Did the South have the Right to Secede

Great Debates
41

I agree that the representation issue has been dealt with at length. Do you agree that the assertion that the South was under-represented is unsupportable?

On the economic issues:
As you said, the South chose willingly to not adopt the Northern manufacturing techniques which resulted in finished goods. No federal laws prevented the South from taking advantage of the tarrif structures in place and using them to economic advantage; the South’s own tenacious grip on a way of life founded upon slavery and the superiority of the white race was a direct and self-determined cause of their economic marginalization. To lay the blame for this at the feet of Northern politicians is unfounded. If the Southern States today rejected the use of electronic data transfers, preferring instead to rely instead on their traditional paper accounting, then they would suffer economically in relation to the other states. To call such a situation oppression by those who change to take advantage of technological advance is absurd. As you yourself said:

That is evidence of Southern foolishness, not Northern oppression.

You did neglect to cover your joint assertions that the North oppressed the South economically in order to keep cotton prices low and wanted to end slavery in order to drive up the price of cotton.

As to the issue of hypocrisy:
You use a single example to brand an entire nation. I find that absurd. As has been pointed out before, the North did not enter the war waving a unanimous banner of “free the slaves”. I don’t recall anyone ever arguing that all Northerners were saints who had only the best interest of the black race at heart. As to the “enslavement of blacks [continuing] under many guises, some obvious, until well after the civil war,” I will ask you for examples if you wish to enter it into this discussion. It is difficult to address the issue if I do not know which “guises” you consider to be slavery. I assume that the institutions you will mention carried all or most of the restrictions associated wit plantation slavery: no right to marry by choice; no right to raise children; no right to own property; no right to trial by peers; no right to political representation; no right to cross state lines unatended; no right to avoid summary punishment or execution; no right to the product of your labor; no earning of wages for your labor; no right to choose/keep your name; no right to worship freely; etc.

You think the white resentment of black equality and racial prejudice would have been lessened by decades more of continued slavery? I certainly do not argue that the Reconstruction was a period which fostered racial harmony, but to argue that race relations would have been mor congenial in the South of 1880 had slavery still been the law of the land strikes me as surreal. Sure, the whites would not have felt as much resentment, because blacks would still be slaves! I guess we will just have to disagree on this one, since the proposition is purely hypothetical, but I find it hard to believe that allowing another generation or two to grow up in slavery/slave-holding would somehow have magicaly voided resentment toward blacks once emancipation did occur.

Assertions that the South would eventually have ended slavery on its own make interesting speculations, but the actions of teh Southern states when faced with the potential for the gradual abolition of slavery speak volumes for how the people at the time viewed the question.

As to the actual OP. I believe the Southern states did have the right to secede from the United States. I believe that the Union fought a war of conquest after the South fired upon Union posessions after secession. I believe the Union won, and I am glad that they did. Whether every human being who lived in the Northern states was an unambiguous abolitionist has no bearing on the issue. The effect of the war was to end slavery in the United States. (Please note, I did not say the effect of the Civil War was to create racial equality or to guarantee equal treatment under the law).

In my opinion, the conflict should have been forced in 1783, though it is quite possible that such a conflict would have resulted in our decisively losing the War of 1812.

The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*

42

Huh? Are you equating “right” as in “I’m right about this,” with “rights” as in “These are my rights.”? Power is an objective measure of clout. The objective measure of rights is property.

43

Spiritus:

Well put.

I am searching for a cite on the number of Slaves in the North during the civil war (free states). I recall this figure as being between 30- and 50,000, but as yet have had not found a cite. I think I heard it on the PBS Civil war Series which I have on tape, but I don’t remember which of the ten it was on. Clearly this not sufficient by itself.

Certainly there were many more than 50,000 in Mossouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware, the slave states which did not secede. Should those be counted as “The North?”

You did not address the issue of wage slavery which is simply a more efficient form of slavery. (if you don’t agree we can drop it.) Housing, food, medicine, was not supplied to factory workers, nor were they given a living wage. They were not treated as well as a southern slaves because they were easily replaceable and there was an almost endless supply of immigrants to rep[lace them, whereas if a slave died from neglect in the South the owner lost the value of that slave.

