 On April 6th, 1861, the Arkansas State Gazette published an editorial about the recent secession convention. The article is long, but I want to read a couple of lines from the last paragraph. Quote, by these resolutions, being the resolutions passed by the convention rejecting the secession, disunionism was unmasked and the true object and character of the movement disclosed and shown to be a total overthrow and entire dismemberment of the Constitution and the Union. It is hard to credit that any desire such an end, and we feel confident that there is not one in a hundred of the people of the South who does not desire the perpetuity of the government and the Union if the rights and interests of all can be preserved. We believe it can be done and appeal to you to make the effort. If successful, your interests are secured and your honor is imperishable, for we shall not only see the people of the state still adhering to the Union, once more united, prosperous and happy, but our brethren, the people of the seceded states, will arise in their majesty and decree that they shall resume their places in the sisterhood of states, and under our glorious national flag, we will resume our march to national greatness. The star of our destiny will reappear, and its splendor, temporarily obscured, illuminates the path and cheer the hearts of all people thirsting after liberty." This was roughly a week before the bombardment of Fort Sumter. Arkansas, one of the upper South slave states, voted to reject disunion. There were secessionists within the state to be sure, but the convention was carried by the unconditional and conditional unionists. They wanted to see the union maintained, and they expected the seceded states to eventually rejoin the United States. In the same article, they criticized South Carolina for its decision to secede. The article said, quote, there was no statement of grievances, no demand for redress by the seceding states, end quote. Arkansas was not a state that supported a Republican administration by any means, but it was a state whose political leaders, overall, wanted to avoid secession until some specific political action was taken to force their hand. On April 15, the day after the surrender of Fort Sumter, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers for the union military in order to, in his view, suppress the rebellion taking place in the South. The significance of this is something lost on people, even those who are critical of Lincoln's decision to call for troops. In 1861, when the national government called for troops, it was a dictate imposed on the states, not the people. Lincoln was telling the states who were still in the union, such as Arkansas, that they needed to send citizen volunteers to wage war against their brethren. Notice the language in the article I just quoted, when the state rejected secession. The words, the people, were italicized in the article in reference to, quote, unquote, our brethren. The seceded states themselves were sister states. These are all familial terms being used to describe the relationship between the states that remained in the union and those that chose to leave it. So when Lincoln called for troops, which was seen as an abuse of executive authority since Congress had not declared war, though they would retroactively approve of Lincoln's decision, it was controversial because the state governments did not universally want to send its militia into the service of the nation in order to prevent secession. But for the border states, the upper South slave states, it was even more than that. They did not wish to produce volunteers that would be used to wage war against their own family for all intents and purposes. The same newspaper, only days after Lincoln's call for troops, published another editorial. The first one I quoted was published on April 6th. This one is from April 20th. The article reads, quote, the recent action of the weak and perfidious administration of Mr. Lincoln has made the southern people a united people. It's abrupt adoption of a war policy in the midst of protestations of Pacific and conciliatory purposes has convicted it of a duplicity and treachery towards the conservative portion of the southern people, only equaled in degree by the incapacity and stupidity which dictated it. Without abandoning our opinions upon the original question of the constitutional right of a state to secede from the union or attracting our criticisms upon the initiation a year ago of the policy which has so quickly ripened into civil war, we fill it to be our duty to declare the people of Arkansas and to the government of which Mr. Lincoln is the nominal head that we are ready to embark our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor in the rebellion or revolution as the result of the conflict already begun shall determine its character to be. The employment by the federal government of its military power and material resources which have been supplied alike by all the states of the union to compel any of them to submit to its jurisdiction is utterly opposed to the spirit and theory of our institutions and in a little while would reduce the states which constitute the weaker section to the condition of mere appendages or provinces to the dominant and stronger section to which anarchy itself would be preferable. The south is our country and while we are satisfied that up to the moment when the government at Washington committed the folly and wickedness of