WEBVTT NOTE Yankee Confederates: New England Secession Movements Prior to the War Between the States 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:30.000 In my office at home, I sit at my desk, I work at home a couple days a week, I do a lot of writing and right opposite my desk there's a marble bust of Thomas Jefferson and right above Jefferson is a portrait of John C. Calhoun and Calhoun has a big smile on his face and I always look at this situation over there in the corner with Jefferson sort of peering out the window and Calhoun is kind of looking down at him smiling and I think the reason why Calhoun is probably smiling there in my office is because he knew 2 00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:33.800 Jefferson said things like this when I start my paper out of this quote by 3 00:00:33.800 --> 00:00:38.160 Jefferson saying he says an insurrection once every 20 years is a wholesome 4 00:00:38.160 --> 00:00:41.960 feature of national life and that's the kind of thing I think Calhoun would 5 00:00:41.960 --> 00:00:45.380 smirk if he were to meet Jefferson and hear him say that and these two men if 6 00:00:45.380 --> 00:00:48.960 they were alive today I'm sure would be donors to the Mises Institute and would 7 00:00:48.960 --> 00:00:53.760 probably be on the board of directors but what I'm going to talk to is I'm 8 00:00:53.760 --> 00:00:56.400 going to disappoint those of you from Charleston if there's anyone from 9 00:00:56.400 --> 00:01:02.400 from Charleston or South Carolina here in that Charleston was not the birthplace of the secession movement in the United States. 10 00:01:02.400 --> 00:01:10.400 Of all places, it was Salem, Massachusetts, the heart of the Yankee Empire, so-called. 11 00:01:10.400 --> 00:01:21.400 Yes, there were three attempts at secession by the New England Federalists prior to the war between the states between 1800 and 1815. 12 00:01:21.400 --> 00:01:28.480 and they occurred around, among the main reasons were the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, the National 13 00:01:28.480 --> 00:01:34.360 Embargo of 1807 that Jefferson imposed and Madison later had an Enforcement Act for that 14 00:01:34.360 --> 00:01:40.640 embargo and the War of 1812. These men were prominent men, these were among the founding 15 00:01:40.640 --> 00:01:44.560 fathers, the New England Federalists, some of them, most of them fought in the American 16 00:01:44.560 --> 00:01:48.880 Revolution were high-ranking officers in the Revolutionary Army, some of them signed the 17 00:01:48.880 --> 00:01:55.120 The Constitution, Declaration of Independence, and if these men had said the things in 1860 18 00:01:55.120 --> 00:01:59.760 and were from the South, that they said in New England in 1803, they would have been 19 00:01:59.760 --> 00:02:04.960 labeled by historians as maniacal fire-eaters and seditionists and would have gone down 20 00:02:04.960 --> 00:02:07.360 in infamy in history. 21 00:02:07.360 --> 00:02:09.160 Here are some of the things they said. 22 00:02:09.160 --> 00:02:13.840 Timothy Pickering, who was a U.S. Senator, I will rather anticipate a new Confederacy 23 00:02:13.840 --> 00:02:18.840 exempt from the corrupt and corrupting influence and oppression of the aristocratic Democrats 24 00:02:18.840 --> 00:02:21.840 Professor of the South, he said. 25 00:02:21.840 --> 00:02:26.540 There will be a separation and the white and black population will mark the boundary. 26 00:02:26.540 --> 00:02:31.640 The eastern states must and will dissolve the union and form a separate government. 27 00:02:31.640 --> 00:02:33.780 That was Senator James Hillhouse. 28 00:02:33.780 --> 00:02:38.360 And Aaron Burr added, the northern states must be governed by Virginia or must govern 29 00:02:38.360 --> 00:02:41.860 Virginia and there's no middle ground. 30 00:02:41.860 --> 00:02:45.200 And so this was the kind of thing that was being said by the New England Federalists, 31 00:02:45.200 --> 00:02:50.520 which was the party that was overthrown by the Jefferson's party in the year 1800. 32 00:02:50.520 --> 00:02:55.560 Their cause was identical to the Southern Confederacy's cause 50 years later, states' 33 00:02:55.560 --> 00:03:03.780 rights, self-government and opposing the growth and tyranny of the federal government. 34 00:03:03.780 --> 00:03:07.720 They condemned the Jefferson administration as being plagued by, quote, falsehood, fraud 35 00:03:07.720 --> 00:03:13.120 and treachery which caused oppression and barbarity and ruin among the nations, according 36 00:03:13.120 --> 00:03:35.120 They made arguments identical to John C. Calhoun's arguments several decades later that they thought the South controlled the Congress and the South was using its power in the Congress to oppress the North and they thought centralized power was very disadvantageous to their region and therefore they thought secession was the only answer. 