How We Know The So-Called “Civil War” Was Not Over Slavery

[Swordsmyth]

Look at the political situation between the Mexican-American War and the Civil War. People weren't killing each other over tariffs, they were killing each other over slavery.

They were killing eachother over economics and power, slavery and tariffs affected both.

Slavery was safe in the Union, Secession doomed it to a slow but certain death.

[fisharmor]

Roberts "pattern" is a logical fallacy and requires one to put his brain in neutral and/or decide Southerners were either really stupid and/or intent on lying for the sake of making themselves look bad. The Southern states said, even after the proposed amendment (which never actually passed) THE NORTH SEEKS TO EXTINGUISH SLAVERY BY NOT ALLOWING IT TO EXPAND!

I refuse to believe you've never encountered the ideas of proximate and ultimate causes.
Slavery was the proximate cause for the South leaving: the SC declaration is abundantly clear that the ultimate cause was that their nullifying the constitution made the constitution void, and therefore they were going their own way.
Nobody has ever said slavery wasn't wrapped up in why the Southern states seceded. But since we can practice reading comprehension, and because we're more able to put aside our personal feelings of slavery, we can see that the primary reason for secession was that the Northern states had broken the compact.

In short, SC said this:


And every other Southern states said "No, no you're not".
I'm not sure why you think it's more complicated than that (I have my suspicions), but it's not.

Your arguments remind me of when Bill Clinton got caught perjuring, and everyone said "Yeah but it was ok because it was about sex".

[Ender]

This should go right here:

The So-Called Civil War Was Not Over Slavery

By Paul Craig Roberts

August 26, 2017

When I read Professor Thomas DiLorenzo’s article the question that lept to mind was, “How come the South is said to have fought for slavery when the North wasn’t fighting against slavery?”

Two days before Lincoln’s inauguration as the 16th President, Congress, consisting only of the Northern states, passed overwhelmingly on March 2, 1861, the Corwin Amendment that gave constitutional protection to slavery. Lincoln endorsed the amendment in his inaugural address, saying “I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”

Quite clearly, the North was not prepared to go to war in order to end slavery when on the very eve of war the US Congress and incoming president were in the process of making it unconstitutional to abolish slavery.

Here we have absolute total proof that the North wanted the South kept in the Union far more than the North wanted to abolish slavery.

If the South’s real concern was maintaining slavery, the South would not have turned down the constitutional protection of slavery offered them on a silver platter by Congress and the President. Clearly, for the South also the issue was not slavery. The Tyranny of Good In... Paul Craig Roberts, La... Best Price: $2.18 Buy New $10.51 (as of 05:36 EDT - Details)

The real issue between North and South could not be reconciled on the basis of accommodating slavery. The real issue was economic as DiLorenzo, Charles Beard and other historians have documented. The North offered to preserve slavery irrevocably, but the North did not offer to give up the high tariffs and economic policies that the South saw as inimical to its interests.

Blaming the war on slavery was the way the northern court historians used morality to cover up Lincoln’s naked aggression and the war crimes of his generals. Demonizing the enemy with moral language works for the victor. And it is still ongoing. We see in the destruction of statues the determination to shove remaining symbols of the Confederacy down the Memory Hole.

Today the ignorant morons, thoroughly brainwashed by Identity Politics, are demanding removal of memorials to Robert E. Lee, an alleged racist toward whom they express violent hatred. This presents a massive paradox. Robert E. Lee was the first person offered command of the Union armies. How can it be that a “Southern racist” was offered command of the Union Army if the Union was going to war to free black slaves?

Virginia did not secede until April 17, 1861, two days after Lincoln called up troops for the invasion of the South.

Surely there must be some hook somewhere that the dishonest court historians can use on which to hang an explanation that the war was about slavery. It is not an easy task. Only a small minority of southerners owned slaves. Slaves were brought to the New World by Europeans as a labor force long prior to the existence of the US and the Southern states in order that the abundant land could be exploited. For the South slavery was an inherited institution that pre-dated the South. Diaries and letters of soldiers fighting for the Confederacy and those fighting for the Union provide no evidence that the soldiers were fighting for or against slavery. Princeton historian, Pulitzer Prize winner, Lincoln Prize winner, president of the American Historical Association, and member of the editorial board of Encyclopedia Britannica, James M. McPherson, in his book based on the correspondence of one thousand soldiers from both sides, What They Fought For, 1861-1865, reports that they fought for two different understandings of the Constitution.

As for the Emancipation Proclamation, on the Union side, military officers were concerned that the Union troops would desert if the Emancipation Proclamation gave them the impression that they were being killed and maimed for the sake of blacks. That is why Lincoln stressed that the proclamation was a “war measure” to provoke an internal slave rebellion that would draw Southern troops off the front lines.

If we look carefully we can find a phony hook in the South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession (December 20, 1860) as long as we ignore the reasoning of the document. Lincoln’s election caused South Carolina to secede. During his campaign for president Lincoln used rhetoric aimed at the abolitionist vote. (Abolitionists did want slavery abolished for moral reasons, though it is sometimes hard to see their morality through their hate, but they never controlled the government.)

South Carolina saw in Lincoln’s election rhetoric intent to violate the US Constitution, which was a voluntary agreement, and which recognized each state as a free and independent state. After providing a history that supported South Carolina’s position, the document says that to remove all doubt about the sovereignty of states “an amendment was added, which declared that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.” The Neoconservative Th... Dr. Paul Craig Roberts Best Price: $15.40 Buy New $19.17 (as of 10:00 EDT - Details)

South Carolina saw slavery as the issue being used by the North to violate the sovereignty of states and to further centralize power in Washington. The secession document makes the case that the North, which controlled the US government, had broken the compact on which the Union rested and, therefore, had made the Union null and void. For example, South Carolina pointed to Article 4 of the US Constitution, which reads: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” Northern states had passed laws that nullified federal laws that upheld this article of the compact. Thus, the northern states had deliberately broken the compact on which the union was formed.

The obvious implication was that every aspect of states’ rights protected by the 10th Amendment could now be violated. And as time passed they were, so South Carolina’s reading of the situation was correct.

The secession document reads as a defense of the powers of states and not as a defense of slavery. Here is the document.

Read it and see what you decide.

A court historian, who is determined to focus attention away from the North’s destruction of the US Constitution and the war crimes that accompanied the Constitution’s destruction, will seize on South Carolina’s use of slavery as the example of the issue the North used to subvert the Constitution. The court historian’s reasoning is that as South Carolina makes a to-do about slavery, slavery must have been the cause of the war.

As South Carolina was the first to secede, its secession document probably was the model for other states. If so, this is the avenue by which court historians, that is, those who replace real history with fake history, turn the war into a war over slavery.

Once people become brainwashed, especially if it is by propaganda that serves power, they are more or less lost forever. It is extremely difficult to bring them to truth. Just look at the pain and suffering inflicted on historian David Irving for documenting the truth about the war crimes committed by the allies against the Germans. There is no doubt that he is correct, but the truth is unacceptable.

The same is the case with the War of Northern Aggression. Lies masquerading as history have been institutionalized for 150 years. An institutionalized lie is highly resistant to truth.

Education has so deteriorated in the US that many people can no longer tell the difference between an explanation and an excuse or justification. In the US denunciation of an orchestrated hate object is a safer path for a writer than explanation. Truth is the casualty.

That truth is so rare everywhere in the Western World is why the West is doomed. The United States, for example, has an entire population that is completely ignorant of its own history.

As George Orwell said, the best way to destroy a people is to destroy their history.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/08/...ought-slavery/

[Tywysog Cymru]

They were killing eachother over economics and power, slavery and tariffs affected both.

Slavery was safe in the Union, Secession doomed it to a slow but certain death.

Slavery was an issue that had eclipsed the tariff issue by 1860. It was unarguably the most important issue in American politics in the decade preceding the War.

And slavery was dying a slow death in the Union. And Lincoln wanted to stop expansion of slavery, meaning that the free states will continue to increase in number and in influence. Eventually, the free states have the votes necessary to pass an Amendment.

[1stvermont]

Look at the political situation between the Mexican-American War and the Civil War. People weren't killing each other over tariffs, they were killing each other over slavery.

There was many political differences going on, not just the extension of slavery. But we are talking on what actually caused the secession, the extension of slavery had nothing to do with the upper south secession, it did play its part in the cotton states secession, read the following



Western States Free or Slave? Slavery was not the Cause but the Occasion/ States Rights

“Slavery is no more the cause of this war than gold is the cause of robbery”
-Joel Parker 1863 New jersey Governor

“Slavery, although the occasion, was not the producing cause of dissolution”
-Rose Oneal Greehow- My improvement and the first year of abolition Rule in Washington 1863

“The war was not a war of slavery versus freedom, it was a war between those who preferred a federated nation to those who preferred a confederation of sovereign states. Slavery was the ink thrown into the pool to confuse the issue”
-Andrew Nelson lytle the Virginia Quarterly Review 1931“

The struggle over the expansion of slavery into the territories....was almost a purely political issue”
-Robert William Fogel The rise and Fall of American Slavery

The major impact slavery had on the war and what some north and south would have said the war was over is the extension of slavery into the new western territories. This has led some to falsely conclude the deep south left the union only to maintain slavery.

“The people who say slavery had nothing to do with the war are just as wrong as the people who say slavery had everything to do with the war”
-Historian Shelby Foote

Slavery's involvement in southern secession is often overstated because slavery was the “occasion” to witch the fight over states rights was fought. Just as Calhoun had said of the tariff of abomination was “The occasion, rather than the real cause” that cause was federal power expansion. The deep south saw the republicans as violating the 9th and 10th amendment – and Dred Scott v. Sandford 1857 Supreme Court ruling for trying to decide the fate of slavery by federal control rather than state. The Democratic plank 9 of the 1852 elections [and carried on to 1860] plainly stated that a attack on slavery was a attack on states rights, the two issues could not be separated.

That Congress has no power under the constitution to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that such States are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs not prohibited by the constitution; that all efforts of the abolitionists or others made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences; and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend of our political institutions.
-Democrat plank 9 1852

“slavery was not the cause, but the occasion of strife...Rights of the states were the bulwarks of the liberties of the people but that emancipation by federal aggression would lead to the destruction of all other rights”
-R.L Dabney A Defense Of Virginia And The South 1867

It would be hard to accept that southerners were willing to leave the country they loved and fight a war simply to have slavery extended into new territories where it would simply provide more competition to southern slave states domination on cotton. In 1843 many rich southern planters and no less than Calhoun voted against Texas for statehood because they said it would reduce the price of cotton. Instead they would want a monopoly within the south where they lived. By leaving the union the south was giving up federal protection for there runaway slaves under the fugitive slave laws, as well as giving up there right to bring there slaves into the united states territories something they fought so hard for. Because the issue was much deeper as it involved states rights, constitutional protection, and the nature of the union.

“The conflict over the extension of slavery was a contest of political power between the north and the south which had grown steadily apart in economics, religion, customs, values, and ways of life...”
-Clyde Wilson professor at university of South Carolina

“After the bombardment of ft Sumter...patriots signed up to fight for states rights or union”
-John Cannon The Wilderness Campaign Combined Books PA

The war was fought to “Preserve the sovereignty of their respective States.”
-Raphael Semmes Confederate Admiral 1868

The fight over new western territories was a battle over the very nature of the federal government. The republicans and Lincoln said they would not allow new states, the rights granted in the constitution. Were these states coming into the union allowed their state sovereignty and states rights as had all previous states, or was the federal government allowed to violate those rights and dictate the states? Where states sovereign or subject to a federal master? Thomas Jefferson commenting on federal intrusion in the Missouri compromise stated “ this certainly is the exclusive right of every state, which nothing in the constitution has taken from them and given to the general government. could congress, for example say that the Non-freemen of Connecticut, shall be freemen, or that they shall not emigrate into any other state?" What the south asked for was that these new states coming in be allowed on their own to chose.

“That when the settlers in a Territory, having an adequate population, form a State Constitution, the right of sovereignty commences, and being consummated by admission into the Union, they stand on an equal footing with the people of other States, and the State thus organized ought to be admitted into the Federal Union, whether its Constitution prohibits or recognizes the institution of slavery.”
-Southern Democrat Party Platform 1860

“It is not slavery that [Thomas] Jefferson fears as “the death kneel of the union” it is antislavery, the notion that has been raised for the first time that congress could tamper with the institutions of new states as a condition for admission”
-Clyde Wilson from Union to Empire

“The south saw the attack on the issue of slavery not so much as an attempt to end slavery in the united states as much as an attempt to end southern influence in the national government”
-Walter D Kennedy Myths of American slavery

This political battle even turned to blood in Missouri/Kansas. Republicans backed by the industrialist pushed for western territories to be free. If these states were free they would than industrialize and want rail laid to connect these distant lands to the east. They would support high tariffs and internal improvements and give the north more political power. Yet if these states were allowed to decide on their own slave or free, than the south might maintain agrarian, free trade, policies. British historian Marc Egnal said the fight over the extension of slavery was “more on economical policy” But of more concern to many in the south was that of states rights.

“When the Government of the United States disregarded and attempted to trample upon the rights of the States, Georgia set its power at defiance and seceded from the Union rather than submit to the consolidation of all power in the hands of the Central or Federal Government..her sovereignty the principles for the support of which Georgia entered into this revolution.
-Georgia Governor Joseph E Brown 1862

“The war was at first was not about slavery, but was a struggle over the limits of states rights and the powers of the government in washington”
-David G Martin PHD in History from Princeton University

SC secession document
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

South Carolina was the first state to seceded from the union, It being a deep south “cotton state” gives the reasons for secession. If read in full it gives a good example of slavery as a states rights issue. Slavery was an occasion that states rights were fought over, not the sole cause. The cause of dissolving the union is given right off the bat “Declared that the frequent violations of the constitution by the united sates, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union.” The document is a states rights succession document. The writers of the document wanted that to stand out, that is why the first thing noticed at a glance of the document you will see “FREE AND INDEPENDANT STATES” capitalized three times in the document to stand out. South Carolina was also letting it be known in their declaration of Independence, that it was “FREE AND INDEPANDANT STATES” and state rights, that they were declaring independence. The document goes into the history of states rights in America mentions the failure of the federal government in upholding the constitution and its interfering with states rights. South Carolina said if they were to stay in the union the “constitution will then no longer exists, equal rights of the states will be lost” and that the federal government would become its enemy. While slavery is mentioned four or five times, states rights, independent state, and state sovereignty is mentioned sixteen times. States rights are mentioned not in connection with slavery, yet slavery is always mentioned in connection with states rights. Just as southern democrats had been saying for decades in there political party planks, an attack on slavery was an attack on states rights. Just as South Carolina when it first threatened to success was over states rights, that time [1830's] over tariffs, not slavery.

“The bottom line, slavery was a issue but not an absolute cause”
-John C Perry Myths and realities of American Slavery

“States rights dogma...produced secession and the confederacy”
-E Merton Coulter The Confederate States of America Louisiana State University press

States rights were so important to southerners it became a name, a Brigade general in the confederate army's name was “States Rights Gist.” The town Phillippi Virginia, was named after states rights advocate Supreme court justice Phillip Pendleton Barbour. In the 1820's Georgia armed solders against the federal government over states rights regarding land in Georgia [non slavery issues] and president Adams backed down. States rights was originally used by southerners rejecting federal tariff in the 1830's. The song titled “Bonnie blue flag” some say was more popular than Dixie at the time of the civil war, in it the lyrics speak of southern rights being threatened by northern treachery. The original southern secession movement in the 1820's-30's by founders like Jefferson, Madison, Charles Pickney, John Randalf

“Gained strength not on the question of slavery. But on constitutional questions....expansion of federal power and over states rights”
-Robert Wiliima Fogel The Rise and Fall of American Slavery

Most important, southerners knew consolidation of power in a central government would be Americas worst nightmare and the destruction of republican government.

