Andrew Jackson Provokes Civil War

Opponents of Andrew Jackson’s warlike threats after South Carolina’s fierce opposition to the protective tariff labeled it the “Force Bill” or the “Bloody Bill,” which authorized using military force to collect the government revenue. He warned that he would march to South Carolina with 200,000 men to quell any and all insurrection and should the Governor of Virginia attempt to prevent the passage of regiments bound for South Carolina, “I would arrest him at the head of his troops.”

Jackson awaited congressional sanction for his war upon a State; Lincoln’s actions were his own and taken while Congress was in recess.

Andrew Jackson Provokes Civil War

Senator John Tyler of Virginia called Charleston a “beleaguered city.” Suppose, he said, this bill were to pass and “the proud spirit of South Carolina” should refuse to submit. Would we then “make war upon her, hang her Governor . . . and reduce her to the condition of a conquered province?” Mr. Tyler saw South Carolina’s towns leveled, her daughters in mourning, her men driven “into the morasses where Francis Marion found refuge.” But he did not see them conquered. Rome had her Curtis, Sparta her Leonidas – and South Carolina had John C. Calhoun. Mr. Calhoun did not repudiate the heroic part. “I proclaim it,” said he, “that should this bill pass . . . it will be resisted at every hazard – even that of death.”

Oblivious to threat and to political entreaty, Andrew Jackson refused to give an inch. He insisted on the passage of the Force Bill. Henry Clay of Kentucky, a practiced dispenser of parliamentary miracles, could not uphold nullification and he would not uphold Jackson. Clay introduced a bill which in ten years would lower tariffs by twenty percent and South Carolina accepted peace from the hands of Mr. Clay rather than those of General Jackson.

But the late crisis had ended more tamely than Jackson had reckoned on. “I thought I would have to hang some of them & I would have done it.”

(The Life of Andrew Jackson. Chapter XXX, Marquis James. Bobbs Merrill Company, 1938, pg. 619-621)

 

A Posse and Grenades to Overawe South Carolina

On November 24, 1832, “the tariff acts were proclaimed void and not binding upon this State or its citizens,” after February 1, 1833. South Carolina Gov. Robert Y. Hayne declared the use of federal force in an attempt to collect duties after that date would be met by the State’s secession from the 1789 constitution. This would of course make South Carolina an independent country.

In reply to South Carolina’s decision not to comply with the increased and what it believed to be an unconstitutional tariff, Andrew Jackson threatened to fill that State with 100,000 troops raised from the other States, which he referred to as “a posse.” His vice-president later said that Jackson “yearned to lead this force in person.”

A Posse and Grenades to Overawe South Carolina

New York politician and Vice President Martin Van Buren politely disagreed with Jackson’s contention that the mere raising of troops by South Carolina, i.e., State militia, constituted actual treason. Even Jackson’s close political advisor regretted this wording in the President’s proclamation, which he saw as inviting trouble. This advisor saw that the root of the issue was a high protective tariff which went above and beyond a constitutional tariff to support the expenses of the federation’s government. The latter simply advised Jackson that “a gesture toward tariff reduction might pave the way to a happy solution of everything.”

“Mr. Van Buren’s anxieties arose chiefly from the fact that, like many others, he regarded the crisis through the spectacles of partizan politics . . . who feared a break with Southern leaders, notably those of Virginia. He feared the political aftermath of a break with them now, as Jackson had thrown such considerations to the winds, placing himself militantly at the head of union sentiment of the nation, irrespective of person or party.

This man of caution had raised two points which the man of action could not ignore:

The first concerned the definition of treason of actual treason and the constitutional right of the Executive to intervene in a State’s affairs. Legally he could do so only (1.) at the request of the Governor to suppress insurrection, or (2.) on his own initiative, to enforce the laws of Congress [if the State remained as a member of the federation].

Jackson dispatched seven revenue cutters and a ship of war to Charleston harbor, anchoring off the battery with their guns commanding the fashionable waterfront lined with the homes and brick walled gardens of the city’s elite.

“No State or States,” the President wrote Joel Poinsett, leader of the State’s unionists, “has a right to secede . . . Nullification therefore means insurrection and war; and other States have a right to put it down. I will . . . have the leaders arrested and arraigned for treason . . . in forty days I can have within the limits of South Carolina fifty-thousand men, and in forty more days more another fifty thousand.”

