[capitan_refugio]

Stand, at least you are true to form. You contend "liberty" was the main southern cause for secession. Let us investigate the declaration of several of the secessionist states, to find out what they said the reasons were. That's fair, isn't it - I mean their reasons in their own words?

Here's what Georgia said:

"The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. 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." - approved by the Georgia legislature, January 29, 1861

Here's what Mississippi said:

"In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

"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. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin." - from "A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union"

Here's what Texas said:

"Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association." - from "A Declaration of the Causes which Impel the State of Texas to Secede from the Federal Union"

Here's what South Carolina said:

"We hold that the Government thus established is subject to the two great principles asserted in the Declaration of Independence; and we hold further, that the mode of its formation subjects it to a third fundamental principle, namely: the law of compact. We maintain that in every compact between two or more parties, the obligation is mutual; that the failure of one of the contracting parties to perform a material part of the agreement, entirely releases the obligation of the other; and that where no arbiter is provided, each party is remitted to his own judgment to determine the fact of failure, with all its consequences.

"In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.

"The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: 'No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.'

"This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River." - from "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union"

Need more proof? Let's review some of the contemporary comments made by the southern secessionist leaders:

"First then, it is apparent, horribly apparent, that the slavery question rides insolently over every other everywhere - in fact, it is the only question which in the least affects the results of the election." - Georgian Henry Benning to Howell Cobb, personal letter.

"African slavery is the cornerstone of the industrial, social, and political fabric of the South; and whatever wars against it, wars against her very existence. Strike down the institution of African slavery and you reduce the South to depopulation and barbarism." -Congressman Lawrence Keitt of South Carolina, speech to the House, January 25, 1860.

"[The Confederate government's] foundations are laid, its cornerstone rest, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery ... is his natural and normal condition" - Alexander Stephens, CSA Vice President, March 30, 1861.

"Sir, I do firmly believe that domestic slavery, regulated as ours is, produces the highest toned, the purest, best organization of society that has ever existed on the face of the Earth ... the moment the House undertakes to legislate upon this subject, it dissolves the Union. Should it be my fortune to have a seat upon this floor, I will abandon it the instant the first decisive step is taken looking towards legislation of this subject. I will go home to preach, and if I can, practice, disunion, and civil war, if needs be. A revolution must ensue, and this republic sink in blood." - Congrssman James Hammond of South Carolina, speech to the House.

"I want Cuba, ... I want Tamaulipas, Potosi, and one or two other mexican States; and I want them all for the same reason - for the planting and spreading of slavery." - Senator Albert Gallatin Brown of Mississippi (quoted in "Battle Cry of Freedom, pg 106)

"What did we go to war for, if not to protect our property?" - Robert Hunter of Virginia, discussing the proposal to form slave regiments in the CSA army.

So Stand, I ask you, in your own words, who is a (1) "LIAR", (2) "IGNORANT & STUPID" or (3) "REVISIONIST"? You are a very knowledgable person, if not on the opinionated side. Can you keep the conversation civil, without the name calling or being otherwise offensive? I appreciate your point of view, and as you might recall, agree with you from time to time about the contributions of the southern and native american heritage.

[stand watie]

i've spoken NUMEROUS times before about the so-called "declarations". perhaps this will be the LAST time. (i HOPE so!)

the so-called "declarations of secession" have at least the following problems:

1.the authors were SELF-appointed.

2.NO town/city/county/parish/academic institution/state EVER sponsored and/or approved the author's work.

3. hardly ANYONE read the declarations EXCEPT the authors.

4.FEW people in the southland or elsewhere in 1860-65, who did NOT own slaves (94-95% of southerners!) cared what the few slaveowners thought. (in point of fact MANY of the middle, working & poor white class in dixie dispised the rich slaveowning "elites". had the south won TWBTS, the slavocrats might very well been NEXT on the "hit list", given the FACT that MANY slaveowners collaborated with the damnyankees & the occupying US military forces. the war for dixie liberty was MOSTLY a "peasant revolt" against the faraway central government, which had, in their eyes ceased to represent their interests.)

