I’ve had the opportunity recently to do some extra-careful thinking about Lincoln, the founding, and the Union. I’m pretty sure I’ve decided that many nettlesome and momentous theoretical issues came to a head in one relatively small practical question. What degree of peril did the secession of the Deep South expose to the existence of the Union that was embodied in the United States which remained? (Followup question: what degree of risk should have been tolerated in appraising that degree of peril? So, even if the existential peril was serious but unlikely, it might still be worth fighting against.)
It seems plausible that the peril grew by a very significant amount once the Upper South left the Union. But the Upper South, of course, only left the Union because the alternative was to invade the Deep South and/or become a bloody, Kansas-like battleground. So isn’t it possible to agree across the board with Lincoln’s most ardent defenders (practical and theoretical), yet decide that the civil war needn’t have happened — if it was unreasonable or unjustifiable to interpret the departure of only the Deep South as an existential threat to the Union? I’m still pondering this important question.
June 29th, 2010 | 9:50 pm
I suppose one must consider the text of the Constitution.
A few thoughts.
“Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”
It seems to me that the Deep South (or, at least, the leaders of those states) were guilty of treason by attacking Fort Sumter.
Article 1, Section 10 has a number of items which states cannot do, having subscribed to the Constitution. And, it seems to me, the seceding states engaged in a number of them.
June 29th, 2010 | 10:51 pm
No diff. Once one of the states left unilaterally, without a national response, the die would have been set for the future. And as Lincoln pointed out at the time, if a minority loses an election and responds by leaving the union, the union has no ability to be sustained.
If a state is to leave the union, not provided in the Constitution, then the way out should be just like the way in, by a vote of Congress, or perhaps by consent of the states, e.g., by the rule of law of the whole.
June 30th, 2010 | 5:00 am
I don’t think the question should be one centered on the idea of a threat or “peril to the Union” (re: the secession of the “Deep South”), rather the intrinsic question is the “right” of a state in 1861, to withdraw from the Constitutional compact.
A secondary question may be, is the executive overstepping its Constitutional obligations by instigating a war by not permitting and/or interfering with this voluntary withdrawal?
As a result of my own readings of the founding era I join with those who advocate the so-called “states’ rights’ perspective, e.g. the states had the right to withdraw from the central government.
June 30th, 2010 | 10:51 am
That’s an important “if”, one I’ll need to give more thought. Maybe the Civil War need not have happened, but I think *something* would have happened, either better or worse. I’ll leave to the alternative history writers to speculate.
I have always been sympathetic to pro-Union arguments, but I do struggle with the states’ rights argument Bob mentions. James and Bob, you’ve damaged my Wednesday morning productivity, but I like the question.
June 30th, 2010 | 11:35 am
“What degree of peril did the secession of the Deep South expose to the existence of the Union that was embodied in the United States which remained?”
An extraordinarly difficult question.
As someone of the Right, it’s always been puzzling to me that Lincoln can be so heavily demonized.
These points must be recognized:
- declarations of the causes of secession issued by Southern states deal almost entirely with slavery
- almost every significant political conflict in the decade leading up to the war was about slavery
- tariffs, internal improvements, and so on were Whig/Democrat issues, not North/South issues
- there was no greater threat to the republic than the despotic, expansive and violent impulses of slave/master power
- Southern states demanded that local law enforcement in the North be enlisted to capture runaway slaves, that Northern states repeal their personal liberty laws and that the federal government censor abolitionist publications
- Southerners insisted that slavery be allowed in the territories, whether the residents there wanted it or not. Imposing the slave codes in the western territories would have constituted the greatest expansion of federal law enforcement in U.S. history at that time
- More than a few Southerners wished to expand the slave realm by annexing Mexico and invading Cuba
Moonlight and magnolia romanticism (and I like it too, especially the mixed drink/front porch aspect) cannot be seriously justified. I do not have a good response to your question, but maybe we should look to a neglected figure on this question, Hawthorne, who indicated a distaste for both houses…..
June 30th, 2010 | 11:35 am
My interest, Bob, has turned to the following issue.
Assume that as a matter of constitutional law, any state — certainly those whose ratification signing statements included an explicit comment on the matter — reserved the right to withdraw from the Union. But then consider the Unionist or Federalist proposition that the Constitution itself is not enough to bind the rest of the Union together — whether any states secede from it or not.
The claim behind this proposition is that the Constitution, though venerated and authoritative, did not *create* the Union, but merely supplied the preexisting Union with a political regime more suitable to its perpetuation than the Articles of Confederation. The Constitution itself refers to a preexisting People of the United States, and the Federalist papers (e.g. Federalist 2) refer to the Union as a deep and complex social, cultural, economic, religious, and in at least some way political organization among the People of the United States that predates the Constitution.