Poinsett, a veteran of the Mexican War and eager to suppress his fellow citizens desire for political independence, wrote Jackson on November 16, 1832: “Grenades and small rockets are excellent weapons in a street fight. I would like to have some of them.”

(The Life of Andrew Jackson. Chapter XXX, Marquis James. Bobbs Merrill Company, 1938, pg. 609; 615)

A Toast to Our Federal Union

Some twenty-nine years before Abraham Lincoln threatened a State with invasion, the militaristic President Andrew Jackson flatly denied that a State within the federation could challenge laws it considered unconstitutional. Jackson believed all States to be permanently under the 1789 constitution with no right to withdraw, which surprised Rhode Island, New York and Virginia as all three had explicitly reserved this in their ratifications. All other States considered the 10th Amendment as a clear warning to the federal agent.

Though Jackson was not the first military man elected president, his experience as a field commander with little if any civilian supervision gave him wide latitude in his decisions. His April 1818 capture and hanging of two British envoys in Florida brought him severe condemnation from Congress, which chose not to censure the popular general.

A Toast to Our Federal Union

“Toastmaster Roane introduced the President of the United States. Old Hickory stood, waiting for the cheers to subside. The President fixed his glance upon Vice President John C. Calhoun, toasting to, “Our Union: it must be Preserved.” He raised his glass, a signal that the toast was to be drunk standing.

Hayne rushed up to Jackson. Would the President consent to the insertion of one word in his toast before the text was given to the newspapers? What was the word? Asked Jackson. It was “Federal,” making the toast read, “our Federal Union.” Jackson agreed and, like many another historic epigram, the toast went forth amended to the world.

The Vice President arose slowly. “May we all remember that [the Union] can only be preserved by respecting the rights of the States and by distributing equally the benefits and burdens of the Union.”

(The Life of Andrew Jackson. Chapter XXX, Marquis James. Bobbs Merrill Company, 1938, pg. 539-540)

 

Northern Recruiters in Canada

In late 1863, Lt. John Wilkinson of the famed blockade runner Robert E. Lee was ordered to Halifax, Nova Scotia, then Montreal and Lake Erie on a mission to overwhelm the crew of the USS Michigan guarding the infamous Johnson’s Island prison. He and his small force planned to free the 2500 Southern officers held there.

Northern Recruiters in Canada

“I had been furnished, before leaving Richmond, with letters to parties in Canada, who, it was believed, could give valuable aid to the expedition. To expedite matters, a trustworthy agent and canny Scotsman who had long served under my command, was dispatched to Montreal, via Portland [Ontario], to notify these parties that we were on our way there. Our emissary, taking passage on a steamer bound for Portland, passed safely through United States territory, while the rest of us commenced our long and devious route through the British Provinces [of Canada].

Wherever we travelled, even through the remotest settlements, recruiting agents for the United States army were at work, scarcely affecting to disguise their occupation; and the walls of the obscurest country taverns bristled with advertisements like the following:

‘Wanted for a tannery in Maine, 1000 men to whom a large bonus will be paid, etc.”

Many could not resist the allurements, but it was from this class of and similar ones, no doubt, that the “bounty jumpers” sprang. It has been asserted, by those who were in a position to form a correct estimate, that the British Provinces alone, contributed one hundred thousand men to the Federal army.”

(The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner. John Wilkinson. Valde Books, 2009 (original Sheldon & Company, 1877), pp. 72-73)

 

Mankind’s War Fetish

 

English author and commentator H.G. Wells began writing newspaper articles in August 1914 commenting upon what was to be termed the “World War”; the articles would become assembled in a book entitled The War That Will End War. Arguing that the Central Powers led by Germany and Italy commenced the war, he saw that only the destruction of German militarism could end the conflagration.

American intervention – pursued by a president who was elected on a promise of keeping us out of the war – was decisive as cash advances to Britain, France and Russia amounting to some $9.6 billion stoked the fires. Postwar, America became the world’s banker with net foreign assets of around $11 billion by the end of 1919.

