“Openly polemical” is putting it mildly. What is “well-known-to-(responsible)-historians” is that this book is not history but rather a distortion of the historical record. For example, DiLorenzo quotes primary source material which impugns Lincoln’s motives. If you are not a historian and are unfamiliar with the sources, you would likely accept the conclusions that the author draws from the quotes he cites. However, if you take the time to check the sources, you find that DiLorenzo has lifted phrases out of context, and even attributed words to one person that were clearly uttered by another. In short, beware of “history” written by those who have a political or economic axe to grind.

In my zeal to vent my spleen against Civil-War-era politicians, I neglected to mention the recent (2004) book by a serious historian which makes the case far better than I can: Michael Holt’s “The Fate of Their Country.”  In this brief book, Holt goes into detail about the self-serving, partisan political machinations of US political leaders in the 1840s and 1850s (Tyler, Polk, Stephen A. Douglas, etc.) that inflamed sectional passions leading to the great war.  (Douglas, of course, tried to redeem himself towards the end of his life by opposing the fraudulent LeCompton Constitution, and, when he realized that the 1860 election was lost, by doing what he could to avert the coming conflagration.  Too little, too late.)  Holt’s sympathies, contrary to my own, are with the Whigs, but his coverage seems to be fairly even-handed (I particularly liked his discussion of the noble conservative Democratic Senator Thomas Hart “Old Bullion” Benton — although a Senator from a slave state, Missouri, Benton was anti-slavery.  Some people transcend their environment.)

Holt’s classic “The Political Crisis of the 1850s” also gives an interesting perspective on the role that the collapse of the national Whig Party (due partially to anti-Catholic/anti-immigration hysteria) played in leading to the horrible war. 

Dave

Most of the responses have not exactly addressed your original question, have they?

On your specific question about religion and abolitionism, I think you’d definitely want to look at Lewis Perry’s 1973 book “Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought.” Religion played a huge, albeit complicated, role in the abolitionist movement. (I should confess that my own historical sympathies are with these radical abolitionists rather than with the moderate confine-slavery-to-where-it’s-at “Free Soilers.”)

More broadly, an absolute “must-read” on the general topic of secession is Forrest McDonald’s “States’ Rights And The Union : Imperium In Imperio, 1776-1876″ published back in 2000. McDonald is a respected historian of the early Republic and a big admirer of Alexander Hamilton, so he’s probably more of a “big-government” fellow than most of the bloggers here. Nonetheless, he claims, with a lot of evidence, that prior to the Civil War, nearly all Americans assumed that secession was legal. For example, as every schoolboy knows, New England considered secession at the Hartford Convention in 1814-15 as a result of “Mr. Madison’s War.” New Englanders were also rather perturbed by Mr. Jefferson’s unconstitutional (as Jefferson himself admitted) “Louisiana Purchase”: New Englanders thought that the unconstitutionally acquired territory would upset the political balance in the new nation. (Of course, they were right, weren’t they? — the Kansas-Nebraska problems which sparked the Civil War could never have occurred had not Jefferson acquired the new territories in the first place.)

Another must-read is Charles Adams’ “When in the Course of Human Events : Arguing the Case for Southern Secession.” Adams’ central claim is that the leaders of neither North nor South were motivated by the slavery issue. Rather, he argues, both sides were motivated by economic issues, essentially the protective tariff. He provides abundant evidence from original sources showing that this was the case for the North. He admits that the Southern leaders claimed that their motive was to defend slavery, but Adams maintains they were lying and that they really only cared about the tariff!

Personally, I’m inclined to think that Adams is half-right: the Northern leaders were telling the truth in claiming they were motivated by the protective tariff, and the Southern leaders were telling the truth in saying their concern was preserving slavery (which means both sides fought for sordid and despicable reasons). Anyway, whether you agree with Adams’ conclusions, or, like me, disagree, he has a lot of useful information, including his references, in a short, readable book.

I also recommend Ken Stampp’s “And The War Came : The North And The Secession Crisis, 1860-1861,” a detailed academic study of the events in the North which led to Sumter, and Stampp’s collection of readings, “The Causes of the Civil War,” very good except for some reason leaving out everything in Stampp’s own earlier book!

You should also look at diLorenzo’s “The Real Lincoln,” which is openly polemical but does lay out some well-known-to-historians negative facts about Lincoln that most of us non-historians have never heard about.

Finally Dean Sprague’s “Freedom Under Lincoln” is very enlightening, though mistitled. This is a fascinating, detailed narrative, written, by a Defense Department employee during the Kennedy-Johnson Administration, of the critical events which transpired in the border states in the early stages of the Civil War. An accurate title would have been “How Lincoln Held on to the Border States by Ignoring the Constitution.” Sprague was an admirer of Lincoln’s, which is, I suppose, why he chose the more neutral title for his book.

I think these books may provide a somewhat broader and more balanced perspective on the Civil War than some of the books suggested by other posters.

