Civil War Secession Maps

As the current electoral season has me a bit underwhelmed, I'm going to dig back into history a bit. Every once in a while I get a Civil War bug that sends me to the book store for a few weeks or months of exploration. In my mind it's without a doubt the most important period of our history. Most of the unresolved issues of our early history came to a head then; so much of our history since then can trace its legacy to this time. A lot of posts on this site have dealt with the legacy of the Civil War, especially as they relate to the role of race in our politics and elections.

I'm currently in the midst of Shelby Foote's magisterial three volume history of the Civil War. This is a project that will probably be completed in fits and starts over the months ahead, especially as other things capture my attention. Anyhow, an interesting electoral story is that of the secession votes held across the south in the wake of Lincoln's election and the subsequent firing on Ft. Sumter in early 1861. The first wave of states to secede were South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas. The second wave (following Ft. Sumter) comprised the states of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas. I found this interesting map to give a sense of secession sympathy in these states:

What the history of this period tells us is that support for secession was by no means universal. Many of these deep south states had pockets of people loyal to the union (or at least not enthusiastic about secession). A classic example of this is Tennessee, which to this day has strongly Republican leaning counties in the eastern part of the state that never became part of the Solid South for Democrats. Also of note is the part of Virginia that would ultimately break off to form the new state of West Virginia.

The most common explanation for this diversity of opinion regarding secession in these states relates to the presence or reliance upon slave labor. In Alabama, for example, the northern most counties tended to have very little slaveholding. With a geography and topography that wasn't conducive to cotton or other labor intensive crops, secessionist feelings were less intense than in places like South Carolina or the Mississippi Delta. Consider these maps of slavery's pervasiveness in the region with the above to get a sense of these very interesting dynamics.

If you're interested in the Civil War and have some time on your hands, I'd highly recommend Yale historian David Blight's course on the period. Its absolutely amazing and worth the time it takes to get through all of the lectures.

Catalytic Events and American Political History--John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry

In the course of American history few events have proven more influential than the Civil War. One could probably argue that, given the questions left unfinished by the country's founding, the Civil War was inevitable. One can also argue that, given how the Civil War and Reconstruction divided the country, we are still living with its aftermath. The country's "original sin" of slavery, while ended by the sword (and constitutional amendment) has left a legacy--far more intractable--of racism and inequality.

In the march toward the Civil War, few events were more "catalytic" than the raid on Harpers Ferry Virginia by John Brown. This weekend marks the 150th anniversary of Brown's ill-fated attempt to mobilize an armed insurrection of slaves and abolitionists and lead them throughout the countryside, striking a mortal blow to bondage in America. The story of John Brown is incredibly fascinating, despite the fact that his raid on Harpers Ferry ended in failure and his hanging. While his rag-tag band, in retrospect, seemed destined to fail (a judgment made at the time by abolitionist Frederick Douglass), what John Brown did, in many people's eyes, was send a shock wave throughout the south and move the country, perhaps inextricably, toward war. Whether John Brown was a prophet or terrorist, his place in American history cannot be denied.

To get a sense of John Brown, his raid, and its effect on the country, please check out this lecture by Yale historian David Blight. In fact, spend some time with his entire course on the Civil War and Reconstruction. This series of lectures is absolutely riveting. I'm only half way through them and have been deliberately pacing myself. Each lecture sends me to the library and the internet to further immerse myself in this most important episode of our history.