Slavery, secession, Civil War issues

[swood1000]

Are you kidding? You don't see how a national border is easier to defend than a state border? How a national army can patrol and defend its borders, while no such undertaking can be in place to defend a state border. The South could have built a wall (and made the North pay for it) to keep slaves from escaping the South. They could have had checkpoints at border crossings and troops to patrol the border. Yes, I'm saying that Virginia did not have the ability or resources to patrol it's long border with Maryland, Kentucky Pennsylvania and Ohio (which did border the pre-Civil War Virginia).

Why can no such undertaking be in place to defend a state border?

As for how easy a national border is to defend, not all of the 11.4 million unauthorized immigrants in this country in 2012 overstayed their visas. How do you explain those numbers? And how much would it cost just to defend Virginia's borders?

The Legislature, I understand, are about appropriating a million of dollars for the defence of the State. A million of dollars! Why, sir, I have consulted with a military gentleman on the subject of the probable cost of putting the State in a proper condition of defence, and after stating to him the extent of hostile border which we had to defend, and the difficulties of access, and other like considerations necessary to be taken into the estimate, he said that it would require not less than one hundred millions of dollars to put the State of Virginia in a proper state of defence. http://secession.richmond.edu/docume...ng&id=pb.1.394

The Virginia public debt was already $40 million and they could barely pay the interest on the debt as it was

...for I fully concur in the remark of the gentleman from the county of Barbour [Mr. Woons], that unless this system of extravagant expenditure, which has been indulged in by our legislative assemblies for the last ten years, is speedily stopped, Virginia will fail to pay the interest of her public debt, and I fear will be driven to the verge of repudiation, if not to actual repudiation. Shall that disgrace ever rest upon Virginia? http://secession.richmond.edu/docume...ing&id=pb.2.82

We all know that one of the reasons for the United States in the first place was that otherwise, just like the countries of Europe, each state would need to maintain a standing army to defend itself against not just other states but against foreign countries. And on top of that you are proposing an army sufficient to stop runaway slaves? You can't be serious that this expenditure will be a net plus over their existing situation. Once slaves realized that they only needed to get across the Virginia border and not all the way to Canada all hell would break loose, and there would be no getting back these slaves, unlike their situation pre-secession, no more than they were able to get their slaves back from Canada. It was pointed out that the United States maintained an army of 17,000 men at an annual cost of $17 to 18 million. How many men would Virginia need just to stop runaway slaves? Would you be willing to advise them that South Carolina would pitch in for that? South Carolina would have it's own problems attending to encroachments from the sea.

Actually, I don't think that seceding would have reduced slave revolts. But the men of the slaveocracy did. They blamed Garrison for the Nat Turner rebellion (just months after the first publication of The Liberator) even though neither Turner nor any of his aides had even heard of Garrison, much less read his newspaper. They were certain that abolitionist talk in the North emboldened slave revolts. Separating from the North was seen as a way to cut off disgruntled slaves from the influence of Northern voices.

Please explain how on earth secession would reduce the activity of abolitionists. At least under the constitution the other states had to give full faith and credit to court proceedings in Virginia, so abolitionists who would sneak in for a quick raid and then return to Ohio could be chased there. Not after secession. And somehow moving Canada to the Virginia border is going to reduce slave revolts? Can you take me through that?

As for John Brown -- that was not a slave revolt (he hoped it would become one, but no slaves joined his forces at Harper's Ferry). It was a raid by an abolitionist band that INVADED the state of Virginia. Again, Brown and his men only had to cross an undefended state border to reach their. It would have been MUCH harder to penetrate a defended national border -- protected by a national army.

And again, what was it that kept them from defending their state borders in such a way? And how much was that going to cost?

Did you really just say that the South couldn't expand because it had no army? You really said that? Wow!

Who had three times their strength? The South did not concede that seceding barred them from the territories. They were sure that they would conquer the Southwest with little trouble, especially since they had a huge advantage in terms of position vs. the North. Even fighting for its life, the Confederacy sent expeditions inton New Mexico and Arizona. There was a strong secession movement in Southern California (suppressed by federal troops). But Southern leaders were sure they could sweep up the Southwest -- including California -- after defeating the North. Then it would be easy to deal with Mexico.

You continually talk like the South had no military power. We do know in hindsight that it was not enough to overcome the North, but that was certainly not the view in 1860-61. Not only were most of the Southern leaders certain that they would crush the North, most foreign military observers thought it very unlikely that the North could subdue the South.

The idea that the South was going to force the North to let them go, then conquer the Southwest -- and eventually Mexico and probably Cuba (in 1849 then-Senator Jefferson Davis contemplated a filibustering expedition to conquer Cuba -- it was always on his mind)

I'll just let John Carlile respond to you

Well, now, let us suppose that the Union has been dissolved. What remedy does it furnish for the grievances complained of in its united condition? Will you be able to push slavery into the ceded Territories? How are you to do it, supposing the North—all the States north of the Potomac, and which are opposed to it—in possession of the navy and army of the United States? Can you expect, if there is a dissolution of the Union, that you can carry slavery into California and New Mexico? You cannot dream of such a purpose.

Judah P. Benjamin admitted to British consul Robert Bunch that through the constitution prohibited the Confederacy from reopening the slave trade, under that same constitution the Southern government could not prevent an individual STATE from reopening the slave trade. And Bunch had the promise from Barnwell Rhett that South Carolina would indeed insist on reopening the African Slave Trade after the South's victory in the Civil War:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1834772...n_tab_contents

Yes, the desire of powerful Southern firebrands to reopen the African slave trade was, as you note, anathema to Britain and other foreign nations, but as Rhett told Bunch, the South would NEVER negotiate that issue. The fact that Rhett (and others) were so sure that the South would reopen the slave trade is a major reason why Britain never intervened on the South's behalf.

According to James Thornwell, there was no real plan to reopen the slave trade:

Had abolitionists never denounced the domestic trade as plunder and robbery, not a whisper would ever have been breathed about disturbing the peace of Africa. The men who were loudest in their denunciations of the Government had, with very few exceptions, no more desire to have the trade reopened, than the rest of their countrymen; but they delighted in teasing their enemies.

Furthermore, reopening the African slave trade, would not be in the best interests of Virginia:

Some wealthy slaveholders feared that the availability of "low-cost" Africans would considerably decrease the value of their investment in enslaved men and women. Southerners kept in servitude 3,950,000 men, women, and children. A small group among them, fewer than 8,000, which represented 2 percent of the direct slaveholders, owned almost one million people. They had what today would be millions of dollars invested in black men, women, and children. A significant plunge in their price would result in a sharp decrease in the slaveholders' fortunes. http://abolition.nypl.org/print/revival_of_slave_trade/

apart from the fact that the African slave trade was greatly discouraged internationally. Great Britain crushed the Brazilian slave trade. How long would it be before the South would be able to raise a navy capable of holding its own against Great Britain?

And why do you insist that there were any rational reasons -- other than the dispute over slavery -- for the South to leave?

How and why was the South treated badly -- other than in the conflict over slavery? What issues -- other than slavery and the conflict that came out of that -- were so serious that the South would rationally leave? Tariffs -- the Midwest shared the Southern distaste for high protective tariffs. None of those farm states ever felt mistreated or disrespected over tariffs/ It's not like the South or Southerners were denied positions of power and respect in the military, the courts or the government. They were there at the highest levels (the two highest ranking officers in the Army were Southerners; the majority of the Supreme Court)

Everything comes back to slavery and the South's paranoia over slavery. As Rhett told Bunch, to accept ANY restrictions on slavery was to admit that "slavery was an evil and a wrong, instead of, as the South believed, a Blessing to the African race and a system of labor appointed by God."

The ONLY issue that led to the secession of the first seven states from the union was slavery. Everything else stemmed from that issue. We don't have to guess and why they left -- they told us so.

Again, another reason was that of honor. The South didn't like being insulted by the North. From The Impending Crisis - America Before the Civil War 1848 * 1861 by David M. Potter:

Yet one is left with a feeling that the South did not want a separate destiny so much as it wanted recognition of the merits of southern society and security for the slave system, and that all the cultural ingredients of southern nationalism would have had very little weight if that recognition and that security had been forthcoming. p 469

Or as Shelby Foote put it

There's a great deal of misunderstanding about the Confederacy, the Confederate flag, slavery, the whole thing. The political correctness of today is no way to look at the middle of the nineteenth century. The Confederates fought for some substantially good things. States rights is not just a theoretical excuse for oppressing people. You have to understand that the raggedy Confederate soldier who owned no slaves and probably couldn't even read the Constitution, let alone understand it, when he was captured by Union soldiers and asked, What are you fighting for? replied, I'm fighting because you're down here. So I certainly would have fought to keep people from invading my native state. There's another good reason for fighting for the Confederacy. Life would have been intolerable if you hadn't. The women of the South just would not allow somebody to stay home and sulk while the war was going on. It didn't take conscription to grab him. The women made him go.

In this connection it is useful to remember that the four states that seceded after Ft. Sumter and after Lincoln's call for troops, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina constituted a majority (52%) of the free population of the entire Confederacy, so the importance of secession in response to threats of invasion can't be ignored.

[Olympic Fan]

I'm not going to try to reply to each of your statements, since you have mixed your responses to my statements with unattributed statements from others. It gets a little confusing to cut and paste replies.

But I continue to disagree with your take on almost everything. And I continue to believe that a lot of your mistakes come from applying hindsight to the situation facing the South in 1860-61.

I appreciate your quotations to Dukeface from the Virginia secession debate -- but the rational voices that you quote were a minority -- a small minority -- who were outvoted. Their arguments against secession make sense to us now, because we know what a disaster secession turned out to be for the slavocracy, but it was not convincing to the majority of the Virginia leaders, who ignored those wise arguments against secession and seceded anyway.