Admittedly as skilled labor became more valued, and laborers were at a premium this practice declined. The situation was thoroughly brutal while it was occuring and made today’s sweatshops look like enlightened
workplaces. The two existed contemporaneously so I think this is a fair example.

As for whether the North oppressed the South economically, it depends on your point of view. 20/20 hindsight clearly indicates what the South should have done. It was not so apparent at the time.

The division of labor that developed in the country placed the manufacturing in the North, and the agriculture in the South. Had the Southern states developed the manufacturing on par with the North it’s quite possible they would have been the North’s economic and industrial equals, and the war could easily have gone the other way.
Whether they were oppressed by the North or victims of their own foolishness is moot. They felt oppreseed, and wished to alter the situation. They chose secession.

I agree with your assessment of the OP. The South had the legalright to secede, and was perhaps even justified. Since several slave states did not secede the issue clearly encompassed more than slavery. I too, am glad that the North acted as they did. The slavery issue was forced, our country was united, and afterward, our economy surged forward.

I am not so foolish as to think we would be living in a country of racial harmony were it not for the reconstruction. Clearly though it widened the gulf between the races rather than narrowed it. I hope you would agree. It was in this environment that the KKK arose.

I wanted to address your points. Since I had dealt harshly with someone who made simplistic assertions, and did not back them up, I did not wish to seem guilty of dodging when it was my turn to be called to task.

44

Lib, of course I mean it as “These are my rights.” If the objective measure of rights is property, then you are in agreement with me because property can only be controlled through the use or threat of force (or agreement with and among a larger body to protect all property with the threat of force, which is the same thing).

Imagine we are the only two people on Planet X, and we have a land dispute. Specifically, I think all the land on the planet should be mine and you disagree. I blow your head off - case closed. I now have property ‘rights’ to all the land on the planet.

45

Scylla:
Thanks for the response. I think we need to table the issue of northern slaves until you find the details of your cite.

As to “wage slavery”: that is a nicely loaded term to describe the very real problems of teh treatment of workers in the beginnings of the industrialized age. However, equating it with the institution of slavery in the south (even deciding that “wage slavery” was somehow worse than the extreme dehumanization of antebellum slavery) does not at all seem jstified to me. Was the plight of industrial workers extreme? Yes. But they enjoyed numerous rights and priveledges as free men which were denied to slaves, including the ability to escpe the condition that they were subjected to simply by material poverty and the hope that their children would enjoy a better existence than their own. Shall we add to this the ability to become a citizen the ability to amass wealth, the ability to own property, the ability to not be whipped or executed arbitrarily, etc. Please understand, I have always been appalled at the conditions of early industrail sweat shops, as I was appalled when I learned way back in elementary school about the conditions of early coal miners. However, I can not agree that living under a repressive economic system while retaining political rights and consideration as a human being is worse than being considered subhuman and living in slavery. I also find a hint of romanticization in the underlying position that slaves in the south were well cared for by their masters. Slaves were the ultimate renewable resource, and the historical record hardly supports the view that most slaves enjoyed the affection and care of benevolent masters.

You think twenty years of Northern imposed regulations widened appreciably a gulf caused by centuries of slavery justified by dehumanizing policy and practice? Well, you are entitled to your opinion, certainly. But to label your conclusion “clear” is to assume quite a bit. I do agree that the policies of the Reconstruction did little to ameliorate racial friction and may even have exacerbated it. I do not agree that the difference, in either direction, is appreciable twelve decades later.
You are correct that the KKK first arose during the Reconstruction. Do you really imagine that there was a policy which the North could have taken after forcefully aolishing teh practice of slavery in the South which would not have incited the passions of bigots and white supremacists?

The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*

46

Just when I think I’m out… …They pull me back in! :slight_smile:

Wage slavery is not the same as real slavery.

It occurs to me that I am in the role of defending the institution of slavery, and the Southern disposition to it during the civil war era.

I am not. I am trying to explain the Southern mindset, why they felt justified, and the fact that their WAS a degree of validity to their actions.

