U.S. Civil War - Did the South Have the Right to Secede?

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by SlowwHand Oh come on. Like the CSA didn't have enough problems, now they're teamed with Canada?

Don't forget France

[SlowwHand]

Life is no longer worth living.

[chequita guevara]

[Dr Strangelove]

If Jefferson Davis had had half a brain he would have traded the surrender of all Federal facilities in and on the coast of the CSA for guarenteed right of passage for federal river freight on the Mississippi. The Confederacy could have brought in much needed revenues from the customs duties. No shots would have had to have been fired at Ft. Sumter. There's no evidence that Lincoln would have gone to war without an excuse.

Eventually the South would have had to face the fact that secession would have nullified the Dred Scott decision, at least as far as runaway slaves from the seceded states were concerned. The CSA would have demanded some sort of agreement regarding the return of "property", and probably would have gone to war over the issue. They also would have found that having seceded they would have permanently cut themselves off from westward expansion. It's not unlikely that the CSA would have made a grab for some of the western territories. In 1861 Davis expanded upon the Confederacy's future expansion to the west, to Mexico and into the Caribbean. Any one of those moves would have brought war with the USA, or in the case of the latter two, with Great Britain, France, and Spain. War would have come anyway.

[SlowwHand]

Jefferson Davis wasn't the Golden Child or anything.
Throwing him in the South's face is nothing. It's known.

[Bosh]

Slavery was no more the issue in the Civil War than the persecution of the Jews was the issue in WWII. They became the issue after the fact.

That's complete BS, the Southerners themselves said that slavery was a main issue in their various declarations that took them out of the Union.

Also, if slavery wasn't an issue then the South was remarkably stupid. Because the UK was on the brink of joining the war on the South's side and the only thing that stopped the UK was the power of the British abolitionist lobby. If the South had just abolished slavery on their own they would've gotten British help and would have definately been able to secure their independence. Slavery was the basic issue at stake.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Bosh

That's complete BS, the Southerners themselves said that slavery was a main issue in their various declarations that took them out of the Union.

Also, if slavery wasn't an issue then the South was remarkably stupid. Because the UK was on the brink of joining the war on the South's side and the only thing that stopped the UK was the power of the British abolitionist lobby. If the South had just abolished slavery on their own they would've gotten British help and would have definately been able to secure their independence. Slavery was the basic issue at stake.

Actually Britain was never close to joining the war on the South's side. In the 1860's anti-slavery evangelists were still a major force in British politics. Throughout the war there were a number of demonstrations in the UK against the South. Even in 1864, when the loss of cotton imports resulted in widespread unemployment, in the textile mill towns of the northern UK workers demonstrated against actions made by the UK govermnment which seemed to favor the Confederates. This was largely due to the prevalence of evangelical sentiment amongst the very textile workers most hurt by the war.

[Bosh]

Actually Britain was never close to joining the war on the South's side. In the 1860's anti-slavery evangelists were still a major force in British politics.

Right. However if the South had abolished slavery then they could have easily gotten support from the UK. This goes to show that slavery meant a great deal to the South since if they'd be willing to give it up they'd have surely gotten support from the UK and with that they'd probably have been able to win the war.

[Arrian]

The Brits wouldn't support the CSA for two reasons (in no particular order):

1) opposition to slavery - this made it rather unpalatable for them to support a regime created essentially to protect the institution of slavery; and

2) trade with the Union states - primarily grain. At that point, the North was basically feeding the UK.

Accordingly, the Brits restricted their involvement to allowing the construction & sale of privateer cruisers for the CSA.

-Arrian