You put a lot of stock in the Corwin amendment and the earlier Crittenden compromise. But the former only passed the Senate on Mar. 2, 1861 -- AFTER seven states had seceded from the Union. Several similar proposals have been offered earlier, but had been voted down. Even the Corwin Amendment failed its first vote in the House in late February. Then Crittenden proposals were never adopted and were strongly opposed by Lincoln and the majority of Republicans (because it would have expanded slavery into the Southwest).

So the Crittenden proposals were never adopted and the Corwin Amendment was adopted too late to stop secession -- the seven wayward states weren't about to turn around and come back on that flimsy reed (even though it was passed by the House and Senate, it still needed to be ratified by three-fourths of the states and that was a very questionable decision).

Just a few other points:

-- You quote James Thornwell as your source that the South didn't contemplate reopening the African slave trade? Really, Thornwell -- a theologian who promoted the thesis that slavery was morally right and justified by the tenets of Christianity? A man who never held office ... against the bold brag of Rhett and the admission by Benjamin that there were Southern leaders determined to reopen the African slave trade -- even in the face of British intransience. It's not that they would build a navy to challenge the Royal Navy's anti-slave efforts ... but they would build blockade runners to evade the anti-slave patrols. Sure, some of them would be caught, but the profit would be so high that there were always those who would take the risk -- just as there are those today who run drugs into this country in spite of the might of the United States ant-drug efforts.

And I agree that few in Virginia wanted to see the slave trade reopened ... but under the Confederate constitution, the state of Virginia did not have the ability to stop the state of South Carolina or Mississippi or Louisiana -- which did want the trade reopened -- from doing so.

-- I made the point that the secessionist were certain that they could expand to the Southwest -- into New Mexico, Arizona, California and eventually Mexico. You refute that by quoting John Carlile, a Union loyalist who argued against secession. Yes, he was right -- but he was not listened to. He was voted down and had to flee the state. The MAJORITY of Southern firebrands were certain that they would beat the North easily, expand to the west and Southwest and maybe into Cuba.

The fact that they were wrong (and Carlile right) does not change the fact that the majority of the leaders of the secession movement did believe those things. And, frankly, if the South had won the war (and they might have done so without Lee's strategic blunders), the Confederate Army would have been in a great geographical position to conquer and defend the Southwest from a Union challenge.

-- I asked what issue other than slavery led to secession ... and you repeated your old saw about "honor."

But the only reason Southern "honor" was offended by the North was the refusal of the North to acquiesce to slavery. I repeat there was no other issue that stirred up anything like the passions that were stirred by the slavery issue. As Rhett told Robert Bunch, any measure to restrict or decry slavery was an affront to the South.

Without slavery, there would have been no insults to Southern 'honor" -- so it was ALL about slavery.

[swood1000]

-- I asked what issue other than slavery led to secession ... and you repeated your old saw about "honor."

But the only reason Southern "honor" was offended by the North was the refusal of the North to acquiesce to slavery. I repeat there was no other issue that stirred up anything like the passions that were stirred by the slavery issue. As Rhett told Robert Bunch, any measure to restrict or decry slavery was an affront to the South.

Without slavery, there would have been no insults to Southern 'honor" -- so it was ALL about slavery.

Let's see what we can agree on.

The war began because a compromise did not exist that could solve the difference between the free and slave states regarding the power of the national government to prohibit slavery in territories that had not yet become states. - James McPherson, Historian

The issue was not the existence of slavery, but the extension of it. - Dwight Pitcaithley, former Chief Historian of the National Park Service https://www.nps.gov/fosu/learn/histo...Y-BROCHURE.pdf

1. Would you agree that competent historians have concluded that the issue was not the protection of slavery where it existed but the extension of it?

"Thus southern rhetorical denunciations of Wilmot's proviso rarely talked about actually extending slavery farther west. They rang, instead, with talk of impending degradation, inequality, and political enslavement to the northern majority. From Southerners' perspective, Wilmot's proviso did not primarily stymie slavery extension. It threatened their manhood, their rights, their equality, and their political liberty. Southern Whigs, no less than southern Democrats, utterly refused to submit to this abominable affront to personal and sectional honor." Michael F. Holt, The Fate of Their Country — Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War, page 33.

"An avid nationalist, [Zachary] Taylor considered the explosive sectional conflict over the Wilmot Proviso the gravest threat to the Unites States since the American Revolution. An experienced, if usually absentee, slaveholding cotton planter who had traversed a swath of northern Mexico during his successful military campaigns of 1846 and 1847, he was also utterly convinced that no slaveholder in his right mind would attempt to carry slaves into that arid desert. Thus Taylor, like Toombs, believed that only honor was at stake for the South in the quarrel over slavery extension." [emphasis added] Michael F. Holt, The Fate of Their Country — Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War, page 57.

2. Would you agree that competent historians have concluded that only honor was at stake for the South in the quarrel over slavery extension?

Yet one is left with a feeling that the South did not want a separate destiny so much as it wanted recognition of the merits of southern society and security for the slave system, and that all the cultural ingredients of southern nationalism would have had very little weight if that recognition and that security had been forthcoming. The Impending Crisis — America Before the Civil War 1848 * 1861 by David M. Potter, p 469

3. Would you agree that competent historians have concluded that secession was not caused by a desire to protect slavery where it currently existed, or by a desire to actually spread it to the territories, but more as a result of feelings of outraged honor on the part of the South?

Alexander Stephens wrote on 12/31/1860:

All that the South has at present just cause to complain of, and the chief ground of just complaints, is the personal liberty bill[s] of some of the non-slaveholding states. These ought to be repealed, and I doubt not if the whole South had united in asking their repeal with firmness and decision and with an honest intent to be satisfied with it when they got it that success would have crowned their efforts. Of this I am satisfied. But the truth is our ultra men do not desire any redress of these grievances. They would really obstruct indirectly any effort to that end. They are for breaking up. They are tired of the gov[ernme]nt. They have played out, dried up, and want something new. Here was all the danger or the great difficulty in the way of making any settlement or adjustment. It seems to me at present insurmountable! I do not see how it can be removed or gotten over. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?...ew=1up;seq=532 page 526

4. Do you agree that Alexander Stephens believed at the time he wrote this that those favoring secession were not primarily motivated by grievances related to the security of slavery?

[swood1000]

I appreciate your quotations to Dukeface from the Virginia secession debate -- but the rational voices that you quote were a minority -- a small minority -- who were outvoted. Their arguments against secession make sense to us now, because we know what a disaster secession turned out to be for the slavocracy, but it was not convincing to the majority of the Virginia leaders, who ignored those wise arguments against secession and seceded anyway.

5. Would you agree that the "rational voices" who opposed secession at the Virginia convention were initially not a minority, and that the convention initially voted against secession, but changed its vote in response to Lincoln's announcement of an intention to invade the South?

6. Do you agree that a reasonable argument can be made that that invasion of the South was the principal motivating factor in the secession of Virginia?

7. Do you agree that since states representing 52% of the free white population of the Confederacy seceded in response to Lincoln's announcement of an intention to invade the South, that a reasonable argument could be made that most of the Confederate population seceded primarily for this reason?

[swood1000]

You put a lot of stock in the Corwin amendment and the earlier Crittenden compromise. But the former only passed the Senate on Mar. 2, 1861 -- AFTER seven states had seceded from the Union. Several similar proposals have been offered earlier, but had been voted down. Even the Corwin Amendment failed its first vote in the House in late February. Then Crittenden proposals were never adopted and were strongly opposed by Lincoln and the majority of Republicans (because it would have expanded slavery into the Southwest).

8. Would you agree that there is a reasonable likelihood that Crittenden, with its guarantees and protections, would not have failed if the South had dropped its insistence on extension of slavery into the territories?

9. Would you agree that since the Corwin protections for slavery were not enough to bring the initial states back into the Union, and were not enough to prevent the subsequent states from seceding, that a reasonable argument could be made that Confederate states seceded for reasons other than the absence of rock solid protections for slavery?

[swood1000]

I was just ruminating about your earlier comments about Southern "honor" and the part it played in the secession movement. I do agree that the leaders of the slaveocracy did put a lot of store in their so-called honor -- but like so much else in the pre-war South, the concept of Southern honor leaves a stench in the nostrils of history.

It reminds me of the speech by Senator Charles Sumner in 1856, disputing Senator Andrew Butler's defense of the Kansas-Nebraska Act:

"The senator from South Carolina has read many books of chivalry, and believes himself a chivalrous knight with sentiments of honor and courage. Of course he has chosen a mistress to whom he has made his vows, and who, though ugly to others, is always lovely to him; though polluted in the sight of the world, is chaste in his sight—I mean the harlot, slavery. For her his tongue is always profuse in words. Let her be impeached in character, or any proposition made to shut her out from the extension of her wantonness, and no extravagance of manner or hardihood of assertion is then too great for this senator."

In response to this "crime" (for exercising his right to free speech), Congressman Preston Brooks carefully plotted a brutal assault in the name of his cousin's "honor." He ant two allies (one of them brandishing a pistol), waited until the senate galleries were empty and few Senators where in the chamber, when he snuck up on a seated Sumner and began to assault him with a wooden cane. Sumner, trapped by his desk (bolted to the floor) could not rise to defend himself. Brooks' two allies Edmundson and Keil, kept other Senators from coming to Sumner's aid. Brooks continued to beat Sumner even after he was unconscious -- leaving Sumner near death (and with physical problems that would plague him the rest of his life.

Now, it would be easy to dismiss this as the action of one crazed man (or three, since two other men were involved), except for the fact that Brooks was lionized in the South for his action. Other Southern senators took pieces of Brooks' broken cane and wore them around their necks like religious tokens. The Richmond Enquirer editorialized that Sumner should be caned "every morning", praising the attack as "good in conception, better in execution, and best of all in consequences". Admirers sent Brooks hundreds of new canes in endorsement of his assault. One was inscribed "Hit him again."

So much for Southern "honor".

