Federalism, Secession, and the American State

Divided, We Secede

Lawrence M. Anderson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138849075
• eBook ISBN: 9781136215230
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Governo americano

One important tradition in political science conceives of the Civil War in the United States serving as the functional equivalent of the English and French Revolutions, bringing with it the victory of liberal democratic industrialism over aristocratic agriculturalism. From this perspective, the Civil War is notable for its impact on the American state. Surprisingly however, little attention has been paid to the distinguishing features of this historic rupture in American politics.

Through primary source research and the re-analysis of the rich historical literature about the antebellum era and the causes of the Civil War, Lawrence A. Anderson explores the relationship between federalism and the movement for secession in the United States during the pre-civil war era. Focusing primarily on South Carolina, Anderson carefully revisits theory on institutional analysis of political development to expose what caused secession in the United States.

1 Introduction
The Problem, the Method, and the Outline of the Book

“Should federal encroachments persist, South Carolina may be forced to calculate the value of union.”

–Thomas Cooper, President of South Carolina College, 1827

“We've got a great union. There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that.”

–Rick Perry, Governor of Texas, 2009

In South Carolina, in December 1860, a political revolution was undertaken in order to avert a social revolution.¹ This state needed to withdraw from the Union lest its political, social, and economic freedoms were to be put at risk.² The withdrawal of this one state from the Union was the result of a calculated risk undertaken by the political elite of that state. As a result of the secession of South Carolina, other states of the Deep South seceded. Then, as a result of the first altercation of the Civil War, the states of the upper south seceded. The Border States never left the Union. The calculated risk paid off, for the most part. In obtaining its political revolution, South Carolina managed, for a short time, anyway, to avoid the social revolution.

Political challenges to central states have always been common. What distinguishes the U.S. from other stable, democratic countries is the long history of the territorialbased challenge to the central state. While secession movements abroad have become almost commonplace, they are a relatively recent phenomenon, a function of a new focus on the meaning attached to national self-determination. Contrast this with the U.S.: secessionist challenge to the territorial reach of the American Union have a long history, beginning before the American Union was founded and leading up until today.

South Carolina was neither the first nor the last state to suggest calculating the value of union, but it was the first to secede. Using the considerable institutional resources of state governments in early America and using a sequential exit strategy devised by the state's secessionists, South Carolina unilaterally seceded from the Union and helped to form the Confederate States of America. The movement for secession and the war that followed it signaled a crucial transformation in the American political economy: the victory of liberal democratic industrialism over aristocratic agriculturalism.³

In this book, I explore the institutional and strategic determinants of secession in the American South. How did it come to pass that secession became the preferred method of redressing grievances? Why did secession take place when it did, rather than earlier, later, or not at all? Why did secession occur in each individual state rather than all at once? Why was South Carolina the vanguard state, initiating secession and compelling secession in most of the other states of the slave South? This project looks at this very old and often-told story in a new light, refl ecting also on what this old story can tell us about federalism and secession in other contexts. This book situates this case, first, in the literature on the institutional design of states, second, in the literature on dynamic models of political mobilization—in this case, secession—and third, in the literature on the paradox of federalism—the contradictory finding that federalism can both inhibit and encourage secession.

I explore the political and institutional context of the antebellum period and the political strategies of the landed elite and the political class in South Carolina; I do so because secession, in this case, occurred in a particular sequence and was guided by a particular strategy—with radical South Carolina acting first and alone, thereby forcing the hand of the remaining Southern states. Were it not for the strategy used by this vanguard state, the creation of a Southern Confederacy would not have happened.

I also hope to contribute to the solution of an interesting puzzle in American political development: Why did South Carolina secede, why did some states follow, and why did others refuse to follow? In answering this series of questions—interesting in themselves—this book can also lay claim to answering one of the most puzzled-upon, enigmatic, and controversial questions in all of American history and politics: What precipitated the Civil War?

