The main argument made by Charles B. Dew in the book Apostles of Disunion pinpoints why the Deep South retreated from the Union to form the confederacy and how they came about gathering it. The book begins by testing the work of the commissioners from the south to various slave states in eighteen sixty through eighteen sixty one. Charles B. Dew states that the Deep South and the Confederacy sent commissioners around the southern and northern borders of the south indicating their removal from the Union. The commissioners were then charged with defending the removal and getting others to climb out of the Union as well. The author then stresses how historians rarely look at what these commissioners are verbally saying and how they are looked upon in a minuscule way. These commissioners were all slave owners mostly native to wherever they were sent to. Even though this is not all of the information on the men it is important to the story of the neglected historical figures.
The basic story of the Apostles of Disunion takes place between eighteen sixty and eighteen sixty one. Commissioners appointed by the state traveled all over the south in pursuit of one goal: to persuade political overseers and gather citizens of the slave states to help diminish the Union and form their own nation, a Southern nation. Regarding the speculation that slavery was not to blame for the secession, the commissioners kept reiterating that the election of Abraham Lincoln signaled an unfair commitment to the North specifically to destroy the idea of slavery. The South was worried this would cause a heap of unnecessary racial conflicts and discrepencies. What makes Charles B. Dew’s argument so significant is his discoveries of the speeches and letters of th...
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... commissioners. The main strength about Apostles of Disunion is how Charles B. Dew decides to write against his own kind so to speak. In the introduction he explains the majority of his youth as a strong supporter of the confederate. He goes on about how he kept the confederate flag hung up in his dorm and how he grew up knowing how to shoot a rifle the right way. Dew was smart in adding where he came from because it sets an unbiased tone for the rest of the book. It is interesting to see how Charles B. Dew is not afraid to write what he believes in even if it means going against what his ancestors died for. Charles believed in the truth and wished to share it while explicitly exploiting the southern commissioners and what they stood for. I admire how brave he is for fearlessly shedding light on such a dark and sensitive past for Americans and especially the South.
The archives show how Augusta, Virginia and Franklin, Pennsylvania, and the South and North, shared many characteristics before the war, which Ayers points out well. One main point he makes when writing about their similarities is noting that both counties had people who supported slavery. Augusta, in the South, had slavery as their main economic system, and Franklin, in the North, had whites who believed in and supported slavery. There was also an abundance of racial discrimination still in the Franklin. These similarities didn’t matter much when it came to the issue of secession.
Both sides desired a republican form of government. Each wanted a political system that would “protect the equality and liberty of the individuals from aristocratic privilege and…tyrannical power.” (404) However, the north and south differed greatly in “their perceptions of what most threatened its survival.” (404) The secession by the south was an attempt to reestablish republicanism, as they no longer found a voice in the national stage. Prior to the 1850s, this conflict had been channeled through the national political system. The collapse of the two-party system gave way to “political reorganization and realignment,” wrote Holt. The voters of the Democrats shifted their influence toward state and local elections, where they felt their concerns would be addressed. This was not exclusively an economically determined factor. It displayed the exercise of agency by individual states. Holt pointed out, “[T]he emergence of a new two-party framework in the South varied from state to state according to the conditions in them.” (406) The “Deep South” was repulsed by the “old political process,” most Southerners trusted their state to be the safeguards of republicanism. (404) They saw the presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, a member of the “the anti-Southern Republican party,” as something the old system could not
What The South Intends. THE CHRISTIAN RECORDERS August 12, 1865, Print. James, Edward, Janet James, and Paul Boyer.
On the question as to whether states’ rights was the cause of the Civil War, Dew references a speech made by Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederate States of America, during his inaugural address as one that “remains a classic articulation of the Southern position that resistance to Northern tyranny and a defense of states’ rights were the sole reason for secession. Constitutional differences alone lay at the heart of the sectional controversy, he insisted. ‘Our present condition…illustrates the American idea that governments rest upon the consent of the governed, and that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish governments whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were established’”(13).
As the Civil War came underway the South’s military, smaller than the North’s, would take heavy blows from the decisions of the Confederacy. First of all they knew that if all their plantation owners fought in the war, their crops would possibly die out or not produce as much. To combat this problem they decided in the Conscription law that if someone had twenty or more slaves, they didn’t have to fight in the war. This caused the price of slaves to increase and caused crops from small slave holding plantations and yeoman farmers to do terrible. Since most Southerners fell into that category, the South would really feel the damage. Also the Impressment Act would take food from farmers to help feed the armies. This would demoralize the small Southern farmers and cause desertions, poor riots and ultimately put a negative face on the new confederacy. These internal divisions weren’t only a Southern problem, in fact the North had bitter divisions over conscription, taxes, suspension of habeas corpus, martial law and emancipation. “If anything, the opposition was more powerful and effective in the North than in the South.” (Why Did the Confederacy Lose?, pg 120) However the powerful opposition in the North w...
In spite of its deterioration, the aftermath of the revolt had extensive consequences. Robertson particularized them with references to John Calhoun fortifying South Carolina before the civil war occurred. It also left a scare in the people’s minds, and was another small step towards the abolishment of slavery. Robertson analyzed the aftermath in a variety of aspects, including the effects on the public, and the government.
