The Civil War Secession

Violence within the State of Kansas, the Dred Scott Decision and John Brown’s
raid on Harper’s Ferry brought the nation closer to secession. In the United States the
prospect of compromise seemed to be an almost impossible prospect. Within weeks of
President Lincoln’s election in 1860 the states of the Deep South began to secede. These
states saw his election as a threat and felt that they were obligated to fight for the ideas
that they strongly believed in. This paper will examine what their beliefs were and why
they resorted to secession as well as whether or not it was truly the only option available.
The roots of secession can be traced back as far as the day that the American
colonists declared their independence from England. Shortly after, the Declaration of
Independence was written to say, “all men are created equal”. How could that statement
be true when the Southerners felt that they had the right to own slaves? A slave is not as
equal as a free man. A little over a decade went by and the Constitution became to say
that when determining population slaves would only count as three-fifths of a person.
This contradiction became the very root of what to become secession and later leading to
the Civil War.
The nation handled the slavery question on a state by state basis until the year
1820. It was at this point that Missouri has obtained the required population that was
necessary to apply for statehood. But if Missouri was admitted as a slave state, it would
upset the balance between the slave and free states within Congress. At this point Henry
Clay proposed the establishment of the Missouri Compromise. This compromise stated
that all territories North of the 36° 30' line were free and all territories South of the line
were open to be slave states. In order to have a balance between slave and free states
Missouri was now able to become a slave state. Even though it appeared that the
question of slavery had been settled with the Missouri Compromise, the American desire
for expansion brought new problems to the government. The slaveholders of the South
saw the opportunity to expand their slave land and thus add to their political power by
annexing Texas into the Union. The North began to grow apprehensive of this because
they feared that they would lose control of the power in government. Continuing border
disputes and problems with the Mexican government led the United States to war with
Mexico. Southerners wanted not only to secure control of Texas but also to conquer all
of Mexico. The North was strongly opposed to the idea of conquering Mexico and
cursed the southerners for getting the United States in a war merely for territory. The
United States acquired land from Mexico and the slavery issue in those lands had to be
decided. At this point, the Union was faced with the dilemma of whether or not to allow
slavery in the new acquired lands of California and New Mexico. When President Polk
asked Congress for the money to purchase these two lands from Mexico, the Northerners
attempted to include some anti-slavery legislation to his request. The legislation became
known as the Wilmot Proviso and would outlaw slavery and involuntary servitude in any
acquired lands. Although it was defeated in Congress, the Wilmot Proviso became a
symbol of the northern anti-slave sentiment. The government needed to answer the
question of slavery as quickly as possible, because the North and the South were fighting
with each other like never before. The South felt that the Constitution and the Missouri
Compromise protected them when they called for slavery. But the North felt that since
Mexico did not allow slavery, then the lands acquired from Mexico should not allow
slavery either. The South became quite aware that if the land of California was admitted
as a free state then the balance of power would be upset and become favorable to the
North.
On December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede after a
vote of 169-0. The convention voted to dissolve “the union now subsisting between
South Carolina and other States”. By February of the following year Mississippi, Florida,
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas were quick to join South Carolina in secession.
These seven states had seceded before President Lincoln was even officially sworn in as
the President. During his inaugural address, Lincoln refused to legally recognize
secession, however the seceded states believed that their actions were rightfully
guaranteed by the Constitution. The State of Alabama declared that they ‘cannot and will
not submit to the Administration of Lincoln’. The slave states would work together to
resist the new presidential administration. One Georgia Senator, Alfred Iverson, stated
that no state had the right to secede but there is the right of revolution and that when
secession began they were revolting.
Shortly after the secession of Texas in February of 1861, delegates from all seven
seceded states met in Montgomery, Alabama in order to draft a constitution for the newly
formed ‘Confederate States of America’. Jefferson Davis was elected to be the President.
Montgomery became the capital of the newly formed Confederacy. This constitution and
the US Constitution were very similar. The major differences between the two were that
the Constitution of the Confederacy had a preamble that removed the general welfare
clause, and added that each ratifying state was acting "in its sovereign and independent
character”, it explicitly guaranteed slavery in both states and territories but banned the
international slave trade, it prohibited protective tariffs and Congressional appropriations
for internal improvements, and Presidents were limited to a one term lasting of six years.
The Confederates fought for the belief that they had the right to own slaves, the liberty to
take their property into the territories and freedom from the powers of a centralized
government. The Southerners wanted to fight for the right to take their slaves into new
territories acquired by the United States. This right was denied to them and they felt that
this was also violating their freedom and liberty.
There are many reasons for the origins of the Civil War. One major cause is the
growing diversity between the economic and social systems of the North and the South.
When this country was founded, all states had the institution of slavery and were all rural
and agricultural based. In the North, slavery was not as important as it was in the South
and it was quickly abolished after the Revolutionary War. The Northern economy began
to develop into a diversified region while the economy in the South remained primarily
dependent on slave-grown crops. The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney made
the cultivation of cotton on large plantations using slave labor a profitable enterprise in
the Deep South. As the demand for cotton increased more slaves were needed. The slave
became a very important aspect of the southern economy, and so the debate about
slavery, for the southerner, gradually evolved into an economically based question of
money and power, and ceased to be an ideological issue at all. Slavery was now an
institution that southerners felt bound to protect. Northern abolitionists were attacking the
idea of slavery because it was against the ideas of liberty that this country was founded
upon. The Southern states became very defensive and aggressive in the fight to defend
the idea of slavery. The Northern states wanted to preserve the Union, which was
established by our Founding Fathers and fought for during the Revolutionary War. They
feared that recognizing the right of secession would undermine the whole concept of a
government based on majority rule, constitutional procedures, and democratic elections.
Both the North and the South had their own different opinion about whether or
not slavery and secession should be allowed. Both sides felt that only their particular
opinion was the correct one and that the other was wrong. However, if secession was in
fact legal why did the Constitution provide no procedures for how a state would go about
seceding. The Constitution is totally silent on the issue of secession. The Presidential
Oath of Office provides for a good backing of Lincoln being against the idea of
secession. With the oath the President is required “to preserve, protect and defend the
Constitution”. Those words make it quite clear that the Constitution is to be enforced and
it was Lincoln’s responsibility to do just that. With the hopes of keeping secession from
growing out of control, John Crittenden proposed a plan for compromise. It protected
slavery in all territories south of the Missouri Compromise line of 36° 30', while
prohibiting it north of the line; prohibited Congress from abolishing slavery in the
District of Columbia, forbade federal interference with interstate slave trade; and
indemnified owners prevented by "local opposition" from recovering fugitive slaves.
Was secession the only available option for the states of the South? It seems as
though the Southern states acted in methods that they felt were reasonably right. The
right of secession should never be questioned. The Confederate States acted completely
within their rights to secede. They acted within their Constitutional rights for only one
reason and that secession is not forbidden within the Constitution. The election of
President Lincoln was devastating to the South, who knew that Lincoln would only work
hard to give the North the advantage. The people of the South were left with no choice
but secession. Lincoln was not even on the ballot down South, yet he was now president.
The South had lost control of Congress and of the presidency and they felt the
government had become only interested in ideas that concerned the North.