Virginia apologizes for slavery

[Kaylee]

The reason TOOMBS gave for seceding was to preserve slavery.

Sure slavery was certainly a significant part of why the South broke off, although not the only one.

All four states, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas, that had issued written Declarations of Causes of Secession gave issues related to slavery as their reason. Most of the text is on that issue alone. Yes Georgia and Texas also gave additional reasons. Georgia was already discussed in a previous post and the additional reason that Texas gave (briefly) was that the federal govt. "almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas" against the Indian and Mexican attacks. Georgia is really the only state that spent any time discussing other issues, tariffs and other related industry protection practices, as far as I could see.

ETA: But the fact that the South had plans to institute similar tariffs to create their own industrial sector and to cover their own central govt. costs does not give any credibility to the idea that tariffs were an actual reason that the South seceeeded. (See post # 96).

Here are links to the declarations:

South Carolina
December 24, 1860
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/csa/scarsec.htm

Mississippi
January 9, 1861
http://extlab1.entnem.ufl.edu/olustee/related/ms.htm

Georgia
January 29, 1861
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/csa/geosec.htm

Texas
February 2, 1861
http://extlab1.entnem.ufl.edu/Olustee/related/tx.htm

For any non-Americans following this thread here's a little more background info. The Declarations of Secession were made after Lincoln won the presidency but before he took office. He had won the presidential election in November, 1860 and took office in March, 1861 -- not the following January as US presidents do now.

 

[Kaylee]

We should have a National Day of Apology. We'll set aside one day a year to apologize to every person we meet for our ancestors actions and inactions. If a person should be of mixed race or nationality, then they should apologize to themselves out loud.

ROFLOL!

I'm not a fan of "whose history sucks worst" contests. Often discussions like the one in the OP segue into that and I think that misses the point.

IMHO the best thing we can all do is know our history and group psychology (learning the first teaches us the second) to avoid repeating the particular stupid parts of it.

 

[shanek]

Here's a copy of Lincoln's first inaugural address:
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html
(It’s a very short speech.)

He does not mention tariffs. And as I mentioned in my previous post, even Douglas said Tariffs were no longer a political issue after 1850 in his 1858 debates with Lincoln.

What do you think he's talking about in Paragraph 10?

So there you have it:

There's a difference between the cause of secession and the cause of the war.

Actually, most of the southern states that seceded cited Fort Sumter as the reason why. Only a few mentioned slavery.

The Southern states were not opposed to tariffs. On the contrary:

They were against protectionist tariffs. A flat 15% tariff is not protectionist.

And did you not read this part:

During the campaign. the Republican Party endorsed higher tariffs in their 1860 platform and campaigned for Abraham Lincoln. The party stressed the tariff issue only in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Both Democratic tickets opposed the Morrill Tariff, protectionism in general, and the American System.

Returning in December, after the election, the Senate again took up the Morrill bill and intensely debated it for the next several months. On February 14, 1861, Lincoln publicly announced that he would make a new tariff his priority if the bill did not pass by inauguration day on March 4th.

According to my political education, I am inclined to believe that the people in the various sections of the country should have their own views carried out through their representatives in Congress, and if the consideration of the Tariff bill should be postponed until the next session of the National Legislature, no subject should engage your representatives more closely than that of a tariff.​

​

Lincoln campaigned heavily for protectionist tariffs and said he would make tariffs his priority. Whereas he acquiesced almost every aspect of the slavery issue.

As far as I know they did not voluntarily relinquish any bases.

They voluntarily relinquished all but two: Fort Sumter and and Fort Pickens in Florida. Many of the personnel from the closed-down bases were used to fortify Fort Sumter. Again, why?

At this point it was war and taking forts away from the enemy is what enemies do when they are at war.

Um, no, there was no war at the time. There was just secession.

They believed this despite the fact that the Fugitives Slaves Act of 1850 existed and redundantly restated one of the articles in the Contitution, that fugitive slaves must be returned to their owners even if they had escaped to a free state.

It's not redundant. The Constitution just said that they weren't free if they escaped to another state, meaning that the slave owner was within his rights to recover it. The Fugitive Slave Act put the onus of catching and returning these slaves on the Federal government. This is actually why the US Marshals were formed: to catch slaves and return them to their owners.

 

[shanek]

A quick comparison of the statistics from the 1850 and 1860 censuses available from the University of Virginia's Historical Census Browser does not support your conclusion.

Please read again what I wrote about the Fugitive Slave Act.