Imagine a historian, author of an award-winning dissertation and several books. He is an experienced lecturer and respected scholar; he is at the forefront of his field. His research methodology sets the bar for other academicians. He is so highly esteemed, in fact, that an article he has prepared is to be presented to and discussed by the United States’ oldest and largest society of professional historians. These are precisely the circumstances in which Ulrich B. Phillips wrote his 1928 essay, “The Central Theme of Southern History.” In this treatise he set forth a thesis which on its face is not revolutionary: that the cause behind which the South stood unified was not slavery, as such, but white supremacy. Over the course of fourteen elegantly written pages, Phillips advances his thesis with evidence from a variety of primary sources gleaned from his years of research. All of his reasoning and experience add weight to his distillation of Southern history into this one fairly simple idea, an idea so deceptively simple that it invites further study.
“Why did the North win the Civil War?” is only half of a question by itself, for the other half is “Why did the South lose the Civil War?” To this day historians have tried to put their finger on the exact reason for the South losing the war. Some historians blame the head of the confederacy Jefferson Davis; however others believe that it was the shear numbers of the Union (North). The advantages and disadvantages are abundant on either sides of the argument, but the most dominate arguments on why the South lost the war would be the fact that state’s rights prevented unification of the South, Jefferson Davis' poor leadership and his failure to work together with his generals, the South failed to gain the recognition of the European nations, North's superior resources made the outcome inevitable, and moral of the South towards the end of the war.
The memory of massive death was still in the front of everyone’s mind, hardening into resentment and sometimes even hatred. The south was virtually non-existent politically or economically, and searching desperately for a way back in. Along with these things, now living amongst the population were almost four million former slaves, who had no idea how to make a living on their own. They had been freed by the 13th amendment in 1865, and in the future became a great concern to many political leaders. Still, it was no secret that something had to be done. So, as usually happens, political leaders appeared on the stage, each holding their own plan of Reconstruction, each certain their ideas were the correct ones. One of the first people who came up with a blueprint for Reconstruction was the president at the time, Abraham Lincoln. The “Lincoln Plan” was a very open one, stating that after certain criteria were met a confederate state could return to the union. To rejoin, a state had to have ten percent of voters both accept the emancipation of slaves and swear loyalty to the union. Also, those high ranking officers of the state could not hold office or carry out voting rights unless the president said
...ong the various sections of the United States increased. The country, similarly to the democratic party, shattered along sectional lines due to the individual interests of the sections. The south, above all, was bonded in an effort to preserve and spread slavery through the usage of popular sovereignty. New England was bonded together with the conviction that slavery was immoral and that the spread of slavery should be hindered. The west was bonded together over a mutual appreciation of democratic principles such as popular sovereignty as well as an understanding that slavery was undesirable within their own states because it would add additional competition. As the nation turned upon itself there was no other alternative but war which would ultimately pit one section of the nation against the other in a battle of slavery, moral conviction, and personal liberties.
The House Divided Speech was an address given by Abraham Lincoln in 1858 with the goal to make a distinction between himself and Douglas, and to openly talk about a prognostication for time to come. Unlike Douglas, who had long supported popular sovereignty, under which the settlers in each new territory determine their own place as a slave or free state, Lincoln considered that all states had to be the same in order to become a united country. Although Lincoln’s intentions seemed to be pure, the complication with the speech is that it is not absolutely probable because of the fallacies within its wording. This speech may have appeared to be powerful and even authentic in its upholding points, but the fallacies must be recognized. Among these fallacies are false dilemma, ambiguity, appeal to authority, name-calling, and sequential fallacies.
In conclusion the Southern leaders were able to use the Constitution and the Declaration as justification for secession from the Union. Southern Leaders claimed the North had broke the law of compact, was hostile to the South, and that southern states lacked of protection and equality that was provided for in the Constitution.
Nullification is a precursor to secession in the United States as it is also for civil wars. However, in contrast, the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions did not suggest that states should secede from the union. Under the direct vigilance and radical views of Calhoun, he suggested that states should and could secede from the union if they deem a law was unconstitutional. Calhoun’s reputation as a “Cast Iron” proved fittingly as compromises were reached for the proposed Tariffs. The southern states contribution to the financial welfare of the union as a result of slavery was undoubtedly substantial, but as history unfolded, it was not a just means to financial stability. His views of constitutional propriety was for the “privileges of minority” rather than for the “rights of the minority.” [2]
The southern states that seceded from the nation formed the Confederate States of America led by President Jefferson Davis. Their essential purpose was to defend “the ...
From the inauguration of Lincoln and the secession of eleven states to the Union to the first exchange of fires at Fort Sumter, the inevitable Civil War began. Ever since America began to expand as an independent country, sectionalism (where the North wanted the abolition of slavery while the South wanted slavery) and growing conflicts between the north and south has always closely revolved around the issue of slavery. This long due problem finally blows up in the “United” States of America’s face as the Civil War. Conflicts relating to African Americans caused the war, changed the course and complications of the war, and shaped the war results in both informal and formal ways.