In November 1860 Alexander Stephens, soon to be vice-president of the confederacy, gave a speech in which he touched on the subject of tariffs. He said,
"The next evil that my friend complained of, was the Tariff. Well, let us look at that for a moment. About the time I commenced noticing public matters, this question was agitating the country almost as fearfully as the Slave question now is. In 1832, when I was in college, South Carolina was ready to nullify or secede from the Union on this account. And what have we seen? The tariff no longer distracts the public councils. Reason has triumphed. The present tariff was voted for by Massachusetts and South Carolina. The lion and the lamb lay down together-- every man in the Senate and House from Massachusetts and South Carolina, I think, voted for it, as did my honorable friend himself...Yes, and Massachusetts, with unanimity, voted with the South to lessen them, and they were made just as low as Southern men asked them to be, and those are the rates they are now at."
That would seem to indicate that tariffs were not a major issue. When you take into consideration the fact that slavery is mentioned more prominently than any other issue in virtually every secession document issued by the southern states then it is clear that defense of the institution of slavery was, by far, the primary reason for secession.
The constitution is a contract between the federal government and the states, if the federal government breaks that contract then the state has a right to a: sue for redress, and if necessary B: back out of the contract.
But again, where did Union break the contract? What violation did they commit?
Slavery was already a dying institution when the war was fought, and I believe, and this is my opinion only, that if the south had won and seceded, Slavery would have died by 1900 and civil rights and voting rights would have been given to blacks by the 1930's.
It's easy to make these kinds of claims but the support for them isn't there. According to the census the number of slaves in the south increased over 25% between 1850 and 1860. Slavery would have died when it was no longer profitable. What would have replaced it? Plantation agriculture was labor intensive. The first mechanical cotton-picker was not marketed until the 1940's, almost 80 years after the Civil War. Horses and mules were in common use in the 1930's and 40's. The south depended on cheap manual labor for it's economic survival. Slavery would have continued as long as it made economic sense, be that 40 or 60 or 80 years later.
The fact of the matter is that slavery WAS a major issue, at least for the south. It was by far the most important reason for secession and became an important political issue in the North in 1863. It was the overriding reason for the rebellion. Any claims to the contrary simply ignore the facts.
Completely false.
"We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have beendefeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States... They have denounced as sinful theinstitution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.
(from South Carolina Decl. of Secession)
"...[the Northern States] have united in the election of a man to highoffice of the President of the United States, whose opinions and purpose are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that the `Government cannotendure permanently half slave, half free,' and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction."
--Texas declaration of secession
And here is what Texans thought of the Republican party:
"They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, andavow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a
negro slave remains in these States." --Texas Declaration of Secession.
The Mississippi secession convention began their declaration of causes with the statement, "Our cause is thoroughly identified with the institution of African slavery."
Soon to be CSA congressman Lawrence Keitt, speaking in the South Carolinasecession convention, said, "Our people have come to this on the question ofslavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am notwilling to divert the public attention from it."
"As soon, however, as the Northern States that prohibited African slaverywithin their limits had reached a number sufficient to give their representation a controlling voice in the Congress, a persistent and organized system of hostile measures against the rights of the owners of slaves in the Southern States was inaugurated and gradually extended. A continuous series of measures was devised and prosecuted for the purpose of rendering insecure the tenure of property in slaves. . . .
Emboldened by success' the theatre of agitation and aggression against the clearly expressed constitutional rights of the Southern States was transferred to the Congress. . . .
Finally a great party was organized for the purpose of obtaining the administration of the Government' with the avowed object of using its power for the total exclusionof the slave States from all participation in the benefits of the public domain acquired by al1 the States in common' whether by conquest or purchase; of surrounding them entirely by States in which slavery should be prohibited; of those rendering the property in slaves so insecure as to be comparativelyworthless' and thereby annihilating in effect property worth thousands of millions of dollars. This party' thus organized' succeeded in the month ofNovember last in the election of its candidate for the Presidency of the UnitedStates... the productions in the South of cotton' rice' sugar' and tobacco' for the full development and continuance of which the labor of African slaves wasand is indispensable.'
--Jefferson Davis
From the Confederate Constitution: Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 4: "No billof attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right ofproperty in negro slaves shall be passed."
