribute we have been paying you on account of the balance of exchange, which you hold against us. You are not satisfied that we of the South are almost reduced to the condition of overseers of northern capitalists. You are not satisfied with all this; but you must wage a relentless crusade against our rights and institutions. . . .

We do not intend that you shall reduce us to such a condition. But I can tell you what your folly and injustice will compel us to do. It will compel us to be free from your domination, and more self-reliant than we have been. It will compel us to assert and maintain our separate independence. It will compel us to manufacture for ourselves, to build up our own commerce, our own great cities, our own railroad and canals; and to use the tribute money we now pay you for these things for the support of a government which will be friendly to all our interests, hostile to none of them. (Rep. John Reagan, U.S. House of Representatives, January 15, 1861, as quoted in Kenneth Stampp, The Causes of the Civil War, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965, p. 74, quoting Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 2nd Session, I, p. 391)

As the secession crisis continued, it didn't take Northern leaders long to perceive the grave economic threat that an independent South would pose to Northern business interests. They realized that if the South didn't have to pay federal tariffs and were allowed to set its own tariffs, the Southern ports of New Orleans, Charleston, and Savannah could replace New York, Boston, and Philadelphia as the main centers for commercial trade. Weeks before any hostilities occurred, one Boston newspaper went so far as to opine that this was the South's "controlling motive" for wanting to form a separate nation:

It does not require extraordinary sagacity to perceive that trade is perhaps the controlling motive operating to prevent the return of the seceding States of the Union, . . . it is apparent that the people of the principal seceding States are now for commercial independence. They dream that the centers of traffic can be changed from Northern to Southern ports. The merchants of New Orleans, Charleston, and Savannah are possessed with the idea that New York, Boston, and Philadelphia may be shorn [deprived], in the future, of their mercantile greatness, by a revenue system verging on free trade. If the Southern Confederation is allowed to carry out a policy by which only a nominal duty [tax] is laid upon imports, no doubt the business of the chief Northern cities will be seriously injured thereby.

The difference is so great between the tariff of the Union and that of the Confederated States, that the entire Northwest must find it to their advantage to purchase their imported goods at New Orleans rather than at New York. (Boston Transcript, March 18, 1861, from Stampp, The Causes of the Civil War, p. 80)

About two months earlier, shortly after the secession crisis began, the New Orleans Daily Crescent expressed the view that the main reason the North didn't want the South to secede was economic in nature:

They [the Northern states] know that the South is the main prop and support of the Federal system. They know that it is Southern productions that constitute the surplus wealth of the nation, and enables us to import so largely from foreign countries. They know that it is their import trade that draws from the people's pockets sixty or seventy millions of dollars per annum, in the shape of duties, to be expended mainly in the North, and in the protection and encouragement of Northern interests. . . . They know that the bulk of duties is paid by the Southern people . . . and that, by the iniquitous operation of the Federal Government, these duties are mainly expended among the Northern people. They know that they can plunder and pillage the South, as long as they are in the same Union with us, by other means, such as fishing bounties, navigation laws, robberies of the public lands, and every other possible mode of injustice and peculation. . . .

These are the reasons these people do not wish the South to secede from the Union. They are enraged at the prospect of being despoiled of the rich feast upon which they have so long fed and fattened, and which they were just getting ready to enjoy with still greater gout and gusto [i.e., by the Morrill Tariff]. (New Orleans Daily Crescent, January 21, 1861, from Stampp, The Causes of the Civil War, p. 75)

Garraty and McCaughey note that the South's growing fear of being dominated economically by the North was a factor that led to secession:

Why were southerners willing to wreck the Union their grandfathers had put together with so much love and labor? No simple explanation is possible. . . . Lincoln had assured them that he would respect slavery where it existed. . . . The Democrats [who at the time were mostly from the South] had retained control of Congress in the election; the Supreme Court was firmly in their hands as well. If the North did try to destroy slavery, then secession was perhaps a logical tactic. . . . To leave the Union meant abandoning the very objectives for which the South had been contending for over a decade: a share of the federal territories and an enforceable fugitive slave act.

One reason the South rejected this line of thinking was the tremendous economic energy generated in the North, which seemed to threaten the South's independence. As one Southerner complained at a commercial convention in 1855:

From the rattle with which the nurse tickles the ear of the child born in the South to the shroud which covers the cold form of the dead, everything comes from the North. We rise from between sheets made in Northern looms, and pillows of Northern feathers, to wash in basins made in the North. . . . We can eat from Northern plates and dishes; our rooms are swept with Northern brooms, our gardens dug with Northern spades . . . and the very wood which feeds our fires is cut with Northern axes, helved with hickory brought from Connecticut and New York.

Secession, southerners argued, would "liberate" the South and produce the kind of balanced economy that was proving so successful in the North and so unachievable in the South. (Garraty and McCaughey, The American Nation, pp. 418-419, emphasis in original)

And then there was the dispute over slavery. Before we look at the South's disagreement with the North over slavery, I think it would be worthwhile to briefly consider why Southerners questioned the moral authority of the North to judge the South on this issue. For example, they noted that some Northern states forbade blacks from migrating into their boundaries, and that several other Northern states wouldn't allow blacks to vote, wouldn't allow them to testify in court, and wouldn't allow them the right to litigate to collect a debt from whites. Lincoln biographer William Klingaman notes the following:

In the first half of the nineteenth century, state legislatures in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut took away Negroes' right to vote; and voters in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Maine, Iowa, and Wisconsin approved new constitutions that limited suffrage [the right to vote] to whites. In Ohio, Negro males were permitted to vote only if they had "a greater visible admixture of white than colored blood." (Klingaman,Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, New York: Viking Press, 2001, p. 54)

Historian James McPherson gives us more information on the conditions of blacks in the North:

The Indiana constitutional convention of 1851 adopted a provision forbidding black migration into the state. This supplemented the state's laws barring blacks already there from voting, serving on juries or in the militia, testifying against whites in court, marrying whites, or going to school with whites. Iowa and Illinois had similar laws on the books and banned black immigration by statute in 1851 and 1853 respectively. These measures reflected the racist sentiments of most whites in those states. (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982, p. 80)

African-American scholars John Franklin and Alfred Moss discuss the racist atmosphere that many blacks experienced in the North during this period:

There can be no doubt that many blacks were sorely mistreated in the North and West. Observers like Fanny Kemble and Frederick L. Olmsted mentioned incidents in their writings. Kemble said of Northern blacks, "They are not slaves indeed, but they are pariahs, debarred from every fellowship save with their own despised race. . . . All hands are extended to thrust them out, all fingers point at their dusky skin, all tongues . . . have learned to turn the very name of their race into an insult and a reproach." Olmsted seems to have believed the Louisiana black who told him that they could associate with whites more freely in the South than in the North and that he preferred to live in the South because he was less likely to be insulted there. (Franklin and Moss, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, p. 185)

Southerners also questioned the North's moral authority because Northern states willingly allowed and profited from industrial wage slavery, under which tens of thousands of lower class, unskilled workers lived and toiled in conditions that were considerably worse than the conditions in which slaves lived. Historians Garraty and McCaughey observe that in the North "there existed a class of miserably underpaid and depressed unskilled workers, mostly immigrants, who were worse off materially than nearly any southern slave" (The American Nation, p. 385). Representative Mike Walsh expressed the feelings of many Southerners when he said on the floor of the House in 1854,

The only difference between the Negro slave of the South, and the white wage slave of the North is, that the one has a master without asking for him, and the other has to beg for the privilege of becoming a slave. . . . The one is the slave of an individual; the other is the slave of an inexorable class. (From Arthur Schlesinger, The Age of Jackson, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1945, p. 490, quoting the Congressional Globe, 33rd Congress, 1st Session, p. 1224)

After reviewing Representative Walsh's case against Northern wage slavery, historian Arthur Schlesinger, who certainly can't be accused of having a pro-Confederate bias, says "there was something to be said for his argument" (The Age of Jackson, p. 491). Schlesinger continues,

The Jacksonian impulse had, after all, sprung up to meet certain inadequacies of Northern society, and for all the hullabaloo over slavery, those inadequacies continued to exist. The Free Soilers might urge that the destruction of slavery was an indispensable preliminary to further reform; but the doctrinaire radicals could not but regard this as a confession of impotence, a compulsion on the part of a bankrupt reform party to escape its responsibilities at home by going on a crusade abroad. (Schlesinger,The Age of Jackson, p. 491)

The continuation of slavery as a legal institution where it already existed was not a major point of contention in the negotiations between North and South during the secession crisis. To be sure, some Southern leaders expressed the fear that Lincoln and his fellow Republicans would seek to abolish slavery. However, other Southern leaders did not share this fear. In the various negotiations during the secession crisis, Northern representatives, following Lincoln's lead, made it clear they would support additional legal protection for slavery. Lincoln had already gone on record with the promise that he would not disturb slavery where it already existed. He even supported a constitutional amendment that guaranteed the continuation of slavery as a legal institution (Garraty and McCaughey, The American Nation, pp. 418-419). This amendment was passed by Congress and signed by President Buchanan two days before Lincoln took office. If war had not broken out shortly thereafter, it is very probable the amendment would have been ratified by more than the required majority of states.

The most hotly contested issues relating to slavery were the fugitive slave law, the South's fear of further armed abolitionist raids into Southern territory, and the North's effort to bar slavery from the territories. There can be no doubt that these were the most important factors that led the Deep South to desire secession and independence, although the economic disputes with the North also contributed to the secessionist sentiment. The election of Lincoln was the trigger event that caused the Deep South to secede. We should keep in mind, however, that the states of Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee did not secede over slavery. These states did not secede when the states of the Deep South seceded. They only seceded when, about two months later, Lincoln made it clear he was going to use force against the newly formed Confederacy. Prior to that time, these states were willing to remain in the Union, and Lincoln was willing to allow them to do so. The initial votes on secession in these states, whether in convention or by popular vote, all went against secession, in Virginia by a margin of two to one. However, after Lincoln left no doubt he was going to use force, new votes were held, and they all went heavily in favor of secession.

The South believed its legal rights were being denied by the refusal of several Northern states to honor the fugitive slave law, which at the time was established and protected by the Constitution itself and which had been reaffirmed by Congress. Although one can certainly sympathize with those Northern states that refused to enforce this law, legally speaking the South was in the right--and, legally speaking, the South's rights were being violated in this regard. Some Northern states, appealing to a higher moral law, were in fact refusing to obey the fugitive slave law, even though it was guaranteed by the Constitution.

After the John Brown raid of 1859, many Southerners believed their borders were no longer secure, and they feared that abolitionist forces in the North would launch more armed assaults into the South for the purpose of inciting potentially deadly slave rebellions. Southerners were genuinely frightened when abolitionist John Brown led an armed incursion into Virginia in an attempt to incite a slave revolt. Southerners were mindful of the fact that a slave revolt in Haiti had resulted in a large-scale massacre of whites. Therefore, many people in the South were especially enraged and alarmed when, during the 1860 presidential election, the Republican Party distributed an abridged version of an anti-slavery book entitled The Impending Crisis of the South, which spoke approvingly of a scenario in which slaves would rise up and kill their masters. Not only did the Republican Party distribute this book, but in the version that the party distributed, Republican editors added such captions as "The Stupid Masses of the South" and "Revolution--Peacefully if we can, Violently if we must." With this in mind, perhaps it's not hard to understand why so many Southerners viewed the relatively new Republican Party with so much alarm and distrust. To put this in modern terms, imagine the unrest and outrage that would be generated if a major political party in our day were to distribute a book that endorsed the shooting of abortion doctors and the bombing of abortion clinics. As much as one might oppose and detest abortion (as I do), it is legal. No responsible citizen could support a party that distributed a book that promoted violence against abortion doctors and their clinics. Similarly, although no one can defend the institution of slavery, we must keep in mind that not only was slavery legal back then, but it was permitted by the Constitution and had existed in America for over two hundred years before the secession crisis began.

Not only were some Northern states refusing to honor the fugitive slave law, but many Northern leaders was pushing to bar slavery from the vast western territories. One does not have to approve of slavery to admit that this effort was of somewhat debatable legality. What's more, many historians have noted that the North's drive to bar slavery from the territories was mainly motivated by a desire to prevent slave labor from competing with free white labor, and not by any strong moral objection to the extension of slavery itself. It must also be mentioned that, sadly enough, most whites in the territories simply didn't want blacks living among them. From the South's point of view, the North had no right to bar a legal institution from the territories, especially when the South had contributed the majority of the soldiers who had fought in the war that led to the acquisition of most of the new western territories (the Mexican War). Southerners also noted that the North showed no interest in banning Northern white wage slavery from the territories.

The South, against overwhelming numbers and resources, fought until exhausted

The South, against overwhelming numbers and resources, fought until exhausted

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition

I don't think anyone disputes the fact that the South faced overwhelming odds in a war with the North. The North had over twice the population of the South, and a great deal more heavy industry. McPherson's chapter entitled "The Balance Sheet of War" in his book Ordeal By Fire shows just how great the odds were against the South (Ordeal By Fire, pp. 180-205). In nearly every important category, the North held a decided advantage. In major battles, Confederate forces were frequently outnumbered by a ratio of two or three to one. Yet, amazingly, the Confederacy won many battles, inflicted greater casualties than it suffered, came close to gaining formal recognition from England and France (and would have but for the loss of two or three battles), and managed to hold on for over four years.

Finally, I would like to list some important facts that are often omitted from most of the history textbooks used in public schools and that are rarely, if ever, mentioned in documentaries on the Civil War:

* As early as 1862, Confederate diplomats in England were indicating to British authorities that the Confederacy would be willing to abolish slavery in exchange for diplomatic recognition. In late 1864, Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders were ready and willing to abolish slavery in order to save the Confederacy, and Confederate diplomats in Europe made an offer to this effect (see Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 552-553; see also, Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 113). This shows that Confederate leaders viewed independence as being more important than the continuation of slavery.

* The Confederate constitution outlawed the slave trade, i.e., it forbade the importation of slaves from Africa and from all other continents (Article I, Section 9). The Confederate constitution also permitted Confederate states to abolish slavery if they wanted to do so and allowed for the admission of free states to the Confederacy.

* During the secession crisis, a group of moderates in the Senate proposed the Crittenden Compromise, which may have ended up preventing war. Lincoln rejected the proposal, and Senate Republicans stalled the measure until they had enough votes to defeat it after a number of Southern senators had resigned. This led Senator Crittenden himself to suggest that the compromise be voted on by the people in a national referendum. Senate Republicans, with Lincoln's approval, prevented this from happening (see Bruce Catton, editor, The National Experience: A History of the United States, Second Edition, New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1968, p. 336). There is little doubt the Crittenden Compromise would have been approved by a substantial majority of the people if the measure had been put to a national vote (see, for example, Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, Volume 2, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950, pp. 401-402).

At the first committee vote on the compromise, the Southern representatives, including Robert Toombs and Jefferson Davis, said they would support the proposal if the Republicans did the same (Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, p. 397). Vice President Breckinridge, who was from Kentucky, told the Senate that "the leading statesmen of the lower Southern States were willing to accept the terms" of the compromise (Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, p. 398). But, as mentioned, the Republicans were unwilling to support it. Historian Allan Nevins noted that "the chief responsibility for the defeat of the compromise falls upon the twenty-five Republicans who voted to slay it" (The Emergence of Lincoln, p. 403).

* Four of the states that fought for the Union were slave states: Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri. In fact, when Lincoln sent the federal naval convoy to Fort Sumter, there were more slaves states in the Union than in the Confederacy.

* As of 1860, just one year before the outbreak of the Civil War, roughly half of the free blacks in America lived in the South, and in the Southern cities of New Orleans and Charleston alone there were more free blacks who owned real estate than in the Northern cities of Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and Boston combined (see Franklin and Moss, From Slavery to Freedom, pp. 169-175). I again quote African-American scholars Franklin and Moss:

Free blacks in the Southern states also accumulated property. . . . Luther P. Jackson found that in Virginia in 1860 free blacks owned more than 60,000 acres of farmland and their city real estate was valued at $463,000. In North Carolina they owned $480,000 worth of real property and $564,000 worth of personal property in 1860. In Charleston, 352 blacks paid taxes in 1859 on property valued in excess of $778,000. Tennessee's free blacks owned about $750,000 worth of real and personal property in 1860. The affluence of a large number of free blacks in New Orleans is well known. (Franklin and Moss, From Slavery to Freedom, pp. 174-175)

* The same Republicans who vehemently attacked the South over slavery, and who imposed harsh Reconstruction rule on the South after the war, approved official discrimination against the American Indians in the West and permitted them to be segregated from the rest of society. One textbook, edited by Civil War scholar Bruce Catton, puts it this way:

The same Congress that devised Radical Reconstruction . . . approved strict segregation and inequality for the Indian of the West. (Catton, editor, The National Experience, p. 416)

From the History Books: Facts that Support the Southern View of the Civil War Page 2

From the History Books: Facts that Support the Southern View of the Civil War Page 2

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition

I would like to note in advance that some of the quotes presented below contain offensive racial terms. These insulting terms appear in some statements from the Civil War era and are quoted in the history books themselves. Nevertheless, I apologize to anyone who is offended by them.

Abraham Lincoln knew that any attempt to resupply Fort Sumter would probably provoke an armed response from the Confederacy

"Of course, Lincoln was aware that sending provisions to Sumter might provoke hostilities. . . ." (J. G. Randall and David Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, Second Edition, Lexington, Massachusetts: D. C. Heath and Company, 1969, p. 175)

"Increasingly it became clear that any attempt to relieve these garrisons [Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens] would precipitate war. . . ." (John Hicks, The Federal Union, Third Edition, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1957, p. 558)

"By the time Lincoln took office Confederate authorities, fearing hasty action from South Carolina, had assumed control of the delicate Fort Sumter negotiations. . . . Would Lincoln pursue the dilatory course of Buchanan or would he be aggressive and forthright as the leader of the party which had condemned Buchanan's policy? He did neither. Instead, he carried out a plan of his own which was so devious, so subtle, and perhaps so confused that it is almost as difficult for the historian to understand as it was for the men of the times. Some scholars believe that he blundered into war, overestimating the strength of the Union party in the South. It is more likely that, with a subtlety approaching the diabolical, he provoked the Confederates into firing upon Fort Sumter in order to solidify North public opinion. . . .

"Although Lincoln did not confess his part in provoking the Civil War with the cynical honesty of a Bismarck, he did speak certain revealing words. He consoled the commander of the Fort Sumter relief expedition for that officer's failure: 'You and I both anticipated that the cause of the country would be advanced by making the attempt to provision Fort Sumter, even if it should fail, and it is no small consolation now to feel that our anticipation is justified by the result.' Shortly after the fall of the fort he was quoted by a close personal friend: 'The plan succeeded. They attacked Sumter--it fell, and thus, did more service than it otherwise could.' A few of his party friends congratulated him upon his masterful stroke. The New York Times believed that 'the attempt at reinforcement was a feint--that its object was to put upon the rebels the full and clear responsibility of commencing the war. . . .' Jefferson Davis, others exulted, 'ran blindly into the trap.'" (Francis Simkins, A History of the South, Third Edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963, pp. 213, 215-216, emphasis added)

"After a sleepless night, Lincoln called his Cabinet together and announced that--against the recommendations of his military advisors--he was going to reinforce Fort Pickens and order a supply expedition to sail from New York to Fort Sumter. . . . If South Carolina's artillery opened fire on Sumter or the ships, he could blame the Confederacy for starting a war." (William Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, New York: Viking Press, 2001, p. 45)

"Lincoln immediately learned that his calculations were wrong. Major Anderson's stock of foodstuffs was just about exhausted, and the day after delivering his inaugural address Lincoln was notified that the fort [Fort Sumter] could hold out for only a few more weeks. Unless it could be supplied at once, Anderson would have to surrender. The overt act, as a result, would have to be taken by the federal government, for its efforts to supply Fort Sumter would almost certainly be taken by Jefferson Davis as a warlike step against the new Confederacy. . . .

"The Confederates could not permit reinforcement [of the fort] without jeopardizing their claim to national independence." (Bruce Catton, editor, The National Experience: A History of the United States, Second Edition, New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1968, pp. 337-338)

". . . some historians have accused Lincoln of pushing the Confederacy to fire the shots that started a civil war. . . . Fort Sumter and Lincoln's proclamation calling for volunteers prompted secession proceedings in four more states. Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee soon joined the Confederacy. . . . (Kenneth C. Davis, Don't Know Much About the Civil War, New York: Avon Books, 1997, pp. 162, 167)

The South seceded in a democratic manner and most of the Southern people supported secession

"As the telegraph flashed news of Lincoln's election, the South Carolina legislature called a convention to take the state out of the Union. Within six weeks the six other states of the lower South had also called conventions. Their voters elected delegates after short but intensive campaigns. Each convention voted by a substantial (in most cases an overwhelming) margin to secede." (James McPherson, Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982, p. 127)

". . . the South Carolina legislature called a convention to consider secession. . . . the convention by a vote of 169-0 enacted on December 20 [1860] an 'ordinance' dissolving 'the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other States'. . . .

". . . this bold step triggered a chain reaction by conventions in other lower-South states. After the Christmas holidays . . . Mississippi adopted a similar ordinance on January 9, 1861, followed by Florida on January 10, Alabama on January 11, Georgia on January 19, Louisiana on January 26, and Texas on February 1. Although none of these conventions exhibited the unity of South Carolina's, their average vote in favor of secession was 80 percent. This figure was probably a fair reflection of white opinion in those six states. Except in Texas, the conventions did not submit their ordinances to the voters for ratification. This led to charges that a disunion conspiracy acted against the will of the people. But in fact the main reason for non-submission was a desire to avoid delay. The voters had just elected delegates who had made their positions clear in public statements; another election seemed superfluous. The Constitution of 1787 had been ratified by state conventions, not by popular vote; withdrawal of that ratification by similar conventions satisfied a wish for legality and symmetry. In Texas the voters endorsed secession by a margin of three to one; there is little reason to believe that the result would have been different in any of the other six states. (James McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, New York: Ballantine Books, 1988, p. 235)

Lincoln did not start the war in order to end slavery

Lincoln did not start the war in order to end slavery

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition

"When the Civil War began in April 1861, President Abraham Lincoln had no intention of issuing an emancipation proclamation. Lincoln believed he lacked the constitutional authority to interfere with slavery in any state, even when the government of that state insisted it was no longer a part of the Union." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 1)

"On August 30, General John C. Fremont, commander of Union forces in Missouri, issued a proclamation . . . freeing the slaves of all citizens who actively supported the rebellion. . . .

"Unionists in Kentucky reacted vehemently to Fremont's proclamation. . . . Upon learning that Fremont had freed slaves in Missouri, an entire company of Union volunteers in Kentucky reportedly threw down their guns and deserted.

"Lincoln acted quickly to defuse the crisis. On September 2, he sent a message asking Fremont to modify his proclamation. . . .

"Fremont . . . sent his wife . . . to argue with the president.

"Lincoln received Mrs. Fremont shortly before midnight on the evening of September 10. It was not a pleasant meeting. . . . Lincoln abruptly cut her off. The general would have to back down. The war was being fought, Lincoln said, 'for a great national idea, the Union, and General Fremont should not have dragged the Negro into it.'" (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 72-74)

"Lincoln remained unmoved. . . . 'I think Sumner [abolitionist Charles Sumner] and the rest of you would upset our applecart altogether if you had your way,' he told the Radicals [the common term for hardline abolitionists]. . . . 'We didn't go into this war to put down slavery . . . and to act differently at this moment would, I have no doubt, not only weaken our cause, but smack of bad faith.' Vindication of the president's view came a few weeks later, when the Massachusetts state Republican convention--perhaps the most Radical party organization in the North--defeated a resolution endorsing Fremont's proclamation." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 75-76, emphasis added)

"The problem with this lofty rhetoric of dying to make men free was that in 1861 the North was fighting for the restoration of a slaveholding Union. In his July 4 message to Congress, Lincoln reiterated the inaugural pledge that he had 'no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists.'" (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 265)

Lincoln began to consider issuing an emancipation proclamation only after the Union's war effort continued to falter and after he started to fear that Radical Republicans in Congress would withhold supplies from the Union army

"The Union setbacks in Virginia persuaded Lincoln to take the first tentative step toward emancipation." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 139)

"Welles [Lincoln's Secretary of the Navy] was . . . surprised by the abrupt shift in the president's thinking. . . . 'Until this time, in all our previous interviews,' Welles later wrote in his diary, 'whenever the question of emancipation or the mitigation of slavery had been in any way alluded to, [Lincoln] had been prompt and emphatic in denouncing any interference by the General Government with the subject.' But the failure of [Union general] McClellan's peninsula campaign impelled the president 'to adopt extraordinary measures to preserve the national existence .'" (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 134)

"Seven days after issuing his emancipation message, the president met with the former congressman Edward Stanly. . . .

"Lincoln explained to Stanly that he had issued the proclamation 'to prevent the Radicals from openly embarrassing the government in the conduct of the war.' If he had not embraced emancipation, Lincoln said, congressional Radicals might have withheld military supplies, 'leaving the whole land in anarchy.'" (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 201)

"At the beginning of the war, when the North still hoped for a quick and easy victory, only dedicated abolitionists favored turning the struggle for the Union into a crusade against slavery. In the summer of 1861, Congress voted almost unanimously for a resolution affirming that the war was being fought only to preserve the Union and not the change the domestic institutions of any state. But as it became clear how hard it was going to be to subdue the 'rebels,' sentiment favored striking a blow at the South's social and economic system by freeing its slaves." (Robert A. Divine, T. H. Bren, George Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams, America Past and Present, Fifth Edition, New York: Longman, 1998, p. 460)

Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation only as a war measure that was designed to weaken the Confederacy, and the proclamation only applied to slaves in Confederate territory; it didn't apply to any slaves in Union territory

"He [Lincoln] now believed 'that it was a military necessity absolutely essential for the salvation of the Union, that we must free the slaves. . . .'" (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 149)

"At the . . . meeting . . . on December 29, Lincoln read aloud his draft of the final Emancipation Proclamation. . . .

"After he finished, Lincoln asked his Cabinet officers for their comments. Only Chase replied. He objected to Lincoln's decision to exempt portions of Confederate states (primarily Louisiana and Virginia) where Union troops were already in control. . . .