As for Northern slaves, I guess your not going to let me off the hook by mentioning the slave states that didn’t secede. Are you? I wouldn’t either.

I admit it is wheedling, and I will try to find that cite I recall to back up my contention.

As for northern policy during the reconstruction, I didn’t claim I had a better idea, though some of it seemed a deliberate slap in the face. Because it was impossible that he’d be accepted, a black man elevated to a position of prominence against former slaveowners was set up to fail (regardless of qualifications,) and breed resentment and racial hatred among both blacks and whites. I can’t fault the idea of equality, but the execution was lacking.

47

In my opinion, a theif does not own that which he has stolen.

48

Y’know, Lib, you often tend to speak in bon mots that highlight your political philosophy but don’t really articulate how you feel about the subject actually under discussion. So let me ask you: precisely what do you mean by “a thief does not own that which he has stolen” in the context of this discussion? I mean, aside from the fact that this is a rather obvious axiom, it cuts both ways in the context of the civil war, doesn’t it? The North, you might argue, did not have the right to infringe upon the right to self-governance of the South. But on the other hand, the South did not have the right to infringe upon the individual human rights of the people it held in slavery. So where do you stand on this issue: was the South’s actions justified or not?

SCYLLA says:

Their actions were understandable in that they were attempting to preserve a way of life. Since that way of life was premised in large part on the institution of slavery, however, I don’t agree that their actions were to any degree “valid.” Understandable, yes; justifiable, no.

Jodi

Fiat Justitia

49

This may be the banal interpretation, but…

Scylla, I agree with your analysis of 02-04-2000 09:01 PM in most ways, up to the very end

First, most abolitionists did not consider blacks the equals of whites. I’m painting abolitionists with a broad brush here, bu I think most of them felt blacks were somewhat child-like human beings and that slavery was an extraordinary moral evil. You can, in fact, hold both beliefs even if our own reasons for condemning slavery include a recognition of black equality. So the obvious existence of white racism in the North absolutely does not mean that slavery was not a central issue.

Consider: For every draft dodger during Vietnam, and every guy who got up in public and burned his draft card, there were a thousand guys right behind him who felt the same way, but weren’t prepared to suffer the social sanctions that would result. In the same way, for every guy who worked the underground railroad, or wrote abolitionist tracts, or for every John Brown, there were a thousand guys who felt the same way. They didn’t take action on their feelings until society gave its blessing and the Union Army started recruiting, but the anti-slavery feelings were obviously passionately rife throughout much of the North.
Preachers had been decrying slavery from their pulpits for years, as had moral reformers and, often, politicians.

I think it doesn’t take much insight to realize that in fact a lot of white folks in 1860 were willing to send their sons off to die for abolition and unity.

Second - and this may seem trite - wars only ever happen, on the most visceral, basic level, because two large groups of men agree to pick up weapons and go try to kill each other. There are a huge number of ways this behavior can be motivated, but…

The scene: Greenfield, Massachusetts town square, 1860. A tree stump center. A large gathering of farmers, caked with the soil after a hard day’s work, are watching a man standing on the tree stump wearing a Union officer’s uniform.
Union officer: Men! The time has come to put down those hoes and shovels and pick up arms and do what is right. Your country is calling on you to take these rifles, slap on these ill-fitting boots, and march down to Virginia. We’re going to fight and die and kill to teach Johnny Reb a lesson. Why must we do this, you ask?
(slipping into a cardigan sweater with patches on the sleeves, pulling out a pipe and lighting it. Stroking beard occasionally)
Well, you see, the North is becoming increasingly modernized in an industrial-capitalist sense, while the South is stuck in an agrarian, indeed one might almost say, feudal social structure (snort, chuckle) that has resulted in increasing divisive pressures at the legislative and even judicial level…

I think there are just as many “reasons” for a war as there are combatants; it is a mistake to think that the reasons the government split and the societies had their conflicts can be too tightly identified with the “causes” of the Civil War while evaporating away what the men themselves felt they were fighting for. If one must identify a cause, then look at the principle motivations of the people who manufactured the war - the soldiers.

