Garland Favorito of Voter GA, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of South Carolina’s secession from the Union, offers us this take on the War Between the States.
The 150th anniversary of South Carolina’s attempted secession and America’s most devastating war gives us a new chance to understand the key to how our federal government can no longer be easily be controlled. But we must reevaluate what we have learned because the history of all war is written from the perspective of the victor.
So to get along can we instead call it: The War of Southern Psychotic Denial and Northern Aggressive Avarice?
Anon @ 39 – OK, my last sentence in 37 is a bit overbearing and I apologize to Paulie.
My point is that yes, during the war President Lincoln did abridge freedoms in the north – that is war and why libertarians oppose war.
But before the war, the North was clearly more free than the South, and it was the commitment of Northernors to freedom that led to the South Carolina resolution of secession.
After the war, wartime curbs on freedom were ended in the North, but new curbs on freedom arose in the South. I don’t see a moral equivalence between the North and the South.
@36 said neither side had any monopoly on liberty. Your comment confirmed it.
Did you see an assertion such as the one you want backed up, or is that a rhetorical misdirection a la “if you are going to contend that the moon is made of green cheese, back up your assertion with some facts” when no one has contended that the moon is made of green cheese?
You agree that with the end of fugitive slave laws, slaves could have escaped to the US. Do you think slavery could have been sustained then?
IYF @ 34 – you are correct that with the separation of the slave states from the Union, the Fugitive Slave Law became invalid. Slaves who escaped to Union territory would gain their freedom.
During the period after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the north was inhospitable to escaped slaves because the federal government had responsibility for capturing those who had escaped the South. To avoid federal power at the service of the slave masters, fugitives had to go to Canada.
Paulie @ 35 – during course of the Civil War, the federal government enacted an incomce tax and conscription, and practiced censorship of the press. President Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus and there were other abuses of liberty – in the course of the war. And they printed Greenbacks.
Libertarians condemn these infringements on liberty. But he Supreme Court threw out the income tax, conscription ended with the end of the war, and other civil liberties were restored at the end of hostilities.
The South had conscription also, printed paper money, suppressed pro-Union organizations, and maintained chattel slavery. At the end of the war, the Ku Klux Klan was organized to terrorize freed Blacks and pro-Union Whites….
Prior to the Civil War, the biggest attack on freedom in the North came with passage of Fugitive Slave Act in 1850. Other than that, private property was respected, unless you were a Native American; there was no income tax, prohibition was local and rare, and other common liberties were respected.
If you are going to contend that the Northern states limited freedom in any way comparable to chattel slavery. back up your assert ion with some facts.
Red @20 is correct. Neither the North nor the South had any monopoly on liberty. Both sides were deeply flawed.
IYF, and I’m sure that the Yankee states would have welcomed the freed slaves with open arms, given that they were bastions of modern political correctness. Or so Gene Berkman would have us believe.
@30
Quite true. Now consider what would have happened if the South had been allowed to secede. With no fugitive slaw act in place, the slavery system would have fallen quickly – probably by the time the war was won in the real world, or very shortly thereafter, if not sooner.
Of course, that would have meant more former slaves in the Yankee states, and a disadvantage for Yankee cotton mills if they could not charge tariffs and give themselves a leg up against European manufacturers.
Thanks Mik,
I meant “Did a single southern Statesman rise up to oppose the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850?’
Very interesting point Gene. I hadn’t thought of that one before.
Did a single southern Statesman rise up to oppose the Fugitive Slave Act in 1950?
Did anyone commemorate the centennial anniversary of the act?
Actually, the action that laid the groundwork for uncontrolled growth of the federal government occurred 11 years before the attack by South Carolina on federal property at Fort Sumter.
The Constitution provided the federal government power to enforce laws in the case of piracy or felony upon the high seas, violation of the law of nations, and treason against the United States. The Constitution did not envision the federal government enforcing laws within the states.
That changed in 1850 with passage of the Fugitive Slave Act – complete text @ http://www.usconstitution.net/fslave.html
This vile law required that federal marshals capture people who had escaped from servitude in the South, even if they were in the free states, and it required the governments of the free states to cooperate in the process.
The South Carolina Resolution of Secession specifically invokes the failure or refusal of northern states to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act as a reason for separation from the Union.
Passage of the Fugitive Slave Act abrogated the “state’s rights” of the free states, and created new powers for the federal government. Did a single southern Statesman rise up to oppose the Fugitive Slave Act in 1950?
Visiting my sloped skulled, pin headed, hill billy ‘relations’ in the 1960s : ‘save your dixie cups, the South will rise again ……..’
