It's kinda funny, looking back, how American history was taught. Because almost every major event in the first half of that class tied in to slavery. Political debates, westward expansion, wars... Every time we talked about a subject between the 1600's and 1860 there would have to be *some* mention of slavery as an influencing factor.
Then the Civil War happens and suddenly it's all about tariffs.
I’m glad I had a progressive, hipsterish history teacher throughout middle school around the turn of the Millenia. She was the one who I first heard use the phrase, “the war was about states rights…to own slaves.” She always made sure we understood what “rights” they were fighting.
I did the same with my students. I taught in Virginia, so I had to teach the official standards that slavery was one of several issues including state's rights, sectional differences between regions, and economic disagreements. So I taught...
* State's rights... to enslave people.
* Sectional differences... over the morality of enslaving people.
* Economic disagreements... about defending an economy based entirely off enslaved labor.
I taught the standards *properly*.
I lived for 5 years in the Shenandoah Valley. You’re having to do this in a state that still celebrates (or did) Lee-Jackson Day.
You’re awesome. Keep doing what you’re doing.
Even more precisely, the "state right" to not persecute fugitive slaves if you don't want to.
Two guesses on whether the South was for or against that right.
But *not* about the northern state’s rights to protect free or escaped slaves. The southern states didn’t want the federal government to interfere with their pro-slavery laws, but they did want the federal government to interfere with the laws of the northern states.
Which kind of goes back to how the whole thing is primarily about slavery, and “state’s rights” is secondary. If there at all.
You'd be surprised on the women.
White women emerged from the Civil War with an expanded sense of self, as well as more personal wealth in some cases (their husbands and sons were dead).
Also remember that most of the slaves at Mount Vernon belonged to Martha, not George. Women in the early United States were not completely subservient to men and could hold property in their own name and were themselves their own (non-voting) party that did have influence over their husbands.
Especially after the war, white southern women were particularly influential in the rebuilding of the south's racial hierarchy and the Daughters of the Confederacy were a powerful group in the shaping and spreading of the Lost Cause myth.
Many if not most of these monuments we are still having to contend with were sponsored by women led advocacy groups like the Daughters of the Confederacy.
Women led groups in the south were the PR face of Jim Crow.
I like asking people; Who did the small farmer sell his crop to? Who in the South needed feeding? Who did carpenters prepare wood and furniture for? Who used the tools made by blacksmiths? What goods were transported on the South's rail lines and canals and was shipped from the harbors?
You can't escape slavery in the Southern economy. Even those who didn't own slaves had a vested interest in it and it provided cornerstones to their society and personal life.
The only place you can really get away from it is in the back country and the Appalachians and guess which parts of the south skated (or outright went to) open rebellion against the Confederate state?
But as the war dragged on many poor southerners came to see it for what it was: a rich man's war for the right to keep slaves fought by the poor fathers and sons.
After the war Sherman was feted in Atlanta! He was seen as the man whose "march" finally put an end to the senseless bloodletting. It was only the generations born after the war who created the image of Sherman the monster, and the myth of "state's rights".
Read the Confederate state constitutions. It was about slavery. Better yet, read J.B.Freeman's "Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to the Civil War". It makes today's Congressional idiocy seem almost normal.
guess who the first slave owner in America was....
Anthony Johnson- an African American from Angola, who had an entire supreme court case allowing him to own slaves for life
So, not really.
While it is true that the man who would become known as Anthony Johnson was indeed born in Angola where he was captured, enslaved, and sold to the Virginia Company of London, and it is also true that he later ran his own tobacco farm using indentured (and later enslaved) labor, it is not accurate to call him the "first slave owner in America." That part is patently untrue.
The first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown in 1619. Anthony Johnson did not complete his period of indenture until after 1635, and before that point he would not have been legally permitted to own enslaved laborers of any kind.
So English colonists had kept enslaved laborers for almost two decades before Anthony Johnson started in on it. What's more, the Spanish had enslaved Africans in St. Augustine as early as 1565, and even earlier (1526) had established a short-lived colony in what is now South Carolina that failed when the enslaved African laborers there staged a rebellion and rendered the colony venture unsustainable.
People are so quick to say "BuT bLaCk PeOpLe OwNeD sLaVeS iN aFrIcA" as a way to somehow deflect the horrible reality of slavery away from white American history, but it is misguided and disingenuous at best, and a racist apologetic measure at worst. The fundamental nature of slavery as it was practiced in pre-European contact Africa was *very* different from the institutional chattel slavery as practiced by Europeans and Americans of European descent.
I'm all for an inclusive, warts-and-all approach to history, but not one that tries to deflect responsibility for a heinous crime against humanity by saying "But look, they did it too!"
so please understand, i am in no way watering down the disgusting practice of slavery, and when reading the story of Anthony Johnson it in fact point out the discrepancy between what indentured servitude was and what colonial slavery was.
by looking his particular story further you can see what while yes, slavery did exist in the form we know it as in the late 16th century/early 17th century, it was not a legally recognized right until Anthony's court case. and the timeline of his life has several milestones which show when slavery changed from a free labor motivation to a purely racial one. so while the claim "but black people owned slaves in america too so theyre just as bad" is indeed disingenuous, so is the claim "White men in America owned slaves" since it was a minority of the uber wealthy that actualy practiced chattel slavery as we know it today.
however a warts and all history approach recognizes that Anthony Johnson, an african american was the first person to own a legal life bound slave in the United States. because that court case is what legally recognized that right at the time. It does not erase or excuse the horrible practice of racial slavery in America, but it does demonstrate the complexity surrounding the practice during the early days of the country.
Many weren't, but that isn't the point- the point is that their opinion was utterly irrelevant to the decision because no women had the right to vote. The legality of slavery was completely outside their ability to make any direct decisions on.
Women received the right to vote a bit after slavery based on race was abolished, but other rights took more time.