37 00:03:35.120 --> 00:03:45.120 Interestingly, one of the leaders of this movement was Theodore Dwight, who was John C. Calhoun's academic mentor at Yale. 38 00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:54.120 I don't know for sure, but I suspect Calhoun got some of his ideas from his mentor at Yale, who was among the New England Federalists who wanted to secede. 39 00:03:54.120 --> 00:04:01.120 When Jefferson was elected and his party took over, not only the presidency, but the Congress, it was a disaster for the Federalists, 40 00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:08.120 Jefferson was not only an opponent that had defeated the Federalists, but he was hated and despised by them. 41 00:04:08.120 --> 00:04:13.120 Here's what one historian says about the attitudes of the New Englanders toward Jefferson. 42 00:04:13.120 --> 00:04:17.120 He had been habitually denounced as an antichrist by the political preachers of his time, 43 00:04:17.120 --> 00:04:23.120 and in the New England states where the greater part of the ministers were militant Federalists, he was hated with an unholy hate. 44 00:04:23.120 --> 00:04:28.120 More false witness had been born by the ministers of New England and New York against Jefferson 45 00:04:28.120 --> 00:04:33.320 against Jefferson that had ever been born against any other American publicist. 46 00:04:33.320 --> 00:04:37.360 Among the other reasons that I've uncovered, among the reasons for this is Jefferson, as 47 00:04:37.360 --> 00:04:41.840 you all know, was one of the staunchest defenders of separation of church and state, and a lot 48 00:04:41.840 --> 00:04:46.680 of these Federalist leaders had in their minds some kind of idea of sort of state-sponsored 49 00:04:46.680 --> 00:04:53.040 Puritanism as being a prerequisite for a sound country, and they just truly hated Jefferson 50 00:04:53.040 --> 00:04:54.560 and all these stood for. 51 00:04:54.560 --> 00:05:06.560 Now, some of the ideas, you know, why did they think secession was desirable, ethnic homogeneity, they thought, was necessary for a nation to succeed. 52 00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:09.560 I'm not endorsing their views, I'm just saying this is what they said. 53 00:05:09.560 --> 00:05:19.560 William Smith Shaw said, the great grand cause of all our present difficulties may be traced to so many hordes of foreigners immigrating to America. 54 00:05:19.560 --> 00:05:28.560 and a widely quoted remark by William Stoughton. He said that God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness. 55 00:05:28.560 --> 00:05:39.560 So these almost uniformly British immigrants in New England thought that they were God's choice grain and that such things as the Louisiana Purchase, 56 00:05:39.560 --> 00:05:48.560 which Jefferson was responsible for, which incorporated hordes of foreigners, including the Dutch and the French and Spanish, 57 00:05:48.560 --> 00:05:51.560 was an abomination to the New England Federalists. 58 00:05:51.560 --> 00:05:57.560 Josiah Quincy, the town of Quincy, Massachusetts, named after him, 59 00:05:57.560 --> 00:06:02.560 warned that the Louisiana Purchase obligated the nation to assimilate, 60 00:06:02.560 --> 00:06:07.560 quote, a number of French and Spanish subjects whose habits, manners, and ideas of civil government 61 00:06:07.560 --> 00:06:10.560 are wholly foreign to Republican institutions, 62 00:06:10.560 --> 00:06:14.560 and the Purchase meant that the bonds of this union are virtually dissolved. 63 00:06:14.560 --> 00:06:28.560 The states which compose it are free from their moral obligation, and that, as it will be the right of all, so will be the duty of some to prepare definitely for a separation amicably if they can, violently if they must. 64 00:06:28.560 --> 00:06:34.560 And these were Europeans. These were people who were immigrants or the sons of immigrants from Europe. 65 00:06:34.560 --> 00:06:42.560 And of course, to this day, we know that the violence and bloodshed, Europeans have been murdering each other on a massive scale for centuries. 66 00:06:42.560 --> 00:06:46.600 The Bosnia, we know about Bosnia today in the news, but these were men who knew that 67 00:06:46.600 --> 00:06:52.760 these cultural differences, many of which were incompatible to the Europeans, they feared 68 00:06:52.760 --> 00:06:58.120 the same sort of thing would happen over in the U.S. That was their opinion. 69 00:06:58.120 --> 00:07:04.760 It was at this point in history that the New England Federalists, 1803, began seriously 70 00:07:04.760 --> 00:07:07.000 discussing secession. 71 00:07:07.000 --> 00:07:12.600 And the ringleader was Timothy Pickering and to make the point that this was not a band 72 00:07:12.600 --> 00:07:17.840 of nuts out there in New England that were doing this, Pickering was a Colonel of the 73 00:07:17.840 --> 00:07:22.700 Essex County Massachusetts Militia at the outset of the American Revolution. 74 00:07:22.700 --> 00:07:28.880 He organized the Massachusetts Militia, later served as Adjutant General and Quartermaster 75 00:07:28.880 --> 00:07:30.880 General of the Revolution Army. 76 00:07:30.880 --> 00:07:34.960 After the American Revolution, he was a member of Congress, Secretary of War and U.S. Senator 77 00:07:34.960 --> 00:07:37.020 from Massachusetts. 