Secession Dbq

Secession is the withdrawal from the Union of eleven Southern states from 1860 to 1861, which brought on the American Civil War.1 To those who maintain the justice of the separation of the Confederate States of America, it is important to be assured that the right of a State to secede from the Union with the United States of America, whenever the State felt fit to exercise that right. It was beyond the power of denial from any source. At the time of the adoption of the United States Constitution, each state was a sovereign and independent State, and acted as such in adopting the Constitution. The Declaration of Independence proclaims the States to be “free and independent States”. The Articles of Confederation of 1778 declared that “each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence…”2 President Lincoln felt that secession was unlawful, but the secessionists claimed that, according to the Constitution, the States had every right to leave the Union. There were multiple events, such as the Missouri Compromise (1820), Nat Turner’s Rebellion (1831), Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852), and Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), that led to the secession of the Southern states and the Civil War.3 With the end of the war came the end of slavery, secession and nullification by the states.

There are many events that lead to the secession of the South, but there are a few incidents that stand out most.

Tensions began to rise between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the years prior to the Missouri Compromise of 1820. In 1819, Missouri requested to be admitted to the Union as a slave states, which would upset the balance between free and slave states. As a two-part compromise, Congress granted Missouri’s request, but also Maine admitted Maine as a free state. It also passed an amendment that drew a line across the former

Louisiana

Territory, establishing a boundary between the free and slave regions that remained law until it was negated by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.4 The Missouri Compromise was like a band-aid for a bullet hole; a small, temporary fix for a major problem.

The Nat Turner Rebellion was one of the bloodiest and most effective in American history. Nat Turner was deeply committed to his Christian faith and felt he received messages from God through visions and signs in nature. These signs led him to return to his master after an escape attempt. A solar eclipse and an unusual atmospheric event is what inspired his violent uprising, which began on August 21, 1831. The rebellion ignited fear in Virginia that spread through the South and expedited the Civil War.5

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe shed a new light on slavery in American, the system that treated people as property. Stowe’s novel demanded that the United States deliver on its promise of freedom and equality, which contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War.6

In 1846 a slave named Dred Scott and his wife sued for their freedom in a St. Louis city court. This case reached the Supreme Court and became the single most explosive issue in American politics. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney read the majority opinion of the Court, stating that slaves were not citizens of the United States, therefore, they could not expect any protection from the Federal government. The opinion also read that Congress had no authority to ban slavery from a Federal territory. This opinion was overturned by the 13th and 14th Amendments

to the Constitution.7 All of these events, and many more, led to the South’s secession, and eventually the American Civil War.

On December 20, 1860, in Saint Andrews Hall in Charleston, South Carolina, the Ordinance of Secession was unanimously approved.8 South Carolina cotton planters could no longer compete with the planters from the Southwest lands. Meanwhile Charleston, South Carolina’s commercial capital, could no longer compete with New York’s powerful trade center or the rising cotton ports in other Southern states. Most South Carolinians blamed this economic depression on the post-1815 tariffs. As early as November 1832 at the Nullification Convention, the people of South Carolina declared the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 unconstitutional, therefore the tariffs would be null and void within the state after February 1, 1833. The Nullification Convention also made a proclamation that if any attempt was made to collect the tariffs by force, South Carolina would secede from the Union. South Carolina defied President Andrew Jackson’s attempt to collect the tariffs, and thus brought the nation to the verge of a civil war.9 Many secessionists did not believe that South Carolina’s act of secession would precipitate war.10

By February 1861, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had already joined South Carolina in secession. These seven states officially formed the Confederate States of America on February 9, 1861. Jefferson Davis was selected as the President of the Confederacy, and Montgomery, Alabama was selected as the capitol. It was not until after the

Battle of Fort Sumter that Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee joined the Confederacy.

At the time of South Carolina’s secession, they demanded that all United States forces evacuate the Charleston Harbor. In early April, President Abraham Lincoln advised the Confederate leadership that he planned to resupply the Union troops at Fort Sumter. General P.G.T. Beauregard sent his aides to Fort Sumter with a demand for the Union troops under Major Robert Anderson to surrender on April 11, 1861. In the early morning hours on April 12, 1861, General Beauregard informed Major Anderson that he would begin the bombardment of Fort Sumter in exactly one hour. The first shot of the Civil War was fired by Captain George S. James from a gun positioned in Fort Johnson. The relief fleet was unable to land any supplies. Finally, Major Anderson surrendered.11

Two days after the Battle of Fort Sumter, Lincoln issued a proclamation for 75,000 volunteer soldiers to help put an end to the Southern insurrection. The war lasted four years. The

casualty total was over 600,000 Union and Confederate soldiers.12 On April 9, 1865, John Broun Gordon’s corps and Fitzhugh Lee’s cavalry lined up for battle at the Appomattox Court House. General Robert E. Lee wanted to make one last attempt to escape the Union troops closing in in his troops. The Confederate troops advanced at dawn, gaining ground against Sheridan’s cavalry. The arrival of Union infantry halted the advance in its tracks. General Lee’s was surrounded on three sides. General Robert E. Lee surrendered Ulysses S. Grant on April 9. This was the end of the war in Virginia.13 The end of the War also ended secession and nullification by the states.