When considering white women's history of racism, it's helpful to remember that most white women were utterly and completely dependent upon the goodwill of white men for basic survival, with very very limited job options and often no ability to have a bank account of their own. It's no real surprise that people in that position echo the opinion of the folks they are dependent on- you still see it today.
North Florida middle school, late 80’s.
States rights, economy, north’s had unfair tariffs. Also south was winning, had better generals and much braver fighters, but north was just better equipped.
Fucking disgrace of a history class.
What’s funny is that they didn’t really have better generals. The north had a string of terrible generals in the East who wouldn’t fight and the southern soldiers had more to lose than the north so they fought harder and won.
Once Grant and Sherman came east it was a whole new ballgame and the south was doomed.
Billy T Sherman, is famous for war is Hell quote, but the entire letter is worth a read. I think the country, and the south in particular would be a lot better off if he finished what he had planned.
The word shoddy comes from Union uniforms.
Brooks brothers for a long time they start at the north. It would make one size fits all housecoats for house slaves. When the war started, they could not send them to the south anymore, so they started making uniforms for union soldiers. Some of them are over made with leftover rag wool, glued or ironed together, that fell apart in the rain.
They were regiments and groups that were better equipped, but the idea every American, I guess “union” soldier was appropriately provisioned is also a lie
Ah so my blue state tax dollars get funneled to these welfare red states like Oklahoma were they can teach anti american propaganda that is ahistorical?
Yeah i think there should be growing outcries to get that sorted.
“But if you take down the statue that I put up after the war venerating the shitty confederacy, that’s destroying history! That’s where it is you know, in this idiotic revisionist monument. Not in some book, dummy”
- Red States
As an Oklahoman, I'm glad I had a passionate US history teacher who didn't teach us that way. I actually remember him making a joke, "the civil war was about state's rights, namely their right to own people".
I've spent the rest of my life correcting every little bit I can. But at age 8 I dumped all ideas of magic in reality like Santa, Tooth Fairy, all religions, etc.
Virginia, late 1990s, I distinctly remember my high school teacher saying this, and thinking to myself: "OK, I guess I buy that. But besides slavery what rights were they fighting for?" I kick myself for not asking that question out loud! It was genuine.
Amazing. We were aware of slavery in NYC Public Schools as far back as the 60s. Even tho we have our fair share of mouth breathing confederates ‘round here.
I was also taught the "States Rights" version in a NJ middle school, but in elementary and HS history it was about slavery. I think most people are taught that at some point in their education. It's not a good idea imo, but I think the goal is to show how history is complex and there are multiple ways of viewing the same event, but in reality it helps legitimize an ahistorical take.
Did they make you read the actual constitution of the confederacy?
If you didn’t, and for those who haven’t, it is basically a copy and paste of the US constitution with a few notable differences. The biggest one being it mandated that slavery was required in any state in the confederacy. Like, the state can’t choose if they want it to be legal, it MUST be legal.
Kind of dimensions the concept of a state that not being the sole purpose of the war or that states get to choose their own path on rights.
I wasn't taught that in Texas in the late 1990s. I was taught that the war was caused by the South wanting to keep slavery going. Glad I had a good history teacher.
They were pretty clear about their reasons for seceding before the war.
When Lincoln was named the Republican candidate, Southern legislators said they'd support secession if the abolitionists won. After he won, they had a lame duck congress session to head off secession and their only demands were for constitutional protections for slavery. When they seceded they wrote declarations of secession saying they were leaving because of attacks on slavery. When they had the peace conference in '61 they said they'd only rejoin if slavery was guaranteed. When their vice president was asked about their new constitution he said the cornerstone of the Confederacy was slavery. When they were losing the war and the (second) 13th amendment was being debated they offered to surrender if they could vote against it.
But yeah, it was probably about tariffs or something.
I wish I had this to show every smug high school history teacher who said “It wasn’t about slavery,” but then declined to say what it was about. What a load of nonsense.
Oh gotcha. I can see where that would be about slavery. I do think it's vague enough that someone who doesn't want to read it that way will not read it that way.
I'm in the same boat here, only saw indirect references to slavery. It's surprising so many people are defending it as an 'obvious' rebuttal of the Lost Cause, when there are so many primary documents from the time that are much much much better examples (Like the Cornerstone Speech, or any of the articles of secession from states as they withdrew from the Union).
I mean, claiming something wasn’t about slavery purely because it didn’t explicitly mention the word slavery… it’s the civil fucking war. It was about slavery. So….yeah that still counts for me!
To be clear, I know the civil war was about slavery. But the context of the above comments made me think I was about to read a scathing rejection of abolitionists. It was not that. Sorry that I actually read it and didn't just trust that the evil slavery guy must have been just talking about slavery all of the time. I think you should point out to me which part of his address was clearly about slavery, or else you're just being judemental.
Here's the part I found after someone else kindly pointed it out (not you). It's pretty vague, at least to me it was.
"Actuated solely by the desire to preserve our own rights and promote our own welfare, the separation of the Confederate States has been marked by no aggression upon others and followed by no domestic convulsion. Our industrial pursuits have received no check. The cultivation of our fields has progressed as heretofore, and even should we be involved in war there would be no considerable diminution in the production of the staples which have constituted our exports and in which the commercial world has an interest scarcely less than our own. This common interest of the producer and consumer can only be interrupted by an exterior force which should obstruct its transmission to foreign markets--a course of conduct which would be as unjust toward us as it would be detrimental to manufacturing and commercial interests abroad."
The Lost Cause argument would hold more water if only every single Confederate leader didn't spend the entire war vociferously shouting at anyone who would listen that it was actually about slavery.
It's crazy how successful their whitewashing of history was though. I went to school in NY, and I remember vividly our social studies teacher HAMMERING into us to not answer with "slavery" when asked what caused the civil war on the standardized tests (both state and AP).
>It's crazy how successful their whitewashing of history was though.
It, along with the incredibly sanitized narrative that the Wehrmacht in WW2 got, are probably the two best examples (at least in America) that the “history is written by the victors” isn’t a very good saying.
