I'll Take my Stand- Causes of Southern Secession- Defending Dixie

[Author Jeb Smith]

I would love to start a debate on this subject. The winner writes the hsitory and we are told that the south left to preserve slavery, this is not so. The upper south left over state sovighnty and preserving the union and consituion as handed down by the founding fathers. And the deep south left over many issues the most important, states rights. Here are some threads I did on the subject.


Upper South
https://www.christianforums.com/threads/ill-take-my-stand-%E2%80%93-causes-of-southern-secession-the-upper-south-american-civil-war.8088497/

Cotton States
https://www.christianforums.com/threads/ill-take-my-stand-%E2%80%93-causes-of-southern-secession-the-cotton-states.8088501/

Slavery's impact on the Cotton States
https://www.christianforums.com/threads/slaverys-impact-on-the-cotton-states-causes-of-secession.8088502/



Or see post 11-18 for upper south
19-31 for cotton states

[Author Jeb Smith]

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.” -Declaration of causes of Secession Kentucky

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” 
-Causes of Secession Missouri

[Author Jeb Smith]

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”
-U.S Secretary Seward to US Ambassador to France


“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 [/i]


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 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

“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”


Slavery was Safer in the Union Than the Confederacy

“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


For the upper south slavery in fact was safer in the union than the confederacy. Slavery was constitutionally protected in both the northern and southerner states for the entire civil war. Lincoln and the north supported the Corwin amendment that would have protected slavery forever in the the U.S constitution and used it to try and stop secession.

“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. 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 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

[Author Jeb Smith]

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

“Peace now would save slavery, while a continued war would obliterate the last vestiges of it”
- Raleigh North Carolina newspaper July 1863 quoted in Americas Civil war Magazine

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.”

“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

[Author Jeb Smith]

I'll Take My Stand – Causes Of Southern Secession The Cotton States


"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 government of the united states has become consolidated, with a claim of limitless powers in its operation” .
-Robert Rhett The Address of the people of South Carolina, assembled in Convention, to the people of the Slaveholding States of the United States 1860


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. The deep south were similar in culture and politics yet within the deep south cotton states their were multiple causes that led to secession.


The Election of A Republican President


“The election of Lincoln personified the trend of national centralization, as a reaction, some of the southern states [deep south]...seceded.”
-Marhsall Derosa Redeeming American Democracy pelican Press 2007


“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”
-John Sherman Republican Senator of Ohio

“It [republican party] is, in fact, essentially a revolutionary party”
-New Orleans Delta 1860


“Lincoln was the founding father of big government”
-Thomas J Diolernzo Author of the real Lincoln and Lincoln unmasked


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. Many even 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 in resisting if a republican was elected. This northern sectional party's interests were the antithesis to the southern interests. The south held to the Jeffersonian view of the union best described in the 1852 democrat platform and the Kentucky resolutions by Thomas Jefferson in 1798 and the Virginia resolutions by James Madison of 1800 that of a decentralized union of states the majority view before the civil war.

“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


"Lincoln and the Republicans intended to enact a high protective tariff that mothered monopoly, to pass a homestead law that invited speculators to loot the public domain, and to subsidize a transcontinental railroad that afforded infinite opportunities for jobbery."
-David Donald Lincoln Reconsidered

“Those who elected Mr. Lincoln expect him to secure to free labor its just right to the territories . . . to protect by wise revenue laws, the labor of our people; to secure the public lands to actual settlers . . . to develop the internal resources of the country by opening new means of communications between the Atlantic and Pacific."
-John Sherman Republican Senator brother of William T Sherman



The republicans were for higher tariffs, protective tariffs, federal internal improvements, a national bank, in support of the homestead act, [ in 1858 the northern vote supported 114 of 115 the south rejected 64 of 65] a pacific railroad act, and grants to states for agricultural and mechanical collages among others. 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. The south viewed these acts as out of the constitutions delegated powers and thus violations of the Constitution and the federal government as one of limited powers by the Constitution. Seeing the republicans would go outside the Constitution and would rule the union by mob rule. All of these proved true.

“We quit the Union, but not the Constitution—this we have preserved. Secession from the old Union on the part of the Confederate States was founded upon the conviction that the time-honored Constitution of our fathers was about to be utterly undermined and destroyed. and that if the present administration at Washington had been permitted to rule over us, in less than four years, perhaps, this inestimable inheritance of liberty, regulated and protected by fundamental law, would have been forever lost....We have rescued the Constitution from utter annihilation. This is our conviction, and we believe history will so record the fact ”
-Hon. Alexander H. Stephens Speech to the Virginia Secession Convention, April 23, 1861

“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


The republicans during the civil war and finishing with reconstruction, would radically transform the American union into their new centralized nation, their own version of America. So the south seceded.


