War of Northern Aggression?

   What do you call the war? What did they call the war? Recently, the folks over at Carnton House in Franklin, Tennessee, posted an interesting facebook question. They had a visitor stop by and ask them about the origins of the term “War of Northern Aggression.” Their response was that this term did not originate until the 1960s. Well… that’s not exactly true. While it might have become popular in the 1960s, a phrase similar to that one appeared often in period newspapers, and, many Southerners viewed the aggressors as those from the Northern states.  For example, in February 1861, US Senator William H. Seward introduced a petition from Northern merchants in favor of conciliation. Senator James M. Mason, Virginia, responded, exposing Seward’s speech as “a latent declaration of war, in behalf of Northern aggression, against Southern rights.”[1]

   A similar phrase used by a Richmond editor appeared a few weeks later. The article was discussing a Federal naval captain, J. P. Levy, who had joined the Confederate navy. Capt. Levy “with the heart of a true Southern man, prefers to aid the Southern Confederacy in the war against Northern aggression and despotism.”[2] A newspaper editor in Raleigh, writing in April 1862, thought that “North Carolina and the South entered upon this war to resist the usurpations of Northern aggression and tyranny; to preserve intact the right of the people of these States to govern themselves, and to perpetuate constitutional liberty to generations yet unborn.”[3]

   “Northern aggression” was a popular term for many writers in the 1860s. In Louisville, Tennessee, January 1, 1861, a group of citizens gathered and passed several resolutions. They regretted the breakup of the Union, but believed “that cause exists, solely from Northern aggression upon Southern constitutional rights“ and that there had been many cases of “Northern aggression for many years upon their rights…”[4] In a “Southern Rights” meeting in Christian County, Kentucky, in April 1861, some of the local citizens promised to hold themselves “in readiness to resist Northern aggression.”[5] “I am willing to make any sacrifice, sooner than the South shall be subjugated by Northern aggression,” North Carolina’s Thomas I. Faison wrote in October 1861.[6]

   “Northern aggression” was a term used throughout the remaining war years by Southern newspaper editors. In July 1862, the Greensboro Patriot, in describing Col. Zebulon B. Vance, wrote that Vance had “bared his breast to resist the tide of Northern aggression and subjugation…”[7] The editor of the Weekly Standard lamented in May 1862 that the “great men, who fought and won the battle of secession against Northern aggression and Southern submission, were thus, in the hour of triumph, crushed and humiliated as martyrs to the liberties of their own countrymen.”[8] In writing about the death of Brig. Gen. Allison Nelson, an Atlanta editor opinioned that Nelson “was one of the most vigilant and active of that patriot band, early and long determined to resist Northern aggression at all hazards.”[9] In talking about the French invasion of Mexico, the editor of the Abingdon Virginian confessed that France would need the help of the Southern Confederacy to “protect her from Northern aggression.”[10]

   The phrase “Northern aggression” continued after the war on the pages of various Southern history publications. The history committee of the Grand Camp of Confederate Veterans wrote in 1900 that “There was no need for war. The action of the Southern States was legal and constitutional, and history will attest that it was reluctantly taken in the last extremity, in the hope of thereby saving their whole constitutional rights and liberties from destruction by Northern aggression…” (There are many other examples in the pages of the Southern Historical Society Papers) The phrase “Northern aggression” also appears throughout the pages of Confederate Veteran.[11]

   The term “war against Northern aggression” or “war of Northern aggression” gained popularity in the 1960s, with publications like Burke Davis’s Our Incredible Civil War (1960) and Newman’s and Long’s The Civil War Digest (1960). The most likely rise in popularity of the term stemmed from Hollywood. Granny Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies often said it was not a “Civil War,” but a “War of Northern Aggression.”  Of course, the Clampetts are one of the major sources of stereotypes of Southerners, although they actually hailed from Missouri.

The Beverly Hillbillies - S)6E13: "The South Rises Again." 

   The term “Northern aggression” of course signifies decades of sectional and political conflict in the United States. We’ll save that for a future post(s).

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[1] New York Herald, February 7, 1861.

[2] Richmond Enquirer, May 24, 1861.

[3] Weekly Standard, April 9, 1862.

[4] Nashville Union and American, January 4, 1861.

[5] Clarksville Chronicle, April 26, 1861.

[6] Weekly Standard, October 23, 1861.

[7] Greensboro Patriot, July 31, 1862.

[8] Weekly Standard, May 28, 1862.

[9] Southern Confederacy, November 29, 1862.

[10]  The Abington Virginian, March 4, 1864.

[11] Southern Historical Society Papers, Vol. 28, 185.