No secessions under Buchanan

[Louis Epstein]

If the South had been willing to wait-and-see a little
longer and no OTL Confederate states had declared
secession from the USA when Lincoln took the oath in
March 1861 how might things have unfolded?
He did say that he wanted to preserve the Union even
in ways that did not involve freeing a single slave.
Would he have made concessions to keep them in?

-=-=-
The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,
at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.

[Rich Rostrom]

On 2/7/22 12:09 AM, Louis Epstein wrote:
> If the South had been willing to wait-and-see a little
> longer and no OTL Confederate states had declared
> secession from the USA when Lincoln took the oath in
> March 1861 how might things have unfolded?
> He did say that he wanted to preserve the Union even
> in ways that did not involve freeing a single slave.
> Would he have made concessions to keep them in?

The Republicans were pledged to no new slave states whatever.

Lincoln made his position clear during the lame-duck period:
"Hold tight, as with a chain of steel." He explained that if
Republicans made any concessions, the slave power would "pull
in the slack" and demand more. He argued:

If the Republicans agreed to "popular sovereignty" instead,
then the slavocrats would demand Crittenden's compromise. If
they got that, they would demand the Border State compromise.
If they got that, they would demand "all South Carolina asks".

If Lincoln took office without any secession declarations ...
He would concede nothing. He would make appointments in the
South, but would choose men who were not offensive to the
South.

If Southerners explicitly threatened secession, he would
denounce the threat. If it was a tacit threat, he'd just
wait it out. The most likely flashpoint would be Kansas,
and I can't see any state other than SC declaring secession
just because of Kansas being admitted as a free state.

--
Nous sommes dans une pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdés.
--- General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot at Sedan, 1870.

[David Tenner]

Louis Epstein <l...@top.put.com> wrote in news:stqd3g$cub$2
@reader1.panix.com:

> If the South had been willing to wait-and-see a little
> longer and no OTL Confederate states had declared
> secession from the USA when Lincoln took the oath in
> March 1861 how might things have unfolded?
> He did say that he wanted to preserve the Union even
> in ways that did not involve freeing a single slave.
> Would he have made concessions to keep them in?
>

Avoiding a secession crisis after Lincoln's election is unlikely but not
impossible. The key is to get South Carolina--as in 1850-51--to hesitate
to secede (for fear of isolation) unless some other state goes first. And
it is possible that no other state will go first if South Carolina
doesn't. For how this might come about, I will recycle an old post of mine
(sorry for links that may no longer work):

***

Could secession have been avoided after Lincoln's election? The usual
answer is that *at the very least* South Carolina was sure to secede. And
yet, even in South Carolina, there was one very prominent politician who
*privately* did not regard the South's prospects in the Union as hopeless,
even after Lincoln's victory: US Senator James Hammond. In a letter to
Alfred Aldrich just after Lincoln's election, Hammond stated "I do not
regard our circumstances in the Union as desperate." True, Hammond
preferred a Southern Republic if he could be sure that the other southern
states would follow South Carolina in seceding, but he had no confidence
they would do so. For that reason, he did not want South Carolina to
secede until other states had resolved to do so--advice that *if made
public* and followed, could have doomed secession, given that even *with*
South Carolina's prior secession, the victories for "immediate
secessionists" in the Deep South state secession convention elections were
often quite narrow.

Hammond explained why he thought staying in the Union was safer for South
Carolina than attempting "go it alone" secession: "the South...can, when
united, dictate, as it has always done, the internal and foreign policy of
our country." (Note that Hammond is here admitting one of the
Republicans' main allegations--that the South, far from groaning under
northern oppression, had hitherto dominated the country.) Hammond
explained that "at the North, politics is a trade." The spoilsmen "go into
it for gain." (This was a typical South Carolina aristocratic view of the
"mobocracy" which was seen as prevalent in other states, and especially in
the North.) For that reason, no Yankee has "ever been twice elected
President." Mr. Lincoln's administration will also break down "before it
can accomplish anything detrimental", for its "antislavery agitation" will
"not gain them spoils and power." (Quoted in William W. Freehling, *The
Road to Disunion, Volume II: Secessionists Triumphant 1854-1861,*, p. 405)
https://books.google.com/books?id=AsjRsGPOXKMC&pg=PA405

Indeed, with delayers in control of both houses of the South Carolina
legislature, and with Aldrich having Hammond's letter in his pocket,
things looked bleak for the South Carolina ultras. But then came the
"incredible coincidence" I described at
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/8b15a54b3f1a3dbd "A
railroad had just been completed linking Savannah, Ga., and Charleston,
S.C. As the South Carolina legislature deliberated, leading citizens of
the two cities took part in a celebration. The Georgians, carried away by
the emotion of the moment, pledged their state's support for secession.
Suddenly convinced that other states would follow, the legislature moved
the secession convention up to December. The 'coincidence,' Freehling
argues, changed history. Had South Carolina not taken this step, Unionists
might have prevailed throughout the South."