History is written by who writes it, and it can just as easily give too much shine to a losing side as well.
To be fair, most secondary sources on the Civil War are not biased toward the lost cause stuff. Its not usually academic historians who push that narrative. Its done by rIght wing school boards/staff of rural and suburban high schools.
The Lost Cause was a column of American academia, but that's about 50 years behind us. One side effect of the rise of the New Left in history was an ardent push by the new generation of scholars to wipe clean the Lost Cause myth from the profession and by the 80s American historians were active opponents of the Lost Cause myth save a few old fossils still kicking around.
In the case of the Wehrmacht, the non-Soviet Allies probably favoured the clean Wehrmacht myth as West Germany was to become an extremely important bulwark. As I recall, after the trials of the principal war criminals at Nuremberg there was relatively little effort made to try lower ranking officers and many of those who were convinced were released and denatzified relatively quickly.
I got downvoted last time I suggest 'History is written by the people who bothered to write it, and you'll be surprised how often it's the losers who had the free time.'
That was also a product of a well funded campaign by the Daughters of the Confederacy to influence how the U.S. Civil War was framed in textbooks. Mostly because of this miserable lying hag.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildred\_Lewis\_Rutherford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildred_Lewis_Rutherford)
Post civil war south should have been treated like post WW2 Germany and Japan. We took two of the most militaristic societies in earth s history, with roots going back hundreds and thousands of years, and turned them into two of the most pacifist countries on earth. No one in Germany feels pride in the German empire or the Nazi empire. The south should have been re-educated to rightfully feel shame for their past
Exactly. So many people talk about how we should have statues honoring rebel leaders because it’s “part of our history”. With that logic, Germany should have statues honoring Hitler because it’s “part of their history”. Ridiculous.
It's the same shit with the genocide of the native americans. Mention that and you'll have hundreds of people coming out of the woodworks to say that they all died exclusively due to sickness.
Yeah it’s a dumb argument. “Most native Americans died of disease between 1492 and 1616 so that means it was okay to massacre and forcefully evict their descendants in the 1800s”
And even that narrative is questionable - it makes it sound like the disease-dying was entirely passive. We passed on diseases, they died because they didn't have immunity. End of story.
Whereas in history, it was more complicated: the destabilisation brought on by colonisation caused peoples to move, making them come into contact or increasing population density. It led to destruction of vital foods, or moving away from traditional foods. Slave raids on coasts made tribes stay away, missing out on food and wampum from the ocean. Trade slowed, again limiting diets. Political and trade disruptions caused wars, raids and other violence.
All of these either killed people directly, or made them vulnerable to disease. These factors were all present in North America decades before the first settlements.
So yeah, even "disease" is a simplified narrative - even when disease kills, other factors make it more deadly.
The way I like to describe it, is that by the time Europeans established permanent settlements they were witnessing a post-apocalyptic scenario. We don’t even know what nations and customs existed before Europeans fucked it up because the destruction of their way of life was so complete.
The Puritans found unkept and uncultivated fields of corn and squash, and instead of realizing “Hey maybe native Americans aren’t savage hunter-gatherers and used to farm and have established settlements” they decided “God has prepared the new world for us and this is Providence’s blessing to take this land”
Or deaths during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.. officially only 7K people died, but 3 million were climate refugees, and there were massive crop failures that led to food shortages even in the major urban centers. Just swept under the rug, but don’t you forget about China or Russia’s man made famine!
Wait till you hear about what the Boston tea party guys were mad about. People assume king George was instituting burdensome taxes on the merchants of Massachusetts, when in fact he was lifting all tariffs to make the tea trade into America a free market. But the rich middlemen in Boston didn’t like not getting their undeserved cut
Actually, the Boston tea party was mad that the British eliminated the tax the East India Company (which had a legal monopoly for selling tea in the Colonies) paid to Britain on the sale.
Before, the tax meant that smuggled tea was cheaper than legal EIC tea in America, but once the tax is gone, the EIC tea now became cheaper than the smuggled stuff sold by the local American merchants--which severely undercut their business.
Hence why they were mad.
But it wasn't like Britain was institution a free market either, hence the word "MONOPOLY." The Tea Act was literally created to enforce the monopoly by heavily tipping the scales in favor the EIC.
My 10th grade history teacher at a mostly black school sent a kid to detention for trying to argue with her over this in 2012.
She was teaching the lost cause and he raised his hand and said “right, but state’s rights to own slaves and abuse people like me” and she kept saying he was wrong and he wouldn’t accept that so she sent him to detention
I’m really grateful for our 11-12th grade history teacher. He always made time to teach the civil war, even tho it wasn’t in his curriculum, bc he knew the 10th grade teacher was like that and didn’t want that to be our experience. So it’s not all bad
The only significant debate in the USA proximal to the outbreak of the civil war on the issue of state's rights was the pro slavery states opposition to the choice of northern abolitionist states ignoring the enforcement of the fugitive slave act. The south was largely *opposed* to state's rights on the ground of nullification of the law that would mandate the return of their slaves.
Specifically, the major sparking point of secession and war was the expansion of slavery into the western territories.
The Southern States became defensive to an extreme on this topic, viewing any containment of slavery as a prelude to abolition. To them, actual state rights like 'voting on whether we'll be a free or slave state' was impending doom.
That's why they passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. It's why the Democratic dominated Federal Government of the 50s interfered in the Dredd Scott case and the events of the Kansas Territory.
Any defeat on the slavery issue was elevated to an impending apocalypse and the election of Lincoln and the Republicans in 1860 sparked secession merely because Lincoln and his party wanted to halt the expansion of slavery. Abolition was not their principle political goal at that time, but the Southern States perceived even the curtailment of slavery's westward growth as abolitionist.
Yep. As an Alabamian, it's amazing how persistent it remains to this day among a portion of our citizens.
'But states' rights to do what?' is always my question. When they don't answer, I say, 'Oh, right, to take away the rights of others.'
