Southern Convention Quotes

It passed easily. Although the Whigs were the opposition party to the slavery-oriented Democrats, they did not oppose slavery. See {613981} for another example. This left an opportunity for the Republicans to form a third party and succeed.

In June of 1850, a bipartisan group of Southern politicians met in Nashville, TN for the purpose of organizing strategy and tactics to ward off and defeat the growing aggressiveness of Northern politicians and other leaders in trying to abolish slavery. They issued an address to the people. This is one of the clearest statements of the position of most of the Southern Politicians on the increased efforts to abolish or curtail slavery. They felt that a deal had been made by the founding fathers and the first Congress not to deal with the slavery issue, and that deal must be honored in perpetuity. Most Northerners agreed that a deal had been made, but it was not binding forever—that a Congress could not limit the scope of a future Congress except via a Constitutional Amendment. The deal on Slavery was a deal not to address it for a while. It was not a deal to accept the Southern point of view. And none of it was written into the Constitution because opinion was even then split and a majority could not be mustered for a compromise that would write legal slavery into the Constitution. But many Southerners believed that its absence implied that it could not be addressed by the government. They demanded the right of their states to choose slavery if they so wished. Time was not on the side of the South and the Southerners who insisted on State’s Rights regarding slavery opposed States Rights for Northern States who wished to disallow fugitive slaves to be returned to owners. The more fugitive slaves there were, the more hypocritical the Southern position became as they needed Federal preemption on the issue of Fugitive Slaves, else slavery would end by escape and non-return of slaves.

This editorial reflected majority Southern political positions of the time. There was never going to be any compromise by ending or curtailing slavery in any way. Amongst the abolitionists, there was an equally rigid view towards compromise. Many Northerners felt that the anti-slavery Americans had been compromising for half a century and slavery was a larger institution that it ever was. They wanted no further compromise. The South had never budged from its original position at the founding of the nation. Historically, it was just a matter of time before there would be a showdown politically and probably militarily. The explosion took 10 more years.

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.

The Slavery issue was so contentious that many Northern Congressmen had just given up on the abolitionist cause or never agreed with it even though in many areas of the country the majority of their constituents supported abolition.

1st Viscount Lyons

There indeed were although the Southerners tended to exaggerate the numbers. However, the more slavery was debated, the more many of the abolitionists came to believe that insurrection and slave rebellion was not only morally justified but was the only recourse that was left by the racist intransigence of the Southern slave holders and politicians.

The highest court in New York.

The amendments failed as did the compromise.

One of the many complaints that many people made at the time about Smith and his Mormons was that they opposed slavery. In fact, Smith not only opposed it be had a plan for compensating the slave owner and a method for paying for it. Smith was not advocating the kinds of personal lifestyle issues of his church the way modern religious leaders do, but was concerned with the much larger issues of expansionism, corruption of the courts and judiciary, and land distribution. He was a classic reform candidate in that sense. Smith had written to most of the then likely Presidential candidates of both major parties asking for their position on the Mormons who were facing persecution wherever they went. None of the politicians would make any satisfactory commitments. Smith took Direct Action and became the only major religious official to have run for the Presidency of the United States until Pat Robertson tried and failed in 2000. Smith’s assassination shortly thereafter cut his run for the Presidency short before it made much headway and politically he had no chance to affect the race.

In many respects, it is amazing that secession did not take place earlier.

In modern times, many have complained at the disrespectful way critics refer to the president of the United States. The long for the civility of the past. As this editorial shows, uncivil criticism of the president is nothing new.

See Mark {606304}; also Matthew {606727}. Lincoln had used the “house divided” biblical metaphor in 1843 when arguing for Whig solidarity. The first political use of the Biblical metaphor and quotation with respect to American slavery appears to have been by Sam Houston in 1850 {603970}. The first use with respect to American slavery was byMassachusetts abolitionist, Edmund Quincy, in 1852. The second sentence of this famous quotation was forsaged earlier. See Lincoln, {619494} & {584918}. Also See Felix Rohatyn who used the Lincoln line to refer to poverty: {70611}.