As it was, however, Aldrich decided not to make Hammond's letter public at
the secession convention--and Hammond acquiesced. Too much had changed
since the letter was written, Aldrich stated. South Carolina was now too
overwhelmingly in favor of secession for it to be blocked, and it was
therefore better, Aldrich explained, for the state to present a united
front to the rest of the world. Had the railroad not been completed just
when it was, and had Aldrich promptly released Hammond's letter to the
general public, things could have gone quite differently. South Carolina
might have decided not to secede until another state did--which might
never have happened...

Or it might have. The battle in the Deep South was generally not between
secessionists and unionists but between "immediate secessionists" (also
called "separate state action secessionists") and "cooperationists." The
big question in determining how close secession was to being avoided is to
determine whether cooperationism was just an alternate form of secession
or--as the immediate secessionists charged--really a disguised from of
Unionist "submissionism." The cooperationists claimed that they also
favored secession if necessary but that it should be done not by separate
state action but by a southern convention which could put final demands to
the North and secede if they were not met. One problem with the
cooperationists' position is that the more states seceded, the weaker it
became. The immediate secessionists could (and did) say, "We are the
*true* cooperationists--we are in favor of cooperating with the states
which have already seceded!"

If South Carolina had decided to wait for the other southern states, the
cooperationists might have prevailed against the immediate secessionists
throughout the South. It is easy to say that this would simply result in
Secession Later rather than Secession Now. Surely a southern convention
would present Lincoln with demands he would not meet--e.g., abandon the
Republican position on slavery in the territories. And
yet...cooperationism would after all buy time for the Union, and the
immediate secessionists were right to suspect this would strengthen the
Unionist cause. They felt they had to strike while the South was still
panicking over Lincoln's election. If you allow Lincoln to be in office
for some time before acting, the panic will subside, southerners will see
that slavery had remained unmolested and that the new president was not
another John Brown. Even if the proposed Southern Convention would
eventually come about, it might be dominated by Upper South moderates whom
Lincoln could appease (e.g., by admitting New Mexico to the Union, at
least nominally as a slave state, and by indicating his disapproval of
Personal Liberty laws).

So, then, a victory by cooperationists in all the Deep South states
*might* give the Union a chance. Was such a victory possible if South
Carolina didn't jump the gun? I would say that it was because, as I noted
above, even in OTL the "immediate secessionist" victories were quite
narrow. In Alabama, the secessionists cast 35,600 votes, the
cooperationists 28,100. In Georgia, the secessionists won by only (at
most) 44,152 to 41,632. In Louisiana, the secessionists prevailed by
20,214 to 18,451. In Mississippi, there were 16,800 votes for
secessionists, 12,218 for cooperationists, 12,000 for candidates whose
position was not specified or is now unknown. Florida was somewhat more
pro-secessionist than, say, Georgia, but even in Florida the
cooperationists got about 40 percent of the vote. (My source for these
figures is David Potter, *The Impending Crisis.*)

So preventing secession after Lincoln's election is very, very difficult
but IMO not *quite* inconceivable.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/wi-no-secessionist-crisis-
as-lincoln-becomes-president.424396/#post-15481060

***

So let's say a secession crisis is avoided. What could Lincoln do to bring
slavery closer to "ultimate extinction"? Probably not much, except in the
sense of *refraining* from doing some things that a pro-slavery
administration might do (e.g., seeking southward expansion). Yes, he might
seek to build up the Republican party in the Upper South by the use of
patronage, but probably with limited success. After all, his patronage
wasn't enough to make the border slave states Republican in OTL; even a
state like Delaware where there were few slaves and where Lincoln had
received a substantial vote in 1860 went for McClellan in 1864. Lincoln
did carry Maryland and Missouri in 1864, but that was largely due to the
disfranchisement of pro-Confederate elements. As for the Lower South,
Lincoln made it clear that in areas where there were few or no
Republicans, he would not attempt to appoint them to office.

What about the slavery-in-the-territories issue? Once Kansas was admitted
as a free state, that was pretty much dead so far as the *existing*
territories were concerned. New Mexico might be admitted as a nominal
slave state but one with only a handful of African American slaves. (There
was unfree labor in New Mexico--but it took the form of debt peonage and
Native American captivity.)There was even less of a prospect for slavery
in territories further north. And Lincoln is not going to get the US into
southward expansion.

He will have a chance to appoint some Supreme Court justices--but not as
many as in OTL, because with Alabama remaining in the Union, Campbell will
presumably not resign. As in OTL, Lincoln would choose McLean's successor,
but that would just mean replacing one Republican with another. Replacing
Taney and Daniel would make the Court somewhat less proslavery--but still
there would still be Campbell, Catron, Clifford, Nelson , Grier, and
Wayne. And will a Democratic Senate allow the creation of a tenth seat for
Lincoln to fill?