"Lincoln replied that he could not accept Chase's suggestion. He could justify the proclamation only as a military measure. . . ." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 223)

". . . the proclamation freed only slaves outside the reach of the Union armies. . . ." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 197)

"The language and tone of the document . . . made it clear that blacks were being freed for reasons of state and not out of humanitarian conviction. . . . it did not extend to slave states loyal to the Union or to occupied areas. . . ." (Divine et al, America Past and Present, p. 461)

"'Where he has no power Mr. Lincoln will set the negroes free; where he retains power he will consider them as slaves,' declared the London Times." (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 558)

The same Congress that imposed Reconstruction on the South after the war also imposed racist policies on the American Indians

"The same Congress that devised Radical Reconstruction . . . approved strict segregation and inequality for the Indian of the West." (Catton, editor, The National Experience, p. 416)

Lincoln and other Republican leaders killed the Crittenden Compromise and wouldn't allow the people to vote on it in a national referendum; and the compromise measure most likely would have won had it been put to a national vote

"What do we mean, specifically, by saying that the Republican party rejected compromise? Certain facts are reasonably familiar in this connection, and may be briefly recalled. In December, 1860, at the time when a number of secession conventions had been called in the Southern states but before any ordinances of secession had been adopted, various political leaders brought forward proposals to give assurances to the Southerners. The most prominent of these was the plan by Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky to place an amendment in the Constitution which would restore and extend the former Missouri Compromise line of 36-30, prohibiting slavery in Federal territory north of the line and sanctioning it south of the line. In a Senate committee, this proposal was defeated with five Republicans voting against it and none in favor of it, while the non-Republicans favored it six to two. On January 16, after four states had adopted ordinances of secession, an effort was made to get the Crittenden measure out of committee and on to the floor of the Senate. This effort was defeated by 25 votes against to 23 in favor. This was done on a strict party vote, all 25 of the votes to defeat being cast by Republicans. None of those in favor were Republicans. On March 2, after the secession of the lower South was complete, the Crittenden proposal was permitted to come to a vote [by the full Senate]. In the Senate, it was defeated 19 to 20. All 20 of the negative votes were Republican, not one of the affirmative votes was so. In the House, it was defeated 80 to 113. Not one of the 80 was a Republican, but 110 of the 113 were Republicans." (David Potter, "Why the Republicans Rejected Both Compromise and Secession," in Edwin C. Rozwenc, The Causes of the American Civil War, Second Edition, Lexington, Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Company, 1972, p. 309)

"In the Senate, a Committee of Thirteen searched vainly for a compromise. One was submitted to the Senate by John J. Crittenden of Kentucky. . . . the impasse moved Crittenden to suggest a national referendum on his program, but the Republicans prevented that." (Catton, editor, The National Experience, p. 336)

"The action of the Senate, delayed by much ugly wrangling, did not begin until December 18, when it voted to form a Committee of Thirteen on the crisis. Two days later, Vice-President Breckinridge named a strong group who met for the first time that day. Two men of transcendent ability represented the Lower South, Jefferson Davis and Robert Toombs. . . .

"Crittenden had consulted with colleagues North and South before offering his broad scheme, and had received hopeful assurance of support. . . .

"That Crittenden's scheme had wide and enthusiastic public support there could be no question. John A. Dix, Edward Everett, and Robert Winthrop no sooner saw it than they wrote approbatory [approving] letters. Martin Van Buren declared that the amendments [proposed in Crittenden's plan] would certainly be ratified by three-fourths of the States. The Senator received hundreds of assurances from all over the North and the border States that his policy had reached the popular heart. It took time to hold meetings and get memorials signed, but before long resolutions and petitions were pouring in upon Congress. In New York City, sixty-three thousand people signed an endorsement of the plan; another document bore the names of fourteen thousand women, scattered from North Carolina to Vermont. From St. Louis came nearly a hundred foolscap pages of names, wrapped in the American flag. Greeley [an influential New York newspaper editor and owner], who had as good opportunities for knowing public sentiment as any man in the country, later wrote that supporters of the Crittenden Compromise could claim with good reason that a large majority of people favored it. . . .

"The first committee vote on the Crittenden Compromise was taken in Seward's absence, and the proposal was defeated by the Republican majority. In a discussion of nearly seven hours, Douglas, Bigler, and Crittenden supported the plan. Hunter, Toombs, and Davis, speaking for Southern Democrats, declared they would accept it if the Republicans gave sincere assent, but not otherwise. On the vital point, the reestablishment of the Missouri Compromise line, [Republicans] Collamer, Doolittle, Grimes, and Wade all voted no. Thereupon Toombs and Davis cast negative votes, and the resolution failed six to six. Returning to the sessions on December 24, Seward [who was also a Republican] recorded a negative vote. Four days later, the committee reported to the Senate that it could reach no conclusion. . . .

"In rejecting the Crittenden Compromise, the Republicans had taken what history later proved to have been a fearful responsibility. . . . Some Republicans, after war came, made an effort to divest themselves of the burden by contending that the true blame for the rejection fell upon Davis and Toombs, whose votes in the affirmative would have carried the compromise eight to four--or with Seward voting, eight to five. (Even then the measure would have died under the rule requiring a majority of both parties.) Edward Everett argued that the supposed willingness of Davis and Toombs to support the compromise was purely illusory, and that if the Republicans had come out for it, the two would have gone over to the opposition. But we have unimpeachable evidence that the pair were sincere, and much additional evidence that, as Breckinridge told the Senate, 'the leading statesmen of the lower Southern States were willing to accept the terms of settlement' proposed. . . .

"Early in January, Crittenden rose in the Senate to make the remarkable proposal that his compromise should be submitted to the people of the entire nation for their solemn judgment, as expressed by a popular vote. . . . The proposal inspired widespread enthusiasm. . . . Because of Republican obstruction, interposing delay after delay, it never came to a vote in the Senate. . . .

"Provoking though the conduct of the six secessionists was, the fact remains that the chief responsibility for the defeat of the compromise falls upon the twenty-five Republicans [in the Senate] who voted to slay it. A combination of Republicans and Northern Democrats could easily have carried the resolutions [of the Crittenden plan]." (Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, pp. 390-393, 397-398, 401-403)

"A Senate committee of thirteen, headed by Crittenden, was at once constituted to consider . . . plans of compromise. . . . The chief bone of contention was the 36-30 dividing line between free and slave territory, a proposition that Toombs and Davis were known to be ready to accept, provided only that a majority of the Republicans would also agree to it. . . . Lincoln's opinion [against this provision of the compromise plan] seems to have been conclusive, for the Republicans voted unanimously against the proposed dividing line, and the committee reported back to the Senate that it could not agree.

"Later Crittenden and his supporters argued that the compromise in which they were interested should be submitted to the people of the country for approval or rejection at the polls. But the machinery for obtaining such a referendum did not exist, and all efforts looking toward its creation failed, largely because of Republican opposition." (Hicks, The Federal Union, p. 555)

Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, suspended civil liberties less often than did Lincoln

"Davis . . . possessed the authority to suspend the writ of habeas corpus for a total of only sixteen months. During most of that time he exercised this power more sparingly than did his counterpart in Washington. The rhetoric of southern libertarians about executive tyranny thus seems overblown." (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 435)

"With the suspension of habeas corpus [the right not to be arrested without reasonable charges being presented], Lincoln authorized General Scott to make arrests without specific charges to protect secessionist Marylanders from interfering with communications between Washington and the rest of the Union. In the next few months, Baltimore's Mayor William Brown, the police chief, and nine members of the Maryland legislature were arrested to prevent them from voting to secede from the Union. . . .

"Twice more during the war Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, including the suspension 'throughout the United States' on September 24, 1862. Although the records are somewhat unclear, more than thirteen thousand Americans, most of them opposition Democrats, were arrested during the war years, giving rise to the charge that Lincoln was a tyrant and a dictator." (Davis, Don't Know Much About the Civil War, pp. 182-183)

Lincoln held racist views toward blacks, and he believed freed slaves should be colonized in foreign nations

Lincoln held racist views toward blacks, and he believed freed slaves should be colonized in foreign nations

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition

"The historian David M. Potter drew a nice distinction in Lincoln's position between 'what he would do for the slave' and 'what he would do for the Negro.' 'All men are created equal,' he would say, on the authority of the Declaration of Independence, only to add: 'I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races.' He opposed allowing blacks to vote, to sit on juries, to marry whites, even to be citizens." (Garraty and McCaughey, The American Nation, p. 413)

"Lincoln spelled out his position with clarity: 'I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, (applause)--that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.'" (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 186)

"Following a meeting at the Executive Mansion with Negroes from Louisiana who presented him with a petition, Lincoln privately expressed his support for voting rights for Negroes. He preferred to restrict it, however, to 'the very intelligent' and Union army veterans." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 273)

". . . Lincoln proposed that slaveholders in the border states [i.e., the Union states of Kentucky, Missouri, and Maryland] transfer control over their slaves to the federal government in lieu of [instead of] taxes. The government would then colonize the Negroes 'at some place, or places, in a climate congenial to them.' 'It might be well to consider, too,' Lincoln added, 'whether the free colored people already in the United States could not, so far as individuals may desire, be included in such colonization.' Perhaps they could be dispatched to the recently independent republics of Haiti and Liberia, with whom Lincoln intended to open diplomatic relations. 'The emigration of colored men,' Lincoln reminded the assembled congressmen, 'leaves additional room for white men remaining or coming here.'

"Lincoln was no sudden convert to colonization. Montgomery Blair, the postmaster general, had been encouraging Lincoln's interest because the Blair family had long sought to expel the nation's entire black population to Central or South America." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 85)

"Lincoln dismissed the possibility that his proclamation [the Emancipation Proclamation] would provoke slave insurrections, but he still expected Negroes to recognize that their interests would be better served by leaving the United States. At a meeting the day after the proclamation was published, the president again asked his Cabinet to consider the best way to promote the colonization of free blacks. According to Representative George Julian, Lincoln 'wished it distinctly understood that the deportation of the slaves was, in his mind, inseparably connected' with emancipation." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 202)

Slavery was not the only factor that led the Deep South states to secede

Slavery was not the only factor that led the Deep South states to secede

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition

"Next to the demands for safety and equality, the secessionist leaders emphasized familiar economic complaints. South Carolinians in particular were convinced of the general truth of Rhett's and Hammond's much publicized figures upon Southern tribute to Northern interests." (Allan Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, Ordeal of the Union, Volume 2, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950, p. 332)

"Why were southerners willing to wreck the Union their grandfathers had put together with so much love and labor? No simple explanation is possible. . . . Lincoln had assured them that he would respect slavery where it existed. . . . The Democrats [who at the time were mostly from the South] had retained control of Congress in the election; the Supreme Court was firmly in their hands as well. If the North did try to destroy slavery, then secession was perhaps a logical tactic. . . . To leave the Union meant abandoning the very objectives for which the South had been contending for over a decade: a share of the federal territories and an enforceable fugitive slave act.

"One reason the South rejected this line of thinking was the tremendous economic energy generated in the North, which seemed to threaten the South's independence. As one Southerner complained at a commercial convention in 1855:

'From the rattle with which the nurse tickles the ear of the child born in the South to the shroud which covers the cold form of the dead, everything comes from the North. We rise from between sheets made in Northern looms, and pillows of Northern feathers, to wash in basins made in the North. . . . We can eat from Northern plates and dishes; our rooms are swept with Northern brooms, our gardens dug with Northern spades . . . and the very wood which feeds our fires is cut with Northern axes, helved with hickory brought from Connecticut and New York.'

"Secession, southerners argued, would 'liberate' the South and produce the kind of balanced economy that was proving so successful in the North and so unachievable in the South." (John A. Garraty and Robert McCaughey, The American Nation: A History of the United States to 1877, Volume One, Sixth Edition, New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1987, pp. 418-419, emphasis in original)

"But secession, Lincoln argued, would actually make it harder for the South to preserve slavery. If the Southern states tried to leave the Union, they would lose all their constitutional guarantees, and northerners would no longer be obliged to return fugitive slaves to disloyal owners. In other words, the South was safer inside the Union than without, and to prove his point Lincoln confirmed his willingness to support a recently proposed thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, which would specifically prohibit the federal government from interfering with slavery in states where it already existed." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 32-33)

"Why did this war come? There was a widely shared feeling among many in the Confederacy that their liberty and way of life were being overpowered by northern political, industrial, and banking powers." (Davis, Don't Know Much About the Civil War, p. 152)

In his first inaugural address, Lincoln threatened to invade the Confederate states if they didn't pay federal tariffs or if they refused to allow the federal government to occupy and maintain federal forts in Confederate territory

". . . the President's inaugural address. . . .  he left the South no alternative but to return to the Union, or else fight to stay out. He declared it his intention to execute the federal laws in all states, to 'hold, occupy, and possess the property and places' belonging to the United States, and to collect as usual the duties and imposts." (Hicks, The Federal Union, p. 557)

"Next, Lincoln raised his voice and, emphasizing every word distinctly, vowed that he would 'hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government'--meaning Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens, the two military strongholds in the South still under federal control--and collect import duties and taxes in the southern states. 'But beyond what may be necessary for these objects,' Lincoln promised, 'there will be no invasion. . . ." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 31-32) [In other words, there would be an invasion if it were necessary for "these objects," i.e., for the holding and occupying of Fort Sumter and Fort Pickens and for the collection of import duties and taxes in the southern states.]

President James Buchanan placed most of the blame for the secession crisis on the North

". . . Buchanan intended no 'coercion' [i.e., he would not force the seceded states back into the Union]. . . .

"Buchanan's message to Congress . . . blamed the North in general and Republicans in particular for 'the incessant and violent agitation of the slavery question' which had now 'produced its natural effects' by provoking disunion. Because of Republicans, said the president, 'many a matron throughout the South retires at night in dread of what may befall herself and her children before morning.'" (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 250-251)

[From President Buchanan's message to Congress toward the end of 1860:] "I have long foreseen, and often forewarned my countrymen of the now impending danger. This does not proceed solely from the claim on the part of Congress or the territorial legislatures to exclude slavery from the Territories, nor from the efforts of different States to defeat the execution of the fugitive slave law. All or any of these evils might have been endured by the South without danger to the Union, (as others have been,) in the hope that time and reflection might apply the remedy. The immediate peril arises, not so much from these causes as from the fact that the incessant and violent agitation of the slavery question throughout the North for the last quarter of a century has at length produced its malign influence on the slaves, and inspired them with vague notions of freedom. Hence a sense of security no longer exists around the family altar. This feeling of peace at home has given place to apprehensions of servile insurrections. Many a matron throughout the South retires at night in dread of what may befall herself and children before the morning. Should this apprehension of domestic danger, whether real or imaginary, extend and intensify itself until it shall pervade the masses of the southern people, then disunion will become inevitable. Self-preservation is the first law of nature, and has been implanted in the heart of man by his Creator for the wisest purpose; and no political union, however fraught with blessings and benefits in all other respects, can long continue if the necessary consequence be to render the homes and the firesides of nearly half the parties to it habitually and hopelessly insecure. Sooner or later the bonds of such a Union must be severed. It is my conviction that this fatal period has not yet arrived; and my prayer to God is, that he would preserve the Constitution and the Union throughout all generations.

"But let us take warning in time, and remove the cause of danger. It cannot be denied that for five and twenty years the agitation at the North against slavery has been incessant. In 1835 pictorial handbills and inflammatory appeals were circulated extensively throughout the South, of a character to excite the passions of the slaves, and, in the language of General Jackson, 'to stimulate them to insurrection and produce all the horrors of a servile war.' This agitation has ever since been continued by the public press, by the proceedings of State and county conventions, and by abolition sermons and lectures. The time of Congress has been occupied in violent speeches on this never-ending subject; and appeals, in pamphlet and other forms, indorsed by distinguished names, have been sent forth from this central point and spread broadcast over the Union.

"How easy would it be for the American people to settle the slavery question forever, and to restore peace and harmony to this distracted country! They, and they alone, can do it. All that is necessary to accomplish the object, and all for which the slave States have ever contended, is to be let alone and permitted to manage their domestic institutions in their own way. As sovereign States, they, and they alone, are responsible before God and the world for the slavery existing among them. For this the people of the North are not more responsible, and have no more right to interfere, than with similar institutions in Russia or in Brazil." (President James Buchanan, Presidential Message, read in the U.S. House of Representatives, December 4, 1860, Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, 1860-1861, pp. 10-11)

Some Confederate leaders criticized slavery and believed blacks should be treated with respect

Some Confederate leaders criticized slavery and believed blacks should be treated with respect

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition

"Soon after his election, [Jefferson] Davis told a northern visitor that slavery . . . 'has its evils and abuses'. . . ." (Davis, Don't Know Much About the Civil War, p. 156)

"[Robert E.] Lee said he personally opposed slavery as 'a moral and political evil'. . . ." (Davis, Don't Know Much About the Civil War, p. 176)

"Lee . . . made clear his dislike of slavery, which he described in 1856 as 'a moral and political evil.'" (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 281)

"There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil." (Letter from Robert E. Lee, December 27, 1856, regarding President Pierce's comments on slavery and abolition)

"[Confederate general] Stonewall Jackson sent off an envelope to his pastor. Expecting a battle report, the preacher discovered a contribution for his church's 'colored Sunday school,' which Jackson had forgotten to send the day of the battle." (Davis, Don't Know Much About the Civil War, p. 192)

"General Lee directs me to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 25th and to say that he much regrets the unwillingness of owners to permit their slaves to enter the service [of the Confederate army]. . . . He hopes you will endeavor to get the assistance of citizens who favor the measure, and bring every influence you can to bear. When a negro is willing, and his master objects, there would be less objection to compulsion, if the state has the authority. It is however of primary importance that the negroes should know that the service is voluntary on their part. As to the name of the troops, the general thinks you cannot do better than consult the men themselves. His only objection to calling them colored troops was that the enemy had selected that designation for theirs. But this has no weight against the choice of the troops and he recommends that they be called colored or if they prefer, they can be called simply Confederate troops or volunteers. Everything should be done to impress them with the responsibility and character of their position, and while of course due respect and subordination should be exacted, they should be so treated as to feel that their obligations are those of any other soldier and their rights and privileges dependent in law and order as obligations upon others as upon themselves. Harshness and contemptuous or offensive language or conduct to them must be forbidden and they should be made to forget as soon as possible that they were regarded as menials." (Letter from Robert E. Lee's assistant adjutant general, Charles Marshall, March 30, 1865, to Lieutenant General Richard S. Ewell)

Many Confederate leaders, including Jefferson Davis, were willing to abolish slavery in order to preserve the South's independence

". . . several Confederate diplomats in London were hinting that their government would inaugurate a program of gradual emancipation after it gained its independence. British newspaper editors who sympathized with the Confederacy gave the rumor wide circulation." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 113)

"A last-minute diplomatic initiative to secure British and French recognition in return for emancipation. . . . The impetus for this effort came from Duncan F. Kenner of Louisiana, a prominent member of the Confederate Congress and one of the South's largest slaveholders. Convinced since 1862 that slavery was a foreign-policy millstone around the Confederacy's neck, Kenner had long urged an emancipation diplomacy." (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 837)

"'Let not slavery prove a barrier to our independence,' intoned the Jackson Mississippian. 'Although slavery is one of the principles that we started to fight for . . . if it proves an insurmountable obstacle to the achievement of our liberty and separate nationality, away with it!'" (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 833; and note that slavery was identified only as "one of the principles," and not the only principle, for which the South fought)

"Told Mr. Davis often and early in the war that the slaves should be emancipated, that it was the only way to remove a weakness at home and to get sympathy abroad, and divide our enemies . . ." (Memorandum of a conversation with Robert E. Lee held on February 15, 1868, in Gary Gallagher, editor, Lee the Soldier, Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1996, p. 12)

". . . in my opinion the best means of securing the efficiency and fidelity of this auxiliary force [of slaves who would join the Confederate army] would be to accompany the measure with a well-digested plan of gradual and general emancipation." (Letter from Robert E. Lee, January 11, 1865, to Confederate senator Andrew Hunter)

"Despite his making political capital out of Lincoln's demands on slavery, Davis stood prepared to give up the venerable institution, if the sacrifice could secure Confederate independence.

"The sharply different approach to slavery introduced by the president in his Congressional message of November 1864 provided the background for an unprecedented initiative designed to obtain recognition from Great Britain and France. In late December 1864 Davis, with Secretary of State Judah Benjamin's strong support, had made the momentous decision to sacrifice slavery on the altar of hope for European intervention." (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 552-553)

"In order to save the Confederacy, Davis even led his fellow Confederates toward an abandonment of slavery." (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 705-706)

The North had very little moral authority, if any, to criticize the South over slavery

The North had very little moral authority, if any, to criticize the South over slavery

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition

"In the first half of the nineteenth century, state legislatures in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut took away Negroes' right to vote; and voters in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Maine, Iowa, and Wisconsin approved new constitutions that limited suffrage [the right to vote] to whites. In Ohio, Negro males were permitted to vote only if they had "a greater visible admixture of white than colored blood." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 54)

"The Indiana constitutional convention of 1851 adopted a provision forbidding black migration into the state. This supplemented the state's laws barring blacks already there from voting, serving on juries or in the militia, testifying against whites in court, marrying whites, or going to school with whites. Iowa and Illinois had similar laws on the books and banned black immigration by statute in 1851 and 1853 respectively. These measures reflected the racist sentiments of most whites in those states." (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 80)

"There can be no doubt that many blacks were sorely mistreated in the North and West. Observers like Fanny Kemble and Frederick L. Olmsted mentioned incidents in their writings. Kemble said of Northern blacks, 'They are not slaves indeed, but they are pariahs, debarred from every fellowship save with their own despised race. . . . All hands are extended to thrust them out, all fingers point at their dusky skin, all tongues . . . have learned to turn the very name of their race into an insult and a reproach.' Olmsted seems to have believed the Louisiana black who told him that they could associate with whites more freely in the South than in the North and that he preferred to live in the South because he was less likely to be insulted there." (John Franklin and Alfred Moss, From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, p. 185. Incidentally, Franklin and Moss are African-American scholars.)

". . . Lincoln also knew how deep and widespread racial prejudice was in the North. 'The colored man throughout this country was a despised man, a hated man,' he admitted. Even many fervent opponents of slavery detested Negroes. 'You loathe them as you would a snake or a toad, yet you are indignant at their wrongs,' a southerner accused his New England cousin in Uncle Tom's Cabin. 'You would not have them abused; but you don't want to have anything to do with them yourselves.' A reporter in Washington once heard Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio, a leading antislavery radical, railing about too many 'nigger' cooks in the capital; Wade complained that he had eaten meals 'cooked by Niggers until I can smell and taste the Nigger all over.'" (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 53)

"For all the good intentions of many early white abolitionists, blacks were not especially welcome in the free states of America. Several territories and states, such as Ohio, not only refused to allow slavery but also had passed laws specifically limiting or excluding any blacks from entering its territory or owning property." (Davis, Don't Know Much About the Civil War, p. 54)

"So pervasive was racism in many parts of the North that no party could win if it endorsed full racial equality." (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 81)

". . . in 1862 white laborers erupted into mob violence against blacks in a half-dozen cities across the North. . . . The mobs sometimes surged into black neighborhoods and assaulted people on the streets and in their homes. . . .

". . . Republicans ruefully admitted that large parts of the North were infected with racism. 'Our people hate the Negro with a perfect if not a supreme hatred,' said Congressman George Julian of Indiana. Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois conceded that 'there is a very great aversion in the West--I know it to be so in my State--against having free negroes come among us. Our people want nothing to do with the negro.' The same could be said of many soldiers. . . ." (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 275)

". . . discouragement was deepened by the outcome of three Northern state referendums in the fall of 1865. The legislatures of Connecticut, Wisconsin, and Minnesota placed on the ballot constitutional amendments to enfranchise [allow to vote] the few black men in those states. Everyone recognized that, in some measure, the popular vote on these amendments would serve as a barometer of Northern opinion on black suffrage. . . . Republican leaders worked for passage of the amendments but fell short of success in all three states. . . . the defeat of the amendments could be seen as a mandate against black suffrage by a majority of Northern voters." (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 501)

"Numerous [Union] army officials who advocated the use of black troops viewed Negroes as little more than cannon fodder. 'For my part,' announced an officer stationed in South Carolina, 'I make bold to say that I am not so fastidious as to object to a negro being food for powder and I would arm every man of them.' Governor Israel Washburn of Maine agreed. 'Why have our rulers so little regard for the true and brave white men of the north?' asked Washburn. 'Will they continue to sacrifice them? Why will they refuse to save them by employing black men? . . . Why are our leaders unwilling that Sambo should save white boys?'" (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 93)

"A more urgent situation existed in South Carolina's Sea Islands. There, nearly 10,000 former slaves abandoned by their masters received little comfort from Union Army commanders, who generally ignored them; by January, many of the Negroes were starving or seriously ill." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 103)

"The contrabands [escaped slaves] crowded into improvised camps, where exposure and disease took a fearful toll. Yankee soldiers sometimes 'confiscated' the meager worldly goods the blacks had managed to bring with them." (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 394)

"Union conquests along the south Atlantic coast and in the lower Mississippi Valley had brought large numbers of slaves into proximity to the Yankees. Many of them escaped their owners and sought refuge--and freedom--in Union camps.

"Sometimes their welcome was less than friendly. While northern soldiers had no love for slavery, most of them had no love for slaves either. . . . While some Yanks treated contrabands with a degree of equity and benevolence, the more typical response was indifference, contempt, and cruelty. Soon after Union forces captured Port Royal, South Carolina, in November 1861, a private described an incident there that made him 'ashamed of America': 'About 8-10 soldiers from the New York 47th chased some Negro women but they escaped, so they took a Negro girl about 7-9 years old, and raped her.' From Virginia a Connecticut soldier wrote that some men of his regiment had taken 'two nigger wenches [women] . . . turned them upon their heads, and put tobacco, chips, sticks, lighted cigars and sand into their behinds.' Even when Billy Yank welcomed the contrabands, he often did so from utilitarian rather than humanitarian motives. 'Officers and men are having an easy time,' wrote a Maine soldier from occupied Louisiana in 1862. 'We have Negroes to do all fatigue work, cooking and washing clothes.'" (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 497)

"When [Union] General Nathaniel Banks replaced General Butler in New Orleans [after Union forces had occupied the city], he forced all of the Negro officers of the colored regiments to resign. Convinced that Negroes were 'a race unaccustomed to military service,' he then disbandedthe Negro regiments and used the troops to guard prisoners of war and sugar plantations." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 243-244)

". . . the fall elections of 1867. . . . Ohio rejected a Negro suffrage amendment by 38,000 votes. . . . New Jersey refused to delete 'White' from its suffrage requirements, and Maryland adopted a new law that gave the right to vote to whites only." (John Franklin, Reconstruction After the Civil War, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961, p. 74)

The outbreak of war at Fort Sumter confronted the upper South with a crisis of decision

The outbreak of war at Fort Sumter confronted the upper South with a crisis of decision

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition

"In the eyes of southern unionists, this tragic war was mainly Lincoln's fault. What the president described in his proclamation of April 15 calling out the militia as a necessary measure to 'maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union' was transmuted south of the Potomac [i.e., in the South] into an unconstitutional coercion of sovereign states. 'In North Carolina the Union sentiment was largely in the ascendant and gaining strength until Lincoln prostrated us,' wrote a bitter unionist. 'He could have adopted no policy so effectual to destroy the Union. . . . I am left no other alternative but to fight for or against my section. . . . Lincoln has made us a unit to resist until we repel our invaders or die.' John Bell, the 1860 presidential candidate of the Constitutional Union party from whom many moderates in the upper South took their cue, announced in Nashville on April 23 his support for a 'united South' in 'the unnecessary, aggressive, cruel, unjust wanton war which is being forced upon us' by Lincoln's mobilization of militia. . . .

