The Untold History of Nullification: Resisting Slavery

Sorry FGS — the Civil War was about slavery in the South before it became about emancipation in the North, indeed before it became a war. There are often claims that secession was rooted in concerns for sovereignty, but the only issue raised on a consistent basis in the various Ordinances of Secession was slavery. There were no fiendish bankers or other foreign conspirators trying to keep slavery going in the South, that was an entirely southern activity.


Secession Timeline various sources

Platform of the Alabama Democracy -- the first Dixiecrats wanted to be able to expand slavery into the territories. It was precisely the issue of slavery that drove secession -- and talk about "sovereignty" pertained to restrictions on slavery's expansion into the territories.	January 1860

Abraham Lincoln nominated by Republican Party	May 18, 1860

Abraham Lincoln elected	November 6, 1860

Robert Toombs, Speech to the Georgia Legislature -- "...In 1790 we had less than eight hundred thousand slaves. Under our mild and humane administration of the system they have increased above four millions. The country has expanded to meet this growing want, and Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Missouri, have received this increasing tide of African labor; before the end of this century, at precisely the same rate of increase, the Africans among us in a subordinate condition will amount to eleven millions of persons. What shall be done with them? We must expand or perish. We are constrained by an inexorable necessity to accept expansion or extermination. Those who tell you that the territorial question is an abstraction, that you can never colonize another territory without the African slavetrade, are both deaf and blind to the history of the last sixty years. All just reasoning, all past history, condemn the fallacy. The North understand it better - they have told us for twenty years that their object was to pen up slavery within its present limits - surround it with a border of free States, and like the scorpion surrounded with fire, they will make it sting itself to death."	November 13, 1860

Alexander H. Stephens -- "...The first question that presents itself is, shall the people of Georgia secede from the Union in consequence of the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency of the United States? My countrymen, I tell you frankly, candidly, and earnestly, that I do not think that they ought. In my judgment, the election of no man, constitutionally chosen to that high office, is sufficient cause to justify any State to separate from the Union. It ought to stand by and aid still in maintaining the Constitution of the country. To make a point of resistance to the Government, to withdraw from it because any man has been elected, would put us in the wrong. We are pledged to maintain the Constitution."	November 14, 1860

South Carolina	December 20, 1860

Mississippi	January 9, 1861

Florida	January 10, 1861

Alabama	January 11, 1861

Georgia	January 19, 1861

Louisiana	January 26, 1861

Texas	February 23, 1861

Abraham Lincoln sworn in as President of the United States	March 4, 1861

Arizona territory	March 16, 1861

CSA Vice President Alexander H. Stephens, Cornerstone speech -- "...last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution -- African slavery as it exists amongst us -- the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the 'rock upon which the old Union would split.' He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact."	March 21, 1861

Virginia	adopted April 17,1861 ratified by voters May 23, 1861

Arkansas	May 6, 1861

North Carolina	May 20, 1861

Tennessee	adopted May 6, 1861 ratified June 8, 1861

West Virginia declares for the Union	June 19, 1861

Missouri	October 31, 1861

"Convention of the People of Kentucky"	November 20, 1861

http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/ordnces.html

[Alabama] "...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... And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding States of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States, Be it resolved by the people of Alabama in Convention assembled, That the people of the States of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, be and are hereby invited to meet the people of the State of Alabama, by their Delegates, in Convention, on the 4th day of February, A.D., 1861, at the city of Montgomery, in the State of Alabama, for the purpose of consulting with each other as to the most effectual mode of securing concerted and harmonious action in whatever measures may be deemed most desirable for our common peace and security." [Jan 11, 1861]

[Texas] "...The recent developments in Federal affairs make it evident that the power of the Federal Government is sought to be made a weapon with which to strike down the interests and property of the people of Texas, and her sister slave-holding States, instead of permitting it to be, as was intended, our shield against outrage and aggression..." [Feb 1, 1861]

[Virginia] "...the Federal Government having perverted said powers not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slave-holding States..." [Feb 23, 1861]

http://www.csawardept.com/documents/secession/AZ/index.html

[Arizona Territory] "...a sectional party of the North has disregarded the Constitution of the United States, violated the rights of the Southern States, and heaped wrongs and indignities upon their people... That we will not recognize the present Black Republican Administration, and that we will resist any officers appointed to this Territory by said Administration with whatever means in our power." [16 March 1861 -- Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as President of the United States on March 4, 1861. The pretext for Arizona's secession was interruption of U.S. postal service.]

My only response would be to submit there has been a good deal of revisionist history on both sides. We all must choose which sources and conslusions that ring the truest or barring that, what we feel most comfortable with. Are you submitting the north was squeaky clean in all things and at all times in matters that led to the Civil War?

That's a strange thing to say. What I'm saying is, there's no revisionism in the exact quotes from the leaders and founders of the Confederacy -- they stated exactly what they were about, and it's been public record ever since. There is simply no excuse for anyone's not knowing about it. The Confederacy was all about preserving and expanding slavery.

Are you submitting the north was squeaky clean in all things and at all times in matters that led to the Civil War?

There's been a great deal of revisionism among those trying to portray the Lost Cause as something other than what it was, and trying to shift blame onto someone, something, anyone, anything, other than the very people who started the war.

I ain’t buying Civ and you adroitly avoided my question, that is, is it your contention the north’s motives were as pure as the driven snow concerning matters leading up to the Civil War? Pure altruism? I don’t think so. But I honestly don’t really care much one way or the other with the exception of what we might learn from this episode in our history. Problem is, the history itself is cloudy and suspect.