Why, How, and Why? Part 6
>It is not 20/20 hindsight. The figures are from the 1860 census, anyone could have seen that the South was in no way able to put up a fight against the North. It is questions of math. – Greg
That kind of math doesn’t even come into it if secession does not result in war. Recall Senator Chesnut’s celebrated remark that all the blood that would result from secession could be mopped up with a single handkerchief.
Let me quote at length from a speech of Henry Benning of Georgia, Nov. 19, 1860: “What is the next objection to a separation? ‘We are not prepared to resist to resist, the North would crush us.’ I say in answer that objection, that in the first place, we are as well prepared as the North — better prepared than the North. From the best information I can obtain, there is now a larger proportion of the public arms and munitions at the South than at the North. Then we have a larger fund of military knowledge at the South. I believe there is not a single State Military school at the North. But we have one in Virginia, said to be almost equal to that at West Point; one or two in South Carolina that turn out accomplished soldiers, one in Georgie, one in Kentucky, one in Tennessee, one in Alabama; all of which are schools of a high order. These schools will furnish our army with most accomplished officers, and when you have good officers, you will soon have good men.
“We have more financial power and resources than the North has. We have an article which England must have. I might also say the same of France. To deprive England of cotton would be the same as to deprive 4,000,000 of her subjects of the means of subsistence, and to throw them out to work anarchy and revolution. This she would never consent to. Thus our cotton would be an unfailing supply of money to us.
“The temptation of England would be great to take sides against her rival the North, the only people that successfully competes with her in her ocean dominion. She never hesitates when her interests are at stake, and she would have a ready pretense in the San Juan and the Central America questions.
“She has enough ships to destroy the entire navy which the North would have, and to enter the harbor of New York and Boston, and with the improved artilleryof the day destroy these cities in a few hours.
“On the other hand the North cut off from Southern cotton, rice, tobacco, and other Southern products would lose three fourths of her commerce, and a very large proportion of her manufactures. And thus those great fountains of finance would sink very low.
“I say then that we would have ample power to maintain our independence in spite of the North….
But indeed there will be no war. Thet effect at the North of our separation would be a commercial crisis, a bankruptcy greater than has ever prevailed there before. The very separation itself would produce the effect. Would the North in such a condition as that declare war against the South? Property in the North, and particularly in its vast emporiums of commerce would sink to a mere nominal value: nobody would be able to pay the necessary taxes for the war. There would be nothing in the Treasury, and no ability to borrow. Her soldiers would have to be shipped at vast expense (for the border States would not suffer them to go through their borders) to the cotton States, perhaps around the dangerous coast of Florida, and be sent as far as Galveston. Every soldier would cost according to an estimate which I have seen $1000 per year. They could not raise an army. A few persons might volunteer for the sake of bread, none would for any other reason. Under these circumstances could they expect to conquer even us of the cotton States, although they might number 18,000,000 of people, and we only 5,000,000?
“Why, look at Prussia. For seven long years she resisted the combined power of France, Austria and Russia. It happened that she had taken Silasia [sic], and they wished to deprive her of it, but she, with her 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 of people successfully resisted their 60,000,000 or 70,000,000 and held Silasia [sic]. The Prussians were fighting upon their own soil, as we would be upon ours; and we would fight there in such a cause as ours would be, not only like them but even with the spirit of Leonidas when he [defended] Thermopylae.
“Then our very climate is a terror to men of northern climate. They think that yellow fever and other form of fever almost as bad fill up all of our summers and our autumns, the time of campaigns. Who would volunteer for the glory of dying of black vomit? It is true, I believe, that in the revolutionary war not a single northern soldier could be produced for love or money to come south of York Town.
“And after all, suppose they should conquer us, would that bring back to them the 4,000,000 bales of our cotton, the handling of which they so much covet? Certainly not. Now, however richly endowed the people of the North may be with the quality of courage, they are more richly endowed with the faculty of calculation. And they would well count the cost of the war before they entered on it. Already one of their principal organs, the Tribune, has proclaimed that any State has the right to secede at will. They will not attempt to coerce us, but if they should, we shall be able to repel the attempt.” – Gary Charbonneau
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