It appears that the assault on Sumner was not universally regarded in a positive light in the South, nor as honorable. From a letter to Howell Cobb:

Viewed dispassionately in every light, the assault was unjustifiable, unmanly, illtimed, illadvised, injudicious to the cause of the South, and totally indefensible as to time, place and manner; and it is my deliberate opinion that to attempt to sustain it by the South or any portion of it will prove disastrous in the extreme,— for the public opinion can never be brought to approve of it. Senators had accused him of fanaticism and had in various ways insulted him as much or more than he did Senator Butler in his speech as I have seen it reported. He was therefore (give the Devil his due) justifiable under the lex talionis for his language and his sarcasm and ridicule.

Then, for a gentleman and a man of honor to assault another with a stick, giving him no opportunity of defence was cowardly and unmanly and cannot be justified. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?...ew=1up;seq=372

[Olympic Fan]

Let me know when your list is finished and I'll respond ...

[swood1000]

Let me know when your list is finished and I'll respond ...

That's it for now.

[swood1000]

Let me know when your list is finished and I'll respond ...

By the way, when I use the term "competent historians have concluded" I do not mean that ALL competent historians have concluded this, but only that some competent historians have concluded this.

[Olympic Fan]

Okay, I just got back in town and Swood seems to be done with his secession (pun intended) of posts. For now. So let's go:

You bring up the Wilmot Proviso as evidence that secession was about something other than slavery?

Amazing.

The Wilmot proviso -- to ban slavery in the land conquered in the Mexican War -- was voted DOWN in Congress (twice ... plus it was also rejected as an addendum to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican War). Yes, some Southern leaders tried to portray it as an affront to their "honor" that an anti-slave congressman could even suggest limiting slavery in the territories.

But again, all you are doing is proving my point that Southern "honor" was always outraged by any voice who opposed or criticized the institution of slavery. Even a lone or minority voice (as was the case with Wilmot). Are you suggesting that it was somehow dishonorable for a congressman who believed that slavery was wrong to introduce legislation to limit it? Legislation that in fact failed at passage?


2. Would you agree that competent historians have concluded that only honor was at stake for the South in the quarrel over slavery extension?
3. Would you agree that competent historians have concluded that secession was not caused by a desire to protect slavery where it currently existed, or by a desire to actually spread it to the territories, but more as a result of feelings of outraged honor on the part of the South?
4. Do you agree that Alexander Stephens believed at the time he wrote this that those favoring secession were not primarily motivated by grievances related to the security of slavery?


No, would not agree with any of these three propositions ... especially since your argument is undercut by the very quotes you provide.

Your Potter quote: Yet one is left with a feeling that the South did not want a separate destiny so much as it wanted recognition of the merits of southern society and security for the slave system

Your Stephens quote leads with: All that the South has at present just cause to complain of, and the chief ground of just complaints, is the personal liberty bill[s] of some of the non-slaveholding states

The personal liberty bills that so outraged Stephens and his friends were state bills designed to circumvent and negative the Federal laws requiring the return of runaway slaves.

You seem to determined to ignore the main point of Stephens explanation for secession:

The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.

I can't understand why you continue to throw up smoke screens. EVERY example of discord and dishonor you cite is rooted in the Northern opposition to slavery. Every single one. Alexander Stephens couldn't have made it more clear -- the "immediate cause of the late rupture" was to put to rest the agitating questions to "our peculiar institutions -- the proper status of the negro."

You should be arguing with Stephens -- not me.

But let's continue with your questions.

5. Would you agree that the "rational voices" who opposed secession at the Virginia convention were initially not a minority, and that the convention initially voted against secession, but changed its vote in response to Lincoln's announcement of an intention to invade the South?

6. Do you agree that a reasonable argument can be made that that invasion of the South was the principal motivating factor in the secession of Virginia?

7. Do you agree that since states representing 52% of the free white population of the Confederacy seceded in response to Lincoln's announcement of an intention to invade the South, that a reasonable argument could be made that most of the Confederate population seceded primarily for this reason

Your timetable is slightly skewed. On Nov. 15, 1860 (just days after Lincoln's apparent election), Virginia governor John Letcher called a special session of the Virginia legislature to authorize a secession convention. The convention met on Feb. 13, 1861 and was split -- between secessionists, unionists and those favoring compromise. The first proposal passed was for a peace commission. But it was clear from the beginning that the defense of slavery was the prevalent sentiments of the convention. Passed on Mar. 15 (before Lincoln's call for troops):

The first resolution asserted states' rights per se; the second was for [I]retention of slavery; the third opposed sectional parties; the fourth called for equal recognition of slavery in both territories and non-slave states[/I]

These were adopted BEFORE Lincoln's call for troops. And when the news of Fort Sumter reached Richmond -- before Lincoln issued his call for troops to suppress the rebellion -- there were riots in the city demanding secession and the Secession Committee immediately reconvened to reconsider its position. Lincoln's call for troops to suppress the rebellion was obviously a pretext in the decision by the convention to approve secession, but it was far from THE cause. Why did Virginia secede? Well, their own explanation was: "the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States

The secession timetables of North Carolina and Tennessee followed similar paths. In Tennessee, Governor Isham G. Harris convened an emergency session of the Tennessee General Assembly in January 1861. During his speech before the legislative body on January 7 (long before Lincoln's inauguration, much less his call for volunteers), he described the secession of the Southern states as a crisis caused by "long continued agitation of the slavery question."

I find it curious that you keep referring to Lincoln's "invasion of the South." That is exactly what the Confederates call it. But to an American, it was an actually action to suppress rebellion in a portion of the United States -- a portion that contained many loyal Americans who objected to their country being stolen from them by the slave-owners (enough Americans objected in Virginia to rip more than a third of the state away from the traitors in Richmond).

And I should point out that Lincoln never suggested at this point that he was going to "invade the South." In fact, the telegram that called for Virginia troops merely stated:

Under the act of Congress for calling forth "militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, repel invasions, etc.," approved February 28, 1795, I have the honor to request your Excellency to cause to be immediately detached from the militia of your State the quota designated in the table below, to serve as infantry or rifleman for the period of three months

Okay, let's move on to your next post:

8. Would you agree that there is a reasonable likelihood that Crittenden, with its guarantees and protections, would not have failed if the South had dropped its insistence on extension of slavery into the territories?

Maybe ... but what is your point? It's still the slave issue -- the South insisted that it had the right to take slavery anywhere. Certain voices in the North insisted that slavery could be kept out of the territories ... at any rate, that's still a debate over slavery.

9. Would you agree that since the Corwin protections for slavery were not enough to bring the initial states back into the Union, and were not enough to prevent the subsequent states from seceding, that a reasonable argument could be made that Confederate states seceded for reasons other than the absence of rock solid protections for slavery?

No, because the Corwin Amendment came AFTER the first seven states had seceded. And, just as importantly, while it guaranteed a constitutional protection of slavery in the states where it existed, it did not address the issue of slavery in territories -- which you yourself have consistently pointed out was a major issue of contention.

You can ask more questions, but all you are doing is emphasizing how much the disagreement over slavery was at the heart of every argument, every debate that led to secession and the Civil War.

[swood1000]

Okay, I just got back in town and Swood seems to be done with his secession (pun intended) of posts. For now. So let's go:

My questions did not go to whether or not you agree with my views. They went to whether or not my views are supported by competent historians or whether or not they represent reasonable interpretations. When I asked whether person A held view X and was a competent historian, you either ignored the question or set up your own question to argue against or argued against view X or said that person A’s overall view is in accord with your own. To answer the question directly you could have said that person A was not a competent historian, or you could have demonstrated how the quote I provided was misleading and he actually did not hold that view, or you could have admitted that he held that view but then explained how the implications of holding that view are not what they seem. You answered only one of my nine questions.

Question 1: you completely ignored this question.

You said you disagreed with questions 2, 3 and 4 “especially since your argument is undercut by the very quotes you provide” but this is a non sequitur, leading me to believe that you are disagreeing with the opinion given, whereas the question was whether a competent historian holds that opinion. So I am considering that response to be, at best, the answer to a question I did not ask.

Question 2 was

2. Would you agree that competent historians have concluded that only honor was at stake for the South in the quarrel over slavery extension?

Since the question clearly includes the exact words used by historian Michael Holt it would appear that the only issue left for you to respond to is whether or not you count Michael F. Holt as a competent historian. (Or you could have shown how he words don’t mean what they seem to mean.) Instead you go into an examination and defense of the Wilmot proviso. I’m not sure I really follow it, but it doesn’t respond to my question: whether Michael F. Holt “concluded that only honor was at stake for the South in the quarrel over slavery extension” and whether he is a competent historian.

Question 3 was

3. Would you agree that competent historians have concluded that secession was not caused by a desire to protect slavery where it currently existed, or by a desire to actually spread it to the territories, but more as a result of feelings of outraged honor on the part of the South?

Question 3 relates to the Potter quote, which was:

Yet one is left with a feeling that the South did not want a separate destiny so much as it wanted recognition of the merits of southern society and security for the slave system, and that all the cultural ingredients of southern nationalism would have had very little weight if that recognition and that security had been forthcoming. The Impending Crisis — America Before the Civil War 1848 * 1861 by David M. Potter, p 469

Potter is saying here that what the South wanted was (a) security for the slave system, and (b) some respect. The South was offered security for the slave system in the offer of various constitutional amendments that provided all the security it could have wanted. The problem was the second thing that Potter said that they wanted, respect. That would not be forthcoming. Hence my question:

3. Would you agree that competent historians have concluded that secession was not caused by a desire to protect slavery where it currently existed, or by a desire to actually spread it to the territories, but more as a result of feelings of outraged honor on the part of the South?

Again, the question is as to whether any competent historians have concluded that honor was the principal stumbling block, not whether honor actually was the principal stumbling block. You could have answered it by saying that Potter is not a competent historian. But simply saying that “your argument is undercut by the very quotes you provide” and nothing more is simply a non-response. If you are saying that Potter did not reach the conclusion I propose (as opposed to your not reaching it) then please explain your reasoning.