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


“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


“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

[Author Jeb Smith]

The Confederate Constitution


“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


“when the dogmas of a sectional party, substituted for the provisions of the constitutional compact, threatened to destroy the sovereign rights of the States, six of those States, withdrawing from the Union, confederated together to exercise the right and perform the duty of instituting a Government which would better secure the liberties for the preservation of which that Union was established.”
-Jefferson Davis Inaugural Address Richmond 1862


The original deep south cotton States that left the union first acted as sovereign republics, it was called “Calhouns states right running riot.” But would soon join in a confederacy with its capital in Montgomery, Alabama. They joined and formed the Confederate constitution on March 11 1861. 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. The CSA saw it as the original America constitution properly interpreted and clarified heavily influenced by Jefferson, Calhoun, and the anti federalists. 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 alterations. By these alterations we can see some of the reasons that the south left the union.

“The confederate revolution of 1861 was a reactionary revolution aimed at the restoration of an american democracy as embodied in the Constitution of 1789.”
-Marshall L. Derosa Redeeming American Democracy Lessons from the Confederate Constitution Pelican Press 2007


CSA State Sovereignty


“We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity — invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God — do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.
-CSA Constitution preamble


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 resting on the ultimate sovereignty of the state witch allowed nullification and secession.

“It was not necessary in the Constitution to affirm the right of secession, because it was on attributive of sovereignty, and the states had reserved all they had not delegated.”
-Jefferson Davis the rise and fall of the confederate government

They clarified the people of the states had sovereignty and not the the mass of people [“we the people”] as held by Lincoln and Webster. Further they were a federated [confederated] government, not a consolidated one. 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 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 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”
-Judge Robertson 1864 Confederate Virginia supreme Court Case Burroughs v Peyton

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. The confederacy never organized a supreme court since the final sovereignty lied with the states on the constitutionality of laws passed. When discussion arose of a confederate supreme court William Yancy of Alabama said “when we decide that the state courts are of inferior dignity to this court [csa supreme] we have sapped the main pillars of this confederacy.”

“The fear of centralizing tenancies, past experiences under the federal supreme court, and a desire to protect states rights led to the failure to establish a confederate supreme court.”
-J G Deroulhac Hamilton the State Courts and the Confederate Constitution

“The establishments of the [federal] supreme court, with appellate power over the supreme courts of the states would be utterly subversive to states rights and state sovereignty.”
-Henery S Foote of Tennessee dec 16 1863

All power to amend the Constitution was taken out of congress and given to the states. A state convention could be called to amend the Constitution by three states allowing a minority of states to stop all federal action until their grievances were herd and dealt with. Senators were elected by state officials.

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

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 permanent] 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. There were no political parties within the csa. 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.

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


For other examples of the CSA Constitution moving to decentralization see Redeeming American democracy lessons from the confederate Constitution by Professor Marshall Derosa.

CSA Weak Federal Government and Fiscal Responsibility

"the confederacy was founded on the preposition that the central government should stay out of its citizens pockets"
-Christine m Kreser Cash for combat Americas civil war magazine 

“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

“If the Confederate States, ever had any doubt as to the necessity of a separation from the people of the North, that doubt would be removed by the recklessness with which they allow their own liberties to be trampled on. They appear to have no idea of free Government. Those necessary restraints on power — those nicely adjusted balances, by which justice and liberty are secured in a free government, are not understood.”
-Report on the confederate committee of foreign affairs 1861

The CSA allowed for fair trade, had uniform tax code and restricted ominous bills and no corporate bailouts, or government subsides. The post office must be self sufficient within two years of ratification. The CSA President had line item veto on spending, No cost overrun contracts were allowed. Congress could not foster any one branch of industry and greater consensus was needed to pass spending bills.

“Montgomery [confederate constitution]...One leading idea runs through the whole—the preservation of that time-honored Constitutional liberty which they inherited from their fathers....the rights of the States and the sovereign equality of each is fully recognized—more fully than under the old Constitution...But all the changes—every one of them—are upon what is called the conservative side..take the Constitution and read it, and you will find that every change in it from the old Constitution is conservative.  ..in it are settled many of the vexed questions which disturbed us in the old Confederacy. A few of these may be mentioned—such as that no money shall be appropriated from the common treasury for internal improvement; leaving all such matters for the local and State authorities. The tariff question is also settled. The presidential term is extended, and no re-election allowed. This will relieve the country of those periodical agitations from which sprang so much mischief in the old government. If history shall record the truth in reference to our past system of government, it will be written of us that one of the greatest evils in the old government was the scramble for public offices—connected with the Presidential election. This evil is entirely obviated under the Constitution which we have adopted...
-Hon. Alexander H. Stephens Speech of the to the Virginia Secession Convention, April 23, 1861