 

[shanek]

About North Carolina's secession:

http://ncmuseumofhistory.org/exhibits/civilwar/about_section1b.html

Most North Carolinians viewed the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln as insufficient cause to leave the Union. But events eventually led Southern states to secede from the United States and form the Confederacy. North Carolina joined them on May 20, 1861.

After the firing on Fort Sumter in the Charleston, South Carolina, harbor and the Federal call for troops from the remaining Southern states, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina cast their lots with the Confederacy. These states refused to supply troops to help force Southern states back into the Union. North Carolina was the last state to sign a secession ordinance.

Most white North Carolinians remained pro-Union even after the election of antislavery candidate Abraham Lincoln. Their mood reflected a "wait-and-see" attitude about what Lincoln would do when he took office on March 4, 1861. On February 28, North Carolina voters rejected a call for a convention to discuss the state's relationship with the Federal government. However, support for the Union eroded rapidly in April with the firing on Fort Sumter and with Lincoln's demand that North Carolina and the other states furnish troops to force the seceded states back into the Union. The announcement of a Federal blockade of the Southern coastline followed shortly. Under these circumstances, the majority of white North Carolinians felt they had little recourse but to align themselves with the newly formed Confederacy.

North Carolina seceded over northern aggression, not slavery.

 

[shanek]

From the Ordinance of Secession of the State of Arkansas:

Abraham Lincoln...has, in the face of resolutions passed by this Convention pledging the State of Arkansas to resist to the last extremity any attempt on the part of such power to coerce any State that had seceded from the old Union, proclaimed to the world that war should be waged against such States until they should be compelled to submit to their rule, and large forces to accomplish this have by this same power been called out, and are now being marshaled to carry out this inhuman design; and to longer submit to such rule, or remain in the old Union of the United States, would be disgraceful and ruinous to the State of Arkansas...

Not one word about slavery.

 

[Checkmite]

It's not redundant. The Constitution just said that they weren't free if they escaped to another state, meaning that the slave owner was within his rights to recover it. The Fugitive Slave Act put the onus of catching and returning these slaves on the Federal government. This is actually why the US Marshals were formed: to catch slaves and return them to their owners.

Curiously, one thing that got the Southern states in such a tizzy was the refusal of certain northern states to comply with the FSA ("States' rights" and all that, see), and the subsequent lack of enforcement action on the part of the Federal government.

 

[Checkmite]

From the Ordinance of Secession of the State of Arkansas:



Not one word about slavery.

Unfortunately, Arkansas is something of a peculiarity here. Aside from Mississippi and Florida (which didn't offer explanations, but just quit), most of the other states' secession ordinances imply or express that the problem is more or less the issue of slavery. Sometimes they merely (for instance, Alabama ) declare that since the northern states were refusing to obey the Constitution then "we don't have to play with you anymore". The specific part of the Constitution those states were refusing to obey was, of course, the obligation to return escaped slaves.

Other states were more explicit. For instance, South Carolina insisted that

...Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection...this sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

A black citizen? My GOD!

Georgia agreed, and stated in its new Constitution of 1861 (Section VII, P. 3) that

The General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves.

Texas seems to have been by far the most preachy, explaining that its government was intent on

...maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery--the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits--a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.

Eeshk.

 

[Tmy]

Why so much resistance to an apology? Seems like alot of people dont want to see one cause they dont think slavery was wrong.

 

[Mike B.]

Unfortunately, Arkansas is something of a peculiarity here. Aside from Mississippi and Florida (which didn't offer explanations, but just quit), most of the other states' secession ordinances imply or express that the problem is more or less the issue of slavery. Sometimes they merely (for instance, Alabama ) declare that since the northern states were refusing to obey the Constitution then "we don't have to play with you anymore". The specific part of the Constitution those states were refusing to obey was, of course, the obligation to return escaped slaves.

Other states were more explicit. For instance, South Carolina insisted that



A black citizen? My GOD!

Georgia agreed, and stated in its new Constitution of 1861 (Section VII, P. 3) that



Texas seems to have been by far the most preachy, explaining that its government was intent on



Eeshk.

Actually Mississppi was quite explicit in its reason for leaving the Union:

"In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin."

It is very interesting that supposedly they left because of the tariff, yet started the document explaining why they left with:

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery"

 

[Mike B.]

Whereas he acquiesced almost every aspect of the slavery issue.

I can not even believe how dishonest this is.

Lincoln refused to endorse any of the compromises purposed that would have allowed slavery to expand into the territories. (i.e. The Crittendon Compromise, etc.)

This is just "lost cause" nonsense you are spreading.

 

[Mike B.]