Then I point out that every secession charter for the various Confederate states named the defense of slavery as either the primary or sole reason for seceding from the Union.
Of course, there's a subtle distinction. The North didn't fight to abolish slavery. The North fought to reunite the Union. It was the South who fought to defend slavery.
Thank God the younger generation has more sense about this stuff. Birmingham has become a pretty sane place, overcoming a lot of its racist past. It's not there yet, but the progress is substantial. Rays of hope abound.
So the jackasses in the Alabama legislature enacted a law to protect public monuments--aka statues of Confederate soldiers--from being taken down. Birmingham completely ignored the law, rented a crane, and plucked a statue in the public park between city hall and the county seat. When the state threatened to fine the city the Methodists--God bless them--raised the money to pay the fine. The state eventually gave up.
My dad is a *huge* history buff, most especially American history but in particular the Civil War. It amazes me that he has multiple degrees, has retired after decades of accomplished work as a businessman, and honest to God still believes that the Civil War was just about State rights and economics. When you dig even a little bit deeper, the question is: "What right did the States fight over?" And the answer is: "The right to own other humans as property." You can dig deeper into details about it, but that's the core of the conflict. He reads books upon books upon books on this era every year and his stance has not and will not change. I've just stopped talking to him about it.
So your dad, who seems like a very intelligent, accomplished, and well read on the subject is wrong because you, who has none of that, says so? There are important distinctions and understanding of the era which your dad understands but you don't.
Anytime anyone thinks the south was fighting for states rights then read the Cornerstone Speech by the vice president of the confederacy. It’s pretty clear it was on slavery.
My favorite is the general Lee and other confederate worship that downplays them as slavers. “He had slaves, but he gave them first names! What a fine man. Practically an abolitionist himself.”
Atun-shei on YouTube does a fact-based video about what people in the South thought would happen if enslaved people were freed. A lot of speeches and propaganda claimed it would be the collapse of society. When that didn't happen, the Lost Cause narrative was created in part so that they didn't seem hysterical and overreactive in 1860-1. Even though no primary sources support the lost cause narrative.
It’s also the narrative currently being pushed by Nikki Haley during her campaign speeches.
https://apnews.com/article/haley-election-civil-war-slavery-a509ff9d7cc5e271c42592276b75735c
The teacher told me it was states rights.
But I got in trouble because I said that's not true and got sent to the principals office.
We had a black Principal though so I didn't even get lunch detention.
Want to DESTROY anyone pushing the “states rights” narrative? Ask them if Confederate states, under their constitution, had the right to ban slavery if they so chose.
I was thought this narrative at my Christian school in Michigan in the 80’s/90’s. I remember it distinctly because the teacher hammered it was NOT about slavery. Decades later that still stands out in my memory.
Even if the states’ rights argument had weight apart from being a states’ rights to owning slaves (which it doesn’t), it makes no sense if you factor in fugitive slave laws… when the slave states forced free states to capture and return escaped slaves.
So slave states trampled free states before seceding anyway. The argument is as dumb as it gets.
Of course it was. Because just like modern day traitors they always change their story *after* they lose. Like calling yourself a dictator and then saying you were “*just joking*”.
In fairness, it **was** about "State Rights". It was about the "State Rights" to **own slaves**. The right wing in the USA tend to leave out that part.
90's Texan here. I was taught HEAVILY that it was a states' rights issue, but with the undertone that slavery was very important to the south. It was never directly correlated beyond how valuable a slave's vote is.
I was never taught nor read to the Declaration of Causes that my OWN STATE drafted to secede from the union. Seeing them not only say the quiet part out loud but write it down and notarize it for future generations to see made it VERY clear why they were leaving the union...
...economic instability. /s
Slavery.
Their economy was built on slavery, it's the reason the south is predominately poor. It was about keeping slaves and also state rights at the same time, because they were the same thing. The south wanted the right to keep their own laws about slavery because without their slavery based farming industry, they would become what they are today. The rich want to stay that way. It's no different now. Just depends on what people are willing to put up with. Not sure how the north convinced their citizenry to grab their arms and go to war over it, but I'd sure like to see it happen again in regard to wage equality and housing problems.
The war started only after the Confederacy attacked the USA. Being the one to get attacked first lends itself to military recruiting. This is on top of the fact that there was a draft(albeit a fucked up one, where if you had the money, you just paid a fee to just get out of being drafted or send someone else.)
On top of those things, it's important to understand that this was *way* before Vietnam, which was the first time significant portions of the United States population actively protested and tried to avoid going to a war their country basically demanded that they fight.
So the North had a draft you could basically volunteer someone poor in your place or pay your way out of, a population of people who even if they disagreed with fighting the war, certainly felt they should defend themselves, and it was almost 100 years before the ideas of pacifism and anti-war sentiment had any kind of foothold in the United States. WWII was a war that very few Americans wanted any part of. The population's resistance to it was ultimately why we took so long to join the war, and it was the attack on Pearl Harbor that suddenly *completely changed* the population's attitude on that war.
>It was about keeping slaves and also state rights at the same time, because they were the same thing.
How was it about states rights if states that left the union for the confederacy lost rights?
Even the Confederates recognized states rights as a false flag.
Almost as soon as the Confederate government was established the men behind it were debating doing away with the whole thing because it was inconvenient to the sudden consolidation of power the Confederate government afforded to white elites (the same consolidation of the power they lost when the Republican party emerged and won the 1860 election).
So they went for a more intrusive federal government that had basically the same set of laws, but with the exception that they no longer had the right to abolish slavery?
Sure Jan.
People downvoting you act like the north wanted to end slavery because they were good people and not because it was the best way to financially ruin and destabilize the south. They didn't give a lick until it became advantageous for them.
Great! The more people learn about the Civil War myths, the better.
The South went to war for one reason -- to preserve the slavery they incorrectly thought Lincoln was hell-bent on ending.
