" Defending the “Peculiar Institution”" Topic

Here is something that just crossed my desk, an interesting piece on the inter-relationship between non=slaveholders and "Peculiar Institution":

link

So 'gentlemen of the South' what are your thoughts on this?

an interesting read. I also have read that non-slave-owners did gain from the use of the slaves for the provision of public goods in the old south.

I feel sorry for the Confederates. Brave people without question but they ultimately marched to die and kill for a terrible cause. It will be a stain to their bravery for ever. Even if the general principles can be considered ok (federalism etc), the specific manifestation (federalism to protect slavery) was despicable.

But I do think that the institution was so pervasive in Southern society that it was very hard for many of them to separate it from their view of rights and culture. In a way they did march for their rights and culture, just slavery was a big part of it.

Mind you I would not say they fought for it. Once you get to the battlefield you are fighting for your life, for your comrades, at most for the charismatic sob who is leading the charge. People march for ideas and principles, but fight and kill and die for more mundane and intimidate reasons (self-preservation, group-dynamics, pride, bloodlust, fear and terror)

That is my cant.

I don't see how fighting well for the losing side, or for a way of life that modern morality deems to be wrong, represents a "stain" on anyone's bravery.

I do.

It is the never ending Snark quest to try and picture the rank and file confederate soldier as fighting for racist beliefs.

Most confederate enlisted soldiers probably had no illusion in life that they would be some big plantation owner some day. Their motivation was a simple as they viewed an invasion by the North.

As John Wayne asks Royal Dano at the beginning of (I believe) The Undefeated, when the Rebels fought after knowing that the war was already over: "Then why all of this?" "Because this is our land and you're on it."

Well, to be fair, the North wasn't against slavery at the start of the war, and only adopted the position to put pressure on the South.

I lived for some years in a part of Georgia which, in the 1860s, had very little sympathy for the Confederacy. The locals were small farmers in rugged mountainous country who didn't know much about any Damyankees, but knew the people down in Atlanta, and didn't care for them and their highfalutin' ways.

In 1864 a night attack on the town of LaFayette by Confederate cavalry failed, in part because the Union commanders there were up late playing cards with the town fathers.

A hundred and thirty years later the whole area had transferred its allegiance to the Confederacy, although it still maintained a jaundiced view of people in Atlanta.

It's a good article, BTW, and points to the astounding self-delusion of what the author refers to as the 'Southron Heritage' movement.

First off, my greatest interest in the Civil War is the exploits of the Army of Northern Virginia. I think its ranks were composed of brave, honorable men who accomplished much and overcame great odds on many battlefields. Secondly, I also take offense at those who impose their own 21st century values on this period (its also pointless and kind of boring). And finally, ALL Americans (all Westerners for that matter) were racists, even many abolitionists harbored views on race that will make you cringe.

That being said, this article is dead-on: the most consistent cause Southerners fought for was the preservation of slavery and white-supremacy. I recently finished reading Joseph Glatthaar's masterful study, General Lee's Army, and he argues that 4 out of every 9 soldiers in the ANV came from slave holding families and 37% either owned slaves or their parents did. That's a staggering figure. For the recruits in '61, over half of them came from slave holding families. Glatthaar also argues that non-slaveholders (and this article states as well) had the most at stake in the preservation of slavery: it automatically places you ahead of the third of the population in the South despite how poor you might be. These men had a deep vested interested interest in the preservation of slavery---without a shadow of a doubt. Their very livelihood was at stake! Of course there were other reasons (defense of home, brotherhood in the ranks, state's rights, etc.), but slavery was the primary, over-arching cause. Does this belittle these men or their honor, of course not!

And for the record, I would definitely consider myself a 'Gentleman of the South'…who currently resides in Canada

Their motivation was a simple as they viewed an invasion by the North.

Yup, but understandable doesn't mean "right".

Plenty of young men were ready to defend Nazi Germany and Taliban Afghanistan from American "invaders" as well, but I don't consider them to be noble warriors in a just cause.

So yes, as a Southerner raised in Virginia on nostalgia for "The Cause", I say, understandable, yes, but that's not necessarily a justification.

Heck, this isn't even a case of "well, they just didn't know better then, so who are we to judge?" This was not an illiterate, uneducated culture, and it was no secret that we were practicing a particularly brutal form of slavery. This wasn't indentured servanthood or a "mixed blessing" to slaves by any stretch of the imagination, no matter how many anecdotal tales of the "faithful Negro" folks like to trot out.

a way of life that modern morality deems to be wrong

Enough people back then thought so or at least didn't like the way it affected the growth of the country that they elected a president who was against the continued growth of slavery. His election was the reason that the states seceded and hence the cause of all the bloodshed. It wasn't just about tariffs.

