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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] more...

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. more...

The article discusses the secession of the U.S. Southern States in 1861, focusing on the religious aspects and the characterization of the South as evil by Northerners. Other topics include the rationalization of war through reference to supernatural evil, the use of supernatural figures to add religious tones to political issues, and the depiction of the devil in visual media such as political cartoons. more...

During the secession crisis in 1860–61, the American South was far from unified. Contrary to the idea that the South constituted a single distinct region, this analysis of secession news in Southern newspapers demonstrates the slave states consisted of a constellation of Souths rather than one unified South. Through their decisions about what to print, Southern editors serving unique localities contributed to the social construction of sectionally distinct visions of nationhood. Their decisions about which news and opinion they would reprint and how news was framed made them integral agents in the news ecosystem. This study examines 822 newspaper articles covering secession in the weeks before, during, and after South Carolina's secession in the Charleston Mercury, New Orleans Picayune, Alexandria Gazette, and Macon Telegraph. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

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. more...

The article discusses the character of the U.S. Civil War in Washington Territory. Focus is given to race relations between Pacific Northwest Indians and black and white settlers, along with Territory-residents mixed reactions to abolitionism, slavery, and the secession of the Southern States at the outset of the conflict. The story of Charles Mitchell, a slave taken to Washington from Maryland by surveyor James Tilton, is also addressed. more...

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. more...

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. more...

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. more...

The article discusses the U.S. Civil War, examining the attitudes of Union soldiers who performed duties related to the occupation of the defeated Southern states throughout the war. The author explores the manner in which the experience of military occupation impacted the Union soldier's morale and motivation. The attitudes of soldiers who enlisted for patriotic reasons but, instead of experiencing traditional combat, were forced to do tedious occupation duty are analyzed. Also discussed is the lack of camaraderie found amongst the Union soldiers. more...

Focuses on United States General Robert E. Lee and his views on issues of race and politics. Defense of the secession of the South in 1861; Efforts of Southern white elite to control their section from threats by Afro-Americans; Andrew Johnson's support for white men; Lee's argument for the return to status quo except for the reinstitution of slavery; Antipathy for the notion of renegotiating race relations. more...

There remains, to the present day, a paucity of literature concerning Southern Catholics and, especially, Catholics and the Civil War. This essay treats the above in tandem. The focus is on bishops and their responses to secession and the first year of the War. Questions of allegiance are central. How did the bishops balance allegiance to the faith with secular/political issues? Could bishops--and by extension all Southern Catholics--be both devout Catholics and devoted Confederates? In addressing these questions, this essay presents the "Confederatization thesis," providing a corrective to false assumptions concerning a lack of Catholic political and social activity in the American South, in general, and during the Civil War in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The article discusses the actions of U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase in the prosecution of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and in the case Texas v. White. Topics discussed include Chase's rejection of the doctrine of state secession from the Union in 1869 thus establishing the permanency of the Union, the prosecution of Davis for treason in Virginia and Chase's challenges in reconciling the law and the Civil War. more...

The article discusses the political and social atmosphere of Charleston, South Carolina, in 1860 and 1861 as residents anticipated the U.S. Civil War. It focuses upon the prospect of the secession of South Carolina from the United States, the battle of Fort Sumter, and public opinion concerning those issues and fears about the possible amount of bloodshed in a war. more...

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. more...

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] more...

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. more...

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] more...

Lincoln's election produced Southern secession, war, and abolition. Using a new dataset on slave sales, we examine connections between news and slave prices for the period 1856-1861. By August 1861, slave prices had declined by roughly one-third from their 1860 peak. That decline was similar for all age and sex cohorts and thus did not reflect expected emancipation without compensation. The decision to secede reflected beliefs that the North would not invade and that emancipation without compensation was unlikely. Both were encouraged by Lincoln's conciliatory tone before the attack on Fort Sumter, and subsequently dashed by Lincoln's willingness to wage all-out war. (JEL D72, D74, D83, G14, H77, N31, N41) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The ending of slavery is associated most often with President Abraham Lincoln. Although personally opposed to slavery, Lincoln was even more opposed to secession and the disintegration of the American union. On many occasions after signing the Emancipation Proclamation, Lincoln expressed in his own correspondence and in conversations recorded by others a readiness to renege on emancipation in exchange for the Confederate states' returning to the Union. Jefferson Davis's commitment to Southern independence, however, was stronger by far than Abraham Lincoln's commitment to emancipation. Although willing to break his promise to end slavery, Lincoln could do nothing to convince Davis to accept this concession by returning to the Union. Davis's absolute devotion to Southern nationhood, in this sense, forced upon Lincoln the title of Great Emancipator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Economic analyses of American Civil War causation typically focus on longue durée structural arguments neglecting specific context and contemporary observers’ predictions about disunion’s effects. This article suggests secession heightened concern about government solvency and intensified a conversation about the nature of American inter- and intra-national trade, one hinging on ideas about relative dependence and positioning within the world economy. Deep South secessionists rested their claims on a cotton-centric economic worldview, trusting that their coveted commodity could finance independence and attract foreign partners. Pro-compromise northerners greatly feared that possibility. Less compromising Republican political economists countered that secession would reveal northern economic superiority and the South’s underlying weakness, eventually leading to voluntary reunion. Though competing sides envisioned peaceful pathways towards their ends, the actions of insolvent central governments—who feared that any compromise on contested forts and revenue ports would undermine the confidence of underwriters—militated against these imagined peaceful ends. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER] more...

The article looks at mid-19th century U.S. politics, focusing on the political career of Texas Governor and U.S. Senator Sam Houston in the context of party politics in the Southern states. It looks at how historians have assessed Houston's membership in the American Party, or Know-Nothings, and discusses Houston's views on matters including slavery, temperance, and Southern secession. The author presents a case for the view that Houston's politics reflect the legacy of the Whig party. more...