Question 4 referred to this Alexander Stephens quote:

All that the South has at present just cause to complain of, and the chief ground of just complaints, is the personal liberty bill[s] of some of the non-slaveholding states. These ought to be repealed, and I doubt not if the whole South had united in asking their repeal with firmness and decision and with an honest intent to be satisfied with it when they got it that success would have crowned their efforts. Of this I am satisfied. But the truth is our ultra men do not desire any redress of these grievances. They would really obstruct indirectly any effort to that end. They are for breaking up. They are tired of the gov[ernme]nt. They have played out, dried up, and want something new. Here was all the danger or the great difficulty in the way of making any settlement or adjustment. It seems to me at present insurmountable! I do not see how it can be removed or gotten over. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?...ew=1up;seq=532 page 526

and the question:

4. Do you agree that Alexander Stephens believed at the time he wrote this that those favoring secession were not primarily motivated by grievances related to the security of slavery?

The question asked about the state of mind of Alexander Stephens when he wrote this. In reply you launch into Stephens’ view of personal liberty bills and statements by Stephens in other documents, apparently in order to show what was the "immediate cause of the late rupture" according to Stephens. But I didn’t ask about Stephens’ views about the cause of the late rupture, or his view of personal liberty bills, or whether you believe that he agrees with your overall view on some topic. Please answer the question I asked, about the view that Stephens expressed in this letter about the motivations of secessionists.

Questions 5 and 6 concerned Virginia’s secession and referenced this post in which you said that the “rational voices” opposing secession at the Virginia convention were only a “small minority…who were outvoted.”

5. Would you agree that the "rational voices" who opposed secession at the Virginia convention were initially not a minority, and that the convention initially voted against secession, but changed its vote in response to Lincoln's announcement of an intention to invade the South?

6. Do you agree that a reasonable argument can be made that that invasion of the South was the principal motivating factor in the secession of Virginia?

You said that my "timetable is slightly skewed" but what do you mean by that? The only timetable I provided was that Virginia delegates initially voted against secession but changed their votes in favor of secession after Lincoln's announcement. Do you disagree that on April 4 the Virginia convention voted 88-45 against secession, on April 12 the South fired on Ft. Sumter, on April 15 Lincoln issued his call for 75,000 troops, on April 17 the Virginia convention voted 88-55 to recommend disunion to the May 23 voters?

The moment that shattered the Unionists’ self-importance (and the Unionist majority) came instead when President Lincoln issued his April 15 proclamation. Showdown in Virginia, edited by William W. Freehling and Craig M. Simpson, Introduction, page xv.

So where is my timetable “skewed”? For some reason you bring up resolutions in the Virginia convention prior to Lincoln’s proclamation that supported retention of slavery and equal recognition of slavery. But it was after these resolutions that the convention voted against secession. Could you clarify exactly what you think happened between April 4 and April 17 to tip the balance in favor of secession? Do you agree that Freehling and Simpson think that it was Lincoln’s proclamation? Are they competent historians?

Question 7:

7. Do you agree that since states representing 52% of the free white population of the Confederacy seceded in response to Lincoln's announcement of an intention to invade the South, that a reasonable argument could be made that most of the Confederate population seceded primarily for this reason?

Besides Virginia, the states that seceded after Lincoln’s proclamation were Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina.

Arkansas:

At the beginning of 1861, the population of Arkansas, like several states of the Upper South, was not keen to secede on average, but it was also opposed to Federal coercion of seceding states. This was shown by the results of state convention referendum in February 1861. The referendum passed, but the majority of the delegates elected were conditional unionist in sympathy, rather than outright secessionist. This changed after the Confederacy attacked Fort Sumter in South Carolina, and President Abraham Lincoln called for troops to put down the rebellion. The move toward open war shifted public opinion into the secessionist camp, and Arkansas declared its secession from the Union on May 6, 1861. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkans...ican_Civil_War

Tennessee:

In February 1861, 54 percent of the state's voters voted against sending delegates to a secession convention, defeating the proposal for a State Convention by a vote of 69,675 to 57,798. If a State Convention had been held, it would have been very heavily pro-Union. 88,803 votes were cast for Unionist candidates and 22,749 votes were cast for Secession candidates. That day the American flag was displayed in "every section of the city," with zeal equal to that which existed during the late 1860 presidential campaign, wrote the Nashville Daily Gazette. …With the attack on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, followed by President Abraham Lincoln's April 15 call for 75,000 volunteers to put the seceded states back into line, public sentiment turned dramatically against the Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennes...ican_Civil_War

North Carolina:

Not until President Lincoln's requisition on the State for troops after the firing on Fort Sumter did secession triumph in North Carolina; and then because the only alternative was that of fighting against the South. North Carolina on the Eve of Secession (1912) by William Boyd, page 177. http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/boydw/boydw.html#p177

And remember, the question asked if a “reasonable argument” could be made that these four states seceded in response to Lincoln’s announcement. Are you saying that no such reasonable argument can be made?

You then proceed to object to my use of the phrase “invasion of the South.” I use the term “invade” in this sense:

1. to enter forcefully as an enemy; go into with hostile intent: Germany invaded Poland in 1939. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/invade

Weren’t the troops being called in order to go into the South with hostile intent? If not, why the need for military forces? Can you explain your objection?

Question 8

8. Would you agree that there is a reasonable likelihood that Crittenden, with its guarantees and protections, would not have failed if the South had dropped its insistence on extension of slavery into the territories?

Here you came close to actually answering the question: “maybe.” This gets back to Potter’s observation that it came down to security for slavery and being treated with respect, and Holt’s observation that only honor was at stake in the question of extension of slavery. Crittenden and Corwin would have given the South all the security for slavery that they could have wanted.

Question 9:

9. Would you agree that since the Corwin protections for slavery were not enough to bring the initial states back into the Union, and were not enough to prevent the subsequent states from seceding, that a reasonable argument could be made that Confederate states seceded for reasons other than the absence of rock solid protections for slavery?

Finally, an answer: you would not agree. Your first reason is that Corwin was not passed until after the first seven states seceded. But what difference does that make? If a state feels that it has grievance X and secedes, and if grievance X is then resolved, their failure to reverse the secession cannot be attributed to grievance X, right?

Your second reason is that Corwin did not address the issue of slavery in the territories. First, let me point out that the question only asked whether a “reasonable argument could be made,” and did not ask you to agree that this argument is the final and definitive one. Second, let me remind you of the quotes in the Holt book:

"Thus southern rhetorical denunciations of Wilmot's proviso rarely talked about actually extending slavery farther west. They rang, instead, with talk of impending degradation, inequality, and political enslavement to the northern majority. From Southerners' perspective, Wilmot's proviso did not primarily stymie slavery extension. It threatened their manhood, their rights, their equality, and their political liberty. Southern Whigs, no less than southern Democrats, utterly refused to submit to this abominable affront to personal and sectional honor." Michael F. Holt, The Fate of Their Country — Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War, page 33.

"An avid nationalist, [Zachary] Taylor considered the explosive sectional conflict over the Wilmot Proviso the gravest threat to the Unites States since the American Revolution. An experienced, if usually absentee, slaveholding cotton planter who had traversed a swath of northern Mexico during his successful military campaigns of 1846 and 1847, he was also utterly convinced that no slaveholder in his right mind would attempt to carry slaves into that arid desert. Thus Taylor, like Toombs, believed that only honor was at stake for the South in the quarrel over slavery extension." [emphasis added] Michael F. Holt, The Fate of Their Country — Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War, page 57.

If Holt believes that “only honor was a stake for the South in the quarrel over slavery extension,” and if Holt is a competent historian, then it would seem that a reasonable argument can be made that the question of slavery extension did not figure into whether there were rock solid protections for slavery. What is your objection?

You close by pointing out that all I am doing is “emphasizing how much the disagreement over slavery was at the heart of every argument, every debate that led to secession and the Civil War.” But I am not denying that slavery was at the heart of it all. Perhaps you are confusing me with Jubal Early. I am saying that considerations other than the security of slavery drove them into secession.

Of course I can’t require you to respond to my questions, but you will be able understand (or at least most people will) why I am not interested in continuing a dialogue with someone who refuses to directly engage with my questions.

[Olympic Fan]

If Holt believes that “only honor was a stake for the South in the quarrel over slavery extension,” and if Holt is a competent historian, then it would seem that a reasonable argument can be made that the question of slavery extension did not figure into whether there were rock solid protections for slavery. What is your objection?

You close by pointing out that all I am doing is “emphasizing how much the disagreement over slavery was at the heart of every argument, every debate that led to secession and the Civil War.” But I am not denying that slavery was at the heart of it all. Perhaps you are confusing me with Jubal Early. I am saying that considerations other than the security of slavery drove them into secession.

Of course I can’t require you to respond to my questions, but you will be able understand (or at least most people will) why I am not interested in continuing a dialogue with someone who refuses to directly engage with my questions.

Were we having a dialogue?

So my refusal to directly answer your barrage of questions -- so long and convoluted that it took you three consecutive posts to include them all -- is grounds for ending the conversation?

I DID answer your questions -- I just didn't answer them the way you wanted me to. Over the course of our conversation, I've asked you a number of questions that you have so far failed to respond to (I just don't number my queries). That's okay -- neither of us is in the witness stand being grilled by a DA.

We obviously disagree over a number of issues ... but as long as we agree that the core cause of Southern secession was the protection of slavery -- as you finally admit -- then I don't see what we have to argue about.

[gumbomoop]

[1] This gets back to Potter’s observation that it came down to security for slavery and being treated with respect, and [2] Holt’s observation that only honor was at stake in the question of extension of slavery.

You close by pointing out that all I am doing is “emphasizing how much the disagreement over slavery was at the heart of every argument, every debate that led to secession and the Civil War.” But [3] I am not denying that slavery was at the heart of it all... [4] I am saying that considerations other than the security of slavery drove them into secession.

Allow me to comment on the works of the way-more-than-competent David Potter and Michael Holt.

[1] David Potter's The Impending Crisis was his compact magnum opus, his brilliant summary of several decades of thinking and writing about antebellum sectionalism. If I were to recommend a single book on the 1850s, this is absolutely it! Virtually every chapter is a gem, great narrative history, characters, a central story line [about slavery, not honor], and analytically brilliant mini-essays on various topics scattered throughout.

