The Flames of War: Nathaniel Lyon, Part V: Re: ...it's always just slavery...

» Wrap10 - Re: ...it's always just slavery...

Hal,

A link to an online document would suffice, and save you from having to copy the entire thing. It's okay to copy it if you wish, at least so long as there aren't any copyrite issues. Just saying that if you'd rather not, a link is fine.

As for it being "always just slavery," as I've said before it was primarily slavery to the people of that day, as numerous documents make clear. Had the Lost Cause version of the war gained a permanent upper hand though, today it would be anything and everything but slavery that got the attention. There are people to this day who insist that slavery had little or no role in bringing about secession and war. To hold such a view it is necessary to ignore a great deal of evidence.

The Republican Party of the 1850's was known primarily as an anti-slavery party. This is how their opponents, North and South, always painted them. In the South they were often portrayed as wanting to incite servile insurrection, free the slaves, and basically reverse the racial roles. In the North, Democrats, including pro-southern "Doughfaces" as they were known, portrayed Republicans with some effect as the party of racial equality.

The Republicans of course hotly denied these charges, but the point is they were viewed first and foremost as an anti-slavery party. And with good reason.

They may not have favored racial equality, and most certainly did not; but the controversies over the single issue of slavery were the main reason why they came into existence. And slavery was also the glue that held their somewhat disparare parts together. You had former Democrats, Whigs, Free-Soil, nativists, all together under one tent, the main pole of which was slavery. They did not agree on everything among themselves. But if you met a Republican, you knew for a fact that they opposed slavery one way or another, whatever their views on other issues. That was their touchstone.

On the other side, the Democratic Party in 1860 fractured over the issue of slavery as it related to the territories. Many southern delegates and southern leaders, including Jefferson Davis, insisted that the 1860 Democratic platform include a provision whereby the Federal Government would be required to protect slavery in the territories. This regardless of what the local population on the scene may have thought. So much for states rights and local control.

When they were unable to strong-arm their way through the convention they left and formed their own party. Had this one issue, centered around slavery's, been resolved, the Democrats would never have fractured in 1860, and it's possible that Lincoln may not have been elected president.

It's also worth noting that not all southerners were opposed to tariffs, internal improvements, or other traditionally 'centralized' ideas. Just as not all northerners favored such things. As you certainly know, it was more involved than drawing a line between North and South and saying everyone thought this or that way on every issue.

My take is that Southerners, by and large, had no problem with a stronger federal government if and when they felt that such was in their own best interest. This was made clear with the Fugitive Slave Act of the 1850's as well as the whole mess surrounding Kansas/Nebraska.

Southerners also dominated the federal government for years prior to the war, and it wasn't until they saw their power base starting slip away that they began to rattle the saber.

No, it wasn't "only" about slavery. But it was indeed "mainly" about slavery. It was the one issue that came to dominate all others, in a way that no other issue ever has before or since. And it was the main reason why the Confederacy came into being.

-- posted by Wrap10