To end on a purely personal note, I myself hate and despise Abe Lincoln and his money-grubbing cronies. I also hate and despise Jeff Davis and his slave-owning cronies. All these murderous thugs got over six-hundred thousand human beings killed playing their nasty little power games. The “fanatic” abolitionist John Brown, for all his faults, at least risked his own life in the frontlines and was truly committed to freeing the slaves. Other civilized countries — England, France, Spain, even Brazil — managed to end slavery without getting more than a half million people killed — why couldn’t American politicians do the same? Why most Americans have the sense that you must be either pro-Union or pro-Confederacy escapes me. I say a pox on both houses!

All the best,

Dave Miller

It’s a while since I read “Cousins’ War” but I do recall that it set out the very interesting thesis that the English Civil War, the American Revolution, and the American Civil War were really just three episodes, roughly a century apart, in what was fundamentally the same struggle.

Maybe so; and I warm to the idea which appeals to me at a deep level that “Anglo-America” is one cultural entity or civilisation that stretches from the English Channel by way of North America to Perth, Western Australia, and is the most successful “nation” (although technically consisting of six independent nations right now) that the world has ever seen.

But before I’d confirm full acceptance of the ideas in the book I’d have to read it again and I’m too busy right now.

Actually more complicated and interesting than that. But, yes indeed, Britain was very much of two minds about the American Civil War. Kevin Phillips’ Cousins’ War is very good on this point.

Did I say anything like that? If so, I apologize and retract, because it is certainly not what I think or what I intended to say.

–”The core of American thought is that of the Calvinist belief in original sin…”

Well yes, although I’m not so sure about original sin being particularly Calvinist, which was more concerned with predestination and (wait for it!) total depravity (which is not what it now sounds like). I think original sin is part of all Christian denominations. However being of a Scottish Presbyterian (that is, Calvinist) background myself I know what you mean.

Indeed the Scottish Enlightenment provided the main part of the philosophical underpinning of the American Revolution and in due course the Constitution. As just one example of how this happened, Jefferson was educated by two private tutors who were both Scottish Presbyterian ministers—to the extent that when he turned up in Paris many years later, the fact that he spoke French with a Scottish accent was commented upon by many people.

–”Thirty-five [ships for the CSA] were estimated to come from Liverpool.”

I can only find records for two, the ‘Florida’ and the ‘Alabama’.

–”Great Britain recognized the Confederacy as “a belligerant power.”"

But this is a gross oversimplification. What happened was that by its act of blockading the CSA, the USA itself effectively recognized the CSA as a belligerent power, in terms of the way international law worked in these days. As a result other nations, in particular Britain and France, found that legally they really had to too.

However that was a long way short of recognizing the CSA as an independent sovereign nation. The only time that came close was when two CSA diplomats on their way to try to open relations with the British Government were taken by force from a British ship (The “Trent”) sailing from Cuba to England. This was considered an American act of war and quickly led to talk of an actual war between the UK and US. The British commenced building up its forces in Canada and heavily reinforced the West Atlantic Fleet in preparation for a war against the United States, while the USA still seemed to be loosing against the CSA. Lincoln ended this potential disaster by capitulating to British demands with the words, “One war at a time.”

–”I doubt that the English are best represented by Carlyle…”

Indeed so. He was Scottish.

But of course there was no uniform support for one side or the other in Britain. It seems most likely that the support was mostly divided on class lines, with upper class supporting the CSA and the lower & middle class supporting the USA. And sometimes self-interest overruled principle, as in the contrast between the mercenary attitude of the port city of Liverpool and the vast swathe of cotton mill towns just inland from it and around Manchester, where principle won.

–”…That is not quite the same as arguing that the North without Great Britain’s help would have lost.”

That was not quite what I intended to say. I was meaning that to provoke a war with Great Britain while still in the process of fighting and perhaps loosing against the south would have been well-nigh suicidal for the north.

Of course, that applies to everybody.

So, behave, all of!

As to the interpretations of the Constitution advanced here, I don’t happen to agree with yours. You made it, clearly and repeatedly, which is fine.

Secession is not equivalent to rebellion. You ignore the appeal to Amendment 10. (and As anon. indicated some comments back: After secession the attack of Fed. assets was an act of war. scotus had a good outlook, also quite a few comments back: The south may have had a legal/moral right to seceed but thank God the Lincoln admin. did what it did successfully.

Yeah, Lex, enough already. I don’t think I was the commentor shouting or using disparaging language though. For example, I didn’t call him/her a twit, immature smarmy brit, thick, or (as he did me) “ridiculous”, and “ignorant”, etc. I suggest that you might tell the other to mind his manners rather than myself – unless you think this is a way get your own point across. To my disappointment, I don’t see you taking him up on repeated misinterpretations re. the constitution.

Amendment X was left vague and expansive for a reason, not accidentally.

Rationalizations abound for not taking the Constitution literally. It is an overactive government that does so because it’s difficult and inconvienient to change the Constitution.

If Scharma’s book is as you describe it, this will hardly be a “bombshell” on this side of the Atlantic.

The Alabama was built at Liverpool (which was heavily pro-confederate). Of course, England did not furnish weapons directly to the Confederacy, but all ships built were not impounded. (Thirty-five were estimated to come from Liverpool.) Nor were all guns that were shipped to the South.

Great Britain recognized the Confederacy as “a belligerant power.”

