A stalemate continued for weeks: Federal forces would not abandon the fort, but the Confederacy would not allow any federal resupply effort into its territory.
Thank you for this story! (We fish at Breach Inlet)..looking across the water to Ft Sumpter is humbling. TY for your continued stories about “real people”. Our history is so important! 🇺🇸
I had thought so, for quite a few years, but after doing some deeper dive studying, I learned that the true reason for the South seceding was, in fact, over the issue of Slavery, -specifically, because the Northern States began passing laws that banned returning escaped slaves back to the South, as the Constitution originally provided.
But, READ the South's own declared reasons for seceding and for eventually starting hostilities yourself. It cannot be honestly argued today that slavery was not the overwhelming issue and motivation for secession and for the Civil War. South Carolina seceded first in December 1860. READ the SC Declaration of Secession here -
Remember, the South QUIT. The North did not kick them out. Slavery was why. But, listen to them, not me.
Here is the opening of that Declaration:
"In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.
"The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”
"This stipulation was so material to the compact (the Constitution), that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.
"The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States."
It was not just some theoretical "states rights" complaint - the Union never forced ANY State to drop, ban or restrict slavery. Each State at the time, based on their membership in the U.S. Federation of States, retained the right to conduct slavery all that it wanted to. None of their rights to do so were ever impaired, so that could not have been it.
Besides, a simple complaint of the abuse of States' Rights was not motivating enough to actually start a hot war over. There just were not very many examples or complaints about States' Rights violations mentioned at the time. The issue of slavery, on the other hand, in fact, was enough to cause them to rise up and to go to war over.
But, the South DID see that the new States coming in to the Union were banning slavery AND there was a move in Congress to make that a condition of admitting new States in the future. The slave States simply saw themselves being isolated and, having dwindling power to wield in the Federal government, they quit.
All of the Southern States published very similar Declarations of Secession and slavery is mentioned in every one as the prime motivator for seceding. These are THEIR first-hand words of explaining why they seceded. ALSO, the Confederate States of America Constitution had a provision that REQUIRED each State to allow full-on slavery as a condition to belonging to the CSA - No Slavery, No Part in the CSA.
So, the true issue for the South leaving really is slavery. The first-hand documents are there for you to read and they can't be misunderstood, as much as 21st Century Americans try to twist the,
A sad day in history as the toll for not addressing slavery was to be heavily extracted on both sides. It was a national sin - not just that of the agrarian based economy. I see it as divine judgment for a horrendous sin.
I view it, having the benefit similar to an historian's of looking back in time on it, as America finally being the first nation that was created and its design placed it on a direct collision course with the institution of slavery.
Remember, that slavery is well over 7,000 years old and has been part of the human condition ever since humans began writing! Slavery still exists in 20 to 25 nations today. AMERICA DID NOT INVENT SLAVERY. The dictator governments of Europe are the ones who colonized and settled North America and they brought slavery with them. The American Colonists fought a bloody war to free themselves of those governments and then established a new kind of government, one where the principles of that government were very strongly in opposition to slavery. Even though accommodations were made in order to form the government, the principles themselves were inconsistent with slavery.
It was a horrible price to pay, but the United States was able to free itself from slavery and then apply its own principles of free enterprise and free markets to show the world, in practice, that slavery was, in fact, economically obsolete.
In MY view, slavery was not a "NATIONAL sin" but was a Human sin that began when humans first started walking upright. America is the first nation to throw slavery off and to prove by practicing its own principles that it was an inferior way to go. The U.S. is not to be hated for it, but admired for what it achieved - something that no one had been able to for over 6,000 years.
Lincoln had written them a letter and told them that he was sending in supply ships to supply the fort. In that letter, he told them that if the ships were allowed in unmolested that he would not deliver any men, ammunition, weapons or other military gear at all, just food, medicine and similar supplies. He sent the ships and the South turned them away.
