In a chain of events that began on March 11, 1854, with the rescue by Sherman M. Booth of fugitive slave, Joshua Glover, from imprisonment under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the State of Wisconsin declared this Federal law and a similar one of 1793 to be unconstitutional. In words reminiscent to those of 1798 Kentucky and Virginia over the Alien and Sedition Acts, Wisconsin declared that the assumed authority of the Federal Judiciary in this case and the Fugitive Slave Act to be “void and of no force” within her boundaries. Wisconsin was asserting its States’ rights–that is, state sovereignty–one of which was nullification.
Booth was arrested and confined by a Federal Marshal. On May 27, 1854 Judge A. D. Smith of the Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed with Mr. Booth’s contention that the Fugitive Act was unconstitutional. The full Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed Judge Smith’s ruling on July 19, 1854. The State court ordered Booth released (SDC p. 74-75).
During a message to the Wisconsin legislature in 1858 Republican Governor Alexander W. Randal denounced the encroachment of the Federal Government upon the reserved rights and sovereignty of the States, as typified in the enforcement of the Federal Fugitive Slave Laws.
“The tendency of the action of the Federal Government has been for many years, aided by the Federal Courts, to centralization, and to an absorption of a large share of the sovereignty of the States. It has trspassed [sic] upon the reserved rights of the States and the people–assuming a jurisdiction over them in their exercise of power undeligated. The Federal Government, so far as there is any sovereignty under our form of Government, is sovereign and independent in the exercise of its delegated powers, and the States are sovereign and independent in the exercise of their reserved powers. The safety of the States in the exercise of these powers, in defense of the lives and properties and liberties of the people, demands a fair, deliberate opposition and resistance to any attempt at usurpation or aggression by the Federal Government, its Courts, its officers, or agents upon the reserved rights of the States or its people” (SDC p. 83; SEM p.601).
The United States Supreme Court reversed the Wisconsin Supreme Court on March 7, 1859.
On March 19, 1859, the Republican controlled Wisconsin Legislature passed a joint resolution in support of the Wisconsin Supreme Court that stated in part,
“Whereas, The Supreme Court of the United States as assumed appellate jurisdiction, in the matter of the application of Sherman M. Booth, for a writ of habeas corpus […]
And Whereas, Such assumption of power and authority by the Supreme Court of the United States to become the final arbiter of the liberty of the citizen, and to override and nullify the judgments of the State Courts […]
Resolved, the Senate concurring, That we regard the action of the Supreme Court of the United States in assuming jurisdiction in the case before mentioned, as arbitrary act of power unauthorized by the Constitution and virtually superceding [sic] the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus, and prostrating the rights and liberties of the people, at the foot of unlimited power.
Resolved, That this usurpation of jurisdiction by the Federal Judiciary, in the said case, and without process, is an act of undeligated power, and therefore, without authority, void and of no force.
Resolved, That the Government framed by the Constitution of the United States, was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself […]
Resolved,[…] that the General Government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism, since the discretion of those who administer the Government, and not the Constitution, would be the measure of their powers–that the several states which formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infraction, and that a positive defiance of those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts, done, or attempted to be done, under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy” (SDC p. 84).
Taking advantage of the furvor over slavery in the territories, the Republican Party was organized in 1854 at Jackson, Michigan by gathering together the Whig remnant, Know-Nothings, Free-Soilers and abolitionists. However, behind the scenes, party organizers were more intent in controlling the national government, “obtain federal subsidies for railroads and steamship lines, and have their own way with the currency, the public lands and the tariff” (WEW p. 466-67).
Speaking on October 16, 1854 in Peoria, Illinois, Lincoln acknowledged the difficulty facing white society of the day in abolishing slavery. He also voiced what he saw as the likely solution over time – gradual emancipation and then sending blacks in the United States to Liberia, Africa.
“When Southern people tell us that they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying […] If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do as to the existing institution. My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia–their native land […] We cannot make them equals. It does seem to me that systems of gradual emancipation might be adopted; but for their tardiness in this I will not undertake to judge our brethren of the South” (BBM p. 184).
While some in the North decried slavery, Northern industrial demand, Northern and European consumer demand, and Northern financiers kept slavery viable in the South. The English received over 80% of exported American cotton and employed about four hundred thousand workers in their cotton mills (WEW p. 526).