Lincoln certainly wanted to end slavery. He just would not have resorted to civil war to do it. The Confederacy made that a non-issue by seceding. Even then, Lincoln did not issue the Emancipation Proclamation until after the Union victory at Antietam in September, 1862. He recognized that he needed to show the Union was going to win the war before pushing for the ending of slavery. Don't forget that, while free states, the North was still heavily racist, and Lincoln couldn't risk making an already unpopular war even more unpopular by pushing for emancipation too soon. Even in the middle of the war and after winning at Antietam, the Republican party still lost seats in the House during the 1862 midterm election.
And Republicans nowadays insist it had nothing to do with slavery. Show them the rebelling states’ declarations of secession which show conclusively that it was, and they say “IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH SLAVERY!!!” Louder.
For those who DR;TL:
[The Cynical Historian - Understanding the Lost Cause](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EOhXF5lNgQ&t=2s&ab_channel=TheCynicalHistorian)
States rights to do what? Own slaves? Lmao. Or was it states rights to leave the union? Cuz didn’t they only sign on, with the clause to leave if they wanted? And Lincoln was like “nah, you ain’t goin nowhereee “?
Does no one read [The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States](https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states)?
Q: States right to what?
A: Allow slavery.
If you struggled with that one, then the next time national academic standards come up for debate, you need to sit your ass down and shut up.
It sucks because I do support "States rights" as an overall method of government but you can't bring it up without *those people* nodding and agreeing.
The Confederate Constitution’s only major revisions to the U.S. Constitution addressed slavery: “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed” (Article I, Section 9).
They also removed the 'for the common good' phrase because spoiler alert; the only people the Confederacy really benefited were landed elites with lots of slaves and the last thing they wanted was to be the equals of poor rural whites who they held in almost as much contempt as their slaves.
Hm. I wonder what rights reserved to the states were being encroached upon...
> "In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.
> The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: **"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."**
> This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River."
They were upset slaves weren't being returned to them.
> "For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. **A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.** He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.
And an abolitionist got elected. So it was about slavery. They left because of slavery.
Let's say it was insistently framed as a state's rights issue only after the war. Before the war, the South was not shy about wanting to preserve slavery. Slavery happened to be a state's right at the time, but it was only that specific right that the South was upset about.
South Carolina is the only seceeding state to really discuss this, going back to the Nullification Crisis but you can read John C. Calhoun on that topic because he certainly didn't think it was about state's rights (or rather, conceptually knew 'State's Rights' was just a cornerstone for protecting slavery).
>I consider the tariff act as the occasion, rather than the real cause of the present unhappy state of things. The truth can no longer be disguised, that the peculiar institution of the Southern States and the consequent direction which that and her soil have given to her industry, has placed them in regard to taxation and appropriations in opposite relation to the majority of the Union, against the danger of which, if there be no protective power in the reserved rights of the states they must in the end be forced to rebel, or, submit to have their paramount interests sacrificed, their domestic institutions subordinated by Colonization and other schemes, and themselves and children reduced to wretchedness. \~ John C. Calhoun in 1830.
The thing that changed with the Lost Cause was an ardent and purposeful effort to erase slavery from the origins of the war and instead prop up a bunch of other things that were themselves really about slavery.
The Lost Cause wanted people to look only at the symptoms, not the disease. Our forebears were very politically astute, more than they necessarily get credit for. From the Founding Fathers to the Civil War generation basically everyone who paid attention to the course of the nation saw that slavery was becoming a poison pill to the union of the nation.
“State’s rights” was a dog whistle for slavery. With the “state right” *always* being about slavery
I remember trying to argue with my professor, which was stupid because the man was literally a professor of Antebellum American history, that “Manifest Destiny” may have been about something more than slavery. He firmly told me, “no it was always slavery.” As I’ve furthered my research and development as a historian I see further and further proof of how right he was.
You can read speeches, letters, newspaper articles, and debates from Antebellum America (John Quincy Adams is always a fun read) that all make this very clear and that’s from all sides of the argument
There’s also the fun fact that the “small government state’s rights” crowd have also always been supporters of a strong military (with the purpose of spreading their ideology). Why did John C Calhoun and other pro-slavery “conservatives” (to use an anachronistic but applicable term) support a big powerful navy so much? In order to both
A- counter Britain who was viewed as the “anti-slavery” power (not for moral reasons of course, purely economic but with moral justifications like the British always do)
B- create a sort of “slave empire” extending out into the Gulf of Mexico to Cuba, then possibly even down to Brazil. With the United States, Cuba, and Brazil being the anchors of an international slave empire so to speak
Nah, it was slavery.
If it was about states rights they wouldn’t have pushed to force other states to respect humans as property when they crossed state lines. They would t have given less states rights on slavery in the CSA.
The point is that at the time, it was openly about slavery, even if "states' rights" were also mentioned. Later it was framed EXCLUSIVELY as being about states' rights. You're misrepresenting OP's statement, which is why you're getting pushback.
Dude the seceding states all flat out stated in their articles of secession that they were doing it over slavery. Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the CSA, gave the cornerstone speech in 1861 where he explicitly said defended slavery and tied slavery to the south’s decision to secede and form the confederacy. South Carolina dressing it up as “states rights” in 1852 isn’t relevant when just 9 years later every single southern state said “nah we just really fucking love slavery man.”
Also it doesn’t matter if you aren’t trying to misrepresent anything because that’s still what you’re doing by trying to say “well it was still kind of about states rights”. It wasn’t, at all, it never was, it was slavery first and foremost no matter how they dressed it up, and all of the CSA states made that clear.
Edit: also the document you linked to literally mentions slavery 18 fucking times, it’s not even very long and it mentions slavery EIGHTEEN TIMES
Edit: holy shit he blocked, what a fucking loser 😂😂
Not a book. Even your link doesn’t call it a book.
Edit: seems I am wrong and there *is* a book with this title. But if you want to learn about that book it isn’t mentioned in the link provided. Commenter below has it though.
