Lincoln's election & the secession of the deep south

Hey! Sorry I haven't posted for a few days, I've mostly been busy focusing on revision for other exams. Also, sorry for the fact that I'm not posting things in chronological order or in the order I said I would post them; I have notes on lots of stuff before the time period of this blog post, but I want to cover everything at least once in my own revision first before I go back and look over old stuff. But I promise that posts on the impact of the Mexican war and the nature of southern slavery etc are coming soon! Anyways, today I am going to be writing about the 1860 election and it's aftermath, namely, the secession of the deep south (i.e the seven original confederate states).

The 1860 election

The events of the 1850' s had greatly heightened and aggravated tensions between the North and South of the US, with events such as the Dred Scott case, the Kansas Nebraska Act, bleeding Kansas, the FSA, bleeding Sumner, and Buchanan's presidency exacerbating the situation. In 1860, there were 33 states in the Union, 15 slave and 18 free, tipping the political power balance in favour of the North. Many southerners suspected that most northerners held abolitionist views, and the prospect of a republican victory in the election filled them with dread and anger. If a Republican were to become president, then plenty of southerners were prepared to consider the possibility of secession. 

If the republicans were to be defeated, it was essential for southerners that the internal rifts within the democratic party should be healed. The democrats were the singular national institution which could prevent a sectional rupture in 1860. Another victory by a candidate who was supported by both northerners and southerners would have kept the south in power in Washington and bolstered the position of southern unionists. But when the Democratic convention met in Charleston in April 1860, this last bond of Union finally ruptured. With Kansas' application for statehood still blocked in Congress by wrangling over the legitimacy of the pro-slavery Lecompton constitution, the delegates bitterly fought over the issue, with southerners demanding not only the immediate admission of Kansas as a slave state, but also that Congress should pass a federal slave code for the territories.
Southerners promoted the candidacy of vice president John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, a fervent supporter of the Lecompton constitution, whilst most northern democrats championed Stephen Douglas, firm supporter of popular sovereignty. Each side was convinced, with some justification , that the nomination of the other's candidate would be electoral suicide in their own section. There was an impasse and the convention met again 6 weeks later in Baltimore, where the party officially split into two sides. A group of southern delegates broke off and nominated Breckinridge on a pro-southern rights platform, whilst the remaining delegates - mostly northerners and a few from deep southern states - nominated Douglas on a platform of pro-popular sovereignty. 

The republican party platform was more moderate than  it had been in 1856. They condemned John Brown's raid, and a provocative reference to slavery as a relic of barbarism was removed. In an effort to broaden their base, the republicans courted the economic interests of different regional groups, such as supporting a tariff on imported goods in order to protect US industry, an issue that was especially vital in Pennsylvania, a key electoral state. The nomination of Lincoln rather than Seward was part of the same strategy of broadening appeal. Their platform also called for a northern transcontinental railway, and for free 160-acre homesteads for western settlers. They were neutral in terms of nativist issues - which had not disappeared since the demise of the know-nothings - meaning that anti-catholic northerners had little option but to vote republican, if only because the democrat party remained the home of Irish and German Catholics. In terms of slavery, the republican platform was not an abolitionist one, but an anti-slave power one. Lincoln called for slavery not to be expanded westwards, not for abolition; this was exactly the same stance that Douglas took. However, a vote for Lincoln was a vote against the slave power. Republicans mobilised many young voters, including many British and some German migrants. Unlike southern radicals, republicans cast their sectionalism as nationalism. Without the burden of having to placate a southern wing, they could do this with a clarity that none of the other parties could match. 

A group of former Whigs and Know-Nothings formed the 'Constitutional Unionist Party' and nominated John Bell of Tennessee on a  platform that avoided specific pledges but placed itself firmly in the compromise tradition of Henry Clay. Their main strength lay in the upper south, and the party wanted to remove the slavery question from the political sphere, thus reliving sectional strife. 