"The greatest [calamity] which could befall [us would be] submission to a government of unlimited powers."
--Thomas Jefferson

Abolitionist Ignored the Constitution to try and Abolish Slavery“

"By focusing upon slavery, the bona fide story of the death of real states rights and the beginning of imperial america is overlooked...we stand naked before the awesome power to our federal master”
-Al Benson Jr and Walter Kennedy Lincolns Marxists

The north was by and large for keeping the original continual republic of America from its foundation. However some were influenced by various abolitionist works of fiction like Uncle Toms cabin. Because of this They came to view southern slavery as a great moral evil and a biblical sin. Slavery was a vast enough evil in there eyes that the constitution, and state sovereignty had to be overlooked. Speaking of the constitution a famous abolitionist said

“Covenant with death and an agreement with hell”
-William Lloyd Garrison

The sinful slave owning south had to end. The north was also more influenced by the federalist party, with a more centralized view of government. The south who had first hand knowledge of American servitude saw the vast majority as being beneficial to the native African, elevating his position from slavery in Africa. They saw the slaves well treated and cared for. The majority did not see slavery as a great morale evil or a biblical sin. They viewed the northern abolitionist movement more from a political viewpoint.

“ When abolition overthrow slavery in the south, it also would equally overthrow the constitution”
-R.L Dabney 1867 A Defense of Virginia and the South

[Swordsmyth]

Slavery was an issue that had eclipsed the tariff issue by 1860. It was unarguably the most important issue in American politics in the decade preceding the War.

And slavery was dying a slow death in the Union. And Lincoln wanted to stop expansion of slavery, meaning that the free states will continue to increase in number and in influence. Eventually, the free states have the votes necessary to pass an Amendment.

Slavery would have lasted longer in the Union than it could have after Secession.
The Tariff issue was coming to a head.
The fundamental reason underlying all the symptoms like slavery and tariffs was that the North was abandoning the limits of the Constitution and actively targeting the South for economic destruction and subjugation by any means at hand, whether that means was violent abolition or tariffs or anything else they could think of, it all started when the southern states paid their own revolutionary war debts and the northern states used the Constitution to make the South help pay for theirs.

[jmdrake]

I refuse to believe you've never encountered the ideas of proximate and ultimate causes.
Slavery was the proximate cause for the South leaving: the SC declaration is abundantly clear that the ultimate cause was that their nullifying the constitution made the constitution void, and therefore they were going their own way.
Nobody has ever said slavery wasn't wrapped up in why the Southern states seceded. But since we can practice reading comprehension, and because we're more able to put aside our personal feelings of slavery, we can see that the primary reason for secession was that the Northern states had broken the compact.

In short, SC said this:


And every other Southern states said "No, no you're not".
I'm not sure why you think it's more complicated than that (I have my suspicions), but it's not.

Your arguments remind me of when Bill Clinton got caught perjuring, and everyone said "Yeah but it was ok because it was about sex".

Uhhh...no. You're being the Bill Clinton liar here. Once again, the Northern States not enforcing fugitive slaves laws was NOT in violation of the U.S. Constitution! The U.S. Constitution did not specify who had to enforce fugitive slave laws. Further more, the issue that united the south, was, come on you can be honest about it and say it, slavery. South Carolina tried to get other states to secede over tariffs when southern slave owner Andrew Jackson was president and they failed miserably. South Carolina only succeeded in getting other states to join their Exodus once the framed the issue around slavery! Mississippi was so adamant about the slavery part that they didn't just complain about the fugitive slave law issue, but also the expansion of slavery and even criticism of slavery by abolitionists. You have to be totally devoid of logic, reason and/or honesty to just sweep that under the rug.

By the way, it's clear from your ranting that you don't understand the meaning of the term "proximate cause."

[jmdrake]

There was many political differences going on, not just the extension of slavery. But we are talking on what actually caused the secession, the extension of slavery had nothing to do with the upper south secession, it did play its part in the cotton states secession, read the following

Okay. So your point is that while the initial group of states who bailed were motivated by slavery that wasn't everybody's motivation? Fine. That doesn't change the fact that slavery was a "but for" cause as well as a proximate cause for secession and ultimately the civil war.

[1stvermont]

Uhhh...no. You're being the Bill Clinton liar here. Once again, the Northern States not enforcing fugitive slaves laws was NOT in violation of the U.S. Constitution! The U.S. Constitution did not specify who had to enforce fugitive slave laws. Further more, the issue that united the south, was, come on you can be honest about it and say it, slavery. South Carolina tried to get other states to secede over tariffs when southern slave owner Andrew Jackson was president and they failed miserably. South Carolina only succeeded in getting other states to join their Exodus once the framed the issue around slavery! Mississippi was so adamant about the slavery part that they didn't just complain about the fugitive slave law issue, but also the expansion of slavery and even criticism of slavery by abolitionists. You have to be totally devoid of logic, reason and/or honesty to just sweep that under the rug.

By the way, it's clear from your ranting that you don't understand the meaning of the term "proximate cause."

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
Article 4 clause 3 us Constitution


The south had constitutionally from the beginning protected rights of its property that included recognized slaves property. The north would not allow them their property and would steal it [by not working with federal workers]by not returning slaves. What if a Vermonter went to new york ,they claimed horses were not property and stole it, would that be protecting their individual rights? This is in no way a violation of northern states rights, but a protection of southern states rights to own slaves. The north was not forced to have slavery, neither were southerners, it was optional, but all north or south under the Constitution, had equal rights to own their property, the north violated that with the fugitive slave laws.

The south was not united and uniform on many issues [including tariffs] not related to slavery. The upper south was united in state sovereignty as well.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...-Cotton-States
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...he-Upper-South

The cotton states were united in slavery because that is where the federal was in violation of the Constitution. The north was united to not end slavery. You also keep ignoring the fight over slavery and when states like Mississippi mention slavery as a cause, has everything to do with states rights and the nature of the union.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...-Cotton-States



but you keep ignoring that instead listening to a few words of one state declaration and ignoring its historical context to keep a conclusion you like.

[1stvermont]

Okay. So your point is that while the initial group of states who bailed were motivated by slavery that wasn't everybody's motivation? Fine. That doesn't change the fact that slavery was a "but for" cause as well as a proximate cause for secession and ultimately the civil war.

I am saying the upper south left over state sovereignty. the original cotton states left for many reasons including the issues over the extension of slavery in the west. The direct cause was the election of a republican president. But as i said the issue of slavery brought in the nature of the union, it was not simply slavery

“When the Government of the United States disregarded and attempted to trample upon the rights of the States, Georgia set its power at defiance and seceded from the Union rather than submit to the consolidation of all power in the hands of the Central or Federal Government..her sovereignty the principles for the support of which Georgia entered into this revolution.
-Georgia Governor Joseph E Brown 1862

So in that way "slavery" and "states rights" are one in the same thing and battle. I would also say i agree if there were no issues about the extension of slavery, secession would not have happened at that time. But we need to be careful if we say "slavery" caused it, as that does not tell thew whole story

“By focusing upon slavery, the bona fide story of the death of real states rights and the beginning of imperial america is overlooked...we stand naked before the awesome power to our federal master”
-Al Benson Jr and Walter Kennedy Lincolns Marxists

[jmdrake]

This should go right here:



https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/08/...ought-slavery/

You do understand that you just reposted the OP right?

Recap of the arguments. Yes Lincoln understood that the constitution as it was written protected slavery and he wasn't against a new amendment to further codify what was already there. At the same time Lincoln made it clear in the same inaugural address that he didn't think the constitution protected the expansion of slavery or said who in fact had to enforce fugitive slave laws. The South saw both restrictions on fugitive slave laws and the expansion of slavery as, in the words of Mississippi, and attempt to eventually extinguish slavery. That's not what I said. That's not what some liberal historian said. That's what states like Mississippi said. To draw an analogy, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both give lip service to the second amendment. I'm sure they would be fine with an amendment that said "You can never change the second amendment." And yet they are undermining the second amendment on the sly. Now here is where @fishamor goes off the rails. His argument is "South Carolina didn't care about slavery, just about the constitution." That's like saying "People who support the right to own guns don't actually support the right to own guns. They just support the constitution." Well...the reason to support the second amendment isn't just because it's in the constitution. It's also because it's actually a good thing. Sometimes the constitution has gone off track in a way that actually restricts liberty, such as prohibition. If South Carolina and other slave states had said "You know what? We need to amend the constitution so we can come up with a peaceable way to end slavery." Then the argument that Paul Craig Roberts is trying to make would be valid. But I see no historical evidence of that. Lincoln attempted to do compensated emancipation with the border states but that failed to pass in congress. He was able to do compensated emancipation in Washington D.C. I have yet to see any evidence of any moves by any southern states to actually end slavery. Quite the contrary, they wanted slavery protected even to the point of sending escaped slaves back south (and in some cases kidnapping free blacks and making them slaves).

Really, it's the historical dishonesty that bugs me the most. I don't hate Robert E. Lee. I'm "meh" about the confederate flag. I'm "meh" about the nazi flag. Adolf Hitler never did anything to me or mine. In fact, according to Jesse Owens, Hitler shook his hand. It was U.S. propaganda that made the false claim that Hitler turned his back on Jesse Owens. So I don't have to go along with what is mental gymnastics to pretend the South didn't stand for what it actually stood for to not be a fan of antifa's antics. Seriously this neo-confederate revisionism is simply another form of political correctness. I had an open mind about why the South seceded. I had a southern apologist for a history teacher in high school who actually knew less facts about U.S. history than I did. I did my own research, read all of the pro slavery references and straight up racism in the southern declarations of secession and the confederate constitution, read Lincoln's first and second inaugural addresses, and came to the logical conclusion that slavery was a but for and proximate cause of the U.S. Civil War. Others come to a different conclusion through mental gymnastics? Fine. They have that right. But all of the acrimony that flows from the "How dare you say the South wanted to protect slavery....even though they said clearly said they wanted to protect slavery" crowd is sad.

[jmdrake]

I am saying the upper south left over state sovereignty. the original cotton states left for many reasons including the issues over the extension of slavery in the west. The direct cause was the election of a republican president. But as i said the issue of slavery brought in the nature of the union, it was not simply slavery

And again "That doesn't change the fact that slavery was a "but for" cause as well as a proximate cause for secession and ultimately the civil war."

“When the Government of the United States disregarded and attempted to trample upon the rights of the States, Georgia set its power at defiance and seceded from the Union rather than submit to the consolidation of all power in the hands of the Central or Federal Government..her sovereignty the principles for the support of which Georgia entered into this revolution.
-Georgia Governor Joseph E Brown 1862

So in that way "slavery" and "states rights" are one in the same thing and battle. I would also say i agree if there were no issues about the extension of slavery, secession would not have happened at that time. But we need to be careful if we say "slavery" caused it, as that does not tell thew whole story

“By focusing upon slavery, the bona fide story of the death of real states rights and the beginning of imperial america is overlooked...we stand naked before the awesome power to our federal master”
-Al Benson Jr and Walter Kennedy Lincolns Marxists

Except states don't have the right to demand other states enforce federal law. Also the very term "states rights" is....well....STATIST! Can states rights protect from an overactive federal government? Sure. But at the end of the day, the NAP is really about individual rights. The state, whether it is the state of Tennessee or the state of Russia, is an artificial construct. I no more want the state of Tennessee passing a law which says I can't have a Ron Paul bumper sticker than I want the United States passing such a law. And I would appeal both to the U.S. Constitution and the Tennessee Constitution to oppose such a law. Some here would argue "Oh but you're violating states rights!" To that I would say "And?" It's funny that with a Trump presidency and threatened funding of "sanctuary cities", the left has rediscovered "states rights."

One more thing. Those who argue about Lincoln abolishing states rights are hypocrites for ignoring Andrew Jackson. He's the president who first threatened to hang secessionists. But southerners love Andrew Jackson. Southerners pitched a fit about Obama's move to take him off the $20. Explain that one to me.

[1stvermont]

You do understand that you just reposted the OP right?

Recap of the arguments. Yes Lincoln understood that the constitution as it was written protected slavery and he wasn't against a new amendment to further codify what was already there. At the same time Lincoln made it clear in the same inaugural address that he didn't think the constitution protected the expansion of slavery or said who in fact had to enforce fugitive slave laws. The South saw both restrictions on fugitive slave laws and the expansion of slavery as, in the words of Mississippi, and attempt to eventually extinguish slavery. That's not what I said. That's not what some liberal historian said. That's what states like Mississippi said. To draw an analogy, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both give lip service to the second amendment. I'm sure they would be fine with an amendment that said "You can never change the second amendment." And yet they are undermining the second amendment on the sly. Now here is where @fishamor goes off the rails. His argument is "South Carolina didn't care about slavery, just about the constitution." That's like saying "People who support the right to own guns don't actually support the right to own guns. They just support the constitution." Well...the reason to support the second amendment isn't just because it's in the constitution. It's also because it's actually a good thing. Sometimes the constitution has gone off track in a way that actually restricts liberty, such as prohibition. If South Carolina and other slave states had said "You know what? We need to amend the constitution so we can come up with a peaceable way to end slavery." Then the argument that Paul Craig Roberts is trying to make would be valid. But I see no historical evidence of that. Lincoln attempted to do compensated emancipation with the border states but that failed to pass in congress. He was able to do compensated emancipation in Washington D.C. I have yet to see any evidence of any moves by any southern states to actually end slavery. Quite the contrary, they wanted slavery protected even to the point of sending escaped slaves back south (and in some cases kidnapping free blacks and making them slaves).

Really, it's the historical dishonesty that bugs me the most. I don't hate Robert E. Lee. I'm "meh" about the confederate flag. I'm "meh" about the nazi flag. Adolf Hitler never did anything to me or mine. In fact, according to Jesse Owens, Hitler shook his hand. It was U.S. propaganda that made the false claim that Hitler turned his back on Jesse Owens. So I don't have to go along with what is mental gymnastics to pretend the South didn't stand for what it actually stood for to not be a fan of antifa's antics. Seriously this neo-confederate revisionism is simply another form of political correctness. I had an open mind about why the South seceded. I had a southern apologist for a history teacher in high school who actually knew less facts about U.S. history than I did. I did my own research, read all of the pro slavery references and straight up racism in the southern declarations of secession and the confederate constitution, read Lincoln's first and second inaugural addresses, and came to the logical conclusion that slavery was a but for and proximate cause of the U.S. Civil War. Others come to a different conclusion through mental gymnastics? Fine. They have that right. But all of the acrimony that flows from the "How dare you say the South wanted to protect slavery....even though they said clearly said they wanted to protect slavery" crowd is sad.

I call BS. had you done the research you would have found more than enough to convince you of what you speak. Had you actually read the SC document of secession, you would have found what you claimed is revisionism. I would argue the opposite, the winner writes the history and that can be easily shown. But lets challenge each other. Here I have collected just the sort of info you claim you looked for to make the case for a historical understanding of secession.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...-Cotton-States
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...he-Upper-South


so why dont we start there, and than we can deal with any objections you have.

[jmdrake]

I call BS.

Then you are full of shyt.

had you done the research you would have found more than enough to convince you of what you speak. Had you actually read the SC document of secession, you would have found what you claimed is revisionism.

I've read it. I've talked about it in this thread. You are full of shyt. South Carolina was complaining about nullification of fugitive slave laws, when South Carolina had earlier used nullification against tariffs. So they were being hypocrites of the first order. You know where I first heard about nullification of fugitive slave laws? By none other than "The Southern Avenger" and he was using it in defense of states rights, and here you are defending South Carolina attacking fugitive slave laws as being against states rights. Your side can't have it both ways. Either nullification is a part of states rights....or it isn't.