Unlike most leading politicians of the day, some abolitionists were unwilling to compromise on the issue of slavery, even to the point of dissolving the Union. In 1856 abolitionist Garrison proclaimed,
“This Union is a lie! The American Union is an imposition–a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell! […] I am for its overthrow! […] Up with the flag of disunion, that we may have a free and glorious Republic of our own; and when the hour shall come, the hour will have arrived that shall witness the overthrow of slavery” (SDC p. 56, 100).
Where the abolitionist speeches, sermons and editorials left off, fanatical abolitionist, John Brown, picked up. He didn’t hesitate to spill the blood of slave holders and others as necessary to do his part in eradicating slavery.
On May 24, 1856, Brown led a raid on Pottawatomie, Kansas in which five unarmed men were dragged from their beds at night and murdered because of their pro-slavery views (WEW p. 476; SEM p. 601).
Brown sought to form a republic of fugitive slaves in the Appalachians from which war would be waged against those States in which slavery was still legal (WEW p. 501; SEM p. 601). On October 16, 1859, Brown led his invasion into Virginia to seize the United States arsenal at Harpers Ferry. As part of his plan, he would distribute the captured arms to the many blacks whom Brown thought would eagerly join in the uprising. To his bewilderment, no blacks came to his side. Even the few slaves he came in contact with at a nearby plantation would have nothing to do with him. Ironically, the first man killed in the raid was a free black man who was shot while running away after Brown’s men had ordered him to stop. Brown was captured by a detachment of United States troops under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee on October 17. He was tried for treason, murder, and conspiracy with slaves to rebel and found guilty. He was hanged on December 2, 1859. Abolitionists now had a martyr, and Southern fears were ignited. (WEW p. 501-02; SEM p. 602, 605).
The South held its breath as it awaited Northern opinion over John Brown’s execution. While most Northern opinion was against Brown, a few prominent voices began to raise him up as a saintly martyr.
Ralph Waldo Emerson fueled Southern fears as he wrote, “That new saint, than whom nothing purer or more brave was ever led by love of men into conflict and death […] will make the gallows glorious like the cross” (SEM p. 602).
Some Northern newspapers also contributed to the mounting North-South tension after Brown’s execution. The Fort Atchison, Wisconsin Standard was typical of the outbreak of Northern abolitionist sympathy of Brown.
“John Brown Dead–The first act in the tragedy has been performed. The great State of Virginia has played the hangman’s part, and is crowned with its bloody honors […] No mercy was expected for the victim of southern vengeance. But the end is not yet […] A wall of bayonets may guard the hideous bastile of cruelty and wrong, but cannot obstruct the march of the free legions that will spring forth from their slumber, and make the earth tremble beneath their tread.
“Now may God help the right! and give us tongues of fire, and hands that shall never weary, to wage an eternal crusade against the diabolical sin of slavery.
“Peaceful be the sleep of the murdered Brown, and glorious his awakening” (SDC p. 65).
In 1857, New Englanders held a convention at the industrial city of Worcester, Massachusetts to determine whether they should secede from the Southern States in direct response to the lowering of protectionist trade tariffs pushed by Southern Democrats in Congress (WEW p. 514). Northern bankers and manufacturing interests blamed the panic of 1857 and its lower prices on the Southern opposition to these tariffs. Southern opposition votes also defeated attempts to obtain Federal subsidies for improving transportation and communications that would further benefit Northern industry and commerce (SEM p. 602-03).
During the fourth Lincoln-Douglas debate on September 18, 1858, in Charleston, Illinois, Abraham Lincoln emphatically stated his view of the role blacks in American society.
“I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters of the free negroes, or jurors, or qualifying them to hold office, or having them marry with white people. I will say in addition that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which, I suppose, will forever forbid the two races living together upon terms of social and political equality; and inasmuch as they cannot so live, that while they do remain together, there must be the position of the superiors and the inferiors; and that I, as much as any other man, am in favor of the superior position assigned to the white man” (WEW p. 500; JRK p. 27; MLR p. 113).
Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, believing that slavery was necessary and that the black man must be subject to the white man, wrote in December of 1859, “I would not if I could abolish or modify slavery” (WEW p. 519).
