The Old South - Described

From Temple's "East Tennessee in the Civil War":

But, while the North was capturing and organizing new states in the North-west, and extending its empire of thought to the Pacific, the South was slowly moving on as it had done fifty years before. The negro and the mule were the two great factors in its growth, and they leisurely moved on in the old way. They tilled the fields and raised the cotton, the sugar, the rice and the tobacco on which all prosperity depended. Kentucky, Tennessee and the West furnished the mule, the corn, the hay and the bacon. Southern harbors were filled, for the most part, only with coasting vessels. The harbors and the great natural highways to a large extent remained unimproved, because of the supersensitive scruples of Southern statesmen on constitutional questions.

Free, universal education was unknown. The great body of the people were poorly educated, many not at all. The result was, that they were generally thriftless, nerveless and non-progressive. As a rule, only the sons of wealthy men were thoroughly educated. The most promising sons of the rich planters were sent to the University of Virginia, or to Princeton, or Yale, or West Point, to be educated for the bar or the army, with the hope of their ultimately going to congress or becoming governors or great generals, while some were educated for the ministry or for the profession of medicine. The army or a political life was thought to be the highway to honor. Many of the young men on the great plantations grew up with no definite aim, no high purpose. They frolicked, and played cards, and followed the yelping hounds; they "sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play."

Manufacturing received but little encouragement; It served to develop a spirit of independent thought among the operatives, inconsistent with the safety of slavery. Skilled laborers, especially of the higher grade, would read and think and talk. Slavery was naturally repugnant to them, because it degraded them and their own labor. It tended to lower all laborers to the level of slaves. Trading was only tolerated as a necessity. Mining was almost unknown. The mechanic arts were only practiced in a small way. Planting and war were the only honorable callings aside from the learned professions. Even the learned professions were considered inferior in dignity to the other two. The little land owners who cultivated their fields with their own hands did not rise into the honorable dignity of planters. They were farmers, laborers, "poor whites."Only the man with his broad acres, his drove of Negroes, and his overseer was styled a planter. Without the appendage of an overseer—the most cruel and despicable of men—the position of no planter was high.

The great planter was a man of power. He was courted and honored. The doors of society opened wide at his approach. No wonder he became arrogant and haughty. Yet he possessed many noble qualities. He was brave, generous, magnanimous, sincere and honorable. Certainly in his day he had his good things—"was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day."From the serene heights of his fancied exaltation, the great planter looked down with cold contempt on the large body of Northern men. He regarded them as little tillers of the soil, petty traders, low shop-keepers, enslaved mechanics, howling fanatics and lovers of money. They were mean in spirit, cowardly, narrow, selfish and abased. Mammon was their God. If they gave to objects of charity, it was on a cold calculation that they would get back in some way two dollars for every one given. The operatives in factories were the slaves of the lordly manufacturers, with fewer comforts than the bondsmen of the South.

The Folly of Fort Sumter

From Temple's "The Civil War In East Tennessee":

With this avowed purpose on the part of Mr. Lincoln, which he carefully pursued, it may afford a curious theme for speculation as to what would have been the fate of the Southern Confederacy if Sumter had not been assaulted, or if some similar act of open war had not been resorted to. Would it have gone on exercising the powers of government over the states which had seceded until its authority had become securely cemented and established? Would Virginia, Tennesseeand North Carolina have joined the seceded states? Sooner or later this is most probable. Would the people of the North have acquiesced in this dismemberment of the government? Yes, at that time, in preference to civil war. In this very contingency such men as Greeley, Seward, Thurlow Weed and Crittenden, and thousands of others, if they did not all say, as Mr. Greeley did, let the cotton states "go in peace," they did all insist in spirit that there should be no coercion to restrain them from going. Previous to this time, Expresident Pierce had written to Jefferson Davis, assuring him that if there was to be fighting "it will not be along Mason's and Dixon's line merely. It will be within our own borders, in our own streets, between the two classes of citizens to whom I have referred." "The Albany Argus," a Democratic paper said: "The first gun fired in the way of forcing a seceding state back into the Union would probably prove the knell of its final dismemberment."