making war upon the seceded states, the conservative party in Arkansas was largely in the ascendant. We cannot believe that her soil is polluted by a being base and cowardly enough to stoop to consider in casting his lot in the unequal struggle in which she is engaged whether she is right or wrong end quote. The documents before and after Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers demonstrate repeatedly the same thing. In a private letter to Confederate War Secretary Leroy Walker, SR Cockrell said quote, it is with pleasure that I report to complete revolution in public sentiment since I left. Tennessee is with the cotton states and you may now consider the slave states a unit. Armed to neutrality has no advocates not even the authors of that card which was conceived in air. The patriotism which would stand by unmoved and witness the murder of your neighbor's wife and children because of an imaginary line is not the growth of Tennessee nor of any state where the rays of a genial sun shine end quote. It doesn't matter what your personal views on the decisions made by Lincoln or Jefferson Davis or any other political leader regarding the resupplying of Fort Sumter firing on it or the decision to call for troops. We get all of different opinions on the rightness or wrongness of any of these decisions but what we must keep in mind is the perspective that the people throughout the United States especially in the upper south that had yet to secede thought of these decisions to them Lincoln was waging war on the south not the other way around. I know people like to debate the war guilt question and I talked about the philosophical complexities in the question but the focus of today's episode is not on who was guilty of starting the war but who the conditional unionists in the border states believed was guilty of starting the war and the bulk of them after Lincoln's call for troops saw Lincoln as the guilty party and in their eyes Lincoln was responsible for bringing war. So to return back to my point about Lincoln's call for troops being a demand on the states in the union to supply militia volunteers for national service the border states who had predominantly vowed to remain neutral they would stay in the union but they had no intention of waging war with their secessionist brethren. They were now being forced to choose sides and it wasn't the Confederacy forcing them to choose sides not in their eyes. It was Lincoln and his Republican administration so for Arkansas, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia as well as many people in Missouri, Maryland and Kentucky as we will see in subsequent episodes if they had to choose between the union or the Confederacy they would prefer to side with the group that didn't force them to abandon neutrality. Slavery may have been the primary motivation driving the first wave of secession but it was this move to war that compelled the second wave of secession and that will be the topic of today's episode. I'm Chris Calton and this is the Mises Institute podcast historical controversies. In the previous weeks we've looked at the first wave of secession and the tense build-up to the conflict at Fort Sumter that initiated the war. Generally the bullet points of civil war history move quickly past these months which I think makes it easy to lose sight of the context of the early months of the war. The timeline jumps from the first wave of secession to Fort Sumter to the second wave of secession to the first battle of Manassas or the first battle of Bull Run depending on which naming scheme you prefer. But as we saw between my first secession episode and last week's episode on Fort Sumter there was a lot of interesting stuff taking place between these events and that's what we're going to find to be the case in the next few episodes as well. Today's episode obviously is going to deal with the four states to secede in the second wave being Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee and North Carolina. But in the next few episodes we are going to take a very close look at the slave states that did not secede with the exception of Delaware which was the only safely unionist state as it barely counted as a slave state at all. So even though Maryland, Missouri and Kentucky did not join the Confederacy there was a point at which it seemed like they very well might and the conflicts taking place inside the states to prevent secession. Tell us a great deal about the Lincoln presidency. We will also be taking a look at the section of Virginia that did not secede which of course would eventually become the state of West Virginia. All of this will be our focus for the next few episodes before we get to the first battle of Manassas which is typically considered to be the first significant battle of the war after Fort Sumter. It's worth clarifying that when Lincoln made his proclamation calling for 75,000 volunteers not everybody in the country sought as a usurpation of power or a terrible act. In Ohio for instance the governor responded with a telegram to the war department asking quote what portion of the 75,000 militia you call for do you give to Ohio we will furnish the largest number you will receive great rejoicing here over your proclamation end quote and there were plenty of patriotic unionists who after being raged by the idea that anybody had fired on a fort flying the flag of the United States were willing to sign up to fight against the south. Likewise the Confederacy also