Another quarrel between the North and South and perhaps the most emotional one, was over the issue of slavery. Farming was the South’s main industry and cotton was the primary farm product. Not having the use of machines, it took a great amount of human labour to pick cotton. A large number of slaves were used in the South to provide the labour. However, many Northerners thought that owning slaves was wrong and disagreed with the South’s beliefs. Yet slavery had been a part of the Southern way of life for well over 200 years. The way the North and South viewed slavery also contributed to the animosity between them. Richard H Sewell states the debate of slavery “…not only aroused feelings of jealousy, honour and regional pride, but also raised fundamental questions about the future direction of American society. Unable to find common ground with such vital issues at stake, the Union broke asunder.” Southern states remained pro-slavery because to them it was an “institution of reciprocal benefits.” It offered political and social as well as obvious economic advantages. To the ‘inferior’ African it offered “security, protection and cultural uplift.” The South defended black slavery as essential to white freedom. They claimed slavery freed white dependence on other white men.
However, Northerners developed a campaign against slavery. The result of anti-slavery factions led to the formation of the Free Soil Party which viewed slavery as a “great moral, political and social evil.” Free Soilers called for a congressional ban on slavery and withdrawal of all support for slavery where congress processed the right to act. They were pushed into action by the acquisition of new territories from Mexico and the ensuing argument over whether or not slavery would be permitted in those territories. The Federal Government wanted to regulate slavery yet the Southern states wanted to prevent this and look after their own interests. Thus the question arose to as whether individual states should protect their own interests or should slave states all combine to do so. The South Carolina and Nullification Crisis in 1831-33 proved the answer. The Nullification crisis meant the South Carolina legislature could ‘nullify’ measures passed by Congress should the measures be the opposite to the interests of Southern states. This shows how the South were not going to give up without a fight as they felt oppressed and restrained by the North.
The North did not want any more states to become ‘slave states’ so they were disappointed when new territories became available in the West. The South wanted to expand and use slavery in the newly acquired territories, but the North opposed this and wanted to stop the extension of slavery in new areas. The North wanted to limit the number if slave states in the Union whereas Southerners felt a government dominated by free states could endanger existing slaveholdings. The South wanted to protect their states rights. The Missouri Compromise was an effort by Congress to defuse the sectional and political rivalries triggered by the request of Missouri late in 1819 for admission as a state in which slavery should be permitted. At the time, the United States contained 22 states evenly divided between slave and free. Admission of Missouri would upset that balance. Thus, their request took a long time to solve. Northerners led by Senator Rufus King of New York argued that Congress had the power to prohibit slavery in a new state. Southerners like Senator William Pinkey of Maryland held the view that new states had the same freedom of action as the original 13 and were thus free to choose slavery if they wished. This indicates the tensions and opposing views of the two sides was bound to cause conflict.
For more than 30 years arguments between the North and South had been growing. One of these quarrels was about taxes paid on goods bought into this country from foreign countries. In 1828, Northern businessmen helped get the “Tariff Act” passed. It raised the prices of manufactured goods from Europe which were sold mainly in the South. The purpose of the law was to encourage the South to buy the North’s products. It angered the Southern people to have to pay more for the goods they wanted from Europe or to pay more to get goods from the North. The conflict between the Federal Government and the southern states intensified with the raising of taxes and collection of duties and imports which bought to a head festering grievances and tensions. Southern planters were frustrated by protective tariffs as it contributed to a rise in consumer prices but not to an increase in price of cotton. This meant capital thus flowed out of southern states such as South Carolina. Richard E. Sewell argues “The tariff seemed to resemble spider which sucked out capital from South Carolina’s decaying corpse, while keeping prices high.” It became a scapegoat for states ills. Frustration reached fever pitch pushing states toward violent measures which most southerners whatever their view on tariff question, deplored. Due to the fact that Sewell is an American historian means that one may have to be cautious in his viewpoint in that he tends defend the South a lot in his book. Thus, it may appear he is a Southern historian. The social antagonism between the North and South has been also explained by Charles Beard, a progressive historian who argues that only economic issues bought along the civil war. He justifies this by explaining how Northern industrial interests sought to subordinate the agricultural South and its political leaders to their own need for tariffs, a national railway and more encouragement for Northern farmers to settle in the rest. However other historians have disagreed such as Eugene Genovese who argues that initiatives leading to war came from the South. The slavocracy, engineered Southern secession and provoked war because it feared that its entire way of life based on slavery and agriculture was threatened by the industrial and agricultural North.