The usual or default case that proceeds from this interpretation is that the Constitution could not be interpreted in a way inimical to Union (i.e., permissive of secession) because the Constitution was created to preserve and perpetuate the Union. My interest is in asking whether all secession was indeed inimical to Union — while conceding that the secession of some combination of states certainly was inimical to Union. If so, then could not all the following be true?
* The Deep South was not acting unconstitutionally in opting out of the Union;
* The departure of the Deep South did not pose an existential threat to the Union, demonstrating that the Constitution did not need to be interpreted as making Union permanent out of an understanding that the remainder of the Union would collapse without such an interpretation;
* The departure of the Upper South, after the Deep South had seceded, much more probably *did* pose an existential threat to the Union, tending to justify a pro-Northern claim that invading the whole South to restore its states to their “proper relationship” with the Union was a necessary response;
* Nonetheless, given that the Upper South did not secede until it was apparent that the North would (a) not accept Deep Southern secession and (b) the Upper South was expected to join in a bloody war with the Deep South, the North managed to precipitate the very crisis which it was obligated above all to avoid, namely, an existential threat to the Union.
June 30th, 2010 | 11:54 am
This is very interesting, and a good way to probe further into the nature of the War Between the States. But isn’t there a prior question: Was secession justified? Not so much because of the punitive tariffs that the North imposed on the South in the decade or two before the war, but because of the presumptively tyrannical reinvention of the governmental contract in the form of “Union.” Originally, the United States was federalist (as we now call it) in a very strong sense, which persevered more or less up to the time of Lincoln’s presidency. To the extent that Lincoln created rather than saved the Union, secession would seem to have been justified on republican anti-tyranny principles. We can get a good sense of how weak the anti-secessionist argument is by looking at a contemporary example of it–*In Re Succession of Quebec,* by Canada’s high court. It’s full–absolutely full–of the most nonsensical question-begging.
That’s not to say the South was right to have seceded. Maybe the South should have tried harder to maintain comity. But the historical recod does indicate a high degree of Northern intransigence concerning the well-established political autonomy of the states, and it’s understandable that Southerners were not happy about it.
June 30th, 2010 | 2:40 pm
“My interest is in asking whether all secession was indeed inimical to Union — while conceding that the secession of some combination of states certainly was inimical to Union.”
One key historical development is, of course, the circumstances surrounding the promulgation of the “Constitution.” And, while I have no time to go into ‘conspiracies,’ the fact that the Constitutional Convention was called to modify and improve the Articles of Confederation and not to create a ‘new’ document is a matter worthy of discussion.
Re: the ‘state’, it’s critical to understand that it is the fundamental constitutionally grounded political entity at work in the American political apparatus (I once debated a Harvard history professor who could not comprehend that). That is to say, that while the ‘state’ is permitted under the proper circumstances and because of its constitutional construction to withdraw from the federal union, a county, city, township may not, legally/constitutionally, withdraw from the state.
Re: your question, the purpose of the Constitution is to perfectly and specifically explicate the purpose and construction of the federal gov’t., and to, in the instant case of the Bill of Rights, to explicate that real political power is maintained and jealously guarded by the several states and the people which by definition reduces the theoretical importance the concept of “Union”. So, I’ve taken the opposite position that Pres. Lincoln did, and that is if the federal gov’t moves to oppress its people, it is the moral obligation of free men to resist, and if they find it necessary, by convention, to secede then so be it.
It does not matter if the act of secession is ‘inimical to the Union.’ What matters is the maintenance of freedom even if it means a secession from an established union of states. Which is what, eighty years earlier, the founding generation successfully accomplished.
A book you may find informative is “Secession, State, and Liberty,” ed. David Gordon, Transaction Publishers, 1998,
June 30th, 2010 | 3:15 pm
James,
Perhaps I am a bit thick, but I am struggling to get my mind around how there could be a Union where members are free to leave at any time for any reason without permission from the other members of the Union. This is only a Union in the sense that an open marriage is a marriage (i.e., not much of one). If fidelity and exclusivity are what make a marriage, then a political Union is similarly bound.
If one simply wants to look at this from a contractual perspective, it normally takes two parties to void a contract unless one party is found to be in breech of the contract already. As Lincoln pointed out innumerable times, the North hadn’t violated the rights of Southern states at any point. Yet Southern states chose to secede.
This being an illegal act, the government had to defend the rule of law. Setting up a government (the Confederacy) was an act of rebellion on the part of the South with predictable consequences.
I believe war was inevitable in the sense Lincoln puts it in the 2nd Inaugural. The South chose to have secession and war rather than give up slavery; the North (Union) accepted war as an outgrowth of this decision by the South.