[1stvermont]

And again "That doesn't change the fact that slavery was a "but for" cause as well as a proximate cause for secession and ultimately the civil war."



Except states don't have the right to demand other states enforce federal law. Also the very term "states rights" is....well....STATIST! Can states rights protect from an overactive federal government? Sure. But at the end of the day, the NAP is really about individual rights. The state, whether it is the state of Tennessee or the state of Russia, is an artificial construct. I no more want the state of Tennessee passing a law which says I can't have a Ron Paul bumper sticker than I want the United States passing such a law. And I would appeal both to the U.S. Constitution and the Tennessee Constitution to oppose such a law. Some here would argue "Oh but you're violating states rights!" To that I would say "And?" It's funny that with a Trump presidency and threatened funding of "sanctuary cities", the left has rediscovered "states rights."

One more thing. Those who argue about Lincoln abolishing states rights are hypocrites for ignoring Andrew Jackson. He's the president who first threatened to hang secessionists. But southerners love Andrew Jackson. Southerners pitched a fit about Obama's move to take him off the $20. Explain that one to me.

well if we take that logic, the declaration of Independence caused the civil war because it caused the union that later fought each other. But the direct cause of secession was lincolns election, the direct cause of war was wholly from the north, those are separate issues.

You misunderstand states right friend. They are there to protect the Constitution against federal expansion past its legal limits to protect its citizens. So when its citizens rights guarded by the Constitution [slaves runaways fugitive slave laws] is violated, states rights is their to help. So when other states violate the compact, than the states being violated have rights to protect themselves. More important, when the federal seeks to deny states sovereignty and rights [such as the issue of the expansion of slavery] they are there to protect against that federal expansion.

this should help

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...-the-Civil-war


I am not hear to defend jackson, i like some of what he did and dont like some of what he did so i wont put myself in that position. This thread is on the cause of secession.

[1stvermont]

Then you are full of shyt.



I've read it. I've talked about it in this thread. You are full of shyt. South Carolina was complaining about nullification of fugitive slave laws, when South Carolina had earlier used nullification against tariffs. So they were being hypocrites of the first order. You know where I first heard about nullification of fugitive slave laws? By none other than "The Southern Avenger" and he was using it in defense of states rights, and here you are defending South Carolina attacking fugitive slave laws as being against states rights. Your side can't have it both ways. Either nullification is a part of states rights....or it isn't.

You claim to have read these?

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...he-Upper-South
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...-Cotton-States

than by all means give a refutation to them, a direct refutation. All i have seen is you ignore them or at least admit the upper south left for other reasons. Since you only talk about the cotton states than we can assume you admit the upper south left over state sovereignty. So lets talk deep south. It is true the South Carolina declaration mentions its reasons for leaving as

“Declared that the frequent violations of the constitution by the united sates, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union.”

yet that same document complained of northern states nullification of the federal fugitive slave laws as a violation of south Carolina rights, is this hypocritical? not if we properly understand states rights in antebellum america. First and this must happen, you must read this thread to get a historical understanding of states rights and the union.

From Union to Empire The Political Effects of the Civil war

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?511837-From-Union-to-Empire-The-Political-Effects-of-the-Civil-war


Than understand states rights is not to resist the Constitution, but to protect it from overreaching federal government. Or in this case, northern states violating south Carolina [states right to protect its own citizens] constitutional rights. Northern federalist Daniel Webster said in 1851 that if the north would not comply with the fugitive slave law, “The south would no longer be bound to observe the compact. A bargain can not be broken on one side, and still bind the other side”

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
Article 4 clause 3 us Constitution


The south had constitutionally from the beginning protected rights of its property that included recognized slaves property. The north would not allow them their property and would steal it [by not working with federal workers]by not returning slaves. What if a Vermonter went to new york ,they claimed horses were not property and stole it, would that be protecting their individual rights? This is in no way a violation of northern states rights, but a protection of southern states rights to own slaves. The north was not forced to have slavery, neither were southerners, it was optional, but all north or south under the Constitution, had equal rights to own their property, the north violated that with the fugitive slave laws.

[jmdrake]

You claim to have read these?

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...he-Upper-South
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...-Cotton-States

than by all means give a refutation to them, a direct refutation. All i have seen is you ignore them or at least admit the upper south left for other reasons. Since you only talk about the cotton states than we can assume you admit the upper south left over state sovereignty. So lets talk deep south. It is true the South Carolina declaration mentions its reasons for leaving as

Yes. And I gave you a direct refutation. The argument is that South Carolina feels Northern nullification is a violation of the constitutional pact. But, as "Southern Avenger" Jack Hunter pointed out, nullification of fugitive slave laws was an [b]exercise[b] in states rights. That's the "direct refutation" of your argument. Here ya go.



You can't have it both ways and you are being intellectually dishonest. I agreed with Jack Hunter's point that Rachel Maddow was wrong about nullification and that nullification of fugitive slave laws was a proper exercise of states rights.

But here you destroy your own argument.

south under the Constitution, had equal rights to own their property, the north violated that with the fugitive slave laws

What you euphemistically call "property" was actual human beings. Yes, South Carolinians wanted to keep their "property" which, in this case, were slaves so they were seceding over S-L-A-V-E-R-Y! Ignoring that the property in question were slaves does not change the historical facts. Good grief, your arguments are beyond stupid.

[jmdrake]

well if we take that logic, the declaration of Independence caused the civil war because it caused the union that later fought each other. But the direct cause of secession was lincolns election, the direct cause of war was wholly from the north, those are separate issues.

You misunderstand states right friend.

I'm not your friend and I'm not misunderstanding states rights. I agree with Judge Andrew Napolitano and Jack Hunter that the nullification of fugitive slave laws was a proper execution of states rights.

[oyarde]

No man or his bloodhound dogs have a right to trespass on my property . None . Ever . The fugitive slave act signed off on in congress in 1850 was never going to be observed here and if it was no jury would convict . It is within our rights to determine that .By 1855 the Wisconsin Supreme Court had determined the law to be UnConstitutional , something everyone , everywhere knew anyway . Vermont publicly announced in 1850 they would not observe . The fugitive slave law and the unbearable pompous behaviour of southern slavers is what turned the north to give a blind eye to any argument of any kind of southern politicians and aristocrats legitimate or not . All were widely viewed as people with an improper amount of respect for others and generally untrustworthy by the common man here .

[oyarde]

Where we were there was no real support for the war , invading other states seems like a bad idea in any times . It also was pretty common opinion that when it happened it would be because they brought it on themselves .

[charrob]

Thank you everyone for all of your posts on this thread!!! Although my college was good, I took no history courses (just took courses within my major). And you really don't want to know how awful my public schooling was (1 semester of U.S. history in 12 years of public school). So I am constantly craving to learn history and expand what little knowledge i have on the subject. And this thread is rich with information that I look forward to delving into as time permits. Thank you all!!!

You shouldn't just read someone else's interpretation of Lincoln's speech. You should read the actual speech. Here's the part in question. It doesn't say what the person you quoted said it said.

Thanks Jim. That's as far as I got tonight on your reply as before I read the rest of your statements, I wanted to do just that: to read Lincoln's actual inauguration address and decipher exactly what my interpretation of his speech is without any other interpretations clouding my understanding. (This is the first time looking at this thread since my last post, and I don't even remember particularly at this point anymore what Paul Craig Roberts said and would need first to quickly overlook to refresh my memory. So the following is my understanding of Lincoln's inaugural address without any other person's interpretations to make conclusions from.) Words written in red are my understanding of paragraphs from Lincoln's speech that precede it. Highlighted are parts relevant to this discussion. After the ending of Lincoln's speech, I extracted all of my interpretations written in red and consolidated them at the end of this post; the only changes were sentences beginning with "Lincoln said" were changed to "I".

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fellow-citizens of the United States:

In compliance with a custom as old as the government itself, I appear before you to address you briefly, and to take, in your presence, the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the United States, to be taken by the President "before he enters on the execution of this office."

I do not consider it necessary at present for me to discuss those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement.

Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States, that by the accession of a Republican Administration, their property, and their peace, and personal security, are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. Indeed, the most ample evidence to the contrary has all the while existed, and been open to their inspection. It is found in nearly all the published speeches of him who now addresses you. I do but quote from one of those speeches when I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Those who nominated and elected me did so with full knowledge that I had made this, and many similar declarations, and had never recanted them. And more than this, they placed in the platform, for my acceptance, and as a law to themselves, and to me, the clear and emphatic resolution which I now read:

Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes."

I now reiterate these sentiments; and in doing so, I only press upon the public attention the most conclusive evidence of which the case is susceptible, that the property, peace and security of no section are to be in any wise endangered by the now incoming Administration. I add too, that all the protection which, consistently with the Constitution and the laws, can be given, will be cheerfully given to all the States when lawfully demanded, for whatever cause -- as cheerfully to one section as to another.

Above Lincoln says he will not interfere with slavery in the States where it exists.

There is much controversy about the delivering up of fugitives from service or labor. The clause I now read is as plainly written in the Constitution as any other of its provisions:

"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."


Above Lincoln says fugitive slaves escaping a State and going to another State will be apprehended and delivered to the person that claims ownership of that slave. Lincoln says this is plainly written in the Constitution, and so this law will be followed and dominates any law within a free State that would say otherwise.

It is scarcely questioned that this provision was intended by those who made it, for the reclaiming of what we call fugitive slaves; and the intention of the law-giver is the law. All members of Congress swear their support to the whole Constitution -- to this provision as much as to any other. To the proposition, then, that slaves whose cases come within the terms of this clause, "shall be delivered," their oaths are unanimous. Now, if they would make the effort in good temper, could they not, with nearly equal unanimity, frame and pass a law, by means of which to keep good that unanimous oath?

Lincoln says congress should write a law which mirrors what the Constitution says: ie. That fugitive slaves should be delivered to the person that claims ownership of that slave.

There is some difference of opinion whether this clause should be enforced by national or by state authority; but surely that difference is not a very material one. If the slave is to be surrendered, it can be of but little consequence to him, or to others, by which authority it is done. And should any one, in any case, be content that his oath shall go unkept, on a merely unsubstantial controversy as to how it shall be kept?

Lincoln says it doesn’t matter if the Feds or the State apprehend and deliver the fugitive slave. One method is not better than the other.

Again, in any law upon this subject, ought not all the safeguards of liberty known in civilized and humane jurisprudence to be introduced, so that a free man be not, in any case, surrendered as a slave? And might it not be well, at the same time to provide by law for the enforcement of that clause in the Constitution which guarantees that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States"?

Lincoln is saying that the law written by Congress (referenced several paragraphs above) should also address free blacks (not fugitives) who live in the North so that these free blacks living in the north will never be surrendered to slavery.

I take the official oath to-day, with no mental reservations, and with no purpose to construe the Constitution or laws, by any hypercritical rules. And while I do not choose now to specify particular acts of Congress as proper to be enforced, I do suggest that it will be much safer for all, both in official and private stations, to conform to, and abide by, all those acts which stand unrepealed, than to violate any of them, trusting to find impunity in having them held to be unconstitutional.

Lincoln: Obey the laws of the Constitution - all of them.

It is seventy-two years since the first inauguration of a President under our national Constitution. During that period fifteen different and greatly distinguished citizens, have, in succession, administered the executive branch of the government. They have conducted it through many perils; and, generally, with great success. Yet, with all this scope for [of] precedent, I now enter upon the same task for the brief constitutional term of four years, under great and peculiar difficulty. A disruption of the Federal Union, heretofore only menaced, is now formidably attempted.

Lincoln is worried about southern secession.

I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper, ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our national Constitution, and the Union will endure forever -- it being impossible to destroy it, except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.

Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade, by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it -- break it, so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?

Lincoln: Secession of some States is unlawful since the Union could only lawfully end if all members of that Union agree it should end.

Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that, in legal contemplation, the Union is perpetual, confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution, was "to form a more perfect Union." But if [the] destruction of the Union, by one, or by a part only, of the States, be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.

It follows from these views that no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union, -- that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence, within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.

(again): Lincoln: Secession of some States is unlawful since the Union could only lawfully end if all members of that Union agree it should end.

I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it, so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner, direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that will constitutionally defend and maintain itself.

Lincoln: ‘my job is to keep the Union together’ unless otherwise directed by the American people.

In doing this there needs to be no bloodshed or violence; and there shall be none, unless it be forced upon the national authority. The power confided to me will be used to hold, occupy, and possess the property and places belonging to the government, and to collect the duties and imposts; but beyond what may be necessary for these objects, there will be no invasion -- no using of force against or among the people anywhere. Where hostility to the United States in any interior locality, shall be so great and so universal, as to prevent competent resident citizens from holding the Federal offices, there will be no attempt to force obnoxious strangers among the people for that object. While the strict legal right may exist in the government to enforce the exercise of these offices, the attempt to do so would be so irritating, and so nearly impracticable with all, that I deem it better to forego, for the time, the uses of such offices.

The mails, unless repelled, will continue to be furnished in all parts of the Union. So far as possible, the people everywhere shall have that sense of perfect security which is most favorable to calm thought and reflection. The course here indicated will be followed, unless current events and experience shall show a modification or change to be proper; and in every case and exigency my best discretion will be exercised according to circumstances actually existing, and with a view and a hope of a peaceful solution of the national troubles, and the restoration of fraternal sympathies and affections.

Lincoln wants to keep the country together without force.

That there are persons in one section or another who seek to destroy the Union at all events, and are glad of any pretext to do it, I will neither affirm nor deny; but if there be such, I need address no word to them. To those, however, who really love the Union may I not speak?

Lincoln: ‘I have nothing to say to those dead set on having a Civil War. Here I speak to those who love the Union:

Before entering upon so grave a matter as the destruction of our national fabric, with all its benefits, its memories, and its hopes, would it not be wise to ascertain precisely why we do it? Will you hazard so desperate a step, while there is any possibility that any portion of the ills you fly from have no real existence? Will you, while the certain ills you fly to, are greater than all the real ones you fly from? Will you risk the commission of so fearful a mistake?

Lincoln: Civil War is not worth it and is a mistake; what we have is not worth losing.

All profess to be content in the Union, if all constitutional rights can be maintained. Is it true, then, that any right, plainly written in the Constitution, has been denied? I think not. Happily the human mind is so constituted, that no party can reach to the audacity of doing this. Think, if you can, of a single instance in which a plainly written provision of the Constitution has ever been denied. If by the mere force of numbers, a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution -- certainly would, if such right were a vital one. But such is not our case. All the vital rights of minorities, and of individuals, are so plainly assured to them, by affirmations and negations, guaranties and prohibitions, in the Constitution, that controversies never arise concerning them.

Lincoln: Both sides say they are happy when the Constitution is followed. Yet there has not been a single instance when it has not been followed! If a clause in the Constitution were not followed it might justify revolution. But such is not our case.

But no organic law can ever be framed with a provision specifically applicable to every question which may occur in practical administration. No foresight can anticipate, nor any document of reasonable length contain express provisions for all possible questions. Shall fugitives from labor be surrendered by national or by State authority? The Constitution does not expressly say. May Congress prohibit slavery in the territories? The Constitution does not expressly say. Must Congress protect slavery in the territories? The Constitution does not expressly say.

Lincoln: Though the organic law of the Constitution is good, it cannot document every single possible case which may arise:

• Shall fugitive slaves be apprehended by the Feds or State? Constitution does not say.
• May Congress prohibit slavery in the territories? Constitution does not say.
• Must Congress protect slavery in the territories? Constitution does not say.

