The Civil War - 150 Later - Division,Election, Secession, Inauguration

In this and subsequent special editions of Hooves, Heels and Wheels, the blog will take a look at the 150th anniversary of the events of the Civil War, and reflect on how they came about, and what implications they have for today ...

The Civil War

150 years ago This Week - The Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln

March 4th, 1861

The Divided States of America

It is not remarkable that the the Northern and Southern States began following two separate paths in the years following the American Revolution. The differences between North and South were very plain even before that conflict began. Rather, it ought to be viewed as miraculous that the two sections of the country were able to put aside their glaring differences and unite for the purpose of resisting the British Empire and achieving independence. At no time during that struggle, did either section of the new country envy the other's way of life, and seek to incorporate it for their own. Only the furnace of combat could bring these two lifestyles together, for in peacetime, they had little in common with each other.

The northernmost states had never been suitable for large scale farming. New England's thin and rocky soil could support subsistence farms, but the true economy would come from the sea. Fishing, shipbuilding and mercantilism made fortunes for New Englanders.

The Middle Atlantic States were more agreeable to farming, and upstate New York would soon boast orchards while Pennsylvania and New Jersey would become the breadbaskets of the new nation. Fruits, vegetables and grains would flow seasonally from the rich farmlands of these states.

In The South, (read: from Maryland on down) the Appalachian Mountains were well inland, over a hundred miles from the Atlantic, and nearly all the land was agreeable to large-scale farming. The south readily adopted the plantation system, large plots of land that were dedicated to the growing of a single cash crop. In Maryland, and Virgina it was tobacco. The Carolinas and the Georgia began by growing rice.

Slavery In The North

Post Revolution, every single one of the thirteen states had slaves. In the North, the slaves were few in number (in some cases very few), and were viewed as luxuries. They served as chauffeurs, maids, laundresses and menial laborers, usually for the rich. In the Mid-Atlantic states, a few slaves worked the farms and the orchards, as well as serving domestic chores for the well-to-do.

t no time did the Northern slave population seriously compare with the free labor force ... and in the North, that would soon mean that slaves would be more trouble then they were worth. The businesses and farms of the north preferred the use of free born laborers, who could be hired and fired at the whim of the employer, as the economic situation dictated. Unskilled workers were not hard to find, and almost always worked for cheap. The large port cities of Boston, New York and Philadelphia drew in immigrants from all all corners of Europe, and their populations swelled. It made far more economic sense to take advantage of this abundant and fluid labor pool then to buy slaves, who couldn't be laid off, and could only be disposed of by selling - possibly at a time nobody wanted to buy.

Less decisive then the economics - but more emotional- was the ethical issue. The North had a considerable population that was hostile to slavery on moral grounds. There was a hodgepodge of religions in the North, and some of them- Quakers and Catholics mostly - never tired of condemning the institution.

Thus, in the North, slavery was unprofitable and unpopular. Beginning with Massachusetts, Northern states began emancipating the slaves one by one. Massachusetts unilaterally freed all of their slaves (there weren't many), and all the other Northern states eventually passed gradual emancipation laws - there would be no new slaves, but current slaves would remain in bondage until they had worked to pay for their freedom (or of course, died).

Slavery In The South

The South had an entirely different relationship with slavery. In the South, slaves made up the backbone of the plantation system's labor force. No large immigrant fed cities and towns existed in the South- cities like Charleston, Savannah and Richmond were never to be compared with Northern cities in terms of population. Here, the idea of ending the institution of slavery was far more problematic, for the consequences far more severe then the simple discharge of a few man servants and laundresses. Rich Northerners like John Hancock may free their few slaves and begin paying them a wage to keep their house and drive their carriage, but how would a Southerner like Thomas Jefferson, used to not paying his 200 slaves to work his plantation be expected to suddenly begin paying this huge labor force? Certainly with great difficulty, if at all.

The hypocrisy of a slave holding nation espousing the ideals of freedom was not lost on the founding fathers, even the slave-holders. The difference between the North and the South was that ending slavery in the North meant economic prosperity for farmers and businessmen. In the South, it was seen to be economic catastrophe.

Cotton Is King

In the 1780s, right after the Revolution, the slave plantations grew tobacco, rice and indigo. They made modest -and in some cases large - incomes on these cash crops. Perhaps it was possible that they'd gradually find a way to end slavery. Perhaps the benefits of a free market would become as evident to the South as it would in the North. Perhaps the inefficient slave system would die of natural causes.