It all comes down to this Clause in the Confederate Constitution:
(4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.

Hi Nashville; also remember, the Confederate Constitution did not allow for states to secede from the Confederacy! What happened to "States Rights"? Best, Lowell

Here is the bigger picture. Duty and self sacrifice are beyond the meager paradigms of people like Hall and Glatthaar. The cannot understand how some guy on a farm who doesn't own slaves will fight for the Confederacy. They then find some link, no matter how thin, to soldiers and slavery.

For Hall it is this that the soldiers thought that they would be slave holders some day. I've read this argument before from different writers for about the past five years now. There isn't very much evidence from actual Soldiers.

Glatthaar links it back to families. Most families that did own slave only owned one or two. Considering the absolute misery of war that soldiers endure it hardly seems worth it to keep that one slave. Potentially losing your children you send off to war hardly seems worth that either.

"Plenty of young men were ready to defend Nazi Germany and Taliban Afghanistan from American 'invaders' as well…"

Okay, first most of the Taliban were foreign fighters. They were and still are religious zealots.

Most Germans soldiers defended Hitler first and Germany second. They were heavily indoctrinated into Nazi ideology. We know this because most surviving soldiers tell us this in post war interviews.

Not the same as Confederate soldiers fighting an invasion force.

Battle Phlox wrote, "Duty and self sacrifice are beyond the meager paradigms of people like Hall and Glatthaar.' I don't know these people. Indeed, I don't know Battle Phlox. But I can recognize a desperate ad hominem attack. If you don't like the argument, attack the messenger.

And yet every point that Battle Phlox (above) brings up is directly refuted by the source material in the article, the pro-slavery booklet by DeBow from 1860. He certainly thought so: "The non-slaveholder knows that as soon as his savings will admit, he can become a slaveholder, and thus relieve his wife from the necessities of the kitchen and the laundry, and his children from the labors of the field."

Did actual Confederate privates plan to buy slaves just as soon as they'd won the war? Nobody can really assess this. Were they part – however poor – of a ruling white elite? Of course they were.

Battle Phlox wrote, "Glatthaar links it back to families. Most families that did own slave only owned one or two. Considering the absolute misery of war that soldiers endure it hardly seems worth it to keep that one slave. Potentially losing your children you send off to war hardly seems worth that either"

Ok, just because you deem that it wasn't worth risking your life for doesn't mean that it wasn't for them. He doesn't present a "meager paradigm" as you state, he bases his arguments of fact and primary accounts from the soldiers themselves. The simple fact is slavery and white supremacy was the foundation of their livelihood. Yes, of course they were willing to die for that cause!

Frankly, I don't understand how people have the audacity to make moral judgments on them (or compare them to Nazis and terrorists!). Its pointless and even a blatant case of hubris. Of course we don't agree with their values on race (or immigration, or the treatment of women, or Native Americans, etc., etc.) It was a different age--why cast our own 21st century values on them and then get upset when they don't measure up to that standard.

Also, I don't know about other Confederate armies, but the ANV had a significant percentage of men who came from planter families (20 or more slaves)--it was about 1 of 5 of the slave holding families (which is 44% of Lee's army) were classified as in the planter class. Yes, these soldiers definitely had a stake in the preservation of slavery.

This was not an illiterate, uneducated culture,

Well that's an assumption.

Not to defend the slavery issue at all, but the anti-slavery position was a very new one in the world, all things considered. Slavery was in the world since the days of the pharaohs, and probably before, and most of Europe's underclass were effectively slaves (that's basically what "serf" means) until the 1500s or even later, and slavery as slavery was a multiracial thing well into the 18th century. Black slavery only really came about as the dominant form due to the advent of cheap cross-Atlantic transport and the willingness of unscrupulous traders to take advantage of tribal warfare practices in Africa, and buy the captives of the tribal victors, or seize technologically inferior people themselves. The view that slavery was morally repulsive was not a universal one at the time, with Great Britain only outlawing the practice themselves less than half a century before. As it is, even today there are cultures that do not see slavery as evil, even though we in the West now mutually agree on that point. So to suggest that people were in denial has more than a bit of hubris in it. Will one day some generation look back at us and ask how we could accept this or that practice as anything other than evil, even though we are an "educated culture?" No doubt. And no doubt it won't be any of the things we are arguing about today, either. After all, in the 1860s women could be beaten by their husbands and children could be legally whipped with leather straps, and that was practically worldwide and often unremarked upon, where today we (rightfully) see these actions as the most horrendous abuse.