“The question of building up class interests, or fostering one branch of industry to the prejudice of another, under the exercise of the revenue power, which gave us so much trouble under the old Constitution, is put at rest forever under the new. We allow the imposition of no duty with a view of giving advantage to one class of persons, in any trade or business, over those of another. All, under our system, stand upon the same broad principles of perfect equality. Honest labor and enterprise are left free and unrestricted in whatever pursuit they may be engaged in....the subject of internal improvements, under the power of Congress to regulate commerce, is put at rest under our system. The power, claimed by construction under the old constitution, was at least a doubtful one; it rested solely upon construction. We of the South, generally apart from considerations of constitutional principles, opposed its exercise upon grounds of its inexpediency and injustice.”
--Alexander Stephens "Cornerstone Address," March 21 1861

[Author Jeb Smith]

Tariffs/ Internal Improvements

“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 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


“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


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. Ye the money was used in the north to protect its manufacturing, industrialist, and federal internal improvement programs witch were also viewed as unconstitutional. high tariffs forced the south to buy northern rather than cheaper European manufactured goods. Further the south saw this as unconstitutional for the government to aim at a section or industry of the economy specifically for a tax to benefit another [states vs states pure democracy rule]. To the south mob rule by the majority north was know no longer held in check by the Constitution but was governing by majority rule going outside its delegated powers by aiming at one industry and using tax for internal improvements. Taking labor from one section [the south] and giving it to another [the north] was simply another form of slavery.

“The instant the Government was organized, at the very first Congress, the Northern States evinced a general desire and purpose to use it for their own benefit, and to pervert its powers for sectional advantage...until they have saddled the agricultural classes with a large portion of the legitimate expenses of their own business. We pay a million of dollars per annum for the lights which guide them into and out of your ports. We built and kept up, at the cost of at least another million a year, hospitals for their sick and disabled seamen when they wear them out and cast them ashore. We pay half a million per annum to support and bring home those they cast away in foreign lands. They demand, and have received, millions of the public money to increase the safety of harbors, and lessen the danger of navigating our rivers. All of which expenses legitimately fall upon their business, and should come out of their own pockets, instead of a common treasury...The North, at the very first Congress, demanded and received bounties under the name of protection, for every trade, craft, and calling which they pursue, and there is not an artisan in brass, or iron, or wood, or weaver, or spinner in wool or cotton, or a calicomaker, or iron-master, or a coal-owner, in all of the Northern or Middle States, who has not received what he calls the protection of his government”
-Robert Toomb's Speech before the Georgia Legislature, November 13 1860


“In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests. Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and $500,000 is now paid them annually out of the Treasury. The navigating interests begged for protection against foreign shipbuilders and against competition in the coasting trade. Congress granted both requests, and by prohibitory acts gave an absolute monopoly of this business to each of their interests, which they enjoy without diminution to this day. Not content with these great and unjust advantages, they have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of light-houses, buoys, and the maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and the Government now pays above $2,000,000 annually for the support of these objects. Theses interests, in connection with the commercial and manufacturing classes, have also succeeded, by means of subventions to mail steamers and the reduction in postage, in relieving their business from the payment of about $7,000,000 annually, throwing it upon the public Treasury under the name of postal deficiency.”
-Georgia causes of secession

“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 confederate Congress April 29, 1861 (Ratification of the Constitution

Tariffs would be Raised again in 1828. Congress passed what southerners called the tariff of abominations to help northern industry. Only 1 out of 105 southerners voted positive [the agrarian north west sided with the south], yet the north east 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” “

The true disorder is that pest of our system, consolidation”
-Robert Rhett Over the 1832 tariff and nullification issues

South Carolina argued they had states rights to reject unconstitutional federal ruling as a sovereign state, something Thomas Jefferson had 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%.

“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

“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 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.

“The last session of Congress they brought in and passed through the House the most atrocious tariff bill that ever was enacted, raising the present duties from twenty to two hundred and fifty per cent above the existing rates of duty. That bill now lies on the table of the Senate... The result of this coalition was the infamous Morrill bill - the robber and the incendiary struck hands, and united in joint raid against the South.”
-Robert Toomb's Speech before the Georgia Legislature, November 13 1860


“The passage of an obscure, ill-considered, ill-digested, and unstatesman like high protectionist tariff act, commonly known as the‘ Morrill Tariff. The result was as inevitable as the laws of trade are inexorable. Trade and commerce . . . began to look South . . . .Threatened thus with the loss of both political power and wealth, or the repeal of the tariff, and, at last, of both, New England –and Pennsylvania . . . demanded, now coercion and civil war, with all its horrors . . .” 
-Clement L. Vallandigham Congressman Ohio 1863

With the election of Abraham Lincoln whose central campaign objective was to triple the tariff and the tariff issue was the “keystone” of the republican party “protection for home industry” was the campaign poster of the 1860 republican party. Promised the largest tariff increase and highest rate in history, 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. As John Randolph of Roanoke said in a speech in congress in 1823 “ If the old [founders] congress had possessed the power of laying a duty of 10% as walorem on imports, this Constitution would never have been called into existence.” 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.

