And the War Came: The North and the Secession Crisis,
1860-1861 - Kenneth M. Stampp.
Some historians argue that
the American Civil War didn’t start when Southern states seceded, but when the
Northern states opted to use force to maintain the Union. This interesting book
examines the five months between Lincoln's election and the fall of Fort
Sumter.
As we would expect,
Northern politicians gassed a lot about "coercion,""
aggression,"" treason,"" the right of secession,"
"law enforcement," and deceiving themselves and others. Ironic, since
the choice, when facing secession boiled down to, 1) let them go; 2) compromise
and reconstruct; and 3) fight to maintain the Union. The role of money interests in pushing for
conciliation was rather disgusting, but, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at
their urging the politicians to jettison principles when millions of dollars in
trade were at stake.
Stampp points out that
party politics, economics (like high protective tariffs), and idealism combined
to shape the North's answer to secession and ended up forcing Lincoln to coerce
rather than conciliate and appease the South. Politics, as we would expect,
dominated. Lincoln knew that Northern people would bolt from and break up the
Republican Party if Republican politicians allowed the expansion of slavery to
new territories – and ultimately to Tierra del Fuego for that matter. By
December, 1860, when the Cotton States pulled out, Lincoln came to realize that
southern leaders were resolute about secession, profoundly uninterested in reconciliation.
Therefore, the Union would not be saved by diplomacy, but by arms. In summary
of Lincoln's role Professor Stampp writes:
It
would obviously be a gross distortion of history to attribute the Civil War to
Lincoln's Sumter maneuver . . . the real causes . . . grew out of a generation
of sectionalism.... Lincoln came to power when the secession crisis was in an
advanced stage ... He . .. responded with remarkable promptness to overwhelming
public pressure.
Strampp wrote this
readable book early in his academic career. His book after this one was a highly
regarded examination of the American system of human slavery The Peculiar Institution. His book The Era of Reconstruction is also worth reading.
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