Broadly speaking, the Northern soldiers fought to end slavery and keep the Union together (not necessarily in that order - it depended on the soldier). There were, of course, other reasons, but these are the easiest to identify in the army at large. There is enormously overwhelming evidence for this in thousands of letters and diaries.

The Southern soldiers were fighting not for slavery, but for self-determination. The abominable results of that self determination were, in many of their minds I think, glossed over while the high principle was focused on. (As is a common characteristic of human thought that our own observations of our contemporaries can easily confirm.)

The economic and social divisions you describe certainly created a bias toward conflict. But the war itself happened because the reasons above were pulling the triggers. So I’ve reached the opposite conclusion from you, Scylla: I would say slavery and union and self-determination, in a triad, caused the Civil War; Economics was the catalyst.

50

apb9999:

I had not thought about it that way. You may have a point. It’s a complex dynamic, and one that probably can’t be understood completelely by our generation, but I see what you mean. You can think slavery’s evil without confering equality on the enslaved.

51

“States’ rights” is seen by most liberals as a fraudulent term, a mealy-mouth code for “we’ll treat the niggers any way we want, and we don’t want no damn do-gooder Yankeer from the dadgum feddle guvmt tellin’ us what t’do.” And in fairness, many (perhaps MOST) of the people who toss that phrase around ARE racists.

But understand that “states’ rights” was an issue long before there was anything worth calling an abolitionist movement in America. Thomas Jefferson was the leading advocate of “states’ rights,” as he was wary of a strong central government. He was sure that a strong central government would become tyrannical: and I think it’s fair to say that John Adams’ Alien & Sedition Acts proved his point.

Adams and the federalists passed the Alien & Sedition Acts in order to arrest “undesirable foreigners” and “agitators” (i.e. anyone who disgreed with John Adams). Advocates of strong federal government invariably backed these acts. It was the “states rights” folks who tood up for liberty. Indeed, at the urging of Thomas Jefferson, Virginia declared the Alien and Sedition Acts null and void within its borders.

I know this is hard, but forget about slavery for a second. Look at that situation and ask yourself: if you’d been around in 1798, and you saw John Adams and the Federalists trampling on people’s rights, would YOU have been so sanguine about the federal government? So quick to scoff at “states’ rights”? Or would YOU have been with Jefferson, supporting a state’s right to overturn federal law? For that matter, if Virginians of 1798 had declared “We didn’t aunch a revolution to replace one tyranny with another. To hell with the central government. Virginia is independent,” whose side would you have been on? Would you have sided with Adams (as with Lincoln) if he’d tried to use force to keep Virginia in the Union?

The issue gets complicated in a hurry, doesn’t it?

In this matter as in others, where you stand depends on where you sit. TODAY, liberals view the federal government as the fountain of all holiness. I’m just here to remind you, that wasn’t always so. And mark my words: if and when a right-wing President is elected, liberals will turn to state courts and state governments to implement their agendas instead, and will be quick to claim “state’s rights” (though they’ll probably be smart enough to phrase the argument differently).

52

But under our federal system of government, “state’s rights” can only be used as a platform to increase government control not decrease it. The states can write laws that go beyond what Congress mandates, but they cannot override federal law. This principle predates the Civil War, having been established during the “nullification crisis” of the 1840’s. And it’s not always used against conservatives either. A recent example would be several states attempting to legalize marijuana (which I think most people would regard as a liberal issue) and being told they could not enact any laws which would contradict Federal anti-drug laws. Or the recent actions in Hawaii and Vermont to legalize gay marriage which conservative members of Congress are attempting to pre-empt on a Federal level.
With a dual system of State and Federal law making, you may get twice as many laws but you’ll never get half.

53

Spiritus:
As a follow up, I called a local historian (Gettysburg’s not too far away, so we have a lot of them here,) and explained my inability to find the back up cite for Northern slaves that I remember.

My friend tsays this is because I am just plain wrong. Grant’s wife hailed from the South, and was a socialite who loved to shock. She referred to her black servant as a slave for just this purpose. The situation was uncommon.