78 00:07:37.020 --> 00:07:41.960 In a letter to George Cabot, Pickery wrote of the depravity of Jefferson's plan of destruction, 79 00:07:41.960 --> 00:07:46.960 as he called it, and concluded that, quote, the principles of our revolution, that is, 80 00:07:46.960 --> 00:07:52.720 the revolution of 1776, point to the remedy, a separation, that this can be accomplished 81 00:07:52.720 --> 00:07:56.040 and without spilling one drop of blood, I have little doubt. 82 00:07:56.040 --> 00:07:59.680 The people of the East cannot reconcile their habits, views and interests with those of 83 00:07:59.680 --> 00:08:01.720 the South and West. 84 00:08:01.720 --> 00:08:07.360 And so that was the opinion of not only Timothy Pickering, but many of the other New England 85 00:08:07.360 --> 00:08:08.360 Federalists. 86 00:08:08.360 --> 00:08:15.400 And he undoubtedly had in mind, I think, what is written now in a book entitled Albion Seed 87 00:08:15.400 --> 00:08:20.040 by David Hackett Fisher, who takes a look at the cultural differences between just the 88 00:08:20.040 --> 00:08:26.160 British immigrants to the United States up to about this time, and makes the case that 89 00:08:26.160 --> 00:08:30.000 there is very clear cultural differences that almost made it inevitable that there would 90 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:37.000 There used to be violent clashes between these groups because there always had been violent clashes between these cultural groups back in England. 91 00:08:37.000 --> 00:08:42.000 And these were just the English immigrants. This didn't count the Dutch and the French and other immigrants. 92 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:48.000 The Federalists were aware of this and they were stridently opposed to multicultural assimilation because of this. 93 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:51.000 But they were not opposed to commerce between these groups. 94 00:08:51.000 --> 00:08:59.600 groups. They wanted a Switzerland or a Swiss style government, a highly decentralized Federalist 95 00:08:59.600 --> 00:09:07.000 system that has worked well for well over 150 years in that country. The type of system 96 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:12.080 they wanted was they wanted the New England states to be one confederacy, the southern 97 00:09:12.080 --> 00:09:17.120 states another confederacy. They talked about a western confederacy also, but they thought 98 00:09:17.120 --> 00:09:30.120 So I thought that the best thing to do would be to have a Federalist system set up like this and have them avoid the cultural conflicts but thrive through free trade among these different sections. 99 00:09:30.120 --> 00:09:38.120 What one historian concluded was secession would, quote, render a friendly and commercial intercourse between the North and the South, 100 00:09:38.120 --> 00:09:44.120 where the Southern states would probably want to contract out for such things as naval protection by the Northern Confederacy, 101 00:09:44.120 --> 00:09:49.120 Well, the products of the South would be important to the navigation and commerce to the North. 102 00:09:49.120 --> 00:09:53.120 That was the historian Henry Adams who said that. 103 00:09:53.120 --> 00:09:57.120 You're probably all familiar with the episode regarding Aaron Burr. 104 00:09:57.120 --> 00:10:02.120 This was actually an attempt at secession, the Aaron Burr-Alexander Hamilton duel. 105 00:10:02.120 --> 00:10:06.120 The Federalists cut a deal with Aaron Burr in 1804. 106 00:10:06.120 --> 00:10:12.120 They pledged the support of the Federalist party and its money to get Burr elected governor of New York. 107 00:10:12.120 --> 00:10:13.120 New York. 108 00:10:13.120 --> 00:10:16.920 All the other New England states at the time were on the verge of seceding, but they needed 109 00:10:16.920 --> 00:10:17.920 New York. 110 00:10:17.920 --> 00:10:22.040 It was a big state, a wealthy state, and the deal was, we will help get you elected governor 111 00:10:22.040 --> 00:10:25.800 if in turn you have New York state secede. 112 00:10:25.800 --> 00:10:29.120 Because if New York secedes, all the other New England states will follow. 113 00:10:29.120 --> 00:10:33.720 And of course, Burr lost the election by seven votes, and Alexander Hamilton had denounced 114 00:10:33.720 --> 00:10:38.840 him as profligate, lacking in integrity, dangerous, intemperate, and dictatorial, and he challenged 115 00:10:38.840 --> 00:10:41.440 him to a duel and he killed Alexander Hamilton. 116 00:10:41.440 --> 00:10:45.360 And because Burr had been associated with the New England Federalists, that sort of 117 00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:50.360 put the damper on their movement for a while because Hamilton was widely revered by a lot 118 00:10:50.360 --> 00:10:54.880 of Americans and it was a big scandal. 