Southern secession

“ Educated for generations to believe in the right of secession, it is not strange that Southern men who did not believe any real cause for a dissolution of the Union existed, went with their States when they determined to secede. Taught, from infancy, that their first allegiance was due to the State, it was not singular that they rallied to its standard when it called on them, and that, during four years of desperate war, they fought, with a courage and steadfastness that challenges the admiration of all men, for the idea, the principle, they had been educated to believe was right. ”

“ As the South is habitually condemned and held criminal for seeking to perpetuate a great wrong, it is well to inquire and investigate who was responsible for the state of things which precipitated and prolonged the crisis of 1860-1865. If the act of secession cannot be justified the Southern people will be stigmatized as a brave and rash people deluded by bad men who attempted in an illegal and wicked manner to overthrow the Union. ”

“ The cause of emancipation takes, therefore, a very important step in advance, in the hypothesis of a Southern Confederacy reduced, or nearly so, to the Gulf States alone. Limited secession is perhaps of all combinations, the one most favorable to the suppression of slavery. Picture to yourself, in fact, what this Southern Confederacy will he. It will be an impossible, short-lived republic, the separation of which will one day cease, and which, meanwhile, will be incapable of realizing any of its favorite projects. ”

“ When the right to discuss, deliberate and decide, exists, those possessing it, must necessarily be the sole judges of how it is to be exercised. The Southern states did deliberate and did decide that they could no longer remain in the Union with safety, and therefore they determined to withdraw from it. If the Southern people had been hurried into secession by their leaders, they are the parties to complain and to hold the guilty ones responsible. ”

“ The South is mad. She will come to her senses after the shock of the first skirmish is over. With the Southern members in their places, they have a majority in Congress against the President. He can move neither hand nor foot. What has the South to gain by Secession? They always controlled the Union and can continue to do so if they stand united with their Northern friends. In the end their defeat is as sure as that twenty millions of free white Americans can whip five millions of equal courage and daring. They have everything to lose and nothing to gain. ”

“ Secession, and a confederacy founded upon slavery as its chief cornerstone, would be better than the future of the Southern States—better for both races, too—if the nation is to permit one-third, and that the fairest portion of its domain, to become the spawning ground of ignorance, vice, anarchy, and of every crime. ”

“ This was the plausible and attractive sentiment of State pride, concealing in itself the idea of perfect sovereignty, with the right of nullification and secession. With consummate ability, with untiring industry and perseverance, and without a moment's cessation for more than a quarter of a century, this fruitful but pernicious seed of disorganization was sown broadcast among the Southern people. ”

“ My regard for [12] the personal welfare of yourself and yours is too warm and deep, not to regret seeing you float to the Southern extreme of American society at the present juncture of our National affairs.
"The loud blast of secession is already heard in the South, and I am impressed that the Southern sisterhood of States will unite in a desperate effort to dissolve this Union and destroy the General Government. And that no renewal of compromise effort can save the tremendous shock of war, between the North and South, that portends in the political heavens. ”

“ The assumption upon which its chief politicians had built so confidently had collapsed. The South was not really a unit. It was not true that the secession of any one State, on any sort of issue, would compel automatically the secession of all the Southern States. North Carolina had exploded this illusion. Virginia had exploded it. The South could not be united on the issue of slavery; it could not be united on the issue of sectional dread. It could be united on but one issue-State sovereignty, the denial of the right of the Federal Government to coerce a State. ”

“ A portion of that speech is interesting even at this time, as showing how certain phases of the Tariff and Internal Improvement questions entered into the consideration of some of the Southern Secession leaders. Said he, "I know there are intimations that suffering will fall upon us of the South, if we secede. My people are not terrified by any such considerations. * * * They have no fears of the future if driven to rely on themselves. The Southern States have more territory than all the Colonies had when they Seceded from Great Britain, and a better territory. ”

“ While the Secession leaders were engaged in their schemes for the disruption of the National Government and the formation of a new confederacy, Congress was employing every effort to arrest the Disunion tendency by making new concessions, and offering new guaranties to the offended power of the South. If the wild precipitation of the Southern leaders must be condemned, the compromising course of the majority in each branch of Congress will not escape censure,—censure for misjudgment, not for wrong intention. ”

“ Since 1830 no exponent of Southern views had ever hinted at secession on any other ground than slavery; every Southern leader declared with undoubted truth that on every other ground he prized the Union; outside South Carolina every Southern leader made an earnest attempt before he surrendered the Union cause to secure the guarantees he thought sufficient for slavery within the Union. ”

“ Never could those called the Southern leaders have carried the secession ordinances, never could they have carried on the war with the vigor and determination, and with such formidable armies as they collected and armed for four years, making at times the destiny of the Union well nigh doubtful, if they had not had the Southern heart with them, if they had not been most heartily supported by the overwhelming mass of the people. ”

“ When, therefore, by the formal and constitutional act of the States, secession from the Federal government was declared in 1860 and 1861, it is almost impossible for any one not familiar with the habits and thoughts of the South, to understand how completely the question of duty was settled for Southern men. Shrewd, practical men who had no faith in the result, old and eminent men who had grown gray in service under the national flag, had their doubts and their misgivings ”

