GDG- Re: Abe Lincoln - secessionist???

[Margaret D. Blough]

Gregg,

1.  Lincoln made the speech during the Mexican War and was attacking Polk's justification for the war with Mexico. Revolution was an issue because that was how there came to be an unresolved border issue between Texas and Mexico (which did not recognize Texas's entry into the US as a state) as to whether the border was at the Nueces River, as had been generally recognized before the Texas revolt) or 150 miles further southerly at the Rio Grande. Whether the area between the Nueces and the Rio Grande was Texan/US or Mexican was the difference between whether US troops led by Zachary Taylor invaded Mexico when they crossed the Nueces into the disputed territory or whether, as President Polk claimed, the Mexicans invaded the US when their troops crossed the Rio Grande into the disputed territory.  BTW, the border between the US and Mexico was actually fixed, officially, after the US military victory, with the 1848 Treaty of Gaudalupe Hidalgo, which the Senate reluctantly confirmed (th
e reluctance was due to the fact that the US negotiator, Nicholas Trist, negotiated the final treaty in contravention of his instructions and after he continued to negotiate after he received, and ignored, recall instructions from Washington.)

2. The issue of the lack of oppression of the slave states is hardly an issue of 21st century hindsight.  Even the issues that you point to spoke to fears for the future.  There was no provision in the United States Constitution or its amendments up to the beginning of the Civil War that declares that the slave states always get their way and must never ever be criticized.  Slavery was already beginning to die in the northern states before the Constitutional Convention was even held with the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. It was a contentious issue at the Constitutional Convention to the point that, during the debates, Madison identified the split between slave states and free as the greatest future danger to the Union.  

3. As for tariffs, tariffs were at their lowest level in decades immediately prior to secession beginning. (By the way, during the Nullification Crisis, James Madison publicly debunked the argument that use of the tariff for protection and not just revenue was unconstitutional.  He stated that the Framers were specifically trying to protect developing US industries and other products from protected foreign imports, especially British).  The whole tariff argument is fascinating since, for the bulk of the period between the ratification of the US Constitution and the beginning of the Civil War, including the passage of the so-called Tariff of Abominations, slave states and their allies controlled all three branches of the government. Andrew Jackson, President during the Nullification Crisis, was a slaveholder. The Walker Tariff, which was passed in 1846, had the lowest tariffs (average duties of about 20 %) since 1824. A tariff bill passed in 1857 lowered tariffs even further and enl
arged the free list.  The 1857 act was widely blamed in the north for the Panic of 1857 and the ensuing depression in the North. Simultaneously, southern Democrats and their Northern allies in Congress blocked legislation highly favored in the North including the future Homestead Act, a Pacific railroad act, and a land-grant college act on the grounds that it would aid the spread of free labor.  James Hammond's March 4, 1858 "King Cotton" speech to the US Senate was pure gloating on his part that the depression had not affected the slave states and he used it as an argument for the superiority of the slave society.  Ironically, some tariffs, including that for sugar and, IIRR, hemp, benefited a few Southern states at the expense of the Northern states. Even some hardcore secessionists, such as Lawrence Keitt (who was KIA with the ANV at Cold Harbor) rejected this as an argument.  In the SC secession debate, Keitt stated:

>>Mr. KEITT. I agree with the gentleman from Richland, that the power of taxation is the central power of all governments. Put that power into my hands, and I care very little what the form of government it is; I will control your people through it. That is the question in this address. We have instructed the Committee to present a summary of the reasons which influenced us in the action we have now taken. My friend from Richland said that the violation of the Fugitive Slave Laws are not sufficient, and he calls up the Tariff. Is that one of the causes at this time? What is that cause? Your late Senators, and every one of your members of the House of Representatives, voted for the present tariff. [Mr. Miles. I did not.] Well, those who were there at the time voted for it, and I have no doubt you would, if you were in it. The question of the tariff did agitate us in 1832, and it did array this State against the Federal Government. 
I maintain, and do always maintain, that this State triumphed then. Mr. Clay said, before nullification, that the protective tariff system had been established for all time. After the Nullification Ordinance, Mr. Clay did say that the State had accomplished the destruction of that system, and that the State had triumphed. The history of that time has never been written. It is true, we were cheated in the compromise; and really, sir, in what single compromise have we not been cheated? My opinion is, that the State of South Carolina and every other Southern State have been dealing with faithless confederates. 
But the Tariff is not the question which brought the people up to their present attitude. We are to give a summary of our causes to the world, but mainly to the other Southern States, whose co-action we wish, and we must not make a fight on the Tariff question. 
The Whig party, thoughout all the States, have been protective Tariff men, and they cling to that old issue with all the passion incident to the pride of human opinions. Are we to go off now, when other Southern States are bringing their people up to the true mark? Are we to go off on debateable and doctrinal points? Are we to go back to the consideration of this question, of this great controversy; go back to that party's politics, around which so many passions cluster? Names are much -- associations and passions cluster around names. 
I can give no better illustration than to relate an anecdote given me by a member from Louisiana. He said, after the election of Lincoln, he went to an old Whig party friend and said to him: We have been beaten -- our honor requires a dissolution of the Union. Let us see if we cannot agree together, and offered him a resolution to this effect --Resolved, That the honor of Louisiana requires her to disrupt every tie that binds her to the Federal Government. [Laughter.] 
It is name, and when we come to more practicability we must consult names. Our people have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it. I believe the address, in this respect, cannot. The gentlemen from Chesterfield (Mr. Inglis) says that certain constructions of the Act of Pennsylvania are denied. He might have gone further and have said that certain constructions of the Personal Liberty Bills are denied. I have never seen any Abolitionist yet who did not say that these Acts had no reference to fugitive slaves. 
I, myself, have very great doubts about the propriety of the Fugitive Slave Law. The Constitution was, in the first place, a compact between the several States, and in the second, a treaty between sections, and, I believe, the Fugitive Slave Law was a treaty between sections. It was the act of sovereign States as a section; and I believe therefore, and have very great doubts whether it ought not have been left to the execution of the several States, and failing of enforcement , I believe it should have been regarded as a causi belli. << (Emphasis added.)
The Morrell Tariff which is oft cited as a justification for war was not passed until March 1861 during the final days of the Buchanan administration (it's doubtful it would have passed but for the withdrawal of senators and representatives from rebel states from the US Congress as their states passed ordinances of secession.) well after the wave of secession had begun and with war and the need for revenue on the horizon.  There's a serious question as to whether Lincoln could have won the election if the secessionists had not deliberately provoked (see Rhett) a schism in the Democratic Party.
3.  My point on East Tennessee was not to portray the Unionists as saints (rebellions tend to be brutal on both sides), although, in East Tennessee, hangings of accused Unionist bridge burners after drumhead military trials received the written blessing, via Judah Benjamin, of Jefferson Davis.  My point is that, if one uses the Lincoln quote as support for slave state secession in 1860-1861, it gives equal support to those portions of states that did not want to secede and wanted to remain loyal to the Union.
Any future "oppression" by the Republicans would also be subject to the review of the United States Supreme Court, and, if you think that it would rubberstamp such legislation, I suggest you read the postwar Slaughterhouse Cases.