Judging from its May 18, 1860, convention in Chicago, the Republican party was a Northern party. The convention platform advocated no slavery in the territories of the United States, but stressed a noninterference policy regarding slavery in the States where it already existed. The platform also advocated a protectionist tariff (WEW p. 505; SEM p. 602).
Lincoln’s election on November 6, 1860, was made possible by a North-South split in the Democratic party, and was solely along a sectional dividing line between the North and South. He received little if any of the popular vote south of Virginia, and only 2000 votes in Virginia. He received only 40 percent of the popular vote nationwide (WEW p. 506-10). His election was considered by many to have been an accident, even among those who served in his own administration (WEW p. 522).
On November 26, 1860, Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune wrote,
“If the cotton states unitedly and earnestly wish to withdraw peacefully from the Union, we think they should and would be allowed to do so. Any attempt to compel them by force to remain, would be contrary to the principles enunciated in the immortal Declaration of Independence–contrary to the fundamental ideas on which human liberty is based” (SDC p. 86).
While many Northern editorials were advocating a peaceful and calm attitude should any Southern States decide to secede, others in the North were thinking ahead to the possible negative consequences to federal subsidies to the Northern industrial infrastructure, to trade, and to commerce. After all, over 80% of federal tariff revenue was generated in Southern ports and the Northern shipping was highly dependent on both Southern and foreign trade. One such expression of concern came from the December 10, 1860 Chicago Daily Times.
“In one single blow our foreign commerce must be reduced to less than one-half what it now is. Our coastwide trade would pass into other hands. One-half of our shipping would lie idle at our wharves. We should lose our trade with the South, with all of its immense profits. Our manufactories would be in utter ruins. Let the South adopt the free-trade system, or that of a tariff for revenue, and these results would likely follow”(CA p. 23, 27).
Horace Greeley, expressing the majority of Northern sentiment at the time, stated in the December 17, 1860 New York Tribune,
“If it [the Declaration of Independence] justified the secession from the British Empire of three millions of colonists in 1776, we do not see why it would not justify the secession of five millions of Southerners from the Federal Union in 1861” (GE p. 164, SDC p. 87; BBM p. 297).
Republicans having won the congressional elections of 1858, Lincoln’s election in 1860 “placed Northern interests in control of the national government (MLD p. 34), their nationalism and the Southern commitment to state sovereignty crystallized” (MLD p. 8). Feeling that the economic, political, and sovereign interests of the States of the South were in danger, a conference of South Carolina state leaders in October of 1860 decided to secede from the Union if Lincoln were elected President (WEW p. 511). To these States, the reserved sovereign right of secession was the only peaceable escape from a central government that had become the judge of its own authority (MLD p. 52). On December 20, 1860, prior to Lincoln’s swearing in, the state convention declared South Carolina to be out of the Union (WEW p. 511).
Robert Barnwell Rhett of South Carolina, on the day of his State’s secession from the Union, cited Wisconsin State Supreme Court Judge Smith in the Booth case as precedent for State action in response to wrongs committed by the Federal Government.
“Sir, the North threaten to fight us back into the Union, after we shall have taken our stand for Southern Independence. They now deny the right of a State to judge of its own grievances and to apply its own remedies, notwithstanding for years, many Northern States, Wisconsin in particular, have asserted this right for themselves. I want no better license for our action to-day than the decision of Judge Smith in the Rescue cases of Wisconsin” (SDC p. 85).
Once the consequences of secession of the Southern States to Federal revenue became clear, some Northern editorials were less gracious toward the South. The December 21, 1860, issue of the Philadelphia Press prophesied the nature of the actions that the North would shortly take in preserving her economic interests.
“The government cannot well avoid collecting the federal revenues at all Southern ports, even after the passage of secession ordinances; and if this duty is discharged, any State which assumes a rebellious attitude will still be obliged to contribute revenue to support the Federal Government or have her commerce entirely destroyed” (CA p. 24).
In December, 1860 the Chicago Tribune stated,
“Not a few of the republican journals of the interior are working themselves up to the belief, which they are endeavoring to impress upon their readers, that the seceded States, be they few or many, will be whipped back in the Union […] but the drift of opinion seems to be that, if peaceable secession is possible, the retiring States will be assisted to go, that this needless and bitter controversy may be brought to an end. If the Union is to be dissolved, a bloodless separation is by all means to be coveted. Do not let us make that impossible” (SDC p. 101).
