Читать книгу Disunion and Restoration in Tennessee - John Randolph Neal - Страница 5
ОглавлениеRESPONSIBILITY FOR SEPARATION
Just as radical differences of opinion have existed as to the parties responsible for the whole secession movement, so the action of Tennessee has been variously interpreted. A number of writers have contended that the majority of her citizens were never in favor of secession, and it was only a coup d’état of Governor Harris that carried the State into the Confederacy. This view is a survival of the opinion once so widely prevalent in the North that the Civil War was the result of a conspiracy of a few ambitious Southern politicians, who tricked the mass of the Southern people into a war which never had their genuine approval.
It must be confessed that at first view the mode of Tennessee’s withdrawal gives some countenance to this theory. In February, 1861, she had placed her disapproval upon secession by voting down a proposition to call a convention. Instead of yielding to this mandate of the people, Governor Harris and the Legislature had entered into a military league with the Confederate authorities, and having thus surrendered the real control of the State, they again went through the form of appealing to a plebiscite for approval of their action. Nevertheless, we are confident that an unprejudiced examination of these events will show that Tennessee, with the exception of the eastern part of the State, joined the Confederacy as willingly as South Carolina or Mississippi.
In the first place, these writers have made the mistake of classing Tennessee among the border States. Mr. Wilson in his History of the Slave Power says: “Exactly why Tennessee should have been taken out of the Union, while Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri were prevented from going, no man is wise enough to say. At least, none but general reasons can be given. Exactly why the conspirators were foiled in one case and not in the other, exactly by whom the current of treason was checked and turned in the one and not in the other, the wisest can only conjecture.”
The answer to the problem which Mr. Wilson found so difficult to solve lies in the fact that conditions in Tennessee were in no wise similar to those in Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri. These border States were not distinctly slave States. In all of them the institution of slavery existed, but their industrial system was not based upon it. This arose largely from the fact that cotton was not their chief staple. Tennessee, on the other hand, was a great cotton-producing State. According to the census of 1860, her annual product was 296,465 bales of 400 lbs. each. Her interest was therefore identical with the extreme Southern States. If there were to be two republics side by side, one free and the other slave, both sentiment and interest apparently demanded that Tennessee should cast her lot with the latter.
When the vote of February was taken she was confronted by no such dilemma. At that time, the Confederacy had not yet been organized, and it was by no means clear that war would occur. In June, conditions had entirely changed. The Confederacy was an established fact, and actual hostilities had commenced. Neither side would permit Tennessee to occupy a neutral position. She must fight either for or against the South.
This change in the issues is clearly shown in the two messages of Governor Harris. In his message of January 7th, he had sought to establish the right of secession, and justify its present or immediate assertion. But these principles had found no support in the Whig party. Their opposition defeated the proposal for a convention. The keynote to his second message is found in the following passage: “Whatever differences may have heretofore existed amongst us growing out of party divisions, as to the constitutional right of secession as a remedy against usurpations, all admit the moral right asserted by our fathers to resist wrong and to maintain their liberties by whatever means necessary.” This was a direct appeal to the right of revolution, and it found as ready a response among the Whigs as the Democrats. It was therefore this change in the issue, and not coercive means adopted by Governor Harris, that turned the tide toward disunion.
The recognized leader of the Whig party was John Bell. Throughout his long career in the service of the national government, he had consistently opposed the doctrine of secession. In the presidential election of 1860, he, even more than Mr. Lincoln, was the Union candidate. When the question of holding a convention was submitted to a vote of the people, he vigorously opposed it. In this opposition he was joined by Neil S. Brown, Cave Johnson, Ewing, and other distinguished Whig politicians. It was due to their efforts that the Convention proposal was defeated. The vote against the Convention was 91,803. This represented the entire Whig party, and the Democrats of East Tennessee. The votes cast for the Convention came almost wholly from the Democrats of Middle and West Tennessee. In short, the election of February was a division along party lines. Its result was simply an indication that the Whig party of Tennessee was still opposed to the doctrine of secession.
In June, party lines had been obliterated. For only a few weeks elapsed after the defeat of the Convention, till a majority of the Whig leaders, either in public addresses or through the public press, counselled withdrawal from the Union. The contest now became sectional; it was East Tennessee against Middle Tennessee and West Tennessee. Governor Harris, in his negotiations with the Confederate authorities, was counselled and supported by both Whigs and Democrats. Although the unfavorable verdict of the people upon secession had not been formally reversed, he was conscious that a real change had taken place in their sentiments, and that he was, in fact, executing their will by concluding a military league with the Confederacy.
