We’re hot on the heels of the 150th anniversary of the secession of South “First in Treason” Carolina: December 20, 1860. You’ll hear a lot of apologists try to pretend that the Civil War was not about slavery. It was about federalism and limited government. This is demonstrably false. South Carolina was kind enough to follow the lead of Thomas Jefferson and state the reasons for taking up arms against the United States of America.
South Carolina was upset that the Northern States had been less than faithful in executing the Fugitive Slave Act – the law that said non-slave states had to help recover slaves who ran away. Got it? South Carolina was upset that states weren’t submitting to federal law. No state’s rights there. No limited government. They were upset that non-slave states weren’t helping them to preserve slavery.
The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia.
Secession was absolutely about slavery and anyone who says otherwise is lying or willfully ignorant.
“South Carolina is too small for a republic and too large for an insane asylum.” – James L. Petigru, South Carolina State Representative, 1860.
I love that quote – one of the best used in Ken Burns’ Civil War. And in terms of slavery in the US as related to history, I used to say to a friend (whose family is from North Carolina) that argued it was all states’ rights: “Look at the year 1609, at Jamestown – the first slave ship arrived in America. That preceded states’ rights.” I’ll give states’ rights arguers the argument that states’ rights was major, but I will always say the primary reason “states’ rights” even existed (and still exists as an argument) was because of slavery.
I’ve always compared the States’ Rights excuse to the idea that people who go to great lengths to excuse Nathan Bedford Forrest for the Ft. Pillow Massacre do so from a heartfelt concern over historical nuance.
Come to think of it, it’s often the same people.
Don’t you know, The Civil War was about tax cuts and Kenyan Presidents!
Sorry, I wanted to start writing “The History of the U.S. according to teabaggers.”
Slavery was indeed the driving force behind the Civil War. However, states rights issues also played a significant hand in it, as did the economy.
Due to the invention of the cotton gin solidifying the Southern economy’s dependence almost exclusively on the plantation system (and thereby slaves and an antiquated social order). Meanwhile the North became industrialized (and thereby more inclined to a progressive city-oriented social order), producing finished goods from the raw resources of Southern mines and plantations. With the polarization of economic and social orders of North and South, and with the North’s increasing influence on the federal government, the argument over states rights and nullification took on new significance.
The election of President Abraham Lincoln was the final switch needed to turn on the war machine, as most Southern states saw Lincoln as a bullheaded abolitionist who would cripple their economy and ultimately make them kowtow to a powerful federal state whose interests solely lied with the Northern states. South Carolina, followed swiftly by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas, all seceded prior to his inauguration.
To state that slavery was the only reason for the secession of all the Southern states would be ignorant. However, to downplay the significance of slavery as one of the ultimate causes of secession is even more ignorant.