Remember that time Virginia sided with Abraham Lincoln and voted against secession? Most Americans probably don’t. Had this inconvenient truth been brought to the attention of Governor Ralph Northam, he would have had a much harder time justifying his order to remove the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, in which he claimed Lee fought to defend slavery.
Before Lincoln was even inaugurated, seven Southern states voted to secede from the Union. All eyes were then on Virginia that spring, as the industrial city of Richmond would become strategically crucial should she join the Southern cause. Then, on April 4th, 1861, the Virginia Legislature voted against secession. Let me say that again. Virginia, home to 500,000 slaves, voted to remain in the Union and settle their differences with the abolitionists peacefully, whatever the outcome.
Alas, the cool heads of the Virginia gentlemen were unreciprocated across the Potomac. Lincoln was determined to drag the nation into war. He provoked the Confederate forces in Charleston into attacking Fort Sumter, which they did on April 12th. Playing the victim, Lincoln then issued a proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteers on April 15th, to “avenge” the attack by invading the South and crushing the rebellion. Virginians were expected to participate. It was only at that moment, after being ordered to risk the lives of her sons to kill her fellow Southerners, that Virginia’s hand was forced. Lincoln had become a tyrant, and Virginia voted to secede on April 17th.
In the wake of Lincoln’s warmongering, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee soon followed in Virginia’s footsteps. That brought the total number of states in the Confederacy to eleven, but what about the original seven? Did they really only secede because they were slavery-loving racists?
No. A 2020 Lew Rockwell post did a great job of summarizing the South’s actual grievances. Namely, they were being swindled. “Northern corporations liked high tariffs on goods the South imported, because it reduced competition with European manufacturers and allowed them to charge higher prices for often substandard goods. The tax revenue went to Washington, which used it to subsidize Northern industries at the expense of Southern agriculture. Cotton was especially lucrative. In 1859, the value of exported cotton totaled $161,000,000. The value of all Northern exports combined was just over $70,000,000. By 1860, the Federal budget was $80,000,000. Seventy million of that was paid by the South. One section, which amounted to 29% of the population, was paying more than 82% of the taxes. Of that, four out of five dollars was being used for internal improvements in the North. This was not good enough for Abraham Lincoln. He backed an increase in the tariff from 24% to 47%. He got his way. This tariff rate was in effect until 1913.”
For the South, this state of affairs amounted to a racket, and it seemed unlikely to change anytime soon. “Because of immigration, the demographics caused a power shift in favor of the North. By 1860, the South felt that it was doomed to become an economic colony of the North if it remained in the Union, so it did not.”
After the South picked up its ball and went home, war was inevitable, but not because the “benevolent” North was determined to liberate the slaves. “The Confederacy set its tariff rates at 10%. There was no way Lincoln’s 47% tariff could compete with that for foreign trade. Lincoln legitimately feared the Northern economy would crash into a recession, if not a depression, and the Federal Government would lose 82% of its tax base, so Washington would be in desperate straits. Because Northern public opinion did not support a war, Lincoln had to walk a political tightrope. He had to instigate a war and make it appear that the South started it by maneuvering Jefferson Davis into firing the first shot.”
In light of these facts, it’s tough to argue that the South seceded out of prejudice or rashness, as American students are taught today. The same cannot be said of the secession movements in the North in decades prior:
“In 1845, fifteen years before the Southern states seceded, many New Englanders were so opposed to the admission of Texas to the Union that they threatened to withdraw from it. They were led by former U.S. President John Quincy Adams. Even before that, in 1806, U.S. Senator Plumer of New Hampshire was so outraged by the admission of Louisiana that he declared: ‘The Eastern States must and will dissolve the Union and form a separate government of their own; and the sooner they do this, the better.’ Plumer was joined by U.S. Senator Pickering of Massachusetts. He wrote: ‘I rather anticipate a new Confederacy exempt from the corrupt influence of the aristocratic Democrats of the South… There will be a separation… The British provinces (of Canada), even with the consent of Great Britain, will become members of the Northern Confederacy.’ ”
Their attempt to form the Northern Confederacy ultimately claimed the life of Alexander Hamilton. According to the University of Houston’s Digital History, “Alexander Hamilton repudiated this scheme, and the conspirators turned to Vice President Aaron Burr. In return for Federalist support in his campaign for the governorship of New York, Burr was to swing the state into the confederacy. Burr was badly beaten, in part because of Hamilton's opposition. Incensed, Burr challenged Hamilton to the duel in which the Federalist leader was fatally wounded.”
As we can see, secession was not a novel idea in 1860 America. The stunning hypocrisy of Union politicians was to be outdone only by Lincoln himself. His speech protesting the legitimacy of the Mexican War as a congressman might as well have been repurposed into a Southern declaration of independence:
The biggest mistake Lincoln and the Republicans made was failing to legally justify their claims of treason before going to war. What would probably, even still today, have been the most important trial in American history, the treason trial of Jefferson Davis, never materialized. After having been fed a fake media narrative for years, Northerners were eager to see Davis hang, but two highly respected special counsels refused to prosecute the case, because they feared it was unwinnable. In other words, secession wasn’t treason. It was constitutional. After imprisoning Davis for two years, Supreme Court Chief Justice Salmon Chase eventually cited pitiful 14th Amendment and citizenship technicalities to drop the treason charge, and weasel out of what should have been a colossal embarrassment for the government in court.
Of course, none of the facts presented here matter to the despotic whitewashers of history. After failing to criminally convict their enemies, they resorted to disgraceful smear campaigns, even going so low as to not approve Robert E. Lee’s request to have his citizenship reinstated. “More than a hundred years later, in 1970, an archivist at the National Archives discovered Lee's Amnesty Oath among State Department records (reported in Prologue, Winter 1970). Apparently Secretary of State William H. Seward had given Lee's application to a friend as a souvenir, and the State Department had pigeonholed the oath.”
In 1975, patriots in Congress took action and finally restored Lee’s citizenship. The most notable “Yes” vote came from then Senator Joe Biden. His courageous vote symbolized both an apology for the crimes of his ancestors, and an acknowledgement that our boys in gray were American heroes. It may also signal support for House Bill 1359, which was just filed in Texas on January 26th, and would schedule a public referendum on secession from the United States. The Biden administration still has yet to announce plans for reparations for Sherman’s March to the Sea, but I remain optimistic.