There were a great many poorly payed black servants in the North at the time, but my friend tells me as despicable as their treatment may have been it could not generally be equated with Southern Slavery.

The issue of the slave states that did not secede is still a valid issue depending on how we’re defining “The North.” I’m inclined to say that we both knew what the other meant and leave it at that if that sounds fair.

54

This is not a question for legal hair-splitting. The Civil War was in fact the Second American Revolution. It finished business which could not be dealt with in the late 18th Century, i.e., the question of chattel slavery.

Remember this was the middle of the 19th Century, which was a century of revolutionary struggle in Europe. The issue of slavery had to be resolved and the intransigence of the slaveocracy made war inevitable. History is never so neat as whether “The South” had rights. As Liberterian said, “Souths” don’t have rights

The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it. (Karl Marx, 1845)

55

Scylla:
I am satisfied with the clarification. It’s almost a shame about Mrs Grant, though. A story that filled with irony just should be true. It is easy to see how it became widely accepted.

56

‘States rights’ is neither a liberal nor a conservative term. It is a term that reflects a view of federalism that believes weak central control of state actions is better than strong central control of state actions. It goes back to the very basic theories about how a federalism should work. Please note the difference in Canada from the U.S., where the federal government has less control over the provinces and their citizens than does Washington, D.C.

The issue of ‘states rights’ never applies to what a state can do. It applies only to what the federal government can do. When a state tries to pass a law that conflicts with a law passed by the federal government, the only issue in discussion is, does the federal government have the right to pass a law that pre-empts the state’s natural right to pass laws about the same thing? The limitations on what states can do is very clearly articulated in the Constitution at Art. I, Sec. 10, as well as various amendments such as Amendment XIV.

Thus, for instance, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a states rights issue, because it entails discussion of whether the federal government has the power under the Constitution to make it illegal for private people to discriminate in states where the state refuses to pass such a law. Conversely, school desegregation is not a states rights issue, because the reason states are prohibited from segregating school children is that they are prohibited from doing so by the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment (the issue of whether a federal court has the power to interpret the Constitution’s effect on a state’s actions was a states rights issue settled VERY early in the history of the current constitution).

The civil war was fought over conflicting interpretations of the power of the federal government. It is true that slavery was the primary powderkeg, but there were ample other examples of federal activity objected to by the states in the south. Indeed, the whole issue of secession is a ‘states rights’ issue; who triumphs as between a state that no longer wants to be part of a federation and a federation that doesn’t want to let the state leave?

57

I am surprised that no one has gone to the ultimate source for the law in our system, the U.S. Supreme Court, for the question of the legality of the Confederate secession.

In Texas v. White 74 U.S. 227 (1869), Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase wrote:

“The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States. … Considered, therefore, as transactions under the Constitution, the Ordinance of Secession, adopted by the convention and ratified by a majority of the citizens of Texas, and all the Acts of her Legislature intended to give effect to that ordinance, were absolutely null. They were utterly without operation in law. … Our conclusion, therefore, is, that Texas continued to be a State, and a State of the Union, notwithstanding the transactions to which we have referred.”

Despite southern sentiments, this was the prevailing view of the legality of secession prior to and during the Civil War in the North, and in large sections of the South (several of the states, most notably Tennessee and North Carolina, used questionable tactics to have secession resolutions ratified by a minority or the population. The evidence that every southern state had representative divisions in the Union army also speaks to this.) The Supreme Court was unable to speak to many of these issues because the war slowed the speed of litigation reaching the high court, and there was a fair amount of confusion in States like Texas where a significant part of the population recognized the authority of the Confederate Court system that had been in place at the State level during the war.

The legal reality is secession was illegal because the Constitution, and the rights reserved to the citizens thereunder, was a binding covenant on all the states that ratified it. It could not be set aside merely because that particular state had elected leaders who wanted to lay that covenant aside.

SoxFan59
“Its fiction, but all the facts are true!”