119 00:10:54.880 --> 00:11:01.360 All throughout this time, up to this point, 1800 to 1804, no one had questioned the rights 120 00:11:01.360 --> 00:11:03.640 of any state to secede. 121 00:11:03.640 --> 00:11:08.600 The only arguments they've ever made were utilitarian arguments, the time is not right, 122 00:11:08.600 --> 00:11:12.760 may be overestimating the economic benefits of secession, things like this, but no one 123 00:11:12.760 --> 00:11:17.520 questioned the inherent constitutional right. Jefferson himself, in his first inaugural 124 00:11:17.520 --> 00:11:22.200 address said this, if there be any among us who wish to dissolve the Union or to change 125 00:11:22.200 --> 00:11:28.080 its Republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error 126 00:11:28.080 --> 00:11:33.520 of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it. Of course, the author 127 00:11:33.520 --> 00:11:44.240 Jefferson, as was mentioned last night, historians think he is probably the co-author with Madison 128 00:11:44.240 --> 00:11:48.400 of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, which said, 129 00:11:48.400 --> 00:11:51.560 Where the powers were assumed by the national government, which had not been granted by 130 00:11:51.560 --> 00:11:57.040 the state, nullification is the rightful remedy, and also that every state has an original 131 00:11:57.040 --> 00:12:01.620 and natural right to nullify of its own authority all assumptions of power by others within 132 00:12:01.620 --> 00:12:02.620 its limits. 133 00:12:02.620 --> 00:12:14.620 So both political parties at this time believed in the inherent constitutional right of secession as an important ingredient, if not a central ingredient, to a free country. 134 00:12:14.620 --> 00:12:23.620 There's a section of my paper here that I call Calhounism because the New England Federalists of the early 1800s out Calhouned Calhoun. 135 00:12:23.620 --> 00:12:31.620 They made the same arguments he did, which is not too surprising because as I said, his teacher, Theodore Dwight, was part of this movement, his teacher at Yale, his mentor. 136 00:12:31.620 --> 00:12:37.620 And at the time, Calhoun was only about 20 years old and a student of Yale. 137 00:12:37.620 --> 00:12:41.620 But throughout the published letters of the New England Federalists, 138 00:12:41.620 --> 00:12:46.620 what they were complaining about was the same thing that Calhoun is most known for, 139 00:12:46.620 --> 00:12:54.620 that the centralized power of the Federal Government was unfairly, unjustly affecting the South. 140 00:12:54.620 --> 00:13:00.620 If you transpose the words North and South, the New England Federalists were making the same arguments exactly. 141 00:13:00.620 --> 00:13:09.620 For example, they were arguing that the government, quote, had fallen into the hands of infidel, anti-commercial, anti-New England Southerners. 142 00:13:09.620 --> 00:13:13.620 They believed there was a conspiracy among the, quote, Virginia faction. 143 00:13:13.620 --> 00:13:20.620 The Virginia faction wanted to, quote, govern and depress New England, according to Stephen Higginson. 144 00:13:20.620 --> 00:13:27.620 John Lowell Jr. said that in any conflict between their state and the federal government, listen to this, he said, 145 00:13:27.620 --> 00:13:31.900 said, It is our duty, our most solemn duty, to vindicate the rights and support the interests 146 00:13:31.900 --> 00:13:35.900 of the state we represent. Pickering added, along with this, in a letter 147 00:13:35.900 --> 00:13:42.060 exchange, there is a natural order to me towards Salem, Massachusetts first, then New England, 148 00:13:42.060 --> 00:13:46.500 and then the Union at large. And this struck me as virtually identical to what many of 149 00:13:46.500 --> 00:13:51.100 the Southern Confederates said in 1860, and it especially reminded me of the episode of 150 00:13:51.100 --> 00:13:55.900 where General Woodfield Scott offered Robert E. Lee command of the Union Army just a few 151 00:13:55.900 --> 00:14:03.940 A few days before the Virginias seceded, and Lee's response was, no, of course, no. 152 00:14:03.940 --> 00:14:07.980 Lee said, I shall return to my native state and share the miseries of my people and save 153 00:14:07.980 --> 00:14:13.100 and defense will draw my sword on none, and it's virtually identical to what the New England 154 00:14:13.100 --> 00:14:16.260 Federalists were saying 50 years earlier. 155 00:14:16.260 --> 00:14:21.260 Roger Griswold, the governor of Connecticut, sounded exactly like John C. Calhoun if you 156 00:14:21.260 --> 00:14:23.180 were to transpose the words north and south. 157 00:14:23.180 --> 00:14:28.100 The balance of power under the present government is decidedly in favor of the southern states. 158 00:14:28.100 --> 00:14:33.300 The extent and increasing population of those states must forever secure to them the preponderance 159 00:14:33.300 --> 00:14:36.020 which they now possess. 