The history and perceptions of the secession crisis - Research Paper Example

?The History and Perceptions of the Secession Crisis Introduction The conflict between Northern and Southern politicians was brought about by the massive western territories acquired by the United States in 1848 through the peace agreement with Mexico (Bartkus 1999). Southerners petitioned for the freedom to bring slavery into the newly acquired territories if the circumstances allowed lucrative ventures; Northerners demanded slavery clearly and completely abolished (Reynolds 1970). As stated by Huston (2000), the dispute had been raised by David Wilmot in 1846, yet it only reached an agreement in 1850 when the different sections of the Compromise of 1850 were ratified in Congress. Following the congressional resolution is the electoral affirmation that this agreement was definitely amenable (Crofts 1989). The congressional elections in the 1850 spurred Democratic wins of the compromise procedures in the North, which were eventually clearly reconfirmed in the 1852 presidential election (Wakelyn 1996). The reaction of the South to the Compromise was dissimilar. States in the upper South, namely, Delaware, Missouri, Maryland, Arkansas, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, and North Carolina, willingly agreed to the actions taken by Congress; however, states in the lower South, namely, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina initiated a large-scale controversy about secession (Barnwell 1982). In 1850, particularly in the gubernatorial and congressional elections as well as in state conventions, the Southern states that agreed to the Compromise of 1850 largely succeed (Crofts 1989). The sectional problem of slavery in the regions ceased at least for several years (Bartkus 1999). This essay will discuss the history of the secession crisis and the implications of this development in the point of view of the North and the South. The Unfolding of the Secession Crisis Historians identified four primary factors for the success of the Union forces (Huston 2000): (1) the Compromise resolution did not appear to wound the interests or pride of Southerners; (2) a comforting affluence due to high prices for cotton; (3) the nationalism of Southerners was inadequately enriched to uphold secession; and (4) party loyalties persist to be strong (p. 281). Further, according to Huston (2000), for a number of historians, the major concern, and hence the core of their interest, was the secession debate, not the debate over union, and the common assumption has been that the cotton-dependent Southerners refuted secession as a remedy to the suspected Northern incursions on the constitutional rights of the South. Few recognize the attempt of Southern unionists to mitigate the secession conflict in 1850 (Wakelyn 1996). The Southern States Rights, those supporting either provisional or immediate secession, have gained most of the attention. The victors of the elections in the state of the Deep South, the Constitutional Unionists or the unionists, have been given very little emphasis (Wakelyn 1996). It is not occasionally claimed, specifically by scholars of the nineteenth century, that the winners did not only enjoy the rewards, they also gained much of the historians’ interest (Barnwell 1982), and history is thus presented from the standpoint of the victors. Basically, fury over the compromise stemmed mostly from Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. South Carolina, in particular, was willing to secede but demanded for the secession of the other states as well (Coppieters & Sakwa 2003). Governor Whitemarsh Seabrook had been given advise that other states harbor low judgments of the emotional security and intentions of South Carolina policymakers that if the state decided to act prematurely, other states would refuse to follow (Wakelyn 1996). George W. Towns, the governor of Georgia, requested to the state legislature in September 1850 the permission for a special election to commission representatives to a state conference to give opinion on the Compromise procedures (Huston 2000). John A. Quitman, the expansionist Mississippi governor, also summoned that state’s governing body into special meeting to institute elections for a special conference (Huston 2000). In December 1850, South Carolina moved at last when Seabrook demanded a state convention on the Union’s position and to give a request to the other Southern states to establish a congress in the South (Reynolds 1970). The election of delegations in Georgia in November and the later convention in 1850 challenge the secessionist faction of the Deep South (Crofts 1989). Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb returned in October and supported the Union and the Compromise (Bartkus 1999). The November election rewarded a massive success for the unionists. All over the South, the unionists dominated, and those who supported secession, such as South Carolina’s Robert Barnwell Rhett, were aware of it (Huston 2000). In 1852, South Carolina and the Mississippi conventions eventually assembled and merely fell down to the Unionism sweeping throughout the South (Wakelyn 1996). Nevertheless, the end of the secession arrived in the congressional and gubernatorial elections in the Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia in 1851 (Reynolds 1970). Political parties were significantly disorganized by 1850. Different among the states, South Carolina had practically a one-party structure; yet, within that system Calhoun structure was a separation over required state measures (Coppieters & Sakwa 2003). Powerful secessionist organizers, like Rhett, supported divided state measures: ‘for South Carolina to leave the Union by