Bitterly Divided: The South’s Inner Civil War

[RamboLiberal]

Q: You write that most Southerners didn’t even want to leave the Union.

A: That’s right. In late 1860 and early 1861, there were a series of votes on the secession question in all the slave states, and the overwhelming majority voted against it. It was only in the Deep South, from South Carolina to Texas, that there was much support for secession, and even there it was deeply divided. In Georgia, a slight majority of voters were against secession.

Q: So why did Georgia secede?

A: The popular vote didn’t decide the question. It chose delegates to a convention. That’s the way slaveholders wanted it, because they didn’t trust people to vote on the question directly. More than 30 delegates who had pledged to oppose secession changed their votes at the convention. Most historians think that was by design. The suspicion is that the secessionists ran two slates — one for and one supposedly against — and whichever was elected, they’d vote for secession.

Q: You use the phrase “rich man’s war, poor man’s fight” several times. Does this history anger you?

A: I don’t think it would be unfair to say that. It seems like the common folk were very much ignored and used by the planter elite. As a result, over half a million Americans died.

http://www.ajc.com/living/content/living/stories/2008/08/24/south_confederacy_civil.html

Sounds like a fascinating read for those of us who enjoy reading Civil War history.