saw surge of volunteers ready to fight against quote unquote northern aggression. There was no uniformity of opinion about who was on the right side of the conflict by any means and there were so many volunteers trying to sign up on both sides of the divide that both the Union and the Confederacy actually had to turn some volunteers away. So in the non-slave holding north and the nominal slave state of Delaware patriotic sentiment compelled many previously neutral citizens to rally for war against the south and the deep south states by contrast previously neutral citizens became ready to fight for the state and newly founded nation and this goes back to my introductory episode of the season where I stressed the importance of the fact that the vast majority of the people doing the actual fighting were not motivated by their devotion to slavery but in the upper south border slave states Lincoln's call for troops was effectively a proclamation that neutrality was not an option and coercion was the answer to secession both ideas that were unacceptable to many southern unionists even many of the most ardent unionists believed that Lincoln had forced their hands and the only option was to join the confederate states if they had to fight they'd fight for the side that didn't force them to go to war again let me stress that regardless of what you think about the war guilt question this was the predominant view of border state southerners after april 15th I mentioned in previous episodes that William Seward undermined his own efforts to avoid war by promising the Confederacy that Sumter would be evacuated on march 19th George W. Summers a Virginia Unionist wrote a letter to Secretary of State Seward saying that the promise to have Sumter evacuated had quote acted like a charm end quote in strengthening the unionist support in Virginia as the weeks wore on and Sumter had not been evacuated Virginia Unionism was waning as Seward's promise had not been kept as we discussed in the previous episodes the newspaper the Lynchburg Virginian printed an editorial asking quote why the delay why defer the execution of their purpose until necessity shall seem to divest the movement of all merit as being in the interest of peace such blundering and dilly dallying is inexcusable it embarrasses the union men of the border states and is playing directly into the hands of the secessionists end quote a North Carolina union party candidate for congress voiced similar apprehension in a letter he wrote to Stephen Douglas he said quote union men who have been firm and true here to for are beginning to despair and doubt the faith of the administration I won't read them all but we can find similar complaints in personal and public writings of other Upper South Unionists such as Alexander H. H. Stewart of Virginia and Jep the folks of Tennessee folks it might be worth quoting did complain to Andrew Johnson who would later become Lincoln's second vice president and presidential successor that quote you can't lead without boldness and decision the union men of the Upper South had been defending Lincoln at least to some degree in order to maintain support for unionism in their state but Lincoln was making himself very difficult to defend when he was wasting time in Washington apparently as far as the public could see anyway avoiding making any decision in regards to Fort Sumter this erosion of public support before April 12th is helpful in understanding the shifting perception of border state unionists but the before and after picture in regards to the support for secession still shows a stark contrast one of salmon chase's political allies in Cincinnati William P. Mellon visited Tennessee on business when the state was deciding on secession the first time around he made a point to gauge the political wins of the state while he was there and he wrote to chase about his trip on April 6th and the letter Mellon said quote I don't think I heard five men on the trip express themselves in favor of secession in the cars at the hotels at counting houses and on the streets there was almost perfect unanimity of sentiment against the precipitate action of the cotton states and the whole secession movement many of the southern men were as bitter in the denunciation as are the best republicans here Mellon goes on to speak of the secession convention that had been recently held in Memphis quote there is probably much more honest secession feeling in Memphis than in any other large town in Tennessee through which I passed and yet it amounts to nothing beyond a rabble but there was much diversity of sentiment as to the ultimate course to be pursued by the non-succeeding slave states generally they say that unless the north concede what they claim is their equal rights they will favor dissolution but they give no assurance whatever that even if all is granted which they demand they will then sustain the government in any coercive measures against the confederate states they all to a man will regard any coercive action on the part of the government against condom prior to the border state convention as entirely destructive to the union cause and all the loyal slave states and a secession victory and all of them made certain end quote Mellon talked about the policy of neutrality that Tennessee was committed to he felt it was contradictory the state was clearly committed to unionism but should the union government and confederate governments go to war with each other their neutrality would