Robert E. Lee disliked slavery and favored eventual emancipation. He was deluded by the racist myths that pervaded his time (as was Lincoln), but that did not prevent him from recognizing the injustice of slavery, and he would have preferred that Virginia stay in the Union. When it did not, however, he felt compelled to defend it from Northern invaders.
Jefferson Davis, on the other hand, is not so easy to defend. He was 100% for slavery, and angrily rejected ideas that involved exchanging slavery for independence, most especially arming the slaves in exchange for their freedom.
Nor is there any use denying that Southern secession was motivated by the fear that the South would lose political influence in Congress by failure to extend slavery westward, and that this in turn would eventually lead to assaults against the “peculiar institution” in the states where it already existed. Not everyone who fought for the South agreed with this motivation, but for the secessionist politicians slavery was the force that drove them away from the Union.
It is possible for me to respect Lee in the same way I respect Rommel: as an honorable soldier who fought for honorable motivations on behalf of a beloved country run by a very wicked regime. I cannot say the same for Davis.
As for Ashcroft, I doubt he bothered to think about any of this. He was pandering, pure and simple.
The difference? George Washington and friends WON.
There were warrants for the deaths of many of the important names in early American government issued by the king. And if England had retained the colonies, those warrants (and the men for whom they were issued) would have been executed.
The fact is, the leaders of the Confederacy were engaged in open rebellion against the United States, and therefore guilty of treason, and they were fortunate not to be executed as such.
When the upstarts WIN, it’s a Revolution. When they LOSE, it’s a Civil War.
That’s fine, Poly; I was specifically countering bdgr’s assertion that “If you read what the leaders of the confederacy said wrote about what they were doing at the time, slavery isn’t even mentioned .” It is mentioned, and it’s mentioned prominently and vehemently, because it was a (perhaps the) pillar of their economy. Period.
I’m all for state’s rights, more or less, as long as equal protection is guaranteed across states (don’t want Arizona making abortion illegal, right?). Slavery, however, is not one of those rights.
Nobody is saying it wasn’t a central issue; they’re saying it wasn’t the central issue.
I’m a northerner, but it just amazes me how otherwise intelligent people will be able to discuss the underlying socio-economic reasons for the American Revolution and discuss how Hitler’s rise was a product of the financial ruin of 30’s Germany, but ask them about the Civil War and they are wilfully ignorant of any thought that goes deeper than “Southerners are racists who wanted slavery.”
For the North it was about stopping slavery in the south. For the South it was about stopping the North from telling them what to do. Anybody who can’t understand how people can disagree over what they’re arguing over has obviously never been married.
Read what the Confederate leaders-- and for that matter the union leaders–said and wrote about the war, about what their motivations were and their thoughts were of blacks and slavery. You will see the Confederates saying it wasn’t about slavery. And you will see Lincoln, for the first year of the war, saying it wasn’t about slavery.
Oh, but why bother screwing up our opinions with facts. It’s so much more fun to flatter our forbears and insult others’ with manufactured stereotypes.
Slavery was the central issue. The CSA flag apologists always say they fly the flag out of respect for the “Southern Heritage.” Well all that Southern heritage stuff, the “honor,” the “manners,” the “sitting on the veranda drinking our mint juleps,” all that stuff, came about because THEY DIDN’T HAVE TO WORK!!! THEY HAD SLAVES!!!
There was little about the CSA that wasn’t based on the fact that they had lots of money, and lots of leisure time.
All of the other issues in their secession stem from the fact that their economic “cornerstone” was slavery. If the foundation is rotten the entire structure is rotten as well.
To respond to furt:
I a not “wilfully ignorant of any thought that goes deeper than ‘Southerners are racists who wanted slavery.’” However, I think that if the southern state’s governments had not consisted of “racists who wanted slavery,” there would have been no secession.
The Confederate states were not fearing that Lincoln would take away their right to own slaves. They were worried that the Republicans and Lincoln were trying to impose their law on the new territories.