“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.”
-Jefferson Davis inaugural speech in Montgomery Alabama


“the agitation concerning African slavery in the South was commenced. This institution was purely sectional, belonging to the South. Antagonism to it in the North must also be sectional. The agitation would unite the South against the North, as much as it united the North against the South; but the North being the stronger section, would gain power by the agitation. Accordingly, after the overthrow of the tariff of 1828, by the resistance of South Carolina in 1833, the agitation concerning the institution of African slavery in the South was immediately commenced in the Congress of the United States. It was taken up by the Legislatures of the Northern States; and upon one pretext or another in and out of Congress, it has been pursued from that day to the fall of 1860, when it ended in the election of a President and Vice President of the United States, by a purely sectional support. The great end was at last obtained, of a united North to rule the South. The first fruit the sectional despotism thus elected produced, was the tariff lately passed by the Congress of the United States. By this tariff the protective policy is renewed in its most odious and oppressive forms, and the agricultural States are made tributaries to the manufacturing States. It has revived the system of specific duties, by which, the cheaper an article becomes, from the progress of art or the superior skill of foreign manufacturers — the higher is the relative tax it imposes. Specific duties, is the expedient of high taxation, to enforce its collection. This tariff illustrates the oppressive policy of the North towards the South, and abounds in high taxation by specific duties. It is a war on the foreign commerce of the country, in which the Southern people are chiefly interested. Exclusively an agricultural people, it is their policy, to purchase the manufactured commodities they need, in the cheapest markets. These are amongst the nations of Europe, who consume five-sixths of the agricultural productions of the South. The late tariff passed by the Congress of the United States, was designed to force the Southern people, by prohibitory duties to consume the dearer manufactured commodities of the North, instead of the cheaper commodities of European nations. What is this but robbery? Does it not take from one citizen or section and give to another? The foreign trade of the United States, has always been carried on, by our agricultural productions. Our exports, are the basis of the imports, of the United States. Upon what principle of justice or of the Constitution, have the people of the North intervened between us and our natural customers, and forced us by the use of the Federal Government — laying prohibitory duties on the production of foreign nations — to consume their productions? 
-Report on the confederate committee of foreign affairs 1861

[Author Jeb Smith]

Loss of Political Power

 “The majority, mean to plunder and wrong the minority. They mean to make the weaker section their tributaries. Between a representation incompetent to protect, and no representation, there is no difference, where there are conflicting interests in a legislative body. And in the election of a Chief Magistrate, of what use is the right of suffrage, when, if every man in the oppressed section should vote against the candidate of the stronger section, (as the Southern States did in the late Presidential election) they cannot prevent his election. …. By the forms of a free government therefore, a many-headed despotism may be established by a stronger section over a weaker section, far worse than the despotism of one man. One man may have a conscience; but men acting in masses, seldom exhibit conscientious scruples. Individuality and responsibility, are lost in numbers. That “a corporation has no soul,” is the proverbial aphorism of English law, indicating the unscrupulousness of men acting in masses. A single despot has no motive to oppress one portion of his people, more than another; but here, one half of a country rises up to plunder and oppress another half.”
-Report on the confederate committee of foreign affairs 1861

“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

Between 1800-1850 Jeffersonian democracy dominated politics however with mass immigration the 1850's saw radical change. 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 saw as a excuse for northern political dominance for the republican political agenda. The south had seen their political power 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. In 1860 Pennsylvanian and New York alone had more seats in congress than the entire deep south of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Texas and even Arkansas and North Carolina added on to that. A Georgian sated “we are either slaves in the union or free men out of it” in time the north would control the south politically with no safeguards from the constitution or state sovereignty as they placed authority with the federal government.

”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

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

“The real issue involved in the relations between the North and the South of the American States, is the great principle of self-government. Shall a dominant party of the North rule the South, or shall the people of the South rule themselves. This is the great matter in controversy.”
-Robert Barnwell Rhett Montgomery, Alabama, 1860

“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

[Author Jeb Smith]

Northern Violations of the Constitution- Majority Rule or Constitutional Republic?