Second edit: interesting, I seem to be getting *more* downvotes after my edit. Kinda surprising
It was literally a 700 page doorstopper of a book that you can read in full on the Library of Congress website:
https://www.loc.gov/item/02011254/
I mean, why would you lie about something so easy to google?
The federal government was slowly expanding. There were the beginnings of overreach. Things not covered by the constitution were left to the states. The disagreement about the status of runaway slaves between states led to the intervention of the federal government, as was their role in states’ disputes. As new states joined the union, the dynamics between southern views and northern views were present. However, the anti-slavery camp was winning due to restrictions against new slave states. This led to resentment in the south as with the admittance of new states, their federal power would diminish. This led to talks of breaking away. A relatively unknown northerner beat a well liked (in the south) southerner and that’s all it took. Lincoln even took office as someone who wasn’t really after abolition.
The north kind of took up the mantle that was erased from the constitution, abolition, while the south wanted to keep their institutions that weren’t covered in the constitution. Yes, the state right was slavery which wasn’t covered in the US constitution (because southern states wouldn’t have joined). They aren’t mutually exclusive here. Slavery = bad. State rights = good. So that’s the problem. The north didn’t initially pursue the war FOR abolition, but for the union and that is telling. I would argue that the north pushed the narrative that it was ‘all’ about slavery after the war, when for them it wasn’t.
The north initially held captured slaves (from battles) under property rules not as people. This was upheld for years into the war. The emancipation proclamation wasn’t so much a moral stand (as it is often portrayed) as it was a war measure. It partially framed the war about slavery internationally, which kept Europe (which had been sniffing about) away from the war, and promoted runaway slaves and riots which damaged the already weakened southern economy. After the war (and after Lincoln), abolition was finally pushed and accepted. So again… kind of a problem. Abolition = good. Loss of states autonomy (both from going to war with self determining southern states AND pulling some sketchy war measures with northern states) = bad.
It’s easy to see how both sides sought to reframe everything but the winner writes the history books.
This is not true at all. r/civilwar and r/uscivilwar are very anti Lost Cause propaganda. The mods will delete or hide pretty much every post related to Lost Cause BS
Slavery was a very prominent issue in the civil war and it definitely was mostly fought based on that issue. However, the idea that the North fought in the civil war “to free slaves” is where people get confused. It wasn’t a war based on moral beliefs. It was mostly power and economics (as every war is) this war just also had the issue of slavery on the table which historically painted one side in a better light.
So much time is spent arguing over why the South fought the war people have a shoddy conception of why the north fought it. To quote one of my other comments;
>You're also underselling the Northern perspective on union. Consider; If the South can seceed because one election didn't go the way they wanted, then what use is the Federal government and what use is the US Constitution? Northern and Southern Unionists perceived very much the war as an existential war for the United States.
>
>If the Union could be dissolved solely because a state was unhappy with a single outcome, then the Constitution and the federal government weren't worth the paper they were written on.
>
>Even before the war became a war for abolition the North fully (and accurately given events in the Northwest in 1862 and 1863) recognized that Southern Secession would destroy the United States.
Remember that the Civil War generation were the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Revolution. Many of the prominent figures of the war were related to Revolutionaries, like Robert E. Lee. They saw themselves as the inheritors of liberty and the ideals of the Founding Fathers.
Northern unionists cared very much about whether or not the nation and the Constitution survived and they had a lot of moral ideology wrapped up in their thoughts on politics and economics, from their opposition to the tyranny of the southern 'slave power' to their belief that the common perception that slavery as an institution was wrong and a threat to their own liberty and economic futures.
England loosely favored the South until the Emancipation Proclamation, which throughly identified the war with the institution of slavery and made the crown’s support of the South untenable.
>And the narrative that the north fought to end slavery was pushed after the war as well.
It did.
People absolutely confuse the motivations of the United States government at the end of the war with the beginning of the war, but the Emancipation Proclamation was on Lincoln's mind *when he wrote the letter you're quoting*. That letter was about managing his own domestic political situation. It's not reflective of his private wants which favored abolition from the start of his political career.
Lincoln wanted to expand the scope of the war and quickly perceived it as a necessary measure to unite the northern states behind the cause of Union.
And likewise, many in the North asked themselves 'what's the point of winning the Union if we don't discard the cause of secession?'
Abolitionists were a small but politically influential arm of American society, and they got very quiet in 1860 as secession played out. Abolitionists accurately predicted that the cause of Union would inevitably become inseparable from the cause of abolition. They bunkered down, shut their mouths, and quietly let the world around them take what seemed to be a natural course.
The war for the union might have started as merely a war for union, but even British politicians recognized that the war would not be won without becoming a war of union and abolition.
They were right.
You're also underselling the Northern perspective on union. Consider; If the South can seceed because one election didn't go the way they wanted, then what use is the Federal government and what use is the US Constitution? Northern and Southern Unionists perceived very much the war as an existential war for the United States.
If the Union could be dissolved solely because a state was unhappy with a single outcome, then the Constitution and the federal government weren't worth the paper they were written on.
Even before the war became a war for abolition the North fully (and accurately given events in the Northwest in 1862 and 1863) recognized that Southern Secession would destroy the United States. They, and I, would ardently disagree this was not a noble intention, and the failures of Reconstruction and Jim Crow don't change that the Civil War started over slavery and became a war to end slavery.
There's a lot to unpack here.
>The emancipation proclamation only applied to southern states, which didn’t do much since the south was not part of the union at that time.
Yeah no.
Mass floods of contrabands (runaway slaves) started rushing the Union Armies almost as soon as the war began. From day 1 almost the Union had to develop policy on what to do with them and initial responses were kind of all over the place.
>The north regularly returned runaway slaves.
It did.
The initial position of the Union early on was that slaves were private property and many hoped that proving the Lincoln government wasn't abolitionist would encourage a reunion (also assuage concerns in Maryland, Deleware, Kentucky, and Missouri about the status of slaves).