"The Virginia convention moved quickly to adopt an ordinance of secession. . . . the convention passed an ordinance of secession by a vote of 88 to 55. (Several delegates who voted No or were absent subsequently voted Aye [Yes], making the final tally 103 to 46.). . . .

"When Virginians went to the polls on May 23 they ratified a fait accompli by a vote of 128,884 to 32,134. . . .

"Arkansas was the next state to go. Its convention had adjourned in March without taking action, subject to recall in case of emergency. Lincoln's call for troops [to force the Deep South states back into the Union] supplied the emergency; the convention reassembled on May 6. . . . the convention passed the ordinance of secession by a vote of 65 to 5. . . .

"North Carolina and Tennessee also went out during May. . . . The [North Carolina] legislature met on May 1 and authorized an election on May 13 for a convention to meet on May 20. . . . the delegates on May 20 unanimously enacted an ordinance of secession. Meanwhile the Tennessee legislature short-circuited the convention process by adopting a "Declaration of Independence" and submitting it to a referendum scheduled for June 8. . . . That election recorded 104,913 votes for secession and 47,238 against." (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 276-280, 282-283)

Confederate soldiers behaved better in Northern territory than Union soldiers did in Southern territory

". . . [Robert E.] Lee started his army splashing across the Potomac fords thirty-five miles above Washington. . . . Most of the soldiers . . . were in high spirits as they entered Frederick [Maryland] on September 6 singing 'Maryland, My Maryland'. . . . the men behaved with more restraint toward civilian property than Union soldiers were wont to do. . . ." (McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 535-536)

"While the northern press had portrayed Lee's troops as if they were Genghis Khan's hordes, the Army of Northern Virginia was under Lee's strictest orders to behave like southern gentlemen. As one commander, John B. Gordon, later told it, 'The orders from General Lee for the protection of private property and persons were of the most stringent character. . . . I resolved to leave no ruins along the line of my march through Pennsylvania; no marks of a more enduring character than the tracks of my soldiers along its superb pikes.'

"Lee had ordered that all supplies be paid for." (Davis, Don't Know Much About the Civil War, p. 295)

"Shortly before moving on to South Carolina, [Union general William Tecumseh] Sherman said, 'The truth is the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina'. . . .

"Leaving Savannah on February 5, 1865, Sherman's 60,000 men took a direct line toward Columbia, South Carolina. They faced only token resistance from any organized Confederate troops.

"Confederate cavalry officer J. P. Austin, among those trying to block Sherman:

'He [Sherman] swept on with his army of sixty thousand men, like a full developed cyclone, leaving behind him a track of desolation and ashes fifty miles wide. In front of them was terror and dismay. . . .

'Poor, bleeding South Carolina! . . . The protestations of her old men and the pleadings of her noble women had no effect in staying the ravages of sword, flame, and pillage.

'Columbia's fate could readily be foretold from the destruction along Sherman's line of march after he left Savannah. Beautiful homes, with their tropical gardens, which had been the pride of their owners for generations, were left in ruins. . . . Everything that could not be carried off was destroyed. . . . Livestock of every description that they could not take was shot down. All farm implements, with wagons and vehicles of every description, were given to the flames.'" (Davis, Don't Know Much About the Civil War, pp. 393-394)

"With no major Confederate army opposing him Sherman's famous march began November 10. His forces, 'detached from all friends,' numbered about 60,000. . . .

"The army as it proceeded, having little or no fighting to do, devoted itself to organized plunder. A Georgia news-writer pictured the scene as follows:

'Dead horses, cows, sheep, hogs, chickens, corn, wheat, cotton, books, paper, broken vehicles, coffee mills, and fragments of nearly every species of property that adorned the beautiful farms of this country, strew the wayside. . . .

'The Yankees entered the house of my next door neighbor, an old man of over three score years, and tore up his wife's clothes and bedding, trampling her bonnet on the floor, and robbing the house and pantry of nearly everything of value.'

"Along with the systematic business of foraging there was a shocking amount of downright plunder and vandalism. Dwellings were needlessly burned; family plate was seized; wine cellars were raided; property that could not be carried away was wantonly ruined." (Randall and Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, pp. 427-429)

"[Union general Henry] Halleck had written to Sherman: 'Should you capture Charleston, I hope that by some accident the place may be destroyed; and if a little salt should be sown upon its site, it may prevent the growth of future crops of nullification and secession.' In answer Sherman wrote: 'I will bear in mind your hint as to Charleston, and don't think salt will be necessary. . . . The truth is the whole army is burning with an insatiable desire to wreak vengeance upon South Carolina'. . . .

"After a month in Savannah, Sherman struck north for his campaign through the Carolinas. . . .

"As in Georgia, destruction marked his path in South Carolina, the following towns being burned in whole or in part: Robertsville, Grahamville, McPhersonville, Barnwell, Blackville, Orangeburg, Lexington, Winnsboro, Camden, Lancaster, Chesterfield, Cheraw, and Darlington. The worst destruction was by the disastrous fire which swept the large city of Columbia, capital of the state. Sherman explained in his memoirs that the fire was accidental and that it began with the cotton which the Confederates under General Wade Hampton had set fire to on leaving the city. He then made the damaging admission that in his official report he deliberately charged the fire to Hampton 'to shake the faith of his people in him.'

"Hampton emphatically denied that any cotton was fired in Columbia by his order; and Sherman's account is at various points disputed by a voluminous mass of Southern testimony. . . ." (Randall and Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, pp. 433-434, original emphasis)

"Away from home, in the enemy's country, without any inbred sense of discipline or firm officers, many of the soldiers were, indeed, 'awfully depraved.' Depravity ran the gamut from drunkenness and profanity to theft, pillaging, and murder.

"Charles Wills, whose moral sense was deeply affronted by what he saw, was an Illinois boy of twenty-one when he enlisted as a private in the 8th Illinois Infantry. Before the end of the war he had been promoted to lieutenant colonel. He fought in Missouri, Tennessee, and Alabama, and was with Sherman in the March to the Sea. His letters are filled with accounts of immorality and pillaging in the army. [The editor then quotes from one of Wills' letters:]

'Rebels, though they are, 'tis shocking and enough to make one's blood boil to see the manner in which some of our folks have treated them. Trunks have been knocked to pieces with muskets when the women stood by, offering the keys; bureau drawers drawn out, the contents turned on the floor, and the drawer thrown threw the window; bed clothing and ladies' clothing carried off and all manner of deviltry imaginable perpetrated. Of course the scoundrels who do this kind of work would be severely punished if caught, but the latter is almost impossible. Most of the mischief is done by the advance of the army, though, God knows, the infantry is bad enough. The d--d [sic] thieves even steal from the Negroes (which is lower business than I ever thought it possible for a white man to be guilty of) and many of the them [the Negroes] are learning to hate the Yankees as much as our Southern Brethren do.'" (Henry Steele Commager, editor, The Civil War Archive: The History of the Civil War in Documents, New York: Black Dog and Leventhal Publishers, 2000, pp. 333-334)

"Robert Gould Shaw, member of a prominent Massachusetts merchant family, was a lieutenant in the 2nd Massachusetts Volunteers. . . . His regiment saw duty on the coast of Florida and Georgia. . . . [The editor then quotes from one of Shaw's letters:]

'We arrived on the southern point of this island [St. Simon's Island, Georgia] at six in the morning. I went ashore to report to Colonel Montgomery. . . .

'At 8 A.M. we were at the mouth of the Altamaha river, and immediately made for Darien. . . .

'On the way up, Colonel Montgomery threw several shells among the plantations, in what seemed to me a very brutal way, for he didn't know how many women and children there might be.

'About noon, we came in sight of Darien, a beautiful little town. . . . The town was deserted, with exception [sic] of two white women and two Negroes.

'Montgomery ordered all the furniture and movable property to be taken on board the boats. This occupied some time; and, after the town was pretty thoroughly disembowelled [cleaned out], he [Montgomery] said to me, "I shall burn this town". . . . I told him "I did not want the responsibility of it"; and he was only too happy to take it all on his shoulders. So the pretty place was burned to the ground, and not a shed remained standing--Montgomery firing the last buildings with his own hand. . . . You must bear in mind, that not a shot had been fired at us from this place. . . . All the inhabitants (principally women and children) had fled on our approach, and were, no doubt, watching the scene from a distance. . . .

'The reasons he [Montgomery] gave me for destroying Darien were, that the Southerners must be made to feel that this was a real war, and that they were to be swept away by the hand of God, like the Jews of old. . . . Then he says "We are outlawed, and, therefore, not bound by the rules of regular warfare." But that makes it none the less revolting to wreak our vengeance on the innocent and defenseless. . . .

'Remember not to breathe a word of what I have written about this raid, for I have not yet made up my mind what I ought to do. Besides my distaste for this barbarous sort of warfare, I am not sure that it will not harm very much the reputation [of Shaw's unit] and of those connected with them.

'All I complain of is wanton destruction. After going through the hard campaigning and hard fighting in Virginia, this makes me very much ashamed of myself.'" (Commager, editor, The Civil War Archive, pp. 335-336)

"Here is how the March to the Sea [by General Sherman] affected its victims. Dolly Lunt was a Maine girl . . . who before the war went to Covington, Georgia, to teach school, and there married a planter. . . . At the time Sherman's army swept through Georgia she was a widow, still managing the plantation. Her short but moving diary has been rescued from oblivion by Julian Street. [The editor then qoutes from Lunt's diary:]

'. . . . I hastened back to my frightened servants and told them that they had better hide, and then went back to the gate to claim protection and a guard. But like demons they [Union soldiers] rush in! My yards are full. To my smoke-house, my dairy, pantry, kitchen, and cellar, like famished wolves they come, breaking locks and whatever is in their way. The thousand pounds of meat in my smoke-house is gone in a twinkling, my flour, my meat, mylard, butter, eggs, pickles of various kinds . . . wine, jars, and jugs are all gone. My eighteen fat turkeys, my hens, chickens, and fowls, my young pigs, are shot down in my yard and hunted as if they were rebels themselves. Utterly powerless I ran out and appealed to the guard. "I cannot help you, Madam, it is orders."

'As I stood there, from my lot I saw driven, first, old Dutch, my dear old buggy horse . . . then came old Mary, my brood mare, who for years had been too stiff for work, with her three year-old colt, my two-year-old mule, and her last baby colt. There they go! . . .

'Alas! little did I think while trying to save my house from plunder and fire that they [the Union troops] were forcing my boys [slaves] from home at the point of the bayonet. One [slave], Newton, jumped into bed in his cabin, and declared himself sick. Another crawled under the floor--a lame boy he was--but they pulled him out, placed him on a horse, and drove him off. . . . Jack [another one of Mrs. Lunt's slaves] came crying to me, the big tears coursing down his cheeks, saying they were making him go. I said: "Stay in my room." But a man [a Union soldier] followed in cursing him and threatening to shoot him if he did not go; so poor Jack had to yield. . . .

'My poor boys! My poor boys! What unknown trials are before you! How you have clung to your mistress and assisted her in every way you knew. . . .

'Their [the slaves'] cabins are rifled of every valuable, the soldiers swearing that their Sunday clothes were the white people's and that they never had money to get such things as they had. Poor Frank's chest was broken open, his money and tobacco taken. He had always been a money-making and saving boy; not infrequently has his crop brought him five hundred dollars and more. All of his clothes and Rachel's clothes . . . were stolen from her. Ovens, skillets, coffee mills, of which we had three, coffee pots--not one have I left. . . .

'Seeing that the soldiers could not be restrained, the guard ordered me to have their [the slaves'] remaining possessions brought into my house, which I did. . . .'" (Commager, editor, The Civil War Archive, pp. 675-677)

"In western Virginia, General Phil Sheridan launched a campaign of destruction that turned the Shenandoah Valley into a smoldering wasteland." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 282)

"They [Confederate generals] did not understand, at first, that their Northern enemy had the will to fight as long as men and resources lasted. They did not realize why the enemy devastated Southern areas; they saw no reason that they should retaliate in kind. A Richmond editor caustically called Lee's Gettysburg campaign 'a gigantic window shopping,' and an Englishman who had seen the ravages of Northern troops in Southern towns spoke of the forebearance [restraint] of the Confederate troops as 'most commendable and surprising.' (Simkins, A History of the South, p. 226)

"The [Confederate ship] Virginia then turned its attention to the Congress, a Union vessel grounded in the channel's shallow waters. . . . Set afire, the Congress surrendered. Franklin Buchanan [the captain of the Virginia] ordered another Confederate vessel to board the Congress and remove the wounded. But the Union batteries onshore continued to fire at the Confederates, even though they were clearly rescuing Union sailors. . . ." (Davis, Don't Know Much About the Civil War, p. 216)

The South did not always control the federal government in the three decades leading up to the Civil War

The South did not always control the federal government in the three decades leading up to the Civil War

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition

"The House of Representatives, whose membership was based on the census returns for each state, reflected this growing disparity. Even counting three-fifths of the slave population (as the federal Constitution provided), free states increased their majority from twenty-three seats in 1830 to twenty-nine seats by 1840. The disparity expressed in total seats was 149 representatives from the free states to 88 from the slave states." (John Niven, The Coming of the Civil War: 1837-1861, Arlington Heights, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1990, p. 21)

". . . in August 1846, David Wilmot, a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, moved an amendment to an appropriation bill that would exclude slavery from any territory that might be gained in a peace treaty with Mexico. His measure, modeled on the antislavery provision of Thomas Jefferson's Northwest Ordinance, passed the House of Representatives, where the free states had a clear majority." (Niven, The Coming of the Civil War, p. 53)

"Southern Whigs . . . for the most part now went over to the Democrats, who in any case already dominated the politics of the region [the South]. . . .

". . . the Democrats in 1854 suffered grave reversals. Perhaps most stunning was the plurality the Republicans achieved in the new House of Representatives, where they were to hold 108 seats to 83 for the Democrats and 43 for the Know-Nothings. Indeed that new House, after two months of debate, would elect a Republican Speaker. . . ." (Catton, The National Experience, pp. 322-323)

"The election of 1858. . . . Southern Democrats . . . were no longer able to shape public policy. . . ." (Catton, editor, The National Experience, pp. 328-329)

Only a small percentage of Southerners owned slaves

"In a region where ownership of slaves conferred status and wealth, less than 10 percent of the white population held slaves. And of this 10 percent only a tiny fraction could be considered large planters, i.e., those who held from fifty to five hundred slaves." (Niven, The Coming of the Civil War, p. 34)

". . . only one-fourth of whites in the South owned slaves. . . ." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 20)

The Confederate Constitution was very similar to the U.S. Constitution and contained several improvements; it also banned the overseas slave trade and allowed free states to join the Confederacy

". . . delegates from the Deep South met in Montgomery, Alabama, on February 4 [1861] to establish the Confederate States of America. The convention acted as a provisional government while at the same time drafting a permanent constitution. . . . Voted down were proposals to reopen the Atlantic slave trade . . . and to prohibit the admission of free states to the new Confederacy. . . .

"The resulting constitution was surprisingly similar to that of the United States. Most of the differences merely spelled out traditional southern interpretations of the federal charter. . . .

". . . it was clear from the actions of the Montgomery convention that the goal of the new converts to secessionism was not to establish a slaveholders' reactionary utopia. What they really wanted was to recreate the Union as it had been before the rise of the new Republican Party, and they opted for secession only when it seemed clear that separation was the only way to achieve their aim. The decision to allow free states to join the Confederacy reflected a hope that much of the old Union could be reconstituted under southern direction." (Divine et al, America Past and Present, pp. 444-445, emphasis added)

"The . . . [Confederate] Constitution had been drawn up by a committee of two from each State. . . .

"The most remarkable features of the new instrument sprang from the purifying and reforming zeal of the delegates, who hoped to create a more guarded and virtuous government than that of Washington. The President was to hold office six years, and be ineligible for reelection. Expenditures were to be limited by a variety of careful provisions, and the President was given budgetary control over appropriations which Congress could break only by a two-thirds vote. Subordinate employees were protected against the forays of the spoils system. No bounties were ever to be paid out of the Treasury, no protective tariff was to be passed, and no post office deficit was to be permitted. The electoral college system was retained, but as a far-reaching innovation, Cabinet members were given seats in Congress for the discussion of departmental affairs. Some of these changes were unmistakable improvements, and the spirit behind all of them was an earnest desire to make government more honest and efficient." (Nevins, The Emergence of Lincoln, p. 435)

"In its general pattern the [Confederate] constitution closely resembled that of the United States; indeed at most points its wording was precisely the same. . . .

"The framers of the Confederate constitution improved upon the Constitution of the United States in a number of minor ways, designed to produce 'the elimination of political waste, the promotion of economical government, and the keeping of each echelon of complex government within its appointed orbit.' So effective were these changes that William M. Robinson, Jr., has termed the document 'the peak contribution of America to political science.' The process of amendment was altered. With certain exceptions Congress was not to appropriate money except by two-thirds vote of both houses. The amount and purpose of each appropriation were to be precisely specified; and after the fulfillment of a public contract Congress was not to grant any extra compensation to the contractor. 'Riders' on money bills were discouraged by the provision that the President might veto a given item of an appropriation bill without vetoing the entire bill. Each law was to deal with 'but one subject,' to be expressed in the title." (Randall and Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, pp. 157, 159)

The South did not want war, but wanted to establish peaceful relations with the North

The South did not want war, but wanted to establish peaceful relations with the North

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Fourth Edition

"Now that 'the evil days, so dreaded by our forefathers and the early defenders of the Constitution, are upon us,' as the Dallas Morning Herald put it, leaders of the seven Confederate states wished to depart in peace." (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, p. 7)

"Louisiana Senator Judah Benjamin's farewell to the Senate (New Year's Eve, 1860):

'We desire, we beseech you, let this parting be in peace. . . . Indulge in no vain delusion that duty or conscience, interest or honor, imposes upon you the necessity of invading our States or shedding the blood of our people. You have not the possible justification for it'. . . .

"Appointed attorney general in the Confederate Cabinet, Benjamin was considered the most brilliant of the men surrounding Jefferson Davis." (Davis, Don't Know Much About the Civil War, pp. 144-145)

"In the flurry of organizing a government and an army, one of Davis's first acts was to dispatch three commissioners to Washington in an attempt to negotiate a settlement with the Union. Leading them was the Confederate vice-president, Alexander Hamilton Stephens of Georgia. . . .

"Stephens arrived in Washington, hoping to negotiate an end to the crisis. . . . But Lincoln refused to meet with Stephens. . . ." (Davis, Don't Know Much About the Civil War, pp. 156-157)

"Cognizant of the dangerous war in which he found himself, Davis considered his country. . . . Davis would have to defend his extensive borders. . . .

"From the beginning, he emphasized that the Confederacy wanted to be left alone, but Abraham Lincoln would not grant his wish." (William Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, New York: Vintage Books, 2000, pp. 378-379)

[In 1862, Jefferson Davis issued the following proclamation to the people of Maryland:] "First, that the Confederate Government is waging this war solely for self-defense; that it has no design of conquest, or any other purpose than to secure peace and the abandonment by the United States of their pretensions to govern a people who have never been their subjects, and who prefer self-government to a union with them.

"Second, that this Government, at the very moment of its inauguration, sent commissioners to Washington to treat for a peaceful adjustment of all differences, but that these commissioners were not received, nor even allowed to communicate the object of their mission; and that, on a subsequent occasion, a communication from the President of the Confederacy to President Lincoln remained without answer, although a reply was promised by General Scott, into whose hands the communication was delivered. . . .

"Fourth, that now, at a juncture when our arms have been successful, we restrict ourselves to the same just and moderate demand that we made at the darkest period of our reverses, the simple demand that the people of the United States should cease to war upon us, and permit us to pursue our own path to happiness, while they in peace pursue theirs." (Proclamation of Jefferson Davis to the People of Maryland, September 7, 1862)

Most Southerners believed the South would be able to secede peacefully

"Few men in the Deep South, even among the Unionists, believed that the North would or could resist secession; fewer still thought the North would fight for union; almost none foresaw a terrible war and eventual defeat." (Catton, editor, The National Experience, p. 335)

"Many secessionists expected their revolution to be a peaceful one. Robert Barnwel Rhett, editor of the Charleston Mercury, was quoted as saying that he would eat the bodies of all men slain as a consequence of disunion [secession], while Senator James Chesnut of South Carolina was said to have offered to drink all the blood shed in the cause. A Georgia newspaper announced: 'So far as civil war is concerned, we have no fears of that in Atlanta.'" (McPherson, Ordeal By Fire, p. 129)

No Moral Right to Independence?

No Moral Right to Independence?

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Did the South have no moral right to be independent because it permitted and upheld slavery? There's no doubt that slavery was wrong and that it needed to be abolished. But, if the Southern states had no right to form their own government because slavery existed within their borders, then the American colonies had no right to form their own government either, since slavery existed in the colonies and since some of the colonies (especially the New England colonies) upheld and grew rich from the slave trade. British leaders noted this inconsistency during the American Revolution. They pointed out that some of the colonial leaders who were loudly demanding "freedom and independence" were slaveowners. If the existence of slavery within a nation's borders means that nation has no right to exist, then America had no right to exist in the first place. In fact, the slaves may have been freed over thirty years sooner if the British had won the war, since England abolished slavery in 1833.

Every nation and region has its share of social injustices, and the South was certainly no exception. But what about the North? For starters, the New England states made large fortunes from the slave trade and from industries associated with that trade. Nearly all American slave ships were Northern-owned and operated from Northern ports.  Some Northern states continued to profit from the slave trade until just before the war started (John Tilley, The Coming of the Glory, Springfield, Tennessee: Nippert Publishing, 1995, reprint, pp. 1-13). Conditions on the New England slave ships were horrible. The slaves were kept below deck in cramped quarters and forced to sit or lie in their own urine and defecation. Not surprisingly, disease was rampant. The slaves were chained together by twos, hands and feet, and had no room to move around. Tens of thousands of slaves died on those slave ships.  In fact, the number of slaves who died on slave ships was far, far greater than the number of slaves who died from mistreatment on Southern plantations.

The North was home to a cruel form of wage slavery where factory workers, especially those who were immigrants, worked in terrible conditions for wages that were barely sufficient for basic existence. These workers were usually cast aside as soon as they ceased to be productive. On the other hand, many if not most slaves were fed, clothed, and housed for the duration of their lives, even after they grew old and could no longer work.  Even some modern scholars agree that many Northern wage-slave factory workers were materially worse off than most Southern plantation slaves (see, for example, John Garraty and Robert McCaughey, The American Nation: A History of the United States to 1877, New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1987, p. 385).

Most Northern states had "Black Codes" that severely discriminated against free blacks. As mentioned, some Northern states wouldn't even allow free blacks to move into their territory. Let's briefly consider the conditions in one such Northern state, Illinois, the "Land of Lincoln," a state that was described as a "free state" because it had abolished slavery. As of 1845, free blacks could not settle in Illinois unless they could prove their freedom and post a $1,000 bond. If a black did in fact have a certificate of freedom, under Illinois law "he and his family were required to meet reporting and registration procedures reminiscent of a totalitarian state," notes African-American scholar Lerone Bennett (Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln's White Dream, Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company, 2000, pp. 184-185). Bennett continues describing the conditions under which free blacks lived in Illinois,

The head of the family had to register all family members and provide detailed descriptions to the supervisor of the poor, who could expel the whole family at any moment.

Blacks who met these requirements were under constant surveillance and could be disciplined or arrested by any White. They could not vote, sue, or testify in court. . . .

With [Abraham] Lincoln's active and passive support, the state used violence to keep Blacks poor. Most trades and occupations were closed to them, and laws and customs made it difficult for them to acquire real estate. . . .

As for the pursuit of happiness . . . Blacks could not play percussion instruments, and any White could apprehend any slave or servant for "riots, routs, unlawful assemblies, trespasses and seditious speeches." It was a crime for any person to permit "any slave or slaves, servant or servants or color, to the number of three or more, to assemble in his, her or their house, out house, yard or shed for the purpose of dancing or reveling, either by night or by day. . . ." (Forced Into Glory, pp. 185-186)

Incidentally, Abraham Lincoln not only supported the Illinois Black Code, but he voted to deny blacks the right to vote and also voted "to tax Blacks to support White schools Black children couldn't, in general, attend" (Forced Into Glory, p. 186).

In 1848 Illinois adopted a new constitution that made it illegal for blacks to settle in the state. It, like the previous statute, also prohibited them from voting and from serving in the militia. In 1853, the state legislature made it a crime, punishable by fine, for a black to settle in the state. If the violator couldn't pay the fine, he or she could be sold by the sheriff to pay court costs. The architect of this Negro Exclusion Law was John Logan. During the Civil War, Lincoln named Logan to be a major general in the federal army.