As for the South, whole regions even in the "deep" South neither held slaves nor supported the secessionist Rebels. Middle and eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina, northwestern Georgia and north central and northeastern Alabama heavily favored the Union, even sending their own volunteer companies to serve in the Union army (among them the 1st Alabama Union Cavalry, largely from Winston County, which even held a convention to argue for seceding from Alabama!) All told, over half a million Southerners, white and black, volunteered to fight for the Union army. Imagine what would have happened if that body of men had swung their allegiance the other way!

After the war, of course, economic chaos came in. Now free, but in need of providing for themselves and their families, former slaves formed an immense labor pool, depressing wages at every level in the South. Such a result was inevitable, but I seriously doubt that even the average rank-and-file non-slaveholding soldier had any notion of the potential for their own economic downfall. To suggest that the average Southern laborer or family farmer had any notion of such concepts as wage depression (or any other economic concept) is to be stretching things quite beyond credulity. (Heck, even highly educated people today seem a bit dim on similar economic concepts.)

No, in the average non-slaveholder, what you have is most likely a person who "knew" that blacks were his intellectual, cultural and social inferior, and that his own role was to be above them in the hierarchy of things, even if he was just a dirt-poor hillbilly. So the notion that he was fighting "for" slavery is a false one. Some might have had some inkling that their social status was in danger, without really understanding the specifics as to why, or may even have thoroughly believed that a freed slave was an uncontrolled weapon of mass destruction, likely to rampage with wanton slaughter and rapine-- as much a "savage" in America as (it was assumed) their racial contemporaries were in Africa, or as the western Indians, or any other racial group you could name from any supposedly "inferior" culture of the day (as generally viewed by most in the West, whether America or Europe or anywhere else). But most were fighting because they had a notion that the North was trying to force laws on them which suited Northern preferences but not their own. That slavery was at the heart of the "States Rights" issue was true enough, and significant, but more than anything for the average rank and filer, the issue was most likely to be the case of "some Yankee trying to tell me how I have to live," and the fear of what that change might mean than anything else. Too, there was the inevitable irritation of a region which had dominated national politics for over half a century, and now found itself facing a power change to the region it had once dominated so completely. So basically, you have a South that's collectively trying to "take their ball and go home," while you have a North finally glad to be lined up for a winning score and saying that "the game ain't over." And the ball in the middle turns out to be the slave.

Is slavery a stain on the honor of the South? Of course it is, else some would not be concerned about whether it is or isn't. But all cultures have stains, be they racism, sexism, totalitarianism, classism, tribalism, you-pick-an-ism. Name any culture on the planet, and they'll have their big, glaring dark mark, and probably more than one. Does this diminish the bravery of their warriors, or their loyalty to each other and their leaders, or their leaders' loyalty to them? Of course not. Most of the time a man pursues what he does because he believes he is right to do so (or at least not wrong), and men can defend ignoble things with nobility and honor themselves. Men can also fight for the right thing while encompassing in that fight a fight for the wrong things, even wrong things they know are wrong at the time, but weigh as lesser evils than the evil against which they fight. I see FDR, for example, as a political opportunist whose "New Deal" was nothing but pandering to the gullible, but his fight against Hitler and Japan rightfully clothes him with an honor I admire. The one does not stain the other for me, nor does the gross evil of segregation in the US Armed forces at the time take away from the honor of the men and women fighting against Nazi evil. Let's face it, human beings are, in general, an internal mess, seething with pettiness and prejudices, one way or another, yet also truly "a little lower than the angels," as well.

'Well, boy, if he's an angel, he's sure a murderin' angel.' — The Killer Angels, Michael Shaara

"But I recognize a desperate ad hominem attack." I chose those words for a reason. It is to explain that they are approaching the subject from a narrow view. If I wanted to attack them I would have used 'stupid' or 'limited intelligence'.

Hall's entire argument is found from one source, DeBow's booklet. First, I doubt if many Confederate soldiers read or had heard of DeBow. Not in the same way the Union Soldiers had heard of Harriet Beecher Stowe.

Second, Most of his argument was that plantations were expanding and that there would be growth. Fact is, the Southern economy was falling far behind the North. The big cash crop was cotton sold to European markets. Europe, however, was finding different sources of cotton.

"Did actual Confederate privates plan to buy slaves just as soon as they'd won the war? Nobody can really assess this." Hall certainly tried to make that point on one piece of evidence.

