Confederate Effort Was Not About Slavery

The Greenville News | 4/8/02 | Letter to the Editor by Bill Hunt

[WhowasGustavusFox]

Confederate effort was not about slavery

It appears a March 30 letter-writer who condemned the Confederate flag has learned no more from his history courses than did Editor Beth Padgett. However to Ms. Padgett's credit, she has a better understanding of the word compromise.

Compromise is and always has been the lifeblood of survival. Both the letter-writer and the NAACP need to take a refresher course in human psychology to grasp that fact.

Neither President Lincoln nor Jefferson Davis could have gotten enough men together to have formed a single Boy Scout unit, let alone two opposing armies, had the issue been slavery. Slavery was a national institution, not a Southern preferential privilege, as was implied.

Lincoln should have first freed the slaves in the North. This would have removed the hypocrisy that so blatantly stands out. U.S. Grant's slave had to be freed by an act of Congress nine months after the war. The unstable Tecumseh Sherman was arrested on several occasions for physical abuse of his slaves. General Robert E. Lee, as a matter of conviction, freed his slaves prior to the war. Obviously his support of the Confederate war effort was not based on a pro-slavery cause.

Southerners fought for noble causes, not slavery. States' rights, the consent of the governed, was the primary issue. Thomas Jefferson stated "without the consent of the governed, a people have not only a right but an obligation to expel such a government."

Bill Hunt Townville

[aomagrat]

Bump

[The Old Hoosier]

Oh, no. The Civil War was over states' rights:

The South was unconstitutionally using the Federal government to impose unconstitutional fugitive slave laws on the Northern States.

[Maedhros]

That was definitely one of the causes, although there were others. I and must agree that slavery was not chief among them.

Having said that, be warned that this thread will likely be invaded by Yankee revisionist Freepers.

[Right_Makes_Might]

Actually, Robert E. Lee had no slaves...his wife Mary Custis brought them into the marriage. Her family was one of the more influential and wealthy in the south. Robert E. Lee's sole purpose for joining the Confederacy was out of devotion to his state of Virginia. TAF

[Maedhros]

Oh, no. The Civil War was over states' rights:

The South was unconstitutionally using the Federal government to impose unconstitutional fugitive slave laws on the Northern States.

It looks like a preemptive strike. :)

[Texaggie79]

Guess the authentic Union promo ads from back then asking men to join to help fight slavery were just all faked.

Course slavery wasn't the only reason, and the majority of the Yankees didn't care about freeing slaves as much as they did about how much the southern economy would suffer from freeing slaves, but freedom of slaves was a result that occured sooner because of that war.

[untenured]

States' rights, the consent of the governed, was the primary issue. Thomas Jefferson stated "without the consent of the governed, a people have not only a right but an obligation to expel such a government."

Without getting into the particulars of the war and its runup, can one meaningfully talk about secession being consistent with the "consent of the governed" when no one asked the slaves for their consent? One imagines that they in particular would be the least desirous of leaving the Union, although we'll never know because (I assume) they had no representation in Southern governance. (Even if they had little to any in the North, it wasn't the North that was voting to change the sovereign.)

Of all of the arguments offered in sympathy for the South (and there may be good ones for all I know), this strikes me as the strangest.

[sheltonmac]

Suggesting that poor Southerners fought and died preserve slavery for the small number of rich plantation owners is as ridiculous as suggesting that the Northerners fought and died to end slavery.

[Free the USA]

fyi

[Williams]

Sorry, but I have read many posts supposedly explaining that the Civil war (or perhaps you prefer War Between the States) was somehow not about slavery. Anyone who reads a history of the Civil War knows, as Lincoln stated quite clearly in his Second Inaugaral Address, that the war was about slavery.

You (and many liberal blacks) can play all the games you want with the fact that Lincoln for political reasons couldn't come out and announce himself an aboloitionist, that Lee freed his slaves, or any other interesting historical nuances you might want to missuse.

The fact is that the South so viewed Lincoln (of "House Divided" fame) as anti-slavery, that it was LINCOLN'S ELECTION which was the event which precipitated the seccession of southern states. Lincoln and his party opposed the expansion of slavery and many in his party wanted it eliminated. Lincoln could not, in an effort to save the Union, announce his truest feelings. But Lincoln eventually emancipated all confederate slaves (and yes he did free them, with the Union Army). And slavery was obviously doomed along with the confederacy.

You can raise the fact that Lee was not a big advocate of slavery. That and many other details make the Civil War facinating. But whatever the confederate soldier fought for in his heart, that war was caused by, and was about, slavery. The Civil war without slavery - it would never have happened.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Well this dumbass would have to argue with the leaders of the Slaveocracy for whom the entire reason was to protect slavery. Most who have even a slight knowledge of history realize that it was not legal in northern states (the border states considered themselve southern) most of which had outlawed it years before the War. But this dumbass is not aware of it or that the tariff was lower and was always imposed with the cooperation of the leaders of the Slaveocracy. I guess he never heard of the Fugitive Slave Laws or the Dred Scott case or the Underground Railroad along with many other truths and facts.

NOw it is true that the North was fighting to preserve the Union not end slavery but the South was definitely (unless their leaders were unmitigated liars) fighting to preserve the institution and ONLY to preserve the insitution.

So many dumb lies so little time.

[Oldeconomybuyer]

My reading of history is that the Civil War was waged over reparations for indentured servants who fled Europe because of terrible potato soup. Or was it potatoe soup? /bs

[JohnGalt]

Southern farmers were not dying for the sake of saving slavery.

The Civil War was a cultural war led by political incompetents who knew only bloodshed rather than negotiation. A simple solution for ending slavery would have been for Lincoln to use the federal treasury to purchase the freedom of each slave, however, it was nothing short of Northern liberal hate that ensured there would be no peaceful solution.

[WhowasGustavusFox]

Bump if you haven't already seen it.

[Non-Sequitur]

But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other -- though 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. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the "storm came and the wind blew."

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests upon the great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery -- subordination to the superior race -- is his natural and normal condition. [Applause.] This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. -- Alexander Stephens, vice-president of the confederacy, March 1861

Mr. Hunt has absolutely no idea of what he is talking about.

[WhowasGustavusFox]

"The Civil war without slavery - it would never have happened"

The end of slavery without a civil war.....it happened everywhere except the US. Wonder why?

[stylin19a]

Actually, slavery was legal in the North.(The Dred Scott Desicion)

Capitalism freed some the of slaves in the North.
On 4/10/62, Congress declared the feds would compensate slave owners who freed their slaves. All the slaves in Washington D.C. were freed this way on 4/16/62.

Comgress enacted a measure prohibiting slavery in U.S. territories on 6/19/62(defying the Dred Scott decision)

But it was the the Emancipation Proclimation(which BTW, didn't free ALL slaves) that absolutley made the war to be about slavery (whether is was or wasn't) and tied the slavery issue directly to the Confederacy and solidified the Republican party.
It was the beginning of the end.

Britain & France were in the throes of violent anti-slavery sentiment at this time, and these two countries were were pulling away their support for the South. It was mostly downhill from there.

[WhowasGustavusFox]

If you are going to quote the Cornerstone speech, be sure to provide his first quotes in the speech.

Alexander Stephens, Cornerstone Speech, (March, 1861):

"Allow me briefly to allude to some of these improvements (of the new Confederate Constitution over the old Union Constitution). 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.

“This old thorn of the tariff, which was the cause of so much irritation in the old body politic,is removed forever from the new.