itself if necessary’ (Huston 2000, 281). Others, particularly unionists like Benjamin Franklin Perry, requested South Caroline just to cooperate with other states. His advocates were referred to as cooperationists (Crofts 1989). In Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi, the secessionists named themselves the party of States Rights and were normally consisted of Democratic legislators (Crofts 1989). By the end of 1850 it was evident that secession had an antisocial appearance to public, and hence in the 1851 campaigns the States Rights factions exploited secession’s theoretical right, not on essentially abandoning the Union (Wakelyn 1996). The opponents of the States Rights parties were later called the Constitutional Unionists (Huston 2000): ‘their following was primarily Whig although the movement attracted significant numbers of Democrats’ (p. 281). The Constitutional Unionists really fragmented party lines in Georgia. It was the offspring of the dominant political personalities Toombs, Stephens, and Cobb (Crofts 1989). They argued that the Compromise of 1850 was just and principled and that secession was improper. The unionists in Georgia presented the core agenda for entities that resist secession in 1851 (Reynolds 1970). The Georgia Convention in December 1850 convened and rejected immediate assembly. As an alternative the convention proposed what was referred to as the ‘Georgia Platform’ (Huston 2000, 282), which proclaimed dedication and loyalty to the Union, with the notice that secession would be defended if Congress disallowed the extension of slavery into the newly acquired territories, rejected the implementation of the Fugitive Slave Act, or eradicated the system of slavery in the federal center (Huston 2000). The unionist factions massively succeed in the states of the Deep South. In 1849, in Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, the Democrats chose thirteen delegates whereas the Whigs merely chose six (Barnwell 1982). In the congressional election in 1851, the Union forces acquired thirteen seats whereas the States Rights Democracy merely won five (p. 83). However, after 1851, a distinct political system appeared in the South, and the parties of the unionists vanished and the Whigs fell short in bringing back their electoral strength (Reynolds 1970). The Whigs became strong in the Deep South in 1848 and 1849. The crisis of the 1850-51 had exposed the cotton-rich South to a political repositioning (Huston 2000, 282). Those who argued for secession withdrew on several arguments. They pointed out that the destiny of slavery was threatened and that if the Compromise of 1850 were implemented liberation would surely follow immediately (Wakely 1996). Their main protest was the Northerners’ failure to acknowledge the importance of slaves’ property rights. In the point of view of these individuals, the Compromise of 1850 provided the South with nothing (Wakelyn 1996). The Southerners demand for the privilege to bring their slave property into the newly acquired areas, and the Compromise failed to give this right (Bartkus 1999). More threatening was the recognition of California as a free state. It would seem that the States Rights party thought that California did not undertake the legitimate process to be recognized as a state and that they thought the South should have acquired portion of the state as a new slave territory (Coppieters & Sakwa 2003). Some were bothered by the fragmentation of Texas, whereas the Charleston Mercury’s editor stated that the new Fugitive Slave Law was only “the poor pittance doled out to [the South] as an equivalent for her ignominious ejection from the Territories of the Union” (Huston 2000, 282). One reason to the virulent response of the secessionists to the Compromise was the fact that the South, after 1850, would permanently occupy a minority status in the federal government, and they became anxious that majority rule implied the economic and social abolition of slavery (Huston 2000). Due to the fact that the South and North did not have similar interests, specifically slavery, the South feared the ‘despotic will of a majority in Congress’ (p. 282). In addition to this is the persistence of the state rights factions that secession was harmonious and legitimate (Barnwell 1982). Harmonious secession was an assumption taken from the Constitution’s compact theory, that the states had formed the central government for specific roles (Huston 2000): If the federal government violated the contract—the specific grant of powers—and oppressed some or all of the states, they then had just cause to break the contract and reclaim their individual sovereignty (p. 282). In 1850, at a states rights convention in Yazoo, one of the agreements confirmed that since the Constitution was a treaty among states, basically, the states “have the right to withdraw peaceably at any time, without opposition or complaint” (Huston 2000, 282). The representatives of states rights were determined that secession would be a harmonious move since the Union was “a Union of consent and not of force” (p. 282). The advocates of Unionism reacted immediately, and historians have accurately presented their primary demand. First, they claimed that the Compromise of 1850 was a Southern victory (Wakelyn 1996). Congress did not ratify the Wilmot Proviso, certainly, that effort was unquestionably prevented, and slavery gained the chance to expand (Bartkus 1999). California was recognized in the Union as a free state, but it became as such because of the requests of the locals, and Southerners could not morally or legitimately enforce slavery upon another state (Bartkus 1999). A major agreement pressed from the North was the Fugitive Slave Law, and Texas