In any discussion on the South and the Confederacy, critics invariably raise the issue of white supremacy. They are quick to point out that Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the Confederate States, said that one of the foundational principles of the new government was that the white race was superior and that blacks were best suited for slavery. Said Stephens,

Our new government . . . rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. (Cornerstone Speech, March 21, 1861)

When critics quote this statement, they almost never inform the reader that, sad to say, most Americans at that time believed that whites were superior and that blacks and other minorities were inferior. One of those Americans was Lincoln himself, who said the following in 1858:

. . . anything that argues me into . . . [the] idea of perfect social and political equality with the negro is but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by which a man can prove a horse chestnut to be a chestnut horse. . . . I have no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races. There is a physical difference between the two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a necessity that there must be a difference, I, as well as Judge Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior position. (Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, New York: The Library of America, 1989, edited by Don Fehrenbacher, pp. 511-512)

In another speech that he gave that year, Lincoln said much the same thing:

I will say, then, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way, the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters of the free negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, or having them to marry white people. I will say in addition, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which, I suppose, will forever forbid the two races living together upon terms of social and political equality, and inasmuch as they cannot so live, that while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, that I as much as any other man am in favor of the superior position being assigned to the white man. (Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, p. 751)

Not only did most Americans believe that blacks and other minorities were inferior, but they believed that America was founded to be ruled by whites and for whites. Senator Stephen A. Douglas, a prominent Northern politician, the leader of the Northern faction of the Democratic Party, and a presidential candidate in 1860, voiced this view in the following words in 1858 during his fourth debate with Lincoln:

I say to you in all frankness, gentlemen, that in my opinion a negro is not a citizen, cannot be, and ought not to be, under the constitution of the United States. . . . I say that this government was established on the white basis. It was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and never should be administered by any except white men. (Fourth Lincoln-Douglas Debate: Douglas' Reply, in Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, p. 673)

What did Lincoln think about this? He agreed, saying, "in point of mere fact, I think so too" (The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 2, edited by Roy P. Basler, Rutgers, 1955, p. 281, as quoted in Bennett, Forced Into Glory, p. 306, emphasis added).

Many Northerners believed that the statement in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal" did not apply to blacks, but only to whites. Senator Douglas expressed this position in his fifth debate with Lincoln,

The signers of the Declaration of Independence never dreamed of the negro when they were writing that document. They referred to white men, to men of European birth and European descent, when they declared the equality of all men. (Fifth Lincoln-Douglas Debate: Douglas' Speech, in Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, p. 697)

Lincoln believed that the "all men are created equal" phrase did not refer to inherent equality but only to legal equality in certain respects, and more than once Lincoln called the Declaration of Independence "the white-man's charter of freedom" (Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858, pp. 269, 477; see also Bennett, Forced Into Glory, pp. 303-304).

It's interesting to note that of the 3.4 million votes that were cast in the free states in the 1860 election, Senator Douglas received over 800,000 of them.  In addition, during that election Republican candidates described their party as "the true 'White Man's Party' because they wanted to reserve the territories for free white labor" (James McPherson, Ordeal By Fire: The Civil War and Reconstruction, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982, p. 123).  The Republican candidate for governor in Ohio assured voters that “the Republican Party is the white man’s party . . . and it labors for the prosperity and liberty of the white man” (Merton L. Dillon, The Abolitionists: The Growth of a Dissenting Minority, Norton Paperback Edition, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1979, p. 240).

James and Lois Horton point out that free blacks in the North had fewer opportunities to engage in skilled labor than did free blacks and slaves in the South:

Opportunities for free black skilled workers seemed limited in the North in some ways that they were not in the South.  Slaves did virtually all types of work, and . . . in the South . . . free blacks were employed at many levels, even in skilled jobs.  It was not unusual to find black carpenters, blacksmiths, and coopers working in Charleston or New Orleans, for example.  One observer noted that in New Orleans skilled work was performed by some white workers but also by a substantial number of blacks, “and of the negroes employed in those avocations a considerable proportion are free.”  One black Virginian reported in the 1840s that in Virginia “both bond (slaves) and free (blacks) had trades” and he “had expected to find the people of color in free New York far better off than those in Virginia.”  Instead, he found that “many tradesmen he knew from the South were . . . cooks and waiters.”  Thus, northern blacks’ occupations reflected both their job skills and the prejudice and discrimination which prevented many from using those skills.

Official records paint a dismal picture of black opportunities for skilled work in Philadelphia.  In 1859 they reported, “Less than two-thirds of (black workers) who have trades follow them,” and “the greater number are compelled to abandon their trades on account of the unrelenting prejudice against their color.”  The exclusion of black artisans was even worse in Boston, where one foreign visitor reported seeing almost no skilled black workers in 1833.  The few exceptions were “one or two employed as printers, one blacksmith, and one shoemaker.”  White workers in New York City pressured authorities to exclude black workers from jobs requiring special authorization.  The city regularly denied African Americans licenses as hackmen or pushcart operators. . . .  As a slave in Baltimore, Frederick Douglass was a skilled ship caulker.  After he escaped slavery and moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, he was unable to find employment as a caulker because, as he was told, “every white man would leave the ship, in her unfinished condition, if I struck a blow at my trade.”  Douglass was forced to take unskilled work at a fraction of the wages he would have made if he could have followed his trade.

White workers in the North generally saw black craftsmen as competitors and tried to exclude them from the work force. . . .  Blacks were barred from membership in the trade associations, dominated by German and some Irish immigrants, which pressured white businesses to hire black workers only for “appropriate” menial employment. (In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community and Protest Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860, New York: Oxford University Press, 1998 paperback edition, pp. 117-118)

Merton Dillon observes that the abolition of slavery in most of the North in the late eighteenth century actually caused an increase in prejudice against free blacks:

The ending of slavery in the North had not been accompanied by change in the racial attitudes that for so long had supported it.  If anything, prejudice increased as the numbers of free Blacks grew and as the insecurities resulting from rapid economic and social change were felt throughout white society.  Prejudice was not expressed in verbal slurs and social slights alone.  Far more serious was the fact that custom barred most Blacks from economic and educational opportunity.  Although striking examples can be cited of Blacks who overcame all such obstacles, the majority were shut out by prejudice from sharing in the profits and advantages of the growing American economy. (The Abolitionists, pp. 20-21)

Even after the war, racism was alive and well in the North. Herbert Gutman notes that Northern whites not only viewed blacks as inferior but also women and working-class men:

Neither the Civil War nor the Thirteenth Amendment emancipated northern whites from ideological currents that assigned inferior status to nineteenth-century blacks, women, and working-class men. . . .

Northern whites regularly compared the ex-slaves to the northern Irish and other "degraded . . . races or classes." (The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, New York: Pantheon Books, 1976, p. 293)

Several years after the war, prominent Northern leader William Seward, who had served as Lincoln’s Secretary of State, said the following:

The North has nothing to do with the Negroes.  I have no more concern for them than I have for the Hottentots. . . .  They are not of our race.”  (William Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, New York: Viking Press, 2001 p. 295)

I could go on for several pages documenting the fact that, unfortunately, throughout the nineteenth century most Americans, North and South, believed in white supremacy. This is why it's unfair when critics quote Stephens' cornerstone speech but remain silent about the fact that most Northerners held very similar views, and that some Northerners held identical views. It's also unfair when critics quote Stephens' speech but say nothing about the Black Codes that existed in most Northern states. Furthermore, not all Southerners agreed with Stephens' belief that blacks were best suited for slavery, but critics rarely mention this fact either.

What Was Slavery Really Like?

What Was Slavery Really Like?

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

So just how bad was slavery in the South? Did any good come from slavery? Did slavery have any good aspects? Did all slaveowners mistreat their slaves? The subject of slavery in the antebellum (i.e., pre-Civil War) South is a delicate, highly charged issue because history books and documentaries have usually only told one side of the story.  The recent PBS documentary Slavery and the Making of America is a prime example of the  one-sided, misleading, and incomplete portrayals of Southern slavery that are usually presented to the public. I'm not trying to justify slavery. All I'm saying is that if we're going to talk about slavery, let's be fair and honest about it.

Most history books and documentaries that discuss slavery are full of tragic stories about the bad aspects of slavery, but they rarely mention the good aspects of the institution. Historians typically cite the worst cases of mistreatment and abuse but ignore or minimize the far more numerous cases of humane treatment, mutual respect, and genuine friendship. True, the good aspects of slavery don't outweigh the fact that slavery was wrong, but they should be noted in the interest of fairness and historical truth.

Southern slavery may have been the most humane form of slavery the world had ever known.  Most slaves were not mistreated, and most masters treated their slaves humanely.  Slaves in the South were arguably materially better off than many factory workers in the North. In many cases, slaves and slaveholders formed lasting friendships.  Most of the ex-slaves who were interviewed for the W.P.A. narratives and who discussed how they were treated said their masters were good men.  Some slaves remained fiercely loyal to their masters, even during the war and even though they had ample opportunity to leave. The suicide rate among slaves was actually substantially lower than the suicide rate among whites.  In part because of the efforts of numerous slaveowners, millions of slaves voluntarily accepted Christianity and found peace in their personal lives.  In some cases, Christian slaves converted their masters and afterward enjoyed a better relationship with them (see, for example, Leslie Howard Owens, This Species of Property: Slave Life and Culture in the Old South, New York: Oxford University Press, 1976, p. 150).  Bearing in mind that most American slaves lived in the South, let's consider some of the observations of historian James McPherson, who certainly can't be accused of being sympathetic toward the antebellum South:

Slavery in the United States operated with less physical harshness than in most other parts of the Western Hemisphere. . . .

The U.S. slave population increased by an average of 27 percent per decade after 1810, almost the same natural growth rate as for the white population. This rate of increase was unique in the history of bondage. No other slave population in the Western Hemisphere even maintained, much less increased, its population through natural reproduction. In Barbados, for example, the decennial natural decrease from 1712 to 1762 was 43 percent. At the time of emancipation, the black population of the United States was ten times the number of Africans who had been imported, but the black population of the West Indies was only half the number of Africans who had been imported. Of the ten million Africans brought across the Atlantic by the slave trade, the United States received fewer than 6 percent; yet at the time of emancipation it had more than 30 percent of the hemisphere's black population. (Ordeal By Fire, pp. 34-35)

McPherson notes other interesting facts: Although Southern law did not recognize marriages between slaves, 66 to 80 percent of slave marriages were not broken up by their masters (Ordeal By Fire, pp. 35-36).   McPherson points out that not only did most slaveowners permit their slaves to marry, but that some masters allowed their slaves to earn money and in some cases to buy their freedom (Ordeal By Fire, p. 34).  Economic historians Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman contend that slaves were able to earn money and rise to responsible positions in the slave system, and that in some cases they received a greater share of the product of their labor than did many factory workers in the North (Time on the Cross, Norton Edition with Afterword, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1989, pp. 39-78, 144-150; see also John Niven, The Coming of the Civil War, Arlington Heights, Illinois: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1990, pp. 160-161).  Fogel and Engerman discuss some of the various forms of advancement and reward that existed in Southern slavery:

While slavery clearly limited the opportunities of bondsmen [slaves] to acquire skills, the fact remains that over 25 percent of males were managers, professionals, craftsmen, and semiskilled workers.  Thus, the common belief that all slaves were menial laborers is false.  Rather than being one undifferentiated mass, slave society produced a complex social hierarchy which was closely related to the occupational pyramid. . . .

Neglect of the fact that more than one out of every five adult male slaves held preferred occupational positions, which involved not only more interesting and less arduous labor but also yielded substantially higher real incomes, has encouraged still another oversight: that is, the failure to recognize the existence of a flexible and exceedingly effective incentive system that operated within the framework of slavery. . . .

What planters wanted was not sullen and discontented slaves who did just enough to keep from getting whipped.  They wanted devoted, hard-working, responsible slaves who identified their fortunes with the fortunes of their masters.  Planters sought to imbue slaves with a “Protestant” work ethic and to transform that ethic from a state of mind into a high level of production.  “My negroes have their name up in the neighborhood,” wrote Bennett Barrow, “for making more than anyone else and they think whatever they do is better than anybody else.”  Such an attitude could not be beaten into slaves.  It had to be elicited.

Much of the managerial attention of planters was focused on the problem of motivating their hands.  To achieve the desired response they developed a wide-ranging system of rewards.  Some rewards were directed toward improving short-run performance.  Included in this category were prizes for the individual or the gang [a team of slaves] with the best picking record on a given day or during a given week.  The prizes were such items as clothing, tobacco, and whiskey; sometimes the prize was cash.  Good immediate performance was also rewarded with unscheduled holidays or with trips to town on weekends.  When slaves worked at times normally set aside for rest, they received extra pay—usually in cash and at the rate prevailing in the region for hired labor.  Slaves who were performing well were permitted to work on their own account after normal hours at such tasks as making shingles or weaving baskets, articles which they could sell either to their masters or to farmers in the neighborhood.

Some rewards were directed at influencing behavior over periods of intermediate duration.  The rewards in this category were usually paid at the end of the year.  Year-end bonuses, given either in goods or in cash, were frequently quite substantial.  Bennett Barrow, for example, distributed gifts averaging between $15 and $20 per slave family in both 1839 and 1840.  The amounts received by particular slaves were proportional  to their performance.  It should be noted that $20 was about a fifth of national per capita income in 1840.  A bonus of the same relative magnitude today would be in the neighborhood of $1,000.

Masters also rewarded slaves who performed well with patches of land ranging up to a few acres for each family.  Slaves grew marketable crops on these lands, the proceeds of which accrued to them.  On the Texas plantation of Julian S. Devereux, slaves operating such land produced as much as two bales of cotton per patch.  Devereux marketed their crop along with his own.  In a good year some of the slaves earned in excess of $100 per annum [per year] for their families.  Devereux set up accounts to which he credited the proceeds of the sales.  Slaves drew on these accounts when they wanted cash or when they wanted Devereux to purchase clothing, pots, pans, tobacco, or similar goods for them.

Occasionally planters even devised elaborate schemes for profit sharing with their slaves.  William Jemison, an Alabama planter, entered into the following agreement with his bondsmen:  “You shall have two thirds of the corn and cotton made on the plantation and as much of the wheat as will reward you for the sowing it.  I also furnish you with provisions for this year. . . .”

There was a third category of rewards.  These were of a long-term nature, often requiring the lapse of a decade or more before they paid off.  Thus, slaves had the opportunity to rise within the social and economic hierarchy that existed under bondage.  Field hands could become artisans or drivers.  Artisans could be allowed to move from the plantation to town where they would hire themselves out.  Drivers could move up to the position of head driver or overseer.  Climbing the economic ladder brought not only social status, and sometimes more freedom; it also had significant payoffs in better housing, better clothing, and cash bonuses. (Time on the Cross, pp. 40-41, 147-149)

In a separate study, Fogel observes the following

In a separate study, Fogel observes the following

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

U.S. masters also designed a wide array of positive incentives to promote the productivity of slaves. . . .  A favorite device was the awarding of prizes to the individual or the gang with the best cotton-picking record on a given day or during a given week.  Year-end bonuses, often distributed at Christmas, were another common device and could be quite substantial.  One Louisiana planter, for example, distributed gifts averaging between $15 and $20 per slave family in 1839 and 1840, with the amount of the gift made proportional to the planter’s view of the performance of each of his slaves.  Not all gifts were this large ($20 in 1840 was about one-fifth of per capita income; a bonus of the same magnitude today would be about $1,000), but $20 was by no means an upper bound.

Indeed, many large-scale planters had elaborate systems for rewarding exceptional work that not only recognized outstanding performances by field hands but generally led to substantial income differentials between ordinary field hands on the one hand and exceptional workers, especially drivers or artisans, on the other. (Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994, p. 191)

Fogel further notes that slaveholders often allowed slaves to grow food for their own use and to sell some of that food for their own profit:

Most U.S. planters allowed slaves to supplement rations with vegetables raised in gardens or by rearing small livestock and often purchased eggs, chickens, and vegetables raised by slaves for use on their own tables [i.e., on the slaves’ tables].  There were also masters who rewarded top hands by allowing them plots of up to a few acres to grow cotton or other staples on their own time, with the proceeds of the sales of these crops accruing to the hands. . . .

A recent study by Phillip D. Morgan of the practices of planters in the low country of South Carolina, where the task system predominated, revealed that despite legal injunctions prohibiting slaves from producing and marketing on their own account, the practice was widespread.  An industrious slave could sometimes finish his daily task by 2 P.M.  Such slaves accumulated property at a high rate.  Morgan estimates that in one county the average recorded accumulation of mature males was over $300, which is similar to the estimates of the wealth of industrious slaves in Jamaica. (Without Consent or Contract, pp. 192-193)

Slaves in Southern cities had additional opportunities to advance themselves. This was no small number of people either. In 1860 there were some 400,000 slaves living in cities, "and many additional thousands were hired out by their owners" (J. G. Randall and David Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, Lexington, Massachusetts: D. C. Heath and Company, 1969, p. 75). J. G. Randall and David Donald, citing the research of Richard B. Morris, point out some of the opportunities that were available to these slaves:

By the nature of their employments and the conditions of their service, as Richard B. Morris has pointed out, these urban and industrial slaves were a step removed from plantation service. . . . many of them were, despite numerous legal restrictions, "permitted to hold property, receive wages, make contracts, and assume supervisory responsibilities"; in addition, they possessed "some measure of mobility and occasionally a limited choice as to masters and occupations." "In industry slaves were customarily reimbursed for services performed beyond an accepted minimum," Professor Morris continues. ". . . slaves hired to others occasionally received directly a portion of the hiring wages. . . . Masters were often reluctant to force slaves to work as hirelings in occupations they disliked or for masters whom they found uncongenial." An increasing number of slaves were permitted to hire their own time--i.e., to work at whatever employment they pleased, paying their masters an annual rental. Such "nominal slaves" were able "to control their earnings, separate property, or occupational choices." (The Civil War and Reconstruction, p. 76)

Most slaves were provided with good housing for that era.  The Northern abolitionists’ claim that slaves lived in inhumane housing was unfounded.  The “houses of slaves compared well with the housing of free workers in the antebellum era” (Fogel and Engerman, Time on the Cross, p. 116).  Some slaves who worked in Southern cities had private homes "that rivaled those of country slaveholders in space and rustic luxury" (Owens, This Species of Property, p. 147). On "many of the farms the slave cabins were not much inferior to the master's cabin," and on some plantations "they were nearly as comfortable as the overseer's cottage" (Kenneth Stampp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South, Vintage Books Edition, New York: Vintage Books, 1989, p. 293).  According to information from the 1860 census, there were 5.2 slaves per house on large plantations, whereas there were 5.3 persons per house in free households, and most slave families, like most free families, lived in a house by themselves and didn’t have to share the house with others (Fogel and Engerman, Time on the Cross, pp. 115-116).  In fact, Fogel and Engerman point out that the typical slave cabin probably provided more sleeping space per person than did the homes of most workers in New York City over twenty years after the war:

As late as 1893, a survey of the housing of workers in New York City revealed that the median number of square feet of sleeping space per person was just thirty-five.  In other words, the “typical” slave cabin of the late antebellum era probably contained more sleeping space per person than was available to most of New York City’s workers half a century later. (Time on the Cross, p. 116)

Good relations often existed between slaves and slaveowners. As one example of this fact, let's consider the relationship between Confederate soldier Henry Kyd Douglas and one of his family's slaves named Enoch, who had left the family and had gone to live in Pennsylvania as a free man. When Enoch found out that Douglas had been wounded and captured and that he was being held in a Union prison camp, he wrote to Douglas and offered to send him money. Douglas was deeply moved by the offer:

I was surprised about this time to receive a letter from Enoch, whom I have spoken of as my father's colored coachman. He had gone off from home and was living in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, working for his living, in freedom, but harder than he ever did in his life. He wrote to say that he heard I was wounded and in prison and was having a hard time, and he had laid aside several hundred dollars and would send it to me, or as much as I wanted, if I were suffering or needed it. His letter was in his own untutored language, but its words were verily apples of gold. I did not need his money, but I hope I wrote him a letter that left no doubt of my appreciation and my gratitude. (Henry Kyd Douglas, I Rode With Stonewall, Marietta, Georgia: Mockingbird Books, 1974, reprint, p. 255)

Another case in point is that of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America himself. Davis cared deeply for his slaves, and they for him. When Davis had to leave his plantation suddenly in order to assume duties as the Confederate president, "He made a touching farewell speech to his quickly assembled slaves, who responded with expressions of devotion. . . ." (Rembert Patrick, Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet, Louisiana State University Press, 1944, p. 27). Davis was deeply concerned about the fate of his slaves when federal forces torched and plundered the Davis estates in Mississippi. Davis even sent money, in fact $3,000, to pay for supplies for his slaves to ensure they received proper care. The year before Davis died, he received a letter from one of his former slaves, James H. Jones, who had since become a Republican and had had a successful career in the intervening fifteen years. Jones told Davis, "I have always been as warmly attached to you as when I was your body servant" (William J. Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, Vintage Books Edition, New York: Vintage Books, 2000, p. 691). Jones went on to say that he always defended Davis from "any attack of malicious or envious people" (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, p. 691). William J. Cooper gives us additional information about Davis's relations with blacks:

Without question he respected individual blacks and in turn received their respect. His dealings with his slave James Pemberton and with Ben Montgomery as both a slave and a freedman illustrate such a relationship. Inviting Davis to attend the Colored State Fair in Vicksburg in 1886, Montgomery's son Isaiah said he knew Davis would have an interest "in any Enterprise tending to the welfare and development of the Colored people of Mississippi." "We would be highly pleased to have you here," Isaiah Montgomery asserted, " and he closed "with best wishes for your continued preservation." (Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 690-691)

At a time when many Americans, in all parts of the country, still opposed allowing blacks to testify in court, Davis favored allowing them to do so. He expressed this view in a letter to his wife in which he also expressed concern about the welfare of their former slaves:

I hope the negroes' fidelity will be duly rewarded and regret that we are not in a position to aid and protect them. There is, I observe, a controversy which I regret as to allowing negroes to testify in court. From brother Joe [Joseph Davis], many years ago, I derived the opinion that they should be made competent witnesses, the jury judging of their credibility. (Jefferson Davis: Private Letters 1823-1889, selected and edited by Hudson Strode, New York: De Capo Press, 1995, reprint, p. 188)

Few people know that Davis and his wife informally adopted a mulatto (part-white-part-black) orphan during the war. For those who care to know, the child looked like a young African-American boy, except that his skin was slightly less dark than the skin of most other black children; his facial features and hair were clearly African-American. Mrs. Davis rescued the young boy from a cruel guardian and brought him with her to live at the Confederate White House in Richmond. His name was Jim Limber. Davis and his wife raised him as one of their own children. Jim Limber and the other Davis children played together as normal siblings. Even in family letters, Jim's new family spoke lovingly of him, and he expressed his love for them. Sadly, after the war, the Davises had to give up custody of the child when a disreputable Union officer threatened to take him from them (Felicity Allen, Jefferson Davis: Unconquerable Heart, Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1999, p. 24).

Davis was a kind, decent Christian man who treated blacks with respect, and many blacks knew it. During a trip through the western part of the Confederacy, Davis got off his train at Griswoldville, Georgia, in order to meet with a group of slaves who had gathered in the hope of seeing him. These men worked at a local pistol factory and had come to the train station because they wanted to meet Davis. Informed of the gathering, Davis got off the train and circulated among the group, shaking each hand and speaking to each man individually (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, p. 494). When Davis returned to Richmond, Virginia, after the war, he was not only cheered by whites but also by blacks. One observer noted that Davis was "greatly touched" by the sympathy shown to him by the blacks in the crowd. In fact, some blacks climbed up on his carriage, shook and kissed his hand, and called out "God bless Mars Davis" (Allen, Jefferson Davis: Unconquerable Heart, pp. 486-487).

Many other examples of good relations between slaves and slaveholders could be cited. For example, there were numerous instances during the war when slaves hid food from Union troops and then gave the food to their masters and their families (who in turn shared it with them). One such instance occurred when Union forces occupied Charles and Mary Jones' plantation on the Georgia coast. When the Union troops took over the plantation, a slave named Sue hid potatoes from the troops in order to feed the Jones' children (Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, p. 322).

John Blassingame points out that thousands of slaves were married in Southern churches

John Blassingame points out that thousands of slaves were married in Southern churches

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Abolition doubts notwithstanding, thousands of slaves were married in Southern churches between 1800 and 1860. For example, out of a total of 1,228 marriages performed in Episcopal churches in South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Virginia in 1860, at least 460, or 38.1 percent, were slave weddings. At many times between 1830 and 1860 more slaves were married in the Episcopal churches in some states than were whites. Between 1841 and 1860 Episcopal ministers performed 3,225 weddings in South Carolina; 1,705, or 52 percent, of these were slave marriages. (The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South, Revised and Enlarged Edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979, p. 169)

Contrary to the portrayals often given in textbooks and documentaries, most slave marriages and slave families were not broken up by their masters.  "A study of wills and advertisements," says Francis Butler Simkins, "shows that many masters" stipulated that their slaves "were not to be sold away from their families or transported out of the state" (A History of the South, Third Edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Publisher, 1963, p. 123). As mentioned, even a strongly pro-Northern historian like McPherson acknowledges that 66 to 80 percent of slave marriages were not broken up by their masters.  Fogel and Engerman note that information from the slave market in New Orleans, which was the largest of the markets, refutes the claim that masters frequently broke up slave marriages:

Data contained in the sales records in New Orleans, by far the largest market in the interregional slave trade, sharply contradict the popular view that the destruction of slave marriages was at least a frequent, if not a universal, consequence of the slave trade.  These records, which cover thousands of transactions during the years from 1804 to 1862, indicate that more than 84 percent of all sales over the age of fourteen involved unmarried individuals.  Of those who were or had been married, 6 percent were sold with their mates; and probably at least one quarter of the remainder were widowed or voluntarily separated.  Hence, it is likely that 13 percent, or less, of interregional sales resulted in the destruction of marriages. . . .  the New Orleans data show that slaveowners were averse to breaking up black families. . . . (Time on the Cross, pp. 49, 52)

When circumstances led to the separation of a slave family, some owners and others tried to help the family in any way they could. Notes Gutman,

The separation of slave family members by sale or for other reasons led some sensitive owners to encourage contact between them. . . .

Overt expressions of slave familial feelings deeply affected some owners and other whites who came into contact with these slaves. Whites intervened sometimes to prevent the sale of slaves. After a hired Virginia slave was sold and separated from his family because he had not earned enough, whites who attended church with the man raised sufficient cash to buy him from a trader. Their slave grandmother persuaded a Kentucky clergyman to bid for two teen-aged sisters threatened with a distant sale, but a trader outbid him. The purchase of Mima and her children by an Alexandria slave-trading firm led the hard-pressed Virginian Richard H. Carter, who owned Mima's husband, to try to buy them "because of the distress . . . on account of the separation". . . . (The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, pp. 287-288)

Kenneth Stampp

Kenneth Stampp

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

No slaveholder needed to respect the marital ties of his slaves; yet a Tennesseean purchased several slaves at a public sale, not because he needed them, but because of "their intermarriage with my servants and their appeals to me to do so." A Kentucky mistress tried to buy the wife of her slave before moving to Missouri. Another Kentuckian, when obliged to sell his slaves, gave each an opportunity to find a satisfactory purchaser and refused to sell any to persons residing outside the neighborhood. (The Peculiar Institution, pp. 229-230)

A number of slaves were freed by their owners in the owners' wills. African-American scholars John Franklin and Alfred Moss note that for many years slaveholders, "stricken by conscience, impelled by affection, or yielding to the temptation to evade responsibility, manumitted [freed] their slaves in large numbers. . . ." (From Slavery to Freedom, Eighth Edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, p. 168, emphasis added).

