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Enlisted soldiers of the U.S. Regular Army formed the bulk of America's armed forces before the Civil War (1861-1865). A consensus has emerged that the prewar army's enlisted men showed no divided loyalties and only twenty-six served in the Confederate Army; but the army's enlisted soldiers, just like its officers, reacted to the Civil War in varying ways. An analysis of desertion during the secession crisis and first months of the war reveals that many soldiers were just as conflicted as the officer corps. Evidence suggests more than 500 Regular Army soldiers "went South" and served in the Confederate Army. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes and critiques revisionist historians that lay blame for the secession of U.S. southern states and the U.S. Civil War on U.S. president Abraham Lincoln and the antislavery element of the U.S. Republican Party. It discusses Lincoln's first inaugural address and the concept of separate state secession, public opinion concerning secession, and the constitutional questions regarding secession. It also discusses interpretations that portray Lincoln as unwillingness to compromise.

The article discusses the role of former U.S. senator from New York and U.S. secretary of state nominee William Henry Seward during the secession crisis in the U.S. following the election of Abraham Lincoln as president of the U.S. in 1860 and prior to Lincoln's inauguration in 1861. It examines Seward's motivations and actions during the winter of 1860-1861, his position as Lincoln's proxy, and whether Seward acted on behalf of Lincoln or his own political ambitions. The article discusses Lincoln's erroneous belief that the Southern states would opt to remain in the union in spite differences on the issue of slavery and Republican Party efforts to save the union. The article also discusses Republican Party political boss Thurlow Weed.

The article discusses support for the Confederacy among southern California settlers prior to and during the U.S. Civil War. According to the article, several settlers in southern California were originally from Missouri and expressed public support for the secessionist movement of the U.S. southern states. The article describes the significant tension between southern Californians who supported the Confederates and the U.S. Army and Union sympathizers following the start of the Civil War.

The article presents a chronology of the events that led to the establishment of the state of West Virginia between 1861 and 1863. It describes how citizens in western Virginia mobilized in an effort to become an autonomous state following a decision by the Commonwealth of Virginia to secede from the U.S. in 1861, discusses the declaration of independence issued by separatists at the Second Wheeling Convention in the summer of 1861, and explores the role of lawyer Peter Gordon Van Winkle in the West Virginia Constitutional Convention. It also examines several topics which were debated at the West Virginia Constitution Convention including the state name, the electoral process and establishment of voting districts, and taxation for slaveholders.

The article discusses how the Malthusian population theory was applied to the national debate over the issue of limiting slavery prior to the U.S. Civil War. The projected impact the eventual demise of slavery would have on the public welfare is described as a volatile issue. It is argued that a simplified version of the theory posed by Thomas Malthus, which claimed natural population growth outstripped the food supply and led to war, famine, and plague, helped lead the South to secession. The views of abolitionists, free traders, protectionists, and proslavery advocates on the potential economic results of emancipation are compared on topics such as wages, labor supply, Western expansion, and population growth.

The article discusses a states' rights-related Nullification crisis in America's Southern States in the 1800s, and it mentions state sovereignty, debates about national interests and a state's ability to challenge U.S. federal laws, and the potential secession of several Southern States. The novel "Memoirs of a Nullifier" by Algernon Sidney Johnston is examined, along with the political climate in South Carolina in the 1800s and American cultural politics.

Prevailing scholarly approaches to the U.S. Secession Crisis suggest that the crisis reflected either the interests of slaveowners or mounting socioeconomic pressure in the electorate. Both arguments suffer from empirical and analytical challenges, chief among these being that the southern Whig Party and its planter base actively resisted secession until the early 1850s. Why did the largest slaveowners oppose disunion only to fold by 1861? Drawing on beat-level electoral returns, newspapers, and private correspondence from antebellum Tuscaloosa County, Alabama, I argue that the answer lies in conceiving of the prelude to secession as a 'crisis sequence,' so named because it precipitates crises of hegemony, when no one political actor possesses the mass consent to rule and once salient social cleavages cease to resonate. Such sequences destabilize the relationship between parties and their constituents and allow political allegiances to swing wildly from one party to the next, giving such sequences their nonlinear character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented which discusses the U.S. Southern States secessionists' support for the Confederate States of America prior to and during the U.S. Civil War, including in regard to secessionists' support for Confederate nationalism, the U.S. Monroe Doctrine and a desire to expand slavery through developing a U.S. empire. Confederate President Jefferson Davis' desire to expand slavery throughout Latin America is discussed.