“The people of the North have endeavored to destroy its limitations. To make it sectional in its operations, and subservient to their sectional interests, and to make the government of the United States itself a consolidated government, has been the aim of their steady and unintermitted efforts. …..All encroachments by Congress on the Constitution of the United States, they have uniformly upheld; until at last the Constitution, by their interpretation, is virtually abolished, and now consists only in three words — “the general welfare,” of which they are the judges and dispensers....With the Constitution overthrown, and the government of the United States in the hands of a hostile section, not only liberty, but self-preservation, demanded their separation from it.....In seceding therefore, from the United States, the Confederate States have only exercised a right inherent in all Sovereignties. In their judgment, the agreement they had made with the Northern States had been grossly violated. Its whole purpose was overthrown. Instead of an agency of very limited power, having for its object the defence of the States against the aggressions of foreign nations, it has been converted into a government of unlimited internal powers. Unless the people of the Confederate States were prepared to surrender forever their liberties, there was but one course left for them to pursue — they must escape from the domination of such a government...“The people of the North have steadily upheld the policy of setting aside the Constitution, and of thus rendering the government of the United States omnipotent in its legislation. They have endeavored to drain the treasury, to carry on internal improvements, and at the same time by its exhaustion, to afford a pretext for higher tariff duties to replenish it! They pushed their oppressions, by the tariff, to such an extent in 1828, that the whole South protested against it; and when one of the Southern States resisted it, and a compromise was effected by which the taxes were to be reduced and limited, they overthrew the compromise, and renewed the oppressions..... With these various means of sectional aggrandizement — protective tariffs — appropriations from the treasury — the exclusive settlement of our territories — and anti-slavery agitations — they have at last succeeded in uniting the North against the South. To escape their ruthless mastery, the Southern States were compelled to secede from the Union with them”
-Report on the confederate committee of foreign affairs 1861

“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

“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


“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 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. Among others.


“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 Constitution)


“The experiment instituted by our revolutionary fathers, of a voluntary Union of sovereign States for purposes specified in a solemn compact, had been perverted by those who, feeling power and forgetting right, were determined to respect no law but their own will. The Government had ceased to answer the ends for which it was ordained and established. To save ourselves from a revolution which, in its silent but rapid progress, was about to place us under the despotism of numbers...The tyranny of an unbridled majority, the most odious and least responsible form of despotism, has denied us both the right and the remedy. Therefore we are in arms to renew such sacrifices as our fathers made to the holy cause of constitutional liberty ”
-Jefferson Davis Inaugural Richmond 1862

“Under the latitudinarian construction of the Constitution which prevails at the North, the general idea is maintained that the will of the majority is supreme; and as to Constitutional checks or restraints, they have no just conception of them..to keep the federal government within its proper sphere of delegated powers, that the Confederate States, each for itself, resumed those powers and looked out for new safeguards for their rights and domestic tranquility. These are found not in abandoning the Constitution, but in adhering only to those who will faithfully sustain it...They [the north] do not seem to understand the nature or workings of a federative system. They have but slender conceptions of limited powers. Their ideas run into consolidation...Whilst I was in Congress I knew of but few men there from the North who ever made a Constitutional argument on any question. They seemed to consider themselves as clothed with unlimited power...They looked upon it simply as a government of majoritiesThey did not seem to understand that it was a government that bound majorities by constitutional restraints. ”
-Speech of the Hon. Alexander H. Stephens to the Virginia Secession Convention, April 23, 1861


“The one great principle, which produced our secession from the united states- was constitutional liberty.”
-Robert B Rhett 1864

[Author Jeb Smith]

Two Separate Cultures and Politics “Yankees” and American

“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

“Slavery has nothing whatever to do with the tremendous issues now awaiting decision. It has disappeared almost entirely from the political discussions of the day. No one mentions it in connection with our present complications.“The question which we have to meet is precisely what it would be if there were not a negro slave on American soil.””
-New York Times quoted in the Richmond Whig April 9 1861

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


Even in 1974 Massachusetts senator Rufus King met with John Taylor of Caroline [Virginia] and King said “It was utterly impossible for the union to continue.” “The southern and [north] eastern people thought quite differently.” and “a dissolution of the union by mutual consent was preferable.” As time progressed 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-Saxon and southern scotch-Irish. These divides went back to early America. In some ways the war started politically with the federalist/anti-federalist and the nationalist vs the compact theorist of the Constitution . The south being largely Jeffersonian and anti-federalist/compact and the north federalist/nationalist.

“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.”
-John Calhoun South Carolina Senator J 1831

“The confederate states of america was the consequence of a constitutional crises the origins of which could be traced back to the US Constitution of 1789.”
-Marshall L Derosa the Confederate Constitution of 1861 University of Missouri Press 1991

“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 Stevens A Constitutional View of the late war Between the States 1870



In 1819 a future disunion was predicted over the fight over a national bank. Later 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.”