Your quotation from Potter, however, taken out of context, doesn't quite prove what you say it does. Potter's words, as you accurately quote them up in your post #241 read as follows: "Yet one is left with a feeling that the South did not want a separate destiny so much as it wanted recognition of the merits of Southern society and security for the slave system, and that all the cultural ingredients of southern nationalism would have had very little weight if that recognition and that security had been forthcoming."

Potter's references to "separate destiny" and "cultural ingredients" go directly to his purpose in the chapter where these words are found, a chapter entitled "The Nature of Southern Separatism." His purpose in that chapter goes beyond our debate here about secession, and to the issue of whether Southern separatism may be characterized as "nationalism." He's interested, principally, in the nature of Southern separatism, not, principally, in the reasons for secession. So, "nature of" does not exactly equal "reasons for."

Potter isn't passionately arguing any particular thesis about the reasons for secession, as he thought that a clear, settled issue. Both as the underlying "taproot" and as the reason for Southern panic, he sees slavery everywhere. And, significantly, in an earlier chapter he uses a Thomas Hart Benton story comparing the slavery issue to the biblical plague of frogs to exemplify this assertion [Potter's] about "the slavery question" from the mid-1840s on: "No other issue in American history has so monopolized the political scene." (p. 49)

So, very early in his chapter on the "nature of Southern separatism," Potter refers to the sectional "forces of repulsion" over slavery [not honor, not state rights], and also to the Southern states drawing "closer together by their common commitment to the slave system and their sense of need for mutual defense against a hostile antislavery majority." (p. 449). And: "The presence of slavery had dictated conditions of its own, ... shared very widely throughout the South. Indeed they became the criteria for determining what constituted the South." (p. 451)

Having established [the obvious,] the overpowering presence of slavery in Southern thought, deed, and very being ["what constituted the South"], Potter then makes his case that the "forces of repulsion" [repulsed by the threat of antislavery ] were at least as important as intra-Southern "forces of cohesion." But the fulcrum on which both sets of forces rested was slavery.

To return to your use of Potter's words, and especially your idea that "recognition of the merits of Southern society" = "being treated with respect" = the issue of honor: As I have said before, I agree that Southerners felt their honor sullied by antislavery criticisms. I have also said that Northerners found proslavery arguments to be outrageous, dishonorable, especially the biblical defense of slavery. The sectionalism of the 1850s was based on the plague of the slavery issue -- yes, overwhelmingly the issue of slavery extension. Mutual feelings of disrespect, honorable and despicable behavior, criticisms fair and unfair all traced their roots to the unavoidable taproot: the existence of racial slavery and its future in the west. So when Potter refers to the anguished Southern desire for "recognition of the merits of Southern society," Southerners wanted Northerners to admit the "merits" of racial slavery, the thing that "constituted the South." There's nothing in Potter's entire, brilliant book to suggest that Potter, (literally) at the end of his scholarly career, had concluded that Southern hypersensitivity about honor was separable from hypersensitivity about slavery.

[2] Michael Holt is also a more-than-competent historian. But much of his scholarly work took a particular bent, focusing on political parties in the 1850s. Thus, a key word in the title of Holt's book from which you quote in your post #243 is "politicians." Further, Holt's focus on politicians and parties is related to a major theme in American historiography for the last third of the twentieth century, "the republican synthesis." In his Political Crisis of the 1850s, he argues that the very word "slavery" had profound implications for the American political commitment to "republicanism." That it did, for both North and South, and for nearly opposite reasons.

Thus, your quote from another Holt book re antislavery free soilism [fierce opposition to slavery's extension into western territories] being perceived by Southeners as an "abominable affront to personal and sectional honor" needs to be connected to Holt's interesting, even persuasive, claim that the slavery controversy might usefully be seen as part of a broader contest over the meaning of "republicanism," a contest that "politicians" and parties could not contain.

But Holt's scholarly focus is not on honor as a distinct cause of secession. Rather, it is on secession as the culmination of a crisis of "republicanism," and of the special, ominous significance of "enslavement" as a threat to republicanism.

[3] Ok, we agree on something, something important. But I won't pretend that that's that. So ...

[4] How to address our disagreement, one last (?) time? First, I need to guess that by "other than" you mean "in addition to," as you do not deny "that slavery was at the heart of it all." And I will also guess that you are not making an implicit distinction between "the heart of it all" and secession, that "it" refers to secession, not some larger developments from 1830-60. So, you're not conceding slavery's "heart of it all" centrality, only to shift to "considerations other than the security of slavery" to account for secession itself. Right? If these guesses/assumptions are correct -- they must be -- then we're probably down to the firm disagreement about whether factors "other than" slavery can be viewed as distinct and separable from, independent of, maybe even equal to the "heart of it all" taproot, slavery.

I acknowledge, again, that Southerners thought a lot about honor and dishonor. I also repeat that Northerners thought themselves honorable, too. I have tried to show in discussions of Potter and Holt that, although they do, yes, occasionally mention something like honor or respect, that their respective theses do not accord honor equal weight with slavery in the secession crisis.

I do concede that Southerners complained about disrespect. However, I have a hard time trying to wrap my mind around the idea that secessionists could have been mollified, their honor assuaged, by anything short of the newly elected Republican President Lincoln's thoroughly repudiating the very founding principles of his party, even before he took office. I think a good argument can be made that during the winter of 1860-61, Lincoln was considerably -- considerably -- more conscious of and respectful toward Southern anxieties than were secessionists of his constitutional, electoral, and political requirements and difficulties.

[swood1000]

Were we having a dialogue?

Maybe that was my mistake. You perhaps have seen this as side-by-side declarations of talking points, involving no interaction with points made by the other.

So my refusal to directly answer your barrage of questions -- so long and convoluted that it took you three consecutive posts to include them all -- is grounds for ending the conversation?

I DID answer your questions -- I just didn't answer them the way you wanted me to. Over the course of our conversation, I've asked you a number of questions that you have so far failed to respond to (I just don't number my queries). That's okay -- neither of us is in the witness stand being grilled by a DA.

I originally decided on proposing questions to you in this form because it seemed that you were refusing to respond directly to any of my arguments, and so I thought I would pose them in such a way that if you avoided them it would be obvious. It reminds me of the Sunday morning interview shows, where the interviewer asks a question that the politician doesn't want to answer so he proceeds to talk about something entirely different. After the reply the interviewer says that his question was not answered and asks it again. Again he gets a non-answer, but at least the viewers see what happened, and can guess why the politician was avoiding giving an answer. I really am not interested in such a "conversation." And you're right. Such "answers" were not what I was looking for.

If you have some questions that you think I did not answer, feel free to state them.

We obviously disagree over a number of issues ... but as long as we agree that the core cause of Southern secession was the protection of slavery -- as you finally admit -- then I don't see what we have to argue about.

No, I said that slavery was at the heart of it all. I most definitely did not say that the "core cause of Southern secession was the protection of slavery." In fact, that is the exact thing I am denying, as you know. However I will get into that in my reply to gumbomoop's learned and thoughtful post.

[Olympic Fan]

No, I said that slavery was at the heart of it all. I most definitely did not say that the "core cause of Southern secession was the protection of slavery." In fact, that is the exact thing I am denying, as you know. However I will get into that in my reply to gumbomoop's learned and thoughtful post.

Wow ... I'll be interested to read your explanation of how saying "slavery was at the heart of it all" and "the core cause of Southern secession was the protection of slavery" are not the same, but are in fact, the exact thing you are denying.

[swood1000]

Allow me to comment on the works of the way-more-than-competent David Potter and Michael Holt.

[1] David Potter's The Impending Crisis was his compact magnum opus, his brilliant summary of several decades of thinking and writing about antebellum sectionalism. If I were to recommend a single book on the 1850s, this is absolutely it! Virtually every chapter is a gem, great narrative history, characters, a central story line [about slavery, not honor], and analytically brilliant mini-essays on various topics scattered throughout.

Your quotation from Potter, however, taken out of context, doesn't quite prove what you say it does. Potter's words, as you accurately quote them up in your post #241 read as follows: "Yet one is left with a feeling that the South did not want a separate destiny so much as it wanted recognition of the merits of Southern society and security for the slave system, and that all the cultural ingredients of southern nationalism would have had very little weight if that recognition and that security had been forthcoming."

Potter's references to "separate destiny" and "cultural ingredients" go directly to his purpose in the chapter where these words are found, a chapter entitled "The Nature of Southern Separatism." His purpose in that chapter goes beyond our debate here about secession, and to the issue of whether Southern separatism may be characterized as "nationalism." He's interested, principally, in the nature of Southern separatism, not, principally, in the reasons for secession. So, "nature of" does not exactly equal "reasons for."

Potter isn't passionately arguing any particular thesis about the reasons for secession, as he thought that a clear, settled issue. Both as the underlying "taproot" and as the reason for Southern panic, he sees slavery everywhere. And, significantly, in an earlier chapter he uses a Thomas Hart Benton story comparing the slavery issue to the biblical plague of frogs to exemplify this assertion [Potter's] about "the slavery question" from the mid-1840s on: "No other issue in American history has so monopolized the political scene." (p. 49)

So, very early in his chapter on the "nature of Southern separatism," Potter refers to the sectional "forces of repulsion" over slavery [not honor, not state rights], and also to the Southern states drawing "closer together by their common commitment to the slave system and their sense of need for mutual defense against a hostile antislavery majority." (p. 449). And: "The presence of slavery had dictated conditions of its own, ... shared very widely throughout the South. Indeed they became the criteria for determining what constituted the South." (p. 451)

Having established [the obvious,] the overpowering presence of slavery in Southern thought, deed, and very being ["what constituted the South"], Potter then makes his case that the "forces of repulsion" [repulsed by the threat of antislavery ] were at least as important as intra-Southern "forces of cohesion." But the fulcrum on which both sets of forces rested was slavery.