"…of a ruling white elite? Of course they were." I'm sorry but this just isn't true. There most certainly was a southern aristocracy. They didn't think the poor whites were their equals.

Most Germans soldiers defended Hitler first and Germany second. They were heavily indoctrinated into Nazi ideology. We know this because most surviving soldiers tell us this in post war interviews.

Not the same as Confederate soldiers fighting an invasion force.

Ideology is meaningless when a civilian is conscripted. That is something that bugs me about trying to ascribe a politician's ideology to a soldier's motivation. The average Confederate soldier fought for a variety of reasons, but most revolve around peer pressure and expectations of manhood. An illiterate farmer won't read the elaborate arguments of DeBow or Fitzhugh, but he will remember what the preacher or mayor said and use that information to make his decision. That doesn't mean that the preachers and mayors, along with the literate farmers, were not familiar with the intellectual defenders of slavery. The politicians most certainly knew the arguments well.

The same goes for the Germans. The various aspects of the tenets of National Socialism could motivate people to act (especially the generals and the civil governance), but at the end of the day the German soldiers fought because a conscription officer gave them the choice of service or execution, not because they had feelings one way or another about Lebensraum and the Treaty of Versailles.

"Did actual Confederate privates plan to buy slaves just as soon as they'd won the war? Nobody can really assess this." Hall certainly tried to make that point on one piece of evidence.

I'd say that is unlikely. The concept of "the poor man is just a temporarily-embarrassed millionaire" is a 20th Century invention. Society was stratified, and freed slaves would throw the lower orders into confusion.

For a history of the impact of slavery before and during the war both on the North and South, and a view of how Northern strategy regarding slaves and the impact it had on the South, I seriously recommend: "The Fall of the House of Dixie: The Civil War and the Social Revolution That Transformed the South"

link

One of the simpler explanations is the old "US vs Them", everyone knew that the Yankees were "bad people" threatening their way of life (and whatever definition they used) That's enough for some to pick up arms and fight.

Another was quite simply a sense of duty to your state, the confederacy or those friends who had enlisted (that, or peer pressure) …

There was in the South a collective belief that the future would unquestionably be better if only they separated from the Union. Many people wanted "change" without a clear idea of what this change would mean (most held to the belief of a better, brighter future), most knew that it probably involved slavery to some degree or another, even to those who did not support slavery who may have believed that the institution might improve or even go away over time.

Most people had been raised with stories about grandpa or great-grandpa during the revolution. To some people this might be the chance to live the adventure of a lifetime.

And last but not least the many who didn't even know why they joined and fought, but "thought it seemed a good idea at the time"

Slavery, ideology and politics might have been at the core but one might not find more difference between the beliefs of Jeferson Davis and those of Johnny Reb marching to battle and yet they "shared the same cause".

I don't think there is a golden answer or some uniformly monolithic belief all southerners shared that conveniently explains it.

I have no problems with the rank and file Confederate soldiers, whatever their motivation. They fought bravely and suffered greatly. What I DO have a problem with is all the post-war apologists who claim "It wasn't about slavery". Yes it was. It was entirely about slavery. The men who took the southern states out of the Union and formed the Confederacy said it was all about slavery and who are we to disagree?

As for the soldiers, I can only agree with Sherman's verdict: No soldiers ever fought more bravely-or for a worse cause.

You tell 'em, Scott.

Some points on arguments raised and I will be controversial.

1)Anti-slavery arguments are not forcing a 21st century mentality on the 19th century. The debate was raging there, and people had attacked slavery at least since antiquity. Except if you subscribe to the view that morality is what the majority decides it is, then as long as people back then thought slavery is immoral and as long as you agree with that view because of arguments and not numbers, then yes slavery was immoral and the brave southern soldier died and killed for a immoral purpose.It does not take away his bravery, but it does cast a shadow on what he did with that bravery.

2) In defense of his though, I believe that we can lay at rest the argument of literacy. There was that Strategy and Tactics article that pointed out the massive difference in literacy rates between the Confederate and Union armies. Simply put the average Johhny Reb was less literate than the average Billy Yankee. We can say that many more Southern soldiers had insufficient exposure to the debates on the issue than Northern soldiers. We know the North had a more vibrant political culture because of a more vibrant and larger popular press.

3) A bad cause does raise issues with honor. There is no escaping it. If one believes otherwise than one believes morality is secondary to attitude. One essentially believes a brave man in the service of immoral goals is the equal of a brave man in service of moral goals, and superior to a coward in service of moral goals.This is fine if one believes it, but I do no not.