evaporate it would have to because it was an impossible position to hold if war were to erupt thus Mellon advised chase to encourage Lincoln to stop delaying and taking whatever action he was going to take and to not bother with any policy that might pacify the upper south salmon chase if you remember was one of only two members of Lincoln's cabinet to offer support of the decision to resupply for its sumptor but by the time chase read this letter Lincoln needed no convincing he'd pretty much already made up his mind to do it Mellon was advising in a cabinet meeting held on March 29th Lincoln announced his decision to send relief to Fort Sumter William Seward knew that this was a danger to his efforts to pacify the south and prevent war so he worked feverishly to find a plan that would prevent conflict he organized the plan to resupply Fort Pickens off the coast of Pensacola Florida which he saw as less vulnerable to a confederate attack and therefore less likely to initiate a war whether or not Seward was right in his estimation is impossible to say since the circumstances were such that Fort Sumter was the catalyst for war but in any case this was Seward's line of thinking on the matter Seward also continued to try to convince Lincoln to abandon Sumter on April 1st he gave a Lincoln memorandum titled some thoughts for the president's consideration this memorandum i believe is tremendously important i've stressed many times throughout this podcast that we have to separate the question of what caused secession and what caused the war because the different answers relate importantly to the different motives and decisions made by the people in power including Lincoln the memorandum offered five bullet points that Seward thought the president needed to consider but the fifth one is the most important read quote fifth the policy at home i'm aware that my views are singular and perhaps not sufficiently explained my system is built upon this idea as a ruling one namely that we must change the question before the public from one upon slavery or about slavery for a question upon union or disunion in other words from what would be regarded as a party question to one of patriotism or union the occupation or evacuation of fort sumter although not in fact a slavery or a party question is so regarded witness the temper manifested by the republicans in the free states and even by the union men in the south seward was pointing out that even though the issue of fort sumter was not on the surface a party issue the support for maintaining the fort came nearly exclusively from republicans by reinforcing the fort Lincoln was capitulating to his party rather than the citizens as a whole by abandoning sumter seward believed Lincoln would be showing his willingness to reach across the party divide and demonstrate to unionists in the south that he was not willing to put party interests ahead of national interests thus by abandoning fort sumter Lincoln would show that the issue came down to union versus disunion rather than republican versus opposition or even north versus south it's also worth mentioning even though it's a bit off topic for this episode that in this memorandum seward also recommended that Lincoln suggest going to war with some of the european powers such as spain and france in the hopes that the prospects of a foreign war would unite the north and south and then seward hoped that the foreign war could be avoided after the north and south united over the possibility of the war with spain or france so this part of the plan gets a lot of attention for this crazy idea to unite the country but as ridiculous as seward's plan may seem i think it demonstrates that desperation he felt about the crisis at fort sumter by the beginning of april one other element to this story that might be worth mentioning is that when william seward was trying to find people to help support his plan the southern unionist who was selected to meet with linkin privately was a virginian named john baldwin who had formerly been a southern wig before the party collapsed this is worth mentioning because this interview is the basis for another tariff thesis regarding the war so i have already spent more than enough time dealing with why reject the idea that secession was driven by opposition to the tariff and i'm not going to rehash all those arguments here but when people claim that the civil war was a tariff war i often find them conflating two very distinct tariff theses the southern tariff thesis is the idea that southern secession was motivated by opposition to the tariff the northern tariff thesis is the idea that linkin waged the war because he did not want to lose tariff revenues both of these theories are entirely independent of each other but people often argue them as if they're part of the same idea but obviously regardless of whether or not either of them are true it should be easy to see that they are not codependent theories between the two tariff theses the southern tariff thesis is the worst because it not only falls apart under documentary scrutiny but it really doesn't even have a sound theoretical explanation i've pointed out that if you look at 1850s there are a lot of political conflicts that preceded secession and from a theoretical point of view none of these conflicts can be explained by pointing to tariff disagreement that's the point of using theory and history by the way you use theory to guide your documentary investigation you find the questions