In 1918, Germany was defeated, its Kaiser banished, and punitive peace terms burdened the German people. Predictably, a nationalist arose within Germany who rebuilt his country’s military and ironically with French assistance through the Czech’s Skoda Works. Only twenty years after the Versailles Treaty, it was back to war. What is called World War Two – more accurately called the second half of the World War – led to an estimated 56 million military and civilian deaths, and an additional 38 million dead from war-related disease and famine.

Below, author Emil Ludwig cites the costs of the war to end war.

Mankind’s War Fetish

“The World War, which was on the verge of breaking out in the very first opening years of the opening century, is the great liquidation of debts created in the previous era and we desire and demand that it be associated with the nineteenth century. The second Hague Conference of 1907 was only a farce. During the weeks for which the third meeting was set in the summer of 1915, oratory could no longer be heard in The Hague due to the nearby thundering of cannon in Europe.

The cost of armament during the years from 1910 to 1914 amounted to 1.8 billions of dollars for Austria and Germany together and 2.4 billions for France and Russia – more than 4 billion. Yet these were small sums compared with those piled up by the War. On land and sea and in the air, 12,990,570 soldiers were killed in the World War. The war cost the combined combatants 250,000,000 billions of dollars – half of their combined national wealth. Thus, within four years, for no reason and without any essential consequences, Europe had sent up in smoke half of all it had gathered together during the preceding centuries. How should we characterize an act of this kind on the part of a large bank or a powerful family?

In so far as the victorious powers are concerned, France was a creditor nation to the extent of 30 billions before the war and a debtor to the extent of 31 billions afterward. During the struggle, the French national wealth decreased by a third; that of England by one fourth. Even the United States government had to expend during two years more than it had laid out in the course of over a century; and if in spite of this fact it remains today the creditor of the world, the reason is not participation in the second half of the war but rather abstention during the war’s first half. The smaller countries which remained neutral are in a relatively better position than any of the imperialist states.

With the exception of America, all the warring countries lost millions of men and billions of money; and any territory gained in the process at the expense of the conquered peoples is of intrinsic worth only in the case of new states established at the end.

Even the single positive result of the World War – the destruction of four realms anachronistically ruled by emperors, and the creation of eleven republics – was therefore purchased at a price which, in civil life, only an insane person would pay.”

“We punish an individual guilty of assault or murder, but the massacre of a people is considered a glorious deed.” Seneca

“Standing armies should in time cease to be, for they constitute a perennial threat of war to other states . . .”  Immanuel Kant

(Whither Mankind: A Panorama of Modern Civilization. Charles A. Beard, editor. Longmans, Green & Company, 1928, pp. 178-179)

 

Lincoln Chooses War

 

“The interval of eighty days between [Sumter] and the assembling of Congress gave Lincoln a virtual monopoly on emergency powers. Between his attempt to reinforce and resupply Fort Sumter – the latter odd since its garrison obtained food from Charleston markets – and the meeting of Congress in July, Lincoln had a virtual monopoly on assuming claimed “emergency powers.” After several States solemnly withdrew from the 1789 Constitution, Lincoln declared an “insurrection” to exist in seven States and called forth 75,000 militia to suppress this claim. On April 19, 1861, Lincoln proclaimed a naval blockade – an act of war – of all States bordering the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico, including North Carolina which remained within the Union at that time. In his July 1861 message to Congress, Lincoln explained his clearly unconstitutional actions while asserting that “this issue embraces more than the fate of these United States. It presents to the whole family of man the question whether a constitutional republic or democracy . . . can . . . maintain its territory against its own domestic foes.” It is clear that he was not familiar with Article III, Section 3 of the United States Constitution, for “waging war against Them [the States] or aiding and abetting their enemies.”

Lincoln Chooses War

“. . . the South considered secession a peaceable act, while according to the [Northern] point of view such secession was null and required a defensive attitude on the part of the federal government with a readiness to strike in retaliation for any act of resistance to the national authority. This drifting policy, accompanied by conditions in the social mind which can only be described as pathological, had led to the Sumter crisis; and war was upon the country with each side protesting that its actions were purely defensive, and that the opponent was the aggressor.

Lincoln took many other war measures. He issued two proclamations of blockade . . . He decreed an expansion of the regular army on his own authority [with] a further call on May 3rd for recruits to the regular army beyond the total authorized by law. Increasing the regular army is a congressional function, with Sen. John Sherman stating that “I never met anyone who claimed that the President could, by proclamation, increase the regular army.”

