Was the American Civil War Fought Over Slavery?
When you write a breakup letter, you usually list your reasons. Let's see what the letters say.
Yesterday I made a short video about the “Posse Comitatus Act” and why US Troops who will be sent to the US-Mexican border won’t carry weapons there.
Today I made a video about the subject. This is my companion substack article.
Few people took issue with my statement that the American Civil War was fought over slavery.
Let’s look at some of the comments on that video first and then I’ll get into why I think they are wrong.
Do some research on the Corwin Amendment. It was passed by the US Congress as a proposed constitutional amendment and offered by the tyrant/war criminal Lincoln to Southern states to keep them in the US. This act would have allowed any state that wanted to keep slaves to do so. If the federals would offer this act, why would Southern states go to war to keep their slaves?
He’s a brainwashed jew fanboy just ignore everything he says
Funny cause it was democrats that did slavery, the cause of the civil war, and Jim Crow laws... 👏👏👏 congrats liberal youtuber.. you played yourself
The civil war was fought mostly over taxation, not slavery. The south did not pass Jim Crow law the Democrats did, and they created the KKK their militant arm. Now that the KKK is taboo the Democrats have switched to BLM/Antifa as their militant arm.
I would expect this channel to give more accurate information than this. The civil war wasn't fought over slavery. Lincoln spun it that way later in the war but it was not about slavery. You're dreaming if you think it was
So maybe I’m wrong.
Maybe it’s me? Maybe I don’t know my history? But I figured that when you break up with someone, you usually give them a list of reasons. It might be “It’s just not working anymore” or “you work too much” or “you cheated on me.”
But usually those reasons that you state are pretty accurate and designed to be hurtful and communicate exactly what was wrong with the relationship.
So there had to be some kind of breakup letter that the southern states sent the federal government. And there were - 11 of them in fact - and they were some interesting reading.
The states that seceded from the Union are, in order:
South Carolina
Mississippi
Florida
Alabama
Georgia
Louisiana
Texas
Virginia
Arkansas
Tennessee
North Carolina
And for those of you who are from outside of the USA, here is a map of the US in 1860
Union (or loyalist states) are in BLUE.
Confederate (rebel slave-owning states) in RED.
Note that technically some Union states like New Jersey and Maryland technically had slavery, but it was being phased out and practiced at no where near the rate of the south.
So I searched for each’s state’s “breakup letter.” Most of them were called “Articles of Secession.”
So here are excepts of each state’s Articles of Secession along with the link to each complete document. Judge for yourself if the Civil War was about slavery or noy.
South Carolina
The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D., 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right.
Mississippi
A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.
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.
Florida
Florida did not have any text regarding slavery in their secession letter.
However, in the “The Declaration of Causes” they reference it quite a bit:
That no more slave States shall be admitted into the confederacy and that the slaves from their rapid increase (the highest evidence of the humanity of their owners will become value less.
Alabama
And 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 a permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States.
Georgia
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.
That’s literally the second sentence.
Louisiana
Louisiana did not have any language about slavery in its Secession letter, and that makes sense because New Orleans at the time was a massive port which was dependent on commerce coming up and down the Mississippi river. So they needed the North.
Texas
She [Texas] 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
Yeah, Texas went there from the jump.
Virginia
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 eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under the 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 Slaveholding States.
Arkansas
Arkansas does not have any language about slavery in its secession letter.
However, its “Convention” where secession was debated, had this language:
1. The people of the northern States have organized a political party, purely sectional in its character; the central and controlling idea of which is hostility to the institution of African slavery, as it exists in the southern States, and that party has elected a President and Vice President of the United States, pledged to administer the government upon principles inconsistent with the rights, and subversive of the interests of the people of the southern States.
Tennessee
Does not have any mention of slavery in its letter of secession.
North Carolina
This was the final state to secede and it seems like it was done reluctantly. Some units from North Carolina actually served in the Union Army although they were from western, mountainous half of the state.
So to tally it all up, eight out of 11 states specifically mention slavery as a reason for leaving the Union. A rough rate of 3-1 or 72%.
From this, it hard to see how slavery wasn’t a major cause of the American Civil War.
Misinformation is out there. Fight back with knowledge.
Reading some of those comments I'm thinking: "Reconstruction didn't go far enough."
Thank you for deferring to the history.
The final nail in this coffin is to compare the Confederate constitution with the US Constitution. The only significant difference is enshrining slavery as a constitutional right. They also did some things I kinda agree with, moving much of the Bill of Rights into the body of the constitution itself, but that is really only a structural difference, not a semantic one.
The comments on that video make me sick. Just more revisionist history by the losers, just like the "Confederate Battle Flag" wasn't. It was the battle flag of the First Virginia. So if you are in a specific location in Virginia, then it's true.
I was raised in the deep south by people who preached the same crap as the losers in your comments. I've heard it all before an wasn't at all surprised, just disappointed. But I took history classes, I read a lot, and I think critically.