The democratic split of 1860 is often considered to have ensured republican success. However in actuality, even without the split, the republicans, who simply had to carry the north, was odds-on favourite to win. Even if the democrats had pulled off a nationally united campaign, Lincoln would probably still have won. In fact, the split might have even slightly weakened the republicans, as the fact that Douglas could now campaign in the north without having to try and maintain a national democratic party cause (which, at this point in time, would have been very difficult) probably helped Douglas. Nonetheless, the republicans were the ones to secure a victory in November. Lincoln polled 54% of the vote in the free states and took the Electoral College votes of every free state except for New Jersey, Oregon, and California. Although nationwide he won only 40% of the vote, he had a clear majority in the Electoral College. The election reflected the depths of sectional polarisation; it had not been, in any genuine sense, a national campaign. Lincoln and Douglas had contested the free states and Bell and Breckinridge the slave states. Lincoln was not even on the ballot paper in most slave states. The election was proof, if any were needed, that not only was the nation divided but that the south was now in a minority. Northerners had just demonstrated that they could select a president without any regard to southern opinion. 


Secession

Rationally, there were excellent reasons for why Lincoln's election should not have sparked southern secession: 

• Lincoln had promised that he would not interfere with slavery in the states where it existed. 
• Even if Lincoln did harbour secret ambitions to abolish slavery, there was little he could do about it; the republicans did not control congress or the supreme court. 
• Secession would mean abandoning an enforceable fugitive slave law; thus, slaves would be able to flee northwards. 
• Secession might lead to civil war, which would threaten slavery far more than Lincoln's election (as it did).

However, few southerners regarded things so diplomatically. Most were outraged that an anti-slavery northerner had managed to become president, in spite of winning no states in the south. None of the southern states had voted Lincoln in; in 10/15, he did not gain a single vote. In the south he was depicted as a rabid abolitionist who would encourage slave insurrections. He would certainly stop slavery expansion. Southerners felt that they would thus be encircled by more free states formed from the western territories and that, ultimately, slavery would be voted out of existence in the US. Southerners felt deeply degraded by the north. They believed that they had been denied their fair share of the western territories and unfairly taxed through high tariffs to subsidise northern industry. Southerners felt they had had enough, and thus, honour demanded that a stand should be taken against the election of Lincoln, which they considered to be an outrage. Across the south, fire-eaters, who for years had agitated for the cause of southern secession and independence, capitalised on the sectional mood. They had lingered on the fringes of southern politics for years, and now, suddenly found themselves supported by 'mainstream' southern politicians. To nobody surprise, South Carolina was the first state to make a move. On November 9th, only two days after the election results, the South Carolina legislature called for elections to a secession convention, which would be met in December to decide whether the state would secede from the Union. This triggered a chain reaction across the deep south. Individual states initially committed themselves to individual action, but it was clear that southerners were also committed to joint action. On 20th December, the SC convention voted 169 to 0 for secession. The state defended its action, claiming that: 

• "A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the states north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of president of the US whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery."

By February 1, 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had all passed secession laws similar to South Carolina's. By February 9, commissioners from the 7 seceded states, meeting in Montgomery, Alabama, had adopted a provisional constitution, with Jefferson Davis becoming the provisional president. 

Republicans saw events in the south as a continuation of the slave power conspiracy. They claimed that a few wealthy planters had conned the electorate into voting for secession, to which most southerners were not truly committed. 
The debate about whether secession was led by an aristocratic clique or whether it was a genuinely democratic act has continued. Slaveholders certainly dominated politics in many of the deep southern states. Apart from Texas, no state held a referendum on the secession issue. Areas with few slaves tended to vote against disunion, whereas areas where secession support was highest also had the highest proportions of slaves. 
According to historian David Potter, "to a much greater degree than the slaveholders desired, secession had become a slave owners movement". Potter believed that a secessionist, powerful, influential and wealthy minority had, with a clear purpose, seized the momentum and, at a time of excitement and confusion, won mass support. 

Nonetheless, Potter accepted that secessionists acted democratically and in a clear and open manner. Many non-slaveholders supported secession, nor did all the wealthy slaveholders support it; there was no conspiracy to thwart the will of the majority. Thus, it appears that secession was what southerners truly wanted in 1861.