Curiously, one thing that got the Southern states in such a tizzy was the refusal of certain northern states to comply with the FSA ("States' rights" and all that, see), and the subsequent lack of enforcement action on the part of the Federal government.

It is interesting that a few years before the war certain states like Mass. were passing "personal liberty" laws to give captured slaves local trials and claiming that "states' rights" allowed them to do it.

 

[Kaylee]

Here's a copy of Lincoln's first inaugural address:
http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html
(It’s a very short speech.)

He does not mention tariffs. And as I mentioned in my previous post, even Douglas said Tariffs were no longer a political issue after 1850 in his 1858 debates with Lincoln.

What do you think he's talking about in Paragraph 10?

Here's paragraph 10:
Link: http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres31.html

I take the official oath to-day with no mental reservations and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws by any hypercritical rules; and while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to and abide by all those acts which stand unrepealed than to violate any of them trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional.

After reading paragraphs 6 - 9, I think it's safe to say that Lincoln was referring to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 which was unpopular in the Northern part of the country. If you have reason to think he is referring to something else, then please explain why.

Here's paragraphs 6 - 9:

There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:

No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.6​

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution—to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause "shall be delivered up" their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not with nearly equal unanimity frame and pass a law by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath? 7​

There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by State authority, but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him or to others by which authority it is done. And should anyone in any case be content that his oath shall go unkept on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept? 8

Again: In any law upon this subject ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not in any case surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States"?

--

They were against protectionist tariffs. A flat 15% tariff is not protectionist

Per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tariff: A tariff is a

tax on foreign goods upon importation.

By its very nature its promotes and protects domestically produced items. It doesn't matter if there is one flat rate or not.

--

Lincoln campaigned heavily for protectionist tariffs and said he would make tariffs his priority. Whereas he acquiesced almost every aspect of the slavery issue.

Four southern states wrote Declarations of Causes of Secession and, as posted previously, the idea that they were seceding mainly because of Tarifs is simply not reflected in those documents, which I had linked to in post #101. Their concerns about being able to continue to "protect their property rights in African slaves" were.

--

They voluntarily relinquished all but two: Fort Sumter and and Fort Pickens in Florida. Many of the personnel from the closed-down bases were used to fortify Fort Sumter. Again, why

Can you provide links? Lincoln made it very clear in his first inauguration speech that he was not going to accept the secession of any states from the Union. Therefore this implies to me that he was not going to voluntarily accept the take over of federal property by any of the seceding states either.

--

They believed this despite the fact that the Fugitives Slaves Act of 1850 existed and redundantly restated one of the articles in the Contitution, that fugitive slaves must be returned to their owners even if they had escaped to a free state.

It's not redundant. The Constitution just said that they weren't free if they escaped to another state, meaning that the slave owner was within his rights to recover it. The Fugitive Slave Act put the onus of catching and returning these slaves on the Federal government. This is actually why the US Marshals were formed: to catch slaves and return them to their owners.

Thanks for clarifying this.

ETA: I find your use of "it" instead of him or her very disturbing.

 

[Kaylee]

A quick comparison of the statistics from the 1850 and 1860 censuses available from the University of Virginia's Historical Census Browser does not support your conclusion.

Please read again what I wrote about the Fugitive Slave Act.

OK here's your entire original post in response to one of mine:

It makes sense that in a slave based economy white people without slaves would either leave for other opportunities* or eventually start owning slaves themselves in order to be economically competitive with their neighbors.

Except that it wasn't actually that financially viable to own slaves. One of the big reasons for the Fugitive Slave Act that you mentioned in your other post was that it was too expensive for slave owners to go and get them back.
Slavery was on the way out. It was getting to be too much trouble to keep the slaves and cheaper to just hire labor. Without the FSA, it might have vanished a lot sooner. We certainly didn't need to kill 600,000 people to free them.

and my response in post # 97

A quick comparison of the statistics from the 1850 and 1860 censuses available from the University of Virginia's Historical Census Browser does not support your conclusion.

Per the web site http://fisher.lib.virginia.edu/colle...us/index.html:

The data and terminology presented in the Historical Census Browser are drawn directly from historical volumes of the U.S. Census of Population and Housing.

Per the US Census data, the number of slaves increased in 1860 from 1850. This conflicts with the idea that "slavery was on the way out" and that it was "cheaper to just hire labor."

 

[Mike B.]