that need explaining you adopt a theory that is at least plausible and then you look for evidence that will either support or refute your theory the idea that the south seceded over tariffs isn't even theoretically plausible because it can explain none of the political conflicts of the 1850s the northern tariff thesis the idea that linkin waged the war in order to maintain tariff revenues from the south is at least plausible the pursuit of tax revenues could theoretically explain linkin's actions that is not enough to say that the tariff thesis is correct it just allows us to then look for evidence to support this theoretical explanation for linkin's actions the foundational piece of evidence in support of the northern tariff thesis comes from this interview that linkin had with john baldwin the problem from a historical investigation standpoint is that there is no surviving record about what was said in the interview except the account given by john baldwin in 1866 after linkin had been assassinated between the 1861 interview and john baldwin's account of the interview john baldwin had actually joined the confederacy served in the confederate house of representatives and served as a confederate military officer and then of course the confederacy lost the war after all of this took place and linkin was dead john baldwin says in 1866 that he asked linkin quote why not let the south go in peace to which linkin allegedly replied where then would we obtain our revenues after the ratification of the 13th amendment there was a strong effort among southerners to try to maintain that slavery was not their motivation in secession or the war and the tariff was a retroactive argument made to explain their motivations john baldwin was justifying this argument with his account of painting tariffs as the northern motivation against the south the problem is that although we can neither corroborate nor refute baldwin's account of the interview citing evidence from a confederate officer and politician after linkin's death is quite clearly a flaky source i think even james mcpherson who is decidedly more generous to linkin than i am is too generous to john baldwin in this basically taking the agnostic position that we can't know enough to either reject or corroborate it but at the end of the day it's part of the job of the historian to weigh both the relevancy and veracity of potential sources and this strikes me as a prime example of a weak source for historical evidence there is no other strong evidence to support the northern tariff thesis people point to references to the enforcement of the tariff and the republican support of a protective tariff but this is all circumstantial evidence we know that republicans supported a tariff but that does not mean that it motivated them to wage war and the references to enforcing the laws of the federal government seems in my view to be better explained by linkin's unionism which was his own stated motivation for the war so forgive my digression into this point but that's all to say that we have the source of the northern tariff thesis which should be considered entirely distinct from the southern tariff thesis and i find it to be a very weakly supported historical explanation for linkin's motivation if you choose to disagree that's your prerogative but i would encourage you to think critically about the weight you're describing to the evidence cited in support of the tariff motivation for northern war support because i think that the theory will fall apart if you give this honest consideration that's just my two cents in any case we can see that even before the bombardment of fort sumpter linkin's indecision about the fort was undermining unionist support in the upper south finally after linkin's decision to resupply fort's pickens in sumpter and after the surrender of sumpter linkin's decision to call for troops many southern unionists felt betrayed and their views changed rapidly so two weeks after john bald when met with linkin unionism in virginia tennessee north carolina and arkansas had almost entirely evaporated in missouri kentucky and mariland there was a great degree of unionism but even in these states a large part of the populations abandoned their support for the union only delaware remained firmly in the pro union camp linkin meanwhile was ready to present his narrative about the south's aggression he referred to the attack on sumpter as a quote unquote unprovoked assault which even if we consider the decision to bombard the fort to be unjustified to say that it was unprovoked is entirely absurd remember that when linkin informed the confederacy of his decision to reinforce the fort he wouldn't let his emissaries even accept a reply from any confederate leaders clearly this was a provocation and the upper south recognized it as such but even though unionism had been waning due to linkin's delay in evacuating sumpter many unionists in the border states couldn't believe that he would bypass congress and call for 75 000 militia volunteers some of them actually thought the news of this proclamation was a hoax if you can believe that i think this perspective is important to stress because it helps us understand the incredible precedence that linkin was setting as president the idea that a president would effectively declare war without congressional approval was utterly unthinkable in 1861 even though that's just standard operating procedure today virginia unionist alexander hh steward actually sent a