Richard Stanbery

To me, Frederick Douglas is a very inspirational character from American history. I find his works to be fascinating and well worth the read. And, I also get the idea that he was not a "one issue" guy. He was capable of adderssing a multitude of issues beyond slavery and civil rights. I think he could have taught on, say, economic ventures as well as on slavery. And this I think because his intelligence shows through in his writings.

Harriet Beecher Stowe comes to mind. John Brown overshadows them all in a way. But what we dont find in the political leadership on the Northern side really standing up and harnessing the grass-roots energy that fueled the run up to war.

Lincoln was no rabbid abolitionist before the war. It almost seems as if he was really afraid of the energy that had built up in the country at that time. In fact, it seems as if most of the politicians were terrified of the popular support that figures like Beecher-Stowe and Frederick Douglas had drummed up for thier causes. He probably wished that they would go away.

Sesession was drummed up at the state and local level, by state governors and legislators. But before the Sesession movement really started to happen, there really wasnt any one Southern figure that stands out as drumming it up. Henry Clay was no sesessionist.

Local businessmen formed groups, such as Charlestons 1860 Association, and so on. Sesession was really sold to the public at the local level. Abolition was sold more through public venues and national outreach through publishing efforts and books.

But what I cannot really see is why the Southerners were sure that Lincoln was going to abolish slavery if he won the election of 1860? I have never seen anything in his words of the time that mentioned that he would. I rather think that he would have ignored the slavery issue, and gladly, if it would have allowed him to avoid the Civil War.

Lincoln was just the trip wire, the fall guy that Southerners had pointed a finger at and said "if that man wins..."

If we compare a modern President like FDR, Kennedy, Reagan, LBJ...would they have ran cowering from the energy that was buzzing in America...or would they have tried to capitalize on it like modern Presidents do? Would any 20th or 21st Century Presidents have handled it any better, if they were sent back in a time machine and sworn in in the year, say, 1856?

Could FDR have saved the union from civil war? Or Reagan? Would they have sold out the slaves and placated the South like all the others, even Lincoln, wanted to do?

tjadams

True

True

Perhaps Southerners felt they were forever sown into the deep South without ever being able to move into the new coming states and taking their belongings, i.e. slaves, with them. They were being denied a business opportunity as Americans and their rights for the 'pursuit of happiness' was being cut off.

I agree. He was just the next cog in the wheel and it was his turn.

I can only see T. Roosevelt, Nixon or Reagan as having the suave political backbone to channel the nation, based on their strong personality like Lincoln, into stopping a civil war or even better, persuade slavery to end.

Mike McClure

Lincoln had made it clear in speech after speech that he had no interest in abolishing slavery, if retaining slavery would save the union. I know of no speech or writings of any secessionist that thought there was any danger that Lincoln would abolish slavery. So the only conclusion is that South Carolina seceded for some other reason

Viperlord

Except, not. http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

Viperlord

This was actually addressed at a local sesquicentennial event by Civil War historian William Freehling. The Deep South was more worried about Lincoln using patronage to build the Republican Party's influence in the South leading to the eventual abolition of slavery. And of course the rabid secessionists were extraordinarily successful in over-blowing the danger of Lincoln and the "Black Republicans". Furthermore, Lincoln himself believed he could convince the states to end slavery of their own volition with time.

jegates

What a great read! Thanks for the link Viper!

unclefred

i wonder if the secessionists had considered Lincoln a safer bet than Seward. Their efforts, led by Jefferson Davis helped Seward to be denied the nomination, according to some historians. They fairly well lumped Seward in with John Brown.

Viperlord

Seward's certainly a interesting character in his own right, and no friend of slavery. Carl Schurz described him as "one of those spirits who sometimes will go ahead of public opinion instead of tamely following its footprints."

Mike McClure

Jefferson Davis was even more moderate, less racist then Lincoln. Jefferson Davis and his brother were educating their slaves for eventual freedom when slavery ended.

Viperlord

And once again.... No. Davis' attitude was fairly typical. He was probably kinder to his slaves than most, but he was quite happy with the institution of slavery.



"There is nothing, Mr. President [ Senator Benjamin Fitzgerald], which has led men to greater confusion of ideas than this term of "free States" and "slave States;" and I trusted that the Senator, with his discriminating and logical mind, was going to give us something tangible, instead of dealing in a phrase never applicable. He applied another; but what was his phrase? "Capital States" and "labor States." And where is the State in which nobody labors? The fallacy upon which the Senator hung adjective after adjective was, that all the labor of the southern States was performed by negroes. Did he not know that the negroes formed but a small part of the people of the southern States? Did he suppose nobody labored but a negro, there? If so, he was less informed than I had previously believe him to be Negro slavery exists in the South, and by the existence of negro slavery, the white man is raised to the dignity of a freeman and an equal. Nowhere else will you find every white man superior to menial service. Nowhere else will you find every white man recognized so far as an equal as never to be excluded from any man's haouse or any man's table. Your own menial who blacks your boots, drives your carriage, who wears your livery, and is your own in every sense of the word, is not your equal; and such is society wherever negro slavery is not the substratum on which the white race is elevated to its true dignity."


From The Papers of Jefferson Davis, Volume 6, pp. 277-84. Transcribed from the Congressional Globe, 36th Congress, 1st Session, pp. 916-18.