From questions of this class spring all our constitutional controversies, and we divide upon them into majorities and minorities. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must, or the government must cease. There is no other alternative; for continuing the government, is acquiescence on one side or the other. If a minority, in such case, will secede rather than acquiesce, they make a precedent which, in turn, will divide and ruin them; for a minority of their own will secede from them whenever a majority refuses to be controlled by such minority. For instance, why may not any portion of a new confederacy, a year or two hence, arbitrarily secede again, precisely as portions of the present Union now claim to secede from it? All who cherish disunion sentiments, are now being educated to the exact temper of doing this.

For non-detailed parts of our Constitution, people will read it differently. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must or the government must end.

Is there such perfect identity of interests among the States to compose a new Union, as to produce harmony only, and prevent renewed secession?

Plainly, the central idea of secession, is the essence of anarchy. A majority, held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it, does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism. Unanimity is impossible; the rule of a minority, as a permanent arrangement, is wholly inadmissible; so that, rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left.

However the minority cannot always have its way, else that is anarchy. Rule by majority is the only true sovereign of a free people.

I do not forget the position assumed by some, that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court; nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case, upon the parties to a suit; as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the government. And while it is obviously possible that such decision may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be over-ruled, and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice. At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government upon vital questions, affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties, in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. It is a duty from which they may not shrink, to decide cases properly brought before them; and it is no fault of theirs if others seek to turn their decisions to political purposes.

Though the Supreme Court can decide particular cases, and though the results of these particular cases can be used in parallel cases, even the Supreme Court parallel cases cannot always decide new cases.

One section of our country believes slavery is right, and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute. The fugitive slave clause of the Constitution, and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade, are each as well enforced, perhaps, as any law can ever be in a community where the moral sense of the people imperfectly supports the law itself. The great body of the people abide by the dry legal obligation in both cases, and a few break over in each. This, I think, cannot be perfectly cured, and it would be worse in both cases after the separation of the sections, than before. The foreign slave trade, now imperfectly suppressed, would be ultimately revived without restriction, in one section; while fugitive slaves, now only partially surrendered, would not be surrendered at all, by the other.

The only dispute between the north and the south is whether slavery can be extended to the [western] territories. The fugitive slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade, while not being completely followed by a few Americans here and there, are both being followed by the majority of Americans. Secession would make the following of both of these laws much worse.

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We can not remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence, and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face; and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them. Is it possible, then, to make that intercourse more advantageous or more satisfactory, after separation than before? Can aliens make treaties easier than friends can make laws? Can treaties be more faithfully enforced between aliens than laws can among friends? Suppose you go to war, you cannot fight always; and when, after much loss on both sides, and no gain on either, you cease fighting, the identical old questions, as to terms of intercourse, are again upon you.

Things will just be much worse afterwards if secession occurs.

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing Government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it. I cannot be ignorant of the fact that many worthy and patriotic citizens are desirous of having the national Constitution amended. While I make no recommendation of amendments, I fully recognize the rightful authority of the people over the whole subject to be exercised in either of the modes prescribed in the instrument itself; and I should, under existing circumstances, favor rather than oppose a fair opportunity being afforded the people to act upon it.

This country belongs to all the people. If all the people decide to destroy the Union that is fine. If all the people decide to amend the Constitution that is fine too. But it has to be decided by a majority.

I will venture to add that to me the Convention mode seems preferable, in that it allows amendments to originate with the people themselves, instead of only permitting them to take or reject propositions, originated by others, not especially chosen for the purpose, and which might not be precisely such as they would wish to either accept or refuse. I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution, which amendment, however, I have not seen, has passed Congress, to the effect that the federal government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service. To avoid misconstruction of what I have said, I depart from my purpose not to speak of particular amendments, so far as to say that holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.

Lincoln: ‘I understand there’s a new Constitutional Amendment that has passed Congress. This Amendment says that the federal government shall __NEVER__ interfere with slavery inside the States that currently have it. I have no problem with that.

The Chief Magistrate derives all his authority from the people, and they have referred none upon him to fix terms for the separation of the States. The people themselves can do this if also they choose; but the executive, as such, has nothing to do with it. His duty is to administer the present government, as it came to his hands, and to transmit it, unimpaired by him, to his successor.

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope, in the world? In our present differences, is either party without faith of being in the right? If the Almighty Ruler of nations, with his eternal truth and justice, be on your side of the North, or on yours of the South, that truth, and that justice, will surely prevail, by the judgment of this great tribunal of the American people.

By the frame of the government under which we live, this same people have wisely given their public servants but little power for mischief; and have, with equal wisdom, provided for the return of that little to their own hands at very short intervals.

While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.

I have nothing to do with the separation of the States; only the people can decide this. Let’s have confidence in the American people as a whole.

My countrymen, one and all, think calmly and well, upon this whole subject. Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time. If there be an object to hurry any of you, in hot haste, to a step which you would never take deliberately, that object will be frustrated by taking time; but no good object can be frustrated by it. Such of you as are now dissatisfied still have the old Constitution unimpaired, and, on the sensitive point, the laws of your own framing under it; while the new administration will have no immediate power, if it would, to change either. If it were admitted that you who are dissatisfied, hold the right side in the dispute, there still is no single good reason for precipitate action. Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him, who has never yet forsaken this favored land, are still competent to adjust, in the best way, all our present difficulty.

Don’t rush into war. For those who are dissatisfied, you still have, unchanged in the Constitution, the laws in which you have written about slavery. If you are currently correct in this dispute, there still is no reason to hastily get into war: with time and God on our side, we can still make changes to your liking.

In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."

It’s up to the south on whether you decide to attack the Federal Gov’t. The Federal Gov’t will not attack you first. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect and defend it.”

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Charrob's interpretation of what Lincoln stated in his inaugural address:



"I will not interfere with slavery in the States where it exists.

Fugitive slaves escaping a State and going to another State will be apprehended and delivered to the person that claims ownership of that slave. This is plainly written in the Constitution, and so this law will be followed and dominates any law within a free State that would say otherwise.

Congress should write a law which mirrors what the Constitution says: ie. That fugitive slaves should be delivered to the person that claims ownership of that slave.

It doesn’t matter if the Feds or the State apprehend and deliver the fugitive slave. One method is not better than the other.

The law written by Congress (referenced several paragraphs above) should also address free blacks (not fugitives) who live in the North so that these free blacks living in the north will never be surrendered to slavery.

Obey the laws of the Constitution - all of them.

I am worried about southern secession.

Secession of some States is unlawful since the Union could only lawfully end if all members of that Union agree it should end.

(again): Secession of some States is unlawful since the Union could only lawfully end if all members of that Union agree it should end.

My job is to keep the Union together unless otherwise directed by the American people.

I want to keep the country together without force.

I have nothing to say to those dead set on having a Civil War. Here I speak to those who love the Union: Civil War is not worth it and is a mistake; what we have is not worth losing.

Both sides say they are happy when the Constitution is followed. Yet there has not been a single instance when it has not been followed! If a clause in the Constitution were not followed it might justify revolution. But such is not our case.

Though the organic law of the Constitution is good, it cannot document every single possible case which may arise:

• Shall fugitive slaves be apprehended by the Feds or State? Constitution does not say.
• May Congress prohibit slavery in the territories? Constitution does not say.
• Must Congress protect slavery in the territories? Constitution does not say.

For non-detailed parts of our Constitution, people will read it differently. If the minority will not acquiesce, the majority must or the government must end.

However the minority cannot always have its way, else that is anarchy. Rule by majority is the only true sovereign of a free people.

Though the Supreme Court can decide particular cases, and though the results of these particular cases can be used in parallel cases, even the Supreme Court parallel cases cannot always decide new cases.

The only dispute between the north and the south is whether slavery can be extended to the [western] territories. The fugitive slave clause of the Constitution and the law for the suppression of the foreign slave trade, while not being completely followed by a few Americans here and there, are both being followed by the majority of Americans. Secession would make the following of both of these laws much worse.

Things will just be much worse afterwards if secession occurs.

This country belongs to all the people. If all the people decide to destroy the Union that is fine. If all the people decide to amend the Constitution that is fine too. But it has to be decided by a majority.

I understand there’s a new Constitutional Amendment that has passed Congress. This Amendment says that the federal government shall __NEVER__ interfere with slavery inside the States that currently have it. I have no problem with that.

I have nothing to do with the separation of the States; only the people can decide this. Let’s have confidence in the American people as a whole.

Don’t rush into war. For those who are dissatisfied, you still have, unchanged in the Constitution, the laws in which you have written about slavery. If you are currently correct in this dispute, there still is no reason to hastily get into war: with time and God on our side, we can still make changes to your liking.

It’s up to the south on whether you decide to attack the Federal Gov’t. The Federal Gov’t will not attack you first. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect and defend it.”"

[Ender]

You do understand that you just reposted the OP right?

YES.

[1stvermont]

Yes. And I gave you a direct refutation. The argument is that South Carolina feels Northern nullification is a violation of the constitutional pact. But, as "Southern Avenger" Jack Hunter pointed out, nullification of fugitive slave laws was an [b]exercise[b] in states rights. That's the "direct refutation" of your argument. Here ya go.

So many historical mistakes in a small post i am impressed, usually only liberals can do that. well it is clear to anyone with even a passing knowledge of the civil war or secession, you have no idea what you are talking about. Plus you have exposed your lie that you read my links. You dont know you exposed yourself because you lack basic knowledge of secession. You just claimed that south carolina was part of the upper south. and offered it as a refutation. South Carolina is part of the deep south sir, that is basic knowledge. Than make a false statement [coming from a misunderstanding of states rights and nullification see here http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...-the-Civil-war ] that south carolina left the union because of northern states nullification [to witch south Carolina was known for doing] this is simply not true.

SC secession document

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

The cause of dissolving the union is given right off the bat “Declared that the frequent violations of the constitution by the united sates, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union.”

Had you read it you would have known. South carolina was not objecting to nullification, something they themselves had used, but the northern states violation of the Constitution as I made clear to you on post 76 that you ignored.

Y
You can't have it both ways and you are being intellectually dishonest. I agreed with Jack Hunter's point that Rachel Maddow was wrong about nullification and that nullification of fugitive slave laws was a proper exercise of states rights.

I agree that i like those laws, they still violate the Constitution and the compact between north and south [see post 76] These disagreements can happen in a union of states that is why secession is vital to liberty. So yes you can have it both ways if both sides are willing and if you understand a historical understanding of nullification and states rights.

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...-the-Civil-war

If you understood states rights and the union, your objection would diaper.

But here you destroy your own argument.

south under the Constitution, had equal rights to own their property, the north violated that with the fugitive slave laws

What you euphemistically call "property" was actual human beings. Yes, South Carolinians wanted to keep their "property" which, in this case, were slaves so they were seceding over S-L-A-V-E-R-Y! Ignoring that the property in question were slaves does not change the historical facts. Good grief, your arguments are beyond stupid.

I never said the federal government intrusion upon the rights of the states on slavery was not a cause of the cotton states secession. I said there was other causes and that the upper south left over state sovereignty. Had you read my post as you claimed to have, you would know that.

I will post for you not in link, but in open text directed to you for you to respond to.

[1stvermont]

No man or his bloodhound dogs have a right to trespass on my property . None . Ever . The fugitive slave act signed off on in congress in 1850 was never going to be observed here and if it was no jury would convict . It is within our rights to determine that .By 1855 the Wisconsin Supreme Court had determined the law to be UnConstitutional , something everyone , everywhere knew anyway . Vermont publicly announced in 1850 they would not observe . The fugitive slave law and the unbearable pompous behaviour of southern slavers is what turned the north to give a blind eye to any argument of any kind of southern politicians and aristocrats legitimate or not . All were widely viewed as people with an improper amount of respect for others and generally untrustworthy by the common man here .

No Person held to Service or Labour in one State, under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in Consequence of any Law or Regulation therein, be discharged from such Service or Labour, but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to whom such Service or Labour may be due.
Article 4 clause 3 us Constitution

[1stvermont]

I'm not your friend and I'm not misunderstanding states rights. I agree with Judge Andrew Napolitano and Jack Hunter that the nullification of fugitive slave laws was a proper execution of states rights.

as do i, illegal constitutionally, but i like them. But if we care to understand the union as was

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...-the-Civil-war

we would not misunderstand states rights.

[1stvermont]

AT jmdrake

The Cotton States

[the south was]"Forced to take up arms to vindicate the political rights, the freedom, equality, and state sovereignty which were the heritage purchased by the blood of our revolutionary sires"
-Jefferson Davis 1863 quoted in Battle cry of freedom James McPherson Oxford U Press

The first states to leave the union were the original deep south “cotton states.” Leaving as individual states to later form a confederacy and a constitution. Those states were Alabama, Mississippi, Louisianan, Texas, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. Even within the deep south cotton states their were multiple reasons that led to secession.

The Election of A Republican President

“It [republican party] is, in fact, essentially a revolutionary party”
-New Orleans Delta

“To nationalize as much as possible, even currency, so as to make men love country first before their states, all private interest, local interests, all banking interests, the interests of individuals everything should be subordinate now to the interests of the government”
-Senator John Sherman of Ohio [ This a change in philosophy from founders that government serves the people ]

The election of the new “radical” republican party candidate Abraham Lincoln directly led to the secession of the deep south. This new political party was the first in American history based solely on sectional [northern] interests and boosted by recent immigration to the national stage. This was so clear to north and south that Many in the north blamed the republicans voters for disunion. President Buchanan [who did not believe in legal secession] and other northern democrats and unionist blamed republicans and said the south would be justified if they were elected in resisting.

“My politics are short and sweet...I am in favor of a national bank...in favor of the internal improvements system and a high protective tariff”
-Abraham Lincoln

This northern sectional party's interests were the antithesis to the southern interests. The republicans were for higher tariffs, protective tariffs, federal internal improvements,in support of the homestead act, homestead act [ in 1858 the north supported 114 of 115 the south rejected 64 of 65] a pacific railroad act, and grants to states for agricultural and mechanical collages.

The republicans were openly big government nationalist who placed authority and sovereignty with the federal government and not with, as they south had maintained from the first, the peoples of the sovereign states. This would play itself out in the fight over slavery in the territories. [see below] The republicans during the civil war and finishing with reconstruction, would radically transform the American union into their new radical version of America. So the south seceded.

“to save us from a revolution”
Jeff Davis quoted in battle cry of freedom


Tariffs

“The revenues of the General Government are almost entirely derived from duties on importations. It is time that the northern consumer pays his proportion of these duties, but the North as a section receiving back in the increased prices of the rival articles which it manufactures nearly or quite as much as the imposts which it pays thus in effect paying nothing or very little for the support of the government.”
-Florida causes of Secession

“And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress, is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue–to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures... The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected, three-fourths of them are expended at the North. ”
-Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding States Convention of South Carolina 1860


“The Northern onslaught upon slavery is no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern states... the love of money is the root of this...the quarrel between the north and south is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel”
-Charles Dickens, 1862

As so often is the case in wars, money, in this case tariffs, had long been a point of conflict between the two sides. In 1824 the government tariff doubled. The south voting against the tariff being raised and the north voted for it, dividing the country along the 1860 civil war lines in 1824 over tariffs. Tariffs supplied the government 90% of it income and even gave a surplus to what the government needed. The majority was paid by the south given its inport/export agrarian economy. This the south thought was unconstitutional for the government to aim at a section or industry of the economy specifically for a tax.