4) The issue is not why they fought, but why they marched. And the fact that the principle of freedom to maintain slavery was a big deal can easily be shown by how fast many non-slave owning areas of the South soured to the war in the end essentially rebelling against the Confederacy or entered acts of civil disobedience (Northern Western Georgia comes to mind). Yes the North had the draft riots, but these are nothing compared to the situation in Florida, where whole parts of the state exited effective control of state and Confederate authorities.

5) The fact that the North had slave-owners and that the majority was racist does not excuse the Southern attitude on the matter.

In the end of the matter, the majority northern view was that slavery should not expand or survive. They resented the fugitive slave act (one of the most stupid things ever put into effect by the South), and while tolerant of slavery where it existed expected the Federal government to actively discourage its expansion or survival. And while they were racists they did not believe that their racism demanded that blacks be slaves.

The South disagreed on each of these fundamental issues. They believed slavery must expand, that it is the future, and that their racism demanded that slavery to be in existence.They fundamentally believed the federal government should encourage the survival and expansion of slavery.

Both racists, but massive differences on how that racism externalized.

6) And finally and most controversially. The whole invasion thing is getting old. Well the North was invaded before the war by slaveholders and their slavers posses. It was the South that first tried to impose its social system on the North-East and Midwest when it demanded the active collaboration of state governments and citizens in the Free states to support their preferred social institution of slavery via the abhorrent Fugitive Slave Acts.

No one should ever forget that the fugitive act was the first attempt by one of the two sides to change the existing status quo in existing and old states (as opposed to territories or new states). The South can present itself as a defender all it wants, but it was Southerners that first legally invaded quiet Massachusetts towns in search of free black people to enslave. I reckon that would make people up there less tolerant to the idea of slavery anywhere in the USA.

Not only that, but the North accepted this and did not secede. It should had done so in 1850. It will be forever a stain on the Union that people accepted such a preposterous legal invasion of their lives and communities.

But once it became clear to the South that their little legal invasion was going to be over with the Lincoln election, they decided to break.

You see the difference. The North sacrifices an important principle to maintain the unity of the USA, but the moment that South is faced with the possibility of such a sacrifice on its own part (not end of slavery in the South, but end of its expansion and end of the forced collaboration of the North in maintaining it) they go off and secede.

And I tell you what. If the South had never pushed for the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 or expansion of slavery outside the extant slave states, the civil war would never have happened. It brought slavery to the very core of the North and galvanized opposition to it.

So do not tell me that they were defending against an invasion when for 11 years the South was bringing slavery again to where it had been stamped out for 20 or 50 years. You cannot violate the communal life of people for 11 years and then claim foul when that is coming to an end. I am sorry but you cannot.

Brave people, yes. Foolish and fighting for a bad cause. Also yes.

I will happily collect and paint Confederate armies. I will even hoot and cheer when I win a battle using them. I will happily play ACW battles with any person who can separate their politics from the game. I will always feel for George Pickett in the movie Gettysburg, and indeed even cheer Armistead as he leads his men and boys forward through a hail of fire. But I will never stop thinking sadly how better it would had been if these brave men had died for a more worthy cause, and the Battle Flag of the Confederacy was not mired in the mud of slavery. It does not make me angry, only sad, so very sad. But the apologists do anger me. Like that guy in Chickamauga National Park who was berating the Park Ranger about how the "darkies" (his words) had it better under slavery. As long as such people exist, I will not ever be silent reminding how bad the cause of the confederacy was. How unfair its policy was, and who was the first aggressor in this tragic fight.

It did not have to be this way. Brazil ended slavery without fighting a civil war. The United Kingdom did so also. But you must first accept that slavery must end and that the South never accepted. Expand it to the new territories, expand it to the Caribbean, expand it into the North though laws like the Fugitive Slave Act. And then they wonder why Lincoln won in 1861 in a fair and free election.

I do apologize, I am ranting. The ACW was the first war I ever really got into it, the first event I saw as an American as opposed to a Greek, and the debates and ideas in enasculpates are grand and ever important. Hell when I was in Greece I went though a pro-confederate phase (when I saw Gettysburg first, and also influence by the passive aggressive anti-Americanism of my fellow students), before getting back to a proper Unionist perspective.

Very well said KTravlos and Scott. Kudos.

+1 to what Scott and KTravlos have said. Trying to pretend the war wasn't about slavery, and slavery wasn't a major motivating factor (for or against) for many of the folks involved, and that the south wasn't in fact aggressively pushing a pro-slavery agenda on the north is an exercise in creative historical revisionism.

