what led the southern states to secede from the union in 1860 and 1861

The Smashing Mistake - Why Did the S Secede in 1860?

Dan Bryan, January 27 2013

The Secession Convention in South Carolina, 1860

The Civil War was by far the most catastrophic event to always happen in the American South. There have been at least a few discussions on whether Abraham Lincoln and the Republicans should take prosecuted the Civil State of war, merely surprisingly very footling analysis on whether South Carolina's secession in 1860 was a strategically wise motion in the context of the American debate on slavery and states' rights.

Secession was driven by the Southern planter class. For the purposes of this article, let'south stipulate that the preservation of slavery and the plantation economy was the principal objective in seceding from the United States. If that was the point of secession, then the strategy was an obvious disaster.

In that case, this essay aims to examine two things:

• What would have happened had South Carolina (and the other Confederate states thereafter) not seceded after Lincoln's ballot in 1860?
• Would these scenarios have represented an improvement (for the aristocracy planter grade) over the devastation of the Ceremonious State of war, followed by the total abolition of slavery?

Information technology is the contention here that secession was an utter disaster for the Due south. Considering of that the people responsible for information technology presented the consequence afterward as a question of whether the Union should have intervened and fought the Civil War -- avoiding the question of whether secession was wise in the first place.

The Ballot of 1860

The proximate cause of the South's secession was the election of Abraham Lincoln with a Republican majority in 1860. However, in and of itself, secession was a major overreaction to this political setback.

Lincoln's election fed the perception that Southern interests were losing command of the federal government, and that this government would eventually suppress the institution of slavery or outlaw it birthday. However, Lincoln's victory in 1860 was far from dominant. Equally the Republican candidate, he received one,887 votes in Virginia and did not appear on the ballot in any other state which eventually joined the Confederacy. At the same time, he won other states (such as California, Oregon, Illinois, and Indiana) by somewhat narrow margins. Merely in the Upper Midwest and in New England did he have a dominant political position.

Southern extremism on the slavery upshot had split the Democratic Party into three factions who were unable to effectively compete with the Republicans. Had the Southern states seated their Congressional delegations after 1860, the Democrats would have operated as a minority, just non overwhelmingly so. In the Senate things would have been very close to deadlocked -- with a possible Democratic bulk.¹

In other words, secession in 1860 was an extremely preemptive motion for the Confederate states to accept. There was no immediate proposal to abolish slavery, the Democrats still had plenty political musculus to obstruct such attempts, and there was all the same a large faction of the North that opposed taking any drastic activeness on slavery. If the movie Lincoln has shown the difficulties of passing the 13th Amendment in 1865, after four years of insurrection, it is very hard to imagine the same legislation passing with a full Southern contingent in Congress, going through the motions of the autonomous process.

^{1 - Enough Southern states failed to seat their Representatives that we don't know what the precise residuum would have been. See the 37th Congress distribution, which does not include well-nigh of the S. See as well the 1860 Presidential Election results.}

Why Did the South Secede?

If secession was preemptive and hotheaded given the facts on the footing, why then did the South undertake this class?

Since S Carolina was the catalyst, we will first in that location. The Secession Convention of that state produced a document entitled, "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union".

The Declaration asserted that the Northern states had combined in league to subvert the original telescopic of the Constitution -- namely that:

• the Northern states were failing to return fugitive slaves, in violation of their obligations under Commodity Four of the Constitution.
• the Northern states tolerated abolitionists and insurrectionists (such every bit John Brown) who incited slaves in the S to insubordinate.
• misguided political and religious beliefs in the N fabricated future sectional unity incommunicable.
• some states were elevating persons "incapable of becoming citizens" (i.e. complimentary blacks) and using their votes to back up anti-slavery policies.
• the Republican Party was planning to wage a war against slavery upon taking role in March 1861.

Were these valid fears for the people of South Carolina?

Information technology is true that the Republican Party was united in opposing any farther extension of slavery. That is, the Republican Party supported a gratis Kansas and refused to countenance the idea of admitting some other slave land later 1860. It is also true that an abolitionist fly of the Republicans did back up an immediate finish to slavery. However, abolitionists were not dominant in the Party as of 1860 -- it would take 4 years of Ceremonious State of war to win many of the moderates over to the cause of the 13th Amendment.