“High protective tariffs reduced the price of cotton and effective imposed a tax between 10-20% while they raised the income of northern labor and the profits of northern manufacturers”
-Robert William Fogel The Rise and fall of American Slavery

"The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country. Last year she furnished seventy-two percent of the whole"
-Daily Chicago Times, December 10, 1860

Tariffs would be Raised again in 1828. Congress passed what southerners called the tariff of abominations to help northern industry against southern agrarian lifestyle. only 1 out of 105 southerners voted positive, yet the north voted for it [as they received free southern money that was used largely in the north] and it passed. This led South Carolina to first use a threat of secession. South Carolina Senator John Callhoun in the 1820's said of conflict between the north and south over tariffs “The great central interest , around which all others revolved” South Carolina argued they had states rights to reject unconstitutional federal ruling as a sovereign state, something Thomas Jefferson recommended. Over the tariff Mary Chestnut said South Carolina "heated themselves into a fever that only bloodletting could ever cure." The tax had been 15% and the south had been complaining for decades.

“It does not require extraordinary sagacity to precive that trade is perhaps the controlling motive operating to prevent the return of the seceding states to the union”
-Boston Transcript March 18 1861

“The people of the Southern States, whose almost exclusive occupation was agriculture, early perceived a tendency in the Northern States to render the common government subservient to their own purposes by imposing burdens on commerce as a protection to their manufacturing and shipping interests. Long and angry controversies grew out of these attempts, often successful, to benefit one section of the country at the expense of the other....abuse of the powers they had delegated to the Congress, for the purpose of enriching the manufacturing and shipping classes of the North at the expense of the South.... ”
Jefferson Davis Message to Congress April 29, 1861 (Ratification of the Constitution)

The Morrill Tariff Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives on May 10, 1860, on a sectional vote, with nearly all northern representatives in support and nearly all southern representatives in opposition. With the election of Abraham Lincoln whose central campaign objective was to triple the tariff. Tariff was the “keystone” of the republican party “protection for home industry” was the campaign poster of the 1860 republican party. South Carolina did what it had done decades before, and seceded from the Union over the higher tariff rates soon to be imposed on the south by the north. It was not just the south, NYC mayor Fernando Wood wanted to make NYC a “free city” [free trade] and secede from the Union. The debate over tariffs and internal improvements was not just a debate over those items, but a debate over the nature of the federal government. Free trade was a vital aspect of southern agrarian interests. The CSA Constitution allowed for free trade. In Jefferson Davis inaugural speech in Montgomery Alabama he stated the following.

“An agricultural people, whose chief interest is the export of a commodity required in every manufacturing country, our true policy is peace, and the freest trade, which our necessities will permit. It is alike our interest, and that of all those to whom we would sell and from whom we would buy, that there should be the fewest practicable restrictions upon the interchange of commodities. There can be but little rivalry between ours and any manufacturing or navigating community, such as the Northeastern States of the American Union.”

“The south was being asked to pay to strengthen northern industry...the tariff would directly damage southern pocketbooks. This conflict played a important role in the division north vs south”
-Brevin Alexander Professor of History at Longwood University

“The tariff issue...exacerbated sectional tensions”
-James McPherson Battle cry of Freedom

Agrarian South vs Industrial North

“Ours is an agricultural people, and God grant that we may continue so. We never want to see it otherwise. It is the freest, happiest, most independent , and, with us, the most powerful condition on earth”
-Montgomery Daily Confederation 1858

“It has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system.”
-Mississippi Declaration for Causes of Secession

A cause of the war, and some would say the major cause for prominent interest groups. Is northern industrialist vs southern agrarians. The Souths primarily agrarian and agricultural lifestyle and the contrasted growing northern industrial, urban, lifestyle, led to difference of opinion on culture, education, religion, role of government, tariffs, trade policies, internal improvements and many other differences. There were as many factories in the north, as there were factories workers in the south. From Americans agrarian roots the south had “little dynamic change, weather through immigration, the growth of new cities or new industrial manufacturing, was allowed to come in and stir up the pot.”

“Leisure orientated agrarian society is the antithesis to materialistic northern life”
-Rapheal Semmes CSA navy commander

“1850's southern agrarians had mounted a counter attack against the gospel of industrialization”
-James McPherson Battle cry of freedom

As argued in the book “I'll Take my Stand the south and the agrarian tradition.” The main cause of the war was the fight over western territories coming into the union. Before the civil war northern big business and industry needed industrial workers for factories for expansion, not farmers and planters. If these states were allowed to decide on their own slave or free, than the south might maintain agrarian, free trade, policies. If they were to all become free, than northern industrialist would dominate congress and high tariffs, internal improvements would rise. Both the industrialist and the southern planters backed politicians in the fight over western territories. Northern politicians thought slavery “Stifled technological progress, inhibited industrialization, and thwarted urbanization” and would lead to the “Destruction of all industry” Something had to happen.

“The game plan of northern industrialist, who were fighting not for black freedom, but for the freedom to exploit and devolve the American market...The only people who could say “free at last” after the civil war were northern industrialist and their allies”
-Lerone Vennett JR Forced into Glory Abraham Lincolns White Dream

The freeing of the slaves was “Only an accident in the violent clash of interests between the Industrial north and the Agricultural south”
-African American Ralph Bunche

The industrialist “Hired” politicians to go anti-slavery and pro industrial expansion, fighting hard for western states to go anti slavery. The south wanted agrarian lifestyle, free trade, and states to decide on slavery. So as was said “The south had to be crushed out, it was in the way, it impeded the progress of the machine” if slavery could be abolished, than southern agrarian representation in congress would be reduced. Northern general Sherman said the civil war was a war between agriculturalist vs mechanics. Confederate General Jubal Early said Lees army was defeated by “Steam power, railroads, mechanism, and all the resources of physical science”

“Great pains have been taken, by the North, to make it appear to the world, that the war was a sort of moral, and religious crusade against slavery. Such was not the fact. The people of the North were, indeed, opposed to slavery, but merely because they thought it stood in the way of their struggle for empire”
-Raphael Semmes 1868

“They are now divided, between agricultural–and manufacturing, and commercial States; between slaveholding and non-slaveholding States. Their institutions and industrial pursuits, have made them, totally different peoples.”
-Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding States Convention of South Carolina 1860

The fight over agrarian vs industrial also led to a fight over tariffs. For example The agrarian south opposed high tariffs, but that is how internal improvements were founded for the industrial north. “The more the north became industrialized, the more the need arose for stronger national government to support its growth and finical interests.” The industrialist wanted higher tariffs as well to slow the flow of trade on the Mississippi. They instead wanted trade to flow west through rail supported by higher tariffs and internal improvements.

“Theodore Weld declared that the South had to be wiped out because it is “the foe to Northern industry—to our mines, our manufactures, our commerce.”
-Clyde Wilson Professor of History at the University of South Carolina

In the book Clash of Extremes: The Economic Origins of the Civil War by Marc Egnal he said “Economics more than high moral concerns produced the civil war.” The heart of the war was economical differences growing between the protectionist, manufacturing northeast and the free trade agrarian south. In the book I'll take my stand a book on southern agrarian life, the authors argue if no other differences, the war would have still happened over industrial vs agrarian interests. The industrialist won. After the war the north profit went up 45% the south down 15%.

“Military defeat moved the scepter of wealth from the agrarian south to the industrial north”
-Robert William Fogel The Rise and Fall of American Slavery

“If the North triumphs, it is not alone the destruction of our property; it is the prelude to anarchy,infidelity, the ultimate loss of free and responsible government on this continent. It is the triumph of commerce, the banks, factories. ”
-Confederate Gen. Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson

“Southern movement was a revolt of conservatism against the modernism of the north” a “Reaction to industry.”
-E Merton Coulter The Confederate States of America Louisiana State university press

Loss of Political Power

“The contest on the part of the north was for supreme control, especially in relation to the fiscal action of the government.. on the other hand southern states, struggling for equality, and seeking to maintain equilibrium in government”
-Rose Oneal Greehow My Improvement and the first year of Abolition rule in Washington 1863

“The majority section may legislate imperiously and ruinously to the interests of the minority section not only without injury but to great benefit and advantage of their own section. In proof of this we need only refer to the fishing bounties, the monopoly of the coast navigation which is possessed almost exclusively by the Northern States and in one word the bounties to every employment of northern labor and capital such a government must in the nature of things and the universal principles of human nature and human conduct very soon lead as it has done to a grinding and degrading despotism.”
-Florida Declaration of Causes of Secession

“The Southern States, now stand exactly in the same position towards the Northern States, that the Colonies did towards Great Britain. The Northern States, having the majority in Congress, claim the same power of omnipotence in legislation as the British parliament. “The General Welfare,” is the only limit to the legislation of either; and the majority in Congress, as in the British parliament, are the sole judges of the expediency of the legislation, this “General Welfare” requires. Thus, the Government of the United States has become a consolidated Government; and the people of the Southern State, are compelled to meet the very despotism, their fathers threw off in the Revolution of 1776.” -Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding States Convention of South Carolina 1860

The very mature of the government was at stake in the fight over western territories. This political battle even turned to blood in Missouri/Kansas. The south was shown that even when unified, it could still be controlled by the growing urban population of the north and “mob rule” such as in the case with tariffs and the election of Lincoln. Both sides also saw the newer territories become states in the west as vital to control of congress. If these states were allowed to decide on their own slave or free, than the south might maintain agrarian, free trade, policies. If they were to all become free, than northern industrialist would dominate congress and High tariffs and internal improvements would rise.

“We had had experience of the fact, that our partner-States of the North, who were in a majority, had trampled upon the rights of the Southern minority, and we desired, as the only remedy, to dissolve the partnership......liberty is always destroyed by the multitude, in the name of liberty. Majorities within the limits of constitutional restraints are harmless, but the moment they lose sight of these restraints, the many-headed monster becomes more tyrannical, than the tyrant with a single head; numbers harden its conscience, and embolden it, in the perpetration of crime. And when this majority, in a free government, becomes a faction, or, in other words, represents certain classes and interests to the detriment of other classes, and interests, farewell to public liberty; the people must either become enslaved, or there must be a disruption of the government. ”
-Confederate Admiral Raphael Semmes 1868

Between 1800-1850 the House was controlled by the north but the south could block anything from the north in the senate. However with the edition of states like Minnesota 1858 Oregon 1859 and Kansas 1861 for the first time the north controlled the senate. Lincoln said he would not allow any more slave states into the union [Southerns felt a excuse for northern political dominance of both house and senate for his wanted major tariff increases] The south had seen their political power over tariffs in recent decades decline, and now saw the attack on slavery into new territories as a attack on the whole economic system of the south by the majority or mob of the north. The south saw the loss of political power, economic power and rights granted by the constitution under threat from the majority north. a Georgian sated “we are either slaves in the union or free men out of it”

“Nothing but increasingly galling economical exploitation by the dominate sector and the rapid reduction of the south to political impotence”
-Robert William Fogel The Rise and Fall of American Slavery

“Equality and safety in the union are at an end”
-Howell Cobb of Georgia 1860

“The South's concept of republicanism had not changed in three-quarters of a century; the North's had. With complete sincerity the South fought to preserve its version of the republic of the Founding Fathers--a government of limited powers that protected the rights of property, including slave property, and whose constituency comprised an independent gentry and yeomanry of the white race undisturbed by large cities, heartless factories, restless free workers, and class conflict. The accession of the Republican party, with its ideology of competitive, egalitarian, free-labor capitalism, was a signal to the South that the Northern majority had turned irrevocably toward this frightening future."
-James M. McPherson Ante-bellum Southern Exceptionalism


Two Separate Cultures “Yankees” and American

“Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain “
-South Carolina Secession Document

“The best definition ever given. It was a war of one form of society against another form of society”
-Historian Shelby Fotte

“If their was not a slave from Aroostock to the sabine, the north and the south could never permanent agree”
-Richmond Daily Whig April 23, 1862

“The Southern people...maintained a species of separate interests, history, and prejudices. These latter became stronger and stronger, till they have led to a war which has developed the fruits of the bitterest kind.”
-General Sherman to Union Maj. R.M. Sawyer 1864


The divide between the two sides was much deeper than most today realize. The north and south started growing apart from each other socially, religiously, economically and politically. At times both would refer to each other as a separate race of people usually northern Anglo saxson and southern scotch-Irish. These divides went back to early America. At this time there was not much love north for south or south for north. In some ways the war started politically with the federalist/anti-federalist and the nationalist and compact theorist in the late 1700's. The south being largely anti-federalist/ compact and the north federalist/nationalist . In fact these differences were predicted to lead to the civil war back in 1824. A Congressional committee on northern interference in the south stated

“The hour is coming or is rabidly approaching, when the states from Virginia to Georgia, from Missouri to Louisianan, must confederate, and as one man say to the union we will no longer submit our retained rights to the sniveling insinuations of bad men on the floor of congress. Our constitutional rights to the dark and strained contraction of design men upon judicial benches. That we detest the doctrine, and disclaim the principle, of unlimited submission to the general [Federal] government.... Let the North, then, form national roads for themselves. Let them guard with tariffs their own interests. Let them deepen their public debt until a high minded aristocracy shall rise out of it. We want none of all those blessings. But in the simplicity of the patriarchal government, we would still remain master and servant under our own vine and our own fig-tree, and confide for safety upon Him who of old time looked down upon this state of things without wrath.”

“Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the States, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail.”
-South Carolina Senator John Calhoun 1831

“Not over slavery but centralization and local sovereign government going back 70 years to federalist and anti federalist...they[ The south] quit the union to save the principles of the constitution"
- Alexander Hamilton Stephens A constitutional view of the late war between the states: its causes 1870

The cultures were separating as well. The south was generally conservative in cultural and religion compared to the north. The north was being transformed by large number of European immigrants who often came from the failed socialist revolutions of 1848. The north was also increasingly influenced by New England. Before the 1850's new england was seen as out of the american mainstream and “southern” was the American mainstream. 9 of the first 11 presidents were southern plantation owners, 7 of the first 12 were Virginians [many two term] 9 were southern, and 1 from New York, at that time was “southern” in politics. Washington, jeferson, Jackson were the norm in America. After the war of 1812 New England was often seen with disdain by the rest of America.

“There is at work in this land a Yankee spirit and an American spirit”
James Thornwell 1859

New Englander's settled in western States and New York. New York became half populated by decedents from New England. Once new England could control half the north, the south was taken care of after the war, and new england was no longer outside mainstream, but know the south was out of the mainstream and the problem that needed to be fixed.