This window of hope -if indeed it had ever been open- slammed shut in the 1790s. The plantations of the Deep South (The Carolinas, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Texas) began growing cotton in this decade. The invention of Eli Whitney's cotton gin made the fiber not just a cash crop, but the cash crop for anyone who could grow it. Profits soared. Plantation owners had never had it so good. Whereas a rice planter sold to a local market (rice goes bad quickly), a tobacco planter sold to tobacco users, and an indigo planter sold to clothiers and dyers, a cotton planter sold to everyone.

Cheap cotton. All of America -and much of the world - would be better dressed because of it. Northern textile mills that were now getting cheap raw materiel would be much more profitable because of it. Workers in these mills would be employed by it. Plantation owners would become some the the wealthiest men in the country because of it.

And ultimately, more then four million black Americans would be enslaved by it.

Hostility to Slavery

As the first half of the 1800s progressed, Northerners became increasingly angry about slavery. Southerners became increasingly defensive of it, and aggravated by Northern attempts to end it, discourage it, or restrict it's spread. As the nation moved west, and new states were added, the question of the future of slavery constantly came back to haunt the consciences and income forecasts of Northerners and Southerners. Each time the issue would be dealt with by a stop-gap compromise, and each compromise would be adhered to for a matter of years before a new crises raised the issue anew. By 1850, the issue of slavery was no longer simply one of many issues confronting the nations political scene, but the single most important issue. Passions over the nations attitudes over slavery were at the height of fury in the 1857 Dred Scott decision.

Republican Party -1856

Fourteen men had served the nation as President of the United States as of the election of 1856. All of them had been at least tolerant of slavery. Ten of them had been slave owners themselves (In justice, Martin Van Buren only owned one as a young man, and made no effort to recapture the slave when he ran away) . Only John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce had never owned slaves. The two Adamses had disliked slavery, but never dreamed they'd be able to do anything to hinder it. Fillmore and Pierce were what were called "doughfaces" - Northerners that took a pro-slavery stance to appeal to Southern voters. For the sixty-six years as a nation, no presidential candidate had ever seriously considered running for office on an anti-slavery platform.

By 1856 the national mood had changed so drasticaly, that a change was in the wind. The two political parties of the time, the Whigs and the Democrats could not agree on a stance on the issue of slavery. Northern leaning members from both parties abandoned their old loyalties and formed a brand new party- The Republican Party. Drawing all of their support from the Northern states, the Republicans looked at the electoral map of the United States, and did the simple arithmetic. If a Republican candidate could win the North and "West" (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota) then an anti-slavery candidate could be elected president, with little the South could do about it.

To their horror, Southerners looked at the same map and came to the same conclusions.

As a desperate compromise, the Democratic Party produced the James Buchanan/ John C. Breckenridge ticket, a ticket that was tolerably palatable to both Northerners and Southerners. Pro-slavery, and with Buchanan a "doughface" (Pennsylvania's only contribution to the White House) the "Buck/Breck" ticket swept the South in the 1856 election, and when Southern politicians threatened secession if an anti-slavery Republican were elected, Buchanan's ticket was strengthened. The Republicans, grasping that this would not be their year, sent up a figurehead candidate, John C. Fremont, as a sacrificial lamb against the Democrat ticket.

This 'sacrificial lamb' did far better then expected. Although he lost to Buchanan, Fremont collected 114 electoral votes (to Buchanan's 174). For a newborn party, clearly the anti-slavery Republicans were a force to be reckoned with. And they would not be going away.

Buchanan

The fifteenth President presided over one calamity after another. First, only a few months into his term, the Supreme Court handed down the Dred Scott decision, codifying white supremacy for the first time in US history, striking down most legal obstacles to slavery, and even throwing the status of "Free States" in doubt.

Then, in 1859, an abolitionist fanatic named John Brown attempted to start a slave upraising in Virginia, by attacking the federal arsenal at Harper's Ferry. The rebellion was quickly put down, and Brown was hanged, but Northern support for the violent man's efforts terrified the South. Sectional strife and anger over slavery was not getting better; it was getting much worse.