160 00:14:36.020 --> 00:14:39.660 New Englanders were paying the principal part of the expenses of government without receiving 161 00:14:39.660 --> 00:14:44.740 commensurate benefits and he concluded from that that there can be no safety to the northern 162 00:14:44.740 --> 00:14:49.180 states without a separation from the Confederacy. 163 00:14:49.180 --> 00:14:52.740 His italics was the last part, without a separation from the Confederacy. 164 00:14:52.740 --> 00:14:59.540 is virtually identical to Calhoun's arguments several decades later. 165 00:14:59.540 --> 00:15:05.500 When Jefferson in 1807 declared an embargo, a national embargo, put an end to legal international 166 00:15:05.500 --> 00:15:12.340 trade and then his successor James Madison in 1809 imposed an enforcement act which was 167 00:15:12.340 --> 00:15:19.180 sort of a war on drugs style program where the army could board any merchant ship on the 168 00:15:19.180 --> 00:15:23.540 and the mere suspicion that they intended to trade internationally with the goods on it 169 00:15:23.540 --> 00:15:26.180 and they could seize and take the goods on the ship. 170 00:15:26.180 --> 00:15:32.820 This really radicalized the New England secessionists and they issued a public proclamation, which 171 00:15:32.820 --> 00:15:38.980 is sort of a spit in your face proclamation to the federal government really, and reminding 172 00:15:38.980 --> 00:15:43.940 the country that, quote, the U.S. Constitution is a treaty of alliance and confederation, 173 00:15:43.940 --> 00:15:48.540 they said, and that the central government was an association of states and whenever 174 00:15:48.540 --> 00:15:52.540 Whatever its provisions are violated or its original principles departed from by a majority 175 00:15:52.540 --> 00:15:56.580 of the states or their people is no longer an effective instrument, but that any state 176 00:15:56.580 --> 00:16:01.500 is at liberty by the spirit of that contract to withdraw itself from the Union. 177 00:16:01.500 --> 00:16:08.060 The Massachusetts legislature passed a law declaring the Enforcement Act not binding 178 00:16:08.060 --> 00:16:10.340 legally, so they nullified it. 179 00:16:10.340 --> 00:16:16.120 This was a nullification just like the famous South Carolina legislature's nullification 180 00:16:16.120 --> 00:16:20.600 of the Tariff of Abominations in 1832. 181 00:16:20.600 --> 00:16:25.240 The attitudes towards slavery was another issue regarding why the New Englanders wanted 182 00:16:25.240 --> 00:16:26.240 to secede. 183 00:16:26.240 --> 00:16:30.360 They were upset with the three-fifths clause of the Constitution that existed at that time 184 00:16:30.360 --> 00:16:33.800 that allowed that five slaves could be counted as three whites. 185 00:16:33.800 --> 00:16:38.240 They didn't want to count black people as equivalents of white people. 186 00:16:38.240 --> 00:16:41.800 They wanted black people to count as zero rather than three-fifths. 187 00:16:41.800 --> 00:16:44.600 That was their problem that they had. 188 00:16:44.600 --> 00:16:51.600 According to Quincy, the slave representation is the cause of all the difficulties we labor under. 189 00:16:51.600 --> 00:16:55.600 Because of this arrangement, the southern states have an influence in our national councils, 190 00:16:55.600 --> 00:16:58.600 all together disproportionate to their wealth, strength and resources. 191 00:16:58.600 --> 00:17:01.600 They never raised any moral objection to slavery, 192 00:17:01.600 --> 00:17:05.600 it was just that they were getting outvoted in the Congress and they didn't like that. 193 00:17:05.600 --> 00:17:09.600 And this shouldn't be too surprising because of their views on ethnic homogeneity, 194 00:17:09.600 --> 00:17:12.600 especially of the primacy of English immigrants. 195 00:17:12.600 --> 00:17:19.600 They did abolish slavery in Massachusetts in the 1780s, but according to one historian, 196 00:17:19.600 --> 00:17:24.680 the response of the New England Federalists was to, they, quote, tighten their poor laws, 197 00:17:24.680 --> 00:17:29.920 warned more Negroes away from their boundaries, and established segregated schools and churches, 198 00:17:29.920 --> 00:17:38.440 and a lot of them warned black people to, in the words of Federalist cleric Jedidiah 199 00:17:38.440 --> 00:17:43.560 by Morris, quote, be contented in the humble station in which Providence has placed you. 200 00:17:43.560 --> 00:17:48.360 That is, don't try to become educated and successful. Stay where you are. That was in 201 00:17:48.360 --> 00:17:54.280 the North. Historian James Banner concludes that, you know, has studied this and has said 202 00:17:54.280 --> 00:17:58.760 that, quote, freed, it appeared, the Negro was more of a political threat than enslaved. 203 00:17:58.760 --> 00:18:01.760 What the Federalists wanted and what their assaults upon the Three-Fifths Clause were 204 00:18:01.760 --> 00:18:07.280 designed to gain was not the abolition of slavery but the abolition of Negro representation. 205 00:18:07.280 --> 00:18:14.040 Now when the War of 1812 came along, all the New England states voted against going to war. 206 00:18:14.040 --> 00:18:22.320 They all voted with John Randolph, who was from Virginia, who was a fierce opponent of 207 00:18:22.320 --> 00:18:26.280 the War of 1812, and they voted against John C. Calhoun. 