“The Key Events That Lead to Uncontrolled Federal Growth:”
1) The adoption of the income tax,
2) The creation of the Federal Reserve
3) The invention of air conditioning
Hi Scott @10 –
What kind of a question? I don’t understand. Thanks, Gene, for the direct link to the thread. Much of the discussion there addresses questions raised here and vice versa. Since Volokh is a legal blog there is more discussion of legality/illegality/constitutionality than here, but I found it enlightening.
Ft. Sumter contained a customs house which collected federal tariffs. If it remained in union hands, it would continue to attempt to collect federal tariffs on international trade – cotton and otherwise – coming through Charleston.
To my knowledge, I had no ancestors living in or near the Americas during the 1860s.
“What state entered the Confederacy other than for the purpose of defending the “peculiar institution”? ”
Virginia, among others. There were two waves of secession. The first saw the deep south secede, but there was still not a great amount of support even among other slave states at that point. The second was after Lincoln’s plans for invasion and subjugation became clear, at which point you could say in modern parlance that secession went viral. Only threats and intimidation held Kentucky, Maryland, et al in the union at that point. Slavery wasn’t the issue by this time, as Lincoln himself endorsed the first thirteenth amendment, which precluded the outlawing of slavery.
The war was a travesty any way you look at it. The John Deere corporation would have ended slavery within the century, and without the mass destruction and lingering animosity.
I had relatives in Alabama who fought on both sides from what I understand, but I’m with New Fed @21
“I may be blinded by my Pennsylvania heritage”
So you’re saying that loyalty to place and home influences how people feel about these things? I agree.
“You mean like the Union slaves states Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky…? ”
Yes, several slave states remained in the Union. Abolitionists favored ending slavery in these states also, and with passage of the 13th Amendment chattel slavery was banned throughout the United States.
What state entered the Confederacy other than for the purpose of defending the “peculiar institution”? So you had a group of free states that also included several slave states, versus a confederacy of 13 slave states. I may be blinded by my Pennsylvania heritage, but I don’t see a moral equivalency there.
Let’s move on to abortion… we won’t solve that one either!
“as the rest of the country came to see it as the evil it is”
You mean like the Union slaves states Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky…? Or Illinois which banned the immigration of freed slaves? Are those the enlightened people you are referring to?
Also, seldom in American history has American politics been divided along pro-liberty and anti-liberty lines, and people who want to see them by that perspective are often engaging in selective revisionist history. Actually American politics has usually been divided along the lines of coalitions of competing interests groups. Since the South had been pauperized by the invasion and destruction of its lands and the killing off of a large portion of its best and brightest, it is hardly surprising that the South represented an interest group in favor of government handouts.
“…that the WBTS changed the nature of the union and facilitated the expansion of government is undeniable.”
Perhaps then you should criticize the fire-breathers in South Carolina that instigated the attack on Fort Sumter and created a casus belli.
Anyway, after the end of reconstruction, when the south returned to their old ways, there was little freedom for blacks in the South, and little enough for poor whites.
A bigger expansion of the federal government came with the New Deal. Many southern politicos were ardent supporters of the New Deal, including Sen Hugo Black (Alabama) a former member of the Klan; Sen. Theodore Bilbo (Mississippi) who was a Klansman till his death, and a self-describe “Redneck Liberal.”
Sen. Pat Harrison (Mississippi) introduced the bill to recognize the Soviet Union and extend diplomatic relations. Maury Maverick, Lyndon Johnson and other Texans also pushed for more power for the federal government.
The South has been a poor defender of liberty, as one expects from a region that clung to chattel slavery as the rest of the country came to see it as the evil it is.
“Mr Phillips, the fort was U.S. property at the time that President Lincoln ordered in to be reprovisioned.
Since the state of South Carolina did not offer to pay for it, or enter into negotiations to purchase it, the declaration that it was property of South Carolina amounts to an act of theft.”
First of all Mr. Berkman, the South sent emissaries to Washington to negotiate a settlement and Lincoln rebuffed them because he was never interested in a peaceful settlement to begin with.
Second, so are you suggesting that if Texas seceded today, the Feds would get to keep Fort Hood? Or if Wyoming seceded the Feds would get to keep Yellowstone? That is absurd. That would render the act of secession virtually meaningless, particularly out West where there are vast expanses of Federal land.
Also, I thought you libertarians objected to public lands and standing armys?
On the main subject of Favorito’s article, that the WBTS changed the nature of the union and facilitated the expansion of government is undeniable.
Mr. West, you are very quick to play the r card I see. That slavery had something to do with secession is undeniable. But few defenders of the South phrase the issue that way. They would more likely say that slavery was not a cause or the only cause of the War. This is correct as I said above, but it is correct for reasons different than many who make the claim intend it.
