In the article below, we will examine efforts by Southerners in the nineteenth century to expand southward throughout the Golden Circle, resistance this evoked from Northern Republicans and how this sectional dispute over expansion contributed to the polarisation of the North and the South leading up to 1860-61 and secession. This article is essentially a summary of the first half of Purdue University history professor Robert E May’s book The Southern Dream of a Caribbean Empire: 1854-1861.
AN AGE OF UNITED STATES EXPANSIONISM
The nineteenth century was a period of United States expansion as the Federal Union spread from the Atlantic Coast all the way across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. US Expansionists also promoted gaining territory in the northwest, the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America. Had the expansionists gotten their way, the United States might have eventually extended all the way down to South America and throughout much of the Caribbean Sea. There was a great deal of support for such plans in the US as a whole, especially up through the 1840s. The pro-expansion Young America movement, while more popular amongst Democrats than Whigs, had many influential backers in the US Congress and public support in both the North and the South for its program of free trade and southward expansion.
SOUTHERN EXPANSION AND SECTIONAL DIVISION
However, as Northern opposition to the expansion of slavery began to intensify, radical abolitionism became more mainstream in areas of the Northern States and the sectional conflict between the North and South became increasingly bitter, the issue of Southern expansion becoming politically and regionally divisive. The agrarian South was in an increasingly worsening position in the US Congress and the Western territories were ill-suited for a plantation economy and thus promised to gradually strengthen the North’s political dominance over time as these territories were populated and eventually brought into the Union. Southerners saw expansion into the Caribbean and Mexico as a way to possibly balance out Northern gains in the West, bringing a bit more regional parity back to Congress. Professing support for bringing Cuba, for instance, into the Union as a slave State was nearly a requisite for Southern Democrats of the era to be elected to office. Even conservatives such as Jefferson Davis who were not overly enthusiastic about expansion into the Caribbean were forced by public pressure to at least lend nominal support to the plan. Meanwhile, in the North, opposition continued to harden against Southern expansion and the strengthening of the South’s political position.
FILIBUSTERING
Filibustering captured the imagination and support of many Southerners and their Northern Democratic allies in this period. Independent military operators organised movements, lobbied US congressmen and presidents and traveled through the South taking up donations and building up public support for their plans to conquer various regions or countries in the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America. They operated sometimes in a grey area of the law, sometimes flouting Federal neutrality acts meant to discourage just such private adventures.
QUITMAN AND CUBA
Northern-born Democrat, Mississippi governor, Fire-Eater and filibuster proponent, John Quitman
John Quitman, a New York-born Democrat who moved to Mississippi (where he was elected governor) and became a leading Fire-Eater, supported and helped organise efforts for a filibuster expedition against Cuba, which Southerners had long desired to wrestle away from a fading Spanish Empire. Plans for a private invasion of Cuba coincided with serious political efforts at the highest level of the Federal Government in the mid-1850s to purchase Cuba or acquire it diplomatically. Ultimately, these efforts failed and the sectional fight over the Kansas-Nebraska Act (which effectively repealed the Missouri Compromise) took centre stage. Emotions stirred by the struggle over Kansas and Nebraska had a polarising effect and made the acquisition of Cuba politically impossible. Despite strong Southern Democratic support (with equally strong Northern Whig opposition) for gaining Cuba, Northern Democratic President Franklin Pierce (who was accused by his enemies of being a secret member of the Knights of the Golden Circle) did not have a unified Congress behind him on the matter. As well, Spanish opposition to selling Cuba proved stronger than initially believed by proponents of the plan.
WALKER AND NICARAGUA
The ‘grey-eyed man of destiny,’ filibuster William Walker
Tennessee-born William Walker was no doubt the most famous and successful filibuster. He led a group of volunteers which seized control of Nicaragua in 1856-57 and was the president of a short-lived republic before a coalition of Central American countries, seeing Walker and his fellow filibusters as a threat, united against him and ultimately executed him. Though he appears to have been a mostly non-ideological adventurer in the beginning of his operations in Latin America, Walker quickly adopted the political language and agenda of Southern Democrats as he appealed for outside support and more volunteers. He was regarded by many, especially in the South, as a hero. Walker was promoted by his supporters and hailed in pro-South newspapers as the ‘grey-eyed man of destiny.’ He, in turn, encouraged Southern planters to relocate to Nicaragua and to bring their slaves with them to work the fertile land. He met with leading Fire-Eaters and related his dream of bringing all of Central America into the Union as slave States. Congress, like the larger US public, was divided along sectional and partisan lines on the issue of what to do about Walker and his fledgling government. Some Southerners openly complained in Congress that Federal laws prevented the South from maintaining its rights in the Union by expanding (and thereby regaining parity with the North in Congress). After losing control of Nicaragua, Walker launched multiple attempts to re-take the country. He even converted to Catholicism in an effort to win over more native support. Ultimately, his efforts failed as he was captured by the British Royal Navy at their colony of British Honduras (now Belize), turned over to local officials and executed by firing squad – less than two months before Abraham Lincoln was elected US president and the Southern States moved to secede from the Union.