208 00:18:26.280 --> 00:18:29.720 John C. Calhoun was for the War of 1812. 209 00:18:29.720 --> 00:18:33.080 All the New England states along with New York, New Jersey and Delaware were against 210 00:18:33.080 --> 00:18:34.080 it. 211 00:18:34.080 --> 00:18:40.080 Among the reasons why, they said, according to Governor George Morris of New York, 212 00:18:40.080 --> 00:18:45.080 if we do this, we are to be taxed beyond our means and subjected to military conscription. 213 00:18:45.080 --> 00:18:51.080 We cannot exist but in poverty and contempt without foreign commerce, Pickering answered, 214 00:18:51.080 --> 00:18:56.080 and he said, by a war of any continuance with Great Britain, that commerce will be annihilated. 215 00:18:56.080 --> 00:19:03.080 The Massachusetts legislature declared the war needless and unwise, and they instructed their people. 216 00:19:03.080 --> 00:19:09.320 quote, let there be no volunteers except for defensive war and whenever the US government 217 00:19:09.320 --> 00:19:15.400 came to conscript young men from New England, the Federalists would declare these young 218 00:19:15.400 --> 00:19:24.600 men as debtors and therefore, excuse me, the property of their creditors and the Federalist 219 00:19:24.600 --> 00:19:28.200 courts would rule that they therefore could not leave the state because they were the 220 00:19:28.200 --> 00:19:57.200 The US Treasury was literally bankrupted by the War of 1812 very quickly, and so James Madison responded by doubling tariffs on all goods, virtually destroying any kind of international trade that was taking place, and they didn't raise much money because there was no international trade to speak of, so it really didn't matter. 221 00:19:57.200 --> 00:20:01.320 And this policy of protectionist extremism that was being followed, which at this time 222 00:20:01.320 --> 00:20:05.280 the North, the New England states, thought they were being disproportionately harmed 223 00:20:05.280 --> 00:20:06.280 by. 224 00:20:06.280 --> 00:20:11.460 20 or 30 years later, it was the South whose cotton exports accounted for about 80 percent 225 00:20:11.460 --> 00:20:13.480 of all exports from the United States. 226 00:20:13.480 --> 00:20:17.360 Things changed dramatically in the next 20 or 30 years. 227 00:20:17.360 --> 00:20:22.060 But what happened was, with the cutting off of international commerce, there were a lot 228 00:20:22.060 --> 00:20:33.060 There were a lot of domestic industries that started being subsidized and propped up by the federal government to produce the goods that had been purchased previously from England and elsewhere. 229 00:20:33.060 --> 00:20:41.060 And the economist Frank Pelsig said that, quote, the men who brought about the war felt in a measure responsible for its results. 230 00:20:41.060 --> 00:20:52.060 And what he means by that is that for the next several decades, the men who supported the War of 1812 thought that we're responsible for its results and its response were these protected industries. 231 00:20:52.060 --> 00:21:01.060 And so we need to continue protecting them. In other words, they spawned an entire collection of protectionists. 232 00:21:01.060 --> 00:21:09.060 Is that a machine gun? What is that? 233 00:21:09.060 --> 00:21:12.060 I thought there was a bug up there. 234 00:21:12.060 --> 00:21:15.060 That's not very nice, is it? 235 00:21:19.060 --> 00:21:22.060 That's better. I'll just yell. 236 00:21:22.060 --> 00:21:27.060 Anyways, they created these protectionist industries, 237 00:21:27.060 --> 00:21:31.060 and arguably this led to the tariff of abominations 238 00:21:31.060 --> 00:21:35.060 because they created a whole clack of special interest groups who lobbied for protectionism 239 00:21:35.060 --> 00:21:38.060 and higher tariffs. It led to the nullification crisis 240 00:21:38.060 --> 00:21:44.060 and you could argue that it also contributed to the war between the states because protectionism was a primary cause. 241 00:21:44.060 --> 00:21:50.060 One of the biggest complaints of the South was interference in free trade by the central government. 242 00:21:50.060 --> 00:21:53.060 There was a convention, the Hartford Convention. 243 00:21:53.060 --> 00:21:58.060 The New England public was fed up that the War of 1812 was the last straw. 244 00:21:58.060 --> 00:22:03.060 There was even starting to get violence over this and demanding something be done. 245 00:22:03.060 --> 00:22:09.760 and the Federalist fathers convened a convention in Hartford. 246 00:22:09.760 --> 00:22:15.380 The bottom line behind the Hartford Convention is that they got together and they did not 247 00:22:15.380 --> 00:22:20.680 secede through this convention, but they issued a number of proclamations regarding eliminating 248 00:22:20.680 --> 00:22:24.160 the Three-Fifths Clause and so forth. 