To return to your use of Potter's words, and especially your idea that "recognition of the merits of Southern society" = "being treated with respect" = the issue of honor: As I have said before, I agree that Southerners felt their honor sullied by antislavery criticisms. I have also said that Northerners found proslavery arguments to be outrageous, dishonorable, especially the biblical defense of slavery. The sectionalism of the 1850s was based on the plague of the slavery issue -- yes, overwhelmingly the issue of slavery extension. Mutual feelings of disrespect, honorable and despicable behavior, criticisms fair and unfair all traced their roots to the unavoidable taproot: the existence of racial slavery and its future in the west. So when Potter refers to the anguished Southern desire for "recognition of the merits of Southern society," Southerners wanted Northerners to admit the "merits" of racial slavery, the thing that "constituted the South." There's nothing in Potter's entire, brilliant book to suggest that Potter, (literally) at the end of his scholarly career, had concluded that Southern hypersensitivity about honor was separable from hypersensitivity about slavery.

What do mean “that Southern hypersensitivity about honor was separable from hypersensitivity about slavery”?

I agree that slavery was the “taproot” and was a central aspect to much of the political and social conflict that preceded and lead to secession. But I don’t agree that this conflict could have only resulted in secession. If it could have taken a non-secession turn, then we are talking about other variables being responsible for the turn things took. If slavery was a constant, and things did not necessarily have to end in secession, then it seems inappropriate to say that secession was ALL about slavery.

If you and I have a disagreement about X, that can end in many ways. If you insult me because of my position on X, and I walk out saying that I never want to have anything more to do with somebody who has insulted me in such a way, it would be most accurate to say that the insult was the controlling variable. I did not walk out because of our disagreement about X but because you insulted me. Certainly X was at the heart of it all, but if you explain it to somebody by saying that my walking out was ALL attributable to X, then you have not described it accurately. It was attributable to the insult.

Suppose I insulted you right now because of your opinion on Southern secession, and as a result I got suspended from DBR for a period of time. Would you say that the reason I got suspended was ALL about Southern secession?

Let’s take a look at the quote from the Potter book:

Yet one is left with a feeling that the South did not want a separate destiny so much as it wanted recognition of the merits of southern society and security for the slave system, and that all the cultural ingredients of southern nationalism would have had very little weight if that recognition and that security had been forthcoming.

Potter here is saying that he feels that the South would not have had a desire for a “separate destiny” (i.e., secession) if it had received (a) recognition of the merits of southern society, and (b) security for the slave system. Therefore, item (a) was, according to Potter, one of the variables, a change in which he feels would have resulted in an outcome other that secession. Item (b) was offered, and secession actually resulted in a reduction in item (b) so it appears that according to Potter, item (a) (respect and honor) was the missing variable.

Here is another Potter quote:

Southerners had insisted repeatedly that they did not expect slavery to go into the Southwest but that they objected to having Congress make an invidious distinction between their institutions and those of the North.

[2] Michael Holt is also a more-than-competent historian. But much of his scholarly work took a particular bent, focusing on political parties in the 1850s. Thus, a key word in the title of Holt's book from which you quote in your post #243 is "politicians." Further, Holt's focus on politicians and parties is related to a major theme in American historiography for the last third of the twentieth century, "the republican synthesis." In his Political Crisis of the 1850s, he argues that the very word "slavery" had profound implications for the American political commitment to "republicanism." That it did, for both North and South, and for nearly opposite reasons.

Thus, your quote from another Holt book re antislavery free soilism [fierce opposition to slavery's extension into western territories] being perceived by Southeners as an "abominable affront to personal and sectional honor" needs to be connected to Holt's interesting, even persuasive, claim that the slavery controversy might usefully be seen as part of a broader contest over the meaning of "republicanism," a contest that "politicians" and parties could not contain.

But Holt's scholarly focus is not on honor as a distinct cause of secession. Rather, it is on secession as the culmination of a crisis of "republicanism," and of the special, ominous significance of "enslavement" as a threat to republicanism.

You referred to The Political Crisis of the 1850s by Michael Holt, which I will reference as Crisis, the other Holt book being The Fate of Their Country, which I will reference as Fate.

So, it appears that by “republicanism” Holt means “the most cherished value of Americans, their liberty and sense of equality.” Crisis, 5 Or put another way, “government by and for the people, a government whose power over the people was restrained by law, and whose basic function was to protect the equality and liberty of individuals from aristocratic privilege and concentrations of arbitrary or tyrannical power.” Crisis, 5.

But the “enslavement” that Holt refers to as a threat to republicanism was the fear in the South of enslavement to the North.

It is of the utmost importance in understanding the events of the 1850s, therefore, to recognize that the word “slavery” had a political meaning to antebellum Americans quite apart from the institution of black slavery in the South. It implied the subjugation of white Americans to another’s domination. It was the antithesis of republicanism. Crisis, 134-5.

To submit abjectly to Northern dictation, to accept the inequality that went with prohibition, was to be no better than a slave. Unless the South resisted Northern aggressions, protested one Alabamian, it would be “the inferior, the Bondsman in fact, of the North.” Crisis, 55-6

Many in the upper South, however, agreed that even though Lincoln’s election did not justify secession any overt action to coerce Southern states would do so. Coercion would actually represent the enslavement of the South that Lincoln’s election alone did not do. Crisis, 256-7.

The central impulse behind secession was thus less to save black slavery than to escape white slavery by avoiding Republican tyranny and by allowing Southerners to pursue republican principles on their own. Crisis, 243

As for the extension of slavery to the lands won from Mexico, Holt pretty clearly says that the actual extension of slavery was really not the issue.

First and foremost, most southern Whig voters and especially slaveholding voters had no interest in moving west. They were too established and successful where they already lived. Moreover, they were firmly convinced that slavery could never be profitably established in any new lands from Mexico. Fate, 30

“The whole question is an abstract one without any practical bearing,” echoed a Louisiana Whig newspaper editor that year, “as there is not nor ever was any prospect for slavery in those territories.” Fate, 30

Many Southerners, certainly the vast majority of southern Whigs, cared far more about defending their section’s equal rights on the territorial issue than about extending slavery into any new territories. Fate, 34

Rather, it was an issue of republicanism as you point out. Southerners felt that they weren’t being treated equally and were being taken advantage of and expected to just put up with it.

What was at stake, and what gave the Proviso issue such an emotional impact in the South, was the Southern refusal to accept the Northern denial, inherent in the Proviso, of the South’s right to expand. …By making the issue the symbolic one of equality, Southern politicians struck a chord among the Southern electorate, especially among the nonslaveholders… It is simply that the threat to Southern equality was much more palpable, a threat that menaced the deepest values of all Southerners, not just the slaveholders. …To submit abjectly to Northern dictation, to accept the inequality that went with prohibition, was to be no better than a slave. Crisis, 54-55

"Thus southern rhetorical denunciations of Wilmot's proviso rarely talked about actually extending slavery farther west. They rang, instead, with talk of impending degradation, inequality, and political enslavement to the northern majority. From Southerners' perspective, Wilmot's proviso did not primarily stymie slavery extension. It threatened their manhood, their rights, their equality, and their political liberty. Southern Whigs, no less than southern Democrats, utterly refused to submit to this abominable affront to personal and sectional honor." Fate, 33.

"An avid nationalist, [Zachary] Taylor considered the explosive sectional conflict over the Wilmot Proviso the gravest threat to the Unites States since the American Revolution. An experienced, if usually absentee, slaveholding cotton planter who had traversed a swath of northern Mexico during his successful military campaigns of 1846 and 1847, he was also utterly convinced that no slaveholder in his right mind would attempt to carry slaves into that arid desert. Thus Taylor, like Toombs, believed that only honor was at stake for the South in the quarrel over slavery extension." [emphasis added] Fate, 57.

So we can call it an issue of republicanism or we can call it an issue of equality, honor and pride. I think we are talking about the same thing.

Most important, however, the core of the secessionist persuasion was aimed at the same republican values of Southerners that Republicans appealed to among Northerners. Although the secessionists and their allies did, indeed, warn of the dangers of abolition and escalate demands concerning slavery in the territories, the essence of their appeal had less to do with black slavery than with protecting the rights of Southern whites from despotism. The central issue was neither race nor restriction, but republicanism. Where the Republicans had located the antirepublican monster in the Slave Power conspiracy, secessionists identified it with the Republican party, which they labeled a threat to self-government, the rule of law, Southern liberty, and Southern equality. Crisis 240.

Without question the most persistent theme in secessionist rhetoric was not the danger of the abolition or restriction of black slavery, but the infamy and degradation of submitting to the rule of a Republican majority.

“Talk of Negro slavery,” proclaimed George Fitzhugh, “it is not half so humiliating and disgraceful as the slavery of the South to the North.” Here, then, is the key to why the mere election of Lincoln could provoke secession. The Republican party did not have to do anything against black slavery to humble the South. Its victory alone meant the end of republican government and the enslavement of white Southerners. As Edmund Ruffin of Virginia wrote in 1860:
 

A Northern sectional party, and majority, directing the action of the federal government, need not exercise any unconstitutional power, or commit any “overt” act of usurpation, to produce the most complete subjection and political bondage, degradation, and ruin of the South. Crisis 242-3.

Holt says that fundamentally the issue was not about protecting and strengthening black slavery, but was one of equality, and of standing up for the rights of the South. And he points out that this is why the question was of interest to all southerners and not just slave owners. To accept this kind of treatment from the North would be degrading.

This would explain the statement by Alexander Stephens that secessionists really did not want redress for their slavery-related grievances, and would even obstruct such. They just wanted out.

All that the South has at present just cause to complain of, and the chief ground of just complaints, is the personal liberty bill[s] of some of the non-slaveholding states. These ought to be repealed, and I doubt not if the whole South had united in asking their repeal with firmness and decision and with an honest intent to be satisfied with it when they got it that success would have crowned their efforts. Of this I am satisfied. But the truth is our ultra men do not desire any redress of these grievances. They would really obstruct indirectly any effort to that end. They are for breaking up. They are tired of the gov[ernme]nt. They have played out, dried up, and want something new. Here was all the danger or the great difficulty in the way of making any settlement or adjustment. It seems to me at present insurmountable! I do not see how it can be removed or gotten over. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?...ew=1up;seq=532 page 526

[3] Ok, we agree on something, something important. But I won't pretend that that's that. So ...

