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The civil war ended 150 years ago today, and it's a good idea to remind people the true reasons that the war occurred. Exhibit A:
Quote:
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. 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. That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.
Gotta love how those idiots just saw black people as products to do the work they didn't want to do, but didn't want to pay anyone a decent wage to do it for them. Can't have paid employees cutting into their profits, now can we.
Alexander Stephens was a southern Congressman, Governor, and Vice President of the Confederacy.
From Alexander Stephens' 1861 "Corner Stone" Speech.
"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."
"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. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."
[Northerners] "...assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails"
"Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature’s laws. With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system."
The last shot fired in the Civil War was on June 22, 1865.
. . .
Let us not forget how easy it is to find an excuse to compel one to labor for the benefit of another, without just compensation.
Or take their property from them, or deny them liberty...
Not just Mississippi - all across the Confederacy there were Southerners who were more than happy to spell out exactly why they were seceding.
South Carolina took pains to explain precisely why it was leaving. In so doing, it the word 'slave' and it's variations - slavery, slaveholding, etc. - appear 18 times.
It goes on and on here:
Quote:
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. [b]But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.
It continues at length about slavery for paragraph after paragraph.
Shall we look at other states? How about Georgia? The word 'slave' its variations here appear no less than 35 times - it's all Georgia talks about when blustering over why its secession is justified. Avalon Project - Confederate States of America - Georgia Secession
And has already been noted, we can always ask Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens for his thoughts, for he was kind enough to give them to the ages in his famous Cornerstone Speech.
Quote:
The new Constitution has put at rest forever all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institutions—African slavery as it exists among us—the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.
By the way, notice not only the mercantile interest in slavery but the incessant equation of slavery with 'civilization' as well? In other words, slavery wasn't just a business to the traitors, it was a way of life to them, an important aspect of their culture, part of their social fabric.
Oh, and as for the pretense of caring one whit about 'states rights', the Fugitive Slave Act forced states which did not recognize slavery to treat escaped slaves as slaves, not as the free men those states considered them to be. To add further insult to injury, it required those states to contribute materially to the pursuit and apprehension of those men it recognized as free in its own territory. Sorry, that walks all over the concept of 'states rights'.
And need I mention the fact that the Constitution of the Confederacy explicitly denied any state the right to abolish slavery? How does that demonstrate anything but a contempt for the concept of 'states rights' except when one finds the phrase a convenient political tool?
Quote:
Article I, Section 9, Constitution of the Confederate States of America:
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
Finally, the silliness that the Confederacy believed in the right of secession. How about West Virginia and its secession from the Confederacy? One can make the case that the southern portions of western Virginia did not want to secede from the Confederacy, but Virginia's northern border counties and panhandle were unquestionably solidly in favor of it. But the Confederacy never recognized that. And eastern Tennessee, a pro-Union stronghold? After the gathering of the unionist East Tennessee Convention in March 1861, the Confederacy sent in troops to crush the incipient secessionist movement. So the revisionists can spare us the spiel that the Confederacy cherished the right of secession - as with its posturing about 'states rights', support therein began and ended only where it conveniently coincided with Confederate interests.
The Southerners of the Confederacy had no compunctions about stating, loudly and clearly and unequivocally, that they were seceding over the issue of slavery. Oh, how inconvenient that must be to modern revisionists!
So, to sum up:
Q: How do we know that the Confederates seceded from the Union for the overriding reason of preserving the institution of slavery?
A: Because they told us so!
Gotta love how those idiots just saw black people as products to do the work they didn't want to do, but didn't want to pay anyone a decent wage to do it for them. Can't have paid employees cutting into their profits, now can we.
Not entirely correct. Yes there where well documented cases of human abuse the evils of Slavery. However some Planation's treated Black as employees and provided for the need s of the people. Not wide spread by any means, but by time of 1861 perception were changing.
Many Blacks fought for the CSA, ironic?
Commerce and state Rights were the Chief Cause of the civil War.
Not entirely correct. Yes there where well documented cases of human abuse the evils of Slavery. However some Planation's treated Black as employees and provided for the need s of the people. Not wide spread by any means, but by time of 1861 perception were changing.
Many Blacks fought for the CSA, ironic?
Commerce and state Rights were the Chief Cause of the civil War.
Of course a Bloody Conflict ensued.
The ownership of a human being as property is a human rights abuse regardless of how the slave was treated. Like all property, some people are careful with it; others see it as replaceable, since property generally is. But that doesn't change the fact that the property is there's. A human being, treated well or otherwise not, should not be, under any circumstance, viewed as the property of another human being. Do not justify slavery with 'sometimes they were nice.'
And no, it wasn't about state's rights. It's true the Confederacy held state rights as more important that federal power, but the catalyst of the secession was the loss of the 'right' to own slaves. Even my the south's own omission, this is why they seceded. I'm sure many of the citizens of the South did have a more moral reason for supporting secession, but who cares? There were decent people in Nazi Germany as well, but this doesn't mean the Nazi government wasn't completely immoral. The same can be said about the Confederacy. Their government was created only to protect people's apparent right to own other human beings. If that institution had not been threatened, the Confederacy would likely never have existed.
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Csa
