What basis did the North have for attacking the South?

The only reason slavery figured into the Civil war at all was economics. The Underground Railroad had already been operating for quite some time and the work to free the slaves was ongoing. The South wanted to keep them because that is the only way the plantations were economically possible. The North, being primarily industrial, did not need the slaves and so were able to take the 'moral high ground' due to LACK of economic necessity. There were a good many northerners, however, more than willing to return the runaway slaves for the rewards offered! It was not until the slaves reached Canada that they knew for sure they were safe.

The root of the American Civil War was the same as the root of most wars -- money. A split between the north and the south would have eventually bankrupted them both, actually. Slavery presented an emotional call to war and secession presented a patriotic one, but the root of them both was money.

Galatian asked what would have been better than freeing the slaves. Freeing them gradually, actually, after they had been GIVEN the education, training, and land to make it on their own. Instead we created in one year a poverty-striken lower class that was about 85% black and it is THAT, not slavery, which they have had to fight off to this day. Slavery sounds better because it is one word, but it was not freedom that helped them nearly as much as the courtesy of education and training and a head start economically would have. But there is no simple word for that...

In fact, if the US had lost, there would have been no gradual freeing of the slaves. Slavery paid too well for the minority of Southerners who actually had slaves and stole from them the fruits of their labor.

Slavery actually put the South into poverty and want. But a few prospered by it, and they ran things.

As tough as it was in the South after the Civil War, I'm sure blacks preferred being able to keep what little they earned, and not having to worry about being sold and carried away from their families.

Juneteenth is certainly a popular holiday in Texas among blacks. The idea that prolonging slavery would have been a good thing, seems too ludicrous to take seriously.

 

There was no single cause of the Civil War, of course. But it is very interesting to me that at least 4 states each gave a Declaration of Immediate Causes in which slavery was decidedly a crucial issue to them.
http://www.bessel.org/slavecw.htm reprints those of South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas.

And given the armed uprising that occurred in Oxford, MS in 1962 when James Meredith entered the Univ. of MS, old attitudes died hard and are a lot more recent than we like to think.

Karen(a proud descendant of three Union soldiers, one of whom died in battle days before his 27th birthday)

 

http://www.bessel.org/slavecw.htm

The rest of the website is also highly informative. It gives the actual secession declarations of a number of states.

Karen

[ August 27, 2002, 02:16 AM: Message edited by: Karen ]

 

The idea that prolonging slavery would have been a good thing, seems too ludicrous to take seriously.

Prolonging slavery was considered a "good thing" by Lincoln-- that is, prolonging it in the slave states which had not seceded and thus were not included in his Emancipation Proclamation. And while he did this to help hold his army together, there is indication it may have hurt his cause as much as it helped. There were citizens in MO, KY, and MD whose support was lost because they were fighting for the preservation of the 'Union,' not against the preservation of slavery.

What would have happend if the South had won is a matter of interesting speculation. There is nothing at all to indicate that slavery was a dying institution by the 1860's, and therefore it likely would have continued for decades. But as the British Empire and most of Latin America had already ended slavery, the issue would have resulted in few friends for Confederate States. But the North needed cotton and wanted tobacco, where would they have gotten it from if they boycotted the South? Perhaps from Brazil-- which was moving to gradually end slavery-- at a greater expense; and thus Brazil may have advocated the 'old USA' from never reconciling. But would Europeans have been willing to sell their industrial products to the CSA? That is impossible to know, since many Europeans took delght in the crash of the democratic republic in America, proving in their view that this devised system does not work. If the South had been able to develop its own industrialism to meet its own needs, then it certainly could have withstood many more decades of world shunning because of slavery. But then the irony would have been a growing anti-slavery movement of its own; for just as the industrial North had abandoned slavery and only then gradually came to regard it as evil, at some time the South would also have done so. In fact, the South may have had to face another "civil war" within its own member states, as some would have ended slavery before others. And by that time the remaining states for continued slavery would have less industrialization and no allies; thus it would have been a shorter, less bloody war.

 

Based on some of my prior reading the best "legal" basis for invasion of the South was probably based on recovery of Federal property seized by the secessionist states on Federal military institutions. It's part of the reason why it was so important for South Carolina to actually have siezed Fort Sumter.

On the other "Civil War" thread, I pointed out the fact that Jefferson Davis was never tried for treason and sedition. That was his most earnest desire up until his death.

And of course the reason that he wasn't brought to trial is that he probably would have won.

 

A house devided against itself cannot stand. That was true in the OT, and it's true now. If the South had won the fight, you probably wouldn't have the USA and CSA today, both probably would have been long gone by now.