One of the interesting arguments made against slavery prior to the Civil War was that as the proportion of slaves increased in America in general and the South in particular, the security risk from a slave rebellion increases markedly to the point that it was just too risky. John Brown’s small attempted slave revolt at Harpers Ferry put the entire state of Virginia in a panic and Virginia had relatively few slaves compared with deep South states.

This newspaper editorial has historical importance for two reasons. First, it is yet another proof that the sole reason for southern secession was slavery. Second, note the implication that Lincoln had Negro ancestry. As that could be the only reason that he would hold his views on slavery. This disreputable tactic of slandering opponents who hold different views have extended to German ancestry in WWI, Catholic religion, communist affiliation, and in one of the more recent examples, the accusation—believed by a number of Americans, that President Obama was a secret Muslim.

This quotation is very important for in the 20th century Southern revisionists made a major effort to ennoble the Confederate cause by claiming that Slavery and the desire to keep Blacks in bondage and unequal was just of byproduct of the reason for secession—States Rights and the decentralization of government. Many of the school history books were changed to reflect this claim. However, each of the seceding states left a legislative record of secession and the reasons for it. In all cases, Slavery and the preservation of Slavery in the South was the central and in most cases the only reason stated. In this case, Texas made its reasons clear. There was nothing noble therein but racism and racial exploitation.

Earlier {629154} Smith was much more sympathetic with slavery. His views evolved as you can see by the comparison. He stated that he had a vision and made two prophesies {629156} that indeed came true. The last idea of slave buyouts seemed plausible to many abolitionists initially when they were not really knowledgeable about the economics of slavery. However, once they studied it, it became clear what it would not work even if the Southerners would then be willing to accept Blacks as free laborers which most were not, The two biggest problems were: 1) the international slave trade had been abolished. The only source of new slaves for growth was breeding them. Therefore, having slaves had TWO economic values—the work that they could do and the reproduction of themselves. A critical mass of owned slaves produced an income forever. And for Southerners who were culturally adverse to work (see {629169}), just having cash for their slaves was not enough. They were the servants, the farm labor, and their recreational sex. 2) and most important, the value or the slaves of the South was greater than the economic value of all the land, all the farms, all the buildings, all the factories, and all the inventory of the stores of the South all put together. The Southern slaves were the majority of the wealth of the south. There was no asset that could ever produce enough value to pay for the slaves—even over time. It would be like trying to buy all the shares of all the corporations in America today. There is no asset big enough to raise the money to ever finance it. The idea may have worked in Colonial America or even prior to the outlaw of the international slave trade, but by the time anyone took the idea seriously it was economically no longer feasible.

Much of the South was so insular that people knew nothing about the notion of abolition and just assumed that no one would ever consider freeing the slaves. Many never knew that it was the South that first fired on the Union troops and flag. If the North won the war, the assumption was that Northerners would then own the plantations and the valuable slaves. In reality, while all slaves were emancipated in the South, very few plantations and farms were confiscated from their Southern owners by Northerners despite the fact that there was political pressure in the North to confiscate the land of all rebels who had committed treason and use the value to repay the Union bonds and care for the wounded Union veterans and the widows of dead Union Soldiers. Eggleston was an accomplished writer who had served in the Confederate army of the Civil War. 20 year after the war he wrote a series of articles for the prestigious Northern Atlantic Monthly trying to convey the war from the Southerner’s point of view.

The Governor was a staunch Confederate supporter but his state legislature majority favored the Union. He was forced out of the governorship when the 1861 election gave the legislature a veto-proof pro Union majority.

Buchanan us considered by most historians to have been the worst or one of the worst Presidents of the United States. At this point, he was a lame duck president with Abraham Lincoln, the President Elect soon to take office. This speech, just encouraged the South more than ever and helped to bring about the Civil War. His vacillation and lack of any leadership on the slavery question exacerbated the polarization that was tearing the nation apart.