Other slaves earned enough money to purchase their freedom. Some owners assisted with the purchase of freedom by accepting payments over a period of time or by agreeing to accept a generously low price. Stampp explains how some slaves managed to buy their freedom:

Occasionally, they earned the necessary funds by working nights and Sundays. More often, they hired their own time. Either way, they gradually accumulated enough money to pay their masters an amount equal to their value and thus obtained deeds of emancipation. Benevolent masters helped ambitious bondsmen by permitting them to make the payments in installments over a period of years or by accepting a sum lower than the market price. (The Peculiar Institution, p. 96)

Allan Nevins noted that even in the 1850s "many" slaves continued to buy their freedom:

Even in the eighteen-fifties, many slaves, particularly in towns and among the skilled or semi-skilled, continued to buy their liberty. (The Emergence of Lincoln, Volume 2, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1950, p. 161)

In contrast to many factory workers in the North, and even in contrast to many low-wage workers in our day, many if not most slaves received relatively good medical care. Most slaves received at least some medical care. And some slaves received exceptional medical care. Says Stampp,

To treat their sick slaves, many masters employed trained physicians, often the same ones who treated the white families. A few large planters retained resident doctors on their estates; occasionally several small planters together contracted with a doctor for his full-time service. More commonly a slaveholder made a yearly contract with a physician who agreed to charge a fixed amount for each visit. "Bargained today with Dr. Trotti to practice at the plantation," Hammond noted in his diary. "He agrees to charge only $2.50 a visit without reference to the number of sick prescribed for." Another planter cautioned his overseer, "Strong medicines should be left to the Doctor; and since the Proprietor [the master] never grudges a Doctor's bill, however large, he has a right to expect that the Overseer shall always send for a Doctor when a serious case occurs." Slaveholders, both large and small, sometimes spent generous sums for skilled medical treatment for their "people." To prove that there was "no class of working people in the world better cared for," one southern physician declared that he had often received large fees for attending even senile and worthless slaves.

This statement was much too optimistic, but it did give recognition to a class of humane masters whose expenditures for medical service went far beyond the simple dictates of self-interest. In mourning the death of an old slave woman, a North Carolinian noted that his physician had given the case "assiduous attention" for six months, "devoting to it more reflection and research than he had (as he informs me) to any case within ten years". . . .

A few masters patronized hospitals which were built and maintained especially for the care of sick slaves. During the 1850's, three Savannah physicians ran a slave hospital for "lying-in" women as well as for medical and surgical cases; similar institutions existed in Charleston, Montgomery, Natchez, and New Orleans. But plantation proprietors usually established their own hospitals where the sick could be attended by physicians or slave nurses. "All sick persons are to stay in the hospital night and day, from the time they first complain to the time they are able to go to work again," a South Carolinian instructed his overseer. "Hopeton," James Hamilton Couper's Georgia rice plantation, contained a model hospital where ailing slaves received the best medical attention the South could provide. The hospital was well ventilated and steam heated; it contained an examining room, medicine closet, kitchen, bathing room, and four wards, all of which were swept every day and scrubbed once a week.

Wise and humane masters gave proper attention to slave women who were either expectant or nursing mothers. A Mississippian ordered his overseer to treat them with "great tenderness." A South Carolinian required "lying-in women" to remain at the quarters for four weeks after parturition, because their health might be "entirely ruined by want of care in this particular." Hammond gave the "sucklers" lighter tasks near the quarters and insisted that they be cool and rested before morning.

Some masters were equally solicitous about the care of slave children. On the smaller establishments they appointed an old woman to watch the children while the mothers worked in the fields. On the plantations they built nurseries where the plantation nurse cooked for the children, mended their clothing, and looked after them during illness. (The Peculiar Institution, pp. 311-313)

Fogel and Engerman

Fogel and Engerman

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

While the quality of slave medical care was poor by modern standards, there is no evidence of exploitation in the medical care typically provided for plantation slaves. . . .

That adequate maintenance of the health of their slaves was a central objective of most planters is repeatedly emphasized in instructions to overseers and in other records and correspondence of planters. . . .

Slave health care was at its best for pregnant women.  “Pregnant women,” wrote one planter, “must be treated with great tenderness, worked near home and lightly.”  “Light work” was generally interpreted as 50 to 60 percent of normal effort and was to exclude activity which required heavy physical effort.  During the last month of pregnancy work was further reduced. . . .

Demographic evidence gives strong support to descriptions of pre- and post-natal care contained in plantation rules, letters, and diaries.  Computations based on data from the 1850 census indicate that the average death rate due to pregnancy among slave women in the prime childbearing ages, twenty to twenty-nine, was just one per thousand. . . .  The slave mortality rate in childbearing was not only low on an absolute scale, it was also lower than the maternal death rate experienced by southern white women. (Time on the Cross, pp. 117, 122-123)

In addition, slaves were by no means always confined to their farms and plantations. Many if not most slaves were allowed to visit other estates or to go into nearby towns on a fairly regular basis. A few slaves lived in a state of virtual freedom. As mentioned, some slaves earned money by working on their time off. Slaves were usually free to attend church, and often times they were encouraged to do so. Blassingame observes that many slaves did not have to sneak off the plantation in order to leave for short periods for social visits and the like:

Many slaves did not have to use . . . stratagems. Their masters did not try to restrict their recreational activities as long as they did not interfere with the plantation routine. According to Robert Anderson, "The slaves on a plantation could get together almost any time they felt like it, for little social affairs, so long as it did not interfere with the work on the plantation. During the slack times the people from one plantation could visit one another, by getting permission and sometimes they would slip away and make visits anyway." Similarly, Elijah Marrs said his master "allowed us generally to do as we pleased after his own work was done, and we enjoyed the privilege granted to us." (The Slave Community, p. 108)

The more religious planters not only excused their slaves from work on religious holidays but provided great feasts and recreation on these occasions. "During these periods, which lasted from four to six days," says Blassingame, "planters prepared sumptuous feasts for their slaves" (The Slave Community, p. 107). He continues,

Whole hogs, sheep, or beeves were cooked and the slaves ate peach cobbler and apple dumplings, and frequently got drunk. Often the festival seasons included dances and athletic contests. (The Slave Community, p. 107)

Abolitionists claimed that most slaves worked intolerably long hours.  This claim is repeated in the PBS documentary Slavery and the Making of America.  In point of fact, “the slave work year was shorter than the free work year” (Fogel, Without Consent or Contract, p. 78, original emphasis).  Fogel qualifies this observation by making the argument that slaves were forced to work harder than were free workers; yet, he admits that slaves also earned 15 percent more income per clock-time hour than free workers earned (Without Consent or Contract, p. 79).  In addition, Fogel concedes that on average slaves enjoyed longer rest breaks during the workday and more time off on Sundays than did free workers (Without Consent or Contract, p. 79).  As a matter of fact, many if not most masters gave their slaves part of Saturday off and all of Sunday off (Without Consent or Contract, pp. 77-78).  Not only did slaves work less hours than did free workers, but they also worked less hours than did workers in English textile mills:

Recent studies on the labor routine on U.S. cotton plantations have revealed that the average work week during the spring, summer, and fall was about 58 hours, well below the 72 hours thought to have prevailed in English textile mills during the first quarter of the nineteenth century and also below the 60-hour work week of northern commercial farmers in the United States during the first quarter of the twentieth century. (Fogel, Without Consent or Contract, pp. 28-29)

One frequently runs across the claim that slaves had no legal protection. This is simply not true. I'm not saying slaves had all the legal protection they deserved, but the often-heard claim that they had no protection whatsoever is incorrect. Stampp discusses the legal status of slaves:

"A slave," said a Tennessee judge, "is not in the condition of a horse. . . . He has mental capacities, and an immortal principle in his nature." The laws did not "extinguish his high-born nature nor deprive him of many rights which are inherent in man." All the southern codes recognized the slave as a person for purposes other than holding him accountable for crimes. Many state constitutions required the legislature "to pass such laws as may be necessary to oblige the owners of slaves to treat them with humanity; to provide for them necessary clothing and provisions; to abstain from all injuries to them, extending to life and limb."

The legislatures responded with laws extending some protection to the persons of slaves. Masters who refused to feed and clothe slaves properly might be fined; in several states the court might order them to be sold, the proceeds going to the dispossessed owners. Those who abandoned or neglected insane, aged, or infirm slaves were also liable to fines. In Virginia the overseers of the poor were required to care for such slaves and to charge their masters. (The Peculiar Institution, p. 217)

Slavery and the Federal Government’s Use of Force

 Slavery and the Federal Government’s Use of Force

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Given these and other facts, I don't believe the existence of slavery in the South justified the federal government’s use of force to deny the South its independence. I don't believe that Southern slavery justified the brutal form of "total war" that federal armies waged against the South. This brand of warfare included the needless destruction of thousands of private homes and public buildings, the large-scale theft of private belongings, the burning of priceless Southern libraries, the killing of thousands of farm animals (even in remote areas), and the shelling of defenseless towns. Some idea of the brutality that was inflicted on the South is indicated by the fact that about 50,000 Southern civilians died in the war (Kenneth C. Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, Avon Books Edition, New York: Avon Books, 1997, p. 411). Nor do I believe that Southern slavery justified Lincoln's policy of blocking medicines from reaching the South. This cruel policy caused the needless deaths of tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers and of thousands of Southern civilians (Charles, Roland, The Confederacy, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1960, pp. 152-153). This policy also caused the deaths of thousands of Union soldiers who were being held in Confederate prisoner of war camps. When the South tried to buy medical supplies from the federal government to care for Union prisoners, Lincoln wouldn't even reply to the offer. Noted Tilley,

The time came when, shut off from the world by blockade [the federal blockade], the South experienced the greatest difficulty in obtaining medicine which had been made contraband by order of the federal government. By 1864 conditions were so desperate that the South actually offered to purchase from the North such needed supplies, agreeing to pay for them in gold, cotton, or tobacco. The offer made plain that Union surgeons might bring the medicines down and use them solely to minister to Union prisoners. To this offer, there was no reply. (Facts the Historians Leave Out, Ashland City, Tennessee: Nippert Publishing, 1993, reprint, p. 52)

I'm glad slavery was abolished, but it could and should have been abolished peacefully. Yes, this would have taken longer, maybe a lot longer. But it also would have saved the lives of over 600,000 soldiers who died in the war, as well as the lives of tens of thousands of Southern civilians who died as a result of the brutal type of warfare that federal armies waged in the South. It also would have spared tens of thousands of soldiers from suffering the loss of arms and legs for the rest of their lives. Other nations found ways to abolish slavery peacefully. I don't believe we needed to wage the most destructive war in our nation's history before slavery could be abolished.  It’s important to understand that slavery was not abolished during the war; it was abolished several months after the war with the passage of the 13th Amendment.

We will never know what would have happened to Southern slavery if the North had allowed the South to go in peace. The Confederacy was never given the chance to outgrow slavery. There were plenty of people in the South who did not like slavery and/or who wanted to see the slaves freed, including Confederate generals Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, and Stonewall Jackson, Confederate Congressman Duncan Kenner, and James Spence, the Confederate financial agent in Europe, who criticized slavery in his book The American Union (Patrick, Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet, p. 196).  There were also Confederate leaders who supported emancipating slaves who served in the Confederate army, such as Confederate generals Patrick Cleburne, Daniel Govan, John H. Kelly, and Marc Lowrey, Governor William Smith of Virginia, Confederate Secretary of State Judah Benjamin, and the Confederate president himself, Jefferson Davis. It’s worth repeating that some 75 percent of Southerners did not own slaves.

I believe the Confederacy would have eventually abolished slavery, either actively or passively. There is some evidence that suggests slavery was beginning to die out on its own.  For example, the percentage of Southern whites who belonged to slaveholding families dropped by 5 percent from 1850-1860 (Robert Divine, T. H. Bren, George Fredrickson, and R. Hal Williams, America Past and Present, Fifth Edition, New York: Longman, 1999, p. 389). Nevins noted that "slavery was dying all around the edges of its domain" (The Emergence of Lincoln, Volume 2, p. 469).   Historians Randall and Donald, after noting the Confederacy’s move toward officially using slaves as soldiers and the support of key Confederate leaders for granting freedom to slaves and their families for faithful military service, acknowledged that the Confederacy may very well have abolished slavery even if it had survived the war:

On November 7, 1864, President Davis went so far as to approve the employment of slave-soldiers as preferable to subjugation, and on February 11, 1865, the Confederate House of Representatives voted that if the President  should not be able to raise sufficient troops otherwise, he was authorized to call for additional levies “from such classes . . . irrespective of color . . . as the . . . authorities . . . may determine”. . . .  There was no mistaking the meaning of this action.  The fundamental social concept of slavery was slipping; an opening wedge for emancipation had been inserted.  Lee’s opinion agreed with that of the President and Congress.  On January 11, 1865, he wrote advising the enlistment of slaves as soldiers and the granting of “immediate freedom to all who enlist, and freedom at the end of the war to the families of those who discharge their duties faithfully. . . .”  This fact, together with other indications, suggests that, even if the Confederacy had survived the war, there was a strong possibility that slavery would be voluntarily abandoned in the South. (The Civil War and Reconstruction, p. 522)

We must be careful not to judge a country or a people through our twenty-first-century lens. Past nations and their citizens should be judged primarily in the context of their own times and not in the context of our times. One hundred years from now, who is to say that future civilizations won't look back and denounce modern America as an unjust, oppressive nation because we have legalized the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent unborn children every year by abortion, because we still have not extended basic health care to all of our citizens, and because we continue to pollute the environment with toxic waste and fossil fuel emissions? Over the last thirty years alone, more innocent human beings have been killed by abortion than were ever killed by slavery (even including the thousands who died on the slave ships). Or, consider how many low-income people in our country have died prematurely because they had substandard health care or no health care at all. This tragic injustice is no secret. Numerous stories about it have appeared on TV, in newspapers, and in books for decades. Yet, it continues. Will future civilizations look back and judge America harshly because of this? Will we be condemned as a cruel, elitist society? How would we feel if Islamic nations teamed up to invade America because we permit and uphold abortion? How would we feel if Russia and China teamed up to invade America because we don't have universal health care and because we're the world's biggest polluter? What if England, France, and Russia had teamed up to invade the Northern states in the early 1800s because New England permitted and reaped huge profits from the African slave trade and because so many Northern states strongly discriminated against blacks?

More on the Confederacy

More on the Confederacy

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

This is not to say the Confederacy was perfect. But, in comparison to other nations in that era, and even to many nations in our day, the Confederacy was one of the most democratic countries in the world. The Confederacy came into existence in a peaceful, democratic manner, with the support of the overwhelming majority of Southern citizens. In fact, the percentage of Southern citizens who supported the formation of the Confederate States of America was considerably larger than the percentage of colonial citizens who supported the American Revolution (Roland, The Confederacy, pp. 14-15; cf. Divine et al, America Past and Present, pp. 159-161). Throughout its existence, the Confederacy enjoyed a vibrant free press. The Confederate government closely resembled the federal government, with three separate branches of power, i.e., executive, legislative, judicial. Confederate laws went through the legislative process. The Confederate Constitution was very similar to the U.S. Constitution, and it contained improvements that even some Northern writers praised. The Confederacy held free and fair elections. Citizens of the Confederacy enjoyed every right that we now enjoy, if not more.

The Confederacy made every effort to establish peaceful relations with the federal government. The Confederate government even offered to pay compensation for all federal facilities in the South and to pay the Southern states' fair share of the national debt. The Confederacy also announced that Northern ships could continue to use the Mississippi River. The record is clear that the South sought to avoid war. In fact, most Southerners believed secession would be peaceful. It's interesting to note that the correspondence of the first Confederate Secretary of War, Leroy Walker, "clearly indicates he did not expect war" (Patrick, Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet, p. 106). The Confederate states believed, with good reason, that since they had joined the Union voluntarily and peacefully, they had every right to voluntarily and peacefully leave the Union. But war came when the federal government launched an invasion of the Confederate states. That's why the vast majority of battles were fought in the South. The South fought because it was invaded. The South had no desire to overthrow the federal government--it merely wanted to leave that government and to form its own.

The Confederacy did not start the war, and, contrary to what most history books claim or imply, the war didn't really begin when Confederate forces attacked Fort Sumter, South Carolina. Lincoln later admitted he provoked the incident so that he could blame the South for firing the first shot and thus use that as an excuse for going to war.

Soon after South Carolina seceded, federal forces, acting without orders to do so, occupied Fort Sumter, in violation of the agreement that South Carolina had (or certainly thought it had) with President James Buchanan not to change the status quo. Southern leaders argued that South Carolina had the legal right to reclaim Fort Sumter, citing the fact that the state had ceded the fort to the federal government on certain conditions and that these conditions had not been fulfilled. (Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 1, New York: De Capo Press, 1990, reprint of 1881 edition, pp. 179-180). South Carolina, and then the Confederacy, tried for months to have Fort Sumter evacuated. Lincoln's Secretary of State, William Seward, promised Confederate representatives the fort would be evacuated, but this promise was not kept.

When Confederate leaders learned that, contrary to Seward's promise, Lincoln had sent a convoy of warships and other vessels to resupply the fort, they decided to demand the fort's surrender. The commander of the federal garrison on the fort refused, even though he did not agree with Lincoln's decision to send a resupply convoy (Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol. 1, pp. 243-244). The Confederates then gave the federal commander advance notice the fort would be attacked. Not a single Union soldier was killed in the attack. As a matter of fact, at one point, when the Confederates feared a fire on the fort was going to burn out of control, they offered to help put out the fire. When the federal troops surrendered, the Confederates allowed them to surrender with full military honors and then permitted them to return to the North in peace. This was the "attack," the alleged act of "rebellion" or "insurrection," that Lincoln used as his pretext for launching an invasion of the seceded states. On the other hand, even after the Fort Sumter incident, Jefferson Davis continued to publicly express his desire for peaceful relations with the North. In fact, just two weeks after the Fort Sumter incident, Davis said the following in a message to the Confederate Congress:

We protest solemnly, in the face of mankind, that we desire peace at any sacrifice, save that of honor. In independence we seek no conquest, no aggrandizement, no concession of any kind from the States with which we have lately been confederated. All we ask is to be let alone--that those who never held power over us shall not now attempt our subjugation by arms. (The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Vol. 1, pp. 283-284; see also Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, p. 367)

Was the War Fought Over Slavery

Was the War Fought Over Slavery

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Many historians seek to justify the federal government's invasion of the South by claiming that the war was fought over slavery, and that Union forces were fighting to free the slaves while the South was fighting to keep them in bondage. A number of critics claim the South only fought in order to ensure the continuation of slavery. A detailed refutation of these assertions would require a separate paper. However, for now, I offer the following points in response to them:

* The war was fought over secession, not over slavery. If the South had not declared its independence, Lincoln would not have launched an invasion, and there would have been no war. The only slave states that were charged with insurrection and then invaded were those that belonged to the Confederacy. Would Lincoln and his fellow Republicans have accepted secession if the Confederacy had announced it was abolishing slavery as the first official act of its existence? Would the Republicans have allowed a peaceful separation if the Confederacy had started an emancipation program right after the First Battle of Manassas (Bull Run)? Any serious student of the Civil War will agree that the answer to both of these questions is no.  I don't think anyone who has studied the subject believes the Republicans would have allowed the South to go in peace no matter when the Confederacy would have started to abolish slavery.

* In July 1861, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution, by a nearly unanimous vote, that affirmed that the North was not waging the war to overthrow slavery but to preserve the Union (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 66-70). McPherson notes,

. . . in 1861 the North was fighting for the restoration of a slaveholding Union. In his July 4 message to Congress, Lincoln reiterated the inaugural pledge that he had "no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with slavery in the States where it exists." (Ordeal By Fire, p. 265)

* When Lincoln assumed office, he was entirely willing to allow slavery to continue. Lincoln even supported a constitutional amendment that would have given additional legal protection to slavery. When Lincoln issued his famous Emancipation Proclamation about two years later, he did so largely because he was under intense pressure from abolitionist Republicans in Congress, who were threatening to cut off funds from the army if Lincoln didn't issue some kind of emancipation statement. One only has to read the Emancipation Proclamation itself to see that it was a war measure that only applied to slaves who were in Confederate territory; it did not apply to any slaves who were in Union-controlled territory, not even to slaves who were in the four Union slave states. In addition, Bennett presents evidence that Lincoln himself tried to undermine the proclamation soon after he issued it, and that he issued it unwillingly (Forced Into Glory, pp. 22-29, 411-508). For that matter, Lincoln only began to consider issuing the proclamation after the Union war effort continued to falter (Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 134-139; Robert Divine et al, America Past and Present, p. 460.)

* To be sure, some members of the Republican Party did believe the war should be waged for the purpose of abolishing slavery. Those who belonged to this faction of the party were commonly known as "Radical Republicans."

* There were important economic and political differences between the North and the South that were major reasons for the South's desire for independence. Prior to secession, the South had complained for decades about unfair, unconstitutional Northern economic policies, especially tariff policy. One of the seven ordinances of secession and two of the Declarations of Causes of Secession of the Deep South states mention unfair Northern economic policies. Jefferson Davis mentioned the South's complaints about Northern protectionist tariff policies in his first message to the Confederate congress (he cited the North's imposition of "burdens on commerce as a protection to their manufacturing and shipping interests"). In his famous speech on secession to the Georgia legislature, Robert Toombs spent the first half of the speech listing some of the South's economic complaints against the North, and he cited these complaints as reasons the South needed to be independent. Historian Frank Owsley discussed some of the reasons for these complaints:

The industrial North demanded a high tariff so as to monopolize the domestic markets, especially the Southern market. . . . It was an exploitative principle, originated at the expense of the South and for the benefit of the North. . . .

The industrial section demanded a national subsidy for the shipping business and merchant marine, but, as the merchant marine was alien to the Southern agrarian system, the two sections clashed. It was once more an exploitation of one section for the benefit of the other.

The industrial North demanded internal improvements--roads, railroads, canals, at national expense to furnish transportation for its goods to Southern and Western markets which were already hedged around for the benefit of the North by the tariff wall. . . .

The Radical Republicans

The Radical Republicans

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

It would be worthwhile to take a closer look at the Radical Republicans.  They wielded tremendous power in their party. They were not only abolitionists, but, like most other Republicans of their day, they tended to support higher taxes (in the form of high tariff rates), subsidies and land grants to certain big businesses, and the expansion of the federal government's size and power. Southern leaders consistently opposed these policies. Most Radical Republicans made no secret of their hatred of the South. Southern leaders suspected that some of the Radicals didn't really care about the slaves but were using slavery as an excuse to crush and subjugate the South. The harsh, illegal Reconstruction program that the Radical Republicans in Congress imposed on the South after the war led many people, in all sections of the country, to believe this suspicion was justified. Even President Andrew Johnson said in an official message that the Reconstruction regime that the Radicals wanted to impose on the South was illegal, vengeful, and despotic (Lloyd Paul Stryker, Andrew Johnson: A Study in Courage, New York: The MacMillan Company, 1930, pp. 263-285; see also Johnson's veto message of the first Reconstruction act). Johnson tried to prevent the Radicals from imposing such harsh terms by vetoing their Reconstruction bill, but they had enough votes to override his veto. When Johnson persisted in opposing the Radicals, they indicted him and then tried to remove him from office on the basis of charges that can only be described as shameful, not to mention invalid (Stryker, Andrew Johnson, pp. 572-674; see also Randall and Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, pp. 601-617).

Almost immediately after Lincoln was assassinated, Radical Republicans in Congress and in the War Department, along with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, falsely accused Jefferson Davis and other Confederate leaders of complicity in Lincoln's death. A War Department military tribunal and the House Judiciary Committee formally endorsed this claim. They based this accusation on information they knew was bogus. Some Radicals continued to repeat the accusation even after it became clear that it was false. Cooper notes that most people came to reject the claim that Davis was involved in Lincoln's death:

In the immediate aftermath of Lincoln's assassination . . . the War Department, with Secretary Stanton's enthusiastic endorsement, claimed that Davis was intimately involved in the conspiracy that resulted in Lincoln's murder as well as other failed intrigues. . . . In subsequent investigations this supposedly crystal-clear certainty turned murky. A few officials clung to the theory of Davis's responsibility, but most observers found the evidence flimsy, even fraudulent. (Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 582-583)

The story of the Radical Republicans' attempt to convict Jefferson Davis of involvement in Lincoln's death is one of the most shameful episodes in American history, and it says a lot about how utterly lawless and corrupt some Republicans were.  I'm unaware of a single textbook that says anything about the Radicals’ unethical conduct in the affair. Therefore, I'd like to devote a few paragraphs to examining some aspects of their attempt to frame Davis for Lincoln's death. One of the best treatments of the subject is Seymour Frank's booklet The Conspiracy Against Jefferson Davis (Biloxi, Mississippi: The Beauvoir Press, 1987). The booklet originally appeared as an article in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review (March 1954) under the title "The Conspiracy to Implicate the Confederate Leaders in Lincoln's Assassination." In his foreword to Frank's booklet, historian James West Thompson discusses some aspects of the attempt to blame Davis for Lincoln's murder:

A surprise witness at the Lincoln conspirators' trial was a man who identified himself as Henry Von Steinacker, who claimed to have attended a meeting of Confederate officers who were planning Lincoln's murder. Shortly after his testimony, defense counsel learned that Von Steinacker had been a member of the Union Army and had been arrested while attempting to desert. Sentenced to death, he had escaped while awaiting execution. Joining the Confederate forces of General Edward Johnson, he had been assigned to headquarters as a draftsman, but he was arrested by the Confederates and accused of theft and of abuse of prisoners. Again he escaped. Defense Attorney Clampitt was denounced by General Lew Wallace . . . for stating these facts. Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt [who headed the Bureau of Military Justice] hypocritically stated that he would be happy to return "Von Steinacker" to the courtroom if only he could be found. It later developed that when "Von Steinacker" testified, he had been a Federal prisoner named Hans Von Winklestein and was serving a sentence for desertion. He had, with the full knowledge of the prosecution, been allowed to testify to lies under a false name, and he was then released from prison immediately afterwards as a reward for his lies.