Charleston, Southward Carolina in 1865

In short, in spite of the heated rhetoric from Southern planters, there was no indication that Lincoln's inauguration was due to be followed by a swift abolitionism effort. At present perhaps in the long-term there was a very real danger of the Southern fears coming to fruition, only equally of December twenty, 1860 at that place was no Amendment in process to abolish slavery. There was no open up talk from Abraham Lincoln that he planned to pursue i upon becoming President. In that location was no army being mobilized to wage an impending war on the South. If the reason for seceding was to protect slavery from abolition -- and so perhaps a better strategy would have been to look until such an try was actually fabricated. Surely at the very to the lowest degree this might have fabricated the Southern crusade more sympathetic under the sensibilities of the fourth dimension.

Instead a faction of radical secessionists called "fire-eaters" manipulated this situation towards their end of leaving the Marriage. They did so playing on fears of a slave insurrection and the other points listed above, but by winning the political contend they triggered a premature and irrevocable conclusion. For the Southern elite, seceding in Dec 1860 was akin to a football team walking off of the field because they were behind 10-3 in the 2nd quarter.

What Would Have Happened Without Secession?

Speculating on alternative history is ever problematic, merely I believe that it's useful in this case for the purposes of showing just how bad of an idea secession really was for the S in 1860. Below are four scenarios that might take occurred had Southward Carolina (and by extension the residue of the eventual Confederacy) held tight after Lincoln'southward election and non withdrawn from the Union.

At a loftier level the alternatives I outline are as follows:

1. The Democrats regain control of the federal regime in 1864 or 1868.
2. A substantial slave coup takes concur somewhere in the Deep South.
3. The Republicans advise an abolitionism amendment at some betoken after 1860, but while the nation is still united.
4. Slavery survives until cotton becomes an untenable cash crop, around 1910.

Now let us examine these in more item.

1. The Democrats regain command of the federal government in 1864 or 1868.

Most of Lincoln's agenda would have been thwarted with a potent Democratic opposition. It is unclear whether he could have forced a resolution on the stop of slavery in the Western territories. Federal support of the Outset Transcontinental Railroad would have been obstructed, slowing the evolution of the W. The increase in tariffs that assisted Northern manufacturers would too not take been possible. Finally, it's unlikely that any progress towards the abolition of slavery would have been made in the 1860s.

Faced with these bug it'south conceivable that the Republicans could have been the Party to split into two factions in 1864-1868, foreign as that idea may sound. There were two very singled-out groups within the Party during this era.

• A moderate wing which was generally concerned with protectionism, a transcontinental railroad, homesteading, and industrial problems. This grouping wanted the Westward to be gratuitous and so that they (and not the Southern planters) could prosper from it. Ending slavery in the South itself was non a great concern. Lincoln was more than from this wing of the party as of 1860.
• An abolitionist wing which (obviously) placed the greatest emphasis on catastrophe slavery. While this group as well shared many of the economic concerns, they were driven at centre by abolitionism.

Information technology's conceivable, not inevitable, that the moderate fly would have been willing to compromise on slavery to win a victory on tariffs, Western lands, and/or the railroads. Perhaps some legal arrangement would take been worked out granting the South more than autonomy inside the U.South., with freedom to set their ain tariffs and slavery policy. At the outset sign of such overtures, the abolitionists might have withdrawn from the Republicans and formed a new Liberty Political party. All of this is speculation, but there is no guarantee that the Republican coalition would have remained stable through the 1860s.²

Henry Jarvis Raymond and Thaddeus Stevens were on different wings of the Republican Political party

Additionally, after the disaster of 1860 the Democrats might accept been more inclined to run as a national party in 1864 or 1868. Perhaps Stephen A. Douglas would non have caught typhoid in 1861 and instead been the standard-bearer. A Democratic victory in either of those elections would have moderated the abolitionist fly for at least a few years, and the slavery issue might have been suppressed in national conversation until the late 1870s or 1880s. Scenario #3 below will examine this "culling" belatedly 19th century in more detail.

^{2 - In fact this very separate eventually adult within the Republican Party over the failures of Reconstruction. The business/industrial wing of the Party wanted to compromise on Reconstruction and focus on supporting America'southward industries and railroads. The radical wing (descendants of the abolitionists) wanted to go on the focus on civil rights for the freedmen. Eventually the radicals were defeated.}

2. A substantial slave insurrection takes hold somewhere in the Deep South.

This was without a doubt the nightmare scenario for the planter class, and one that was brought to the forefront by John Brown's abortive insurrection in 1859.