“The north changed radically after the founders of the united states, especially in the 1850's”
-Dr. Clyde Wilson Professor of History University of South Carolina

“Southern society has never generated any of the loathsome isms, which northern soil breeds...the north has its Mormons, her various sects of Communists, her free lovers, her spiritualists, and a multitude of corrupt visoniaries”
-R.L Dabney A defense of Virginia and the South 1867

“It was a profound conservative movement. It was in fact a counterrevolution against the excess of northern demagoguery, mob rule, and dangerous fanaticism imported from Europe”
-E. merton Coulter The confederate States of America Louisiana State University Press


“The central issue in the civil war, to which all other questions including slavery and centralization were subordinate, was the movement of American society into modernization. Modernization among other things, implies economic, political, and cultural centralization and nationalism. To modernization the south provided a formidable obstacle”
-Clyde Wilson From Union to Empire

Northern Violations of the Constitution

“The one great evil, from which all other evils have flowed, is the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States. The Government of the United States is no longer the government of Confederated Republics, but of a consolidated Democracy. It is, in face such a Government as Great Britain attempted to set over our Fathers; and which was resisted and defeated by a seven years’ struggle for independence. The Revolution of 1776, turned upon one great principle, self-government, –and self-taxation, the criterion of self-government. Where the interests of two people united together under one Government, are different, each must have the power to protect its interests by the organization of the Government, or they cannot be free....The great object of the Constitution of the United States, in its internal operation, was, doubtless, to secure the great end of the Revolution — –a limited free Government– — a Government limited to those matters only, which were general and common to all portions of the United States. All sectional or local interests were to be left to the States. By no other arrangement, would they obtain free Government, by a Constitution common to so vast a Confederacy. Yet by gradual and steady encroachments on the part of the people of the North, and acquiescence on the part of the South, the limitations in the Constitution have been swept away; and the Government of the United States has become consolidated, with a claim of limitless powers in its operations. ”
-Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding States Convention of South Carolina 1860

“announce a revolution in the government and to substitute an aggregate popular majority for the written constitution without which no single state would have voted its adoption not forming in truth a federal union but a consolidated despotism that worst of despotisms that of an unrestricted sectional and hostile majority, we do not intend to be misunderstood, we do not controvert the right of a majority to govern within the grant of powers in the Constitution.
-Florida Declaration of causes of secession

“The north sought to convert a union of brotherhood and mutual benefit into a “nation” which they would dominate in their own interests”
-Clyde Wilson University of South Carolina Professor

“We are fighting for the god given rights of liberty and independence as handed down to us in the constitution by our fathers” -Confederate General John B Gordon to Pennsylvanian woman at York 1863

“I believe most solemley that it is for constitutional liberty”
-Confederate General Leonidas Polk June 22 1861 Reasons for Southern Secession

The south saw the north as violating the constitution in many ways. The south thought their liberties threatened by a growing northern majority and political influence. Had the constitution not been violated, and their rights maintained, there would have been no need to separate. The south saw the tariffs aimed at certain industry [southern export] as a violation of the constitution. They saw the north's attempt to use that money to benefit the Norths wanted internal improvements as another violation of the constitution. The federal government under the control of Lincoln sought to violate the 10th amendment and states rights by not allowing the western states to decide on slavery, instead the federal government would overpower the states, and violate the constitution to the benefit of northern polices. The south complained that many northern states the refusal to obey the fugitive slave laws were a violation of the constitution and recognizance of southern property.

“If the south did not protect itself against the north, its whole way of life would be destroyed”
-E Merton Coulter The Confederate States of America Louisiana State university Press

“Northern population was increasing, by immigration and other causes, in a greater ratio than the population of the South. By degrees, as the Northern States gained preponderance in the National Congress, self-interest taught their people to yield ready assent to any plausible advocacy of their right as a majority to govern the minority without control. They learned to listen with impatience to the suggestion of any constitutional impediment to the exercise of their will, and so utterly have the principles of the Constitution been corrupted in the Northern mind that, in the inaugural address delivered by President Lincoln in March last, he asserts as an axiom, which he plainly deems to be undeniable, of constitutional authority, that the theory of the Constitution requires that in all cases the majority shall govern; and in another memorable instance the same Chief Magistrate did not hesitate to liken the relations between a State and the United States to those which exist between a county and the State in which it is situated and by which it was created.”
-Jefferson Davis Message to Congress April 29, 1861 (Ratification of the CSA Constitution)

“South Carolina has twice called her people together in solemn Convention, to take into consideration, the aggressions and unconstitutional wrongs, perpetrated by the people of the North on the people of the South.” -Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding States Convention of South Carolina 1860


The Confederate Constitution

“Lincoln waged war in order to create a consolidated, centralized state or empire. The south seceded for numerous reasons, but perhaps the most important one was that it wanted no part in such a system”
-Thomas j Dilorenzo The Real Lincoln

“It was clear from the actions of the Montgomery convention that the goal of the new converts to secessionist was not to establish a slaveholders reactionary utopia. What they really wanted was to create the union as it had been before the rise of the new Republican party”
-Robert Divine T.H Bren George Fredrickson and R Williams America Past and Present

The original deep south cotton States that left the union acted as sovereign republics, it was called “calhouns states right running riot.” But would soon join in a confederacy with its temporary capital in Montgomery, Alabama. They joined and formed the Confederate constitution on March 11 1861. The CSA saw it as the original America constitution properly interpreted and clarified. Later CSA president Jeff Davis said “The constitution framed by our founders, is that of these confederate states.” It was formed after the original united states constitution with some slight alterations. By these alterations we can see some of the reasons that the south left the union.

“CS constitution emphasis on small government and states rights”
-Lochlainn Seabrook The Constitution Of The Confederate States Of America Explained A Clause By Clause Study Of The Souths Magna Carta

CSA State Sovereignty

“The CSA framers placed the government firmly under the heads of the states”
-Marshall L. Derosa Redeeming American Democracy Lessons from the Confederate Constitution

The CSA constitution limits central [ federal] power. The south thought to keep government weak and poor, so that states would do the majority of governing. Each state being sovereign had only one vote on the confederate constitution ratification regardless of population. A main change in the CSA constitution from the United states version of “we the people of the US in order to form a more perfect union.... CSA version reads “we the people of the confederate states, each state acting in its sovereign and independent character ...” The confederacy formed a decentralized government. The states had the right to recall powers delegated [ not granted] to congress. In the CSA 10th amendment In uncertainties in ruling between states and CSA government, the states would override the federal government. All power to amend the Constitution was taken out of congress and given to the states. “centralization and its corrupting influence were held in check.”

“The CSA congress can have no such power over states officers. The state governments are an essential part of the political system, upon the separate and independent sovereignty of the states the foundation of the confederacy”
-1864 Virginia supreme Court Case

Some USA federal court cases were moved to the states in the CSA version. Confederate officials working only in a state are subject to impeachment by that state. The Confederate states also gain the power to make river-related treaties with each other. In the US, the federal government regulates bodies of water that overlap multiple states. CSA had Fewer members of congress. The states of the CSA had the right to coin money. The confederates had the idea that the country capital would not be permanent [ Even Richmond the second capital was never suppose to be I entered this revolutionpermanent] but float from state to state to avoid centralizing power. The CSA Presidents could not be reelected, not wanting politicians to say what was needed for reelection. Later during the war President Jeff Davis complained that he did not have the control like Lincoln to fight the war, because of local and states rights.

“The confederacy was founded upon decentralization”
-Ken Burns The Civil War PBS documentary

CSA Weak Federal Government and Fiscal Responsibility

The CSA constitution removed the term “general welfare” from the US preamble as they felt it was misused by Lincoln and earlier whigs to say the federal government had powers for internal improvements.“The confederacy was founded on the proposition that the central government should stay out of its citizens pockets.” The CSA allowed for fair trade, had uniform tax code and restricted ominous bills. No corporate bailouts, or government subsides. The post office must be self sufficient within two years. The CSA President had line item veto on spending, No cost overrun contracts were allowed. Congress could not foster any one branch of industry.

[1stvermont]

Slavery's Impact on the Cotton States

“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery”
-Mississippi Declaration for Causes of secession

“The prohibition of slavery in the Territories is the cardinal principle of this organization.”
-Georgia Secession Document

Slavery had varying degrees of influence on the deep south reasons for secession, from none at all, to the main reason. No question there were some in the south that were willing to leave the union simply to keep slavery. The south thought slavery was a constitutional, biblical, and state right. The south viewed slaves as any other legal property the federal could not interfere with. If they tried to do so, it was tyrannical. In the cotton states they had more financial gain and loss riding on slavery and were more apt to maintain slavery and their economy. No better example than Mississippi who very much seems to have left the union for the protection of their economic system of slavery. With 4 billion dollars worth of value and the whole economic system of the state dependent on slavery, they wished to defend their economic system that had brought them so much wealth. However even in Mississippi, slavery was not the sole cause.

“Let not slavery prove a barrier to our independence...although slavery is one of the principles that we started to fight for... if it proves an insurmountable obstacle to the achievement of our liberty and separate nationality, away with it”
-The Jackson Mississippian 1864 quoted in McPherson's Battle cry of Freedom p 833

Western States Free or Slave? Slavery was not the Cause but the Occasion/ States Rights

“Slavery is no more the cause of this war than gold is the cause of robbery”
-Joel Parker 1863 New jersey Governor

“Slavery, although the occasion, was not the producing cause of dissolution”
-Rose Oneal Greehow- My improvement and the first year of abolition Rule in Washington 1863

“The war was not a war of slavery versus freedom, it was a war between those who preferred a federated nation to those who preferred a confederation of sovereign states. Slavery was the ink thrown into the pool to confuse the issue”
-Andrew Nelson lytle the Virginia Quarterly Review 1931

“The struggle over the expansion of slavery into the territories....was almost a purely political issue”
-Robert William Fogel The rise and Fall of American Slavery

The major impact slavery had on the war and what some north and south would have said the war was over is the extension of slavery into the new western territories. This has led some to falsely conclude the deep south left the union only to maintain slavery.

“The people who say slavery had nothing to do with the war are just as wrong as the people who say slavery had everything to do with the war”
-Historian Shelby Foote

Slavery's involvement in southern secession is often overstated because slavery was the “occasion” to witch the fight over states rights was fought. Just as Calhoun had said of the tariff of abomination was “The occasion, rather than the real cause” that cause was federal power expansion. The deep south saw the republicans as violating the 9th and 10th amendment – and Dred Scott v. Sandford 1857 Supreme Court ruling for trying to decide the fate of slavery by federal control rather than state. The Democratic plank 9 of the 1852 elections [and carried on to 1860] plainly stated that a attack on slavery was a attack on states rights, the two issues could not be separated.

That Congress has no power under the constitution to interfere with or control the domestic institutions of the several States, and that such States are the sole and proper judges of everything appertaining to their own affairs not prohibited by the constitution; that all efforts of the abolitionists or others made to induce Congress to interfere with questions of slavery, or to take incipient steps in relation thereto, are calculated to lead to the most alarming and dangerous consequences; and that all such efforts have an inevitable tendency to diminish the happiness of the people and endanger the stability and permanency of the Union, and ought not to be countenanced by any friend of our political institutions.
-Democrat plank 9

That the federal government is one of limited powers, derived solely from the constitution, and the grants of power made therein ought to be strictly construed by all the departments and agents of the government; and that it is inexpedient and dangerous to exercise doubtful constitutional powers.
Democratic Plank 1

“slavery was not the cause, but the occasion of strife...Rights of the states were the bulwarks of the liberties of the people but that emancipation by federal aggression would lead to the destruction of all other rights”
-R.L Dabney A Defense Of Virginia And The South 1867

It would be hard to accept that southerners were willing to leave the country they loved and fight a war simply to have slavery extended into new territories where it would simply provide more competition to southern slave states domination on cotton. In 1843 many rich southern planters and no less than Calhoun voted against Texas for statehood because they said it would reduce the price of cotton. Instead they would want a monopoly within the south where they lived. By leaving the union the south was giving up federal protection for there runaway slaves under the fugitive slave laws, as well as giving up there right to bring there slaves into the united states territories something they fought so hard for. Because the issue was much deeper as it involved states rights, constitutional protection, and the nature of the union.

“The conflict over the extension of slavery was a contest of political power between the north and the south which had grown steadily apart in economics, religion, customs, values, and ways of life...”
-Clyde Wilson professor at university of South Carolina

“After the bombardment of ft Sumter...patriots signed up to fight for states rights or union”
-John Cannon The Wilderness Campaign Combined Books PA

The war was fought to “Preserve the sovereignty of their respective States.”
-Raphael Semmes Confederate Admiral 1868

The fight over new western territories was also a battle over the very nature of the federal government. The republicans and Lincoln said they would not allow new states, the rights granted in the constitution. Were these states coming into the union allowed their state sovereignty and states rights as had all previous states, or was the federal government allowed to violate those rights and dictate the states? Where states sovereign or subject to a federal master? Thomas Jefferson commenting on federal intrusion in the Missouri compromise stated “ this certainly is the exclusive right of every state, which nothing in the constitution has taken from them and given to the general government. could congress, for example say that the Non-freemen of Connecticut, shall be freemen, or that they shall not emigrate into any other state? What the south asked for was that these new states coming in be allowed on their own to chose.

“That when the settlers in a Territory, having an adequate population, form a State Constitution, the right of sovereignty commences, and being consummated by admission into the Union, they stand on an equal footing with the people of other States, and the State thus organized ought to be admitted into the Federal Union, whether its Constitution prohibits or recognizes the institution of slavery.”
-Southern Democrat Party Platform 1860

“It is not slavery that [Thomas] Jefferson fears as “the death kneel of the union” it is antislavery, the notion that has been raised for the first time that congress could tamper with the institutions of new states as a condition for admission”
-Clyde Wilson from Union to Empire

“The south saw the attack on the issue of slavery not so much as an attempt to end slavery in the united states as much as an attempt to end southern influence in the national government”
-Walter D Kennedy Myths of American slavery

This political battle even turned to blood in Missouri/Kansas. Republicans backed by the industrialist pushed for western territories to be free. If these states were free they would than industrialize and want rail laid to connect these distant lands to the east. They would support high tariffs and internal improvements and give the north more political power. Yet if these states were allowed to decide on their own slave or free, than the south might maintain agrarian, free trade, policies. British historian Marc Egnal said the fight over the extension of slavery was “more on economical policy” But of more concern to many in the south was that of states rights.

“When the Government of the United States disregarded and attempted to trample upon the rights of the States, Georgia set its power at defiance and seceded from the Union rather than submit to the consolidation of all power in the hands of the Central or Federal Government..her sovereignty the principles for the support of which Georgia entered into this revolution.
-Georgia Governor Joseph E Brown 1862

“The war was at first was not about slavery, but was a struggle over the limits of states rights and the powers of the government in washington”
-David G Martin PHD in History from Princeton University

SC secession document
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

South Carolina was the first state to seceded from the union, It being a deep south “cotton state” gives the reasons for secession. If read in full it gives a good example of slavery as a states rights issue. Slavery was an occasion that states rights were fought over, not the sole cause. The cause of dissolving the union is given right off the bat “Declared that the frequent violations of the constitution by the united sates, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union.” The document is a states rights succession document. The writers of the document wanted that to stand out, that is why the first thing noticed at a glance of the document you will see “FREE AND INDEPENDANT STATES” capitalized three times in the document to stand out. South Carolina was also letting it be known in their declaration of Independence, that it was “FREE AND INDEPANDANT STATES” and state rights, that they were declaring independence. The document goes into the history of states rights in America mentions the failure of the federal government in upholding the constitution and its interfering with states rights. South Carolina said if they were to stay in the union the “constitution will then no longer exists, equal rights of the states will be lost” and that the federal government would become its enemy. While slavery is mentioned four or five times, states rights, independent state, and state sovereignty is mentioned sixteen times. States rights are mentioned not in connection with slavery, yet slavery is always mentioned in connection with states rights. Just as southern democrats had been saying for decades in there political party planks, an attack on slavery was an attack on states rights. Just as South Carolina when it first threatened to success was over states rights, that time [1830's] over tariffs, not slavery.

“The bottom line, slavery was a issue but not an absolute cause”
-John C Perry Myths and realities of American Slavery

“States rights dogma...produced secession and the confederacy”
-E Merton Coulter The Confederate States of America Louisiana State University press

States rights were so important to southerners it became a name, a Brigade general in the confederate army's name was “States Rights Gist.” The town Phillippi Virginia, was named after states rights advocate Supreme court justice Phillip Pendleton Barbour. In the 1820's Georgia armed solders against the federal government over states rights regarding land in Georgia [non slavery issues] and president Adams backed down. States rights was originally used by southerners rejecting federal tariff in the 1830's. The song titled “Bonnie blue flag” some say was more popular than Dixie at the time of the civil war, in it the lyrics speak of southern rights being threatened by northern treachery. The original southern secession movement in the 1820's-30's by founders like Jefferson, Madison, Charles Pickney, John Randalf

“Gained strength not on the question of slavery. But on constitutional questions....expansion of federal power and over states rights”
-Robert Wiliima Fogel The Rise and Fall of American Slavery


Most important, southerners knew consolidation of power in a central government would be Americas worst nightmare and the destruction of republican government.