Just my two cents.
John

 

Your two cents ain't worth a penny. Canada survived. Mexico survived. Venezuela survived. Nicaragua survived. In Europe even Liechtenstein survived. What makes you think the USA and the CSA were not capable of surviving as separate nations?

[ August 27, 2002, 08:07 PM: Message edited by: ChristianCynic ]

 

Like I said, just my two cents. I personally disagree with the South seceding (regardless of the reasoning), since there's no provision in the constitution for a state desiring to leave the Union. I would presume, however, since statehood requires a majority vote of both houses of congress (Article IV of the United States Constitution), it could be allowed to separate from the Union with the same majority vote.

Thanks for allowing me to express my personal opinion without getting berated.

 

I thought some of you might find interesting reading of the full text of the Constitution of the Confederate States of America.

 

Thanks,
It was very interesting reading and very sad. Very clear in it that slaves were considered property, that the Conf. Congress could not pass laws outlawing slavery, that escaping did not free a slave, and that any new Confederate states or territories would have the same laws on slavery. Once again, another document that does not indicate any intent to let slavery die out.
(See the links I posted earlier.)

Karen

 

It's true. The states that seceeded were in large part, fighting for the continuation of slavery.

It's not a pleasant truth, but it's still the truth.

People shy away from making moral judgements, because it often leads one where one doesn't want to go.

 

90-95% of all Southerners were not slave owners. Lincoln himself was not a abolitionist but only adopted it when it became politicaly favorable for him to do so. Does anyone think that Southerners at Petersburg, Vicksburg and Port Hudson who were literaly starving to death, eating rats, (and 9 out of 10 of them were not slave owners) were doing this for the preservation of slavery.

Interesting one of the great Defenders of the Confederate right to Secede was a African American professor, the later Dr. Leonard Haynes who was at the Historically black Southern University in Baton Rouge La. I remember when I visted him at his office at Southern University. On one side of his office were pictures of Dr. Martin Luther King (whom he marched with) and on the other side of his office were pictures of Black Confederates.

 

Galatian said,

Actually it was Lincoln, Sherman, Grants TOTAL WAR strategy that involved burning the South and the greatest immorality occured during Reconstruction where Southern cotton was stolen by the Union during Reconstruction. Union General Hancock who served as military Governor of Texas and was a hero at Gettysburg was appalled at USA atrocities in Texas that when he opposed the Union thievery during Reconstruction he was replaced.

The immediate end of slavery also hurt the Blacks. As one ex Slave said "Yep, I'm Free, Free to starve". The Union used the slaves as pawns and left them in poverty and helped create hatred between them and Southern whites that unfortunately exist somewhat to this day.

 

One thing that reading the CSA Constitution will do is help in considering what might have happened had the South successfully seceded.

Laying aside questions of right and wrong, what the CSA Constitution did was to insert the political theories of the Southern people about governing this issue. The Congress could not pass laws outlawing slavery because it was considered an issue that was reserved to the States. Each state was free to make its own laws concerning property (yes, that's what the slaves were considered); so they could have slavery legal or outlaw it. The Confederate government would deal with interstate issues (e.g., guaranteeing that each state recognized the property laws of the other) and foreign issues (e.g., outlawing further importation of slaves from Africa and/or other foreign countries). I think politically (regardless of what was the individual motivations of different Southern politicians) we must view the CSA Constitution as not having any intent to let slavery die out, but rather as having the intent of guaranteeing that each state make its own decision on the issue. As to how that would have played out in the future, we can only speculate.

 

I wouldn't call it the 'moral high ground'! Morals had NOTHING to do with why the North slowly liquidated the use of slaves! John Adams stated that slavery in the North was not done away with for moral or ethical reasons, but because Northern workers refused to compete with blacks. Adams also stated, "Argument might have some weight in the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts, but the real cause was the multiplication of labouring white people, who would no longer suffer the rich to employ these sable rivals so much to their injury. The common people would not suffer the labor, by which alone they could obtain a subsistence, to be done by slaves. If the gentlemen had been permitted by law to hold slaves, the common white people would have put the slaves to death, and their masters too perhaps."

It's clear by these statements that economic protection was the ONLY reason for the North wanting to do away with slavery! IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH MORALS!!! Matter of fact, in reading John Adams' statement it seems the people of Massachusetts were willing to kill the black people and their masters rather than compete with the slave labor system!

Again, the War for Southern Independence had NOTHING to do with slavery! That is a Yankee lie that has been fed to us in order to make the North look good...in hopes that the TRUTH would soon be forgotten!

THE SOUTH WAS RIGHT!

 

There is an EXCELLENT book on this subject called "BLACK CONFEDERATES" , compiled and edited by Charles Kelly Barrow, J.H. Segars, and R.B.Roseburg. It really dispells alot of this Yankee myth about the South.