William J. Cooper - We Have the War Upon Us: The Onset of the Civil War, November 1860-April 1861

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

Copyright 2012 by William J. Cooper
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada
by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.
www.aaknopf.com

Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are
registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cooper, William J. (William James), [date]
We have the war upon us:the onset of the Civil War, November 1860
April 1861/William J. Cooper.1st ed.
p.cm.
This is a Borzoi book.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN: 978-0-307-96088-7
1.United StatesPolitics and government18571861.2.United States
HistoryCivil War, 18611865Causes.3.SecessionSouthern States.
4.Lincoln, Abraham, 18091865.I.Title.
E440.5.C77 2012
973.711dc232012019675

Cover image: Two standard bearers, the day after battle by E. B. Bensell,
T. Sinclairs lith., Philadelphia. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
Cover design by Steven Attardo
Maps by Gary D. Joiner

v3.1

For My Grandchildren

Michael and John Cooper
and
Clover and Catherine Cooper

: Major Robert Anderson, Library of Congress

: James Buchanan, Library of Congress

: Charles Francis Adams, Library of Congress

: Howell Cobb, Library of Congress

: John J. Crittenden, Library of Congress

: John J. Crittenden House, Frankfort, Kentucky, present day (courtesy of Michael Robinson)

: Jefferson Davis, Library of Congress

: Stephen A. Douglas, Library of Congress

: House of Representatives Chamber, Library of Congress

: Senate Chamber, Library of Congress

: Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln, Library of Congress

: A beardless Abraham Lincoln, at the time he was elected president, Library of Congress

: President Abraham Lincoln, Library of Congress

: William Henry Seward, Library of Congress

: Alexander H. Stephens, Library of Congress

: Thurlow Weed, Library of Congress

: General Winfield Scott, Library of Congress

: The United States in 1860

: The Election of 1860

: The Course of Secession

: Fort Sumter and Charleston Harbor

: Fort Pickens and Pensacola Harbor

The cataclysm of the Civil War is the defining moment in the history of the United States. At the cost of more than 750,000 dead and that many more wounded, it guaranteed the preservation of the Union and abolished the institution of racial slavery. Even with that frightful human toll, the outcome made it a good war for the United States. These generalizations are well known and shared by most Americans of our time.

Yet the men who made the fateful decisions leading to that massive conflict did not share our perspective. The great historian

In this book I have tried to adhere to Potters charge. In the months between the election of the Republican Abraham Lincoln as president in November 1860 and the outbreak of hostilities in April 1861, no one knew whether war would occur, or if it did, no one could foresee the price, course, or result of that war. Even those who did expect armed conflict, a few excitedly, more fearfully, had no conception of its magnitude.

Slavery and the political issues surrounding it occupy a central place in my account. Yes, the war ended slavery, and to most Americans of today it was fought for that cause. The war was not begun to eradicate slavery, however. Even the leading Republican policymakers understood that a war started to kill slavery could not command united northern support and could quite possibly destroy their party.

This judgment was based on the reality that Americans, Republicans included, overwhelmingly believed that the Constitution protected slavery in the states where it existed. Moreover, except in extreme antislavery circles, owning slaves did not make a person a moral ogre or persona non grata in civil society. Additionally, the racial character of American slavery was of cardinal importance. In the mid-nineteenth century almost all white Americans and Western Europeans believed in the supremacy of the white race. I will not keep pointing out that this outlook is different from mine and that of our own era. I should not need to.

Before the Civil War, white southerners constantly talked about libertyits preciousness and their commitment to it. They perceived no contradiction between their faith in liberty and the existence of slavery. From at least the period of the American Revolution, white southerners defined their liberty, in part, as their right to own slaves and to decide the fate of the institution without any outside interference. In their view, living in a slave society made them no less American than their fellow citizens in the free states. While such a concept is foreign to our thinking, it was fundamental to white southerners until 1865.

Writing a book about the coming of the Civil War, even one so chronologically restricted as mine, I place myself in a long line of historians who have grappled with the causes of the war. I owe an enormous debt to my predecessors, who have illuminated so many facets of the sectional struggle from abolition to secession. Answering the question of why the war came is not my aim. My goal is not so grand. I want to tell the story of those whose action and inaction brought the country to the precipice and finally over it.

I concentrate on the five months between Lincolns election and the commencement of fighting. During those weeks the attention of Americans became increasingly riveted on the great crisis of the Union. The southern states threatened to break up the Union. The immediate crucial issue was the place of slavery in the national territories; the longer-term question concerned the character of the Union and who would wield power in it.

At the outset, many Americans assumed that a political compromise fashioned in Congress would settle the dispute. Compromising sectional disagreements had been a hallmark of the nation since the Constitutional Convention of 1787. The precedent set there had been followed on several volatile occasions during the succeeding three-quarters of a century.

But not all Americans wanted another compromise. In the South, radical secessionists saw this moment, the election of a northern president heading a northern party by northern voters, as their opportunity to disrupt the Union. The North had its own segment that spurned any compromise with the South. These vigorous partisans of the triumphant Republican party were determined to celebrate their victory without any deal with an alarmed, uneasy South.

Between these extremes, Americans in both sections ardently desired to reach an equitable settlement between North and South. Although this pro-compromise sentiment could be found in the Deep South and in the Republican party, it flourished among northern Democrats and in the Upper South and Border. A fact often overlooked is that pro-compromise forces included men both antislavery and proslavery.

My book focuses on why the pro-compromise legions lost, or why the American tradition of sectional compromise failed. In the past few years, several scholars have investigated different parts of this story, most notably the success of the secessionists and the dynamics within the Republican party. But no one has treated North and South, Republican and Democrat, sectional radicals and sectional conservatives in the same place. I have done that.