249 00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:28.860 The reason why they did not go through with this at this time in seceding was summarized 250 00:22:28.860 --> 00:22:35.260 by John Lowell of Massachusetts, and his explanation was that, quote, 251 00:22:35.260 --> 00:22:42.140 separation would have severed these men's, their last chance for preferment at the national level. 252 00:22:42.140 --> 00:22:46.540 These were men who had high hopes someday that they would gain power again in Washington, 253 00:22:46.540 --> 00:22:51.980 and so even though they talked for years about seceding, 254 00:22:51.980 --> 00:22:56.860 apparently the group that dominated the Hartford Convention 255 00:22:56.860 --> 00:23:00.460 ended up making nothing of it. 256 00:23:00.460 --> 00:23:03.980 So they effectively seceded during the War of 1812 257 00:23:03.980 --> 00:23:08.380 and they laid the groundwork for arguments for secession 258 00:23:08.380 --> 00:23:12.860 and all throughout these episodes from 1800 to 1814 259 00:23:12.860 --> 00:23:16.620 historian Edward Payson Powell has written 260 00:23:16.620 --> 00:23:20.460 quote, the right of a state to withdraw from the Union was not disputed. 261 00:23:20.460 --> 00:23:24.540 This was a national debate over this. This was not a secret 262 00:23:24.540 --> 00:23:29.040 argument among the Federalists and no one argued over the inherent right of a state 263 00:23:29.040 --> 00:23:35.260 to or states to secede at this time because after all the Declaration of Independence 264 00:23:35.260 --> 00:23:39.960 talks about this as one of the inviolable rights of the American people. 265 00:23:39.960 --> 00:23:46.100 And an interesting thing, the final part of my paper I talk about what I call the secessionist 266 00:23:46.100 --> 00:23:51.700 legacy of the New England Federalists because these ideas about the Declaration of Independence 267 00:23:51.700 --> 00:23:57.300 and the inherent right of secession as a right of the American people did not die in the 268 00:23:57.300 --> 00:24:02.780 North. In fact, I think they were revitalized in the North and clarified in the North because 269 00:24:02.780 --> 00:24:10.020 of all the actions of the New England Federalists. There is a very fat book entitled Northern 270 00:24:10.020 --> 00:24:16.300 Editorials on Secession by the historian Howard Perkins, and he gathered up all the editorials 271 00:24:16.300 --> 00:24:22.460 It must have been written around 1860 and 1861 in northern newspapers, so if you want 272 00:24:22.460 --> 00:24:27.540 an idea of what public opinion in the north was on the eve of the war between the states, 273 00:24:27.540 --> 00:24:32.580 you should take a look through Northern Editorials on Secession. I would bet a lot of money that 274 00:24:32.580 --> 00:24:38.300 the library here at this school has this in their library, and most libraries do, major 275 00:24:38.300 --> 00:24:42.460 universities anyway. And it's fascinating to me to read through what some of the editorial 276 00:24:42.460 --> 00:24:52.460 The New York Atlas and Argus, editorial writers were saying, because Howard Perkins says that the big majority of editorial writers in the North were all in favor of allowing the South to secede. 277 00:24:52.460 --> 00:24:59.460 Public opinion was all in favor that the minority was in favor of opposing the Southerners in 1860. 278 00:24:59.460 --> 00:25:04.460 And I'd like to read to you some of the things that the Northern newspapers were saying. 279 00:25:04.460 --> 00:25:09.460 November 10th, 1860, a little more than a month before South Carolina seceded. 280 00:25:09.460 --> 00:25:13.460 The New York Atlas and Argus editorialized that, 281 00:25:13.460 --> 00:25:18.460 We sympathize and justify the South because their rights have been invaded to the extreme limit possible 282 00:25:18.460 --> 00:25:20.460 within the forms of the Constitution. 283 00:25:20.460 --> 00:25:23.460 The Chicago Daily Times and Herald, 11 days later, said, 284 00:25:23.460 --> 00:25:28.460 Like it or not, the cotton states will secede, the government will not then go to pieces, 285 00:25:28.460 --> 00:25:32.460 but Southerners will be allowed to regain their sense of independence and honor. 286 00:25:32.460 --> 00:25:36.460 On November 24th, 1860, the New Hampshire Democrat Standard 287 00:25:36.460 --> 00:25:40.460 complained about the, quote, fanatics and demagogues of the North. 288 00:25:40.460 --> 00:25:42.460 That should bring an applause, right? 289 00:25:42.460 --> 00:25:46.460 Who had waged war on the institutions of the South 290 00:25:46.460 --> 00:25:50.460 and appealed for concession of the just rights of our southern brethren. 291 00:25:50.460 --> 00:25:54.460 The New York Journal of Commerce, which is a very influential paper, 292 00:25:54.460 --> 00:25:58.460 condemned what they call the, quote, meddlesome spirit of the people of the North 293 00:25:58.460 --> 00:26:02.460 who have a tendency to seek and regulate and control people in other communities. 