If Holt is correct that

The central impulse behind secession was thus less to save black slavery than to escape white slavery by avoiding Republican tyranny and by allowing Southerners to pursue republican principles on their own.

Would you say that it was ALL about black slavery, or would a more nuanced approach be more appropriate, with black slavery occupying a central place in the discussion?

[4] How to address our disagreement, one last (?) time? First, I need to guess that by "other than" you mean "in addition to," as you do not deny "that slavery was at the heart of it all." And I will also guess that you are not making an implicit distinction between "the heart of it all" and secession, that "it" refers to secession, not some larger developments from 1830-60. So, you're not conceding slavery's "heart of it all" centrality, only to shift to "considerations other than the security of slavery" to account for secession itself. Right? If these guesses/assumptions are correct -- they must be -- then we're probably down to the firm disagreement about whether factors "other than" slavery can be viewed as distinct and separable from, independent of, maybe even equal to the "heart of it all" taproot, slavery.

I acknowledge, again, that Southerners thought a lot about honor and dishonor. I also repeat that Northerners thought themselves honorable, too. I have tried to show in discussions of Potter and Holt that, although they do, yes, occasionally mention something like honor or respect, that their respective theses do not accord honor equal weight with slavery in the secession crisis.

I do concede that Southerners complained about disrespect. However, I have a hard time trying to wrap my mind around the idea that secessionists could have been mollified, their honor assuaged, by anything short of the newly elected Republican President Lincoln's thoroughly repudiating the very founding principles of his party, even before he took office. I think a good argument can be made that during the winter of 1860-61, Lincoln was considerably -- considerably -- more conscious of and respectful toward Southern anxieties than were secessionists of his constitutional, electoral, and political requirements and difficulties.

I am not urging a deportment award for secessionists. Furthermore their complaints about disrespect or inequality were subjective, and these perceptions influenced them regardless of whether a disinterested third party would have said that they were mostly imagining things. Finally, whether Lincoln could have done anything to mollify them is beside the point, which is that

The central impulse behind secession was thus less to save black slavery than to escape white slavery by avoiding Republican tyranny and by allowing Southerners to pursue republican principles on their own.

[gumbomoop]

[1] What do mean “that Southern hypersensitivity about honor was separable from hypersensitivity about slavery”?

I did not say that. I said the opposite. If you go back and re-read my very last sentence in my multi-paragraph "Potter-section" of that post, I said that historian David Potter nowhere said or implied "that Southern hypersensitivity about honor was separable from hypersensitivity about slavery." In that section of my post, I was discussing Potter, a historian we agree is excellent. But I was disagreeing with your prior use of Potter to try to support your emphasis on the honor-factor. I will here rewrite my point [to say exactly the same thing as I said in my Potter-section]: I contend, firmly, that Potter agrees with me, that Southern hypersensitivity about honor was inseparable from hypersensitivity about slavery.

[2] I agree that slavery was the “taproot” and was a central aspect to much of the political and social conflict that preceded and lead to secession.

I'm not certain how much of a disagreement we have here, but just to make my view clear: the vast, vast majority of modern historians [say, last 50-60 years] who have written about the 1830-60 era show that slavery was the central element to sectional conflict. Hence my reference to Potter's "plague of frogs" story.

[3] But I don’t agree that this conflict could have only resulted in secession. If it could have taken a non-secession turn, then we are talking about other variables being responsible for the turn things took. If slavery was a constant, and things did not necessarily have to end in secession, then it seems inappropriate to say that secession was ALL about slavery.

I agree with you that the 30-year sectional conflict coming to a head by 1860 didn't inevitably lead to secession. But I disagree with the remainder of your paragraph here. My view is that both secessionist leaders and anti-secessionist skeptics [during the precise period of the winter of 1860-61, what we may call the "first secession"] made their calculations overwhelmingly on whether they thought slavery could best be protected by remaining in the Union, or by leaving it. So, although, as you say, "slavery was a constant," the arguments about the safest way to protect slavery were not constant at all. Thus, I think the phrase "slavery was a constant" is accurate, but misleading, even meaningless, because imprecise and vague. If I have myself been imprecise in some prior shorthand, I apologize and will hope to be careful from now on.

[4] If you and I have a disagreement about X, that can end in many ways. If you insult me because of my position on X, and I walk out saying that I never want to have anything more to do with somebody who has insulted me in such a way, it would be most accurate to say that the insult was the controlling variable. I did not walk out because of our disagreement about X but because you insulted me. Certainly X was at the heart of it all, but if you explain it to somebody by saying that my walking out was ALL attributable to X, then you have not described it accurately. It was attributable to the insult.

I concede that logic is not always my strength, especially "formal logic," if that's what your paragraph here exemplifies. But my informal logic still insists that secessionist leaders didn't feel insulted about being insulted, but thought the very essence of "Black Republican" Lincoln's election was "insulting" precisely because they perceived [and partly misperceived] Republicans to be threatening slavery.

[5] As to your interpretation of the Potter quotes, I refer, as previously, to my reading of Potter's great book as not at all focusing on honor. His entire book, I think literally every chapter, is the story of how one thing -- slavery -- was at the heart of sectionalism and ultimately the crisis of union. Although you accurately quote Potter re "merits of southern society," I don't agree that he sees it as separable from Southerners' obsession with "security for the slave system." His entire book -- not just this single sentence -- is the story of how Southerners and Northerners disagreed about the "merits" of slavery.

[6] I won't go into all of your references to Holt. I think you've fairly summarized the outlines of his argument. Now, we agree that that argument belongs to a specific historiographical construct and framework -- "republicanism." Let me focus on one of your Holt quotations, the one that I think best supports your overall contention in this thread. [And you agree, as you quote these words twice, the second time as your coup de grace.]

If Holt is correct that "The central impulse behind secession was thus less to save black slavery than to escape white slavery by avoiding Republican tyranny and by allowing Southrners to pursue republican principles on their own."

Would you say that it was ALL about black slavery, or would a more nuanced approach be more appropriate, with black slavery occupying a central place in the discussion?

I like -- seriously -- your point about "nuanced." But nuance works both, actually many, ways. I definitely agree with Holt, not to mention literally dozens of other historians, that "republicanism" was a very important mindset for many Americans, north and south, well into the 19th century. And even if it wasn't as compelling by 1860 as Holt contends, it was at the very least a significant part of the political culture to which both antebellum Southerners and Northerners fell heir. Yes, leaders in both sections -- NB: not just Southerners -- had imbibed the American Revolutionary generation's commitment to and fears about the stability and longevity of a republican system of governance. Yes, fear of tyranny -- NB: by both Northerners and Southerners -- was a central element of republicanism.

But I would say Holt might be "too clever by half" in trying to separate Southern "fear of tyranny" from "saving black slavery." It strikes me as a distinction without a difference. For secessionists did not merely fear tyranny in general. Rather, their fears were consistently tied to their "taproot fear": that losing slavery was both an immediate and long-term catastrophe, especially to planter dominance politically, economically, culturally, and socially. And most ominously of all, a racial catastrophe. Those catastrophes they sometimes interpreted, yes, in the language of "republicanism."

[7] So, Holt's intriguing attempt to subsume the sectional conflict leading to the crisis of secession and union under the umbrella construct of "republicanism" does, yes, lend support to your resistance to the "all slavery" thesis. Yes, it's nuanced, but it's also a slippery business, trying to separate white Southern "fear of being enslaved to Nothern tyranny" from white Southern insistence on protecting its enslavement of blacks. The reason Southern fire-eaters and ultimately secession leaders drew upon "republicanism's" central fears is precisely because they knew what slavery was. They knew it's humiliations, it's degradations, it's fundamental power/powerlessness relations. To them, the "Black Republicans" threatened to "turn the world upside down."

To end with your Holt coup de grace, my view is that Holt's "less to save black slavery" argument seems -- to me, but I can understand, probably not to you -- too "precious." Holt's "republicanism thesis" provides an important, long-range political/ideological context for the developing crisis. But Southerners didn't usually make the kind of distinction -- "less this, more that " -- that Holt makes here. "Fear of enslavement" was indeed among the central concerns of "republican thought." To secessionists, protection of their right to own slaves was the overriding, immediate, central object. For them, "fear of enslavement to Black Republicans" and "fear of prohibitions against enslaving black people" were two sides of the same coin. Talk about "all slavery"!!

To rephrase Holt -- which, I understand, you are not required and are unlikely to accept -- "The central impulse behind secession was to save black slavery, because if slaveowners' rights could not be saved by secession, tyrannical enslavement by Black Republicans loomed sometime in the future."

[swood1000]

I did not say that. I said the opposite. If you go back and re-read my very last sentence in my multi-paragraph "Potter-section" of that post, I said that historian David Potter nowhere said or implied "that Southern hypersensitivity about honor was separable from hypersensitivity about slavery." In that section of my post, I was discussing Potter, a historian we agree is excellent. But I was disagreeing with your prior use of Potter to try to support your emphasis on the honor-factor. I will here rewrite my point [to say exactly the same thing as I said in my Potter-section]: I contend, firmly, that Potter agrees with me, that Southern hypersensitivity about honor was inseparable from hypersensitivity about slavery.



I'm not certain how much of a disagreement we have here, but just to make my view clear: the vast, vast majority of modern historians [say, last 50-60 years] who have written about the 1830-60 era show that slavery was the central element to sectional conflict. Hence my reference to Potter's "plague of frogs" story.



I agree with you that the 30-year sectional conflict coming to a head by 1860 didn't inevitably lead to secession. But I disagree with the remainder of your paragraph here. My view is that both secessionist leaders and anti-secessionist skeptics [during the precise period of the winter of 1860-61, what we may call the "first secession"] made their calculations overwhelmingly on whether they thought slavery could best be protected by remaining in the Union, or by leaving it. So, although, as you say, "slavery was a constant," the arguments about the safest way to protect slavery were not constant at all. Thus, I think the phrase "slavery was a constant" is accurate, but misleading, even meaningless, because imprecise and vague. If I have myself been imprecise in some prior shorthand, I apologize and will hope to be careful from now on.