What about the Post Office allowing "incendiary" materials to be mailed in
the South? It probably will not make much difference--Southerners will
suppress abolitionist mail on their own, by extralegal means if necessary.

Would the very fact that an antislavery party triumphed in the
presidential elections have inspired slave rebellions? Unlikely. The
slaves could see that local white police power was not shaken.

Looking beyond slavery, what about the tariff? The Morrill Tariff could
not have passed if the states that had seceded in OTL had kept their seats
in the Senate. (It passed 25-14 with six states and their twelve senators
absent: AL, FL, GA, LA, MS, and SC.
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/36-2/s512) All the Republicans in
Congress, even combined with protectionist Democrats like Bigler of PA,
probably could not have gotten a tariff increase if the South had stayed
in the Union.

It is true that a couple of more free states could have been admitted to
the Union. But its hard to see why this is an immediate danger to the
South, given that western states (even when Republicans) tended to be
Negrophobic and skeptical of protectionism.

All in all, it is hard to see how Lincoln's victory could pose an
*immediate* threat to the South. This doesn't mean that secessionists were
wrong to sense a long-term danger to slavery if the South stayed in the
Union. There would be more Republican judges in the future, more
Republican states, and eventually there could be a Republican Senate as
well as House. The few Upper South "Oppositionists" open to fusion with
the Republicans--Henry Winter Davis of Maryland, maybe John Minor Botts of
Virginia
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-bison-john-minor-botts-
and-a-republican-oppositionist-alliance-if-lincoln-wins-and-no-
secession.494768/#post-20936551
--might become more numerous. Even if they are unlikely to transform their
states immediately, still their very existence seemed dangerous to
slaveholders who thought white unanimity on slavery was essential to
safeguard the institution. More border states might eventually decide on
gradual emancipation, Delaware and Missouri being the most plausible. [1]
More important, a line would have been crossed--a declared antislavery
party could gain control of the White House without the South seceding.
This, the secessionists feared, would leave the South so demoralized that
they would not be able to organize effective resistance to future
antislavery steps. So in that sense secession, though a gamble, was not an
irrational one if you put the long-term survival of slavery above
everything else. What was irrational was the fear of *immediate* disaster
the secessionists fostered among Southerners.

So would Lincoln be re-elected in 1864? It's hard to say. The Democrats
would have the advantage of being more united than they were in 1860 once
the divisive Douglas leaves the scene. OTOH, one of the major arguments
against the Republicans in 1856 and 1860--"if they win there will be
disunion and civil war"--will no longer be credible.
Moreover, even a return to Democratic rule in the White House would leave
slaveholders uneasy , because it was already evident by 1860 that many
northern Democrats were as committed in practice to the containment of
slavery as the Republicans.

[1] It is noteworthy that in 1857 James Rollins, the "Oppositionist"
candidate for governor of Missouri, came close to defeating the Democratic
candidate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1857_Missouri_gubernatorial_special_election
Besides Whigs/Americans/Oppositionists Rollins had the support of the
emerging Republican Party of Missouri (which was pretty much limited to
St. Louis and a few nearby German counties) and many Benton Democrats.
"Rollins, himself a slaveholder, did not favor immediate emancipation, but
he affirmed that a day might come when Missouri would find it to her
economic advantage to convert to a free-labor system."
https://books.google.com/books?id=FbcukKSwqdAC&pg=PA186.



--
David Tenner
dte...@ameritech.net

[Rich Rostrom]

On 3/1/22 3:59 AM, David Tenner wrote:

> So let's say a secession crisis is avoided. What could Lincoln do to bring
> slavery closer to "ultimate extinction"? Probably not much, except in the
> sense of *refraining* from doing some things that a pro-slavery
> administration might do (e.g., seeking southward expansion). Yes, he might
> seek to build up the Republican party in the Upper South by the use of
> patronage, but probably with limited success. After all, his patronage
> wasn't enough to make the border slave states Republican in OTL; even a
> state like Delaware where there were few slaves and where Lincoln had
> received a substantial vote in 1860 went for McClellan in 1864. Lincoln
> did carry Maryland and Missouri in 1864, but that was largely due to the
> disfranchisement of pro-Confederate elements. As for the Lower South,
> Lincoln made it clear that in areas where there were few or no
> Republicans, he would not attempt to appoint them to office.

True, but he will have to appoint _someone_ to vacant Federal offices
in the South. Lincoln (IMO) would be cunning enough to appoint
"Oppositionist" (i.e. Whig) Unionists. He cannot build up the
_Republican_ Party in the South, but he could build up the
Constitutional Union party which could cooperate with the Republicans
on non-slavery issues.

[Louis Epstein]

So what would Andrew Johnson wind up doing in this TL?

[Rich Rostrom]

On 3/28/22 5:25 PM, Louis Epstein wrote:
> So what would Andrew Johnson wind up doing in this TL?

With no secession crisis Johnson remains a populist Democrat;
pro-slavery, but no Fire-Eater.