-Will

Well said Scott and KTravlos. I'm an Englishman and don't have a horse in this race. That said, I'm glad that the British suppressed the transatlantic slave trade and ended slavery.

I has said that the English Civil War of the 1640s had two sides one "Wrong but Romantic," the other "Right but Repulsive." Kevin Phillips in "The Cousins Wars" draws parallels between the two conflicts. Guess which side the South gets cast in.

Dear 138SquardonRAF

Why bring this up? What's your purpose. It seems your trolling for an argument. Well, you got what you came for. So you took an argument from over 150 years ago out of a culture that is long gone and slapped it up on the walls and challenged "gentlemen of the south" to defend it. First of all there are no "gentlemen of the South" left, at least not those that were so called at the time of the article.

Why did the rest of you rise to the bait?

Any historian worth his sault knows that you can't hold up a particular historical period to any standards but its own. If you do then all you're doing is looking for an excuse to condemn others (who are not part of the culture and likely don't sympathize with it) or you're looking to thump your chest or pat your own back as to what a great fellow you are. If you're going to criticize the past all you can do is criticize it by its own criteria.

Congratulations Parzival and K Travlos. You have written excellent monographs on the period and the issue but they will miss the point. The point here is not to debate but to excoriate. By the way, may I keep them in my files and notes on the period? They are excellent.

Parsival makes a point I have said in a different way for years.

Anyone who is a trained and conscientious historian knows that we historians are nothing but the coroner of the crimes of humanity, the doxographers of the demonic. We know that no one, NO ONE, no state, people, religion, group, army, organization, club or person has clean hands. There is blame and guilt enough or all. No one comes out of history clean. The benefit of history is not in being able to thump our chest or pat ourselves on the back, but rather to exemplify and demonstrate the moral lesions of what we ought not to do and what we should do. What we have done is not nearly so important as to what we will and ought to do.

What is in play here is simply beating your great grandfathers bones to get a rise out of you. What Granddad may or may not have done was Granddad's. He did what he did and that is that. It's a way to get people who may love and remember his granddad with fondness to hyperventilate. The aim isn't by the way to insult your granddad- it's to insult you and start an argument.

That whole idea of "we're only fighting because you're down here" is ridiculous. They were only "down here" because the Confederates were fighting.

I recently finished reading Joseph Glatthaar's masterful study

That's – Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia: A Statistical Portrait of the Troops Who Served Under Robert E. Lee – for those who don't know and it is indeed well worth the reading time.

There's also an interesting correlation in it showing the high casualty rate among those who were slave owners, or whose families owned slaves, compared to the rest of the army.

Why not throw some gasoline on the fire.

1. I doubt DeBow had any real idea of what typical non-slave owning southern whites thought. For those with certain agendas though, writings like DeBow's are the equivalent of neo-confederates finding blacks who volunteered for the Confederate army, or who owned slaves.

2. There is a difference between being pro-slavery and anti-abolition. Emancipation in place of the slave population posed a social, political and economic risk to non-slave owning whites. While non-slave owning whites might not favor slavery in theory, they could find the alternative of emancipation in place even less desirable.

3. Support for secession over slavery was not overwhelming in the south, even in 1860. Confederate leaders assumed support for independence would increase if war broke out and the Confederacy was invaded. Certain northern leaders such as Seward feared the same thing. They proved correct.

OShmidt. Sure feel free to keep it, and keep it with my name. If you want I can give you some background about me, so as to put it in context. I do hope I am fair to the South as much as I can, and that I do try to make arguments that are based on how people thought about them then, though I probably fail.

I did take part in the conversation because of the classical conceit that my opinion is worth anything :p And it is an issue that fires me up. To be frank the Greek Civil War has many of the same dynamics of memory, but due to social conditioning and schooling we do not debate it. So the US civil war was for me always "The Civil War". To this day I consider it one of the most important wars in the history of humanity.

Why did the rest of you rise to the bait?

Because the posted article raises some perfectly valid questions (who supported slavery, why did they support slavery, etc) that are worth discussing? It's not a matter of criticizing the past, it's about discussing the particulars of it.

-Will

Dear K. Travlos

Please, send it to me at sigurd@eclipse.net If I use it or a quote from it I'd like to give proper attribution.

Trajanus, I was initially referring to Glatthaar's narrative study, "General Lee's Army--From Victory to Collapse" but then I did draw info from the statistical companion that you correctly mentioned. Which I certainly agree is a very excellent study as well (although to be honest, I merely skimmed through that volume). I think both of the those books are among the most significant studies to emerge in the past decade or so.

