‘Nothing But War’

By Allen Forkum

In December 1860, South Carolina unilaterally seceded from the United States following the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency. In our January 2011 issue, we covered the onset of the Civil War by republishing newspaper articles that were 150 years old. The following are excerpts from that issue:

‘NOTHING BUT WAR’: From the Jan. 2, 1861, Nashville Union & American: “…‘The Republican party is, we are satisfied, planted immovably on [Andrew] Jackson’s ground [against secession]. The Democracy of the North cannot well occupy any other. We think it might as well get abroad among the people that the incoming [Lincoln] Administration will be constitutional, anti-secession, and law-enforcing.’

“We understand the foregoing to mean war and nothing but war. We cannot tell whether Mr. Lincoln thinks the Federal Government has the right to coerce a sovereign State. … The enforcement of Federal laws against the people of a State, after they have dissolved their connection with the Union, is coercion. Neither more nor less. And that is just what the people of the whole South will resist in any and every manner.”

‘PRICES OF NEGROES’: From the Jan. 6, 1861, Nashville Union & American: “The Lebanon Herald of the 2d contains the following items: A negro woman about 38 years of age was sold on the square last Saturday for $236 cash. Cheap. A few months ago she would have brought $700 or $800. At a sale of negroes in this county a few days since, three girls, aged respectively 11, 7 and 5 years, were sold for $1,000 cash. Six months ago they would have readily commanded $2,500.”

‘THE ATTACK ON THE STAR OF THE WEST’: From the Jan. 15, 1861, Nashville Union & American: “The steamer Star of the West, Captain McGowan, has arrived. She reports that on Wednesday, at 1 a. m., she made Charleston [South Carolina] bar, laid to till daylight. When off Morris Island, she was fired into by the [cannon] battery on that point, seventeen shots being fired at her, one taking slight effect on her port bow, and a second as she turned to leave the quarter; one ball passed between the smoke stack and the engine beam.…”

This incident is considered the first shots of the Civil War. The steamer Star of the West was attempting to resupply Union Major Robert Anderson’s garrison at Fort Sumter and was fired upon by cadets from The Citadel stationed at the Morris Island battery.

‘SOUTHERN RIGHTS’: From the Jan. 23, 1861, Nashville Union & American: “The Southern Rights anti-Coercion Association of Davidson county, at their meeting last evening, unanimously adopted the Resolution on Federal Relations, passed by the [Tennessee] House of Representatives on Monday, and by the Senate yesterday, as expressive of the sense of the Association.…”

The resolution included resistance against “invasion of the soil of the South at all hazards and to the last extremity” and that “Congress shall have no power to abolish slavery” or “prohibit or hinder the transportation of a slave from one State to another.”

‘LINCOLN AND NEGRO EQUALITY’: From the Jan. 31, 1861, Nashville Union & American: “Since the election, however, since the secession of some of the Southern States, since the secession of those States immediately South of us upon whose industrial resources the prosperity of the farmers, mechanics, merchants and laboring men of Tennessee all depend, we find [Tennessee elector] Mr. Bell and others endeavoring to persuade the people that Mr. Lincoln ‘does not hold extreme views on the subject of slavery.’ … We have charged and proved that Mr. Lincoln holds the doctrine of the Declaration of Independence is that all men, black and white, are ‘created equal,’ that all men, black and white, ‘are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ … He is a Black Republican ….”

(Tennessee State Library and Archives)

To read more coverage of the Civil War as it appeared in Nashville newspapers, order our Civil War Complete Set.