Curious twist in the US Civil War -- the South was excessively individualist

[lpetrich]

Colin Woodard has come out with a successor of his book "American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America" -- "American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good".

The Deep South in the antebellum period was an extreme individualist’s dream. The purpose of the state was limited to the protection of private property through the provision of courts, circumscribed police functions, and military defense. Individuals at the top of the social pyramid were highly protective of their own liberties, uninterested in those of others, and hostile to the notion of human equality.

Taxes were extremely low, and were designed to spare those most able to pay them. ...

With scant taxes collected, there were very few public services.

Like no public schools until after the Revolutionary War, and not many of them even then. By comparison, New England had had taxpayer-supported public schools since the early 17th century.

Because state law enforcement, courts, and prisons were so underfunded, people took the law into their own hands, and security and police work were largely carried out by privately organized militias, plantation overseers, and lynch mobs.

There was an exception to this laxity: Deep South governments outlawed criticism of slavery.

The oligarchy’s fixation on individual liberty and the sanctity of property was so extreme that it handicapped the Confederacy’s ability to defend itself and its political system.

Despite food supplies dwindling in the war, even supplies for soldiers, the planters refused to grow food crops like grain, instead preferring their main cash crop, cotton. Planters refused to loan their slaves out to Confederate army officers who wanted to build fortifications. The Confederate government's passing a conscription law in the spring of 1862 provoked a lot of outrage, including from the Confederacy's Vice President.

In 1863, with a full-scale Union invasion well under way, the CSA empowered the army to seize grain and other goods for the war effort; when an officer presented South Carolina planter James Henry Hammond with an order for a share of his corn, he tore it up, tossed it out the window, and declared that submitting to it meant “branding on my forehead ‘Slave.’”

I love that last part. Here's another source: Wartime Diary and Letters of Senator James Henry Hammond of South Carolina. He was a big-name Southern politician and defender of slavery:  James Henry Hammond

 

[ideologyhunter]

It's also a subtheme of Shelby Foote's (overrated) Civil War. By mid-war, Jefferson Davis was severely distracted by protests from the various Confederate states over all sorts of issues -- military, economic -- and there was angry talk and even newspaper criticism to the effect that he was a dictator. Quite a bit of irony at work -- a would-be slave state with an individualistic stance that would have to put states' rights to the side to have any chance of winning a war against an (eventually) abolitionist foe.

 

[Bronzeage]

The institution of slavery requires a good bit of cognitive dissonance in a nation which claims to be founded on freedom and liberty. Once this is accepted, it's no surprise to find many incongruities.

No man is evil in his own eyes. If this is a fact, a slave owner will need some serious psychological gymnastics to de-evilize an economic system which requires chains and whips to extract labor from another person. This easy acceptance of the paradox that one's liberty and freedom comes at the expense of other's liberty and freedom, leaves a mark on the culture.

It's no surprise that the Planter class did not want to remit taxes for things which were not an obvious and direct benefit. They had already accepted the idea that people would toil for them, for no more than food and shelter. We can extend this to their relationship with society in general.

 

[Sarpedon]

Is there a difference between 'individualism' and 'not giving a shit about anyone else?'

I am reading 'Harper's History of the Great Rebellion' published in 1868, and it doesn't shy away from describing the shenanigans done before the war by secessionists to pave the way. That's another thing Foote doesn't talk about. The Confederacy's draft enforcers didn't go to the mansions.

 

[credoconsolans]

Old news.

Everyone knows the Confederacy was weakened by little Napoleons in each state bound and determined to keep a small central government and make states rights supreme...in the middle of a war such an attitude was disastrous. Jefferson Davis tried in vain to pull the states together, but they accused him of a power grab.

Short-sightedness in the midst of war. A bunch of men too worried about personal power than the bigger picture. No wonder they lost the war.

- - - Updated - - -

Is there a difference between 'individualism' and 'not giving a shit about anyone else?'

I am reading 'Harper's History of the Great Rebellion' published in 1868, and it doesn't shy away from describing the shenanigans done before the war by secessionists to pave the way. That's another thing Foote doesn't talk about. The Confederacy's draft enforcers didn't go to the mansions.

"Rich man's war, poor man's fight".

Aren't Foote's books 1st person narratives?

 

[rjh01]

That may have been one factor that caused the South to lose. Another was the lack of industry. They could not make clothing, ammunition and guns in large quantities. The North blockaded the South's ports so it could not import the above. The rest was just waiting for the South to run out of supplies so the North's troops could march into the South.

The only chance for the South to have won would have been a quick victory.

 

[Sarpedon]

Aren't Foote's books 1st person narratives?

Third person semi-omniscient.

The South industriously stole all available military supplies at the begining of the war. For example, Norfolk navy yard, in Virginia, had hundreds of big guns, and all the ships in the navy, and no crew. When Virginia seceded, the militia just walked in and took all the guns, and the navy could only bring off a few ships, and had to burn the rest, including the Pennsylvania, an 120 gun ship of the line, and the Merrimack, who's hull and engines would later be salvaged to create the Virginia. Ever wonder how the south was able to build so many forts everywhere? All those guns they got from Norfolk. Why wasn't our principle navy yard somewhere else? Same reason that two out of three main arsenals were also in southern states.

 

[Sarpedon]

The south was individualist and for states rights when it suited it to be. Take Kentucky and Missouri. Both held secession conventions, and in both the majority voted NOT to secede (kentucky by almost 3/4). And in both cases, the pro-secession minority left, had their own convention, wherein they voted to secede without opposition, and promptly invited the Confederacy to invade.