So high was the tide of public opinion running, at the time of the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, against the party that had elevated him to power, especially against the Abolition part of it, that it is almost certain that any attempt at coercion against the people of the seceding states, would have been followed in the North by mobs, riots and civil war. Mr. Lincoln saw and knew the hazardous condition of affairs around him. He knew that a blow prematurely struck at secession was more likely to produce a revolution in the North than to end the existing one. In addition to his earnest desire to avoid the shedding of blood, there was necessary on his part the most cautious statesmanship. A single false step would prove fatal to the Union. He must so act as to put the South clearly in the wrong before the world in the event of a conflict of arms. There must be no divided North. He delayed, apparently hesitated, and seemingly negotiated with the enemy. He refused to reenforce Sumter, and only attempted to send provisions to the starving garrison. No troops were mustered for the national defense, not one; no force was used; no threats were made. Never did Mr. Lincoln exhibit a more masterly wisdom, or pro founder sagacity than in this crisis. By his discretion, secession came to a standstill. The North was petrified with fear. A majority had turned with rage against the triumphant party. In the South there was danger, as Mr. Gilchrist said, that some of the states would return to the old Union.

And now came the stupendous folly of firing on Sumter. That single act, in "one hour by Shrewsbury's clock" united the divided North. Without that, or some equally foolish deed, the North could never have been brought to the point of resisting the South, and secession would have triumphed. But when the nation's honor was assailed, and the national flag brought low, sympathy was in a moment turned to wrath, and men everywhere rushed to arms. That first shot, as it went sounding round the world, announcing the commencement of the conflict, was also sounding the death knell of the Southern Confederacy, But for that shot, it might be in existence to-day as a government. But it accomplished its purpose in the direction intended. By it, Tennessee, Virginia and North Carolina were induced, most unwisely but most naturally, to rush to the help, not of the aggrieved party, but of the aggressor. But it did more than this—something not anticipated. It lost to the South, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, East Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri. And still more; by this needless act, the North was brought together in one hour as one man in the determination to avenge the nation's insult, and to lift up and restore the fallen and dishonored flag. Thus Mr. Davis by that shot did what no other power on earth could have done—united the divided North.

The Southern people were sadly mistaken. They expected a divided North. Such would have been the case if the leaders had waited in patience for the fruit to ripen. There can scarcely exist a doubt that a large majority of the Northern people would have voted, in the spring of 1861, to let the seceding states go in preference to the alternative of Civil War. So shocking, so dreadful was the idea of such a war that men were ready to give up everything rather than have such an affliction. But when the nation's honor was insulted, the feeling of brotherhood was turned into rage, that of peace into determined relentless war.

To the last the South was mistaken. They believed the Northern people would not fight. They expected easy victories. Washington, as they boasted, would soon be their capitol. One enthusiastic orator—a senator in the Confederate congress—boasted that they would soon quaff wine from golden goblets in the palaces of New York. Another gentlemen boasted that he would call the roll of his slaves at the foot of Bunker Hill Monument. The boast was universal, and perhaps the belief also, that one Southern man could whip five Yankees. An Alabama gentleman reached the climax when he declared in a public speech that they could whip the North with pop-guns made out of elder stalks.1

It really appears as if Providence intended that the Southern people should be the instruments of the destruction of their own favorite institution. At a period when there was, for the first time in twenty years, peace between the two sections, they broke that peace by the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, and thus turned loose the angry winds of sectionalism. This in the end, through successive steps, led to secession. And when war came, the conviction gradually grew on the minds of men that that was the opportunity offered by Heaven for destroying slavery. It had caused one war, said they ; it should not cause another. Let it perish—by the war. And thus the folly of men was made to do the will of God.

Why Mississippi Seceded - 1861

A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union

In the momentous step, which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery - the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product, which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition,or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

Slavery and the Confederate Constitution

From Article I
(4) No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed (by Congress)
From Article IV:
Sec. 2. (I) The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.
(3) No slave or other person held to service or labor in any State or Territory of the Confederate States, under the laws thereof, escaping or lawfully carried into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor; but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such slave belongs,. or to whom such service or labor may be due.
(3) The Confederate States may acquire new territory; ... In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.