Balkinization: Secession Winter Revisited

Secession Winter Revisited

Mark Graber

Most commentary indicates that the interval between the Lincoln election and Lincoln inauguration was a disaster for American politics. This consensus supports claims that the Constitution ought to be amended (or perhaps replaced entirely) to ensure a faster transition. I wonder whether the secession winter teaches that lesson, at least as clearly as some commentary suggests. Consider the following claim that Buchanan was not doing nothing or maintaining a failed policy that had been repudiated by the electorate. Instead, he may have been following a strategy that had been successful in the past.

The events of 1860 were not completely unprecedented. Andrew Jackson, Buchanan's idol, had to deal with the nullification crisis. By most accounts, Jackson did a good job resolving this crisis His strategy, Richard Ellis argues in his terrific THE UNION AT RISK, was to isolate South Carolina. Jackson did so by appeasing on crucial issues the other states opposed to protecting tariffs who might be inclined to line up with South Carolina. The Force Act aside (other than that, Ms.Lincoln), Jackson's main thrust was to promote a revised tariff that would halt any additional southern support for nullification. Jackson's idea was simple. Nullification was not viable if South Carolina stood alone.

Buchanan was faced with a similar problem in 1860, although admittedly a more difficult one. His strategy was not dilatory. Rather, he did pretty much what Jackson did successfully in 1832. He sought first to minimize the damage. The theory may have been pretty simple, although this is pure speculation on my part. Secession may have been viable in the long run only if Virginia, Tennessee, and other middle south states joined in. The longer Virginia stayed out, the more likely a Union preserving compromise. In short, any compromise that holds Virginia may in the long run have made the secession crisis goes away.

Lincoln's strategy was quite different. His goal, as Kenneth Stampp details, was to initiate a Civil War in such a way as to keep Kentucky and Maryland in the Union. Essentially, and for all practical purposes, Lincoln from day one abandoned the "keep Virginia in" strategy. Notice, however, Lincoln could not possibly have claimed a mandate for preferring Civil War to a proslavery compromise. He repeatedly insisted on the campaign trail that secession would not take place after he was elected. Lincoln's policies appear more successful than Buchanan's only if we assume the Civil War was inevitable, that Virginia was inevitably going to leave the Union, so that the only reasonable strategies were aimed at keeping Kentucky in the Union. But other assumptions were reasonable in 1860 and Buchanan's strategy may have been reasonable in light of those assumptions.

In short, secession winter did not witness the maintenance of a failed policy that had been repudiated by the electorate, but an inherited strategy for dealing with Union threatening controversies without violence. A good case can be made that violence was justified to free slaves, even if the success of the violence was uncertain. Still, given Lincoln insisted that violence would never take place, Buchanan can hardly be accused of ignoring the mandate of the 1860 election.

Posted 8:31 PM by Mark Graber [link]

Comments:

I think there are several responses to this.

First, there's a significant difference between nullifying a single act of Congress and leaving the Union entirely. That suggests that the same strategy would not be appropriate.

Second, Buchanan could not and did not succeed in isolating SC. Six states had seceeded by January 31, 1861, and Texas left soon after. I see no reason to believe that those seven geographically contiguous states wouldn't have been able to form a long-lived confederacy of their own.

Third, Jackson was successful at arranging a compromise in Congress (Jackson as hard man, Clay as soft). Buchanan was unable to find any compromise strategy which Congress would adopt.

Fourth, Buchanan's negligence led to such failures as The Star of the West and John Floyd's outright treason.

Fifth, the only way to keep VA in the Union, it turned out, was to do nothing in response to the surrender of Fort Sumter. That hardly seems like a viable strategy, nor one the Northern public would have accepted.

As for Lincoln's strategy, he communicated regularly with pseudo-Unionists in the VA convention. Given that VA voted to leave the Union just 4 days after Fort Sumter surrendered, it seems awfully harsh to say that Lincoln gave up on VA "on day 1".

Given the larger context of the discussion here, I'll also note that FDR didn't campaign on the WPA or any other acts of the Hundred Days. Instead, he promised to balance the budget. In that sense, we might also say that Hoover didn't "ignore the mandate of the election".

# posted by

Mark Field : 12:18 AM

"Given the larger context of the discussion here, ... " let's go back to the 2000 campaign of George W as the "uniter, not a divider," "compassionate conservatism" and not looking for international conflicts for spreading democracy. Shit happens that a candidate has no control over. One hopes, however, that the successful candidate reacts appropriately. Let's focus on the last 8 years in comparison to what Lincoln faced and did, what FDR faced and did. It is much more difficult revising the last 8 years that we have lived through despite the recent legacy efforts of George W and his minions as they dump 8 years of problems on President Elect Obama.

# posted by

Shag from Brookline : 5:49 AM

Hasn't there already been a constitutional amendment to shorten the transition in response to the problems (allegedly) caused by the Lincoln and FDR transitions? So even if these transitions were as bad as conventional wisdom would have it, that doesn't tell us much about whether the transition should be shortened further.

# posted by

mls : 4:49 PM

The original post said,
>>>>>> Essentially, and for all practical purposes, Lincoln from day one abandoned the "keep Virginia in" strategy. <<<<<<<

That's just plain wrong -- Lincoln didn't just hope that Virginia and North Carolina would remain neutral, but hoped that both states would supply troops to help invade the Confederacy. The governors of both states refused.

>>>>>>A good case can be made that violence was justified to free slaves, even if the success of the violence was uncertain. <<<<<<

That's easy to say if you are not one of the victims of such violence.

No one foresaw that the Civil War would end slavery.

The already-weak notion that slavery was the sole or primary cause of secession should have ended when the seceded states ignored the Corwin amendment, an irrevocable constitutional amendment that Congress submitted to the states for ratification, which would have permanently barred the federal government from interfering with slavery in the states.

# posted by

Larry Fafarman : 10:00 AM

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# posted by

Unknown : 2:43 PM