This a key turning point in American history, but remember this episode did not begin with Lincoln deciding to send supplies in to Fort Sumter. It actually began on January 9, 1861 when South Carolina decided to blockade Fort Sumter. A blockade around and laying siege to any location is universally considered an act of war, and this one started two full months before Abe Lincoln even arrived in Washington, DC to begin his term in office.
This is WHY the Fort was in such desperate need of food and supplies!
I have always thought that the Southern States declared themselves to be a standalone country - and I still believe that each of our States has that right to secede and to do just that. HOWEVER, when absolutely no other other nation in the world, including the United States, recognized the CSA as a legitimate nation, the South probably would have been better off to slow things down a bit.
Instead, the South, having seceded with no negotiations with the federal government about exactly how to do that, and then commencing acts of war beginning on January 9, 1861 (only TWO WEEKS after the first secession!), started a game that history later showed they had no chance of winning. A much too strong federal government has emerged out of that in the century that followed. The South, for its part, simply overplayed its hand. They obviously did not think they were doing that at the time.
My theory is that the South could have won this thing if it had never fired a shot nor taken belligerent actions. Lincoln fancied himself as a talker and a negotiator and he was thinking that he would sweet talk the South into staying, giving them enough concessions to stay in the Union. But he never got the chance to because the South had already increase the ante way beyond that point by the time he took office.
I can only say this with the advantage of 20/20 hindsight - and hopefully there is a deep lesson to be learned in this still today.
I am currently reading Allegiance by David Detzer .It tells of the quandary that Major Anderson found Himself in leading up to the civil war.He desperately needed guns and ammunition that was housed in Charleston,this was before SC seceded from the union.President Buchanan was against doing anything that might be considered an act of war,so Anderson was left to fend for himself,sound familiar?
Thank you for this story! (We fish at Breach Inlet)..looking across the water to Ft Sumpter is humbling. TY for your continued stories about “real people”. Our history is so important! 🇺🇸
Thank you, again Tara, for the little known facts concerning this nation’s Civil War!
I always thought that the South ceceeded over state's rights
I had thought so, for quite a few years, but after doing some deeper dive studying, I learned that the true reason for the South seceding was, in fact, over the issue of Slavery, -specifically, because the Northern States began passing laws that banned returning escaped slaves back to the South, as the Constitution originally provided.
But, READ the South's own declared reasons for seceding and for eventually starting hostilities yourself. It cannot be honestly argued today that slavery was not the overwhelming issue and motivation for secession and for the Civil War. South Carolina seceded first in December 1860. READ the SC Declaration of Secession here -
https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/the-sectional-crisis/south-carolina-declaration-of-secession-1860/
Remember, the South QUIT. The North did not kick them out. Slavery was why. But, listen to them, not me.
Here is the opening of that Declaration:
"In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.
"The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”
"This stipulation was so material to the compact (the Constitution), that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.
"The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States."
It was not just some theoretical "states rights" complaint - the Union never forced ANY State to drop, ban or restrict slavery. Each State at the time, based on their membership in the U.S. Federation of States, retained the right to conduct slavery all that it wanted to. None of their rights to do so were ever impaired, so that could not have been it.
Besides, a simple complaint of the abuse of States' Rights was not motivating enough to actually start a hot war over. There just were not very many examples or complaints about States' Rights violations mentioned at the time. The issue of slavery, on the other hand, in fact, was enough to cause them to rise up and to go to war over.
But, the South DID see that the new States coming in to the Union were banning slavery AND there was a move in Congress to make that a condition of admitting new States in the future. The slave States simply saw themselves being isolated and, having dwindling power to wield in the Federal government, they quit.
All of the Southern States published very similar Declarations of Secession and slavery is mentioned in every one as the prime motivator for seceding. These are THEIR first-hand words of explaining why they seceded. ALSO, the Confederate States of America Constitution had a provision that REQUIRED each State to allow full-on slavery as a condition to belonging to the CSA - No Slavery, No Part in the CSA.
So, the true issue for the South leaving really is slavery. The first-hand documents are there for you to read and they can't be misunderstood, as much as 21st Century Americans try to twist the,
The history of this great country is to precious to destroy.
