To
answer this question, one must inevitably speculate. This involves reading the
authors in the bibliography, and then reacting against what they say, combined
with knowledge of the American system at the time. In 1858, William Seward had
talked of an "Irrepressible Conflict". Yet, when he was actually
faced with the prospect of war, he, more than any other was 'inventive' in the
schemes he created to avert it. That these proposals were so fantastic, may
well reflect on his feelings of desperation at the time. Even then, his
outrageous plans did not specifically refer to war, but the reunification of
the country. As Brogan wrote: "till the moment that Beauregard's guns opened
on Sumter, the majority of Americans... did not believe that it would come to
ordeal by battle"(1). Beauregard, of course, was a Southerner. His section
must bear the responsibility for starting the most bloody war America has ever
fought.
A full scale conflict might have been avoided, but had the Southern
states stayed within the Union, one could argue, then bloodshed, on whatever
scale, was inevitable. Particularly, this refers to the situation in the
territories. Violence had already broken out in Kansas, with the sack of
Lawrence, and the Pottawatomie 'massacre'. As Ransom argues, "slave and
free settlers were unable to live with each other. Nor were people in
neighbouring states willing to remain disinterested spectators"(2). If the
South had kept a dominant position in the Senate, then tensions in such areas
would have risen. This dominance, more than anything else, highlights the
friction the slavery question had created in American politics.
The South was bound to remain dominant in the Senate, out of all
proportion to the size of its population, because of the tradition of
instituting a slave state for every free
(1)
Brogan p.49.
(2) Ransom p..127.
2
state
founded in the West. This plan, designed to placate the South, was flawed from the
beginning. During the previous decades, both sides had persistently recognised
and enforced the view that the two sections were different from each other. As
land ran out in the race for westward expansion, it was inevitable that the
argument between the two would heighten. It just so happened that the
conditions, for a variety of reasons, were right in 1861. As Parish writes:
"North and South were practicing a strategy of escalation a century before
the term was invented. What technology is to the nuclear arms race, the
frontier was to sectional rivalry over slavery"(3).
Yet, just as there has never been a nuclear war, so this civil war could
have been averted. The South was still in a very good political position in the
North. Most of the justices in the Supreme Court were Southern Democrats. One
need only look at the figure of Roger B. Taney to realise how opposed the court
was to the Republican administration (4). The South, instead of seceding, could
have used the existing constitutional agencies to frustrate any abolitionist
tendencies Lincoln may or may not have had. It is true that the Court could
only adjudicate on cases brought through the normal legal processes, but if
Congress did ever threaten to destroy the 'Peculiar Institution', then it would
not have been long before a suitable case would have arrived before the court.
The whole Court did not need to agree completely before declaring such an act
unconstitutional, just a majority - the Southern Democrat majority.
The Court had proved that it could work in such a way by its judgment on
the Dred Scott case in 1857(5). Then the justices had declared the Missouri
Compromise unconstitutional. More importantly though, a majority declared that
Congress did not have the power to legislate on slavery in the territories.
They also made sure that a
(3)
Parish p.92.
(4) Brogan p.54, Collins p.127.
(5) Ransom p.147.
3
constitutional
amendment would have to be passed before blacks could be considered citizens of
the United States. Yet, It could be argued that such activity was not helping
the South very much, the reason being that their section was seen as the least
flexible. It really did them no good to overturn all compromises on the slavery
question. If the Southern justices had continued acting in such a way, then the
only result could have been more support for the Republican party. Seward and
Chase would not have missed such an opportunity as this for creating propaganda
against the South, and the sinister Slave Power, as they had done over the Dred
Scott case (6).
However, the Missouri Compromise had been very much overturned already
by the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, and this was partly Seward's responsibility.