Because from past experience on this issue with people like MKJeeves blowing him out of the water, I have concluded Shanek needs to believe certain myths about the "lost cause." It is really pointess to argue with him. You can see the level of dishonest cherry picking by claiming the Ark. secession ordinance is somehow proof because the word "slavery" does not appear in it. Never mind it is a fairly short legal document. And his gross generalization about slave families and how it was contradicted by hard data, yet he will go on maintaing it, etc.

To believe as he does one would have to forget all the things like the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the South passing a gag order in Congress where anti-slavery petitions couldn't even be read, bleeding Kansas, John Brown, etc. and somehow believe the tariff was the main issue, you would have to exhibit a level of idealogical bias that is ultimately unhealthy.

Here is a link to primary sources and statistics from the era that really contradict the whole mindset if anyone is interested:

http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/full.html

 

[Kaylee]

North Carolina seceded over northern aggression, not slavery.

The Confederacy had between 11- 13 states of which 7 seceded from the Union before Lincoln took office and before the Civil War started. They obviously could not have seceded based on claims of Northern aggression. An 8th state, Virginia, claimed in their Ordinance of Secession that they were being oppressed by the USA and implied that this was because they were a slave-holding state. (See cut and paste at end).

I'll grant you that some of the remaining 3 -5 states (perhaps all, I started skimming at one point) seceded based mainly on claims of Northern aggression, or as no doubt the North would have put it -- it's refusal to accept the Southern states secession from the Union and their acts of aggression against federal property within their boundaries -- but what are the chances that this complaint would have been made if slavery had not been an issue?

Link: http://historicaltextarchive.com/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=170

The ordinances of secession were the actual legal language by which the seceded states severed their connection with the Federal Union. The declarations of causes...are where they tended to disclose their reasons for doing so, although only four states issued separate declarations of causes.

Per the above link:
State Date Ordinance of Secession Passed
South Carolina December 20, 1860
Mississippi January 9, 1861
Florida January 10, 1861
Alabama January 11, 1861
Georgia January 19, 1861
Louisiana January 26, 1861
Texas February 1, 1861

--

(Battle of Fort Sumter and the official start of Civil War April 12, 1861
per link: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/tl1861.html)

--

Virginia April 17, 1861
Arkansas May 6, 1861
North Carolina May 20, 1861
Tennessee June 8, 1861

These two states were claimed by both the Union and the Confederacy and had two competing state governments:
(Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_secession)

Missouri October 31, 1861
Kentucky November 20, 1861

Cut and pastes from the Virginia Ordinance of Secession passed after the start of the Civil War:

The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitition were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States:

(Emphasis mine)

 

[Beanbag]

I have no reason at all to doubt your word that your family didn't own slaves, roadtoad, but just for once it would have been cool to meet someone who admitted their family (a) owned slaves and (b) were nasty to them.

If all the incidents told as "true stories" about how "we were nice to our slaves" by southerners were true, history would have to be re-written, since apparently black slaves more or less owned the entire south and their every whim was catered to by their nominal owners.

There's a "mixed race" branch of the family tree scattered in and around Oklahoma. A prestigious ancestor of mine fathered a few children with one of his slaves. Now, whether it was willing or consensual is a matter lost in time.

Beanbag

 

[Tmy]

These "civil war wasnt about slavery" type arguments allways remind me of the holocaust deniers.

It seems like the history of slavery has morphed into blacks just hanging out in a summer camp having an OK time.

 

[Checkmite]

It seems like the history of slavery has morphed into blacks just hanging out in a summer camp having an OK time.

Movies are really good at this, lately, showing things like Confederate generals soliciting advice from black kitchen staff, whom these white aristocrats apparently viewed as equals throughout the whole war.

 

[shanek]

Unfortunately, Arkansas is something of a peculiarity here.

Then so are NC, VA, and a good number of the other states that seceded. And what about Texas, which cited the inaction of the Federal government in aiding their protection from the Indians and the Mexicans? That was a big issue for secession in TX:

The Federal Government, while but partially under the control of these our unnatural and sectional enemies, has for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refused reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.

As for the slavery issue, they had at least one legitimate grievance against the abolitionist extremists:

They have invaded Southern soil and murdered unoffending citizens, and through the press their leading men and a fanatical pulpit have bestowed praise upon the actors and assassins in these crimes, while the governors of several of their States have refused to deliver parties implicated and indicted for participation in such offences, upon the legal demands of the States aggrieved.

And:

They have impoverished the slave-holding States by unequal and partial legislation, thereby enriching themselves by draining our substance.

Gee, do you think they might be referring to the tariffs there?

Don't get me wrong; Texas's Secession document is a disgusting piece of white supremacist bigotry; but these clauses do actually show additional and legitimate grievances beyond that.