Lincoln’s message to Congress on July 4th, 1861, stated: “These measures, whether strictly legal or not, were ventured upon, under what appeared to be a popular demand and public necessity; trusting . . . that Congress would readily ratify them.” In a word, the whole machinery of war was set in motion by Lincoln, with all that this meant in terms of federal effort, departmental activity, State action and private enterprise.”

(The Civil War and Reconstruction. James G. Randall. D.C. Heath & Company. 1937, pp. 360-366)

Opposing Slave Imports to Virginia

Robert E. Lee’s father “Light-Horse” Harry was a first-cousin to Richard Henry Lee, a prominent Virginian elected to the House of Burgesses in 1758, an office he held virtually the rest of his life. His first speech assailed the transportation of slaves into Virginia, stating “the importation of slaves into this Colony . . . has been and will be attended with effects dangerous both to our political and moral interests.” “Lay so heavy a tax upon the importation of slaves as effectually to put an end to that iniquitous and disgraceful traffic within the Colony,” he told the Burgesses.” North Carolina proposed the same.

Opposing Slave Imports to Virginia

“Massachusetts invalidated the British commercial system, which Virginia resisted from abhorrence of the slave-trade. Never before had England pursued the traffic in Negroes with such eager avarice.

The remonstrances of philanthropy and of the colonies were unheeded, and categorical instructions from the Board of Trade kept every American [colonial] port open as markets for [African slaves]. The legislature of Virginia had repeatedly showed a disposition to obstruct the commerce; a deeply seated public opinion began more and more to avow the evils and injustice of slavery itself; and in 1761, it was proposed to suppress the importation of Africans by a prohibitory duty.

Among those who took part in the long and violent debate was Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794), the representative from Westmoreland. Descended from one of the oldest families in Virginia, he had been educated in England and had returned to his native land familiar with the spirit of Grotius and Cudworth, of Locke and Montesquieu; his first recorded speech was against Negro slavery and in behalf of human freedom.

In the continued importation of slaves, Lee foreboded danger to the Old Dominion; an increase of the free Anglo-Saxons, he argued, would foster arts and varied agriculture, while a race doomed to abject bondage was of necessity an enemy to social happiness. He painted from ancient history the horrors of servile insurrections. He deprecated the barbarous atrocity of [England’s and New England’s] trade with Africa, and its violation of equal rights of men created like ourselves in the image of God.

The [slave importation] tax for which Lee raised his voice was carried through the Assembly of Virginia by a majority of one; but from England a negative followed with certainty every colonial act tending to diminish the slave-trade.”

(History of the United States, From the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. IV. George Bancroft. Little, Brown & Company. 1856. pp. 421-422)

 

New England’s Slave Past

African slaves existed in colonial New England as early as 1634 – well before any were in what became the American South – and by 1774 New England’s slave population totaled over 16,000. Interestingly, New England clergymen, merchants and lawyers then commonly owned at least one slave; in 1774 Connecticut’s slave population totaled over 5,000. Earlier in that century New England had surpassed England as the center of the nefarious transatlantic slave trade, which carried African slaves first to the West Indies to live and likely die as sugar cane laborers, then back to New England with sugar to make more rum with which to trade to African tribes for their slaves.

New England’s Slave Past

“[New England’s early inhabitants] were of homogenous origin, nearly all tracing their descent to English emigrants of the reigns of Charles the First, and Charles the Second. Along the seaside, wherever there was a good harbor, fishermen . . . gathered in hamlets; and each returning season saw them with an ever-increasing number of mariners and vessels, taking the cod and mackerel, and sometimes pursuing the whale into the icy labyrinths of the Northern seas; yet loving home, and dearly attached to their modest freeholds.

Of [African] slavery there was not enough to affect the character of the people, except in the southeast of Rhode Island, where Newport was conspicuous for engaging in the [transatlantic] slave trade, and where, in two or three towns, Negroes composed even a third of the inhabitants.”