There were three other "witnesses" who were the backbone of the trial and who supplied the basis of the verdict. All were perjurers for hire, and they were hired by Judge Advocate General Joseph Holt. Foremost was . . . Sanford Conover, alias James Watson Wallace, but whose true name was Charles A. Dunham, a totally unscrupulous New York lawyer. He brought together a group of minor characters whom he drilled in stories he wrote out for each one and drilled them in reciting the stories until they were letter-perfect. Then they gave the depositions of these stories to Judge Holt personally. Only he took their statements. Conover's testimony and that of his "witnesses" proved to be a mass of lies. But Judge Holt continued to use him and to pay him even after he had been thoroughly exposed. . . .

Second of these perjurers was a man who claimed to be Richard Montgomery. His real name was James Thompson, and he was a convicted New York burglar with a long record of felonies.

The third of these perjurers was known as Dr. James B. Merritt, who later confessed to a committee of the House of Representatives that his testimony had been a tissue of lies, for which the government had paid him $6,000. . . . It was on the basis of the lies of these men that Secretary of War Stanton was able to induce new President Andrew Johnson to issue his offer of rewards for the capture of Jefferson Davis and several other Confederates, accused of having plotted Lincoln's death. Stanton claimed that this was on the basis of evidence in the possession of the Bureau of Military Justice. Stanton knew that this was false, that no evidence was held, and that only unsworn, oral statements, never reduced to writing, had been obtained. (Foreword, The Conspiracy Against Jefferson Davis, pp. 5-6)

Time permits me to quote only a small part of Frank's analysis:

The news of President Lincoln's assassination came as a terrific blow to the people of the North. . . . Stanton immediately informed the stunned world that Lincoln's assassination had been the outcome of a general plot to murder the President, his cabinet, and leading Union generals. It was engineered, he charged, by Jefferson Davis and other Southern leaders. . . .

Through bribes and offers of rewards, Stanton's assistants were able to assemble a group of persons who seemed willing to perjure themselves to aid the Secretary in achieving his goal. . . .

In the trial before the military tribunal the prosecution had attempted to establish this complicity [of Davis in Lincoln's death] primarily by the testimony of three witnesses. This attempt had failed despite the fact that the military court, by its verdict, had indicated otherwise.

The three witnesses were Richard Montgomery, Dr. James B. Merritt, and Sanford Conover. By his own admissions, each had done much to discredit his story and to impeach his personal credibility. Holt knew that their stories would not stand public scrutiny and tried to keep their testimony secret. This endeavor had failed. . . . The entire evidence of the three was therefore given to the newspapers.

In early June [1865], this suppressed evidence appeared in the leading American and Canadian papers. Bitter denunciations, indignant denials, and angry countercharges followed. The witnesses had alleged that most of the plotting had occurred in Toronto and Montreal. The newspapers in both cities were swamped with letters and statements, all tending to establish that Montgomery, Merritt, and Conover were men of poor reputation and that their testimony was false. (The Conspiracy Against Jefferson Davis, pp. 11-12, 17-18)

Although President Johnson allowed several people to be tried and hung as conspirators in Lincoln's death, he came to realize that the "evidence" against Davis was false. Incredibly, when it became apparent that Johnson was not going to allow Davis to be brought to trial on the basis of this evidence, two Radical Republicans in Congress plotted with Sanford Conover to produce false evidence that would connect Johnson himself with Lincoln's assassination. Yes, two Republican members of Congress conspired to falsely accuse a sitting president with involvement in the previous president's murder. And, yes, they did so with the same Sanford Conover, one of the discredited Davis-conspiracy witnesses. The two Republicans were Representatives James Ashley and Benjamin Butler. The scheme failed because Conover, fearing the two Congressmen weren't keeping their part of the deal, decided to reveal the plot to Johnson; he turned over to the president several documents that exposed the plan. Needless to say, Johnson was shocked by this information, and he immediately had the documents published in major newspapers, including the New York Times (Frank, The Conspiracy Against Jefferson Davis, pp. 37-38).

The same Republican-controlled Congress that imposed Reconstruction on the South also sanctioned official discrimination against the American Indians in the West and permitted them to be segregated from the rest of society. One textbook, edited by Civil War scholar Bruce Catton and others, puts it this way:

The same Congress that devised Radical Reconstruction . . . approved strict segregation and inequality for the Indian of the West. (Catton et al, editors, The National Experience: A History of the United States, Second Edition, New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1968, p. 416)

The Abolitionists, Slavery, and the South

The Abolitionists, Slavery, and the South

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

The conduct of the Northern abolitionists is rarely questioned because their ultimate goal, the emancipation of the slaves, was undeniably noble and praiseworthy. But does a worthy goal justify any and all means to achieve it, even if those means include the use of egregious falsehoods and violence? Granted, it's tragic and frustrating when immoral institutions or evil practices are protected by law, either expressly in the Constitution, by legislative acts, or by court rulings. However, the proper way to remedy such situations is to change the law or to reverse the court ruling, not to resort to inflammatory slander and violence. Slavery was an institution that was protected from federal intervention by the Constitution. Even Lincoln said repeatedly the Constitution prohibited the federal government from abolishing slavery. In 1835 the House of Representatives voted 201 to 7 that Congress had no constitutional authority to interfere with slavery. There were only two ways to legally abolish slavery, and that was by each state voting to end slavery within its borders or by the passage of a constitutional amendment banning slavery in every state. The abolitionists realized it would be many years before slavery could be abolished by either of these two processes. Therefore, many of them, if not most of them, resorted to spreading grossly misleading attacks on the South, and some of them even began supporting or launching armed raids into the South that were designed to incite violent slave rebellions.

Naturally, Southerners resented these methods. They saw considerable hypocrisy and lawlessness in such assaults. They knew that slavery had been legal since the founding of the republic. They also knew that many of the founding fathers had owned slaves, and that slavery had existed in the North for decades. When the Northern states abolished slavery, they did so gradually, and in many cases Northern slaveholders had ample time to sell their slaves.  Similarly, when England abolished slavery, slaveholders were compensated. Yet, Northern abolitionists, some of whom were Radical Republicans, demanded that the Southern states free their slaves immediately and without compensation, which even Lincoln said was unfair. Additionally, the abolitionists made no suggestion that the Northern states should return any of the large fortunes they had made from the slave trade or from the sale of Northern slaves to the South. Even more upsetting to many Southerners were the abolitionists' attempts to incite slave insurrections. When the British attempted to incite slave revolts in the American colonies, the colonists greatly resented it.  Thomas Jefferson cited this in the Declaration of Independence as one of the colonists' grievances against the British.

In many ways one can compare the situation that existed with slavery to the situation that now exists with abortion. Abortion is an immoral practice that was legalized by a highly questionable ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1973. No matter how dubious or unfounded the court's ruling may have been, the decision established abortion as a protected practice in American law. As a result, tens of millions of unborn children have been killed in abortion clinics. In an effort to stop this evil practice, a few radical anti-abortion activists have resorted to bombing abortion clinics and to shooting abortion doctors. As much as one might detest abortion (as I do), one cannot condone these actions. In terms of the cost in human lives, abortion has caused far, far more death and suffering than did slavery. There is simply no comparison. Nevertheless, no responsible citizen, no matter how strongly he or she dislikes abortion, condones the bombing of abortion clinics or the shooting of abortion doctors. Similarly, although I certainly admire the Northern abolitionists for their opposition to slavery, I cannot condone some of their methods, especially their armed raids into the South.

Few nations or peoples respond positively when they're subjected to false accusations and unfair criticism, and especially when they're subjected to armed raids. Tilley expressed the view of many Southerners that slavery could have been abolished peacefully and that some of the abolitionists' methods only made the situation worse:

The record has disclosed that prior to the onslaught of the abolitionists, gradual emancipation was in the making. As a matter of course, it was not to be accomplished overnight. Beyond question, it would require a plan of just compensation to those on whom would fall the financial loss. . . . After all is said, the best blood of the South knew then, as its descendants know now, that slavery was inherently, incurably evil, an economic and moral anachronism. Slavery and the ideals of freedom which inspired the founders of the nation were wholly incompatible conceptions. No system of human bondage, be it ever so humane, could have long endured the blinding light of American civilization and Christianity.

Time was required. Time is a potent problem solver. . . . Time would have wrought the extirpation [elimination] of human enslavement. The march of progress, intellectual, social, and spiritual, could not long have tolerated the barrier of such a stumbling block.

That the ugliest blot on American life is forever gone from these shores no individual Southerner regrets. It is just possible, however, that he may be indulged the privilege to submit that, in light of all the facts, the method of its going was transparently unjustified and unfair. (The Coming of the Glory, pp. 46-47)

On an aside note, it should be observed that the South’s anger over the attempts to incite slave revolts was a major reason that Confederate leaders strongly objected when the federal government began to use former slaves in the Union forces that were invading and ravaging the Southern states. Few textbooks mention the fact that Union forces often compelled slaves and former slaves to fight in the Union army.  Nor do many textbooks explain that Union soldiers frequently took slaves away from their farms and plantations against their will. Confederate leaders, and most Southerners as well, viewed the Union army’s use of former slaves as a federally sanctioned slave revolt. From their viewpoint, since those slaves had either been stolen or had run away, they still belonged to their masters and had no legal right to be soldiers or to take up arms against Southern citizens. Slavery was still legal in the South, and it was still legal in the four Union slave states. Yet, Union armies didn’t invade and devastate Northern slave states, only Southern slave states. Of course, on the other hand, one can certainly sympathize with those former slaves who joined the Union army in the hope of freeing their fellow blacks who were still being held as slaves in the South. If I had been in their position, I may very well have done the same thing.  But I can also understand the Confederate position on the matter.  It should be kept in mind that the American colonists greatly resented the British attempt to recruit slaves to fight against them in the Revolutionary War.  The British offered freedom to American slaves who would fight on their side, and they encouraged slaves to sabotage the colonial war effort.  Many thousands of slaves flocked to British lines, and several thousand of them fought for the British.  At the end of the war, at least 18,000 former slaves accompanied British troops as they evacuated New York, Charleston, Savannah, and other cities.

What If the Confederacy Had Survived

What If the Confederacy Had Survived

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

Although I don't support secession in our day, I don't agree with the view that it would have been a catastrophe if the Confederacy had survived. The claim is sometimes heard that if the South had remained independent, we could not have defeated Nazi Germany and Japan in World War II. Yet, England and America, though separate nations after the Revolutionary War, were able to work together to defeat Hitler and Tojo. There's no reason that the U.S.A. and the C.S.A. could not have worked together to defeat the fascist threat.

The Confederate States and the United States could have worked together in numerous areas for the benefit of all Americans, North and South. All the states still would have been American states, but with somewhat different laws in certain cases. The borders could have remained open. Trade and business could have flowed freely between the two nations. An independent South, freed from the protectionist trade policies of the North, could have traded directly with Europe and undoubtedly would have grown even more prosperous than she was before the war. Hopefully, Northern citizens would have seen the benefits of lower tariffs and would have insisted that their leaders adopt such policies. (Instead, high tariffs remained in place for decades after the war.)

If the Confederacy had survived, abortion most likely would not have been legalized in the Southern states; taxes would have been much lower in the South; no federal income tax would have been imposed on the Southern states; prayer and Bible reading and the posting of the Ten Commandments would have remained in Southern schools; Southern anti-sodomy laws would not have been swept aside by an amoral U.S. Supreme Court; and sick "virtual" child pornography would not have been legalized as "protected free speech" by that same amoral U.S. Supreme Court.

We should keep in mind that the Confederate states and their citizens were American too. After all, they comprised the Confederate States of America. They still revered our founding fathers. In fact, they saw themselves as preserving and defending the principles of the founders. The official seal of the Confederacy featured George Washington. Confederate postage stamps bore the images of Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson.

If the Confederacy had not been invaded but had been allowed to exist in peace, the relations between all the states would have been nearly identical to how they had been before secession, and the citizens of the states could have remained "one people" in every important sense. Similarly, if the U.S. were to announce tomorrow that it was withdrawing from the United Nations, how would this change the relations between the people and the governments of, let's say, America and England? Would it have any meaningful impact on the millions of British-American friendships? Would it have any meaningful impact on the relations between British and American families that are related to each other? Would our leaving the United Nations prevent us from working on a joint space-station project with the Russians, as we've been doing for years? Would it prevent us from continuing the close trade and business relationships that we have with Canada and England? Would it mean we could no longer have virtually open borders with Canada? Obviously, the answer to all these questions is no. These aren't exact analogies, but they're fairly close to the mark. It's hard to imagine now, but in the days before the Civil War the average citizen had very little contact with the federal government. Why? Because back then the federal government was much, much smaller than it is today. The states performed the great majority of the vital functions of government.

"We Lost Too Much": The War’s Impact on Our Form of Government

"We Lost Too Much": The War’s Impact on Our Form of Government

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

The North's invasion and subjugation of the South destroyed the type of Union that the founding fathers established. We went from a Union in which the federal government's powers were strictly limited to a Union in which the federal government could dominate the states and control functions that were originally reserved to the states. We went from a Union where the federal government was prohibited from using force against a state to a Union where the federal government invaded and crushed eleven states. We went from a Union with a limited federal government and very low taxes to a Union with a huge federal government and much higher taxes. Basically, the only functions the federal government leaves to the states are those that it simply doesn't want to perform. McPherson explains how the relationship between the average American and the national government was changed because of the Civil War:

The Internal Revenue Act of 1862 taxed almost everything but the air northerners breathed. . . . The law also created a Bureau of Internal Revenue, which remained a permanent part of the federal government. . . . The relationship of the American taxpayer to the government was never again the same. . . .

The old federal republic in which the national government had rarely touched the average citizen except through the post office gave way to a more centralized polity that taxed the people directly and created an internal revenue bureau to collect these taxes, drafted men into the army, expanded the jurisdiction of federal courts, created a national currency and a national banking system, and established the first national agency for social welfare. . . . Eleven of the first twelve amendments to the Constitution had limited the powers of the national government; six of the next seven, beginning with the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, vastly expanded those powers at the expense of the states. (The Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 447-448, 859)

And:

The Civil War marked a decisive turn in the nature of American nationality. Buried forever was the notion of the Union as a voluntary confederation of sovereign states. The word "Union" gradually gave way to "nation". . . . The war strengthened the national government at the expense of the states. Before 1861, only the post office among federal agencies touched directly the lives of most Americans. Citizens paid their taxes to local or state governments and settled most of their disputes in state courts. For money, they used the notes of banks chartered by state legislatures. When war came in 1861, the President called first on the state militia. State governors took the lead in recruiting, equipping, and officering the volunteer regiments. But the centralizing pressures of war changed all this. By 1863 the War Department prescribed enlistment quotas for states and drafted men directly into the army if states failed to meet the quotas. The President declared martial law and stationed soldiers in every state, where their powers of detention superseded those of state courts. The United States government levied a host of direct taxes and created an internal revenue bureau to collect them. (Ordeal By Fire, p. 485)

For all practical purposes the Tenth Amendment, which reserves all unspecified powers to the states and to the people, was abolished by the North's victory. Former Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton came under attack during her confirmation hearings because she had dared to say in a 1996 speech that "we lost too much" in the way of states rights because of the Civil War. In her speech, Norton, who was then the Attorney General of Colorado, said the following:

I recall, after I had just gone through this massive battle with the EPA on state sovereignty and states rights, visiting the east coast. For the first time, I had the opportunity to wander through one of those Civil War graveyards. I remember seeing this column that was erected in one of those graveyards. It said in memory of all the Virginia soldiers who died in defense of the sovereignty of their state. It really took me aback. Sure, I had been filing briefs and I thought that was pretty brave. And then there were times we looked beyond the substance. When we looked at the decision making process. And understood the 10th Amendment was part of that separation of powers. It was part of what was supposed to guarantee that our government would remain limited. What would guarantee our freedom? Again, we certainly had bad facts in that case where we were defending state sovereignty by defending slavery.

But we lost too much. We lost the idea that the states were to stand against the Federal government gaining too much power over our lives. That is the point I think we need to reappreciate. We need to remind ourselves and remind the political debate that part of the reason the states need to be able to make their own decisions is to provide that check in our Federal system against too much power going to Washington. ("Rediscovering the 10th Amendment," delivered at the Stevinson Center's Annual Summer Symposium, Vail, Colorado, August 24, 1996)

Jefferson Davis believed the North's denial of the Southern states' desire to peacefully leave the Union was a repudiation of the original form of our government, and he noted that secession was in no way a hostile act:

Secession, on the other hand, was the assertion of the inalienable right of a people to change their government. . . . Under our form of government, and the cardinal principles upon which it was founded, it should have been a peaceful remedy. The withdrawal of a state from a league has no revolutionary or insurrectionary characteristic. The government of the state remains unchanged as to all internal affairs. It is only its external or confederate relations that are altered. To term this action of a sovereign a "rebellion" is a gross abuse of language. So is the flippant phrase which speaks of it as an appeal to the "arbitrament of the sword" [i.e., trying to settle an issue by force]. In the late contest, in particular, there was no appeal by the seceding states to the arbitrament of arms. There was on their part no invitation or provocation to war. They stood in the attitude of self-defense, and were attacked for merely exercising a right guaranteed by the original terms of the compact. . . . The man who defends his house against attack cannot with any propriety be said to have submitted the question of his right to it to the arbitrament of arms. . . .

The invasions of the Southern states, for purposes of coercion, were in violation of the written Constitution, and the attempt to subjugate sovereign states, under the pretext of "preserving the Union," was alike offensive to law, good morals, and the proper use of language. The Union was the voluntary junction of free and independent states; to subjugate any of them was to destroy the constituent parts, and necessarily, therefore, must be the destruction of the Union itself. (The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 1, pp. 157, 379)

The Right of Secession

The Right of Secession

Michael T. Griffith

2006

@All Rights Reserved

What about the right of secession? Did the South have the right to secede? Thomas Jefferson clearly indicated he would allow a state to leave the Union, even if he didn't agree with its reasons for wanting to separate. President John Tyler likewise believed a state had the right to leave the Union. So did President John Quincy Adams. The Northern Federalists' Hartford Convention declared in 1814 that a state had the right to secede in cases of "absolute necessity" (Alan Brinkley, Richard Current, Frank Freidel, and T. Harry Williams, American History: A Survey, Eighth Edition, New York: McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1991, p. 230). None other than President Ulysses S. Grant (1868-1876), who was also the commanding general of all Union armies at the end of the war, said he believed the founding fathers probably would have allowed the South to go in peace. Grant stated,

If they had foreseen it, the probabilities are they would have sanctioned the right of a State or States to withdraw rather than that there should be war between brothers. (The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, Old Saybrook, Connecticut: Konecky & Konecky, 1992, reprint, p. 131)

Grant also said he believed that if any of the original thirteen states had attempted to secede from the Union under the Articles of Confederation, their right to do so would not have been challenged. Said Grant,

If there had been a desire on the part of any single State to withdraw from the compact at any time while the number of States was limited to the original thirteen, I do not suppose there would have been any to contest the right, no matter how much the determination might have been regretted. (The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant, p. 130)

The Declaration of Independence says people have the right to sever existing political ties with other peoples and to take their place among the family of nations.  It also says governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed" and that people have the right to form a new government when they believe they need to do so, "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."  It may be said with complete accuracy that the Declaration of Independence is a secession document.  Our founding fathers signed the declaration in order to proclaim their independence from England and to declare that they had a natural, God-given right to break their political ties with England and to establish their own government.  If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, then the Confederacy was certainly a legitimate government, since Southern citizens overwhelmingly supported secession and the formation of their states into the Confederate States of America.

This is just a small part of the evidence that shows the South had valid grounds for believing it had the right to peacefully leave the Union. In offering this evidence, I don’t mean to imply that I support secession in our day. My intent is merely to show that the South had just cause for believing secession was legal. A thorough treatment of the legality of secession can be found in attorney John Remington Graham’s book A Constitutional History of Secession (Louisiana: Pelican Publishing, 2002).

The Devastation of the South

The Devastation of the South

One cannot understand why many Southerners and others feel the war was unjust without understanding the extent of the devastation that federal forces inflicted on the South during the war. When a whole region experiences the kind of devastation and brutality that the South suffered, accounts of such wrongs are passed down from parents to children for many generations. Today nearly all textbooks either ignore or gloss over the cruel type of warfare that federal armies waged in the South and the amount of destruction and suffering those armies caused. So, before I conclude this article, I'd like to take just a moment to examine the nature and consequences of the devastation that federal forces inflicted on the South.

Kenneth Davis:

Along with the horrible number of deaths and crippling wounds, much of the seceded South was left in smoldering ruins. The Southern economy was practically nonexistent. The dollar value of the destruction was staggering. Although cotton resumed its significant position almost immediately, it was another twenty-five years before the number of livestock in the South returned to prewar levels. . . .

William T. Sherman [a Union general] always maintained that the devastatingly destructive war he had waged on the Confederacy shortened the war and saved soldiers' lives. His good intentions went unappreciated by the victims of his ruthlessness. For many along his path, after Sherman's troops departed, there was literally nothing left on which to support a family. Houses were looted. Those animals that were not taken by the Union troops were killed. Under Sherman's "scorched earth" policy, any item that could be used for farming or manufacturing was destroyed, the grim "justice" for what Sherman viewed as treason.

In the aftermath of the war, the entire Confederacy, save sections west of the Mississippi that had been spared the massive battles, was devastated--physically, economically, even spiritually. The postwar South was probably worse off than Europe after either of the world wars of this century. Because of Sherman's notorious destruction of the southern railroads, many of Lee's defeated soldiers had to walk home from Virginia. Many found that their homes had been burned. In some cases, entire towns and even whole counties had been evacuated. (Don't Know Much About the Civil War, pp. 411, 425)

Randall and Donald:

On the nature and extent of devastation at the South the historian's sources present a sad record. By the end of the war the eleven seceding states had 32 percent fewer horses than in 1860, 30 percent fewer mules, 35 percent fewer cattle, 20 percent fewer sheep, and 42 percent fewer swine. . . . Omitting slave property from his calculations, Professor Sellers concludes that "southern wealth in 1860 had shrunk in value at the end of the war by 43 percent". . . .

The South had been broken by the war. Lands were devastated. Proud plantations were now mere wrecks. Billions of economic value in slaves had been wiped away by emancipation measures without that compensation which Lincoln himself had admitted to be equitable. . . . Accumulated capital had disappeared. Banks were shattered; factories were dismantled; the structure of business intercourse had crumbled. In Atlanta, Columbia, Mobile, Richmond, and many other places great havoc had been wrought by fire.

The interior of South Carolina, in the wake of Sherman's march, "looked for many miles like a broad black streak of ruin and desolation--the fences all gone; lonesome smoke stacks, surrounded by dark heaps of ashes and cinders, marking the spots where human habitations had stood; the fields along the road wildly overgrown by weeds, with here and there a sickly looking patch of cotton or corn cultivated by negro squatters. In the city of Columbia . . . a thin fridge of houses encircled a confused mass of charred ruins of dwellings and business buildings, which had been destroyed by a sweeping conflagration." The Tennessee valley, according to the account of an English traveler, "consists for the most part of plantations in a state of semi-ruin, and plantations of which the ruin is for the present total and complete. . . . The trail of war is visible throughout the valley in burnt up gin-houses, ruined bridges, mills, and factories, of which latter the gable walls only are left standing, and in large tracts of once cultivated land stripped of every vestige of fencing. . . . Borne down by losses, debts, and accumulating taxes, many who were once the richest among their fellows have disappeared from the scene, and few have yet to take their place." (The Civil War and Reconstruction, pp. 517, 543-544)

McPherson:

The war not only killed one-quarter of the Confederacy's white men of military age. It also killed two-fifths of southern livestock, wrecked half of the farm machinery, ruined thousands of miles of railroad, left scores of thousands of farms and plantations in weeds and disrepair. . . . Two-thirds of assessed southern wealth vanished in the war. The wreckage of the southern economy caused the 1860s to become the decade of least economic growth in American history before the 1930s. As measured by the census, southern agricultural and manufacturing capital declined by 46 percent between 1860 and 1870, while northern capital increased by 50 percent. In 1860 the southern states had contained 30 percent of the national wealth; in 1870, only 12 percent. (The Battle Cry of Freedom, pp. 818-819)

Simkins:

When surrender stopped the invader, physical destruction was apparent in many places. Lands were devastated, plantations wrecked. Accumulated capital had disappeared in worthless stocks, bonds, and currency. The banks had failed; factories had been dismantled; and the structure of business intercourse had crumbled. Two billion dollars invested in slaves had been wiped out, without the compensation which Lincoln himself had regarded as equitable. . . . Cotton worth $30,000,000 had been confiscated by federal Treasury agents. . . .

The eighty miles from Harpers Ferry to New Market were described by a Virginia farmer as "almost a desert." "We had," he explained, "no cattle, hogs, sheep, or horses or anything else. The fences were all gone. . . . The barns were all burned; chimneys standing without houses, and houses standing without roofs, or doors, or windows". . . .

In December 1865, an estimated 500,000 white people in three states of the lower South were without the necessities of life, and some of them even starved. . . .

Fifteen years after the war only the frontier states of Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Florida had as many acres under cultivation as in 1860. . . .

The spirit of vengeance was strong in the victorious North at first. . . .

Because Southerners refused to be friendly, the federal army of occupation resorted to irritating retaliations. Women required to go to military headquarters for any favor were forced to take ironclad oaths of national loyalty. The wearing of Confederate uniforms was forbidden and when this order was enforced among men who had no other clothes, scenes of unforgivable humiliation resulted. . . .

Church buildings were seized and turned over to Northern denominations, and ministers were not allowed to preach unless they agreed to conduct "loyal services, pray for the President of the United States, and for Federal victories." Direct refusal of Protestant Episcopal clergymen to substitute in their liturgy the name of the President of the United States for that of the President of the Confederate States resulted in the closing of churches and the dispersal of congregations.

In addition, there was the burden of discriminatory war taxes and the confiscation laws of Congress. Federal Treasury agents threaded their way through the occupied areas seizing 3 million out of the 5 million bales of cotton which had not been destroyed. They corruptly enriched themselves. "I am sure," said the Secretary of the Treasury, "that I sent some honest agents South; but it sometimes seems very doubtful whether any of them remained honest for very long." A special tax of from 2.5 to 3 cents a pound on cotton yielded the federal treasury $68,000,000. Because of its effects on the economy of a prostrate region, this levy was called by the United States Commissioner of Agriculture "disastrous and disheartening in the extreme." As soon as the federal troops got a foothold in the South, property was seized and sold for nonpayment under the Direct Tax Act. (A History of the South, pp. 247-251, original emphasis)

In conclusion, I hope that in this article I have provided some balance to the common, and I believe inaccurate and unfair, descriptions of the antebellum South, of the Confederacy, and of the events that led to the Civil War. When judged by any fair, reasonable comparison, the South was just as deserving of its independence as were the original thirteen colonies. Similarly, the South had just as much right as did the North to be governed by a government of its own choosing. The Confederacy had just as much right to exist as did any other nation of its day.