Lincoln states in his speach at New Haven in 1860 that he did not seek to end slavery in the southern states.
“We think Slavery a great moral wrong, and while we do not claim the right to touch it where it exists, we wish to treat it as a wrong in the Territories, where our votes will reach it.”
“Now, I don’t wish to be misunderstood, nor to leave a gap down to be misrepresented, even. I don’t mean that we ought to attack it where it exists. To me it seems that if we were to form a government anew, in view of the actual presence of Slavery we should find it necessary to frame just such a government as our fathers did; giving to the slaveholder the entire control where the system was established, while we possessed the power to restrain it from going outside those limits.”
It seems to me that the states did in fact have the right to secede. Of course, I am glad that the Union attacked the Confederacy at Fort Sumter and eventually won the war.
It is extremely naive and simple minded to think that state’s rights was not the central issue of the war.
Let me pop in here with one of my seemingly innumerable book recommendations. James McPherson’s Drawn With the Sword: Reflections on the Civil War offers an excellent treatment of debates on the Southern secession and the resultant conflict–sort of a Civil War FAQ, if you will.
He covers the slavery question as well as anyone. (His take, summarized, is that Northern encroachment on the constitutionally sanctioned right for Southerners to own slaves was viewed as indicative of the South’s loss of sovereignty in general; slavery, then, was a linchpin, the presence of which served almost to mask the greater issues of self-determination and regional autonomy.)
The life you are describing describes not more than 1 in 200 Southerners of the time. The typical white Southerner who fought in the Army of Northern Virginia was a dirt-poor tenant farmer who couldn’t have afforded even a single slave. Slavery’s ill effects were not confined to the slaves, though they undoubtedly suffered far and away the worst. Slavery turned the entire South into a glorified manorial economy, incapable of sustaining industry, with white workers impoverished from the strain of competing with men and women who were forced to work under the lash and the brand.
And yet those dirt-poor sharecroppers fought like demons to defend their “honor” and “way of life.” For them, it truly wasn’t about slavery. Read Sam Watkins’ account of his war experiences, Co. H, sometime. In it you will find plenty of ethnic prejudice (directed against Germans and Irish as much as against blacks), but nary a word about slavery. The guy thought of Tennessee as his native country and the Northerners as invaders; it was as simple as that. That doesn’t him or his cause right, but it does show that it was, for him, about more than slavery.
Of course, Sam Watkins wasn’t calling the shots in the Tennessee state house, and for the rich state legislators the secession, and thus the war, were very much about slavery. A militant, pro-slavery minority seceded, but a united majority with mixed feelings about slavery fought the North.
The states’ rights to do what? Govern themselves? Of course, but govern themselves in what regard, in particular? Slavery, my friend. Dave Barry did an amusing piece on this issue some years ago, where he recalled how in grade school he learned the Civil War was fought over slavery; in high school he learned it was really fought over complex economic and social issues; and in college he learned it was really fought over slavery. That’s because if you distill those complex economic and social issues down far enough, the true sticking point, the breaking point – the issue leading to not just dissention but secession – was slavery.
Was it industrialism versus agrarianism? Sure. But the agrarian system in the South was built and supported by slaves, whereas the industrial system in the North was not.
Was it disagreement over the treatment of the new territories? Sure. But that disagreement stemmed from slavery – specifically from the increasingly contentious fight over whether new states should be admitted as slave or free, and what impact those admissions would have on the delicate balance of slave and free states in Congress.
Was it states’ rights? Sure. But the MAJOR right in question was the “right” to continue with a “peculiar institution” that the North increasingly felt was morally indefensible – especially in the wake of the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
FURT says:
I’ve heard this argument a lot and, with all due respect to FURT, it often strikes me as disengenuous, in that by concentrating on the North trying to “tell them [the South] what to do,” it ignores the fact that what the North was trying to tell the South it could not do was – again – slavery. You know – owning human beings as if they were chattel, with all the attendant rights to buy, sell, and use as you see fit. It’s like if I tell you that you can’t sell heroin to kids, but you insist you can, and I physically prevent you from doing so; and then you say you weren’t fighting to sell heroin to kids, but rather for the right to do what you want – as if what you wanted was something other than selling heroin. Or holding slaves.
