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Editors Make War: Southern Newspapers in the Secession Crisis

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Reynolds, a Texan, simply read what Southern newspapers were writing in the final year or so before the war began. Through thousands of articles in hundreds of papers, Reynolds showed that southern editors talked big about remaining in the union, provided northerners suppressed abolitionism and refrained from electing anyone who favored hindering the expansion of slavery into newly-acquired western territories. Once they realized that the Republican Party came to represent much of northern opinion, southerners felt their slave-based economy and lifestyle was threatened. Led by South Carolina--then a black-majority state--the south seceded rather than risk losing the slave-based society. This book takes the post-war revisionism--that the secession was about tariffs and constitutional abstractions and not slavery--and exposes it all as bunk. As this book shows through the multitude of newspapers and political speeches of the time--southern voices all--the south was obsessed with slavery, to the point of fetishism. Editors thought nothing of threatening the lives of those who disagreed with their hard-line, abolition-hating views. Many called for the lynching of suspected abolitionists, which is exactly what happened repeatedly during the summer of 1860. Reynolds argues at the end that editors contributed to the enthusiasm for disunion in the south. I might argue with that. I believe the editors, most of whom were desperate for a paying readership, simply went with the (white) mood of the times. Like their political representatives, those who were located in areas with many slaves favored secession, and those in areas with few slaves (western Virginia, eastern Tennessee, western North Carolina) were either tepid supporters or outright opponents of secession. Much as they would like to, modern southern partisans cannot argue with the words--and deeds--of their forbears. It needs to be said bluntly and without ambiguity--had there been no slavery, there would have been no mass secession and no war. The South said as much in its own words, on paper, thousands of times over. Yes, there was tremendous Northern hypocrisy and cruelty in the way the North waged war. But the sins of your enemies does not absolve you of your own wickedness. Something to remember before flying the Confederate flag in full view of black Americans. This book needs to be required reading in all journalism schools.