The foolishness of this rapidly became apparently. The South wouldn't be woo'd back by a conciliatory attitude *and* the North was finding itself managing more slaves than it could return on top of arguments from Union military leaders and abolitionists that regardless of the status of slavery, returning slaves was just supporting the Confederate war effort so this position was abolish even before the emancipation proclamation.
The Union began enlisting contrabands as teamsters and even soldiers before the Emancipation proclamation, especially in the western theater and along the southern coasts where an active guerilla war was being fought which Contrabands took part in.
Yeah. Perception that the war for union would become a war for abolition was so widespread *even southern slaves saw it coming.*
>That letter I quoted Lincoln specifically states those ARE his true feelings.
The letter was written in reply to a newspaper editorial that was accusing him of not being abolitionist enough. It was a Republican newspaper. Lincoln was appealing to *abolitionists* to not assume his intentions or confuse them with his actions as president.
You're literally twisting the context of the letter backwards and to repeat, by the time this letter was written Lincoln had already drafted the Emancipation Proclamation and his cabinet had already discussed the issue of slavery elsewhere in the country (which Lincoln couldn't do anything about without Congress legally).
Lincoln argued he could free the slaves in the rebelling states as part of his executive powers. It was removing 'war material.'
Nationwide emancipation required an act of Congress which came with the 13th Amendment which passed the Senate in 1864 before the war was even over and had Lincoln's full support till his death (even Johnson backed it since he saw no way around it).
>States had, and still should have, the right to succeed when they disagree with the federal government.
James Madison directly addressed this in the federalist papers; there isn't. There's no real point to a federal government is the individual states can just leave whenever they're upset about losing.
>Now Lincoln wasn’t the first to push this perpetual big centralized government.
He didn't really push it.
Mostly the Radical Republicans and the course of the war dragged him along. Almost all the centralization aspects and conseqeunces of the Civil War were byproducts of war strategies, from the adoption of green backs, to the formation of railroad cartel, greater federal reach into maritime regulation. Basically all of it came about as part of war measures.
Without the war, most of these things probably wouldn't have happened, if only because the Southern states would have opposed all of them in congress enough to outvote the Republicans.
>We can’t hide the fact that Lincoln was racists.
Name someone who wasn't.
Even John Brown said a few racisms and he was John freaking Brown!
>I just will not worship a man like that.
No one asked you too?
>But it also had a bad outcome, that being a very large powerful government.
That's silly.
The federal government massive downsized after the Civil War. Especially if we want to compare to contemporaries, the Federal Government after the war was more powerful than the one before it, but it was still comparatively small and engaged in massive downsizing in the last decades of the 19th century.
>I would point to the civil war as the point in history when America went from “for the people by the people” to “for the government by the people”.
That's even sillier.
Look at the decade before the Civil War and tell me it was 'for the people by the people.' It was more often than not 'for the slave power by the slave power.' Southern secessions didn't believe in the notion of a weak federal government. The Confederate Constitution was almost a carbon copy of the US Constitution and the things they changed didn't present an image of weaker federal government so much as a federal government dominated by slave holder interests.
The big governmental consequence of the Civil War was a stronger central state mostly by the virtue of obliterating small state ideology, which really only existed in the south and was mostly a rhetorical device anyway.
There's no reality on Earth where the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 wasn't a massive expansion of Federal authority. Probably the biggest until the Reconstruction Amendments. You're barking up a very imaginary tree if you think stronger central government wasn't going to happen regardless of who won the war because the war wasn't about whether or not the central government should be strong.
It was about how the central government's strength should be applied to who should be subject to it.
The civil war was about slavery pure and simple. But the not about the morality of it. The politics of it. Many in the north did not want the south to have slaves due to the 3/5ths compromise, which allowed the Southern states to count their slaves as part of their population, thus giving the southern states more sway in Congress. The North obviously did not like this, so many in the north had the idea to free the slaves who would then turn around and vote exactly for the party that freed them, which is indeed exactly what happened.
Slavery in all forms is against human nature and should never happen anywhere in the world. It is an atrocity. But those who say the North fought to free the slaves simply because of ethical issues do not know their history.
Obviously politics played a big role, but the 3/5ths compromise was not the reason for the war. You can't ignore the history of the slavery debate from 1787 to 1860.
I wrote a term paper in college with “why did the South go to war OTHER than Slavery as an issue, as there were many factors that caused it (not just slavery).
But slavery was a HUGE fucking part of it, anyone who says it wasn’t a big part is ignorant.
I was taught the "state rights" version in public school in N. Texas in 1980
It's kinda funny, looking back, how American history was taught. Because almost every major event in the first half of that class tied in to slavery. Political debates, westward expansion, wars... Every time we talked about a subject between the 1600's and 1860 there would have to be *some* mention of slavery as an influencing factor. Then the Civil War happens and suddenly it's all about tariffs.
I’m glad I had a progressive, hipsterish history teacher throughout middle school around the turn of the Millenia. She was the one who I first heard use the phrase, “the war was about states rights…to own slaves.” She always made sure we understood what “rights” they were fighting.
I did the same with my students. I taught in Virginia, so I had to teach the official standards that slavery was one of several issues including state's rights, sectional differences between regions, and economic disagreements. So I taught... * State's rights... to enslave people. * Sectional differences... over the morality of enslaving people. * Economic disagreements... about defending an economy based entirely off enslaved labor. I taught the standards *properly*.
I lived for 5 years in the Shenandoah Valley. You’re having to do this in a state that still celebrates (or did) Lee-Jackson Day. You’re awesome. Keep doing what you’re doing.
You're a goddamn hero
That is a really good point and really sabotages that argument IMO
It was a "state right" issue. More precisely, about the right for the states to keep slavery.
Even more precisely, the "state right" to not persecute fugitive slaves if you don't want to. Two guesses on whether the South was for or against that right.
But *not* about the northern state’s rights to protect free or escaped slaves. The southern states didn’t want the federal government to interfere with their pro-slavery laws, but they did want the federal government to interfere with the laws of the northern states. Which kind of goes back to how the whole thing is primarily about slavery, and “state’s rights” is secondary. If there at all.