The cultures were separating as well. The south was generally conservative in cultural and religion compared to the north adding God to the Constitution and whos motto was “God will vindicate.” 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, Jefferson, 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

“Every circumstance of human life [civil and political] proves how unfit the states were for such a union as ours.”
-John Tyler future president

“There is no common bond of sympathy or interest between north and south”
-David F Jamison dec 17 1860


New Englander's settled in western States and New York. Over time New York became half populated by decedents from New England and flooded with socialist European immigrants. 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 union became a synonym for “modern” and a really counterpart to the south”
- David Goldfeild War is good for Business Americas civil war Magazine

[Author Jeb Smith]

Slavery's Impact On the Cotton States- Slavery Decided by State or Federal?


“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”
-10th amendment U.S Constitution

“Slavery has nothing whatever to do with the tremendous issues now awaiting decision. It has disappeared almost entirely from the political discussions of the day. No one mentions it in connection with our present complications.“The question which we have to meet is precisely what it would be if there were not a negro slave on American soil.””
-New York Times quoted in the Richmond Whig April 9 1861


“Slavery is only one of the minor issues and the cause of the war, the whole cause, on our part is the maintenance of the sovereign independent of the states....slavery was the imitate occasion- carefully made so by them- it was not the cause....the tariff, which almost brought the distribution some years ago would much more accurately represented... the real cause. Neither the tariff nor slavery, nor both together, could ever been truly called the cause of the secession.... the sovereign independents of states. This indeed includes both these minor questions, as well as many others even greater and higher.... a community witch submits to be schooled, directed to, legislated for, by any other, soon grows pour in spirit...its very soul withers within it...its citizens become a kind of half-men. Though we are not fighting for slavery we will not allow ourselves to be dictated to in regards to slavery or any other of our internal affairs.”
-Jefferson Davis Richmond Examiner August 21 1864 quoted in From Founding Fathers to Fire Eaters

Slavery's involvement in southern secession is often overstated because slavery was the “occasion” to witch the fight over states rights and the nature of the constitution 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 past its constitutional limits and its encroachments upon the rights of the states.

“This consolidation of the states has been the obiet of several men in this country for some time past. Weather such a change can ever be effected in any manner whether it can be effected without convulsions and civil wars, whether such a change will not totally destroy the liberties of this country time can only determine.”
-Richard Henry Lee 1787

“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.”
-John Calhoun South Carolina Senator J 1831

“The line of division is now the preservation of the states rightly as reserved in the Constitution, or by ...to a merge into a consolidated government.”
-Thomas Jefferson


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 and individual. 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. The question was, is the federal government confined to the powers in the constitution, or was it allowed to step outside of its delegated powers by the states thus nullifying the constitution and transforming the republic, into a centralized nation.

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

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 1852

“It has often been said that we were fighting for the perpetuation of slavery. This was not so. We were simply fighting for our right to keep slaves if we wanted to. We were fighting for state rights- rights to be allowed to make our own laws for our particular states”
-Joseph F Burke Confederate colonial

“We must confine ourselves to the powers described in the Constitution, and the moment we pass it, we take an arbitrary stride towards a despotic Government.”
– James Jackson, First Congress, 1st Annals of Congress, 489

[Mile pro Libertate]

Thanks for taking the time to post all of this.

[Author Jeb Smith]

Secession and Slavery a States Rights and Constitutional Issue

"If they begin with declaring one law of one state unconstitutional, where were they to stop? They might, they would go on until the state governments, stripped of all authority....mere skeletons of governments....a great consolidated empire established upon their runes....in such a contest the states must fall, and when they did fall, there was an end of all republican government in the country.”
-John Randolph of Roanake in congress 1807 quoted in From Founding Fathers to Fire Eaters

“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

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

“The exclusive right of every state, witch nothing in the Constitution has taken from them and given to the government.”
-Thomas Jefferson on Slavery

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 preserve slavery. The slave owner thought slavery was a constitutional, biblical, and state right. A southern slave owner would view a northern abolitionist as a foreigner who was violating their rights. 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. With 4 billion dollars worth of value and almost 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

The south viewed slaves as any other legal property that the federal could not interfere with, if they tried to do so, it was tyrannical. Unlike today in antebellum America was at a time when the federal did not extend into the states domain and Southerners who were still of the Jeffersonian tradition well understood that if the federal was allowed to encroach on the states on the issue of slavery [or any other issue] it would continue to expand until it became a tyrannical body that no longer followed its limitations under the Constitution such as we have today.