It's been said that those who fail to learn from the mistakes of history are bound to repeat them. But how can we learn from history if our version of history is markedly one-sided and incomplete? Sometimes the facts of history can be unsettling, especially when those facts have been widely suppressed. Robert Catlett Cave expressed my feelings about discussing such facts:

I acknowledge . . . the obligation to heal dissensions, allay passion, and promote good feeling; but I do not believe that good feeling should be promoted at the expense of truth and honor. I sincerely desire that there may be between the people of the North and the people of the South increasing peace and amity, and that, in the spirit of genuine fraternity, they may work together for the prosperity and glory of their common country; but I do not think the Southern people should be expected to sacrifice the truth of history to secure that end. (The Men in Gray, Crawfordville, Georgia: Ruffin Flag Company, 1997, reprint, p. 17)

JEFFERSON DAVIS'S CHARACTER

JEFFERSON DAVIS'S CHARACTER

Michael T. Griffith

2003

@All Rights Reserved

Nearly everyone who knew Jefferson Davis considered him to be a decent, honorable man. His closest friends all held him in the highest regard.

Honesty and Integrity

None other than noted Civil War historian James McPherson has said that Jefferson Davis was "incorruptible to a fault."10

As a fellow Mississippian, Bishop Charles Galloway publicly sparred with Jefferson Davis over prohibition. Bishop Galloway strongly favored prohibition, while Davis believed banning alcoholic drinks was too intrusive and impossible to enforce. Galloway and Davis exchanged several sharp letters on the subject. Nevertheless, when asked to comment on Davis as a man, Galloway praised him as a pure, decent person:

Mr. Davis had his limitations, and was not without his measure of human faults and frailties, but he also had extraordinary gifts and radiant virtues and a brilliant genius that rank him among the mightiest men of the centuries. He made mistakes, because he was mortal, and he excited antagonisms because his convictions were stronger than his tactful graces; but no one who knew him, and no dispassionate student of history, ever doubted the sincerity of his great soul or the absolute integrity of his imperial purpose. . . .

Jefferson Davis began life well. He had a clean boyhood, with no tendency to vice or immorality. That was the universal testimony of neighbors, teachers and fellow students. He grew up a stranger to deceit and a lover of the truth. He formed no evil habits that he had to correct, and forged upon himself no chains that he had to break. His nature was as transparent as the light that shone about him; his heart was as open as the soft skies that bent in benediction over his country home. . . .11

Some of Davis's fiercest political opponents became his friends once they got to know him. One such person was Senator William Seward, who regularly gave speeches in which he harshly condemned the South over slavery, and whose famous speech "The Irrepressible Conflict," caused considerable alarm in the South. In early 1858, Davis was confined to his bed for several weeks with a severe cold and with inflammation in his left eye. During this time, Seward came to visit Davis every day and showed "earnest, tender interest" in Davis's condition.12

When former Texas governor and Confederate presidential aide Francis Lubbock first heard of the federal claim (later proven false) that Davis had been involved in the plot that killed Abraham Lincoln, he said the charge was,

. . . so preposterous to those of us who knew him that we were at a loss to account for its having been made until we became more fully acquainted with the blind rage that possessed the Northern people.13

Reference has already been made to Jefferson Davis's conduct in the investigation of Daniel Webster, a leading Whig politician from Massachusetts. This topic bears closer scrutiny. In April 1846 the chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs accused Webster of wrongdoing. Davis, then a member of the House, was appointed to a committee to investigate the charges. The night before the committee's report was to be released, a Northern Democrat visited Davis and urged him not to waste this opportunity to discredit Webster and his Whig allies. Davis biographer Felicity Allen describes what happened next:

Nothing fired Davis's temper more quickly than an underhanded appeal to selfishness. "Mr. Davis told him with much heat that if Mr. Webster was to be entailed upon the country for life, 'and no one could deprecate his policy more than I do, I would not make a false and partisan report or parley with my sense of justice and honor. . . .'"14

The next day the committee released its report, which completely exonerated Webster. Davis was the one who drafted the report. Webster later called on Davis and expressed his tremendous gratitude for the "manly manner in which he had defended him."15 In later years the Websters invited Davis and his wife Varina to their home in Marshfield, Massachusetts. Davis remarked that Webster "was very kind to me, and though some of our political views were thoroughly antagonistic, we always met as friends."16

During the Mexican War, Davis was a colonel and commanded a regiment. Davis became aware that his men were stealing ears of corn from a cornfield. He gathered his men together and sternly rebuked them. He told them that "private rights must and should be respected."17 Davis then found the owner of the cornfield and paid him for the crop.18

Charity and Kindness

Charity and Kindness

Michael T. Griffith

2003

@All Rights Reserved

As Secretary of War in Franklin Pierce's administration, Jefferson Davis was known for being generous to those who were less fortunate or who were in need. A young man on his way to West Point became sick in Washington. He wrote a letter to Davis and asked for help. Davis came to see the young man, engaged a nurse for him, and gave him "the kindest and most tender attention for three or four weeks until I was well enough to go on to West Point."19

Davis regularly sent money to a woman who sat outside his office knitting stockings. Davis's messenger told him that he believed the woman was a fraud, but Davis kept sending the money anyway; Davis also sent her a cushion "to prevent her taking cold."20

Another recipient of Davis's charity was a "dwarfish insane man" who would frequently come to see Davis to ask for money. Varina Davis complained to her husband that she didn't know how he could stand the man. Davis, looking troubled, expressed sympathy for the man and said "it is a dreadful fate to be distraught and friendless."21 Mrs. Davis added that her husband made it a rule that "no one should be turned away hungry, however undeserving or unattractive."22

The chief clerk in the War Office, Colonel Archibald Campbell, attempted to restrain Davis's charity toward beggars. He explained that "in anyone else it would be a mere yielding to opportunity" but that Davis would worry about them after he helped them, "and it wears him very much."23 When Campbell complained that he feared Davis was letting phony beggars take advantage of him, Davis replied, "Brave and honest men are not suspicious."24

Davis continued this pattern of being charitable and kind as the Confederacy's president. He gave of his own money to help the poor. He sent hot drinks and food out to his guards. He repeatedly granted pardons to soldiers who appealed death sentences to him. He took in an abused mulatto child and raised him as one of his own children. William Cooper discusses Davis's generosity toward those who were in unfortunate circumstances:

Davis also demonstrated a genuine generosity to individuals serving the cause whom he discovered in unfortunate circumstances. One winter night he noticed that the sentinel at the front door of the Executive Mansion wore no overcoat. Informed that overcoats had not been issued, the president acted, and soon the garments were distributed. When he learned that a regiment camped in the city had received no breakfast, these soldiers had food delivered to them by noon. One morning an elderly woman came to him at the White House [the Confederate White House]. She identified herself as the oldest living relative to George Mason, a Revolutionary hero, and said that all her property was within Federal lines. To support herself, she needed a job. The president got her a position at the Treasury Department.25

Davis's feelings of charity and kindness even extended to enemy soldiers. He urged Confederate troops to treat Union prisoners of war with courtesy and kindness. One Confederate private in the Twelfth Mississippi recalled what Davis said in a brief speech to his unit:

I wish to impress this upon your minds: Always be kind to your prisoners. Fight the enemy with all the power that God has given you, and when he surrenders remember that you are Southern gentlemen and treat him with courtesy and kindness. Never be haughty to the humble. . . .26

When Davis became alarmed at reports of widespread death and disease among Union prisoners of war, he tried to purchase the needed medical supplies from the North and offered to pay for them in gold, cotton, or tobacco. Historian John Tilley continues,

The offer made plain that Union surgeons might bring the medicines down and use them solely to minister to Union prisoners. To this offer, there was no reply.27

One noteworthy account of the effect that Jefferson Davis’s kind and charitable nature often had on those who met him is the case of Mary Day from Ohio. She came to Fortress Monroe, the federal facility where Davis was being held after the war, in order to visit her brother. Out of curiosity, she decided to visit Davis as well. Back in Ohio, she had been singing a song that was quite popular in the North at the time, "Hang Jeff Davis on a Sour Apple Tree." After having heard so many horrible things about Davis, she expected "hoofs and horns" when she met him. When she finally did meet him, she was "speechless with amazement." She said his eyes were "lightened with a smile that was almost angelic."28 She added that "the most arresting of all was a quality in his voice that seemed to go directly to one's heart." In time she became good friends with Davis. When she came to say goodbye, she wanted to tell him how her feelings about him had changed, but she was afraid to do so because she feared she would start crying. After an exchange of kind words, Davis walked her to the stairs and gave her a parting blessing that moved her to tears. She described the event, saying "[He] gave me a parting blessing such as I never before heard in my life. Of course I ran down the steps sobbing aloud." Another former skeptic who came to deeply respect and admire Davis was Dr. John Craven, who was appointed to be Davis's physician when federal authorities imprisoned Davis at Fortress Monroe. Among other things, Craven said that Davis "impressed me more than any professor of Christianity I had even heard."29

Toward the end of his life, when he was living at the Beauvoir Mansion in Biloxi, Mississippi, Davis was visited by a former Union soldier. When the visit ended, the former Union trooper explained that he had no money with which to return home and asked Davis for assistance. Davis, though living on a very modest income himself, gave the man money for his trip home, and then told him, "If any more of the boys need help, tell them I'll do what I can to help."30

Piety

Piety

Michael T. Griffith

2003

@All Rights Reserved

Jefferson Davis was deeply religious. Robert E. Lee's religious faith is well known, but for some reason Davis's piety isn't. Davis was brought up to believe in the Bible. He studied the Bible carefully, in English and in Greek, and he quoted from it repeatedly in his letters.31 He attended church regularly. On two occasions after two of his children had died prematurely, he was heard to say, "Not my will, but thy will be done." When Davis saw the lewdness of French art and the immorality of French society in Paris, he expressed disapproval, saying,

My opinion of Paris as a place for education has not changed for the better, but rather for the worse. The tone cannot be delicate where living objects and inanimate representations so glaringly offend against decency. . . .32

Reverend Charles Minnigerode, who knew more of Davis's "inner life" than "perhaps any other man," said Davis was "always pure," and that his "whole being" loathed "impure thought" or "anything low or corrupting," adding,

He was pure in heart and lived conscientiously in the sight of God. All his habits bore the stamp of that.33

Francis Lubbock said that one reason that he enjoyed speaking with Davis was that Davis's conversation was "so chaste."34

While Davis was away from home fighting in the Mexican War, he wrote to his wife and asked if she had remembered his request "on the subject of prayer" because he wanted to be sure she was being prayerful. He also advised her to "be pious, be calm, be useful, and charitable and temperate in all things."35

As president of the Confederacy, Davis proclaimed national days of prayer and fasting. On more than one occasion, he was seen kneeling in prayer in the presidential mansion.

JEFFERSON DAVIS'S LEADERSHIP STYLE

JEFFERSON DAVIS'S LEADERSHIP STYLE

Far from being the micromanaging, overbearing leader that many have painted him to be, Jefferson Davis was a considerate leader who gave his subordinates wide latitude.

Colonel Jefferson Davis in the Mexican War

Colonel Davis's regiment was in Mexico and facing danger when one of his captains, a Captain W. P. Rogers, refused an order to stay at Saltillo that day. Davis could have had the man court-martialed; at the very least he could have relieved him of his command and quite possibly have ruined his career. Instead, Davis was more than lenient with the insubordinate officer, even though he knew the captain had "no kind feeling" for him. Davis found the young officer and reasoned with him. Fortunately, Captain Rogers responded favorably to Davis's lenient approach. Rogers himself reported the following about what Davis said to him:

He further said that he knew I had for him no kind feeling but that endangered as we were he hoped that might be forgotten. The post he assigned me he said was a post of honor and that he desired that I might have the glory of leading an independent command to action. . . . I could not again refuse.36        

Confederate President, Commander-in-Chief

Several pages could be spent discussing the many times when Jefferson Davis gave his subordinates wide latitude and declined to countermand the decisions of local commanders in the field. William Cooper notes that Davis felt strongly that he "could not give operational orders to his field commanders."37 In addition, there were many occasions when Davis showed consideration and sensitivity toward opposing views from his cabinet, from his generals, and from various Southern governors.

Correctly perceiving that Union forces planned an early move into then-neutral Kentucky, General Leonidas Polk decided to move his army into the state and to occupy the town of Columbia, Kentucky. Polk knew that Jefferson Davis did not want Confederate forces in Kentucky unless Union forces moved into the state first. The governor of Tennessee wired Davis and urged him to order Polk to withdraw from Kentucky, lest his occupation hurt the Confederate cause in the state. Davis's initial reaction was to order Polk to withdraw. However, shortly after issuing the withdrawal order, Davis received Polk's explanation of his actions. Upon reading Polk's arguments, Davis reversed himself and decided to allow Polk to make the final decision. Cooper says the following about this episode:

Davis's response permitted Polk to make the final decision, and the general held his ground. Believing the individual on the spot best knew the immediate circumstances, Davis as commander in chief was always reluctant to overrule a field commander, and this one told the president that he absolutely had to act as he did.38

At one point in the efforts to save Vicksburg from falling into Union hands, General Joseph E. Johnston urged Davis to order General Theophilus Holmes in Arkansas to take his forces and join General John Pemberton's battered forces at Vicksburg. Davis penned a letter to General Holmes. He stressed Vicksburg's critical importance, but he left the decision up to Holmes. Holmes replied that he felt such a move was impractical and that it would leave Arkansas unprotected. Holmes decided to stay in Arkansas. He wrote to Davis that he would of course obey Davis's orders if Davis chose to order him to Vicksburg, but he made it clear he felt the decision would be a mistake. In response, Davis told Holmes that if Holmes had accurately described and assessed the situation, then he had acted wisely in remaining in Arkansas, and Davis declined to countermand Holmes's decision. Cooper notes that Holmes "surely" was correct in his analysis of the situation, and that it most likely would have been a mistake for Holmes to attempt to join Pemberton.39

Davis showed consideration and deference to his advisors, against his own better judgment, in the case of the appointment of General Joseph E. Johnston to be the commander of the Department of the West. It was no secret that Davis did not think highly of Johnston's skills as a general and that he felt Johnston was unwilling to work in harmony with others. But Davis's Secretary of War, James Seddon, insisted that Johnston be chosen for the assignment. Seddon managed to convince a majority of Davis's cabinet to support Johnston. After considerable discussion, Davis reluctantly made the appointment. In placing Johnston in this crucial position, Davis gave him "full power to direct the entire Western campaign and to assume personal command, at his discretion, of any of the armies engaged in it."40

When Judah Benjamin was serving as the Acting Secretary of War, he had "a virtually free hand."41 Even when it came to formulating military plans, Davis and Benjamin worked on them together. "The charge that he was no more than a clerk in his department had no basis in fact," notes Rembert Patrick.42

Another incident that throws light on Davis's leadership style is the dispute between Christopher Memminger and John Reagan. Memminger was the Treasury Secretary and Reagan was the Postmaster General. Patrick explains how Davis settled the dispute:

The way by which the controversy was settled was perhaps the most significant thing about it. When the two disputants were unable to come to an agreement, the matter was referred to the President, who brought it up in Cabinet meeting and referred it to the Attorney General, whose decision finally was forced upon Memminger. Disputes of this kind were rare. This one shows that the President allowed his advisers a great deal of freedom of action in settling their own differences.43

After an extensive study of Jefferson Davis's dealings with his cabinet members, Patrick concluded that Davis did not render them "mere clerks," that they were free to express their views, and that Davis rarely overruled the majority opinion of his cabinet:

The members of the Confederate Cabinet were not spineless yes men; Jefferson Davis did not require of his secretaries an unquestioning conformity as a condition of remaining in the Cabinet. At the same time, a secretary who thought to dominate the government from his office was bound to be disabused of the idea; but it did not follow that the secretary was to be ruled, or dictated to, by the President. Davis wanted their counsel and encouraged them to present their views freely. A democratic atmosphere pervaded the meetings of the Cabinet, and the plans that took shape at them matured slowly after ample discussion and full consideration. The occasions when the President overruled the majority opinion of his Cabinet were rare. There were differences between him and them, as there were among the members themselves, but an amicable agreement was the rule rather than the exception.44

Jefferson Davis certainly wasn't above forgiving an offense or apologizing when he believed he had wronged or offended a subordinate. For example, Davis blushed with embarrassment when he mistook the age of a young recruit, apparently because the soldier had no beard whatsoever. Fearing that he had hurt the youth's feelings, Davis hastily said, "Oh, excuse me. I beg your pardon. It was a long time before I had whiskers myself."45 Davis showed he could swallow his pride and forgive intemperate behavior for the greater good when General Sterling Price reacted with rage after learning Davis had appointed someone else to a position that he wanted. Price "exploded spectacularly" at Davis and pounded Davis's desk so hard that the ink bottles jumped. When Price vowed to resign, Davis icily accepted the offer. However, the next day, Davis, "subordinating his pride to his sense of duty," met with Price and persuaded him to remain in the army.46

JEFFERSON DAVIS AND RACE RELATIONS

JEFFERSON DAVIS AND RACE RELATIONS

Michael T. Griffith

2003

@All Rights Reserved

Simply put, Jefferson Davis treated blacks with respect and received their respect in return. Critics will reply that Davis believed in white supremacy, i.e., that he believed that whites were superior to blacks. But these critics almost never explain that nearly all Americans in that day believed the same thing. This was true of the average man on the street right up to the nation's leaders in all parts of the country. For example, prominent Northern politicians like Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas repeatedly said they believed whites were superior to blacks. Douglas even said the Declaration of Independence's statement about all men being created equal referred only to white men, and Lincoln referred to the declaration as "the white man's charter of freedom." Fortunately, we have come a long way since then.  But I don't think it's fair to condemn Davis because he held racial views that were shared by nearly all white Americans in his day. Cooper does a good job of putting Davis's racial views into proper perspective:

At the end of his life, Jefferson Davis believed unequivocally in the superiority of his race. He also had serious reservations about black people ever achieving any kind of equality with the superior race. Yet he was no race-baiter or racial demagogue. . . . His conviction about the innate supremacy of his race did not require hatred or viciousness. . . .

While not all Americans joined his embrace of slavery, few dissented from his belief in the superiority of the white race, an outlook shared by almost all white Americans as well as Western Europeans."47

Respectful and Respected

Respectful and Respected

Michael T. Griffith

2003

@All Rights Reserved

Jefferson Davis believed it was his Christian duty to treat blacks with respect. Cooper discusses Davis's treatment of blacks and their response to that treatment:

Without question he respected individual blacks and in turn received their respect. His dealings with his slave James Pemberton and with Ben Montgomery as both a slave and a freedman illustrate such a relationship. Inviting Davis to attend the Colored State Fair in Vicksburg in 1886, Montgomery's son Isaiah said he knew Davis would have an interest "in any Enterprise tending to the welfare and development of the Colored people of Mississippi." "We would be highly pleased to have you here," Isaiah Montgomery asserted, and he closed "with best wishes for your continued preservation."48

When Davis had to leave his plantation suddenly in order to go to Montgomery to assume duties as the Confederate president, "He made a touching farewell speech to his quickly assembled slaves, who responded with expressions of devotion. . . ."49

The year before Davis died, he received a letter from one of his former slaves, James H. Jones, who had since become a Republican and had had a successful career in the intervening fifteen years. Jones told Davis, "I have always been as warmly attached to you as when I was your body servant."50 Jones went on to say that he always defended Davis from "any attack of malicious or envious people." Another one of Davis's former slaves, Robert Brown, fiercely defended Davis after the war. In one instance, Brown was traveling with Mrs. Davis and the children on a ship headed to New York, when a Northern man approached one of the Davis children and began to attack Davis's character. Brown became so angry that he punched the man. The captain of the ship was called, and when he heard the full story of the incident, he said Brown's action was justified and demanded an apology from the Northerner.51

Davis treated blacks with respect, and many blacks knew it. During a trip through the western part of the Confederacy, Davis got off his train at Griswoldville, Georgia, in order to meet with a group of slaves who had gathered in the hope of seeing him. These men worked at a local pistol factory and had come to the train station because they wanted to meet Davis. Informed of the gathering, Davis got off the train and circulated among the group, shaking each hand and speaking to each man individually.52 When Davis returned to Richmond, Virginia, after the war, he was not only cheered by whites but also by blacks. One observer noted that Davis was "greatly touched" by the sympathy shown to him by the blacks in the crowd. In fact, some blacks climbed up on his carriage, shook and kissed his hand, and called out "God bless Mars Davis."53

Jim Limber

Jim Limber

Michael T. Griffith

2003

@All Rights Reserved

Few people know that Davis and his wife informally adopted a mulatto (half-white-half-black) orphan during the war. For those who care to know, the child looked like a young African-American boy, except that his skin was slightly less dark than the skin of most other black children; his facial features and hair were clearly African-American. Mrs. Davis rescued the young boy from a cruel guardian and brought him with her to live at the Confederate White House in Richmond. His name was Jim Limber. Davis and his wife raised him as one of their own children. Jim Limber and the other Davis children played together as normal siblings. Even in family letters, Jim's new family spoke lovingly of him, and he expressed his love for them.54

Jefferson Davis went to the Richmond courthouse to file the necessary papers for Jim Limber's freedom. Davis wanted to be certain that the guardian who had abused Jim could never regain custody of him. When Davis learned that a group of boys down the street had been a little mean to young Jim, he personally went to talk to them about it. By all accounts, the boy was happy and loved in the Davis home.55

Much to their sorrow, the Davises were forced to give up custody of Jim Limber after a vicious Union officer threatened to take the boy from them and to raise him to hate the South. Rather than see Jim Limber in this man's custody, Varina Davis asked family friend and Union general Rufus Saxton to take the child, and he agreed to do so. Years later, Jefferson Davis was still trying to find out about the boy's welfare.56

Attitude Toward Slavery

Although Davis defended slavery prior to and during the war, he also admitted slavery had its "evils and abuses."57 Davis believed that slavery, administered in a Christian manner, would prepare the slaves for eventual freedom and full equality with whites.58

One reason that Davis disputed the abolitionist portrayals of slaveowners as vicious brutes who constantly abused their slaves was that he treated his slaves with the utmost respect. His first overseer was his friend and personal servant, James Pemberton. He permitted his slaves to accumulate property.  He set up a system where any of his slaves who were accused of wrongdoing were tried and sentenced by a jury of other slaves. He gave gifts to each slave on special occasions like birthdays and weddings. Even during the war, he sent thousands of dollars to his brother, Joseph, in order to ensure that his slaves were properly provisioned. He expressed concern over the fate of his slaves in letters. In an amazing and telling show of trust, Davis armed his slaves when his plantation was threatened by a band of white criminals who were trying to make a cut-off behind his plantation.59

Support for Emancipation

Toward the end of the war Davis led the fight to grant slaves their freedom in exchange for military service. When the Confederate Congress began to debate a bill that would allow slaves to serve in the army, Davis insisted that slaves who performed this service be granted their freedom, even if they didn't serve in combat roles. Davis wrote to Governor William Smith of Virginia that he promised ". . . to seek legislation to secure unmistakably freedom to the slave who shall enter the Army with a right to return to his old home when he shall have been honorably discharged from the Military Service."60

The Confederate Congress proceeded to pass a bill that permitted slaves to be enlisted into the army, but the bill did not guarantee emancipation. In response to this, Davis tried to ensure that emancipation would be rewarded for faithful military service "by having the War Department regulations governing the enlistment of slaves require that masters consent to freedom before slaves could be enrolled."61 Davis could have easily just signed the bill and done nothing more, but he didn't. Instead, he went out of his way to try to ensure that slaves would receive emancipation for faithful military service.

It should be mentioned that in late 1864, Davis was prepared to abolish slavery in exchange for European diplomatic recognition in order to save the Confederacy. Davis informed Confederate congressional leaders of his intentions, and then sent Duncan Kenner to Europe to make the proposal. Davis even made Kenner a minister plenipotentiary so as to ensure he could make the proposal to the British and French governments and that it would be taken seriously.62

Let Them Testify

Let Them Testify

At a time when many Americans, in all parts of the country, still opposed allowing blacks to testify in court, Davis favored allowing them to do so. He expressed this view in a letter to his wife in which he also expressed concern about the welfare of their former slaves:

I hope the Negroes' fidelity will be duly rewarded and regret that we are not in a position to aid and protect them. There is, I observe, a controversy which I regret as to allowing negroes to testify in court. From brother Joe [Joseph Davis], many years ago, I derived the opinion that they should be made competent witnesses, the jury judging of their credibility.63

In another letter to his wife, Davis again spoke fondly of his former slaves:

Their good faith under many trials, and the mutual affection between them and myself, make me always solicitous for their welfare. . . .64

CONCLUSION

Jefferson Davis was a man of principle, a man of conviction, and a man of faith. He was what many would call "a good soul." He was a man who strove to live his Christian faith. Throughout his life he was known for acts of charity and kindness. He earned the respect of many of his bitterest enemies once they got to know him. To a man, his friends adored him.

Contrary to the persistent myths about his leadership style, Davis was no micromanaging, intolerant tyrant--far from it. When it came to commanding his generals, he repeatedly left crucial decisions up to them and trusted their judgment. In working with his cabinet members, he sought their advice, encouraged a free exchange of ideas, and rarely countermanded the majority opinion among them. As far as his personal relations with subordinates, he was usually considerate and tolerant toward them.

Finally, although Davis shared the common belief of his day in white supremacy, his racial views did not lead him to treat blacks unkindly or disrespectfully. On the contrary, Davis believed he had a Christian duty to treat blacks, whether slave or free, with kindness and respect. Most of Davis's slaves loved him and spoke favorably of him till the day they died.

Books and Articles

Books and Articles

Michael T. Griffith

2003

@All Rights Reserved

Allen, Felicity. Jefferson Davis, Unconquerable Heart. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1999.

Ashe, Samuel. A Southern View of the Invasion of the Southern States and War of 1861-1865, Crawfordville, Georgia: Ruffin Flag Company, n.d., reprint of 1938 edition.

Catton, Bruce, editor. The National Experience: A History of the United States. Second Edition. New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1968.

Cooper, William. Jefferson Davis, American. Viking Books Edition. New York: Viking Books, 2001.

Davis, Kenneth C. Don't Know Much About the Civil War. New York: Avon Books, 1997.