In a speech before the Senate on December 25, 1860, Senator Stephan A. Douglas voiced his political convictions regarding the motives of the more radical Republicans:
“The fact can no longer be disguised that many of the Republican Senators desire war and disunion, under the pretext of saving the Union. They wish to get rid of the Southern States, in order to have a majority in the Senate to confirm the appointments, and many of them think they can hold a permanent Republican majority in the Northern States, but not in the whole Union; for partisan reasons they are anxious to dissolve the Union, if it can be done without holding them responsible before the people” (SDC p. 53).
Along with their position within the Union, the Southern States were turning their backs on what they perceived as the deterioration of American constitutional federalism as originally set in place by the Founding Fathers (MLD p. 1-5). Author Marshall L. DeRosa summarizes the issue.
“But by 1861, the political divisions between North and South regarding constitutional exegesis were so entrenched that the Constitution ceased to be the instrument of a ‘more perfect union’ and rather served as the vehicle for dissension and separation […] Northerners insisted upon a model of federalism consisting of a national community of individuals, with sovereignty being a national phenomenon–that is, nationalism–whereas Southerners adhered to a model consisting of a community of states, with the citizens in their respective states functioning as the repositories of sovereignty and thereby controlling the bulwarks of their social and economic interests–that is, state sovereignty” (MLD p. 8-9).
The January 15, 1861, Philadelphia Press clarified that losing the South as a source of Federal revenue, and not the secession of the Southern States as such, was their real concern. The Southern States could not be forced to collect revenue for Washington without Northern military occupation of the forts located in Southern ports.
“It is the enforcement of the revenue laws, not the coercion of the State that is the question of the hour. If those laws cannot be enforced, the Union is clearly gone; if they can, it is safe” (CA p. 24).
In a speech before the House of Representatives on January 15, 1861, John H. Reagan of Texas expressed the persistent frustration of the South concerning the imbalance of the source of collected Federal revenue. In doing so, he also highlighted those things which were to be the primary purpose for which the North would go to war to protect.
“You are not content with the vast millions of tribute we pay you annually under the operation of our revenue laws, our navigation laws, your fishing bounties, and by making your people our manufacturers, our merchants, our shippers. You are not satisfied with the vast tribute we pay you to build up your great cities, your railroads, your canals. You are not satisfied with the millions of tribute we have been paying you on account of the balance of exchange which you hold against us. You are not satisfied that we of the South are almost reduced to the condition of overseers of northern capitalists. You are not satisfied with all this; but you must wage a relentless crusade against our rights and institutions” (CA p. 80-81).
Secretary of State William Seward, during a Cabinet meeting in the first month of the Lincoln administration, stated,
“The attempt to reinforce Sumter will provoke an attack and involve war. The very preparation for such an expedition will precipitate war at that point. I oppose beginning war at that point. I would advise against the expedition to Charleston. I would at once, at every cost, prepare for war at Pensacola and Texas. I would instruct Major Anderson to retire from Sumter” (GE p. 160).
Governor Letcher of Virginia, while an advocate of the legal right of a State to secede from the Union, spoke against the secession movement precipitated by South Carolina (BBM p. 248-49). The Virginia Assembly called for a convention in the City of Washington on February 4, 1861, of as many States “as are willing to unite with Virginia in an earnest effort to adjust the present unhappy controversies” (BBM p. 250).
The Virginia Assembly called for a State convention to debate the course of action that the State should take in the current secession crisis. At the same time, Virginia voters cast ballots in a general election on February 4, 1861 to register their opinion. By a vote of 100,536 to 45,161 the voters of Virginia declared their rejection of secession, and that the findings of the State convention would be subject to voter approval. The Convention opened on February 13, 1861. The main question that concerned the delegates was the attitude that the new Federal administration would have toward the seceded States. (BBM p. 256-59)
As recorded in the Congressional Globe on February 11, 1861, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution with unanimous Republican support that stated in part:
“Resolved, that neither the Federal Government, nor the people, or Governments of non-slave holding States, have a purpose or a Constitutional right to legislate upon, or interfere with slavery in any of the States of the Union” (SDC p. 150).
Commercial interests in the North were greatly disturbed over the secession of the Southern States, fearing great financial harm to Northern shipping from the lower import tariffs at Southern ports. An editorial in the February 19, 1861, Manchester, New Hampshire Union Democrat voiced the common concerns of Northern shipping interests.