States Rights and popular sovereignty was always just a sham. It was all about the aristocratic minority trying to rule without that pesky democracy.

The scariest things about reading that book just now is the parallels I can see between the secessionist mentality and what we are seeing today with the tea party. This almost obscene sense of privilege, knee jerk racism, bizarre brinksmanship, conspiracy mentaility, and enormous condensencion towards the bulk of the population.

 

[ronburgundy]

Is there a difference between 'individualism' and 'not giving a shit about anyone else?'

.

Good point. The description in the OP sound more like the rich and powerful wanting to do whatever they wanted, including violate everyone else's individual rights without a government stopping them. Being in favor of yourself over everyone else isn't "individualism", its just selfishness. This is the problem with conservatives and most "libertarians", who think "individualism" and "liberty" mean no government to stop the powerful from harming and squashing the liberties of the weak.

Any principled "individualism" requires vigilant protection and defense of individual rights against intrusion from the powerful against the weak. Thus, it requires a strong Constitutional and Democratic government that is bound by law to protect individual rights. The Union was far more committed to a principle of individualism than the Confederacy.

 

[BH]

A principled individualist would very much favor the protection of individual rights of others even when it goes against themselves.

 

[Sarpedon]

Well, then it is clear that the South was not filled with 'principled individualists.'

 

[BH]

They were just opportunists. I really think the north made a mistake in not prosecuting most of the south's civilian and military leaders after the war. They were responsible for thousands of people dead and should have paid for it. I also think that looking back the north should have confiscated all those big planatations and not left them in the old planters hands after the war. You messed up, you pay the price.

 

[lpetrich]

I agree that the North ought to have done more to cement its victory. Like deport the Southern political, economic, and intellectual elite, and move in some Northern loyalists to take their place.

 

[Sarpedon]

Why bother importing northern people? Simply redistributing the plantations among freed slaves would have done the trick. Sherman tried to do just that, but Andrew Johnson overcalled him. Imagine, every plantation in the South becomes a village, with the old mansion the town hall (with an arsenal) with former soldiers who had learned to read and write managing of a kind of agricultural corporation that would have created real wealth for the African Americans. With no 'gentleman' to lead them, no economic support and with organized opposition, the Klan would have been so much less effective. Andrew Johnson was the worst possible man to have at that point, and Grant was just too lackadaisical. Its too bad Seward or Stanton hadn't succeeded Lincoln.

 

[Sarpedon]

So my "Harper's History" also contains a summary of laws passed by Southern states during the 'reconstruction' period just after the war concerning freed slaves. It is completely depressing. Mississippi, for example, not only forbids 'vagrancy' but also forbids white people 'residing in a condition of equality' with colored people with a fine of 200 dollars, and of course a negro is defined as anyone being 1/8 or more. South Carolina required any colored person engaged in any trade besides 'husbandry' or 'servant' to have a license that had to be renewed each year. Then there was North Carolina, that forbade any contract that included a colored person if it did not also include a literate white person. And of course there were the 'apprenticeships' which were essentially slavery by another name. Keep in mind this book was published only four years after the end of the war.

 

[BH]

I do not think you could legally reside in Texas if you were a free black. This may have been when a republic or it may have been after pre-civil war statehood.

I read up some stuff on this Hammond guy mentioned earlier in this thread.

For one, it seems he was bi----he had at least one homosexual relationship he admitted to in his writings, or at least the things he said to his lover gives it away. And he would do nothing to hide it---which today we think nothing of but what about his partner? Would he have wanted others to know, especially back then?

Also, he slept with four of his nieces and ruined their reputations doing so. No one would later marry them.

He died the year before the Confederacy capitulated.

In my opinion just a spoiled sociopathic brat. Defintely fodder for a rope had he lived and survived the Confedaracy's fall.

 

[Bronzeage]

A principled individualist would very much favor the protection of individual rights of others even when it goes against themselves.

That depends totally on the principles in play. The superiority of one race over another is a common principle throughout history. As a Helot.

 

[BH]

A principled individualist would very much favor the protection of individual rights of others even when it goes against themselves.

That depends totally on the principles in play. The superiority of one race over another is a common principle throughout history. As a Helot.

This is a very good counterpoint to what I initially said. I guess it depends on the ideology we are dealing with within that individualist framework.

 

[Sarpedon]

A principled individualist would very much favor the protection of individual rights of others even when it goes against themselves.

In the Libertarian thread I asked for examples of this so called 'principled individualist' (or libertarian) who defends individual rights even when it goes against themselves, and I didn't get any. Someone mentioned the Koch brothers, which is laughable, as they benefit vastly from the anti-government organizations they created. Can you give me historical examples of these so called 'principled individualists?' I am inclined to believe it is all just a sham, and I believe that history backs me up on this.

 

[BH]

A principled individualist would very much favor the protection of individual rights of others even when it goes against themselves.

In the Libertarian thread I asked for examples of this so called 'principled individualist' (or libertarian) who defends individual rights even when it goes against themselves, and I didn't get any. Someone mentioned the Koch brothers, which is laughable, as they benefit vastly from the anti-government organizations they created. Can you give me historical examples of these so called 'principled individualists?' I am inclined to believe it is all just a sham, and I believe that history backs me up on this.

There is not anyone I can think of.