There are two broad scenarios for a slave rebellion:

• A rebellion fomented past militant Northern abolitionists, potentially much more organized than Chocolate-brown's flimsy endeavour.
• A rebellion started and driven entirely by the slaves themselves, or at about with assistance from costless Southern blacks. The most obvious (successful) corollary would exist the 1790s rebellion in Republic of haiti that was led by Toussaint Fifty'Ouverture.

Southerners had prevented large-scale rebellion for over 2 centuries, using timeless carrot-and-stick methods of pacifying the slave communities. Productive, non-rebellious slaves could attain positions in skilled trades or as house slaves, where their condition (in the eyes of white society at least) and living conditions were somewhat improved. Those who fell out of line were beaten mercilessly and put on the worst jobs thereafter, and obviously those who attempted open rebellion (such as Nat Turner or Gabriel Prosser) were executed. All of the slaves were monitored with abiding surveillance from whites and other slaves alike.

The surface nature of this arrangement has fifty-fifty led some observers to make the argument that slaves in the S were not poorly treated as a whole. There is an element of truth to that argument, insofar every bit slaves who cooperated with the system lived in a modicum of comfort, and insofar equally they were much better off than slaves in the Caribbean and even some free whites. This statement however, for rhetorical reasons, entirely ignores the backdrop of violence that held the slave organization together. There is no obvious answer to the question of whether tens or hundreds of thousands of slaves might accept been killed had a full-calibration defection actually broken out, as I will now examine.

Nat Turner's rebellion, 1831

It'due south very hard to speculate on how the federal government might have intervened had a serious slave rebellion taken hold in the 1860s or 70s. While the seizure of a federal armory in John Dark-brown's example made the intervention easy, would the same reaction have happened if ane,000 slaves rebelled? ten,000? 50,000? Would there have been a Democratic or a Republican President at the time of the revolt? Would the broader function of the Republican Party have supported the apply of the U.S. military to suppress (and probable impale) such a number of people? Or would the suppression have taken place solely with Southern militias, and would they have been able to stop a revolt once it reached that kind of magnitude?

The event of a mass slave rebellion in and of itself might have been the kind of goad for terminate to slavery -- mayhap one that would have proceeded in a very different manner from what really transpired. If slaves took over a meaning area of country, would they have been willing to plough it over to the U.Due south.? Would the U.S. military have taken it dorsum past force, with an agreement that slavery would end thereafter? Would the slaves have remained independent like those of Haiti? Would they take been deported en masse to Republic of liberia as some gratis blacks had earlier been?

From the perspective of the Southern planters, it's difficult to tell what would have happened in this scenario, but information technology is possible that the end upshot would have been far worse for them than the sharecropping organisation that eventually developed after the Civil War. However, it'southward unfortunately more than likely that they would take suppressed a large scale rebellion with massive loss of life to the blacks involved -- followed by who knows what.

3. The Republicans suggest an abolition subpoena at some point after 1860, simply while the nation is notwithstanding united.

Brazil was the concluding nation in the Western Hemisphere to cancel slavery, doing so in 1888. Certainly past that point in time the institution of slavery would have been seen in the North equally a national embarrassment -- as no less than a moral stain on the flag of the United States.

One tactic to be potentially used past the Republicans would have been the cosmos of smaller states in the West to bulldoze up the number of sympathetic legislators in Congress. By effectually 1880 or 1890 they could accept created a very strong bulk using these tactics and potentially pressed through an abolition amendment. It is likewise somewhat likely that Delaware and Maryland would accept somewhen seen themselves aligned with the Northern antislavery coalition.

Without the intransigence of the Due south in 1860, at that place may still have been enough voices for compromise to ensure a more orderly system of emancipation. Would an organisation have been on the table involving financial compensation to the slaveowners? This thought was rejected in the 1850s and 60s, to what limited extent it was pursued. Perhaps by the 1880s or 90s the more than prescient of the planters would have seen a decline to the cotton fiber environmental first, and would have been willing to "sell high" on the establishment of slavery before information technology collapsed on them.

Of course, at that place is always the chance that the Civil War would have simply happened at this point in the 1880s, much as it actually happened in the 1860s. The Southward would have been farther behind in terms of industrialization and firepower than they were in 1861, but maybe they would have accustomed this from the starting time and pursued a strategy of guerilla war. Or perhaps the defeat of the South would have happened much more rapidly in this scenario, without the attendant scars to the economic system and the Southern psyche that were actually in place by 1865. Finally, there is a chance that changes to the political environment would have enabled an orderly split into the Usa and the Confederate States. I don't retrieve that is likely, simply we know for sure that it didn't happen when the South seceded unprovoked in 1860.