I would suggest that everyone read William Freehling's "Road to Disunion". He very thoroughly documents the attitudes of Southern society in the ante-bellum period and comes to the conclusion that, except in the back country, poor whites did indeed favor slavery and did consider themselves the equals of their slave-owning neighbors.

OSchmidt: feel free to keep, use, and quote.
And a "well said" to you as well.

For me, I hold that the following statements are 100% true and not contradictory:

The Confederacy was thoroughly wrong in its reasoning, motivations and actions, both morally, culturally, legally and politically.
Yet many Southern soldiers and officers fought for noble and honorable reasons, and in honorable and commendable ways.
The wise man can see and understand that these two views are not in conflict.
The foolish man confuses the two, either by vilifying those who were not villains, or ennobling that which was never noble. And the very foolish man assumes that people today who honor what was noble must all still hold to whatever was not.

I also recommend William Freehling's books. In addition to exploring Southern attitudes toward slavery, he demolishes the whole "Northern Aggression" argument. He shows how over the years Southern politicians had chipped away at Northern rights through things like the Gag Rule, censorship of the mail, suppression of a free press, the Fugitive Slave Act and the Dredd Scott Decision. In many way the election of 1860 was a Northern revolt against Southern aggression.

Trajanus, I was initially referring to Glatthaar's narrative study, "General Lee's Army--From Victory to Collapse"

That's what happens when you jump to conclusions. You quoted numbers and Glatthaar and "Soldiering in the Army of Northern Virginia" is a book of numbers.

In this case 2+2=5!

Apologies!

In many way the election of 1860 was a Northern revolt against Southern aggression.

Interesting angle Scott. I can certainly see where you are coming from in terms of Southern Democrat influence.

This is always a complex and volatile topic. Allow me to add one observation. IMO, the American Civil War WAS at root fought over slavery. The issue of States' Rights orbited around the question of slavery. But to cease examination of the question at that point perhaps misses the essence of the issue. The economic life and health of the South was founded upon cotton agriculture; the South was essentially a cotton-based mono-economy. Sale of cotton to the textile industry was immensely profitable, but the raising of cotton, like sugar cane in the W Indies, was utterly reliant upon huge amounts of manual labor – even after the introduction of the cotton gin. It is impossible to grasp the importance of cotton without an appreciation for the scale of the global textile trade; mass production and commercial sale of textiles was a huge industry – born from the technological advances of the 19th century machine age in much the same way as the computer industry sprang forth from the new technology of the digital age. In 1860, the American South was the colossus of cotton producers, with something like 80 pct of global production and providing the best quality of raw cotton for industrial applications. A look at the economic output of the South as a share of the US national economic output during this period is quite illuminating.

No slaves = a collapse in cotton production = a collapse in the mono-economy of the South. Slavery was always related to economics. A parallel can be seen in the British relationship to slavery, which was adopted without comment to serve the (also immensely profitable) West Indian sugar industry. At one point, the Leeward and Windward Island were the most expensive commercial properties on earth because of their sugar cane. When industrious German chemists learned how to economically extract sugar from beets, the price of sugar collapsed, the West Indian sugar cane plantations were no longer viable, the economic importance of slavery evaporated and it suddenly became possible to ban it on moral grounds.

As for the South, it was back on top as the top world producer of cotton by the 1870's, having replaced the institution of slavery with that of share-cropping. "King Cotton" was not just an empty phrase.

B

Oschmidt I sent you an email

Blutarski. Without question you raise an excellent point. But you understand I believe that most social restrictions serve basically economic goals.To say that the fight was over slavery does not hide the fact that slavery was important because it was central to the economic life of the south, which in turn was the foundation of the culture of the south.

Thank you for bringing this back up

"When industrious German chemists learned how to economically extract sugar from beets, the price of sugar collapsed, the West Indian sugar cane plantations were no longer viable, the economic importance of slavery evaporated and it suddenly became possible to ban it on moral grounds."

Just so and so often overlooked.

I would add to KT's point "most social restrictions serve basically economic goals" and reflect the interests of the ruling class. Slavery was essential to the economic wellbeing of the South's ruling class and so was central to why the war was fought.

Dear Parzival.

thanks, I find that such monographs are very useful.

Thanks for the kind words.