Regards,

Margaret



-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: Biggsk at aol.com 

> Esteemed GDG Member Contributes: 
> 
> 
> Margaret, 
> 
> Thanks for the other sentence to Lincoln's statement. More below: 
> 
> >>>>>>Yes, it is legitimate, but it does not contradict Lincoln's position 
> on secession. It is from the then Congressman Lincoln's speech on the 
> Mexican War to the House of Representatives. He is discussing how to determine 
> the 
> boundary between Texas and Mexico since, with Texas's admission to the 
> Union, that boundary became part of the boundary between the United States and 
> Mexico. It's interesting that, whoever initially selected the quote, omitted 
> the 
> sentence immediately preceding the quote. That sentence is, "The extent of 
> our territory in t hat region depended, not on any treaty-fixed boundary, 
> (for no treaty had attempted it,) but on revolution." (Emphasis in the 
> original). The right of revolution of oppressed people is a natural right, 
> accepted 
> by the Founding Fathers and by Lincoln, and not one granted by legislation or 
> constitution. The corollary is that nations have the right of self-defense 
> and are not obligated to commit suicide at the first resistance. >>>> 
> The Republic of Texas and the border with Mexico after the Texas War of 
> Independence, was not yet at the Rio Grande River. In fact, it was so fluid, 
> with both sides claiming borders, there was 2-3 year war fought over it in the 
> early 1840's. Like the independence fight, this, too, drew men from across 
> the USA to come to Texas and fight Mexico, including the Racoon Hunters from 
> Columbus, GA who lost their flag to Mexican forces at Lipantit l an, Texas/Mexico 
> in 1842. The flag remains in Mexico today along with several other Texas 
> unit colors captured in the war. I believe it was the outcome of the Mexican 
> War that settled the border along the Rio Grande. 
> 
> That being said, it seems to me that the only statement of Lincoln's entire 
> paragraph that has to do with borders is the line that you included, whereas 
> the rest does not seem to matter to that subject at all. Supposedly, the 
> admission of Texas into the Union in 1845 came with the proviso that the state 
> could split into as many as five states should its people so decide. Is this 
> part of what Lincoln talked about? 
> 
> And, other than the fighting in the early 1840's that I mentioned, the 
> Texas/USA border he is talking about was not settled by any revolution of the 
> people - it was settled by near conquest of Mexico by the US Army. 
> 
> &g t;>>>The Founding Fathers, while they hoped for a peaceful departure, 
> realized that UK would and could resist violently. I have yet to hear any 
> defender 
> of secession point to a single act on the part of the government of the United 
> States (of which the slave states' senators, representatives, and some very 
> supportive presidents through Buchanan) that would qualify as oppression The 
> so-called right of secession is claimed as a constitutional right to which 
> the national government has no legal right to oppose.>>>> 
> 
> >From your point of view in the early 21st Century there might not be any 
> points of oppression. But from the point of view of the South in 1860-1861 
> (and 
> even as far back as the Nullification Crisis), there indeed was! The 
> perception that the Republicans were going to eliminate slavery and that 
> protective 
> tarif fs woul d continue being the two biggest, come right to mind from their 
> point of view. Both are covered in Dew's book on the slave state 
> commissioners (although only one of them mentioned the tariffs) and in the 
> press and 
> words of the secessionists themselves. 
> 
> >>>Any defender of secession relying on that quote would have to excoriate 
> the Confederacy for its attempt to regain control of the northwest counties of 
> Virginia and its brutal suppression of the Unionist uprising in East 
> Tennessee.>>>> 
> 
> 
> Considering that those counties of Western Virginia were part of a state 
> that seceded (and where my ancestor was from), from their point of view it was 
> dealing with the Unionist elements in the state, which was also invaded in the 
> Summer of 1861 by the Union and fought over by no less than three campaigns 
> that year alone. 
> 
> ; I live in Tennessee and know very well about East Tennessee and have read 
> the several books on the topic. I also know that the Unionists there were not 
> squeaky clean themselves and, as happens in both civil wars and wars of 
> religion, serious things were done by BOTH sides in East Tennessee. 
> 
> There is also a recent book on Middle Tennessee (itself split between north 
> and south, although more south than East TN) written by now retired history 
> professor Dr. Michael Bradley called, "With Blood and Fire: Life Behind The 
> Lines In Middle Tennessee, 1863-1865." Using Union Army Provost Marshal 
> records as the basis for much of his research, Bradley found that the Union 
> Army, 
> under Gen. Robert Milroy, ran hit squads all over Middle Tennessee, 
> eliminating pro-South farmers (often on bogus tips from Unionist neighbors so 
> they 
> could get their land once they ha d been dea lt with) and other pro-Southerners, 
> burning property because of political leanings, executions without trials and 
> much more. Union Army General Orders #100 (April 24, 1863) offered the rules 
> of war protection to guerrillas and those attacking Union troops in occupied 
> places, and these were regularly ignored in Middle Tennessee by both Gen. 
> Eleazar Paine and Milroy, to name but two. 
> 
> Again, neither side has much to be proud of here, but the seriousness of 
> what Milroy did is more than a bit higher up the "scum scale" in my book. 
> 
> I again appreciate you taking the time to add the missing sentence. 
> 
> Greg Biggs 
> 
> 
> 
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