http://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/was-the-civil-war-about-slavery/
A new video entitled “Was the Civil War About Slavery?” from Prager University is currently making the rounds on the Internet. A caption claims that the video “settles the debate once and for all,” superseding over a century’s worth of scholarship by historians who have argued this matter.
But does it really?
The video is filled with misconceptions and myths about the Civil War. The few facts it does get right are vastly outnumbered by the promulgation of incessant fallacies and significant omissions that would severely contradict the narrative.
It is true that several states in their secession ordinances claimed the reason for seceding from the government concerned slave rights. However, this was not the case for the mid-south states, which definitively rejected secession on those grounds and provided different explanations for leaving the union. Tennessee, Arkansas, Virginia, and North Carolina departed from the union only after Lincoln resupplied Fort Sumter and pledged to raise an army of 75,000, while Congress was not in session, with the express purpose of invading other states.
Notwithstanding the fact that some slave states mentioned slavery in their secession ordinances, this pronouncement was not as universal as is commonly believed. For instance, the secession ordinances of Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee do not mention slavery or the slave motive at all. Arkansas’ secession ordinance suggests the primary reason it announced its withdrawal from the union was Lincoln’s proclamation “to the world that war should be waged against such States until they should be compelled to submit to their rule.” In October 1861, the separatist government of Missouri passed an ordinance which charged that the United States had:
“violated the compact originally made between said Government and the State of Missouri, by invading with hostile armies the soil of a State, attacking and making prisoners the militia while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.”
The film asserts that “The secession documents of every southern state made clear, crystal clear, that they were leaving the union in order to protect their “peculiar institution” of slavery.” This is a bold-faced lie, and a cursory 5 minute glance at the secession ordinances tells a different tale. While some of the states in the Deep South articulated that they were leaving the union because they feared the dissolution of slave rights, the union government did not attempt impose any anti-slavery legislation at all. In fact, northern officials continued to assert that they would not interfere with slavery where it already existed. The entirety of the debate concerning the expansion of slavery from the 1820s-1850s was predicated on the potential for slavery to expand into the western territories, not its existential presence in the slave states.
NKP_Vet quoting Abbeville:
"Notwithstanding the fact that some slave states mentioned slavery in their secession ordinances, this pronouncement was not as universal as is commonly believed.
For instance, the secession ordinances of Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee do not mention slavery or the slave motive at all." Important for everyone to understand that this is a total crock of mushy-stuff.
In fact, the first seven seceding states did so "at pleasure" for the sole and explicit purpose of defending the future of their "peculiar institution", slavery:
- South Carolina (seceded 12/20/1860) Reasons for Secession mentions slavery / slave / slaveholders / domestic institution 22 times, and no other reasons given -- neither trade nor tariffs nor taxes are mentioned, except a tax on slaves. Example:
"The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives [slaves] from justice from the other States.
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States.
For many years these laws were executed.
But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations..."
- Mississippi (seceded 1/9/1861) Reasons for Secession mentions slavery / slave / slaveholding / domestic institution 11 times, and no other reasons mentioned, example:
"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery -- the greatest material interest of the world.
Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth.
These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.
These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.
That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation..."
- Florida (1/10/1861) provided no official reasons for secession, and no reasons (i.e., whereas this, or whereas that) in its declaration of secession, but it did, interestingly declare not only its own secession, but also the dissolution of the entire United States:
"the Government of said States ought to be, and the same is hereby, totally annulled, and said Union of States dissolved..."
- Alabama (1/11/1861) like Florida also issued no Reasons for Secession document, and their declaration of secession mentions slavery / domestic institution only twice.
However, no other reason for secession is listed, example:
"Whereas, the election of Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin to the offices of president and vice-president of the United States of America, by a sectional party, avowedly hostile to the domestic institutions and to the peace and security of the people of the State of Alabama, preceded by many and dangerous infractions of the constitution of the United States by many of the States and people of the Northern section, is a political wrong of so insulting and manacing a character as to justify the people of the State of Alabama in the adoption of prompt and decided measures for their future peace and security..."
- Georgia (1/19/1861) Reasons for Secession list slavery / slave / slaveholding / domestic institution 36 times, and no other reasons given, example:
"For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery."
- Louisiana (1/26/1861) like Florida & Alabama issued no Reasons for Secession document, and lists no reasons in its Secession Declaration.
- Texas (2/1/1861) Reasons for Secession document lists slavery / slave / slaveholding / domestic institution 26 times, including:
"In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color -- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law.
They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States."
Yes, Texas at least mentions other complaints against Washington DC, but even then, it all relates back to slavery, for example:
"They have refused to vote appropriations for protecting Texas against ruthless savages, for the sole reason that she is a slave-holding State. "
This is exactly where things stood in April 1861, when Jefferson Davis ordered a military assault on Union troops in Union Fort Sumter.
That assault, and Lincoln's response, brought four more states into the Confederacy -- Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee & Arkansas -- states which were not as dominated by slavery and so listed other reasons for their declarations of secession.
And we should keep firmly in mind that all four of these Upper South states formally ratified secession not only after Davis started war, but also after the Confederacy formally declared war, on May 6, 1861.
Therefore you can legitimately claim that at least some Deep South whites declared secession expecting a peaceful transition, but Upper South whites only voted to secede after they knew secession and Confederacy was already at war against the United States of America.
For those four states, their declarations of secession were simultaneously declarations of war on the United States.