People who make these statements are generally just ill-informed or making poorly worded assertions, and far from being racist, they are usually trying their best to avoid the accusation of racism.
What can be said definitively is that Lincoln did not go to war to free the slaves, which makes the idea that the War was some moral crusade on the part of the North moot.
Also, while some in the South had an economic interest in continuing slavery per se, many in the South did not own slaves (and even many who did) and had grown skeptical and weary of the institution. Many in the South’s stake in the slavery issue was not the continuation of the institution per se, but that they didn’t know what to do with the slaves they had. In some parts of the South the slaves outnumbered the white population. They did not feel it was safe to just free the slaves, and didn’t think their societies could withstand the sudden granting of political equality to freed slaves. Which is also why many whites in the North were more than happy for the freed slaves to stay in the South. Now while it is easy for modern day PC grandstanders like yourself to wag you finger at past generations, the reasonable person considers people according to their times. Had you been a white Southerner at the time, odds are you would have held the same opinions as were common among your peers, and if you deny this you are an even worse grandstander.
The link for the post mentioned by Wolfefan @ 9 is http://volokh.com/2010/12/20/the-150th-anniversary-of-south-carolinas-secession/
I prefer quoting the South Carolina gentleman who had it exactly right these many years ago when he stated, in a discussion of South Carolina’s secession and act of aggression against Fort Sumter, “Ahh, South Carolina! Too small for a Republic, too large for an insane asylum.”
Mr Phillips, the fort was U.S. property at the time that President Lincoln ordered in to be reprovisioned.
Since the state of South Carolina did not offer to pay for it, or enter into negotiations to purchase it, the declaration that it was property of South Carolina amounts to an act of theft.
I was going to refer to it as eminent domain, except there is no record of either judicial proceedings, finding of blight, or purhase even at a compulsory price.
Scott – volokh.com is a site maintained by libertarian (and conservative) legal philosophers and lawyers. It is very scholary, and cerntainly not neo-nazi.
Actually, that’s intended as a question.
FYI: That’s a neo-nazi website in #9.
There is a discussion of this issue and the legal differences between secession and rebellion with a variety of perspectives represented at http://www.volokh.com.
If you’d like to read the “Declaration of Immediate Causes” which was written up by the secession convention, you can find it here: http://www.teachingushistory.org/lessons/DecofImCauses.htm.
The connection between secession and slavery is undeniable. Only a racist would attempt to deny it.
No Mr. Berkman, the North attempting to reprovision a fort in a territory that no longer belonged to them was the act of aggression.
It was a carefully orchestrated act by the conniving Lincoln to provoke the South into firing the first shot. Lincoln needed that because public sentiment in the North did not necessarily favor a war to bring the Southern states back in.
“ecession was not an act of war, but the attack on federal property at Fort Sumter was an act of aggression by the south.”
Actually, an act of aggression by the State of South Carolina.
Secession was not an act of war, but the attack on federal property at Fort Sumter was an act of aggression by the south.
Whether the response of the federal government was proportion to the provocation is a matter on which I am doing more research. But the southern cause was not defense of constitutional rights, but defense of slavery, and the documentary record is not ambiguous on the subject.
Cody, OK.
I can’t speak for Mr. Favorito Mr. Berkman, but I agree that slavery was a cause of secession. But it was not a cause of the War. There was one and only one cause of the War, the North invaded us. To conflate the causes of secession with the cause of the War is to accept the historically inaccurate Union narrative that secession was an act of war. It was not. Secession is inherently peaceful. It was invading us to prevent secession that was the act of war.
And you make reference to the “free states of the North.” Surely you are aware that not all the Union states were free.
Red, you should do an article on this-
http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/dec/20/eight-hearts-settles-tied-election-results/
The link takes you to a propaganda piece that is of little value in understanding the origins of the war of southern rebellion.
Mr Favorito claims that slavery was not the cause of the hostility between the free states of the north and the slave states that made us the confederacy.
Yet the “Declaration of Immediate Causes” passed by the legislature of South Carolina, invokes prominently this section of the Constitution of the United States:
The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”
The declaration then goes on to complain that “an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations…” and then details the complaints.
Source: http://www.wadehamptoncamp.org/hist-scic.html
The South Carolina declaration of Secession was followed by an invitation to the other slave-holding states to form a confederacy. If slavery were not the principle issue, why did they not invite northern states in which Democrats held control to join them in a confederation dedicated to lower tariffs, if that was the issue.
Libertarians support the right of local independence, but apologizing for the slave holding planter class of the south, that sacrificed the lives of so many poor white southerners for such an ignoble purpose has no place in modern American politics.