5.the REVISIONISTS of the mid-1960s "discovered" the declarations, (NOTE: traditional historiographers had ALWAYS known but DISCOUNTED the works as the self-serving rantings of a hand full of slaveowners.) and then attempted to use them to prop up their flimsy and imVho,totally FALSE, assertion that the SOLE cause of the war was the preservation of slavery.

other than these problems, the declarations are really important! (sarcasm button: ON!)

truthfully, i know of NOT even ONE traditional historian/historiographer who believes that the "declarations" are of ANY importance whatever to the PRIMARY causes of the WBTS.

for the leftist, lunatic fringe of revisionists,southHATERS, marxists & their ignorant "useful idiots", the declarations are an EXCUSE to cover-up the, at best, flimsy excuses for the conquest of the southland & an EXCUSE for the depredations on the civilian population of the southland, the torture & murder of THOUSANDS of helpless CSA POWs and other WAR CRIMES.

that TOO is the TRUTH, however unpleasant you may find it.

free dixie,sw

[PeaRidge]

In order to be fair and balanced, lets take a little closer look than what you would like to present:

With each state’s voting on the massive question of secession from the Union, their legislatures determined that a document should be published, outlining the reasoning and causes of their disunion.

None of the original 7 and eventual 11 ordinances mentioned either the tariffs or slavery as a cause of their decision to leave the Union.

However, four states published their reasoning in individual state decrees.

From these documents, it can be concluded that many different reasons brought these seven states to the same conclusion and action.

Although slavery was mentioned in all four documents as one cause, the following are excerpts from some of these secession documents, and show the diversity of motivations.

Georgia Secession Decree (January, 1861):

“(The Northern States) have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and refused to comply with their constitutional obligations to us in reference to our property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic.

“The people of Georgia, after a full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with firmness that (the Northern States) shall not rule over them.”


Mississippi Secession Decree (January, 1861):

“(The North) has given indubitable evidence of its design to ruin our agriculture, to prostrate our industrial pursuits and to destroy our social system.

“Utter subjugation awaits us in the Union, if we should consent longer to remain in it. It is not a matter of choice, but of necessity (to secede).”


Texas Secession Document (February, 1861)

“The controlling majority of the Federal Government, under various pretences and disguises, has so administered the same as to exclude the citizens of the Southern States, unless under odious and unconstitutional restrictions, from all the immense territory owned in common by all the States on the Pacific Ocean, for the avowed purpose of acquiring sufficient power in the common government to use it as a means of destroying the institutions of Texas and her sister slaveholding States.”


Louisiana Secession Document (January, 1861):

“The people of Louisiana are unwilling to endanger their liberties and property by submission to the despotism of a single tyrant, or the canting tyranny of pharisaical majorities (in the North).”

Mississippi Secession Document (January, 1861):

"That they have elected a majority of electors for President and Vice-President on the ground that there exists an irreconcilable conflict between the two sections of the Confederacy in reference to their respective systems of labor and in pursuance of their hostility to us and our institutions, thus declaring to the civilized world that the powers of this government are to be used for the dishonor and overthrow of the Southern section of this great Confederacy."

South Carolina Declaration of Causes of Secession:

"We affirm that these ends for which this government was instituted have been defeated, and the government itself has been destructive of them by the action of the (North).”

Georgia’s document further stated:

“The material prosperity of the North was greatly dependent on the Federal Government; that of the the South not at all.

“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.

“The manufacturing interests entered into the same struggle early, and has clamored steadily for Government bounties and special favors. This interest was confined mainly to the Eastern and Middle non-slave-holding States.

“Wielding these great States it held great power and influence, and its demands were in full proportion to its power. The manufacturers and miners wisely based their demands upon special facts and reasons rather than upon general principles, and thereby mollified much of the opposition of the opposing interest. They pleaded in their favor the infancy of their business in this country, the scarcity of labor and capital, the hostile legislation of other countries toward them, the great necessity of their fabrics in the time of war, and the necessity of high duties to pay the debt incurred in our war for independence.

“These reasons prevailed, and they received for many years enormous bounties by the general acquiescence of the whole country. But when these reasons ceased they were no less clamorous for Government protection, but their clamors were less heeded-- the country had put the principle of protection upon trial and condemned it.

“After having enjoyed protection to the extent of from 15 to 200 per cent. upon their entire business for above thirty years, the act of 1846 was passed. It avoided sudden change, but the principle was settled, and free trade, low duties, and economy in public expenditures was the verdict of the American people.

“The South and the Northwestern States sustained this policy. There was but small hope of its reversal; upon the direct issue, none at all. All these classes saw this and felt it and cast about for new allies.

“The anti-slavery sentiment of the North offered the best chance for success."