The South has a long and sordid history of resisting school desegregation. Yet after a long and vigorous legal fight, by the mid-1980s, schools in the South became among the most desegregated in the country. An important but often underappreciated tool that aided in the fight to desegregate schools in the South was the conventional and strategic use of school district boundary lines. Many school systems in the South deliberately eschewed drawing school district boundary lines around municipalities and instead drew them around counties. The resulting county-based system of school districts allowed for the introduction of school assignment plans that crossed racially and economically segregated municipal boundary lines. Some affluent and predominantly white suburban municipalities in the South are threatening to reverse this progress. They are doing so by seceding from racially diverse county-based school districts and forming their own predominately white and middle-class school districts. The secessions are grounded in the race-neutral language of localism, or the preference for decentralized governance structures. However, localism in this context is threatening to do what Brown v. Board of Education outlawed: return schools to the days of separate and unequal with the imprimatur of state law. This Article is the first to examine Southern municipal school district secessions and the localism arguments that their supporters advance to justify them. It argues that localism is being used as a race-neutral proxy to create segregated school systems that are immune from legal challenge. It concludes by introducing a normative framework to evaluate the legitimacy of the localism justification for Southern school district secessions specifically and decentralized public education governance structures more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article compares the loyalties of Watauga County, North Carolina and Buncombe County, North Carolina during the U.S. Civil War. The author discusses the social and economic conditions in both locations and how this may have impacted each county's patriotism. He examines why Buncombe County supported the Confederacy and secession, analyzes how isolation led Watauga County to remain part of the Union, and explores the slave populations in each county.

An essay is presented in which the author discusses her experience concerning a Secession Gala as of December 20, 2010, at Gaillard Municipal Auditorium, Charleston, South Carolina, organized by the Confederate Heritage Trust, to celebrate the decision of south Carolina to secede from the U.S. The attitudes towards slavery, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) protests, and rebel Denmark Vesey, who in 1822 planned a slave rebellion, are also discussed.

Ultimately the first state to secede on the eve of the Civil War, South Carolina erupted in controversy following the 1828 passage of an act increasing duties on foreign imports for the protection of domestic industry. Most tariff opponents could agree that the measure was unconstitutional, sectionally un-equal, and oppressive to plantation states. Factions formed, however, based on recommended means of redress. This article explores partisan newspapers of South Carolina in 1829, the calendar year following the publication of John C. Calhoun's "South Carolina Exposition and Protest," which recommended nullification of the tariff. Studying newspapers of varying political stances from throughout the state during this time not only highlights early calls for secession but also explains the formation of political parties distinct to South Carolina. By extension, examining newspapers' role in the crucial political debates of 1829 contributes to an understanding of how the partisan press worked at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article looks at U.S. politician Judah P. Benjamin's attitude towards secession. According to the author, Benjamin embraced the political logic behind secession relatively early in his career and showed no ambivalence in his support of the idea. Particular focus is given to evidence drawn from his political speeches. Details on Benjamin's career as a U.S. Senator and as a statesman in the Confederate States of America are presented. Other topics include slavery, the U.S. Constitution, and the Democratic party.

The article discusses the work of legal professionals in Memphis, Tennessee, during the Union Army's occupation of the city in the U.S. Civil War and after. The author begins by describing Tennessee's secession and the Confederate court system of Memphis. He goes on to note the suspension of habeas corpus on the work lawyers in the city. Confederate lawyers discussed include Joseph Brown Heiskell, Edwin Yerger, and John Sale.

The article discusses the theology of Connecticut Congregationalist clergyman and theologian Horace Bushnell concerning the U.S. Civil War, focusing on the years 1861 to 1866. It examines his view that the war was glorious and necessary to rid the nation of its sins of slavery and secessionist feeling. The author comments on Bushnell's views on republicanism, Christianity, and American exceptionalism. Other topics include his thoughts on atonement, national unification, and the Civil War as a sacrament.

The article discusses former New Mexico delegate to the U.S. Congress, Miguel A. Otero. The author discusses accusations made by U.S. editor and abolitionist Horace Greeley in Greeley's book "The American Conflict: A History of the Great Rebellion in the United States of America, 1860-1865," that Otero was a secessionist and attempted to persuade New Mexicans in 1861 to back the confederate states in the conflict. The author argues that Otero should be excused from being labeled as a secessionist. The author states that Otero did not make secessionist arguments or express secessionist opinions during the 36th Congress in 1860 and 1861.

The article compares the self-representations in autobiographies of people from the Confederate States of America in the United States after its defeat to those of people from the German Democratic Republic of former East Germany after the unification of Germany. The author describes the former East Germany as defeated similarly to the American Southern Secessionists and also applies the description of secession to the separation of East Germany from the rest of Germany. Argued similarities between the people, politics, and ideologies of the Confederate States and of East Germany are then presented by the author.