Very interesting indeed. I had no idea there were mercenaries — private armies — raising money in the South to attack Cuba. I knew Davis has visited Cuba, and apparently from then on was intent on going back, taking it over. I would love to know what he did there that had such an impression on him. And he did favor the military conquest of both Kansas and Cuba, by force, against the will of the people there.
But this does show — one of the few articles written from the “Southern” point of view, that admits the spread of slavery was such a huge issue. Of course it was, but you rarely, if ever, hear that.
The SPREAD of slavery, by violence, against the will of the people living in an area, is of course the opposite of popular sovereignty. Whoever wrote this article had a hard time dancing around that, because that is what it was.
Its very interesting that you use the word “filibuster” which is commonly associated with legislative manuever. But as you use the word, it is an illegal and unauthorized attempt to do by violence what can not be done by legislation or cooperation with the area you want to invade. Amazingly, that is precisely the charge leveled against the COnfederates by none other than Abraham LIncoln, in his famous House Divided Speech, and other speeches. SLave masters were doing all they could to spread slavery, regardless of how anti slavery some places were. Kansas, for example, just voted 98% to 2% to keep slavery out forever, when the South issued it’s Five Ultimatums in May of 1861. Yet the basic ultimatum was for the spread of slavery into Kansas –the very place that had just made it quite clear they did not want slavery.
In other words, what was going on was the slave powers were after territorial expansionism, by peaceful means if possible, but by force, without the consent of your government, or the government of the area you want to invade, if the populations did not consent.
Very interesting that your author was that honest about it, even though he used euphemisms. Thank for a breath of fresh honesty about the fundamental truth of the Civil War. It really was about the spread of slavery.
I did not invent the use of the word filibuster as it is used in this article. In fact, that is a very old meaning of the word which was used long before the time period in question. The term today is almost exclusively used for a delaying tactic in the legislature, but it was not the case in the 1800s.
Filibustering, as stated in the article, was a grey area for part of US history. It had broad support in the US Congress, support from Democrat US presidents in the Antebellum era and a lot of support from the public (of course, this support was strongest in the South, which had the most to gain from it).
Also, the mis-named ‘Civil War’ was not essentially about the spread of slavery. Certainly, slavery, being fundamental to the Southern economy and social order, was a key factor in the cause of Southern secession in 186-61. However, the war that followed was essentially over the same issue that the American Revolution was fought over – that being the right of a people to secede from a government they no longer give their consent to. As stated in the Declaration of Independence, this is an inalienable right.
I didn’t say you invented the word fillibuster, but I noticed you used it. It means an illegal unconstitutional violent use of force to achieve what you can not achieve legally or by consent of the governed. Why not just say that?
WHy hide behind the fillibuster term? You aren’t fooling anyone but yourself. You wrote an outstanding piece, you just sorta hid as much as you could, but I was very impressed, usually you don’t see that level of intelligence about secession, since 99% of the time the scream slavery had NOTING to do with it.
Clearly slavery had everything to do with, as the documents speeches and newspapers in the South made quite clear.
But you did not want to say clearly the SOuth had a violent program to spread slavery against the will of the governed, did you? SO you used that word and several other linguistic tricks. Well that’s normal. No one likes to totally refute all they learned. YOu actually did a very nice job approaching a complex issue. It’s not really that complex, but you have to handle it in a complex way to sorta straddle the facts but still keep what you think is Southern honor.
ANd you said Davis was “not enthusiastic” about pushing slavery in Cuba but was pressured by others. No one pressured Davis into anything. He was big on the spread of slavery, as anyone who reads his books know. He had plans for Cuba for decades! And not just Cuba, but Kansas too.
And Kansas had just voted 98% to 2% to keep slavery out forever. Do you know how many times I have seen any Southern apologist even mention the spread of slavery into Kansas as even a REMOTE factor? Till your article, zero. Davis called the resistance to the spread of slavery was THE Intolerable grievance! IN fact he said it was NOT the other things, it was the SPREAD of slavery into Kansas. So Davis was shouting it from the rooftops. Your own leader was screaming it as loudly as he could, for years!
SO why can’t Southern apologist say what their own leader was jumping up and down about!??
You did better than anyone, you mentioned Kansas, and I didnt know that stuff about Cuba very well. But it makes sense, its the same bragging right slave masters aways wanted — more power, more territory, more status.