Fehrenbacher, Don, editor. Abraham Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1832-1858. New York: Viking Press, 1989.

Galloway, Charles. Jefferson Davis: A Judicial Estimate. Biloxi, Mississippi: The Beauvoir Press, 1989, reprint of June 3, 1908 speech delivered at the University of Mississippi.

Graham, John. A Constitutional History of Secession. Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Company, 2002.

Gordon, David, editor. Secession, State, and Liberty. New York: Transaction Publishing, 1998.

Hummel, Jeffrey Rogers. Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War. Chicago: Open Court, 1996.

Kennedy, James and Walter. Was Jefferson Davis Right? Gretna, Louisiana: Pelican Publishing Company, 1998.

McPherson, James. The Battle Cry of Freedom. New York: Ballantine Books, 1988.

McWhiney, Grady. Jefferson Davis: Our Greatest Hero. Biloxi, Mississippi: The Beauvoir Press, 1997.

Ostrowski, James. "An Analysis of President Lincoln's Legal Arguments Against Secession." Paper delivered at the Secession, State, and Economy Conference, College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina, April 7-9, 1995, available at http://apollo3.com/~jameso/secession.html.

Patrick, Rembert. Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet. Baton Rouge, Louisiana: LSU Press, 1944.

Stephens, Alexander. A Constitutional View Of The Late War Between The States; Its Causes, Character, Conduct And Results. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The National Publishing Company, 1868.

Strode, Hudson, editor. Jefferson Davis: Private Letters 1823-1889. New York: De Capo Press, 1995, reprint of 1966 edition.

Tate, Allen. Jefferson Davis: His Rise and Fall. Nashville, Tennessee: J. S. Sanders & Company, 1998, reprint of 1929 edition.

Tilley, John. Facts the Historians Leave Out. Ashland City, Tennessee: Nippert Publishing, 1993, reprint of 1951 edition.

Why Did the South Secede?

Why Did the South Secede?

Michael T. Griffith

2004

@All Rights Reserved

Nearly all textbooks give the impression that the South withdrew from the Union merely to protect the institution of slavery.  This is a misleading, overly simplistic characterization.  Slavery was not the only factor that led the South to secede.  In fact, some of the wealthiest slaveholders opposed secession.  They believed, for good reason, that slavery would actually be safer in the Union than out of it.  Historian William Klingaman notes that even Lincoln argued that the South would have a harder time protecting slavery outside the Union:

But secession, Lincoln argued, would actually make it harder for the South to preserve slavery. If the Southern states tried to leave the Union, they would lose all their constitutional guarantees. . . . (Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, New York: Viking Press, 2001, p. 32)

Most people aren’t aware that, even as president, Lincoln supported a proposed constitutional amendment that would have guaranteed slavery’s continuation forever.  Lincoln mentioned his support for this amendment in his first inaugural address.  In the years leading up to the Civil War, Lincoln acknowledged that slavery was protected by the Constitution.  He also supported the Fugitive Slave Law.  Therefore, some Southern statesmen didn’t believe Lincoln was going to threaten slavery’s existence.  Yet, they supported secession anyway.

Most Southern leaders who advocated secession in order to protect slavery did so because they believed that Lincoln and the Republicans in Congress would try to abolish slavery by unconstitutional means and that Southern slaveholders would not receive compensation for their slaves.  Southern spokesmen felt this would be unfair, since Northern slaveholders had been able to receive various types of compensation for their slaves when most Northern states had abolished slavery several decades earlier.  They knew that emancipation without compensation would do great damage to the Southern economy.  Critics note that many Southern statesmen voiced the view that slavery was a “positive good.”  Yet, even the “positive good” advocates acknowledged that slavery had its evils and abuses.  In any case, there were plenty of Southerners who opposed slavery and who were willing to see it abolished in a fair, gradual manner, as had been done in most Northern states.  After all, 69-75 percent of Southern families did not own slaves.  However, few Southerners believed the Republicans were interested in a fair, gradual emancipation program.  The more extreme Republicans, who were known as “Radical Republicans,” certainly weren’t interested in such a program.

Few people today understand why the South distrusted the Republican Party.  Not only was the Republican Party a new party, it was also the first purely regional (or sectional) party in the country’s history.  Republican leaders frequently gave inflammatory anti-Southern speeches, some of which included egregious falsehoods and even threats  (Susan-Mary Grant, North Over South: Northern Nationalism and American Identity in the Antebellum Era, University of Kansas Press, 2000).  Historian William C. Cooper points out that the Republicans “had no interest in cultivating support in the South, which they branded as basically un-American,” and that “No major party had ever before so completely repudiated the South” (Jefferson Davis, American, Vintage Books Edition, New York: Vintage Books, 2000, pp. 294, 295).  British historian Susan-Mary Grant notes that the Republican Party that came into being in 1854 was “a sectional party with a sectional ideology . . . that was predicated on opposition to the South, to the economic, social, and political reality of that section” (North Over South, p. 17).  Southerners were alarmed when dozens of Republican congressmen endorsed an advertisement for Hinton Helper’s book The Impending Crisis of the South, which spoke approvingly of a potential slave revolt that would kill untold numbers of Southern citizens in a “barbarous massacre.”  The Republican Party even distributed an abridged edition of the book as a campaign document, and Republican editors added captions like “The Stupid Masses of the South” and “Revolution . . . Violently If We Must.”  Southerners also noticed that the Republicans broke the long-established tradition of having a sectionally balanced presidential ticket.  For decades, all major political parties had nominated tickets that consisted of one candidate from the North and one from the South.  Each of the three other parties in the 1860 election followed this tradition, but not the Republican Party.  Another reason that Southerners were worried about the Republicans was that the party’s leaders made it clear they would push for several policies that the South believed were harmful and unconstitutional.  Many Southerners feared that Republican leaders were determined to subjugate and exploit the South by any means.  With these facts in mind, perhaps it’s not hard to understand why the election of Lincoln triggered the secession of seven Southern states.

As mentioned, slavery was not the only factor that led to secession.  If one reads the Declarations of Causes of Secession and the Ordinances of Secession that were issued by the first seven states of the Confederacy, one finds that there were several reasons these states wanted to be independent and that some of the reasons had nothing to do with slavery.  For example, the Georgia and Texas Declarations of Causes of Secession included economic complaints, in addition to concerns relating to slavery.  The Texas declaration complained that unfair federal legislation was enriching the North at the expense of the Southern states. The Georgia declaration complained about federal protectionism and subsidies for Northern business interests.

The South’s long-standing opposition to the federal tariff was another factor that led to secession.  The South’s concern over the tariff was nothing new.  South Carolina and the federal government nearly went to war over the tariff in 1832-1833.  In the session of Congress before Lincoln’s inauguration, the House of Representatives passed a huge increase in the tariff, over the loud objections of Southern congressmen.  Naturally, this alarmed Southern statesmen at all levels, since the South was always hit hardest by the tariff.  One only has to read the many speeches that Southern senators and representatives gave against the 1860-1861 tariff increase to see how seriously they took this issue.  Moreover, in the congressional debates from the previous four decades, one can find dozens of Southern speeches against the tariff.  Opposition to the tariff led some Southern leaders to talk of secession over thirty years before the Civil War occurred (Walter Brian Cisco, Taking A Stand: Portraits from the Southern Secession Movement, Shippensburg, Pennsylvania: White Mane Books, 2000, pp. 1-44).  Scholars who argue that Southern statesmen didn’t really care about the tariff and that this was merely a “smoke screen” are ignoring a massive body of historical evidence.

The South had valid complaints about the tariff.  Jeffrey R. Hummel, a professor of economics and history, notes the negative impact of the tariff on the Southern states and concedes that Southern complaints about the tariff were justified:

Despite a steady decline in import duties, tariffs fell disproportionately on Southerners, reducing their income from cotton production by at least 10 percent just before the Civil War. . . .

At least with respect to the tariff’s adverse impact, Southerners were not only absolutely correct but displayed a sophisticated understanding of economics. . . .  The tariff was inefficient; it not only redistributed wealth from farmers and planters to manufacturers and laborers but overall made the country poorer. (Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War, Chicago: Open Court, 1996, pp. 39-40, 73)

A major point of contention between the North and the South was the issue of the size and power of the federal government as defined by the Constitution.  Most Northern politicians supported a loose reading of the Constitution and wanted to expand the size and scope of the federal government, even if that meant giving the government powers that were not authorized by the Constitution.  Most Southern statesmen supported a strict reading of the Constitution and believed the federal government should perform only those functions that were expressly delegated to it by the Constitution.  From the earliest days of the republic, Southern and Northern leaders battled over this issue.  Our textbooks rarely do justice to this important fact.

Four of the eleven Southern states did not join in the first wave of secession and did not secede over slavery.  Those four states—Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia—only seceded months later when Lincoln made it clear he was going to launch an invasion in order to “save” the Union.  In fact, those states initially voted against secession by fairly sizable majorities.  However, they believed the Union should not be maintained by force.  Therefore, when Lincoln announced he was calling up 75,000 troops to form an invasion force, they held new votes, and in each case the vote was strongly in favor of secession.  Thus, four of the eleven states that comprised the Confederacy seceded because of their objection to federal coercion and not because of slavery.

Virtually no history textbooks mention the fact that each Confederate state retained the right to abolish slavery within its borders, and that the Confederate Constitution permitted the admission of free states into the Confederacy.  In his analysis of the Confederate Constitution, historian Forrest McDonald says the following:

All states reserved the right to abolish slavery in their domains, and new states could be admitted without slavery if two-thirds of the existing states agreed—the idea being that the tier of free states bordering the Ohio River might in time wish to join the Confederacy. (States’ Rights and the Union, University of Kansas Press, 2000, p. 204)

Did the South Have the Right to Secede?

Did the South Have the Right to Secede

Michael T. Griffith

2004

@All Rights Reserved

I believe the evidence is clear that the South had the right to secede.  None other than Ulysses S. Grant, the commanding general of the Union army for much of the Civil War and later a president of the United States, admitted he believed that if any of the original thirteen states had wanted to secede in the early days of the Union, it was unlikely the other states would have challenged that state’s right to do so.  Grant also conceded he believed the founding fathers would have sanctioned the right of secession rather than see a war “between brothers.”  Said Grant,

If there had been a desire on the part of any single State to withdraw from the compact at any time while the number of States was limited to the original thirteen, I do not suppose there would have been any to contest the right, no matter how much the determination might have been regretted. . . .

If they [the founding fathers] had foreseen it, the probabilities are they would have sanctioned the right of a State or States to withdraw rather than that there should be war between brothers. (The Personal Memoirs Of Ulysses S. Grant, Old Saybrook, Connecticut: Konecky & Konecky, 1992, reprint of original edition, pp. 130-131)

There is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits a state from peacefully and democratically separating from the Union.  Indeed, the right of secession is implied in the Tenth Amendment, which reads,

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.

The Constitution does not give the federal government the power to force a state to remain in the Union against its will.  President James Buchanan acknowledged this fact in a message to Congress shortly before Lincoln assumed office.  Nor does the Constitution prohibit the citizens of a state from voting to repeal their state’s ratification of the Constitution.  Therefore, by a plain reading of the Tenth Amendment, a state has the legal right to peacefully withdraw from the Union.

Critics of the Confederacy cite certain clauses in the Constitution about the supremacy of federal law or about states not being allowed to enter into treaties with foreign powers, etc., etc.  However, it goes without saying that such clauses only apply to states that are in the Union.  There’s simply nothing in the Constitution that says a state can’t peacefully and democratically revoke its ratification.  If a state’s citizens were to vote in a legitimate democratic process to revoke the state’s ratification of the Constitution, either by direct vote or by convention, then that state would no longer be bound by the Constitution.  The citizens of each state are the ultimate sovereign, not the federal government.  The federal government is supposed to be servant of the people, not their master.  Even Lloyd Paul Stryker, who opposed secession, admitted the Southern states had an “arguable claim that no specific section of the Constitution stood in their way,” i.e., no section of the Constitution prohibited peaceful, democratic separation (Andrew Johnson: A Study in Courage, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1930, p. 447).

The great early American constitutional scholar William Rawle said a state had the right to secede.  Rawle was a contemporary of founding fathers Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and was appointed by George Washington as the first U.S. Attorney for Pennsylvania.  Rawle’s book A View of the Constitution of the United States was used as a legal textbook at a number of universities, including West Point, Dartmouth, and Harvard.  To this day, scholars who debate legal issues relating to the First and Second Amendments refer to Rawle’s work.  On the issue of secession, Rawle said,

It depends on the state itself to retain or abolish the principle of representation, because it depends on itself whether it will continue a member of the Union. To deny this right would be inconsistent with the principle on which all our political systems are founded, which is, that the people have in all cases, a right to determine how they will be governed.

This right must be considered as an ingredient in the original composition of the general government, which, though not expressed, was mutually understood. . . . (A View of the Constitution of the United States, 2nd Edition, 1829, Vol. 4, p. 571)

Another early American legal giant, George Tucker, also said a state had the right to secede.  Like Rawle, Tucker was a contemporary of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and corresponded with the former.  Tucker came to be known as the “American Blackstone.”  Tucker was a professor of law at the University of William and Mary.  He served as the chief justice of the Virginia supreme court and was appointed as a federal district court judge by James Madison.  Tucker’s 1803 edition of Blackstone’s Commentaries, which he annotated to American law, was widely used for the teaching of law in the United States for years.  On the issue of secession, Tucker wrote that the states’ participation in the Union was voluntary and that each state had the right to resume to “the most unlimited extent” the functions that it had delegated to the federal government:

The federal government, then, appears to be the organ through which the united republics communicate with foreign nations and with each other.  Their submission to its operation is voluntary: its councils, its engagements, its authority are theirs, modified, and united.  Its sovereignty is an emanation from theirs, not a flame by which they have been consumed, nor a vortex in which they are swallowed up.  Each is still a perfect state, still sovereign, still independent, and still capable, should the situation require, to resume the exercise of its functions as such in the most unlimited extent. (Tucker, editor, Blackstone’s Commentaries: With Notes of Reference to the Constitution and Laws of the Federal Government of the United States, Volume 1, Philadelphia: William Birch and Abraham Small, 1803, Appendix: Note D, Section 3:IV)

The Union was never meant to be held together by force.  The Southern states joined the Union voluntarily, and they should have been able to leave it voluntarily.  A key principle of Americanism is the sacred right of self-government, that government should only govern “with the consent of the governed.”  This noble idea is expressed in the Declaration of Independence. America came into existence by secession from England.  There was only a war because England wouldn’t allow the American colonies to leave in peace.  George Washington’s secretary of state, Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, rightly said that America was founded on the principle of secession.  Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence and the third president of the United States, said in a letter to William Crawford in 1816 that if a state wanted to leave the Union, he would not hesitate to say “Let us separate,” even if he didn’t agree with the reasons the state wanted to leave.

The principle of peaceful separation was as American as apple pie.  But Lincoln, relying on an utterly erroneous understanding of the founding of the Union, declared that secession was “treason,” “insurrection,” and “rebellion.”  If Lincoln had been alive during the Revolutionary War and had used the same kind of reasoning that he used against Southern secession, he would have sided with the British.
 
The South had no desire to overthrow the federal government.  The South seceded in a peaceful, democratic manner, with the support of the overwhelming majority of Southern citizens.  The Southern states used the same process to secede that the original thirteen states used to ratify the U.S. Constitution, i.e., by voting in special conventions comprised of delegates who were elected by the people.  The one exception was Tennessee, which, instead of holding a convention, passed a secession resolution in the state legislature and then held a referendum in which secession won by a margin of more than two to one.  Furthermore, most Southerners believed secession would be peaceful.  In fact, it’s revealing that the early correspondence of the first Confederate secretary of war, Leroy Walker, "clearly indicates he did not expect war" (Rembert Patrick, Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet, Louisiana State University Press, 1944, p. 106)

What Caused the War?

What Caused the War

Michael T. Griffith

2004

@All Rights Reserved

The war was fought because Lincoln refused to allow the South to go in peace.  Other Republican leaders and certain Northern business interests played key roles in the decision to use force, but ultimately Lincoln was the one who had to make the decision, and he chose to launch an invasion.  The fighting and dying started when federal armies invaded the South.  That’s why nearly all the battles were fought in the Southern states. 

The Confederacy did not want war.  One of the first things Jefferson Davis did after assuming office as president of the Confederacy was to send a peace delegation to Washington, D.C., in an effort to establish friendly ties with the federal government (Cooper, Jefferson Davis, American, pp. 360-362; Kenneth Davis, Don’t Know Much About the Civil War, New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1996, pp. 156-157). The Confederacy offered to pay the South’s share of the national debt and to pay compensation for all federal installations in the Southern states (Charles Roland, The Confederacy, University of Chicago Press, 1960, p. 28; Patrick, Jefferson Davis and His Cabinet, p. 77; William C. Davis, Look Away! A History of the Confederate States of America, New York: The Free Press, 2002, p. 87).  The Confederacy also announced that Northern ships would continue to enjoy free navigation of the Mississippi River (Hummel, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men, p. 138; Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Volume 1, pp. 210-213).  Yet, Lincoln rejected all Confederate peace offers and insisted that federal armies would invade if the Southern states didn’t renounce their independence and recognize federal authority.

Who Started the War?

Who Started the War

Michael T. Griffith

2004

@All Rights Reserved

The standard textbook answer to this question is that the South obviously started the war because it “fired the first shot” by attacking Fort Sumter, which was located in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina.  Most textbooks don’t mention several facts that put the attack in proper perspective.  For example, after the Fort Sumter incident, the Confederacy continued to express its desire for peaceful relations with the North.  Not a single federal soldier was killed in the attack.  The Confederates allowed the federal troops at the fort to return to the North in peace after they surrendered.  South Carolina and then the Confederacy offered to pay compensation for the fort.  Lincoln later admitted he deliberately provoked the attack so he could use it as justification for an invasion.  The Confederates only attacked the fort after they learned that Lincoln had sent an armed naval convoy to resupply the federal garrison at the fort.  The sending of the convoy violated the repeated promises of Lincoln’s secretary of state, William Seward, that the fort would be evacuated.  Seward continued to promise the Confederacy that the fort would be evacuated even after he knew that Lincoln had decided to send the convoy.  Major John Anderson, the Union officer who commanded the federal garrison at the fort, opposed the sending of the convoy, because he felt it would violate the assurances that the fort would be evacuated, because he knew it would be viewed as a hostile act, and because he did not want war.  Several weeks before the Fort Sumter incident, Lincoln virtually declared war on the South in his inaugural address, even though he knew the Confederacy wanted peaceful relations.

In his inaugural speech, given weeks before the attack on Fort Sumter, Lincoln threatened to invade the seceded states if they didn’t continue to pay federal “duties and imposts” (the tariff) and/or if they didn’t allow the federal government to occupy and maintain all federal installations within their borders.  Imagine what the American colonists would have thought if the British had said to them, “We want peace.  But, we’re going to invade you if you don’t keep paying our tariff and/or if you don’t allow us to occupy and maintain all British installations within your borders.”  The colonists would have rightly regarded this as a virtual declaration of war.  Of course, in effect, the British did say this to the colonies.  This was the same position that Lincoln presented to the Confederate states weeks before the Fort Sumter attack.  Furthermore, five months earlier, some Republicans in Congress publicly swore “by everything in the heavens above and the earth beneath” that they would convert the seceded states “into a wilderness” (James McPherson, The Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era, New York: Ballantine Books, 1988, p. 251).

If Lincoln had desired peace, he knew all he had to do was evacuate Fort Sumter, as his own secretary of state had been promising would be done for weeks.  When the Confederate authorities were told the fort was going to be evacuated, Confederate forces stopped building up the defenses around the harbor and celebrated.  Across the harbor, Major Anderson was grateful the fort would be evacuated and that therefore North and South would separate peacefully (Cisco, Taking A Stand, pp. 105-106).

But, sadly, Lincoln didn’t pursue peace with the Confederacy.  For a while it seemed as though he was prepared to evacuate Fort Sumter, in spite of his earlier statements to the contrary.  Initially all but two of his cabinet members urged evacuation, as did his general-in-chief, General Winfield Scott.  However, Radical Republicans and influential Northern business interests applied intense pressure on Lincoln and on his cabinet not to evacuate the fort.  Radicals in the Senate threatened impeachment if the fort were evacuated (Catton and Catton, Two Roads to Sumter, p. 277).  Once the low Confederate tariff was announced, powerful Northern business interests came out strongly opposed to peace with the Confederacy.  As the pressure for aggression mounted, Lincoln decided to provoke an attack on the fort in order to use the attack as a pretext for invasion and to whip up a majority of the Northern public into a war frenzy against the South.  Lincoln himself later admitted in two letters that he provoked the attack so he could use it as justification for waging war (Francis Butler Simkins, A History of the South, Third Edition, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963, pp. 213, 215-216; J. G. Randall and David Donald, The Civil War and Reconstruction, Lexington, Massachusetts: D. C. Heath and Company, 1969, p. 174).

Some Northern leaders who wanted peace urged that Fort Sumter be evacuated.  Among those leaders was General-In-Chief Winfield Scott and Senator Stephen Douglas, one of the most prominent Northern members of the U.S. Senate.  Scott and Douglas both recognized that the continued federal occupation of Fort Sumter was a virtual declaration of war against the Confederacy.  Any country on earth would strongly resent the unwanted occupation of an island in one of its major harbors.

Republicans protested loudly over the fact that several Southern states seized numerous federal installations before Lincoln assumed office and in a few cases before the state had voted to secede.  Modern critics tend to make a mountain out of a molehill over this issue, as if those seizures alone justified a brutal invasion.  Nearly all the seizures occurred after the state had already seceded, so in those cases the state arguably had every right to assume control of federal facilities within its borders.  Most of the relatively few pre-secession seizures took place when there was no doubt the state was going to secede.  In one case, local citizens seized a federal installation on their own initiative.  When the governor learned of the seizure, he ordered the citizens to leave the facility.  Not one of the seizures involved the loss of life.  A number of the federal facilities that were seized were of little consequence and were manned only by small garrisons.  Admittedly, the pre-secession seizures, though few in number, were unwise and arguably illegal.  However, let’s keep in mind that these seizures posed no threat to the federal government, that they were bloodless, and that the Confederacy offered to pay compensation for all federal installations in the South.  The seizures certainly didn’t provide any credible justification for a federal invasion, and they were hardly what one could call “aggression” in any meaningful sense of the word.

The Emancipation Proclamation

The Emancipation Proclamation

Michael T. Griffith

2004

@All Rights Reserved

Everyone can agree that slavery needed to be abolished.  However, the Emancipation Proclamation, signed on January 1, 1863, left over 400,000 slaves in bondage.  Let’s take a moment to consider the purpose, nature, and legality of the Emancipation Proclamation.

The proclamation was a war measure, as the document itself states.  The Radical Republicans hoped the proclamation would produce a slave revolt in the South, even if this resulted in the deaths of thousands of women and children on plantations and farms.  (Perhaps it’s an indication of how most slaves were treated that no such revolt ever occurred, even though many plantations and farms were being run by women and children at the time, since most of the men were engaged in the war effort.)

The proclamation did not free a single slave in any of the four Union slave states nor in any of the regions of the South that were then under Union control.  The proclamation excluded the slaves in those areas.  The proclamation only applied to slaves in the Confederate states, where Lincoln had no authority to enforce it.  Slavery continued in the Northern slave states and in the South for the rest of the war and wasn’t abolished until the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified in late 1865.  Historians John Blum and Bruce Catton commented on the limited nature of the proclamation:

The Emancipation Proclamation asserted freedom for slaves in those areas that were not under control of the federal government and left slavery untouched in areas where federal control was effective.  It seemed a halting measure of dubious effect and shaky legality, and the Confederates denounced it as a call for a slave revolt. (In Blum and Catton, Edmund Morgan, Arthur Schlesinger, Kenneth Stampp, and C. Vann Woodward, editors, The National Experience: A History of the United States, Second Edition, New York: Harcourt, Brace, & World, 1968, p. 360)

African-American scholar Lerone Bennett documents that Lincoln only issued the proclamation under intense pressure from the Radical Republicans, who were threatening to cut off funds to the army if emancipation wasn’t made a war objective, and that Lincoln only began to seriously consider the Radicals’ demands after Union forces suffered several defeats (Bennett, Forced Into Glory: Abraham Lincoln’s White Dream, Chicago: Johnson Publishing Company, 2000, pp. 23-24, 415-420, 498-504; see also Klingaman, Abraham Lincoln and the Road to Emancipation, pp. 139, 148-149, 200-202).  Bennett also shows that Lincoln sought to undermine the proclamation almost as soon as he issued it.

The proclamation provided no compensation for slaveholders, even though Lincoln himself had said this should be done, and even though most slaveholders treated their slaves humanely (as even many abolitionists had once been willing to admit).  Few Northern abolitionists had ever supported compensated emancipation.  The Radical Republicans certainly weren’t about to support such a plan.  They didn’t care that several Northern states had reaped fantastic profits from the slave trade.  Nor did they care that when most Northern states had abolished slavery they had done so gradually and in a manner that enabled Northern slaveholders to recover the cost of their slaves.

If the Southern states were still actually in the Union, as Lincoln and other Republicans incredibly claimed, then the Emancipation Proclamation was unconstitutional.  Neither Lincoln nor Congress had the right to abolish slavery in any state.  The only legal ways to abolish it would have been by a constitutional amendment or by the states abolishing it on their own.

Of course, the Southern states had in fact left the Union, and everyone knew it.  Lincoln only denied this fact because he knew the federal government had no constitutional right to invade states that had peacefully and democratically separated from the Union.  Since the Southern states were no longer part of the federal compact, the Emancipation Proclamation amounted to an attempt to incite a slave revolt in another country, in spite of the proclamation’s disclaimer to the contrary.  Certainly the Radicals hoped the proclamation would spark a slave revolt, regardless of the cost in human lives.  American leaders reacted angrily when the British tried to incite a slave revolt in the American colonies during the Revolutionary War.  This was a serious threat, since slaves were held in each of the thirteen colonies at the time.  The British offered freedom to American slaves who would fight in the British army, and they encouraged slaves to sabotage the colonial war effort.  Not surprisingly, tens of thousands of slaves flocked to British army encampments.  Fortunately, however, not enough slaves fought for the British to turn the tide against the colonies.  At the end of the war, at least 18,000 former slaves accompanied British troops as they evacuated New York, Charleston, Savannah, and other cities (Hummel, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men, p. 10).

If the Emancipation Proclamation had covered all slaves, if it had included compensation for slaveholders, and if it had contained guarantees a