Admittedly, the major fault lies with Stephen Douglas and his railroad
interest. Douglas and his entrepreneurial friends were eager for a railroad
line to connect East with West, and, for the senator, a railroad link with
Illinois was preferable for obvious reasons. To get Southern support, it was
suggested to him that he should include an amendment allowing slavery in the
territory. He accepted, and so the bill was fatefully passed. The amendment was
Seward's idea - he "reasoned... that outright repeal of the Missouri
Compromise would be doubly offensive to the moderate Northerners opposing
slavery"(7). This act provided a focus for the fledgling Republican party
and helped increased tensions between North and South. Specifically, it was to
provide the death blow to the Whigs (8).
1854 was thus a significant turning point, especially when one examines
the Congressional elections that year. The Democrats lost seats, but instead of
the Whigs, the American Party capitulated on this. Since Northern Whigs had
vigorously attacked the Kansas Nebraska Act, the Southern Whigs, despite their support
for the act, lost votes. The
(6)
Ransom p.148.
(7) Ransom p.125.
(8) Ransom p.126.
4
question
of slavery in the territories was tearing the traditional bipartisan system apart
(9). Thus the only party which could have succeeded, would have been a
sectional one: "The North and West had enough electoral votes (176 out of
296) to elect a president even if the candidate received no support from other
regions of the country"(10).
That this is true is also proved by the failure of the Know Nothing
movement. The party pressed the self-destruct button when its Southern
supporters forced the platform to advocate slavery. The Democratic party went
the same way during the 1860 presidential nominations, as Sir Denis Brogan
writes: "If you want the date when the war became inevitable, it was when
the Charleston Convention broke up over the nomination of Stephen Douglas"
(11). For with the division of the Democrats, there were no more links between
North and South - not even a loose political tie.
The argument here is that the South did not have to secede. They had
enough power in the Senate to block any abolitionist proposals, as the editor
of the Raleigh Standard pointed out: "If the seven cotton states had
remained in the Union, both branches of Congress would have been against Mr.
Lincoln by large majorities, and the Senate could have dictated all his
important appointments" (12). It could be said that Secession only
complicated the issue. Whatever the justifications for it, it did not solve the
problem. The chance of civil war would only be increased if the South felt free
to take Western land in competition with the North. Yet the South did secede,
and it is quite pointless and dangerous to say that they should not have done,
for that argument forces the conclusion that the South was stupid, or at least
irrational, if it believed that the Republicans would abolish slavery despite
all their protestations to the contrary.
What one must not forget is that settlers from the North would have
continued going West. These settlers would have
(9)
Parish p.98, Ransom p.136.
(10) Ransom p.158.
(11) Brogan p.59 (+ Ransom p.163).
(12) Rawley p.133.
5
been
unavoidably riled if the South had maintained its negative weapon of blocking
legislation that was favourable to them (13). Civil war could have sparked off
in the territories, and nowhere was the South more at such an obvious
disadvantage numerically. The Civil War was not inevitable, but some kind of
conflict was, and had already happened, as the inhabitants of Lawrence could
bear witness. Obviously though, there could only be war between them when the
bulk of Southern states seceded. There were attempts at compromise in 1861, but
these were bankrupt of ideas: "the North would make all the concessions,
and Republicans would be required give up their intention to prohibit slavery
in the territories - the issue on which the party had been founded" (14).
However, even this was more realistic than Seward's ideas: "A foreign war,
he believed, would bring the seceded states hack into the Union" (15).
Lincoln rightly rejected this, for it would not make the divisive issue of
slavery go away.
(13)
McPherson p.123.
(14) McPherson p.134.
(15) Rawley p.135.
6
Bibliography
Conflict
and Transformation edited by W.Brock, featuring Why Fight? by Sir Denis Brogan.
The
Origins of America's Civil War by B. Collins.
Ordeal
by Fire by James M.McPherson.
The
American Civil War by Peter Parish.
Secession:
The Disruption of the American Republic 1844-1861 by James A.Rawley.
Conflict
and Compromise by Roger L.Ransom.