DId you know Lee’s slave ledgers still exists? They do. Lee kept extensive slave ledgers, and they were finally studied by Elizabeth Pryor. Plus 10,000 personal letters from the same time period, so Pryor could match up the dates — Lee was very thorough and clear in his record keeping.; SO Pryor can essentially track him day by day, slave sale by slave sale, bounty paid, by bounty paid.
ANd Lee is drastically different than we have been told. He was not loved by his slave s- – they hated him. HE did not free them, he kept getting MORE slaves, and used bounty hunters to expand his own supply of slaves. He also used physical torture to keep slaves in line, but it didn’t work. He had epidemics of escapes. He had dozens of slave escape, despite his promises to capture and have them whipped — which he did.
WE don’t get to see the actual slave ledgers, but if the Lee family does not burn them, we eventually will see them. And the jig will be up. the nonsense about an honorable anti slavery Lee is doomed by the truth he wrote down. How great is that.
I do not think any worse or better of the South. I know all men would be tyrants if they could. If I lived in Lee’s place, I would probably have done worse than he did, to the slaves. Men are vile bastards when they get power, and slave masters had too much power. The facts are pretty clear, Lee was a very cruel slave master. Douglas Southall Freeman’s deceptions are pretty clear now. He insisted Lee slaves loved him — they hated him. He insisted Lee freed the slaves as soon as he could – nonsese, Pryor shows Lee kept going to court THREE TIMES — during the CIVIL WAR! — to fight the will! And he kept losing. Finally the Court gave him a final date to free his wifes slaves (he had his own slaves AND his wifes’) but he did not obey even then. He finally released the slaves when he felt like it, and they were of no value, there was no market to sell them by then.
Freeman always pretended Lee freed them before the war — utter rubbish.
Thats why when Lee’s slave ledgers are made public — instead of just letting one person see them — it will settle a lot of disputes. Because its pretty hard to dispute Lee’s own handwriting when he records a whipping or bounty or sale or rental. You cant pretend some Yankee made it up.
Taxsanity, you are obviously an anti-Southern partisan (notice your fully capitalised words, your liberal use of exclamation points and your long rant about slavery – as if we had never heard this sort of thing before… lol) so it’s a waste of my time to respond take the next hour or so and point out all the areas where I disagree with you and why. Instead, I’ll reply to the one statement I responded to above, since you repeated it here again. The South went to war in 1861 when it was invaded by the USA. The South fought a defensive war to protect its independence, which was sadly lost (and the century and half since have been nothing but exploitation and horrors heaped upon our people by the USA). Obviously your values and mine are very different. However, on the point of why the South went to war there really is no room for debate. It’s a matter of historical fact. The South fought to protect itself from aggression. Now, you can argue that defending slavery was one of the key reasons the South seceded in 1860-61, and I would agree with you on that point (though, Southerners saw the defense of slavery as necessary to their economic and racial survival – this was the argument that convinced many conservative, US-flag waving Southerners to reluctantly secede – they believed their survival was at stake and did not want to go the way of Haiti – read their speeches and they make this point again and again in all of them). However, once the South seceded, there was no immediate war. The South did not invade the North to spread slavery. Nor did it invade any other country. In fact, the South was itself invaded by the USA. Lincoln called up a massive army and ordered it to invade the South. I used to live in Spain and there the people call it The War of Secession. This is a better term. It gets at the root issue disagreed upon by the North and South. The South believed secession was their inalienable right, just as Jefferson (a Southern slave owner, by the way) had written in the Declaration of Independence. The North did not believe in the right of secession, and essentially sided with the argument the British used against the Colonial secessionists in the 1770s. Again, if you want to say that slavery was a key factor in Southern secession, then fine, I’ll agree with you. But when it comes to why the war which followed was fought, Lincoln himself made it clear in his first inaugural address that the North was fighting not to end slavery but to suppress Southern self-determination.
Actually Im pro truth. NOt anti anything When your own documents show that the Confederacy went to war to spread slavery, when you OWN speeches demand the spread of slavery, when your OWN newspaper headlines demanded the spread of slavery, what do you think that means?
In fact, the article YOU WROTE — YOU WROTE the article about the South’s violent attempts and intentions to spread slavery. YOU WROTE IT!! How the hello can you say your OWN article was wrong.
In a previous post — you ran behind the canard of “the South fought for the consent of governed”. A goofy nonsense — they hated the consent of governeed. It takes a special kind of denial to say slavers who went to war against the will of the people in territories, when those people voted 98% against slavery — and you claim you were for CONSENT OF GOVERNED!! Really, do words or truth mean anything ANYTHING to you ? At all.
Then you receed even further, hiding now by “south was fighting for self determination” — because you got chased off the goofy “consent of government” absurdity. No, the South was not fighting for SELF determination, they were fighting for slave masters to control and push slavery where they wanted.
lol… More ranting from Taxsanity.