58

Total nonsense. The citizens of the states in question did not have to vote to become members; they allowed their representatives to join them to the union. Certainly, the fact that later representatives were the ones who voted the states out of that Union wouldn’t have anything to do with the validity of the attempt. To say that the members of the United States can’t secede because the union is permanent, without reference to what in the Constitution prevents them from so doing, or makes the union permanent is to argue by definition.

Sadly, and without much elaboration, that is exactly what Chief Justice Salmon Chase did in Texas v. White, 74 U.S. 700 (1869) [please note the corrected page number]. Quoting from the decision:

Then later, the Chief Justice said:

In short, Justice Chase said that, because the rebellious colonies declared themselves in the Articles of Confederation to be joined in perpetual union, the union formed by the later US Constitution had to be considered perpetual and indissolvable, despite the fact the latter constitution makes no such claim. Thus, the Constitution does not allow states to secede; Texas, therefore, did not secede.

The missing link, of course, is explaining quite how the current Constitution, which misses any reference to being perpetual, should be considered perpetual. Plenty of valid reasons exist; but they are not unarguably correct.

Of course, the Chief Justice wasn’t trying to reach a correct conclusion; he was trying to reach the conclusion needed to deny the putative bond-holders (who had helped finance the confederate rebellion) their money.

It should be noted that the declaration of perpetual union is found in the preamble of the Articles of Confederation; one can wonder that this was given any legal effect.

The fact remains: The ‘Union’ was considered by the federal government, and significant numbers of its constituant states, to be indissoluble by individual states without consent; this is reasonable given the chaos that would result if a state could just up and leave anytime it was upset with Washington, D.C. Had the South won, there would have been a negotiated peace, resulting in a recognition of the new nation; because it lost, the position of the federal government was become the law of the land.

59

Interesting analysis, Mr. Young.

I appreciate your critique of the opinion. “Total Nonsense,” however, is a subjective opinion about what IS the law of the land. The Supreme Court has not spoken on this issue since the days of Texas v. White, and therefore the legal issue of a state withdrawing from the Union is still what that decision says it is.

Could the Court have come up with a better line of reasoning than it did? Basically arguing that a statement made in the preamble of the Articles of Confederation had become a covenant inferred into the ratification of the Constitution might seem a stretch. But it reminds me of another Supreme Court opinion (case name escapes me) where Chief Justice Marshall analyzed a claim to real estate where two parties both claimed they owned the land. One bought it from the British authorities prior to the revolution, the other from an Indian tribe. The Court ruled in favor of those who bought from the British, using a convuluted history of the sovereignty of the United States that nearly traced our government’s authority to Adam and Eve. I’m exaggerating, of course, but Marshall had to decide that way or potetnially annul the basic authority of the government. Justice Chase’s decision is in the same vein. If any state has the right to “pull out,” the authority of the Federal government is indeed a nullity. Chase’s opinion, while grandiose in language and tone, is the only logical conclusion.

On the other hand, if we were to analyze and toss aside Chase’s holding in Texas v. White as DSYoung has, we might come to the same conclusion with some other areas of constitutional jurisprudence if we looked at it with the same critical eye, such as the issues which have arisen surrounding the commerce clause, or the rights to privacy/autonomy (e.g. abortion rights). There’s not a lot of specific constitutional language to support the court’s decisions in many of those cases either.

60

DS, I don’t know if the Esq on your user name means you’re a lawyer. If so, I’m not about to tell you anything you don’t already know.

The Constitution does not address, either for or against, the issue on whether states have a right to secede. In the absense of this guidance, there are three arguments to consider:

1 - In the absense of a constitutional stance, the decision is referred back to the law which the Constitution is based on; ie the Articles of Confederation, which clearly spoke of a “perpetual union”. The Constitution did not refute this point, so it should be assumed to stand. (This of course is what SoxFan said above.)

2 - In the absense of any other guidance, the relationship between a state and the union should be regarded as a contract. Being as this contract did not contain any reference to procedures of unilateral dissolution of the contract, it should be assumed none existed.

3 - In the absense of a constitutional stance, the issue should be decided by statute. This was what I wrote in my previous post and I still feel the Confederates would have had the best chance pursuing this line of reasoning.