A sad day in history as the toll for not addressing slavery was to be heavily extracted on both sides. It was a national sin - not just that of the agrarian based economy. I see it as divine judgment for a horrendous sin.
I view it, having the benefit similar to an historian's of looking back in time on it, as America finally being the first nation that was created and its design placed it on a direct collision course with the institution of slavery.
Remember, that slavery is well over 7,000 years old and has been part of the human condition ever since humans began writing! Slavery still exists in 20 to 25 nations today. AMERICA DID NOT INVENT SLAVERY. The dictator governments of Europe are the ones who colonized and settled North America and they brought slavery with them. The American Colonists fought a bloody war to free themselves of those governments and then established a new kind of government, one where the principles of that government were very strongly in opposition to slavery. Even though accommodations were made in order to form the government, the principles themselves were inconsistent with slavery.
It was a horrible price to pay, but the United States was able to free itself from slavery and then apply its own principles of free enterprise and free markets to show the world, in practice, that slavery was, in fact, economically obsolete.
In MY view, slavery was not a "NATIONAL sin" but was a Human sin that began when humans first started walking upright. America is the first nation to throw slavery off and to prove by practicing its own principles that it was an inferior way to go. The U.S. is not to be hated for it, but admired for what it achieved - something that no one had been able to for over 6,000 years.
Now I am curious. How did the Confederacy know, for certain, that Federal supplies would arrive before the deadline to evacuate Fort Sumter.
Lincoln had written them a letter and told them that he was sending in supply ships to supply the fort. In that letter, he told them that if the ships were allowed in unmolested that he would not deliver any men, ammunition, weapons or other military gear at all, just food, medicine and similar supplies. He sent the ships and the South turned them away.
Thank you for another awesome daily history lesson, Tara!!
This a key turning point in American history, but remember this episode did not begin with Lincoln deciding to send supplies in to Fort Sumter. It actually began on January 9, 1861 when South Carolina decided to blockade Fort Sumter. A blockade around and laying siege to any location is universally considered an act of war, and this one started two full months before Abe Lincoln even arrived in Washington, DC to begin his term in office.
This is WHY the Fort was in such desperate need of food and supplies!
I have always thought that the Southern States declared themselves to be a standalone country - and I still believe that each of our States has that right to secede and to do just that. HOWEVER, when absolutely no other other nation in the world, including the United States, recognized the CSA as a legitimate nation, the South probably would have been better off to slow things down a bit.
Instead, the South, having seceded with no negotiations with the federal government about exactly how to do that, and then commencing acts of war beginning on January 9, 1861 (only TWO WEEKS after the first secession!), started a game that history later showed they had no chance of winning. A much too strong federal government has emerged out of that in the century that followed. The South, for its part, simply overplayed its hand. They obviously did not think they were doing that at the time.
My theory is that the South could have won this thing if it had never fired a shot nor taken belligerent actions. Lincoln fancied himself as a talker and a negotiator and he was thinking that he would sweet talk the South into staying, giving them enough concessions to stay in the Union. But he never got the chance to because the South had already increase the ante way beyond that point by the time he took office.
I can only say this with the advantage of 20/20 hindsight - and hopefully there is a deep lesson to be learned in this still today.
And so it begins, sadly. Thanks, TR.
until tomorrow, thank you, Tara.
I am currently reading Allegiance by David Detzer .It tells of the quandary that Major Anderson found Himself in leading up to the civil war.He desperately needed guns and ammunition that was housed in Charleston,this was before SC seceded from the union.President Buchanan was against doing anything that might be considered an act of war,so Anderson was left to fend for himself,sound familiar?
👍👍👍
👍👍👍
I await tomorrow!
Thank you Tara. I'm going to guess that Ft. Sumpter was not evacuated by the US forces on the 15th. But, I can hardly wait for the rest of the story.
Heads I win tales you lose definitely sums it up I'd say Tara thank you 😊