# The decision making process of the Confederacy bombarding Fort Sumter **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 17, 2011, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-decision-making-process-of-the-confederacy-bombarding-fort-sumter/578721 "2011-04-17T13:13:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-decision-making-process-of-the-confederacy-bombarding-fort-sumter/578721/21 "2011-04-18T22:42:14Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > About 3% of the total population of South Carolina were slave owners, but that is the ratio of slave owners to _everyone_–women, children, and the slaves themselves. The last is not a trivial correction, since 57% of the South Carolina population in 1860 _were_ slaves, who of course did not own each other. > > The ratio of slave owners to the electorate–that is, white males over the age of 21–was substantially greater than the “3%” raw number suggests. Slave holders were not a majority, but were certainly an important voting block of the South Carolina electorate, and the fact that the state was over half slave meant that all whites would have considered themselves to have a very vital interest in questions of abolition regardless of whether or not they owned any slaves. The US Census Publication “A Century of Population Growth” published in 1909 said that as of 1850, the “proportion of the white population connected with slave ownership” in South Carolina was 53.1%, the largest percentage of any state, and the only slate where slaveholders were a majority. (The lowest was New Jersey, at 0.2%, which had started gradual abolition in 1804, but which, due to a loophole in the law, had a small number of “apprentices”, who were in effect slaves). ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2011, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-decision-making-process-of-the-confederacy-bombarding-fort-sumter/578721/22 "2011-04-18T23:15:26Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > The lowest was New Jersey, at 0.2%, which had started gradual abolition in 1804, but which, due to a loophole in the law, had a small number of “apprentices”, who were in effect slaves. The percentage was lower than that. According to the 1850 census, New Jersey had a total population of 489,555 people, of whom 236 were slaves. That’s a percentage of .048%. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-decision-making-process-of-the-confederacy-bombarding-fort-sumter/578721/23 "2011-04-19T01:44:05Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > The percentage was lower than that. According to the 1850 census, New Jersey had a total population of 489,555 people, of whom 236 were slaves. That’s a percentage of .048%. Maybe, but the question isn’t the percentage of the population that was slaves, but the number of persons in white slaveholding families, which they list as 1,140. 1,140 out of 489,555 is .23%. That would suggest, if every family that owned slaves only owned one slaves, an average of 4.8 members per slaveholding family, which doesn’t seem abnormally high to me. That’s a husband, wife and 3 kids. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-decision-making-process-of-the-confederacy-bombarding-fort-sumter/578721/24 "2011-04-19T03:34:49Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > Maybe, but the question isn’t the percentage of the population that was slaves, but the number of persons in white slaveholding families, which they list as 1,140. 1,140 out of 489,555 is .23%. That would suggest, if every family that owned slaves only owned one slaves, an average of 4.8 members per slaveholding family, which doesn’t seem abnormally high to me. That’s a husband, wife and 3 kids. Okay, I see the point you’re making. But doesn’t it seem like playing with statistics to count slaveholders instead of slaves? Especially if you count every person in a household as a slaveholder. Let’s face it, a statistical model that has 1140 slave owners and only 236 slaves is obviously a little distorted. ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-decision-making-process-of-the-confederacy-bombarding-fort-sumter/578721/25 "2011-04-19T04:01:13Z")
I don’t think so, because all the members of the household get the use of the slave. I’m currently staying at my parents right now, and my dad subscribes to cable internet, which I’m using to write this post. He may be the only one who owns the cable internet, but my mom, my grandmother, and myself all use it as well. If you’re trying to find out what percentage of people have internet, it wouldn’t make sense to only count him and not the rest of us. Likewise, if you’re trying to find out what percentage of people have slaves, it doesn’t make sense to only count the legal owner and not the rest of his household. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-decision-making-process-of-the-confederacy-bombarding-fort-sumter/578721/26 "2011-04-19T04:59:37Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > I don’t think so, because all the members of the household get the use of the slave. I’m currently staying at my parents right now, and my dad subscribes to cable internet, which I’m using to write this post. He may be the only one who owns the cable internet, but my mom, my grandmother, and myself all use it as well. If you’re trying to find out what percentage of people have internet, it wouldn’t make sense to only count him and not the rest of us. Likewise, if you’re trying to find out what percentage of people have slaves, it doesn’t make sense to only count the legal owner and not the rest of his household. But let’s apply it to ownership. Suppose I told you two people owned red houses on East Avenue and six people owned red houses on West Avenue. If you then drove down the two streets and found there was only one red house on West Avenue and two on East Avenue, wouldn’t you feel my answer had not really been reflective of that? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-decision-making-process-of-the-confederacy-bombarding-fort-sumter/578721/27 "2011-04-19T05:54:28Z")
Sure, but I just don’t think it’s a good analogy. If you want to know the effect that slavery had on the secession, you have to look at families, because if you just look at raw numbers of slaveowners, you’re underestimating the role that slavery played in the society. And partly you’re doing it because you’re including people who can’t legally own anything; children and married women. ---
**Author:** ![brix11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c37758/32.png) [@brix11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brix11)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-decision-making-process-of-the-confederacy-bombarding-fort-sumter/578721/28 "2011-04-19T15:13:55Z")
Another opportunity to plug _The New York Times_ Disunion blog. From [this post](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/electric-nerves/): > [@](#): > > President Lincoln and his advisers had debated long and laboriously before deciding how to respond to the crisis at Sumter. By contrast, Jefferson Davis, his cabinet and his generals had held only a perfunctory discussion before deciding to shell the fort. They captured two acres of federal real estate and, in the process, unified and energized the entire North. As Lincoln later told a confidant: “They attacked Sumter – it fell, and thus, did more service than it otherwise could.” And [this post](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/the-clarion-notes-of-defiance/) also has some insight on Davis’ cabinet and their decision: > [@](#): > > Only Robert Toombs, the Confederacy’s secretary of state and one of the prime architects of secession, argued against the response. The South must ignore the provocation, he told Davis in a memo, “The firing on that fort will inaugurate a civil war greater than any the world has yet seen … You will lose us every friend in the North. You will wantonly strike a hornet’s nest, which extends from mountains to ocean. Legions now quiet will swarm out and sting us to death. It is unnecessary. It puts us in the wrong. It is fatal.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-decision-making-process-of-the-confederacy-bombarding-fort-sumter/578721.md?page=1)