Ok, man. It’s undesirable to communicate with you like this. I have already addressed everything you said here and I addressed them well. You didn’t respond to anything I wrote. Trying to communicate with you like this is awful.
taxsanity, you’re looking at this issue through 21st century eyes. The United States of the 18th and 19th century was a confederation of sovereign states with a small central government. Each state dealt with it’s own issues without interference with the central government in DC, which could be considered “consent of the governed”. People elected representatives from their districts to represent them in DC, states appointed two senators to represent them. It wasn’t until the mid 1800′s with the demise of the Whig party and it’s re-birth under the name of the Republican party that the idea of a more powerful central government gained traction, resulting in Lincoln’s election. Lincoln was clear he didn’t give a hoot about slavery (read his 1861 inauguration speech) but he did care about losing the big tariff money should the southern states secede.
The Kansas-Nebraska act cancelled out the Missouri compromise and it was a Republican/abolitionist attempt to throw the balance of power back to the northern states.
Had Lincoln and the Republicans allowed the Southern States to simply leave the Union (read the newspaper articles from the North…most of them said, “good riddance”), more than likely a few states would have re-joined the Union peacefully…maybe all of them, who knows? If all of them stayed out, the institution of slavery would have been a memory in the South by no later than the 1890′s as the Industrial Revolution would have obsoleted it.
But don’t let the facts get in the way of a screed. Your capital letters and excessive punctuation really take away any type of real intellectual point you may try to make. Whatever you learned in school about this time period (or any other) was written by those who won. I’m sure the British teach a little different version of the colonial secession of 1776 than is taught here in North America.
You can make an argument for secession — go ahead. It will probably happen someday. It would not happen but for the 150 years of seething hate and distortions from the South, possibly. As Alexander Stephens said of abolitionist — if your facts were right, your conclusions would be right. But your facts are wrong.
The “secession” movement is mostly a social things — guys showing off for other guys. BUt that is what most things are. Slavery was that, Nazi ism was that, things good and bad are like that. Usually things are for very basic reasons — the desire for power, the desire for control, the desire for acceptance in a group. To get attention and respect from the people around you. To get status.
That is what most people care about — not truth. Mankind advances when men who care about truth stand up. Slavery was not standing up for truth. Saying you cared an iota for consent of governed was goofy — South went to war when people in Kansas rejected slavery. YOu wrote a nice article about how Southerners were plotting and trying to spread slavery elsewhere — by FORCE. Not by debate, not by persuasion. No one even wasted time in 1850′s to reason with Kansas abolitionist. No one had a discussion about it. The South sent thugs out there first, and when that failed, they wanted to separated from the Union so THEN they could send the army out there — and into Cuba, and whereever else they wanted slavery.
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‘But did Davis really want slavery? No. He wanted power. He wanted prestife. He wanted to be able to walk into barns built by others, and sell women and children if he so desired.
YOu want to fit in with your buddies. If you were raised in Ireland, and never heard of the nonsense about the South wanting “consent of governed” you would laugh if anyone told you the history of the South, and how they now claimed it was about consent of the governed.
YOu don’t laugh about it now, because it gives you states and a feeling of belonging to believe it.
Don’t worry. Most people are that way.
The term “filibuster” is derived from the French “flibustiers” and refers basically to pirates or private actors who conquered land in the Caribbean. The French colony of Saint-Domingue – which later became independent Haiti – grew out of flibustier settlements in western Santo Domingo.
taxsanity,
Why are you making the idiotic argument that the South went to war to spread slavery?
(1) Under Dred Scott and the Kansas-Nebraska Act, the South was free to “spread slavery” into all the territories. The North had lost on that point.
(2) The South didn’t go to war over Kansas. That’s absurd. The Confederacy never claimed Kansas. By seceding from the Union, the Confederacy surrendered its claim to all the territories but New Mexico.
(3) When the South seceded in 1860/1861, there were slaves in New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah, and Southerners had every right to bring slaves into the Dakotas and Wyoming.
(4) What is meant by “spreading slavery” anyway – a slave in Kansas is no different from a slave in Alabama. There is no such thing as “extending slavery.”
taxsanity,
In 1861, blacks were voters in five New England states. There were no black voters or citizens in Pennsylvania or the Midwest or Oregon where free negroes were banned altogether. Even after the war, Minnesota, Kansas, Wisconsin, and Connecticut rejected the negro voter in state elections, and Ohio rescinded its ratification of the 14th Amendment for being “contrary to the interests of the white race.”
taxsanity,
How were Southerners supposed to “spread slavery” to Cuba? Cuba was already a thriving slave state. Slavery wasn’t abolished there until after the War Between the States. BTW, it was the Yankee who attacked Cuba in the Spanish-American War.