So I will unequivocally say it – Yes, slavery was the central issue of the Civil War. Was it the only issue? No. But every other issue was secondary, and almost every other issue can be traced back to slavery. Certainly the lofty ideal of states’ rights can be.
TEXAS SPUR –
Once again, with feeling: What law? The law prohibiting the ownership or sale of slaves in the territories. Anyone doubting this can take a look at the Missouri Compromise and the statehood history of Bloody Kansas.
I am, quite frankly, too lazy to look up the figures, but this is inaccurate. A very small percentage of Southerners actually owned slaves. To say that people in the South didn’t work because they owned slaves is, well, ignorant. In the South, the leisure class were the rich folks because the poor were too busy working for leisure – just like in the North.
GADARENE says:
I agree with this analysis, except that I don’t see self-determination and autonomy as “greater issues” but rather as the same issue. In other words, at what point was the South’s right to self-determination and autonomy threatened? At the point where the right to own slaves intersected with the desire for slavery to be illegal everywhere in the U.S., on the grounds that it was morally indefensible. So, once again, slavery is the point at which the rubber meets the road.
I do not respect Confederate apologists because they attempt to divorce these perceived “greater issues” – autonomy, state’s rights, self-determination, whatever you want to call it, it’s all the same thing – from the underlying isue of what they were attempting to exercise their autonomy/state’s rights/self-determination to do. I consider that divorce to be artificial and willfully blind.
Do I respect Lee and Jackson? As tactical leaders, yes. They were brilliant military strategists and great leaders of men. But I consider them to be deeply misguided individuals who let their over-developed sense of honor lead them to defend an institution they themselves did not believe in and to betray a country they were sworn to defend. Were they traitors? Hell yes, they were traitors. Respect for their sense of honor and their abilities should never overshadow the fundamental wrongness of their cause. And it should never be forgotten that, when all was said and done, they lost. And thank God for that.
Naturally the reason why they succeded is because they felt they were in oppression by the majority. They felt that the north could take control of the national goverment and do whatever they wanted with it. Slavery was the polarizing issue that let the north do that.
Also someone mentions that the south attacked the north. I would like anyone to give me a reason why they would do that.
And where was all the clamor for state’s right in the South over the Dred Scott decision?
The southern states asked the FEDERAL government to deny the northern states the right to make its own decisions about the freedom of its residents. And they applauded its willingness to do so.
States-rights vs. Federal gov’t is just a smoke screen. It is all about self-interest. If I don’t like Mommy’s answer, I’ll ask Daddy. If Daddy says no, I’ll ask Mommy.
We see the same thing today from the abortion debate. Pro-choicers support the federal decision because they agree with it. Pro-lifers support states rights because they disagree with the federal decision. I guarantee that if Congress/Pres passed a law prohibiting abortion and the Supreme Court upheld it, the sides would switch instantly on the states rights issue.
Now, there were more issues at stake than just slavery. But the men in power had a vested economic interest in the perpetuation of slavery. Whether they couched their reasons as racial superiority or a “necessary evil”, many of their decisions which led to secession were fundamentally with the goal of mantaining slavery.
Self-determination was the greater issue in that the South believed itself, rightly or wrongly, to have the text of the Constitution and the spirit of '76 on its side not because of slavery or even the right to own slaves, but because owning slaves was part and parcel of the Southern “way of life” that they perceived to be an inalienable freedom fought for, won, and granted to them by the Founders.