“When all government domestic and forighn in little as in great things shall be drawn to Washington as the source of all power. It will render powerless the checks provided of one government [states] on another, and will become as vegal and oppressive as the government which we have separated”
-Thomas Jefferson

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

“I consider the foundation of the [Federal] Constitution as laid on this ground: That “all powers not delegated to the United States, by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States or to the people.” [10th Amendment] To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specifically drawn around the powers of Congress is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.”
– Thomas Jefferson, “Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank” [February 15, 1791]

“Nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon the American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity, and frugality, become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole society. “
– John Adams, Novanglus Letters, 1774

“The support of state governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies.” -Thomas Jefferson First Inaugural Address

“If a government can take some, it may take all.”
-John Taylor of Caroline

“Power when undefined, soon becomes unlimited.”
-St George Tucker


“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

“If the government has the right to interfere in the private affairs of white men, it can do the same with Nige$s”.
-Mr. Etheridge of Tennessee 1860 quoted in NY Herald column on the debate in the senate on “the slavery question”

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. 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.

“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

“Peace now would save slavery, while a continued war would obliterate the last vestiges of it”
-Raleigh newspaper July 1863 quoted in Americas Civil war Magazine


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 but they did because the issue was much deeper as it involved states rights, constitutional protection, and the nature of the union.

“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.”
-Joseph E Brown Georgia Governor 1862

In antebellum America north and south the states resisted federal expansion in various ways. The first federal vs state issue arose over the alien and sedition acts and later internal improvements, national banking, conscription, protective tariffs, land disputes, freedom of speech, free trade, state control of militia, fugitive slave laws etc. No matter what the issue states held firm to the union and fought against federal expansions. The south was doing what states north or south had done in antebellum America, resisted federal expansion past its constitutional bounds. The consequences of the new radical Republican victory over the battle of a centralized nation vs a union of states with a limited federal government has led to the modern tyrannical government that shows no regard for its supposed limitations proving Jefferson correct. See

From Confederation to Consolidation the Political Effects of the Civil war
https://www.christianforums.com/threads/from-confederation-to-consolidation-the-political-effects-of-the-civil-war.8093078/


“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


South Carolina Secession Document
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

South Carolina was the first state to seceded from the union. 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.

“for more than 30 years the people of south Carolina have been contending against the consolidation of the government of the united states.... the united states has steadily usurped powers not granted- paradoxical trenched upon states rights.”
-Charleston Mercury South Carolina 20 April 1861

[Author Jeb Smith]

Western States Free or Slave?

“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 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.... 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 Slave-holding States Convention of South Carolina 1860

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

The fight over new western territories was a battle over the very nature of the federal government. 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? The republicans and Lincoln said they would not allow new states the rights granted in the constitution to decide on the issue of slavery. What the south asked for was that these new states coming in be allowed on their own to chose. Was the federal allowed to bar slave holders and their property from entering the new territories thus giving political control to the north, ensuring their political and economic agenda? The end results the south would no longer be represented by its government and the constitution would be abolished and replaced by a democracy.


Fight Over the Expansion of Slavery- A Fight to Control the Government and Agrarians vs Industrialist


“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

“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


“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 Souths primarily agrarian and agricultural lifestyle contrasted with the growing northern industrial and 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.”

[For a in depth look at the cultural, political and religious differences between agrarians and industrialist see here Southern Agrarians- did America Lose its Liberty When it Lost its Agrarian Roots? http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?513086-Southern-Agrarians-did-America-Lose-its-Liberty-When-it-Lost-its-Agrarian-Roots ]

“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

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

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

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. All men are created equal, so slave owners had just as much rights to go into the territories [federal owned land] as northerns did. 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.

“The political and economic implication of agrarian expansion westward were alarming to certain mercantile interests in the east who red the loss of their political and economic control of an expanding America”
-Merrill Jensen The New Nation Northeastern University Press

“Abolitionist activity was rising fast, fueled by northern capitalist and political interests needing an issue to neutralize the agrarian south” -Dr Charles T Pace Lincoln as he Really was Shotwell Publishing Columbia South Carolina 2018

“The struggle in our territories between the free and slaveholding States, has not been a struggle for the emancipation of slaves. It has been a contest for power, between the two great sections of the Union...The Southern people, in claiming a right to settle in territories with their slaves, assert a right sanctioned by the Constitution. The Northern people, in attempting to preclude the Southern people, by the legislation of Congress from our territories, war against the Constitution. This is the declaration of the Supreme Court of the United States. If the Northern position has prevailed by the late Presidential election, as the Northern people maintain, it has overthrown the Constitution. For by this result, a party hostile both to the Constitution and the decisions of the Supreme Court, have been placed in control of the Government. This alone would justify a dissolution of the Union....Whether all the States composing the United States, should be slaveholding or non-slaveholding States, neither the Northern nor Southern States ought to have permitted to be a question in the politics of the United States. ”
-Report on the confederate committee of foreign affairs 1861

If they were to all become free, than northern industrialist would dominate congress and high tariffs, protective tariffs and 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.

