Replies

Texas ordinance of secession

[P4]
WHEREAS, the recent developments in Federal affairs make if 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; THEREFORE,...

Virginia ordinance of secession

[P2]
The people of Virginia in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eigthy eight, having declared that the powers granted under said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression, and 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:

So we see from these two examples that slavery is specifically mentioned. In point of fact tariffs are never mentioned in the documents voted on by the people.

The state declarations of causes for secession of South Carolina, Missippi, Georgia and Texas focus on slavery as the overriding issue for secession. In fact, while texas does mention obliquely that there are other issues, only Georgia mentions some of these other issues (and only in passing). But even Georgia says that Slavery is the cause of secession.

Robert Barnwell Rhett of S. Carolina did indeed touch upon what was termed "unfair taxes" at some length in his address to the confederate convention, but by far his talk dealt mostly with southern rights to slavery. The address of Louisiana's George Williamson to the Texas Secession Convention had only slavery as the issue. E. S. Dargan was (in a speech to the Alabama Secession Convention) motivated by the problems involved with freeing slaves. In February of 1860, the Alabama legislature passed a law that forced the governor to call a constitutional convention in the event that a Republican was elected president.

But beyond that, the Crittendon Compromise, the committee of 13 and the Washington Peace Conference consisted exclusively of slavery issues. In fact, many of the demands made by slave states infringed more on states rights than the northern states did later on.