"The greatest [calamity] which could befall [us would be] submission to a government of unlimited powers." --Thomas Jefferson

[states rights] “was the fundamental issue of the most bloody war in which Americans were involved”
-Clyde Wilson Nullification Reclaiming Consent of the Governed

Abolitionist Ignored the Constitution to try and Abolish Slavery

“By focusing upon slavery, the bona fide story of the death of real states rights and the beginning of imperial america is overlooked...we stand naked before the awesome power to our federal master”
-Al Benson Jr and Walter Kennedy Lincolns Marxists

The north was by and large for keeping the original continual republic of America from its foundation. However some were influenced by various abolitionist works of fiction like Uncle Toms cabin. Because of this They came to view southern slavery as a great moral evil and a biblical sin. Slavery was a vast enough evil in there eyes that the constitution, and state sovereignty had to be overlooked. Speaking of the constitution a famous abolitionist said

“Covenant with death and an agreement with hell”
-William Lloyd Garrison

The sinful slave owning south had to end. The north was also more influenced by the federalist party, with a more centralized view of government. The south who had first hand knowledge of American servitude saw the vast majority as being beneficial to the native African, elevating his position from slavery in Africa. They saw the slaves well treated and cared for. The majority did not see slavery as a great morale evil or a biblical sin. They viewed the northern abolitionist movement more from a political viewpoint.

“ When abolition overthrow slavery in the south, it also would equally overthrow the constitution”
-R.L Dabney 1867 A Defense of Virginia and the South


Fight to Maintain Slavery? Or put Down Arms to Maintain Slavery?

“As for the South, it is enough to say that perhaps eighty per cent. of her armies were neither slave-holders, nor had the remotest interest in the institution. No other proof, however, is needed than the undeniable fact that at any period of the war from its beginning to near its close the South could have saved slavery by simply laying down its arms and returning to the Union.”
-Confederate Major General John B. Gordon Causes of the Civil War

If the south fought only for slavery, with no connection to states rights, it only had to not fight the war. Slavery was protected and not under attack by Lincoln in the states it already existed. At any time as Lincoln promised, the south just had to lay down arms and come back into the union with slavery intact, yet they chose to fight for another cause.

“The emancipation proclamation was actually an offer permitting the south to stop fighting and return to the union by January 1st and still keep its slaves”
-John Canaan The Peninsula campaign

“We were not fighting for the perpetuation of slavery, but for the principle of States Rights and Free Trade, and in defense of our homes which were being ruthlessly invaded.” -Moses Jacob Ezekiel

Virginia alone freed more slaves prior to civil war than NY, NJ, Pennsylvania,and New England put together. South Carolinian Mary Chestnut said slavery was a curse, yet she supported secession. She and others hoped the war would end with a “Great independent country with no slavery.” On June 1861 Mary Chestnut said “Slavery has got to go of course.”

[1stvermont]

At jmdrake


The Upper South

“Upper south, which had cried equally against coercion as succession”
-E Merton Coulter The Confederate States of America Louisiana State university Press

There were really two major successions from the union. The original seven “Cotton states” [AL, MS,TX,SC,FL,GA,LA] and later the upper south secession of [VA, NC, TENN, ARK, Pro south MO, KY]. The upper south states of VA,NC,Tenn and Ark alone had a larger free population than the deep south representing the majority. There was a difference in general between the The original seven seceding “cotton states” of the deep south, and of the remaining upper southern states. When historians and textbooks talk of the reasons for secession, they almost unanimous point to the cotton states and sadly, the upper south is almost always unrepresented.

“The states of the deep south might have left the union because of slavery, but the upper south...did not...Lincoln waged war in order to create a consolidated, centralized state or empire. The south seceded for numerous reasons, but perhaps the most important one was that it wanted no part in such a system”
-Thomas j Dilorenzo The Real Lincoln

Lincolns Call For Volunteers/ Self Government/ State Sovereignty

“The South maintained with the depth of religious conviction that the Union formed under the Constitution was a Union of consent and not of force; that the original States were not the creatures but the creators of the Union; that these States had gained their independence, their freedom, and their sovereignty from the mother country, and had not surrendered these on entering the Union; that by the express terms of the Constitution all rights and powers not delegated were reserved to the States; and the South challenged the North to find one trace of authority in that Constitution for invading and coercing a sovereign State.-the one for liberty in the union of the States, the other for liberty in the independence of the States.”
-John B Gordon Confederate General Reminiscences of the Civil War

The single most important event that caused the upper south to join the confederacy was Lincolns call for volunteers to “suppress” the seven cotton states of the confederacy. Lincoln spoke loud by his actions when he called for volunteers to invade the confederacy of the deep south. His opinion was not that America was a collection of sovereign self governing States joined in a voluntary union by a constitution, but a centralized nation or empire. He made it very clear the deep south could not self govern themselves but were subject to their master the federal government. Lincoln in his inaugural address stated the union created the states, not the states ratifying the union [a very blatant rewrite of history] thus the power and authority lay with the federal government.

“Northern States of a political school which has persistently claimed that the government thus formed was not a compact between States, but was in effect a national government, set up above and over the States...The creature has been exalted above its creators; the principals have been made subordinate to the agent appointed by themselves.”
-Jefferson Davis Message to confederate Congress April 29, 1861

The upper south and many in the north for example saw Lincolns call for volunteers against the cotton states as a major violation of the constitution, a violation of those states sovereignty and a main cause for secession. For example

“opposing secession changes the nature of government from a voluntary one, in which the people are sovereigns, to a despotism were one part of the people are slaves”
-New York Journal of commerce 1/12/61

“The great principles embodied by Jefferson in the declaration is... that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed” Therefore if the southern states wish to secede, “they have a clear right to do so”
-New York tribune 2/5/61

Secession is “the very germ of liberty...the right of secession inheres to the people of every sovereign state”
-Kenosha Wisconsin Democrat 1/11/61

“the leading and most influncial papers of the union believe that any state of the union has a right to secede”
-Davenport Iowa Democrat and news 11/17/60

The southern states and most in the north saw themselves as a collection of sovereign states joined by a contract [The constitution] and if that contract was violated or not upheld, it could and should be discarded. When the southern states felt there contract was violated by the federal government, they felt they had every right to leave. Most both north and south felt no war would come from what was seen by many as a legal right to secession by sovereign states. To the upper south this was a war of self government of sovereign states vs a federal government that was willing to use military force to control its populous by forcing the states to stay in the union. We would no longer be a self governing populous and collection of states, but a nation controlled by a powerful centralized federal government.

"What we call liberty our founders called bondage...we have not freed the slaves we have extended the plantation, know, we are all slaves"
-Peter Marshall JR The Great War Debate

The war “Destroyed voluntary union of the founders and mad all Americans servants rather than masters of their own government”
-Thomas Dilorenzo author of The Real Lincoln and Lincoln Unmasked

This also confirmed many southerners fear that Lincoln and the “radical” republicans would drastically transform the American republic. This is why many in the south saw the American civil war as their second war for independence.

“Southerners would have told you they were fighting for self government. They believed the gathering of power in Washington was against them… When they entered into that Federation they certainly would never have entered into it if they hadn’t believed it would be possible to get out. And when the time came that they wanted to get out, they thought they had every right”
-Historian Shelby Foote

Some in the north recognized that this war was one of self governing states vs a controlling central federal government. Before being deported by Lincoln, A northern politician saw Lincolns war and purpose of the war as to

“Overthrow the present form of Federal-republican government, and to establish a strong centralized government in its stead...national banks, bankrupt laws, a vast and permanent public debt, high tariffs, heavy direct taxation, enormous expenditure, gigantic and stupendous peculation . . . No more state lines, no more state governments,but a consolidated monarchy or vast centralized military despotism.” later saying “instead of crushing out the rebellion,” the “effort has been to crush out the spirit of liberty” in the Northern states.
-Northern Congressman Clement L. Vallandigham D-Ohio spoke of the Reason for Lincolns war 1863

Each of the upper south states made it clear by their actions and words that Lincolns call for volunteers, state sovereignty, and self government, were the major cause of secession. Slavery was at this time equally protected weather these states joined the union, or the confederacy, in fact as we will see later, more so had they joined the north.

“The Majority sentiment in the upper south had been unionist until Lincolns call for troops”
-E. merton Coulter The confederate States of America Louisiana State University Press

Arkansas Declaration

“[upper south]Forced to chose between Lincolns demand and what they believed to be morally correct and Honorable..seceded as well”
-Brevin Alexander Historian Professor of History at Longwood University

“This convention pledging the State of Arkansas to resist to the last extremity any attempt on the part of such power to coerce any State that had seceded from the old Union, proclaimed to the world that war should be waged against such States until they should be compelled to submit to their rule, and large forces to accomplish this have by this same power been called out, and are now being marshaled to carry out this inhuman design; and to longer submit to such rule, or remain in the old Union of the United States, would be disgraceful and ruinous to the State of Arkansas”

“The people of this commonwealth are free men not slaves, and will defend to the last extremity, their honor, lives, and property, against northern mendacity and usurpation”
-Arkansas Governor Henry Rector Response to Lincolns call for Volunteers

Before Lincolns call for volunteers the people of Arkansas voted to stay in the union by a vote of 23,600 to 17,900. Than on March 4 1861 the Arkansas convention voted 40-35 to stay in the union with the president of the convention a unionist. On May 6th 1861 After Fort Sumtner and Lincolns call for men, Arkansas regathered this time only 5 votes went against secession, 4 of them would relent and join in succession in a short time. The before and after votes, as well as the Arkansas declaration for secession give the clear reasons for joining the confederacy.

Tennessee

“Tennessee will not Furnish a man for purposes of coercion, but 50,000 if necessary for the defense of our rights, and those of our southern brothers”
-Tennessee Governor Isham Harris Response to Lincoln Calling on Tennessee for aid to Suppress the Rebellion in the Cotton States

On February the 9th the same day that Mississippi left the union, Tennessee voters turned down secession by a 4-1 margin. However after Lincolns call to volunteers Governor Isham Harris wrote President Lincoln saying if the federal government was going to “coerce” the seceded states into returning, Tennessee had no choice but to join its Southern neighbors. Harris recalled the Tennessee legislature on May 6 for another vote this time to join the confederacy. Than on June 8 voters approved the measure by a 2-1 margin.

Virginia

“The principle now in contest between north and south is simply that of state sovereignty”
Richmond Examiner Sep 11 1862

“A union that can be only maintained by swords and bayonets... has no charm for me”
-Robert E Lee

Before Lincolns call for volunteers with slavery equally safe in the north or south, the slave state of Virginia on April 4th 1861 voted by a 2-1 margin to stay in the union. After Lincolns call for volunteers Virginia gathered again and by a vote of 126,000 to 20,400 Virginia left the union. In the minds of Virginians, that reason was Lincolns call to volunteers and the violation of state sovereignty. Virginia did not give a lengthy declaration of why it left the union [The voting showed already] just a short ordinance of secession.

“the Constitution of the United States has invested Congress with the sole power "to declare war," and until such declaration is made, the President has no authority to call for an extraordinary force to wage offensive war against any foreign Power: and whereas, on the 15th inst., the President of the United States, in plain violation of the Constitution, issued a proclamation calling for a force of seventy-five thousand men, to cause the laws of the United states to be duly executed over a people who are no longer a part of the Union, and in said proclamation threatens to exert this unusual force to compel obedience to his mandates; and whereas, the General Assembly of Virginia, by a majority approaching to entire unanimity, declared at its last session that the State of Virginia would consider such an exertion of force as a virtual declaration of war, to be resisted by all the power at the command of Virginia; and subsequently the Convention now in session, representing the sovereignty of this State, has reaffirmed in substance the same policy, with almost equal unanimity; and whereas, the State of Virginia deeply sympathizes with the Southern States in the wrongs they have suffered, and in the position they have assumed; and having made earnest efforts peaceably to compose the differences which have severed the Union, and having failed in that attempt, through this unwarranted act on the part of the President; and it is believed that the influences which operate to produce this proclamation against the seceded States will be brought to bear upon this commonwealth, if she should exercise her undoubted right to resume the powers granted by her people, and it is due to the honor of Virginia that an improper exercise of force against her people should be repelled. Therefore I, JOHN LETCHER, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, have thought proper to order all armed volunteer regiments or companies within this State forthwith to hold themselves in readiness for immediate orders, and upon the reception of this proclamation to report to the Adjutant-General of the State their organization and numbers, and prepare themselves for efficient service. Such companies as are not armed and equipped will report that fact, that they may be properly supplied.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the Commonwealth to be affixed, this 17th day of April, 1861, and in the eighty-fifth year of the Commonwealth.
Governor of Virginia JOHN LETCHER”.
http://www.nytimes.com/1861/04/22/n....s-norfolk.html

Virginia ordinance of secession “Declared that the powers granted under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression; and the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States” [Cotton States the original succession states]

“It was not for slavery that she [Virginia] deliberately resolved to draw the sword...but for this cornerstone [States Sovereignty] of all constitutional liberty north and south”
-R.L Dabney 1867 A Defense of Virginia and the South


Kentucky

Kentucky originally acted on its sovereignty and remained neutral, however events forced it to join the war. The official Kentucky government was pro north by about about a 3-1 margin but chose to keep its neutrality. However there was gaining support for the south When Lincoln called for volunteers. The Kentucky Governor wrote "President Lincoln, I will send not a man nor a dollar for the wicked purpose of subduing my sister southern states.” Later neutrality would be violated by southern troops and the state would join the union, however a pro south Kentucky government was set up and was accepted by Jeff Davis into the confederacy on December the 10th as the 13th confederate state. States rights was the main cause for the pro south Kentucky government reason for secession.

Kentucky Declaration For Leaving The Union

“Whereas, the Federal Constitution, which created the Government of the United States, was declared by the framers thereof to be the supreme law of the land, and was intended to limit and did expressly limit the powers of said Government to certain general specified purposes, and did expressly reserve to the States and people all other powers whatever, and the President and Congress have treated this supreme law of the Union with contempt and usurped to themselves the power to interfere with the rights and liberties of the States and the people against the expressed provisions of the Constitution, and have thus substituted for the highest forms of national liberty and constitutional government a central despotism founded upon the ignorant prejudices of the masses of Northern society, and instead of giving protection with the Constitution to the people of fifteen States of this Union have turned loose upon them the unrestrained and raging passions of mobs and fanatics, and because we now seek to hold our liberties, our property, our homes, and our families under the protection of the reserved powers of the States, have blockaded our ports, invaded our soil, and waged war upon our people for the purpose of subjugating us to their will; and Whereas, our honor and our duty to posterity demand that we shall not relinquish our own liberty and shall not abandon the right of our descendants and the world to the inestimable blessings of constitutional government: Therefore, .... because we may choose to take part in a cause for civil liberty and constitutional government against a sectional majority waging war against the people and institutions of fifteen independent States of the old Federal Union, and have done all these things deliberately against the warnings and vetoes of the Governor and the solemn remonstrances of the minority in the Senate and House of Representatives: Therefore, .....have a right to establish any government which to them may seem best adapted to the preservation of their rights and liberties.”

North Carolina

North Carolina will “Be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of the country, and to this war upon the liberties of a free people”
-North Carolina Governor John Ellis

Having previously turned down even voting on secession, North Carolina responded to Lincolns call for volunteers by than unanimously adopted a secession ordinance, showing the impact it had on the state.