294 00:26:02.460 --> 00:26:08.460 Reminds me of the anti-smoking Nazis in my state right now that just passed a smoking ban. 295 00:26:08.460 --> 00:26:17.460 But on November 13th, 1860, the Bangor-Maine Daily Union defended the southern secessionists by explaining that a union, 296 00:26:17.460 --> 00:26:22.460 quote, depends for its continuance on the free consent and will of the sovereign people of each state, 297 00:26:22.460 --> 00:26:26.460 and when that consent and will is withdrawn on either part, their union is gone. 298 00:26:26.460 --> 00:26:31.740 is gone. If military force is used, then a state can only be held as a subject province 299 00:26:31.740 --> 00:26:38.060 and can never be a co-equal member of the American Union. The Davenport Iowa Democrat 300 00:26:38.060 --> 00:26:45.620 in News argued against secession on the following grounds. It says, we are apparently in the 301 00:26:45.620 --> 00:26:50.960 minority in the North, but where many of the leading and most influential papers of the 302 00:26:50.960 --> 00:26:55.100 Union say that any state of the Union has a right to secede. So there were papers that 303 00:26:55.100 --> 00:27:04.220 The Cincinnati Daily Press said we believe that the right of any member of this confederacy 304 00:27:04.220 --> 00:27:09.420 to dissolve its political relations with others and assume an independent position is absolute. 305 00:27:09.420 --> 00:27:13.380 In other words, if South Carolina wants to go out of the Union, she has the right to 306 00:27:13.380 --> 00:27:17.540 do so and no party or power may justly say her name. 307 00:27:17.540 --> 00:27:21.140 They surmised that this after all is what the Declaration of Independence means when 308 00:27:21.140 --> 00:27:27.140 and it says that whenever government becomes destructive of the protection of lives, liberties and the pursuit of happiness, 309 00:27:27.140 --> 00:27:33.140 then, quote, it is the right of the people to alter, abolish their government and to institute a new government. 310 00:27:33.140 --> 00:27:44.140 New York Daily Tribune, which was very influential at this time, added that if any tyranny and despotism justified the American Revolution of 1776, 311 00:27:44.140 --> 00:27:52.140 Then, quote, we do not see why it would not justify the secession of five millions of Southerns from the Federal Union in 1861. 312 00:27:52.140 --> 00:28:04.140 Once South Carolina seceded in 1860, dozens of Northern editorialists just viewed it as a confirmation of the principle of sovereignty and self-government. 313 00:28:04.140 --> 00:28:11.140 Because Yuri Maltseff is here, I have an article from the Kenosha Wisconsin Democrat. Yuri lives in Kenosha. 314 00:28:11.140 --> 00:28:19.640 In January 11, 1861, your paper said that secession was the very germ of liberty and declared that the right of secession 315 00:28:19.640 --> 00:28:27.140 inheres to the people of every sovereign state. The New York Journal of Commerce, same day, warned that by opposing secession, 316 00:28:27.140 --> 00:28:33.140 northerners would be changing the nature of government from a voluntary one in which the people are sovereigns to a despotism 317 00:28:33.140 --> 00:28:39.140 where one part of the people are slaves, such as the logical deduction from the policy of the advocates of force. 318 00:28:39.140 --> 00:28:57.140 And one that will be a favorite in this crowd, the New York Tribune on February 5th, 1861, said Lincoln's latest speech is characterized by the arguments of the tyrant, force, compulsion and power, was what they said. 319 00:28:57.140 --> 00:29:06.140 The Daily Tribune also said that the great principle embodied by Jefferson in the Declaration is that governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed. 320 00:29:06.140 --> 00:29:10.140 Therefore, if the southern states want to secede, they have a clear right to do so. 321 00:29:10.140 --> 00:29:13.140 And the New York Times on March 21st said, 322 00:29:13.140 --> 00:29:17.140 There is a growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf states go. 323 00:29:17.140 --> 00:29:22.140 And so what all this tells me is that if you survey public opinion in the North, 324 00:29:22.140 --> 00:29:27.140 it was Abe Lincoln and a small handful of people who wanted to go to war 325 00:29:27.140 --> 00:29:32.140 to force the South to not secede from the Union. 326 00:29:32.140 --> 00:29:39.540 And if public opinion means anything to you, and if these men reflected all public opinion in the North, 327 00:29:39.540 --> 00:29:45.040 and I consider this, I call this the secessionist legacy of the New England Federalist, 328 00:29:45.040 --> 00:29:50.540 because from the time of the Declaration of Independence, it was understood, as Professor Wilson said last night, 329 00:29:50.540 --> 00:29:54.840 that secession is a very important feature of a free nation. 330 00:29:54.840 --> 00:30:00.540 And we understood this until the war between the states, but we have forgotten it since then. 331 00:30:00.540 --> 00:30:05.340 and my time is about up and I think I covered almost everything I wanted to say. 332 00:30:05.340 --> 00:30:08.340 Thank you for your patience and have a nice day.