Yes that’s true, but I don’t think the poor south is the society that the CSA apologists are envisioning, do you? The contemporary view of “Southern Heritage” has a lot more to do with Gone With the Wind than with any reality. That high southern society, such as it was, was built on the lives of their slaves. And those were the people that seceded. JDM
keeper: While I agree with your points about self-interest–hell, that’s my Overriding Rule of Politics[suptm[/sup]!–I do want to point out that Dred Scott was entirely consistent with the antebellum view of states’ rights. The issue in Dred Scott was one of property more than sovereignty–to the South, it had nothing to do with “the freedom of [the North’s] residents.” It was about recovering lost property across state lines.
Now, obviously our moral compass is quite a bit different today. There’s an argument to be made, however–and I think there was a thread about this–that Taney’s decision was fairly consonant with judicial doctrine of the time.
Again, not that I agree with it. Dred Scott is one of the Supreme Court’s greatest ignominies, in my opinion, along with Plessy, Lochner, Abrams, and Korematsu.
No, slavery may not have been the only issue precipitating the Civil War, but it was at the root of all of the reasons. And the support of slavery was economic; like Deep Throat said, “Follow the money.” “States’ rights” was little more than a ruse to get poor Southern whites to fight and die to support an economic system that only benefited the wealthy. *
“Preserving the Union” may have been Lincoln’s intent, but it was failed propaganda. The writings of the Federal soldiers indicate that the majority believed they were fighting against slavery, and Lincoln eventually had to come around to their thinking for his own political survival. That men would be willing to die to end slavery is why I refer to the war as “The Great Liberal Jihad.”
In other ways it was between Protestant sects, if who was an abolitionist and who hated them is any indicator. Good Congregationalist boys went off to fight the bad Baptist boys.
Another way was corporate farming versus small farmers. The battle over Kansas before the Civil War was not about states’ rights. It was about slavery and who would dominate the economy of the new state, the corporate farmers with their slaves or the small farmers.
— However, I’m not sure the benefits of holding slaves were all that great. If you look at the purchase price of a field hand you will find that they were not cheap–adjusted for inflation they cost as much as a really nice car. REALLY nice. Add to that the cost of supporting him as well as any children who were too young to put to work and hiring a family of sharecroppers and turning them into debt slaves starts looking pretty good.
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I knew a fellow whose family was indentured to some Southern politician. They worked on the politician’s farm until they had paid off the cost of moving them out of Latvia after WWII. I had thought that was illegal these days.
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Of course. Just like we’re all glad that the Allies won World War II after the Americans bombed Pearl Harbor.
Assuming ol’ Tex is serious about Fort Sumter, this is an example of the only valid reason for judging Ashcroft on the basis of his Civil War views. Is he too so caught up in mythology that he doesn’t know or care about the facts behind one of the central upheavals in American history?
If he has his head on straight and enforces the laws, I don’t care if he wears Stars and Bars underwear and does the rebel yell when he breaks par.
You’re missing the point, GAD, which is that by considering slavery to be part and parcel of “the Southern way of life,” the South then could – and did – construe any attack on slavery as an attack on “the Southern way of life.” If it truly was an attack on the whole “way of life,” that to me is tantamount to an admission that the whole way of life was dependent on slavery – or else an attack on the latter would not be construed as an attack on the entirety of the former. Either way, it all boils back down to slavery – which is, of course, precisely what I said.
I do not argue that there was not a time when the U.S. decreed, albeit reluctantly, that slavery was tolerable. But the time came – inevitably, some say – when the overwhelming national ethos was that it was intolerable, and should be abolished. That the South refused to do, and failed to do until compelled to at the point of a sword. Sure the war was about autonomy – autonomy to own slaves. And self-determination – to determine for oneself whether or not to own slaves. And states’ rights – states’ rights to decide whether or not to allow citizenry to own slaves. It all goes back to slavery, with the possible exception of the tariff issues, which in any case would not have been enough to prompt actual secession, as opposed to the threat thereof.