“ And how they believed in this impossible future in 'the cradle of the rebellion!' Only a minority of darker conspirators apprehended—hoped for—war, thinking it necessary to precipitate the remainder of the Southern States into revolution, and the establishment of a separate nationality; the great majority of South Carolinians accepting Secession with an enthusiasm (or rather self-exaltation) and confidence astounding to witness. There would be no collision; the North could not and dared not push it to the extreme issue ”

“ And this at the moment when nothing would have delighted the Southern secessionists more than to see the Union entangled in a conflict with a strong foreign power, which foreign power would then have been the natural ally of the Confederacy! How anyone could hope that, under such circumstances, an actual conflict between those powers and the United States, the very thing our secessionists ardently desired in the interest of Southern independence, would re-unite the South and the North in a common national enthusiasm, passes understanding. ”

“ Secession Aims and Grievances.
"Tell me exactly what the 'wrongs' and 'grievances' are, of which I hear so much on every side."
"It is difficult to answer. The masses have been stirred into a vague, bitter, 'soreheaded' feeling that the South is wronged; but the leaders seldom descend to particulars. When they do, it is very ludicrous. They urge the marvelous growth of the North; the abrogation of the Missouri Compromise (done by southern votes!) , and that Freedom has always distanced Slavery in the territories. ”

“ The mass of the people, especially in the country districts, found in the political meeting an interest whose only rival was the camp-meeting. Besides, when the burning political question was slavery, it came home to the business and bosoms of the South, while to the North it was remote. And thus, when the secession movement broke upon the land, the Southern people grasped it with a concentration, energy, and response to their habitual leaders, in strongest contrast to the surprise, hesitation, and division, which at first characterized the North. ”

“ Its defenders felt their defeat as men feel the downfall of a political cause to which they are attached, not quite as men feel the conquest of their country by foreigners. The second is that from the first there had been many who, [212] while admitting the right of secession—and therefore, by implication, the justice of the Southern cause—had yet doubted its expediency. It is surely not unnatural to suppose that the disastrous issue of the experiment had brought a great many round to this point of view. ”

“ As a politician, representing Southern interests, he cannot be severely condemned for his fear and anger over the discussion of the slavery question, which, politically considered, was out of the range of Congressional legislation or popular agitation. But when he advocated or threatened the secession of the Southern States from the Union, unless the slavery question was let alone entirely both by Congress and the Northern States, he was unpatriotic, false in his allegiance, and unconstitutional in his utterances. ”

“ And even those Southern statesmen who at the outset were opposed to Secession, and have never ceased to deplore the fruitless civil war into which the South has plunged the nation, are compelled to admit, with a distinguished citizen of Georgia, that "the war, with all its afflictive train of suffering, privation, and death, has served to eradicate all idea of reconstruction, even with those who made it the basis of their arguments in favor of disunion." ”

“ But we do believe that it will be read and appreciated by a very large class of right-minded, thinking men South and North, and exert an immense influence in the direction of complete reconciliation and reconstruction by demonstrating the absolutely illogical character of secession, while it does justice to the honesty, manhood, courage, military skill, and fortitude displayed by the Southern people. ”

“ The doctrine of the right of Secession had now long been taught, and had become a part of the Southern Slave-holders' Democratic creed, as fully as had the desirability of Slavery and Free-Trade—and even many of the Northern Democrats, and some Republicans as well, were not much inclined to dispute, although they cared not to canvass, the point. ”

“ Secession and permanent division will not cure the trouble, but will increase it. Moreover, the contrariety of feeling between people in the non-slaveholding States, made intense by the departure of the Southern section, may inaugurate hostilities among ourselves more fearful than those which drive away the Southern people. ”

“ Great pecuniary distress in the country owing to the political discussions which have arisen out of the election of Lincoln for President. Several of the Southern States threaten secession, and will in all probability go. It is a dark time for our country. The North has agitated the subject of slavery until the South is maddened to desperation and unless she retraces her steps, the Union can not stand. The Lord is our only help. ”

“ True to their threats never to endure the rule of a "Black Republican" President, the Cotton States one after the other withdrew their senators and representatives from Congress, passed what they called "Ordinances of Secession," and declared themselves to be no longer a part of the United States. One after another, too, army and navy officers stationed in the Southern States gave up to the Southern leaders in this movement the forts, navy-yards, arsenals, mints, ships, and other government property under their charge. ”

“ The disunion movement manifested also dangerous strength in Virginia and Alabama, and showed possibilities of great danger in Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, Missouri, Texas, and Arkansas. The majority of the people may not have favored secession in 1850 any more than in 1860; but the leaders could and did carry most of the Southern legislatures in favor of uniting for resistance. ”

“ Even after the compromise was accepted in the South and the secessionists defeated in 1850-1851, the Southern states generally adopted the Georgia platform or its equivalent declaring that the Wilmot Proviso or the repeal of the fugitive-slave law would lead the South to "resist even (as a last resort) to a disruption of every tie which binds her to the Union". Southern disunion sentiment was not sporadic or a party matter; it was endemic.
The disunion sentiment in the North was not general ”

“ Counting out Northern Confederates and Southern Federals as canceling each other, so far as effective fighting was concerned a comparison made between the North and South along the line of actual secession reveals the one real advantage the South enjoyed all through—an overwhelming party in favor of the war. ”