Article IV, Section 3, Paragraph 3: "The Confederate States may acquire new territory . . . In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and the territorial government."
From the Georgia Constitution of 1861:
"The General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves." (This is the entire text ofArticle 2, Sec. VII, Paragraph 3.)
From the Alabama Constitution of 1861: "No slave in this State shall beemancipated by any act done to take effect in this State, or any other country." (This is the entire text of Article IV, Section 1 (on slavery).)
Alexander Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy, referring to the Confederate government: "Its foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests, uponthe great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery . .. is his natural and normal condition."
[Augusta, Georgia, DailyConstitutionalist, March 30, 1861.]
A North Carolina newspaper editorial: "it is abolition doctrine . . . the very doctrine which the war was commenced to put down."
[North Carolina Standard,Jan. 17, 1865; cited in Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 835.]
Robert M.T. Hunter, Senator from Virginia, "What did we go to war for, if not to protect our property?" "If the Republican party with its platform of principles, the main feature of which is the abolition of slavery and, therefore, the destruction of the South, carries the country at the next Presidential election, shall we remain in the Union, or form a separate Confederacy? This is the great, grave issue. It is not who shall be President, it is not which party shall rule -- it is a question of political and social existence."
[Steven Channing, Crisis of Fear, pp.141-142.] Senator Hunter of VA. During the Negro Soldier Bill debate on March 7, 1865, theS OUTHERN HISTORICAL SOCIETY PAPERS notes him as stating his opinion of the Bill as follows:
"When we had left the old Government he had thought we hadgotten rid forever of the slavery agitation....But to his surprise he finds that this Government assumes the power to arm the slaves, which involves also the power of enamcipation....It was regarded as a confession of despair and an abandonment of the ground upon which we had seceded from the old Union. We had insisted that Congress had no right to interfere with slavery, and upon the coming into power of the party who it was known would assume and exercise that power, we seceded....and we vindicated ourselves against the accusations of the abolitionists by asserting that slavery was the best and happiest condition of the negro. Now what does this proposition admit? The right of the central Government to put slaves into the militia, and to emancipate at least so many as shall be placed in the military service. It is a clear claim of the central Governmentto emancipate the slaves."
"If we are right in passing this measure we were wrong in denying to the old government the right to interfere with the institution of slavery and to emancipate the slaves."
"He now believed....that arming and emancipating the slaves was anabandonment of this contest - an abandonment of the grounds upon which it had been undertaken."
The record, and not lies, myth and wishful thinking, shows that the clear cause of the war was the attempt to perpetuate slavery.
The war was brought on by the slave holders.
Here is a very clear statement that may help you understand:
"One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the Southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union, even by war; while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it."
A. Lincoln, 3/4/65
Walt
Oh please. Without slavery, and specifically without to Southern Slavocracy using all of their powers to force the expansion of slavery into the west, there would never have been a civil war. Tarrifs were a minor issue because they were a relatively small tax, and the only way the federal government had to raise money in those days. It was not about taxes and it was not about states rights. There was no right for states to leave the union and the Constitution is not a contract between the states and the federal government. It is a contract between the people of the United States, as in We The People, and the Federal government. The States did not have a right to break that contract.
The civil war was all about a small but wealthy cadre of politically powerful Slave owners who wanted to expand their market in human misery beyond its existing boarders. When blocked by Lincoln's election they attempted to break the union and drive the nation into war. Think back --- remember your history. What was the Compromise of 1820 about? Slavery. What was the Compromise of 1850 about? Slavery. What was Bloody Kansas about in the late 50s? Slavery. For a full 40 years before Lincoln's election the south, or more rightly the corrupt slave owning aristrocrats that ran the southern legislatures like petty fifedoms, continually pushed and threatened to break the union over the question of slavery. It was all about wealth and power for those bastards. They didn't give a damn about the constitution. That war would have never happened without slavery.
However that still doesn't excuse the point that slavery was not brought up as a rallying cry in the north until '62 and therefore not an issue with lincoln until he had exhausted all of his other avenues of support. By that time, the general citizenry had lost interest and wanted the South just to go away, but you don't see much of that sentiment in the papers of the time because the Tyrant had suspended the 1st Amendment and shut down over 300 newspapers