“Professor Holt quotes Ohio Congressman Joshua Giddings explaining: “To give the south the preponderance of political power would be itself to surrender our tariff, our internal improvements [a.k.a. corporate welfare], our distribution of proceeds of public lands . . .”
-Micheal Holt The Fate of Their Country: Politicians, Slavery Extension, and the Coming of the Civil War quoted by Thomas j Dilorenzo


“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

“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 industrialist “hired” politicians to go anti-slavery and pro industrial expansion, fighting hard for western states to go anti slavery. Former slave trader James De Wolf became anti slavery when he started manufacturing companies. All of a sudden he wanted internal improvements and protective tariffs. 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, if not

“Then the old whig economic agenda of protectionist tariffs, corporate welfare, and central banking, which had become the republican agenda, would continue to fail in congress”
-Thomas J Dilorenzo Lincoln Unmasked

“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 railroads supported by higher tariffs and internal improvements. Northern General Sherman said the civil war was a war between agriculturalist vs mechanics. Confederate General Jubal Early said Lee's army was defeated by “Steam power, railroads, mechanism, and all the resources of physical science”

"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 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

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

[Author Jeb Smith]

Originally posted by Mile pro Libertate:

Thanks for taking the time to post all of this.

not done yet lol.

[Author Jeb Smith]

Slave Insurrection

“They have, through the mails and hired emissaries, sent seditious pamphlets and papers among us to stir up servile insurrection and bring blood and carnage to our firesides.”
-Texas Causes of Secession

“An incursion has been instigated and actually perpetuated into a sister State the inevitable consequences of which were murder rapine and crimes even more horrible. The felon chief of that murderous band has been canonized as a heroic martyr by public meetings by the press and pulpit of all of the Northern States – others of the party have been demanded by the Governor of the State they invaded and their surrender refused by the Governors of two States of the Confederacy, demanded not as fugitives from service but as fugitives from justice charged with treason and murder. ...By the agency of a large proportion of the members from the non slaveholding States books have been published and circulated amongst us the direct tendency and avowed purpose of which is to excite insurrection and servile war with all their attendant horrors. 
-Florida Causes of Secession

With recent slave uprising in Hati as well as Nat Turners uprising and finally John browns raid caused the south concern similar events would take place brought on by northern abolitionist inciting violence and uprising throughout the south. The most concern was over the northern reaction to John Browns raid. R.L Dabney said the event would have been trivial if not for pulpits and newspapers praising Browns actions.

“thousands of men who a month ago scoffed at the idea of a dissolution of the union...now hold the opinion that its days were numbered”
- Richmond Enquirer

While the north celebrated Browns raid, Virginia and the south saw itself as invaded by a foreign enemy. Southerners were concerned that innocent woman and children were at danger and they should resists such violence on its people.

Northern Violation of Fugitive Slave Laws

“The States of Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa, by solemn legislative enactments, have deliberately, directly or indirectly violated the 3rd clause of the 2nd section of the 4th article [editor's note: the fugitive slave clause] of the federal constitution, and laws passed in pursuance thereof; thereby annulling a material provision of the compact, designed by its framers to perpetuate the amity between the members of the confederacy and to secure the rights of the slave-holding States in their domestic institutions They have for years past encouraged and sustained lawless organizations to steal our slaves and prevent their recapture, and have repeatedly murdered Southern citizens while lawfully seeking their rendition.
-Texas causes of Southern secession

“They have disregarded the plain obligations of the Constitution of the United States, to deliver up fugitives bound to service, without which guarantee on their part, they know, that the Constitution would never have been formed; and by acts passed in their State Legislatures, they have practically nullified it.”
-Report on the confederate committee of foreign affairs 1861

The south from the creation of the union had  constitutional protection of its property that included recognized slave property. The north by violating that right [and Dread Scott supreme court ruling/ fugitive slave laws] would not allow them their property and would in essence, steal it [by not working with federal workers]by not returning slaves. The south were not second class citizens and their property was constitutionally to be treated as any other property. It would be the same as if a Vermonters horse wondered across the border to New York, only to have a resident of that state keep the horse and say we dont recognize your right to this property. That is not a protection of the individuals property as granted under the constitution and was a cause of secession. 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 

“Any person held to service or labor in one state escaping into another should not, in consequence of any law or regulation theorf, be discharged from such service or labor, but should be delivered upon claim of the party to whom such service or labor might be due by laws of his state. Thus and thus only, by the reciprocal guarantee of all the rights of every state against interference on the part of another.”
-President Franklin Pierce 1856