Using data from U.S. commodity flow survey, we show that the historical Union-Confederacy border lowers contemporaneous trade between U.S. states by about 13%. The finding is robust over econometric models, survey waves, or aggregation levels. Including contemporaneous controls, such as network or institutional variables, lowers the estimate only slightly. Historical variables, such as slavery, do not explain the effect. Adding U.S. states unaffected by the Civil War, we argue that the friction is not merely reflecting unmeasured North-South differences. Finally, the border effect is larger for differentiated than for homogeneous goods, stressing the potential role for cultural factors and trust. (JEL F15, N72, N92, Z10 ) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

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. more...

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. more...

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] more...

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. more...

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. more...

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. more...

The article discusses the legal arguments in favor of the secessionist position and highlights the principal argument that secession was a lawful remedy available to the Southern States for material breaches of the constitutional compact of 1787 by the free states. It also informs that in case of an argument, general considerations of natural law and of the law of nations play a central role. more...

The article presents information on civil war historian Kenneth Stampp who claimed that the arguments in favor of the constitutionality of secession made by the Southern States were strong. It informs that Stampp deployed a sort of historically nuanced originalism, not in the service of answering a modem constitutional question, but in the service of demonstrating an important ambiguity in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1787. more...

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. more...

The article discusses the political and legal philosophies of U.S. constitutional law professors and brothers Henry St. George Tucker and Nathaniel Beverly Tucker, both sons of U.S. constitutional scholar St. George Tucker, during the first half of the 19th century. The article analyzes their views on the constitutionality of nullification, promoted by U.S. senator John C. Calhoun, as well as the legal concept of secession compared to their father's political moderation and constitutional views. more...

Information about several topics discussed at the annual meeting of the U.S. Southern Historical Association held in Charlotte, North Carolina in early 2011 is presented. Topics included the U.S. secession crisis of 1860 and 1861, the history of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the book "General Lee's Army: From Victory to Collapse" by Joseph T. Glatthaar. The conference featured historians including Daniel E. Sutherland, Heather Ann Thompson, and William J. Cooper, Jr. more...

An essay is presented on several individuals from states such as Louisiana, Georgia, and South Carolina who were sent to the state of Texas in an effort to persuade their government leaders to join the secessionist movement prior to the beginning of the American Civil War. It discusses the importance of slavery to the cause of the Confederate States of America and profiles the actions of secession commissioners including James Martin Calhoun, John McQueen, and George M. Williamson. more...

The article discusses the Virginia Ordinance of Secession, a document adopted by the General Assembly of Virginia at a state congressional convention in May of 1861 to authorize the state's decision to secede from the U.S. It explores the origins of various copies of the Ordinance that exist in 2011 including a parchment copy produced by penman William Flegenheimer, lithographic versions produced by the printing studio Hoyer and Ludwig, and an original copy owned by the Library of Virginia. more...

The article discusses the reaction of both the public and the government of New Zealand to the U.S. Civil War. Some of the issues considered include the economic impact of the war on international markets, public opinion regarding slavery and abolition, the influence of secession on the political ideology of New Zealand's public, and the impact of American privateers on New Zealand's commerce. The author considers historical sources including the colonial government's records, private diaries and journals, and the editorialized reporting of the Civil War found in colonial newspapers of the period. more...

The article presents a speech by historian William J. Cooper Jr., delivered at the annual meeting of the Southern Historical Association held in Charlotte, North Carolina on November 5, 2010, in which he discussed the secession crisis of 1860 and 1861, focusing especially on the book "The Road to Disunion, Volume 2: Secessionists Triumphant, 1854-1861," by William W. Freehling, as well as providing a historiography of studies of the crisis of the Union. more...

The article presents an in-depth exploration into the research and academic accomplishments of the Southern U.S. historian Ulrich Bonnell Phillips on the history of slavery and the antebellum Southern States in the 1930s. Phillips' work on the developments leading up to secession are particularly discussed. The connections shared between Phillips and the North Carolina State Literary and Historical Association are also described, noting several lectures and papers he printed through the society. Analysis is also provided evaluating his reception by historians in contemporary and following generations and his own views of the role of slavery and the region's politics during the period. more...

In January 1861 editor James D.B. De Bow advocated the secession of southern states from the union as he proclaimed to his readers that white Southerners “are mainly the descendants of those who fought the battles of the Revolution, and who understand and appreciate the nature and inestimable value of the liberty which it brought.” While editors on both sides of the Sectional Crisis over slavery in the 1850s and 60s claimed to be “custodians of the legacy of 1776” as they used the American Revolution symbolically in their rhetoric. By focusing on De Bow's Review, a widely read and influential journal during this fight, we can gain a better understanding of the specific terms by which Southerners were encouraged to think of themselves not as rebels but as guardians of “the true American character.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The article presents an examination into the issues that divided northern and southern Texas over the 1861 decision over whether or not to secede from the United States and join the Confederacy. Northern wheat farmers expressed concern over the issue of secession which, politically, pitted them against the majority of the state that was in favor of secession. The article discusses how many northern Texas farmers came from states in the Upper South who were less dependent on slave labor or raising and harvesting their crops while southern Texas farmers typically had roots to the Deep South and raised cotton. The author explores how these economic issues were tied to politics and influenced the secession debate. more...

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. more...

The article presents a reprint of the paper, "Conversational Opinions of the Leaders of Secession: A Monograph," by Joseph Cook in the November 1862 issue of the "Atlantic Monthly." The article presents interviews with Southern leaders to determine the cause of the rebellion, the personal history of the leaders, and the incidents that occur immediately before the break out of the conspiracy. more...