In fact, the answer to this question is quite simple. The Civil War was precipitated by the secession of most of the Southern states of the Union and the refusal of the new Lincoln administration to allow these states to “depart in peace.” The puzzle that must be explained, then, is not what precipitated the war, but secession.

In the simplest terms, secessionism was the result of a perception of a serious threat to slavery experienced by the political class of South Carolina and the Deep South. Secession was, moreover, accomplished by the honing of a proper strategy over time to bring it about. This threat culminated in the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in 1860, which was made possible by a series of economic and demographic changes in the antebellum Union that contributed to a relative decline of the political power of the South. That said, the contours of secession of the Southern states of the Union cannot be explained simply by reference to the threat to slavery, although that threat does provide a suffi cient terminological abbreviation for the grievance felt by the Southern states.

Without slavery, there would have been no secession and no Civil War. However, secession in the Southern states had its roots in the very structure of the American state. The institutional design of the American state (i.e., federalism) assured the existence of vastly different political, social, and economic institutions at the state level. This design meant that the separate states of the Union could and did have economies and interests based on fundamentally different organizing principles, and it gave each of the states a high degree of state capacity. An aggrieved constituent unit was more likely to see secession as politically feasible under these circumstances than if the state had been designed according to different principles—such as the principles of the unitary state. Some have cautiously argued that adopting federalism could mute the centrifugal forces of secession.⁴ This project demonstrates how this “solution” may end up contributing to the very movement it is designed to prevent.

GRIEVANCE, STRUCTURE, STRATEGY, AND SEQUENCE

This analysis provides compelling new insight into the dynamics of secession. I focus on grievance, because grievance played a central role in mobilizing support for a change to the status quo—in this case, secession.⁵ Most analysts of secession locate the origin of the pursuit of secession in a desire to avoid or end economic exploitation or hardship and improve the economic position of the seceding group relative to other groups within the borders of the host state; others locate the origin in a group's fear of cultural and political domination by out-group members. Groups that lack political power within their host states are most vulnerable to these economic and cultural threats.⁶

There is a central problem in these conventional explanations to secession. Grievance cannot be the only source of the motivation to secede. Grievance is common; secession is rare. By their own measures, South Carolina and the South were aggrieved for more than a generation before secession took place. Yet, secession did not take place until a set of circumstances lined up to convince South Carolina's elites to take a chance. Grievance is likely a necessary condition of secession, but it is not suffi cient for secession to take place. To understand secession, we need to situate that grievance in a wider political, institutional, and strategic context.

Thus, I focus on the structure of the state within which this grievance developed. The federal structure of the American political union played a central role in the development, failure, and eventual success of secession in the South. This institutional design of American federalism, which provided the rules of the game governing political strategies, grievance development, and grievance remediation, both complicated and enabled radical political mobilization. For reasons related to institutional design, some states are more prone to secession than others. The American state was designed (and interpreted) in a way that placed secession on the agenda and made it a viable remediation strategy for those dissatisfi ed with the status quo—especially when that dissatisfaction is territorially bound. Grievance and an institutional structure that is conducive to secession is only part of the story.

This research builds on the new wave of federalism research.⁷ One central question of this research agenda asks whether it is possible to design federal institutions that are stable over time.⁸ The stability of federalism over time is complicated by the paradoxical impact of the institutions of federalism. Some have found federalism to be a panacea for secessionist conflict.⁹ Others regard federalism with a great deal more caution, finding that it has features that contribute to secessionist pressures. Federalism off ers a territorial mixed bag, at best.¹⁰ This project is able to provide insight into understanding the paradox of federalism.¹¹

The paradox is in operation in the American case. The institutions of federalism in the American Union helped to prevent secession for a long time after secession became the stated desire of South Carolina's elite. This project gets inside the dynamic to explore how federalism calms and encourages secessionism.

Institutions matter, but so, too, does strategy. Only once South Carolina got the strategy right was the state able to use the institutions of federalism to bring about secession in the other states of the South. In this case, the right strategy was the right sequence. Secession occurred dynamically and sequentially, not all at once, with South Carolina leading and (some of) the other states of the South following.

