In his final chapter, Wilentz discusses the various political ideas supporting secession. I think that we sometimes have the tendency to group all Southerners and secessionists together and not realize the political complexity of secession, so I\u2019m glad that Wilentz addressed this in detail. However, ANBURTON pointed out the \u201cdebate between \u2018the preservation of a traditional Southern heritage and states rights vs. the preservation of slavery\u2019 as the main cause for secession,\u201d but also asserted that they are \u201ccompletely interconnected.\u201d I agree with this, but would also like to look at the idea of secession itself.<\/p>\n
The first group mentioned is the militant secessionists, or the fire-eaters.\u00a0 Their stance was based on the idea that \u201csecession was perfectly legal and represented nothing radical\u201d (Wilentz 439).\u00a0 They believed that when a state secedes, it is only exercising its right to act as a sovereign state, exactly as the states did when they signed the Constitution and formed the Union.\u00a0 The only difference would be that the states are breaking away from the alliance with USA instead of Great Britain in order to form a different sovereign nation.\u00a0 In a way, these secessionists were acting in defense of the Constitution.\u00a0 They saw the Northern Republicans as the aggressors who violated the \u201coriginal constitutional agreement that left slavery undisturbed\u201d (439).<\/p>\n
A different group of secessionists fully embraced the illegality of secession, but they did not believe that this lessened their right to do so.\u00a0 \u201cSecession was a replay of the American Revolution, a new War of Southern Independence that aimed to vindicate, not repudiate, the struggles of the founding generation\u201d (439).\u00a0 Just as the colonists did not have the legal right to rebel from England, the Southerners also did not have this right.\u00a0 Nevertheless, the American colonists rebelled successfully.\u00a0 According to this view of secession, the Southerners shared the aims of their revolution with the colonists: to preserve their definition of liberty.<\/p>\n
Even though they recognize its illegality, I see a much more legitimate justification for secession in the second, more moderate viewpoint.\u00a0 The fire-eaters claim their rights as sovereign states, but to me it seems like they gave up a significant part of that sovereignty when the US switched from the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution with a more powerful federal government.\u00a0 It would be more difficult to argue or prove their sovereignty to either the Northerners or Southern Unionists.\u00a0 On the other hand, the colonies did rebel against England, so these secessionists have a similar success story at which to point.\u00a0 It would be easier to convince fellow Southerners of the legitimacy of this cause.\u00a0 Moral issues on slavery aside, I believe that either on the grounds of state sovereignty or right to revolution, individual states have the right to withdraw from the Union if its citizens deem it necessary, but that the idea of \u201ca new War of Southern Independence\u201d would be more successful at gathering public support for secession (439).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In his final chapter, Wilentz discusses the various political ideas supporting secession. I think that we sometimes have the tendency to group all Southerners and secessionists together and not realize the political complexity of secession, so I\u2019m glad that Wilentz addressed this in detail. However, ANBURTON pointed out the \u201cdebate between \u2018the preservation of a … <\/p>\n