Is a peaceful Confederate secession possible?

Grimbald

Monthly Donor
I have always felt that if the southern states, perhaps acting through Virginia with the rest joining, had sued the US for the Federal lands in the southern states and asking the Taney Court to acknowledge the legality of secession they could have undercut Lincoln's ability to raise troops and gained independence without firing a shot. I can see the Taney Court (also known as the Dred Scott Court) ruling against Lincoln. That makes Lincoln the war monger and forces him to fire first.

It would have been a big gamble because if Lincoln had won in Court the upper south and North Carolina would likely have stayed in the Union.
 
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I have always felt that if the southern states, perhaps acting through Virginia with the rest joining, had sued the US for the Federal lands in the southern states and asking the Taney Court to acknowledge the legality of secession they could have undercut Lincoln's ability to raise troops and gained independence without firing a shot. I can see the Taney Court (also known as the Dred Scott Court) ruling against Lincoln. That makes Lincoln the war monger and forces him to fire first.

It would have been a big gamble because if Lincoln had won in Court the upper south and North Carolina would likely have stayed in the Union.

Even better, get it into Court and then drag it out. With procedural motions and arguments, affidavits and evidence, cross examinations, they could have stretched it out for years. It would have stalemated Lincoln. Meanwhile, the longer it drags out, the more it becomes a de facto fait accompli, and the less and less sentiment there is in the Union for war. Say things get dragged along until 1864 or 1865, Lincoln loses the election, he's a lame duck, there's no support. It's a done deal.
 
Even better, get it into Court and then drag it out. With procedural motions and arguments, affidavits and evidence, cross examinations, they could have stretched it out for years. It would have stalemated Lincoln. Meanwhile, the longer it drags out, the more it becomes a de facto fait accompli, and the less and less sentiment there is in the Union for war. Say things get dragged along until 1864 or 1865, Lincoln loses the election, he's a lame duck, there's no support. It's a done deal.
Diabolical! I'm so glad this site attracts some practicing lawyers.

That's the best secession scenario I've ever seen. I'm also glad the fire-eaters didn't think of it.
 

Grimbald

Monthly Donor
I been told when i's a youngun, tha reason tha Damnyankees won was they pisened our horses drinkin water with bad whiskie.

:)
 
Maybe US offers CSA constitutional amendment that forbids banning of slavery or revoking fugitive slave laws, and CSA still refuses to go back. Then US will go to war.
The Republicans would not countenance a forswearing of abolitionism and the Northern states would never ratify it.
On 27 February, 1862, Representative Thomas Corwin (R-Ohio) proposed the following text for a constitutional amendment being considered:

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.

IOW, the Constitution may never be amended to abolish slavery.

The Corwin Amendment was passed by the House on 28 February, and by the Senate (where it was sponsored by then-Senator William Seward) on 2 March. Lincoln in his First Inaugural practically endorsed it, and later sent copies to all state governors.

So rather clearly, the Republicans were prepared to renounce abolitionism. It had no effect whatever on Southern opinion, and was not even considered in more than a handful of states.
 
On 27 February, 1862, Representative Thomas Corwin (R-Ohio) proposed the following text for a constitutional amendment being considered:

IOW, the Constitution may never be amended to abolish slavery.

The Corwin Amendment was passed by the House on 28 February, and by the Senate (where it was sponsored by then-Senator William Seward) on 2 March. Lincoln in his First Inaugural practically endorsed it, and later sent copies to all state governors.

So rather clearly, the Republicans were prepared to renounce abolitionism. It had no effect whatever on Southern opinion, and was not even considered in more than a handful of states.


I was not aware of the Corwin Amendment so firstly thanks for bringing it to my attention.

It seems like an absolutely insane thing for the Republicans as an abolitionist party to pursue but there you go. Clearly they felt that Secession and Civil War were less preferable to ongoing slavery, and in a way I can understand that. I have trouble seeing it getting 3/4 of states to ratify but it was passed by Congress so maybe.

What else I'll say is that it does look like a possible vehicle for the prevention of secession, and the avoidance of the Civil War but it would not be a path to allow the Confederacy to emerge peacefully - Still fascinating so again thanks.
 
I never heard of this episode. Someone is willing to enlighten me about this, please?
Seems I was wrong. Thought they had lynched maybe two sports three at the beginning of the war. Turns out it was over forty men, halfway through it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hanging_at_Gainesville

Seems that six out of ten votes in the county had been against secessoin and that one a tenth of people there even held slaves. They protested when consriptoin was introduced because those with many slaves were exempt, and so they were deemed traitors.
 