In a constitutional government, secession is both unconstitutional and illegal and it undermines the authority and the integrity of the constitutional government. But there exists, however, a legitimate right to revolution if the constitutional government is found guilty of violating the provisions of the Constitution. The South argued that this is exactly what the Federal government had done, they argued the Federal government hade frequently violated the Constitutional and therefore had a legitimate right to revolution. However, counter secessionist arguments take the view that the government did not violate the constitution and instead upheld it. Abraham Lincoln presented many compelling constitutional arguments on behalf of the Union showing it was not the government in the wrong rather it was the seceding states in the wrong. Abraham Lincoln felt the Constitution made the Union of states perpetual. He felt perpetuity was implied if not expressed in the fundamental law of all national governments. Thus, from a Constitutional standpoint, the Union was unbroken and secession was obviously illegal. It was his clear Constitutional duty to enforce the laws of the land. Lincoln rejected the right of rebellion and secession because he thought it was illegal and unconstitutional. He felt it was his Constitutional duty to go to war to save the Union from breaking apart. Lincoln felt he needed to keep America just as the Founding Fathers had desired – a unified Nation under one government. The Southern understanding of the constitutional government somewhat differed and it provided their justification for their secession as a legal act. The South viewed the republic as a compact union of sovereign states which were free and independent states. However, in contrast according to Richard H Sewell believed that Southern Unionists insisted “…far from protecting slavery…secession would place it in peril, for secession was bound to lead to war, and war to emancipation.” This shows that not all in the South were for secession and even Alexander H Stephens can be quoted stating “I consider slavery much more secure in the Union than out of it.” But Southern radicals such as William L Yancey of Alabama, Robert Rhett of South Carolina and Edmund Ruffin of Virginia had for years been agitated for disunion as the best means of protecting and advancing Southern interests. It is interesting to state that they had been threatening secession “in the event of a Republican triumph in 1860.”
When Lincoln did win the 1860 election, according to Hugh Tulloch the South had good reason to take alarm at his victory. This is because to the South, Lincoln represented an “assault” on honour and the well-being of the South. By electing a candidate pledged to slavery’s destruction, the Northern majority had insulted the South. To prideful Southerners, the voters verdict as Tulloch states amounted to a “declaration of war against their property and the supremacy of the white race.” However, Lincoln addressed these arguments at the Inaugural Address of March 4, 1861. He pointed out that although the slaveholding states were a minority, their rights were protected by the provisions of the Constitution and that slavery would not be prohibited in the areas where it already existed. He did acknowledge that “Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern states, that by the accession of a Republican Administration, their property, and their peace and personal security, are endangered.” But he did ensure them that “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery…I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so.” Further he argued that the right of the South to secede was unlawful but the “essence of anarchy.” Lincoln was a staunch Unionist who was willing to preserve the Union at almost any price but the Southerners mistrusted him. There was a great fear in the South of the Republican party as they believed they would lose all their power. The Southerners interpreted the Constitution differently to Abraham Lincoln thus they did not regard secession as illegal. To the South, it made sense to withdraw and be their own country so they could determine their own future. Abraham Lincoln once said: “A house divided it cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do no expect the Union to be dissolved…I do not expect the house to fall…But I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all another.” Lincoln’s House Divided speech manifests the idea that the end of slavery was an occurrence that would ‘tear the heart out of a civilization so entwined with slavery. To the North, slavery was morally just and necessary for the nation yet for the South it had disastrous consequences. This chasm in ideology provides the foundation for the argument that by 1860 the North and South had irreconcilable differences.
Ultimately, it can be seen that it was not only due to the election of Abraham Lincoln which led to the secession of the Confederate States. Instead, the reasons to as why they withdrew from the Union go further back into history down to slavery. This coupled with South states rights as well as taxation issues meant there was tension between the North and South. The different ways in which the South and the Republicans viewed the Constitution also played a key role in secession. This is because the South believed what they were doing was just and natural, Lincoln on the other hand felt it was unlawful and illegal. Perhaps the most elusive argument among this torrent of constitutional, social, political and moral arguments is the one that is right. Yet, was there a mutual solution to the moral and political demands of the North and the cultural, economic and political demands of the South? The debate continues to flourish as argument after argument endlessly marches along in secession, challenging or supporting the doctrine of secession.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Bruce Collins “The Origins of the American Civil War”
Hugh Tulloch “The Debate on the American Civil War Era”
Bruce Holden Reid “The Origins of the American Civil War”
Richard H. Sewell “A House Divided”