(History of the United States, From the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. IV. George Bancroft. Little, Brown & Company. 1856. pp. 149-150)

 

Father of the Revolution – Samuel Adams

As described below, New England political agitation brought about the avoidable secession from England and war; the same occurred some 80 years later “as Massachusetts agitators and men of letters had done their best to see that there should be thousands, and tens of thousands” joining them in denouncing their union with the South. The uncompromising Puritan moral crusade against the very African slavery which ironically enriched their own section, would now be put to work to destroy the 1789 union. The agitation pushed the hand of Lincoln in April 1861 to confront now-independent South Carolina over the question of tariff revenue – which predictably resulted in gunfire and war. Those defending their State were denounced in the north as “rebels” intent upon destroying the union.

Father of the Revolution – Samuel Adams

“It is a great mistake to think of public opinion as united in the colonies and as gradually rising against British tyranny. Public opinion was never wholly united and seldom rises to a pitch of passion without being influenced – in other words, without the use of propaganda. The Great War [of 1914-1918] taught that to those who did not know it already.

From the first, [John] Adams and those working with him had realized the necessity of democratic slogans in the creation of a state of mind. [He] at once struck out boldly to inflame the passions of the crowd by threatening that it was to be reduced to the “miserable state of tributary slaves,” contrasting its freedom and moral virtue with the tyranny and moral degradation of England. He proclaimed that the mother country was bent on bringing her colonies to a condition of “slavery, poverty and misery,” and on causing their utter ruin, and dinned into the ears of the people the words “slavery and tyranny” until they assumed a reality from mere reiteration.

His political philosophy was eagerly lapped up by a populace smarting under hard times and resentful of colonial even more than imperial conditions of the moment. The establishment of government by free consent of all had become imbedded in the mind of the average man, as an essential part of the American dream. Adams himself had seen the vision but had glimpsed it with the narrowness and bitterness with which the more bigoted Puritans had seen the vision of an unloving and revengeful Hebrew Jehovah.

Such talk as this could only make England fearful of how far the people might try to put such precepts into practice. The upper classes of the colonies also began to be uneasy. Up to 1770, when their own grievances were redressed, they might allow such ideas to be disseminated, considering themselves in control of the situation, but after that it became clear that they were losing control . . . [as] Sam Adams and the lesser radicals worked harder than ever to keep public opinion inflamed.

With the upper classes [becoming] lukewarm or hostile to his continued propaganda [despite] the obnoxious legislation repealed or modified, [Sam Adams] had to trust to generalizations and emotional appeal.

A good example of his use of the latter was the affair called the “Boston Massacre.” As part of the general imperial policy following the [French and Indian] war, the British government had stationed some regiments in Boston. They were under good officers and good discipline, and there was no more reason why they should have made trouble there, than in any provincial garrison town of England. Sam Adams, however, was continually stirring up the public mind against them; John Adams reported finding Sam one Sunday night ‘preparing for the next day’s newspaper – a curious employment, cooking up paragraphs, articles and [incidents], working the political engine.’

Finally, one March evening, as a result of more than usual provocation given by taunting boys to soldiers on duty, an unfortunate clash occurred. There was confusion, a rioter’s shout to fire” was mistaken for an officer’s command, and several citizens were killed. The officer surrendered to civilian authorities, was tried, defended by John Adams and Josiah Quincy, Jr., and acquitted.

But Samuel Adams at once saw the value of the incident. Every emotion of the mob was played upon. The affair was termed a “massacre,” and in the annual speeches given for a number of years to commemorate its anniversary the boys and men who had taken part in the mobbing were described as martyrs to liberty and the soldiers as “bloody butchers.”

(The Epic of America. James Truslow Adams. Little, Brown and Company. 1932, pp. 83-84).

The Other Side of the Story

The Other Side of the Story

“As we are more than forty-six years distant from our own Civil War, is it not incumbent on Northerners to endeavor to see the Southern side?

We may be certain that the historian of a hundred years hence, when he contemplates the lining up of five and one-half million people against twenty-two millions, their equal in religion, morals, regard for law, and devotion to the common Constitution, will, as a matter course, aver that the question over which they fought for four years had two sides; that all the right was not on one side and all the wrong on the other.

The North should welcome, therefore, accounts of the conflict written by candid Southern men.”

(Excerpt, Prefatory Note by James Ford Rhodes: The Abolition Crusade and Its Consequences, Hilary Herbert, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912, pg. vii – viii)