The Slide into War - Secession

NOV 1860 - MAY 1861

The Slide Into War – Essential Questions

What were the causes of secession?

How did secession happen?

How would history have been altered if SC had not seceded?

Campaign Against Monocausality

…grasp the complexity of historical causation, respect particularity, and

avoid excessively abstract generalizations.

NCHE Habits of the Mind

Historiography

The Lost Hope of the Confederacy, AKA the Glorious Cause

Charles Beard’s economic interpretation

Social history – Richard Hofstader

Civil Rights movement

Sources

Bruce Catton, The Coming Fury

Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men

Wm Freehling, The Road to Disunion, 1854-1861

Wm Freehling, The South vs The South

Harper’s Weekly, 1861

James MacPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom

Russell McClintock, Lincoln and the Decision for War

Sectional Differences

Industrial Revolution

Agrarian vs Manufacturing Economy

Urban vs Rural Population

Aristocratic vs Populist political views

The Election of 1860

Abraham Lincoln

RepublicanJohn C.

Breckinridge

Dem - South

John Bell

Const Union Party

Stephen Douglas

Dem -North

1860 Presidential Election

The Secession Conspirators of 1860

"Whoever waited for the common people when a great move was to be made? We must make the move and

force them to follow."

AP Aldrich - SC Legislator & Secessionist on suppressing SEN

James Hammond’s SC public letter arguing for Union - 1860

Lincoln’s Republican Position

Liberate white majority from the “Slave Power’s” minority control.

“My official duty is to save the Union and is not to either save or destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I

would do it – and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it.”

Letter to Horace Greeley, August 1862

President James Buchanan

Ordnance of Secession – Charleston, SC, DEC 20, 1860

Yeas 169, Nays 0

SCs Declaration of Immediate Causes

“The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: 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."

Slavery or The Tariff?Maxcy Gregg’s dissent

“Not one word is said about the tariff, which for so many years caused a contest in this State against the Federal

Government."

An Appeal to the States’ Rights Party of South Carolina - 1858

Motion to table the Declaration fails – DEC 19, 1860

124 - 31

SCs Declaration of Immediate Causes

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced

that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals

shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease

throughout the United States. The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the

equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power

of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their

enemy.

Map of Charleston Harbor

Ft Sumter –Charleston, SC

DEC, 1860Economic 18 – NYC merchants appeal

Social 2 27 J Brown Cobb Executed Resigns

Political 2 13 18 20 26 31Buch Comm Crittenden SC Anderson CommReinforces of 13 Comp secedes to Sumter of 13Sumter disbands

Republicans – hard on campaign promises

NORTH – Low secession threat, sympathy for Southern cause

SOUTH – General reluctance to secede

Anderson Enters Ft Sumter – DEC 26, 1860

Harper’s Weekly

Seizure of Federal Forts and Arsenals

DEC 1860 – JAN 1861

Federal Arsenal, Augusta GA

JAN, 1861EconomicSeizure of Federal Forts and Arsenals

Social 3 9 10 11 19 26DE not MS FL AL GA LASecede St of West

Political 12 27 29 Seward Seward KS Conciliation Speech Unionist admitted Ltr

NORTH – Change of attitude – seizures and Star of the West

SOUTH – Shift to secession – Star of the West and Anderson’s move to Sumter

JAN 9, 1861 – Star of the West & The Citadel Cadets

From Harper’s Weekly, JAN 26, 1861

Citadel cadets firing on the Star of the West

Jan 9, 1861

Big Red Now on display at The Citadel, Charleston

William Stewart SimkinsAs a Citadel Cadet, 1861

U of TX law professor, 1899-1929

University of Texas Board Rechristens Dorm Named After Klan Organizer

AUSTIN, Texas (July 15, 2010, Associated Press) -- A University of Texas residence hall named after a Ku Klux Klan organizer is getting a new identity.

The school's Board of Regents unanimously decided today that Simkins Residence Hall -- named for William Stewart Simkins, who taught at the School of Law for 30 years -- will instead be called Creekside Residence Hall.