“Lincoln has made a call for 75,000 men to be employed for the invasion of the peaceful homes of the South, and for the violent subversion of the liberties of a free people.. whereas, this high-handed act of tyrannical outrage is not only in violation of all constitutional law, in utter disregard of every sentiment of humanity and Christian civilization, and conceived in a spirit of aggression unparalleled by any act of recorded history, but is a direct step towards the subjugation of the whole South, and the conversion of a free Republic, inherited from our fathers, into a military despotism, to be established by worse than foreign enemies on the ruins of our once glorious Constitution of Equal Rights.Now, therefore, I, John W. Ellis, Governor of the State of North-Carolina, for these extraordinary causes, do hereby issue this, my Proclamation, notifying and requesting the Senators and Members of the House of Commons of the General Assembly of North-Carolina, to meet in Special Session at the Capitol, in the City of Raleigh, on Wednesday, the first day of May next. And I furthermore exhort all good citizens throughout the State to be mindful that their first allegiance is due to the Sovereignty which protects their homes and dearest interests, as their first sevice is due for the sacred defence of their hearths, and of the soil which holds the graves of our glorious dead.United action in defence of the sovereignty of North-Carolina and of the rights of the South, becomes now the duty of all.the 17th Day of April, A. D., 1861, and in the eight-fifth year of our independence.
JOHN W. ELLIS
http://www.learnnc.org/lp/multimedia/6542


Missouri

“Your requisition is illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman, diabolical, and cannot be complied with”
-Missouri Governor Jackson Response to Lincolns call for Volunteers

The slave state of Missouri was almost universally pro union. When the south sent delegates to try and convince the state to join the south, they were booed and jeered so that the CSA delegate could not even be heard. On March 21 1861 the Missouri convention voted 98-1 against secession, but in its sovereignty, kept its neutrality. Later many in the state became angry and felt their state sovereignty was violated during the “Camp Jackson Affair” with General Lyon capturing the arsenal in St Louis and when union soldiers opened fire on civilians and pro confederates killing dozens. Many felt the federal government was violating the states neutral position and support for secession grew rapid in the state. Lyon would than push the official Governor and state legislature out of Jefferson city.

“The events in St Louis pushed many conditional unionist into the ranks of secessionist”
-James McPherson Battle Cry of Freedom

This led to a end to neutrality and both a pro confederate and pro union government in the state. Missouri was accepted on November 28th as the 12th confederate state. Pro south Missouri reasons for secession, centered around constitutional violations of the Lincoln administration.

Missouri Declaration For leaving The Union

“Has wantonly violated the compact originally made between said Government and the State of Missouri, by invading with hostile armies the soil of the State, attacking and making prisoners the militia while legally assembled under the State laws, forcibly occupying the State capitol, and attempting through the instrumentality of domestic traitors to usurp the State government, seizing and destroying private property, and murdering with fiendish malignity peaceable citizens, men, women, and children, together with other acts of atrocity, indicating a deep-settled hostility toward the people of Missouri and their institutions; and Whereas the present Administration of the Government of the United States has utterly ignored the Constitution, subverted the Government as constructed and intended by its makers, and established a despotic and arbitrary power instead thereof: Now, therefore, Be it enacted by the general assembly of the State of Missouri, That all political ties of every character new existing between the Government of the United States of America and the people and government of the State of Missouri are hereby dissolved, and the State of Missouri, resuming the sovereignty granted by compact to the said United States upon admission of said State into the Federal Union, does again take its place as a free and independent republic amongst the nations of the earth.”

Preserving America Constitutional Republic

“The South's concept of republicanism had not changed in three-quarters of a century; the North's had. With complete sincerity the South fought to preserve its version of the republic of the Founding Fathers--a government of limited powers"
-James M. McPherson Ante-bellum Southern Exceptionalism

“The war was over the nature of the union”
-Clyde Wilson professor of History University of South Carolina

“State sovereignty died at Appomattox”
-Supreme Court Justice Salmon P Chase 1864-73

"All that the South has ever desired was the Union as established by our forefathers should be preserved and that the government as originally organized should be administered in purity and truth."
-Gen. Robert E. Lee Quoted in The enduring Relevance of Robert E Lee

Lincoln and the republican party had set out to transform the union from a confederation of sovereign states, to a centralized nation controlled by the federal government. Lincoln also sought to expand the central government far beyond the scope of what was intended by the founders. He was dedicated to higher tariffs, centralization, national bank, internal improvements, vast expansion of the central government, and an overall disregard for the 9th/10th amendments and state sovereignty.

“When the South raised its sword against the Union’s Flag, it was in defense of the Union’s Constitution.”
-Confederate General John B. Gordon

“Southerners persistently claim that their rebellion is for the purpose of preserving this form of government”
-Private John Harper 17 Maine regiment

It was commonly believed in the south, that it was the north that should secede. As Henry Wise of Virginia said “Logically the union belongs to those who have kept, not those who have broken, its covenants...the north should do the seceding for the south represented more truly the nation which the federal government had set up in 1789.” They saw the growing majority of the north interfering with their culture within their states and violating the constitution. They feared democracy would rule and mod rule would take over America. So they wished to restore America to its original Constitution republic of confederated states as originally created to safeguard individuals liberty from mob rule and democracy. As president pierce said in 1855 “the power is in states alone.”

“I love the Union and the Constitution, but I would rather leave the Union with the Constitution than remain in the Union without it.”
-Confederate President Jefferson Davis

“If centralism is ultimately to prevail; if our entire system of free Institutions as established by our common ancestors is to be subverted, and an Empire is to be established in their stead; if that is to be the last scene of the great tragic drama now being enacted: then, be assured, that we of the South will be acquitted, not only in our own consciences, but in the judgment of mankind, of all responsibility for so terrible a catastrophe, and from all guilt of so great a crime against humanity.”
-The Vice-President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens

“If they (the North) prevail, the whole character of the Government will be changed, and instead of a federal republic, the common agent of sovereign and independent States, we shall have a central despotism, with the notion of States forever abolished, deriving its powers from the will, and shaping its policy according to the wishes, of a numerical majority of the people; we shall have, in other words, a supreme, irresponsible democracy. The Government does not now recognize itself as an ordinance of God...They are now fighting the battle of despotism. They have put their Constitution under their feet; they have annulled its most sacred provisions; The future fortunes of our children, and of this continent, would then be determined by a tyranny which has no parallel in history.”
-Dr. James Henly Thornwell of South Carolina

“States are sovereign, there was a time when none denied it”
-Jefferson Davis Farewell speech to senate

“It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.”
-Confederate General Patrick Claiborne 1864


Slavery's Impact on the Upper South

“Secessionists were well aware that slavery was under no immediate threat within the Union. Indeed, some anti-secessionists, especially those with the largest investment in slave property, argued that slavery was safer under the Union than in a new experiment in government.”
-Clyde Wilson distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of South Carolina

“The condition of slavery in the several states would remain just the same weather it [the rebellion] succeeds or fails”
-Secretary Seward to US Ambassador to France

With slavery equally protected north or south and even more so in the north, the upper south states of VA, NC, TENN, ARK, KY, MO makes it hard to conclude slavery had much or anything to do with their reasons for leaving. When the original deep south states left the union, there were more slaves and more slave states remaining in the union, than within the newly formed confederacy. Most upper south state declarations did not even mention slavery or only in passing, and that usually associated with violations of states rights or the constitution. But they heavily spoke on states rights, states sovereignty and Lincolns call for volunteers as the reason for secession. Those states chose to stay with the union before Lincolns call for volunteers, that they saw as a massive violation of state sovereignty.

“So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interests of the South. So fully am I satisfied of this, as regards Virginia especially, that I would cheerfully have lost all I have lost by the war, and have suffered all I have suffered, to have this object attained.”
-Robert E Lee 1870

Slavery was Safer in the Union Than the Confederacy

“It was necessary to put the South at a moral disadvantage by transforming the contest from a war waged against states fighting for their Independence into a war waged against states fighting for the maintenance and extension of slavery…and the world, it might be hoped, would see it as a moral war, not a political; and the sympathy of nations would begin to run for the North, not for the South.”
-Woodrow Wilson, “A History of The American People”

“Howard county [MO] is true to the union” “our slaveholders think it is the sure bulwark of our slave property”
-Abeil Lenord Whig party leader at the onset of the war

Slavery in fact was safer in the union than had the confederacy been allowed to form. Slavery was in both the northern and southerner states for the entire civil war. It was constitutionally protected, Lincoln and the north supported the Corwin amendment that would have protected slavery forever in the the U.S constitution.

“No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof[ slavery], including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.”
-Corwin Amendment

The united states supreme court had ruled in favor of the fugitive slave laws and the use of federal agents to return runaway slaves to their masters. A confederacy would have no protection for runaways north. Slavery was as secure as it had ever been for those southern slave states. Lincoln and the north did not invade the south to end slavery. Lincoln had no problem with the upper south slave states in the union such as Virginia as he called for volunteers to attack the deep south to repress the rebellion [not slavery]. The 1860 republican platform plank 4 said slavery was a state issue and they would not interfere with slavery. Lincoln also said the states had the right to chose on slavery and he would not interfere with slavery.

“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere Untitled with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so”
-Abraham Lincoln Inaugural address

After the deep south left the union the federal government decided it would not end slavery in the house on Feb 1861 and senate march 2 1861. On July 22 1861 congress declared “This war is not waged , nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions [slavery] of those states.” October 8th 1861 the newspaper Washington D.C National Intelligence said “The existing war had no direct relation to slavery.”

“Seven-tenths of our people owned no slaves at all, and to say the least of it, felt no great and enduring enthusiasm for its [slavery’s] preservation, especially when it seemed to them that it was in no danger.’ ”
-John G. Barrett, The Civil War in North Carolina, p. 3

Fight to Maintain Slavery? Or put Down Arms to Maintain Slavery?

“As for the South, it is enough to say that perhaps eighty per cent. of her armies were neither slave-holders, nor had the remotest interest in the institution. No other proof, however, is needed than the undeniable fact that at any period of the war from its beginning to near its close the South could have saved slavery by simply laying down its arms and returning to the Union.”
-Confederate Major General John B. Gordon Causes of the Civil War

If the south fought only for slavery,it only had to not fight the war. Slavery was protected and not under attack by Lincoln in the states it already existed. At any time as Lincoln promised, the south just had to lay down arms and come back into the union with slavery intact, yet they chose to fight for another cause.

“The emancipation proclamation was actually an offer permitting the south to stop fighting and return to the union by January 1st and still keep its slaves”
-John Canaan The Peninsula campaign

“We were not fighting for the perpetuation of slavery, but for the principle of States Rights and Free Trade, and in defense of our homes which were being ruthlessly invaded.”
-Moses Jacob Ezekiel

Virginia alone freed more slaves prior to civil war than NY, NJ, Pennsylvania,and New England put together. South Carolinian Mary Chestnut said slavery was a curse, yet she supported secession. She and others hoped the war would end with a “Great independent country with no slavery.” On June 1861 Mary Chestnut said “Slavery has got to go of course.”

Jefferson Davis CSA President/ Abraham Lincoln USA President

“The North was mad and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came, and now it must go on unless you acknowledge our right to self government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence.”
-President Jefferson Davis, CSA

It is interesting that both the CSA and USA presidents would agree that the war was not over slavery. Yet today we are told slavery was the sole cause of the war. In Jefferson Davis's farewell address to the US congress, his inaugural address in Montgomery as confederate president and second inaugural in Richmond, he explained liberty, states rights, tariffs and the founders were the main reason for states leaving the union. Jefferson barley mention slavery and only in passing in just one of the three important speeches. The south was leaving because Davis said the north fell to simple majority [Democracy not constitutional republic] what Davis called the “Tyranny of unbridled majority.” Near the end of the war Jefferson Davis sent a diplomat to both France and England to try and convince them to recognize the confederacy offering the confederacy would abolish slavery, yet keep their country. Instead what we are told to focus on is not the CSA presidents important speeches, but a speech by vice president Stevens as the sole cause for southern secession. Few things Jeff Davis and Abraham Lincoln would agree upon, but one is the war was not over slavery.

“So long as I am president . It shall be carried on for the sole purpose of restoring the union”
-Abraham Lincoln Aug 15 1864

Europe's Opinion

“[T]he contest is really for empire on the side of the North, and for independence on that of the South, and in this respect we recognize an exact analogy between the North and the Government of George III, and the South and the Thirteen Revolted Provinces. These opinions…are the general opinions of the English nation.”
-London Times, November 7, 1861

“I saw in State Rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy.”
-British Lord Action Correspondence with Robert E Lee

The vast majority in Europe at the time of the civil war believed the war was not over slavery but either tariffs or states rights. In the book The glittering illusion: English sympathy for the Southern Confederacy
[http://www.amazon.com/Glittering-Ill...dp/0895265524]

its shows how the majority of lay people in England supported the confederacy and believed the war was not over slavery. Englishman Sir John Dalberacton convinced many in England to feel sympathy for the CSA because he said they were fighting a tyrannical government and defending states rights. English statesman Richard Cobden pointed out in December 1861, the British “are unani-mous and fanatical”; that subject was free trade.

Confederate Soldiers


The confederate solder “Fought because he was provoked, intimidated, and ultimately invaded”
-James Webb Born Fighting a History of the Scoth-Irish in America

“To tar the sacrifices of the Confederate soldier as simple acts of racism, and reduce the battle flag under which he fought to nothing more than the symbol of a racist heritage, is one of the great blasphemies of our modern age”.
-James Webb-Secretary of Navy And Assistant Secretary of Defense

To think the southern armies were full of non slave owning soldiers leaving their families and risking there lives so a few rich slave owners could keep there slaves is ridiculous. 80% of southern soldiers did not own slaves. In every major battle there were slave owning union soldiers fighting for the north, and non slave owning southern soldiers fighting for the south. In the book What They Fought For, 1861–1865 by James McPherson reported on his reading of hundreds of letters and diaries written by soldiers on both sides of the war on the question of what they believed they were fighting for. McPherson concluded that nearly all Confederate soldiers believed they “fought for liberty and independence from what they regarded as a tyrannical government.”As one Illinois officer explained, “We are fighting for the Union . . . a high and noble sentiment, but after all a sentiment. They are fighting for independence, and are animated by passion and hatred against invaders” “The letters and diaries of many Confederate soldiers bristled with the rhetoric of liberty and self-government and with expressions of a willingness to die for the cause.” An Alabamian solider wrote “When a Southerner homes is threatened the spirit of resistance is irresistible.”

“Southerners also fought for abstracts- state sovereignty, the right of secession, the constitution as they interpreted it, the concept of a southern nation different from the American nation whose values had been corrupted by Yankees”
-James McPherson Battle Cry of freedom

“The south was fighting for independence, the north to restore the union...young southerners rushed to arms to defend home and family while like their revolutionary grandfathers- seeking a new Independence ”
-James Robertson The Untold civil War Exploring The Human Side Of War National geographic

In The Confederate war by Gary W Gallagher he quotes multiple soldiers letters home as saying the reason they were fighting was because of what they saw as northern tyranny, oppression and northern invasion. In the book the common solider of the civil war, The average southern soldiers diaries and letters to home barley even mentioned slavery, much less as a reason for fighting. It was because they were defending their homes and families and country, a few said because of power of government. Thousands of Californians [non slave owning state] volunteered for the confederacy. New jersey supplied at least two confederate generals. The confederate soldiers flags mottos talked of liberty, justice, freedom, and god, not of slavery as reason to fight.

“Believe me no solider on either side gave a damn about slaves, they were fighting for other reasons entirely in their minds. Southerns thought they were fighting the second American revolution norther's thought they were fighting to hold the union together [With a few abolitionist and fire eaters on both sides].”
-Historian Shelby Foote

“I was fighting for my home, and he had no business being there”
-Virginia confederate Solider Frank Potts

[oyarde]

Kentucky was really never in play as people would like to believe . There were actually less anti war on the south politicians in Ky that there was in Indiana , Illinois and NY.

[oyarde]

Kentucky had nearly as many dead and mortally wounded in battle Northern serving troops ( 2478) as New Jersey ( 2578) .