You say. "For me, I hold that the following statements are 100% true and not contradictory:

The Confederacy was thoroughly wrong in its reasoning, motivations and actions, both morally, culturally, legally and politically.
Yet many Southern soldiers and officers fought for noble and honorable reasons, and in honorable and commendable ways.
The wise man can see and understand that these two views are not in conflict.
The foolish man confuses the two, either by vilifying those who were not villains, or ennobling that which was never noble. And the very foolish man assumes that people today who honor what was noble must all still hold to whatever was not."

Very true. All I can add to that is that we can know history but we cannot know the future. Further, by imposing upon the persons of the past a causal factor that is not there we destroy history. In this respect I am talking about the theory of forces of history which compel men to act as if they were just corks floating on the swells of an ocean driven by deep seated currents. A dangerous, and in fact, slovenly analysis.

People do things for all sorts of reasons and not because history ells them to or the ontological principle tells them to or love or God or anything. The soldiers of the Civil War were swept into the ranks by enthusiasm, the idea or perceived insult, for their friends and family which they saw threatened, or by pure sex- they didn't want their girl to think less of them. My own examinsations and study show that the chaotic, the emotional, the passions, have far more to do with human actions than anything else.

The problem with this is that human actions therefore are not predictable, and even more remote from us because we were not there and can never be there. We cannot get into the mind of people and people can act honorably in the worst of causes and even the worst of people can act nobly at times and the most noble act meanly and basely.

If you want predictability and order study physics or geology.

Human society and human beings are disorganized, dirty, and lethal. Human society is messy. Only rarely is their logic, predictability, or the like. We are driven by passions. And that's the problem. We cannot access the "passions" of the human mind leading up to the Civil War Years. We can know it and understand it, and describe it and dissect them, but we cannot FEEL them we cannot live them We can only know our own.

Dear K Travlos

Thanks. Got it.

I disagree with you on the economic base of social restrictions but that is an argument for another day.

and actions, both morally, culturally, legally and politically.
Yet many Southern soldiers and officers fought for noble and honorable reasons, and in honorable and commendable ways.
The wise man can see and understand that these two views are not in conflict.
The foolish man confuses the two, either by vilifying those who were not villains, or ennobling that which was never noble. And the very foolish man assumes that people today who honor what was noble must all still hold to whatever was not.

Do note I said most, not all. Disagree you can, but the indicators for it are out there. If that were not the case economic changes should not affect social structures. And yet most of the time they do.

"Human society and human beings are disorganized, dirty, and lethal. Human society is messy. Only rarely is their logic, predictability, or the like. We are driven by passions."

I must disagree. Yes human affairs have a major stochastic factor, and to a greater degree than physics, but we do have social life, the world is not one of unending chaos at all times, and most of the time the majority of people behave in quite predictable ways. If that was not the case you would not engage in social life without first renegotiating every day that engagement.

We are creatures of both habit and passion. Both rationality and irrationality. We can study that part of us that is rational and habitual. All this means is that we can never say this will determine the outcome, only that there is x probability that there will be this outcome. The social world is probabilistic not impossible to predict. It just means that one needs to be more humble.

Of course I am biased since I am a political scientist. But just as your studies might lead you to see chaos everywhere and a lack of patterns, well mine show patterns and choices that cannot be just ascribed to passion. We have become increasingly better at predicting political events (Political Scientists have done excellent compared to pundits in predicting the last 6-10 elections in the US). Bruce Bueno De Mesquita's predictions are good enough that corporations and governments continue forking the equivalent of half a million dollars to him a year.

You will never have the actual cases be exactly the same with the statistical average. But most will hover around it.

But this is taking the topic tooo far away.

On topic:
"Yet many Southern soldiers and officers fought for noble and honorable reasons, and in honorable and commendable ways."

And yet when, whatever your reasons your actions also promote an immoral and despicable cause, can you be excused on the basis that at least you were fighting for a honorable personal reason? I fear that would be too much of a deontological ethical view point. But I am consequentialist.

You may had fought for your liberty, your lands,family, sweetheart, your friends, manly honor, or even just adventure lust. Slavery or the southern economic system could be beyond your thought. And yet that was the system your bayonets carried and defended. Can you really excuse yourself? A tought nut to crack and a lot depend on ones personal view on the deonotlogy vs. consequentianalism debate.

Are good reasons that lead to evil results excusable?

There are several books that mine the letters of soldiers from both sides concerning why they fought:

link

What They Fought For by James McPherson is good.

And then there are the declarations of independence from the Confederate states outlining why they were seceding.

link

Alexander Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy in his "Corner Stone Speech" also outlines 'why we fight' and the reasons for secession. He also details what he sees as the economics of the situation too.

link

The rationales of both soldiers and leadership were overtly declared. No mystery there.