was released from its war obligations (Huston 2000). In truth, hardly any claimed that the Compromise of 1850 substituted the Compromise of 1820, thus abolishing the disreputable ’30-degree, 30-minute line’ (p. 283). The advocates of Unionism were not able to find any breach of Southern rights, although they recognize that Northerners had acted and reacted immaturely (Coppieters & Sakwa 2003). Regarding the issue of the inviolability of slave property from the incursion of the North, the unionists were as fervent as the States Rights advocates (Reynolds 1970); they only argued that the Southern rights were adequately secured by the Compromise of 1850 (Barnwell 1982). To oppose states rights’ demand to secession, unionists in the Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia presented a dreadful image of what the South would turn into if secession will ever take place (Huston 2000): Foreign nations would be enticed into manipulating the new confederacies of a disunited America. A Southern nation could never have the prosperity the South enjoyed while a member of the Union. Reclaiming runaway slaves would be impossible once the Southern states became independent of the United States. That separation also would not be peaceable. Additionally, some argued, the value of slave property would plummet so that emancipation would become inevitable—exactly the outcome the states righters hoped to forestall (p. 283). Nevertheless, other issues emerged in the effort of the unionists to harm the reputation of the States Rights party’s disunionism. Unionists distrusted that a struggle for secession really lived, or at least they discredited it (Huston 2000). For instance, Howell Cobb, referred to as the ‘Southern man with Northern principles’ (p. 283) by John Calhoun, aimed to refute the secession right completely but was discouraged from such a theoretical debate by Alexander Stephens (Huston 2000). Even though the unionists could have attempted to prevent theories, they commonly claimed that what the faction of states rights referred to as the secession right was indeed the revolution right (Wakelyn 1996). Definitely Southerners had the inherent freedom to call a revolution, but if they decided to do so the outcome would be disastrous war. After Lincoln’s election in 1860, the only thing unionists could handle was a request that secession be decided through voting, that it be carried out by Southern states operating collaboratively, and that it be postponed until the regime of Lincoln perpetrated a clear aggressive act (Huston 2000). By this time, supporters discussed about the premise of secession, Benjamin Hill, Herschel Johnson, and Alexander Stephens demanded for staying in the Union until a violation of the Constitution is committed by the Republicans (p. 283). Particularly, Stephens informed the public that the Union had granted autonomy, freedom, and wealth for years, and that people of Georgia should be careful about ignoring an administration that had functioned quite efficiently (Crofts 1989). Among several scholars and historians, an idea continues that Lincoln furnished the nation with a revolutionary sense of nationalism. Nevertheless, the more compelling reality is the resemblance of the constitutional opinions of Lincoln to those articulated in the South during the 1850-51 debate (Huston 2000). Lincoln was, specifically, not disagreeable to the Southern unionist idea of secession. The distinction between the Southerners and Lincoln was not self-evident on constitutional principle regarding the misleading notion of secession and the permanence of the Union (p. 283). Instead, the rift was over the existence of slavery and how important to both parties was federal rule that influenced the system of slavery. Conclusions Adopting the alternative but compelling way of analyzing profoundly the ideas and lives of varied factions of powerful individuals in the South and the North, this essay showed the level to which each party had been induced to perceive the other as a hardnosed, conspiratorial force that would staunchly refuse to stop until it had defeated its adversary. Southerners perceive the tactic of Republicans as a scheme for its absolute destruction. In the meantime, Northerners were doubtful of the aspiration of the South to protect the existence of slavery by expanding its presence into newly acquired territories and guaranteeing the privilege of slaveholders to bring their slaves into federal zones. The unfolding of the secession crisis shows that the Civil War was mainly foreseeable and that the inclination of the political system of the United States to find amenable resolutions is quite determined that only a dispute as severe and wide-ranging as the one between human free will and slavery could rise above it. References Barnwell, John. Love of Order: South Carolina’s First Secession Crisis. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1982. Bartkus, Viva Ona. The Dynamic of Secession. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Coppieters, Bruno & Richard Sakwa. Contextualizing Secession: Normative Studies in Comparative Perspective. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2003. Crofts, Daniel. Reluctant Confederates: Upper South Unionists in the Secession Crisis. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1989. Huston, James. ‘Southerners against Secession: The Arguments of the Constitutional Unionists in 1850-51.’ Civil War History 46 (2000): 281. Reynolds, Donald. Editors Make War: Southern Newspapers in the Secession Crisis. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 1970. Wakelyn, Jon. Southern Pamphlets on Secession, November 1860-April 1861. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1996. Read More