When we look at the “state’s rights” argument in this context, it is always helpful to remember what right the Southern states thought they were protecting. The “right” they wanted to protect was the right to own slaves and the right to expand that institution of slavery to places (territories) where it had hitherto not existed. Because Lincoln opposed the latter and because the South saw the former as at risk, they chose secession and war. I happen to think war was inevitable because anti-slavery sentiment in the North was growing and Southern defense of slavery was becoming more vociferous (look at the caning of Sumner). The South had created a culture that was dependent on slavery and they were willing to go to war lest that institution be threatened.
June 30th, 2010 | 4:11 pm
The cleavage lines of secession were written into the Constitution by recognizing the intransigent and yet perilous issue of CONTROL OVER the question of slavery. The existence of slavery itself vel non, therefore was no bar to the ratification of the Constitution — from both perspectives. It was instead the issue of CONTROL over it — more than the fact of it (though the two cannot really be divided) — that created the schism.
Thus, (in a doubly ironic turn the Devil no doubt delights in) the right side of the question of self-determination and popular sovereignty was set in support of the moral evil of slavery and the right side of the question of slavery was set in support of a morally evil tyranny against fellow sovereign peoples.
Lincoln could prevail in the issue of essential freedom only by imposing military subjugation of unwilling peoples; the South ended up defending their own freedom from subjugation by championing the subjugation of the essential freedom of their fellow men.
It was the Devil’s due for obtaining freedom from British oppression by enshrining chattel slavery in the Constitution.
July 1st, 2010 | 10:47 pm
These thoughts make me think many decades later I would have been in the situation of a dissident in local political trouble hoping for the American President to take up my cause in principle.
You would have two regimes from common political ancestry divided over a compromise most had agreed too, but which over time would have been obfuscated over the inevitable bitter political disputes–RI profiting for building ships for souther cotton plantation export. As lincoln pointed out, the principle of secession is anarchy, and if this throws a wrench in the idea of American independence then so be it. I suppose we’re all screwed!
This was the actual resolution anyway–RP Warren’s Legacy of the Civil War argues this case (as well as his story The Circus in the Attic). So perhaps it would not have made any difference to fight the war–except justice had been moved forward for many blacks, and the Union over time has remained in its attraction for even unreconstructed southerner.
This was the real meaning of the Spanish American War and WWI. The sons of former Confederates and former Union soldiers fought together for something called the USA.
July 2nd, 2010 | 6:50 pm
What is the evidence and scholarly presentation of it for
“(b) the Upper South was expected to join in a bloody war with the Deep South,”
and this being key to the Upper South’s decisions to secede?
I.e., what books are you basing this on?
July 7th, 2010 | 4:04 pm
Can anyone recommend a good civil war book which won’t take me the rest of the summer to polish off?
July 7th, 2010 | 6:47 pm
If any secession had succeeded, then two things would have occurred: (a) Any deep crisis in which one or several states felt they were not getting a fair shake in the national government would threaten secession of the complaining states, and (b) the rest of the Union would be forced into a game of chicken, in which they either concede to the complaining states, or they call their bluff and see the union diminished by several states.
Certainly, given the lack of a transcontinental railroad in 1860, there was a real possibility that California and Oregon Territory (current Washington and Oregon) could secede. Indeed, there was always a surplus of ambitious men like John Fremont who would see a personal advantage in being a big frog in a smaller pond. The same would be true for Texas pulling out of the Confederacy. And once secession was enshrined by precedent, the likelihood of the State of Deseret (Utah and its adjacent Mormon-settled territories) seceding would be high, as an alternative to the intense Federal persecution that took place from 1865 to 1890 or so.
Given those developments, the transcontinental railroad would have been substantially delayed, and Alaska would remain part of Russia. The possibility of war among any of the remaining fragments of the former United States would be very real, such as over an attempt by the slave holding South to expand westward into territories claimed by the Union. There would no longer be an incentive for the Northern States to enforce the fugitive Slave Act, so attempts by slaves to escape across the new, nearer borders, to the north or west, would increase.
Reaching the 20th Century, there would be no USA capable of taking on both Japanese imperialism and Nazi conquest. It is unlikely that there would have been a significant naval fleet in Pearl Harbor to be attacked, and the Philippines would not be US territory. Hawaii and Alaska would have slipped into the orbit of Japan’s control as the USSR was distracted by Hitler. Without the Pearl harbor attack to bring America into the world war, the remaining eastern states would have been limited in their aid to Britain, which eventually may have gone the way of Vichy France.
Assuming the USSR survived the Nazis, there would have been no USA to deploy troops in forward positions in Europe and wear down the soviets.
Whether Lincoln understood his actions as justified at the time or not, if he had not held the Union together, the freedom of most of the world would have become a forgotten dream.
May 28th, 2012 | 6:05 am
And if Coakley wins, will that mean the opposite is true? Palin endorsed a Tea party candidate in New York and the seat went to a Democrat for the first time since the 1850s. Obviously, she can’t energize anyone anymore, is not a leader, does not know the first thing about leadership or about being in command.
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