Your right it wasnt the best example I could have used. Crimeans almost to a man/woman wanted to leave the Ukraine, Putin couldnt have walked in without the support of the majority of Crimeans. I am not sure the Crimeans are quite as ecstatic to be Russian now the shine has worn off.

This is simply not true. For a start, about 30% of the population were Tatars, who were pro-Ukrainian.
 
Seems I was wrong. Thought they had lynched maybe two sports three at the beginning of the war. Turns out it was over forty men, halfway through it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hanging_at_Gainesville

Seems that six out of ten votes in the county had been against secessoin and that one a tenth of people there even held slaves. They protested when consriptoin was introduced because those with many slaves were exempt, and so they were deemed traitors.

Thanks for the clarification.
 
Yup. If South secedes but does not attack Fort Sumter, then the longer it drags on, the less likely war is.
Once northerners get over initial outrage of secession, support for war is gonna only keep dropping.
Once southerners recognise they got away with it, the less likely they are to do something drastic that will plunge them to war, since they already got all what they wanted peacefully.
As it becomes obvious Lincoln is all talk no action and isn't gonna invade South, great powers are gonna recognise Confederacy one by one.

I think Lincoln is too savvy and the South too prideful for this too work. Lincoln is going to find a way to keep poking until the South does something overreactive that makes them look like the aggressor.

However, I can see this playing out with a different Republic President. Lincoln OTL got a lot of cautious, pacific counsel even from hardliner abolitionists. No one, naturally, wanted to start a war. And that was with everyone thinking it would be a short, glorious war.

One problem: a very serious concern for Washington OTL is that acquiescing to the Confederate secession meant the rest of the Union would also inevitably dissolve, because any time a state didn't get its way now it would threaten to secede. I think for a genuinely peaceful secession you need to allay this fear in some way. Maybe a Supreme Court ruling, or a Constitutional amendment as some part of a Crittenden-lite package of amendments.
 
I was not aware of the Corwin Amendment so firstly thanks for bringing it to my attention.

It seems like an absolutely insane thing for the Republicans as an abolitionist party to pursue but there you go.

The Republicans were not an abolitionist party. Abolitionists were nearly all Republicans, but most Republicans were "Free-Soil" men - opposed to the expansion of slavery, but not interested in liberating the oppressed negro. Many of them opposed slavery because it brought blacks into the US and into new parts of the US. Abolition would set blacks free to move to all parts of the country, which they found disgusting. An 1860 Republican campaign pamphlet mocked the Democrats for claiming Republicans favored "nigger equality". The pamphlet asserted that the Democrats wanted to expand slavery into the Territories, whereas the Republicans would reserve the Territories for free white men - and "where there are no niggers, there can be no nigger equality." This was a Republican, pro-Lincoln pamphlet.

Furthermore, as much as they might dislike the presence of blacks in America, they recognized that those here already had to live somewhere, that they lived in the South, and that slavery was the institution which kept the blacks in the South under control, besides being an enormous capital asset of Southerners. Thus they understood that Southerners were very upset by abolitionist proposals, and by John Brown's attempt to foment slave insurrections. Secession was wrong, but abolitionist threats helped cause the panic that led to it.

Clearly they felt that Secession and Civil War were less preferable to ongoing slavery, and in a way I can understand that.
Only a few abolitionists were ready to fight a war to liberate slaves now. or to risk the break-up of the country over it. (Prominent abolitionist Wendell Phillips spoke in favor of recognizing secession, because it would purge the US of slavery. He was booed off the platform.) Nearly everyone feared war far more than than they cared about slavery.

The great majority of Americans who disliked slavery hoped for a peaceful, gradual end to the institution. Lincoln, in the debates with Douglas, thought might take a hundred years for the final extinction of slavery (i.e., there might still be a few elderly slaves then).

I have trouble seeing it getting 3/4 of states to ratify but it was passed by Congress so maybe.

Another point is that there was no Constitutional authority for the Federal government to free slaves in a state. Thus Lincoln said that as the proposed amendment would only affirm existing conditions, it made no difference.

There is, incidentally, some question as to whether the amendment would have any effect at all. Its effect was supposed to be that no future amendment could touch slavery; but a legislature may not bind the hands of its successors, by passing a law which is irrevocable. Anything a legislature may do, a future legislature may undo. The same principle would apply to Constitutional amendments.
 
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