message to william steward asking for confirmation of the proclamation wondering if it was a quote unquote fabrication some skeptical unionists who believed that the proclamation was a forgery said that it shouldn't be believed until it had been printed in a pro-union newspaper one such unionists jubile early said of the proclamation quote it may be true but if it is true it is certainly an evidence that the administration and its officers have lost all prudence discretion and good sense end quote virginia governor john letcher who had previously been openly critical of south carolina's rash decision to secede said in reply to the proclamation quote the militia of virginia will not be furnished to the powers at washington for any such use or purpose as they have in view your object is to subjugate the southern states and a requisition made upon me for such an object an object in my judgment not within the purview of the constitution or the militia act of 1795 will not be complied with you have chosen to inaugurate civil war and having done so we will meet it in a spirit as determined as the administration has exhibited toward the south end quote calls for secession immediately erupted once again the day after lincoln's call for troops virginia went into secret session to reopen debates on secession at this point the remaining virginia unionists had little they could do to delay the inevitable robert east scott suggested putting the matter to a popular vote to choose between either immediate secession or a border state conference to decide on joint action he had been a staunch union wig but now his goal was just to prevent the population of virginia from being bitterly divided on the matter which he thought would be avoided by the democratic process and the border state conference would delay the matter for long enough to make military preparations on the matter of disunion though scott had changed his tune saying that the border state conference that quote i think at a straight road to secession and i am frank to avow it end quote but the secessionist fire had been ignited in virginia and the legislature decided on secession with a vote of 88 to 55 on april 17 only two days after lincoln made his call for troops this was huge news for the confederacy previously georgia had been the largest in most industrialized southern state but now virginia would take that mantle as it had been the largest state in the entire country and although it was not as industrialized as new england it was substantially more industrial than any other confederate state it was also geographically important in that it bordered the united states capital should mariland secede washington dc would be completely surrounded by confederate states partly in order to appease virginia and partly for logistical reasons the confederacy would move its capital to richmond virginia on may 8 virginia also took control of the federal properties contained within its border governor letcher resisted this move wanting to ratify secession with a popular vote which didn't come until may 23 so basically the popular vote was done to approve the decision made more than a month earlier by the virginia legislature former governor and virginia fireeater henry wise refused to wait to seize the federal properties citing the right of the people to defend against threats of invasion virginia volunteers took immediate action to seize the properties and governor letcher retroactively approved their actions the next day arkansas was next to secede doing so on may 6th their original secession convention had called for a second convention to reexamine the issue but this was not to be held until sometime later the decision to open the second convention earlier than scheduled was explicitly credited to lincoln's call for troops in the proclamation delivered by david walker on the day of the convention arkansas governor henry rector also cited lincoln's call for troops as the justification for secession he said quote unexpectedly by the late proclamation of president lincoln a state of war has been provoked involving each and every state of the old confederacy end quote again it is worth stressing that regardless of how modern views of history may judge the issue regarding fort sumter the border state unionists genuinely believed that it was president lincoln in his call for troops to suppress the southern states who was initiating war arkansas voted 65 to 5 in favor of secession and a revote conducted later had only one vote in favor of remaining in the union north carolina and tennessee came last having much stronger unionist support than virginia and arkansas had prior to april 15th north carolina's henry miller provides a useful case study in how lincoln's actions changed the minds of unionists miller was a union party candidate for congress who was despised by his own family for not being a secessionist he made enemies of his own family members who owned slaves by wondering whether non-slave holding north carolinians should be expected to quote fight for our negroes end quote he even reached out to steven douglas for advice on running for office against the secessionist candidate for congress but when lincoln seemed indecisive on the matter of evacuating fort sumter miller was among the many upper south men who began to lose faith in the administration making reference to seward's promises that sumter would be evacuated when complaining about the quote unquote tardiness of the administration