New York World Quotes

While Douglas and Lincoln were political opponents with little love lost between them, both were patriots. Douglas’s position were much more popular in the South, and the moment he realized that Lincoln would win the Presidency, he headed South where he was very persuasive in trying to hold the Union together, but he could not see all the potential rebels and was only effective with some. South Carolina not only seceded, but in order to prevent any changing of minds, some the worst of the South Carolinians, attacked Fort Sumter firing on the American Flag and attacking and capturing the Union troops who were totally outnumbered. The Civil War was then inevitable.

Bragg and other Southerner leaders had an unusual concept of equality. Ever since the original Constitution, Northerner’s votes counted for themselves only while a single Southerner’s vote counted for all his slaves as well. So the individual Southerner always had more political power than his Northern counterpart. However, this notion of equality reached it’s acme when it came to the new territories. The Southern argument was that Southerners could not equally prosper in the new territories of Kansas and Nebraska if they could not bring their slaves to work the land. The thought that Southerners were equally able to personally work the new lands or pay labor seems to never have occurred to them. If Northerners could prosper that way then Southerners should be equally able to do so also. However, many Southern whites simply could not conceive of a “gentleman” working in the fields. Therefore they would not be equally able to prosper in the new territories.

At the time his Vice President, John C. Calhoun, was expounding a theory of “nullification” by which the states could supersede and nullify federal law in their states. When Jackson finished his toast, it was Calhoun’s turn (See {635896}.) His toast supported the States’ Rights position over the federal government. In those days Presidents and Vice President’s were often political enemies or of opposite parties. The President’s advisors thought that his toast might be misinterpreted. So when they gave the toast to the press as “The Federal Union: It must be preserved.” That was the form in which the press reported the President’s toast and for many years that was the version most quoted even though it was never delivered that way. However Jackson was responsible for both versions.

Gusley had been captured by the Confederates and was in a prison camp. Richardson published Gusley’s diary and Southerners were surprised to find that this Yankee who had been bombarding them from a ship was very similar to them in many ways including slavery but saw the situation regarding succession as worth fighting for preservation of the Union.

Urging use of force against the South:

There were major construction projects prepared for the Capitol building at the beginning of the Civil War. There was a question of whether the expensive construction was then appropriate.

After the Presidential years of James Buchanan who protected the South from slavery reform and abolition as the North was gaining political power and the abolitionists were having a greater and greater effect on public opinion in the North. While Southerners did not believe Lincoln would emancipate the slaves, they realized that the majority of the growing nation was opposed to slavery, and more and more Northern states were passimg laws making any slave who sets foot in the State a free person. Slaves coud not only have more reason to run away, but slave owners would not be able to get their “property” back. Lincoln would not help the South as Buchanan did, and the Southerners realized that over time, slavery would no longer be feasible or profitable. Cobb, very experienced at Washington politics, realized the changes that would come and thought that they would be “certain and speedy.” The irony was that if the South had not seceded and simply dragged its feet legislatively, it would have taken two or three decades for slavery to end. However, by seceding and initially fighting so hard and well while poor Union generals were in command, Lincoln was forced to try more drastic measures and issued the Emancipation Proclamation after only a few years. The Civil War and seccession was not only a tactical and strategic error for the South, but rapidly brought about just what the Southerners were fighting to prevent.