Election of 1860

A failed Senate bid in 1858 had catapulted one-time congressman Abraham Lincoln to the national spotlight. The new Republican was elected as that parties candidate for president in May 1860. He ran on a platform calling for the restriction of slavery, but he did not go so far as to call for it's abolition. Keeping slavery out of new territories would be acceptable to Lincoln and most of the Republicans. Abolitionists in the north were annoyed, even disgusted at Lincoln's seeming timidness.

For the South however, Lincoln was a nightmare incarnate. Although Lincoln's anti-slavery stance could only be described as 'mild', anything other then full support for the institution of slavery was completely unacceptable. The South believed that their very survival depended on an Democrat victory. Such might be possible if that party came up with a candidate that could sweep the South, but also siphon off Republican votes from the North.

The Democratic party confronted this challenge by self-destructing, splitting into three hopelessly weak parties: Democrats, Southern Democrats, and Constitutional Unionists. In November Abraham Lincoln won the election of 1860, to jubilation in the North, and outrage in the South.

Secession

The Constitution of the US neither permits nor prohibits any state to break away from the Union. This issue is simply not addressed, even as the Constitution stands today. The only articles of the Constitution that have any possible bearing on the topic are the Ninth and Tenth Amendments, which read

Ninth Amendment The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people

Tenth Amendment The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people

Southerners eager to leave the Union saw in this a possible justification for secession - after all, If no law said a state couldn't secede, then a state could. And if the Constitution did not grant the federal government the right to prevent secession, then the federal government had no such right. Such was the South's legal justification. The South, however did not plan to present their argument to the Supreme Court. They were well aware that in order to make independence a reality, they'd very likely need to fight.

For moral inspiration, they turned to the Declaration of Independence, submitting that the US government had a duty to protect US citizens and the property of US citizens (read here: 'slaves') and that by allowing Northerners to elect a man hostile to slavery, the US was neglecting it's duty. As the Declaration points out, when any government neglects it's duty, the people have a right to abolish it.

With almost unbelievable speed, Southern states declared themselves independent from the Union. South Carolina led the way on December 20th, 1860. By the end of January 1861 Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana had left too. By the end of February Texas had also left, and the six breakaway states had joined together to form the Confederate States of America. They would be joined later in the year by Virgina, Tennessee, and Arkansas, as well as some legeslators of Missouri and Kentucky, although these two states would never truly join the Confederacy.

Despite what some modern pro-Southern historians wish to promulagate, the Secessionists never attempted to disguse, obscure or veil the fact that nervousness about the future of slavery was the reason behind their decision to seccede.

Inauguration Day, March 4th, 1861

Presdent elect Abraham Lincoln left his home in Springfield IL on Februaruy 22nd 1861, touring the North by train before his inauguration. At Philadelphia's Independence Hall, he declared that he'd rather be assasinated then see a single star removed from the US flag.

There were plans for a big speech in Baltimore, but the mood in that city was considered to be particulary ugly. His personal bodyguard, Alan Pinkerton persuaded the President-elect to cancel. Lincoln entered Washington DC without fanfair, so serious were the percieved designs on his life.

On March 4th, 1861, Lincoln was sworn in as the Sixteenth President of the United States. His inaugural address was one of the most highly anticipated speeches in the young nation's history. In it he promised not to interfere with the institution of slavery in those states where it existed. He denied that any state had the right to break away from the Union. He promised that there'd be no invasion of the the South, so long as they did not interfere with federal business, but should the South take up arms against the US, then the South would be responded to.

He ended his speech with one of the most eloquent pleas for peace and fraternaty any President has ever had to make.

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature"

Lincoln's speech was hopefull, but The South was arrayed against him, and preparing to fight. US Army posts in South Carolina and Florida were being threatened. Major Robert Anderson of the US Army command evacuated all of his forts except one, Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. In Flordia the Union garrison at Fort Pickens prepared for a possible attack.

The South was not impressed by Lincoln's speech or his attitude towards succession.

".... just what is expected of him, stupid, ambiguous vulgar and insolent .... [it] is everywhere considered a virtual declaration of war" - Diarist Emma Holms of Charleston

As Lincoln's speech was reprinted and circulated in the Northern and Southern newspapers people prayed and wondered alloud. Had it truly come to this? Were the Southern states so serious about secession as to open fire opon the US flag? Were the Northern states so serious about keeping the Southern states in the Union that they'd respond to an attack with a full scale invasion of the South?

The answers, so well known to modern history, were looming, ominous mysteries to Americans 150 years ago this week.