to carry out this promise but even with his growing anxiety on the matter he accepted candidacy on the union party ticket but lincoln's call for troops finally drove miller into the secessionist camp on april 16th he renounced his candidacy and advocated quote united resistance against a lincoln's declaration of war against the south end quote north carolina voted to secede on may 20th finally came tennessee the last state to secede though this was not certain at the time since the other four slave states or at least maryland kentucky and missouri could very well join the confederacy as well tennessee retained a number of men who viewed the confederate states as quote unquote miserable secessionists who had inaugurated all these troubles so there were those whose views were less sympathetic to the south but after april 15th even these men considered lincoln's call for troops to be outrageous governor william Campbell received a letter from a friend that spoke of the drastic change in popular opinion in nashville the letter said that the quote most influential and strongest union men of yesterday were today carried by the vortex of circumstances into that powerful stream of public opinion on which they float too weak and powerless to stem the current unionists were brought over by the injudicious and suicidal acts of the present imbecile administration to the defense of united south end quote among such unionists who were converted to secessionists by lincoln's proclamation was none other than tennessee's john bell this is perhaps the most noteworthy convert because john bell had been the 1860 presidential candidate for the constitutional union party whose platform consisted of only two planks the maintenance of the union and the adherence to the constitution for such a staunch unionist to abandon his devotion to the union it would suggest that he viewed lincoln's call for troops as a clear violation of the other constitutional union party plank lincoln was violating his oath to uphold the constitution at least in the eyes of people like john bell for my part by the way i think it's very difficult to make a case that lincoln was exercising his constitutional power to call for troops without congressional approval congress wasn't in session at the time but lincoln could have called them in session and his defense of many of his unconstitutional actions including the suspension of habeas corpus that would happen in may he defended all of this on the grounds that he couldn't wait for congress to approve it but he could have called them into session earlier than they were scheduled to convene so i find it hard to defend lincoln and i think his personal defense of his actions are pretty weak but i'm going to talk more about this in later episodes so that's just throwing out my opinion now this is my commentary i'll defend it better in later episodes the justification was based on the idea that the executive could exercise certain powers to suppress a rebellion and this was how southern secession was treated when it was constitutionally convenient to do so but this legal defense at best simply begs the question of whether it is correct to classify southern secession as a rebellion which most upper south unionist clearly did not agree with as well so as we'll see in later episodes even if we accept the argument that the confederate states were simply rebellious which is dubious in itself in my view lincoln still quite clearly violated his constitutional prerogatives many times over and even many defenders of lincoln acknowledged this even as they justify his decision to do so but we will start looking at these issues in the next few weeks when we look at maryland and missouri in particular so sorry i went off script there to give that a side but i wanted to point that out before moving on in any case tennessee officially seceded on june 8th making the final addition to the confederate states of america when south carolina seceded they had in mind a confederation of slave states but they optimistically assumed they would be joined by all 15 slave states including delaware which never showed any sign of giving secession any serious consideration in the end the csa would have 11 states minus the western portion of virginia that would eventually become its own state though it would still see some guerrilla support in non-member states particularly missouri which did actually have a nominal confederate congress and recognition as a 12th state in the confederacy but how much this actually affected things is debatable so dividing line between union and confederacy during the war would never clearly be defined by the states themselves the confederacy would also by the way enjoy some territorial support particularly in oklahoma where the indian tribes there the cherries chakdaws chickasaws creeks and siminoles would become allies against the union forces i will eventually do at least one episode on this topic but it will probably come after the episode on the first battle of menacis but even though we have completed the story of the official secession by all 11 confederate states the three slave states that did not join the confederacy aside from delaware as well as the early conflicts in virginia and its unionist western territory deserve examination before we get to menacis we will begin by looking at maryland and the secessionist revolt in baltimore in the next episode historical controversies is 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