“The Southern Confederacy will not employ our ships or buy our goods. What is our shipping without it? Literally nothing. The transportation of cotton and its fabrics employs more ships than all other trade. It is very clear that the South gains by this process, and we lose. No–we MUST NOT let the South go!” (JRK p. 52)
On February 23, 1861, Horace Greeley wrote in the New York Tribune:
“We have repeatedly said and we once more insist that the great principle embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration of American Independence that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed is sound and just; and that if the Slave States, the Cotton States, or the Gulf States only, choose to form an independent nation they have a clear moral right to do so” (BBM p. 297).
In an attempt to keep Southern States from leaving the Union, a thirteenth amendment to the Constitution, very different from the current one, was whittled out of the Crittenden Compromise by both Republicans and Democrats, with Lincoln’s approval and even his signature. It was approved by Congress on February 28, 1861, and submitted to the States for ratification on March 2, 1861. It declared:
“No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.”
The States of Maryland and Ohio ratified it before the War broke out (WEW p. 520-21; SEM p. 609; CA p. 128).
On March 2, 1861, Congress passed the Morrill Tariff, and with it the highest tariffs in American history. With this one act, Congress further alienated the South, and aggravated Northern fears of foreign goods abandoning Northern ports for lower tariffs in the South. Now, with this high tariff on goods imported into the United States, and the announced intentions of a low tariff in the Southern States that had seceded, the secession of the Southern States took on a new and threatening look to Northern industrial interests. By the close of March, 1861, a growing panic over the future of Federal revenues was echoed in newspaper editorials throughout most of the North. The press had largely turned from “let the South go in peace” to a call to war to preserve economic prosperity (CA p. 23, 63-70, 81). The March 2, 1861, New York Evening Post , in an editorial entitled What Shall Be Done for a Revenue, opined,
“That either the revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the port must be closed to importations from abroad, is generally admitted. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe. There will be nothing to furnish means of subsistence to the army; nothing to keep our navy afloat; nothing to pay the salaries of public officers; the present order of things must come to a dead stop” (CA p. 24).
On March 4, 1861, Lincoln reiterated his support of the constitutional protection afforded to slavery in his first inaugural address.
“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so” (PMA p. 215; BBM p. 6).
He then went on to assure the Nation of his support of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
“There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:
“’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.’
“It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it, for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the lawgiver is the law” (PMA p. 215-16).
In his March 4, 1861, inaugural address, Lincoln placed the seceded States on notice; that he was willing to resort to bloodshed to nullify the secession of the Southern States, to repossess former U.S. federal properties in the South, and to collect import tariffs from Southern ports (BBM p. 264).
“I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the states. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it, so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or, in some authoritative manner, direct to the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that it will constitutionally defend, and maintain itself.
“In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided in me, will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property, and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion […]” (PMA p. 218-19; SEM p.610).
By the time of his inauguration, Lincoln had formulated his argument against the legality of secession. Ignoring the roots of his own country, his argument was that the Union predated the States, was unbroken beginning with the Articles of Association in 1774 and, therefore, secession was impossible (Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address; PMA p. 117; FWS p. 135). Among the criticisms of Lincoln’s position are:
That he overlooks the fact that the colonies had declared themselves “Free and Independent States” in their Declaration of Independence from England in 1776–a fact acknowledged by England as well (GLD p. 71).
He ignores his own earlier affirmation of the precepts of human liberty and the consent of the governed spelled out in the Declaration of Independence (FWS p. 135, Congressional Globe, Volume XIX, page 94; GLD p. 67; SDC p. 87; BBM p. 296).
His view was contrary to the fact that the Union would come into existence only after nine of the thirteen States ratified the Constitution. Clearly, the States that did not immediately ratify the Constitution did not blink out of existence once it was ratified by the requisite nine States. Instead, they maintained their independent status under their own duly instituted State constitutions until such time as they too voluntarily ratified the new Constitution. The States were offering to one another the opportunity to enter into a new voluntary covenant, one that was to replace the previous relationship under the Articles of Confederation (GLD p. 69-71).
That he overlooks the fact that some of the States had reserved the right to recall the powers they had delegated to the federal government prior to their entrance into the Union (FWS p. 135).
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