Under any of these scenarios, a war like that from 1861-1865 killing 600,000 people and devastating the South seems beyond the worst-case scenario.

4. Slavery survives until cotton fiber becomes an untenable cash crop, around 1910.

Slavery as an economic establishment was non on the ropes in 1860 -- on the other manus it was wildly profitable. Southern plantation owners were likely the richest men in the world. Cotton wool remained a highly in-demand crop in the North and in Bang-up Great britain.³ There is no reason to suspect that this would accept inverse in the immediate years afterwards 1860.

Let us now imagine that slavery has survived all the way through to the turn of the century, navigating the dangers outlined in sections #1-3 above. Information technology is likely that it'southward decease knell would have finally occurred around that indicate due to the decline of the cotton fiber economic system itself.

Cotton as the predominant cash crop of the South survived until ecological issues rendered it untenable on a large scale. These issues were soil depletion and the boll weevil infestation, the latter of which was devastating to the Southern economic system when it occurred in actuality (starting in Texas in the 1890s and spreading eastward from there). Had it occurred in the context of a slave economic system, the financial damage would likely have been fifty-fifty worse. While the effects were uneven, and recovery was possible after a few years, information technology is likely that the attack of the boll weevils would accept bankrupted any plantation owner who lived on the edge of their credit line.

The spread of the boll weevil, early 1900s

Start of all, the human wealth represented by the slaves was vast -- most $4 billion every bit of 1860 -- and would have only grown by the end of the 19th century. An nugget value of this number was supported by the current and potential piece of work that these slaves could perform, largely in back up of cotton. A plummet in cotton wool production would surely have led to a collapse in slave values and land values, dealing a double-blow to the plantation form and probably leading to a calamity in the fiscal organization.

When tobacco began to deplete the soil and become less assisting in Virginia and Maryland (around the 1820s and 30s), many plantation owners sold their slaves to the Deep S to support the cotton wool industry. Past 1910, however, the southern planters would accept had nowhere else to sell their slaves to, and would have been anchored to their declining value. It's not entirely clear what else the slaves could take done at this point to warrant the expense of their upkeep to indebted and bankrupt owners. Thus, this scenario is somewhat close to the one actually envisioned past Abraham Lincoln as of the late 1850s, in which slavery would slowly wither in the South every bit it was cordoned off.

The boll weevil attacks are just i hypothesis for how this system would accept get obsolete. Since slavery tied the entire Southern economy to a very specific form of agriculture and away from industrial development, the system lacked the flexibility and adaptability of a true free market economic system. Thus it's also possible that the economics of slavery would have collapsed in a unlike manner, perhaps quite suddenly.

From the standpoint of the planter grade in 1860, this economical/ecological catastrophe was an uncontrollable inevitability with or without the Civil State of war. By not seceding they would have, in this scenario, bought themselves an boosted few decades of the slave organization with all of the profits which that would have entailed.

^{3 - Every bit an aside, information technology'due south possible that when Uk developed its cotton fiber resources well enough in Egypt and India that information technology would have twisted the Due south'southward arm into giving upwards slavery (abolitionist guild liberals were not unique to the Northern U.s.). Now is not the space to examine that in detail, just it shouldn't be discarded as a possibility.}

Conclusion: Alternate vs. Actual History from 1860 onward

Intuitively, given the passions surrounding the issue by 1860, I'm skeptical that slavery could accept survived to 1900 even without the Civil State of war. I believe that the virtually likely scenario from above is #1, combined with #3. From the betoken of view of the Southern slaveholders though, any of the scenarios above would have been an comeback over what happened in the Civil War, with the arguable exception of #2.

Past seceding in 1860, without a clear effort in flight to abolish slavery, the Due south not only jumped the gun but it ensured that support for the Union in the Due north would be quite stiff. Even moderates and Democrats had piddling choice only to conclude that the South triggered the Ceremonious War (specially afterward Fort Sumter). This might have been different had the Civil War been seen as something that was imposed by Republican overreach.

In whatsoever example, I take used the four hypotheticals above to reiterate the betoken that secession was a gross strategic error. Given the colossal failure of the Civil War it seems misguided that the debate about it focuses and then heavily on whether Lincoln should have intervened, as opposed to whether S Carolina should have seceded in the get-go place.

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Source: https://www.americanhistoryusa.com/great-mistake-why-did-south-secede-1860/

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