South Carolina's actions were decisive in the secession of the states of the Deep South and the creation of a Southern Confederacy.¹² This is not simply a case of South Carolina being willing to secede first—clearly, it was. Once this state was out of the Union, the Union was less hospitable to the institution of slavery. This dynamic continued as more states seceded (i.e., once South Carolina and Alabama were out of the Union, the Union was even less hospitable to the institution of slavery, changing the choiceenvironment for other states, thereby making the withdrawal of subsequent states more likely). South Carolina also changed the choice-environment for the Upper South states. By seceding and orchestrating a conflict with the federal government over Fort Sumter, which lead to Lincoln's proclamation calling up troops, South Carolina pulled the states of the Upper South out of the Union. The secession of South Carolina didn't just make secession more likely: it made secession necessary for most of the other states of the South, but at diff erent times and for diff erent reasons.

In most cases of secession, the sequence is a process of political mobilization within a single compact territory or region. The elites and mass public of this single territorially-demarcated population interact with each other and with agents of the central state to achieve secession. In my analysis, I do not assume that all secessionist units will secede simultaneously. In fact, I assume that secession will occur dynamically, with more radical regions leading the charge of secession, convincing or compelling less radical regions to secede from the host state, sometimes for reasons that are very diff erent from the initial seceder. Secessionist leaders are always at pains to muster support for secession, but there are dilemmas (and benefits) of mobilization peculiar to a region that includes multiple semi-sovereign entities with conventionally recognized political boundaries.

In the case at hand, the sequence and strategy were enormously affected by the jurisdictional complexity of the American Union. In particular, there was no one political voice or political institution that spoke for the South. Had there been a single institution that could speak for the South, it almost certainly would have rejected secession. Was the South willing and able to speak with a single voice, secession might have been unnecessary. In the case at hand, however, this ended up being a signifi cant advantage. It meant unanimity on secession was impossible. It meant the states of the South would have varying degrees of support for secession. It meant the creation of the Southern Confederacy would be a multi-step and multi-stage process that occurred in a very particular order. It meant South Carolina had no incentive to moderate its position and that its position was not diluted by a moderate South. Because the South could not secede (and would not secede, even if it could) South Carolina (or some other lone Southern state) would have to be willing to take a calculated risk to secede unilaterally and try to force of the hand of the remaining Southern states. South Carolina was willing to do so—and was the only state willing to do so.

Here is one of the profound ironies of this era: a South in the Union that was as monolithically attached to slavery as South Carolina would not need to secede—it could set (and limit) Union policy with respect to slavery by virtue of its monolithic and unquestioned support of slavery. But a South that was divided on the question of slavery—in particular, its future and what was needed to maintain it—needed secession to save it.

METHODOLOGY

Through process-tracing in a single case, this work is able to provide a “moving picture” image of the movement for secession in South Carolina.¹³ I explore how South Carolina, working within the complex jurisdictional environment of American federalism, came to prefer secession to other grievance remediation strategies and develop a strategy for achieving it in a way that would encourage secession among other states of the South. I explore how the strategic decision-making of the political elite in South Carolina successfully brought about this unlikely outcome.

This project focuses on three episodes in South Carolina that describe the process of political mobilization for secession. Without the steps and missteps taken in these episodes, and the lessons learned from them, secession in 1860 would have been unlikely and the creation of a Southern Confederacy might not have happened. During the nullifi cation crisis of 1832–33 South Carolina forcefully reiterated the concept of state sovere...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Figures and Tables
• Chronology of Events
• 1 Introduction: The Problem, the Method, and the Outline of the Book
• 2 The American State and Early Challenges to Central State Authority
• 3 States' Rights in South Carolina: From Nullifi cation to the First Secession Crisis
• 4 South Carolina Secedes
• 5 The Path of Secession in the Three Souths
• 6 The Past and Future of Federalism and Secession
• Notes
• References
• Index