I concede that logic is not always my strength, especially "formal logic," if that's what your paragraph here exemplifies. But my informal logic still insists that secessionist leaders didn't feel insulted about being insulted, but thought the very essence of "Black Republican" Lincoln's election was "insulting" precisely because they perceived [and partly misperceived] Republicans to be threatening slavery.

[5] As to your interpretation of the Potter quotes, I refer, as previously, to my reading of Potter's great book as not at all focusing on honor. His entire book, I think literally every chapter, is the story of how one thing -- slavery -- was at the heart of sectionalism and ultimately the crisis of union. Although you accurately quote Potter re "merits of southern society," I don't agree that he sees it as separable from Southerners' obsession with "security for the slave system." His entire book -- not just this single sentence -- is the story of how Southerners and Northerners disagreed about the "merits" of slavery.

[6] I won't go into all of your references to Holt. I think you've fairly summarized the outlines of his argument. Now, we agree that that argument belongs to a specific historiographical construct and framework -- "republicanism." Let me focus on one of your Holt quotations, the one that I think best supports your overall contention in this thread. [And you agree, as you quote these words twice, the second time as your coup de grace.]



I like -- seriously -- your point about "nuanced." But nuance works both, actually many, ways. I definitely agree with Holt, not to mention literally dozens of other historians, that "republicanism" was a very important mindset for many Americans, north and south, well into the 19th century. And even if it wasn't as compelling by 1860 as Holt contends, it was at the very least a significant part of the political culture to which both antebellum Southerners and Northerners fell heir. Yes, leaders in both sections -- NB: not just Southerners -- had imbibed the American Revolutionary generation's commitment to and fears about the stability and longevity of a republican system of governance. Yes, fear of tyranny -- NB: by both Northerners and Southerners -- was a central element of republicanism.

But I would say Holt might be "too clever by half" in trying to separate Southern "fear of tyranny" from "saving black slavery." It strikes me as a distinction without a difference. For secessionists did not merely fear tyranny in general. Rather, their fears were consistently tied to their "taproot fear": that losing slavery was both an immediate and long-term catastrophe, especially to planter dominance politically, economically, culturally, and socially. And most ominously of all, a racial catastrophe. Those catastrophes they sometimes interpreted, yes, in the language of "republicanism."

[7] So, Holt's intriguing attempt to subsume the sectional conflict leading to the crisis of secession and union under the umbrella construct of "republicanism" does, yes, lend support to your resistance to the "all slavery" thesis. Yes, it's nuanced, but it's also a slippery business, trying to separate white Southern "fear of being enslaved to Nothern tyranny" from white Southern insistence on protecting its enslavement of blacks. The reason Southern fire-eaters and ultimately secession leaders drew upon "republicanism's" central fears is precisely because they knew what slavery was. They knew it's humiliations, it's degradations, it's fundamental power/powerlessness relations. To them, the "Black Republicans" threatened to "turn the world upside down."

To end with your Holt coup de grace, my view is that Holt's "less to save black slavery" argument seems -- to me, but I can understand, probably not to you -- too "precious." Holt's "republicanism thesis" provides an important, long-range political/ideological context for the developing crisis. But Southerners didn't usually make the kind of distinction -- "less this, more that " -- that Holt makes here. "Fear of enslavement" was indeed among the central concerns of "republican thought." To secessionists, protection of their right to own slaves was the overriding, immediate, central object. For them, "fear of enslavement to Black Republicans" and "fear of prohibitions against enslaving black people" were two sides of the same coin. Talk about "all slavery"!!

To rephrase Holt -- which, I understand, you are not required and are unlikely to accept -- "The central impulse behind secession was to save black slavery, because if slaveowners' rights could not be saved by secession, tyrannical enslavement by Black Republicans loomed sometime in the future."

Before moving on, can we agree that a more-than-competent historian believes that
 

• Actual expansion of slavery to the lands acquired from Mexico was, for the most part, not a practical possibility, and the controversy really was about the equal rights of the South.

• The central impulse behind secession was less to save black slavery than to escape white slavery by avoiding Republican tyranny and by allowing Southerners to pursue republican principles on their own.

• The most persistent theme in secessionist rhetoric was not the danger of the abolition or restriction of black slavery, but the infamy and degradation of submitting to the rule of a Republican majority.

 
And can we agree that
 

• Alexander Stephens, in his letter of 12/31/1860, appeared to be saying that secessionists were not primarily motivated by grievances related to the security of slavery.

• Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina, comprising more than half of the population of the Confederacy, seceded in response to Lincoln’s announcement of a plan to send an army into the South, having previously declined to secede for other reasons.

 
If it is your contention that those in Virginia believed that secession would render slavery more secure in Virginia, how do you respond to the argument, made at the time by those opposed to secession, that it clearly would make their slaves much more vulnerable by (a) moving Canada to the border of Virginia making it much easier for slaves to escape, (b) giving up all laws in the North designed to aid in the return of fugitive slaves, including offered enhancements of these laws (and likely rendering the Northern states hostile to these efforts), and (c) giving up all laws in the North that would aid in preventing John Brown raids, all of this despite the hugely increased amount they would have to spend patrolling their border?

[gumbomoop]

Before moving on, can we agree that a more-than-competent historian believes that
 

• Actual expansion of slavery to the lands acquired from Mexico was, for the most part, not a practical possibility, and the controversy really was about the equal rights of the South.

• The central impulse behind secession was less to save black slavery than to escape white slavery by avoiding Republican tyranny and by allowing Southerners to pursue republican principles on their own.

• The most persistent theme in secessionist rhetoric was not the danger of the abolition or restriction of black slavery, but the infamy and degradation of submitting to the rule of a Republican majority.

 
And can we agree that
 

• Alexander Stephens, in his letter of 12/31/1860, appeared to be saying that secessionists were not primarily motivated by grievances related to the security of slavery.

• Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina, comprising more than half of the population of the Confederacy, seceded in response to Lincoln’s announcement of a plan to send an army into the South, having previously declined to secede for other reasons.

 
If it is your contention that those in Virginia believed that secession would render slavery more secure in Virginia, how do you respond to the argument, made at the time by those opposed to secession, that it clearly would make their slaves much more vulnerable by (a) moving Canada to the border of Virginia making it much easier for slaves to escape, (b) giving up all laws in the North designed to aid in the return of fugitive slaves, including offered enhancements of these laws (and likely rendering the Northern states hostile to these efforts), and (c) giving up all laws in the North that would aid in preventing John Brown raids, all of this despite the hugely increased amount they would have to spend patrolling their border?

1. Although I agree that Holt is more-than-competent, I neither agree with every single sentence he has written, nor that equally fine historians agree with every [or in some cases any] aspect of his "republicanism" emphasis on the secession crisis.

2. The argument about the expansion of slavery into territories was not simply about "the equal rights of the South." Although Southerners, of course, frequently interpreted the territorial issue that way, Northerners certainly did not. Virtually the opposite, they saw things such as the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Dred Scott decision as ominous signs of a "Slave Power Conspiracy."

3. As to your second Holt bullet point, in the narrowest of terms, yes, I agree that Holt wrote such words, but I have analyzed that sentence at some length in my most recent post. That I agree he wrote those words is less significant than my analysis of the complicated "republicanism" context of those words.

4. Similarly, I have already commented on the "tyranny," "enslavement," and "degradation" themes in the "republicanism" approach to understanding secession. But the South's fierce commitment to slavery imparted a special "flavor" to slaveowners' strangely ironic "republican" complaints about some future tyranny by a "Black Republican" majority. As I noted in my recent post, the larger irony is that this anguished rhetoric shows even more clearly how the South was determined to protect slavery.

5. On Stephens's letter of 12/31/60, no, I do not entirely agree. You quoted this letter accurately in one of your previous posts, showing that Stephens wrote that the South's main complaint was against the personal liberty laws of some Northern states. This was clearly a reference to "grievances related to the security of slavery." Now, true enough, Stephens went on to complain that some/many of the South's "ultra men" wouldn't be mollified by redress of grievances, as they "want something new." By the time he became the nascent Confederacy's Vice-President, Stephens defended the secession he had not wanted in terms of the "cornerstone" of his new allegiance: "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."

6. I do agree that the "second secession" (upper South) was a response to Lincoln's call for troops to suppress the rebellion. Just to be clear, however, that does not mean that slaveowners in these states were any less committed to protecting slavery than were their brethren further South. As you say, the four states of the upper South had "previously declined to secede for other reasons"; among which reasons was their view that secession would foolishly endanger slavery.

.......

A final thought, for now, and perhaps (I sort of hope so, and intend so) my near-last post in this thread: It appears to me that this thread has pretty much run its course. That wouldn't necessarily be so if there were multiple posters, but you and I and Olympic Fan seem to have run off the others. I remarked a couple of weeks back that we were talking past each other, and we seem to have circled back to that brick wall.

It's a genuinely interesting puzzle, to me, that we seem to inhabit alternate "logical universes." To settle (??) our differences, it would seem to take someone fully versed in both the history of the 1850s and perhaps multiple fields of logic (semantics, inference, informal logic, argumentation, logical fallacies, whatever). An expert in both, and who would also be skilled in intellectual arbitration. An "objective" historian, scholarly logician, and very wise wo/man.

Very not likely. So, I will do you the courtesy of waiting for your "Before moving on" response to the other specific issues in my previous post. But I will hope to be able to respond not in kind, but with some sort of pleasant, if puzzled, farewell.

You have pushed me to think about issues I'd not have imagined confronting, even on a Duke board. So I have enjoyed the intellectual jousting. But, for me, the enjoyment has faded, and I doubt circling back to the same arguments will produce, for me, much further intellectual stimulation or satisfaction.