The State Department on the status of the re. with Great Britain. An interesting 6-part discussion of the relationship between economics and paternalism by David M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart (“The Secret History of the Dismal Science”) is web-available. This is interesting in many ways, one of which is that it was begun before and continues after 9/11, an event that we can see affecting their discussion. Besides giving us a history of Carlyle’s term (the “dismal science”), they analyze the divisions among British intellectuals over slavery, which soon represent two different views of economic theory. Carlyle/Ruskin/Kingsley/Tennyson/Dickens on one side, Mill/John Stuart/John Bright/Henry Fawcett/J. E. Cairnes/Herbert Spencer/T. H. Huxley/Charles Darwin on the other. (I doubt that the English are best represented by Carlyle, who calls for the reinstatement of slavery at about the time we were concluding our bloody war.) This is perhaps most clearly exemplified in the famous Eyre Affair. Not surprisingly, the divisions continue as we see in Anglosphere culture’s current debates on the nature of man.

While about everyone else on this blog is a better military historian than I, probably your belief that if the Brits had come in strongly for the South, the North might have lost the war is true or at least arguable. That is not quite the same as arguing that the North without Great Britain’s help would have lost.

This discussion is pretty useless if we don’t recognize that America’s and Great Britain’s histories are both complicated and that free people in free societies are likely to make many & sometimes quite different choices. The workers in Manchester, for instance, were thanked by Lincoln for their sacrifices; abolitionists were not popular in Liverpool. But, then, Liverpool’s economic well-being was much more tied to slavery.

We respect Great Britain’s willingness to outlaw slavery, it’s consistent respect for human rights. People like Mill helped us define our own values and belief in the open marketplace. We accept that many in Great Britain were fervently anti-slavery; so, too, were many in America. We are not likely, however, to respect emphatic statements that ignore facts.

Nope. The Declaration was the result of a political process and reflected compromise language, and it was targeted primarily to foreign opinion and opinion in England. There is no way the slave owners would not have considered “all men” as applying to their slaves. Also, the Declaration has no legal force, and so any such throat-clearing language was meant to get the various other sections of the country on board. Agreed, they came to regret the inclusion of this language later on. But it was needed at the time, so they signed on. As you say, they bought it, they had to live with it. It turned out to be a time-bomb. Jefferson was very clever. But the mindset of Patrick Henry and others at the time was exactly as I described.

I have to say that the argument from the reserved powers language of the 10th amendment is pretty weak. That was meant to clarify that the powers enumerated for Congress left open any remaining legislative powers for the states and people. It is a pretty vague warrant for secession. The legalistic arguments the Confederacy offered were just buyer’s remorse looking for a legal justification to opt out. Nothing wrong with that. People try to get out of deals they no longer like all the time. But no one is obliged to buy their arguments about why they should be let out of the deal.

You have put your case about as well as you probably can. You should not be surprised that others do not agree with it. I have made any number of arguments on this blog that failed to convince lots of people. So be it.

I think it is time to move on.

Again, I ask you, name at least one book you can recommend to Ginny, which was the initial point of this post.

Don’t make yourself more ridiculous-looking than you have to.

The states ratified the whole package, not just the Bill of Rights. So they ratified their agreement that they would, in effect, never ‘resign’ from the Union, and that was, legally, that.

Sorry, but your ignorance shows.

To say the 10th amendment is a trivial thing, indeed! I believe a quite a few of us Americans would disagree.

To spell the argument out for you, just in case you haven’t followed along:

Secession is not prohibited by the document, nor is it a allowed. It is a right “reserved”.

Now, if Secession occurs, all the clauses you mentioned no longer apply.

Your interpretation and comments are ridiculous re. the constitution and not worth further consideration.

The first ten amendments are known (in this country as “Bill of Rights” and without them the states would not have ratified the document.

“Liberty was not, to them, a universal human right. That very idea would have struck them as fantastic.”

Sorry but that is, in short, boloney:

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed, by their Creator, with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

In other words, Patrick Henry’s attitude was strange not just those of us living today, but to the signers of the Declaration of Independence also–at least it was if their views coincided with what they signed up to.

Or they were hypocrites. You pays your money and takes your choice. But I’d point out that Jefferson’s reluctant removal of the clause about slaves suggest the answer is ‘hypocrites’.

And truly world-class spin doctors too.

There is no mystery whatsoever in why these people saw liberty as precious and worth dying for, for themselves and their families and peers, and denying it to others. Liberty was not, to them, a universal human right. That very idea would have struck them as fantastic. David Hackett Fischer makes all this very clear in Albion’s Seed. If Schama thinks that there is anything shocking and unknown to say about the American founding era then he is a phony. The truly shocking thing would be for him or some other talented writer to explain the known facts about the period to people today in a more popular way than DHF managed to do in his long and scholarly book. But, it sounds like Schama took the easy and dishonest route — it is so much more fun and profitable to tell the old lie that the American Founders were a bunch of liars and hypocrites, and this is consistent with the intellectually comfortable stance of hating America. Actually understanding these people and their world as they understood it at the time would be too much work and would not support the popular intellectual bigotries of today.