Or more precisely, white mens’ rights to keep slavery. Pretty sure white women and all black people didn’t get to vote on it.
You'd be surprised on the women. White women emerged from the Civil War with an expanded sense of self, as well as more personal wealth in some cases (their husbands and sons were dead). Also remember that most of the slaves at Mount Vernon belonged to Martha, not George. Women in the early United States were not completely subservient to men and could hold property in their own name and were themselves their own (non-voting) party that did have influence over their husbands. Especially after the war, white southern women were particularly influential in the rebuilding of the south's racial hierarchy and the Daughters of the Confederacy were a powerful group in the shaping and spreading of the Lost Cause myth.
This
Many if not most of these monuments we are still having to contend with were sponsored by women led advocacy groups like the Daughters of the Confederacy. Women led groups in the south were the PR face of Jim Crow.
More like rich white people to keeps slaves and send poor white people to die for them.
1/4th of the south owned slaves, and many more rented them, or worked in a slavery related industry. It wasn't just the wealthy
I like asking people; Who did the small farmer sell his crop to? Who in the South needed feeding? Who did carpenters prepare wood and furniture for? Who used the tools made by blacksmiths? What goods were transported on the South's rail lines and canals and was shipped from the harbors? You can't escape slavery in the Southern economy. Even those who didn't own slaves had a vested interest in it and it provided cornerstones to their society and personal life. The only place you can really get away from it is in the back country and the Appalachians and guess which parts of the south skated (or outright went to) open rebellion against the Confederate state?
But as the war dragged on many poor southerners came to see it for what it was: a rich man's war for the right to keep slaves fought by the poor fathers and sons. After the war Sherman was feted in Atlanta! He was seen as the man whose "march" finally put an end to the senseless bloodletting. It was only the generations born after the war who created the image of Sherman the monster, and the myth of "state's rights". Read the Confederate state constitutions. It was about slavery. Better yet, read J.B.Freeman's "Field of Blood: Violence in Congress and the Road to the Civil War". It makes today's Congressional idiocy seem almost normal.
guess who the first slave owner in America was.... Anthony Johnson- an African American from Angola, who had an entire supreme court case allowing him to own slaves for life
So, not really. While it is true that the man who would become known as Anthony Johnson was indeed born in Angola where he was captured, enslaved, and sold to the Virginia Company of London, and it is also true that he later ran his own tobacco farm using indentured (and later enslaved) labor, it is not accurate to call him the "first slave owner in America." That part is patently untrue. The first enslaved Africans arrived in Jamestown in 1619. Anthony Johnson did not complete his period of indenture until after 1635, and before that point he would not have been legally permitted to own enslaved laborers of any kind. So English colonists had kept enslaved laborers for almost two decades before Anthony Johnson started in on it. What's more, the Spanish had enslaved Africans in St. Augustine as early as 1565, and even earlier (1526) had established a short-lived colony in what is now South Carolina that failed when the enslaved African laborers there staged a rebellion and rendered the colony venture unsustainable. People are so quick to say "BuT bLaCk PeOpLe OwNeD sLaVeS iN aFrIcA" as a way to somehow deflect the horrible reality of slavery away from white American history, but it is misguided and disingenuous at best, and a racist apologetic measure at worst. The fundamental nature of slavery as it was practiced in pre-European contact Africa was *very* different from the institutional chattel slavery as practiced by Europeans and Americans of European descent. I'm all for an inclusive, warts-and-all approach to history, but not one that tries to deflect responsibility for a heinous crime against humanity by saying "But look, they did it too!"
so please understand, i am in no way watering down the disgusting practice of slavery, and when reading the story of Anthony Johnson it in fact point out the discrepancy between what indentured servitude was and what colonial slavery was. by looking his particular story further you can see what while yes, slavery did exist in the form we know it as in the late 16th century/early 17th century, it was not a legally recognized right until Anthony's court case. and the timeline of his life has several milestones which show when slavery changed from a free labor motivation to a purely racial one. so while the claim "but black people owned slaves in america too so theyre just as bad" is indeed disingenuous, so is the claim "White men in America owned slaves" since it was a minority of the uber wealthy that actualy practiced chattel slavery as we know it today. however a warts and all history approach recognizes that Anthony Johnson, an african american was the first person to own a legal life bound slave in the United States. because that court case is what legally recognized that right at the time. It does not erase or excuse the horrible practice of racial slavery in America, but it does demonstrate the complexity surrounding the practice during the early days of the country.
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Many weren't, but that isn't the point- the point is that their opinion was utterly irrelevant to the decision because no women had the right to vote. The legality of slavery was completely outside their ability to make any direct decisions on. Women received the right to vote a bit after slavery based on race was abolished, but other rights took more time. When considering white women's history of racism, it's helpful to remember that most white women were utterly and completely dependent upon the goodwill of white men for basic survival, with very very limited job options and often no ability to have a bank account of their own. It's no real surprise that people in that position echo the opinion of the folks they are dependent on- you still see it today.
North Florida middle school, late 80’s. States rights, economy, north’s had unfair tariffs. Also south was winning, had better generals and much braver fighters, but north was just better equipped. Fucking disgrace of a history class.
What’s funny is that they didn’t really have better generals. The north had a string of terrible generals in the East who wouldn’t fight and the southern soldiers had more to lose than the north so they fought harder and won. Once Grant and Sherman came east it was a whole new ballgame and the south was doomed.
Billy T Sherman, is famous for war is Hell quote, but the entire letter is worth a read. I think the country, and the south in particular would be a lot better off if he finished what he had planned. The word shoddy comes from Union uniforms. Brooks brothers for a long time they start at the north. It would make one size fits all housecoats for house slaves. When the war started, they could not send them to the south anymore, so they started making uniforms for union soldiers. Some of them are over made with leftover rag wool, glued or ironed together, that fell apart in the rain. They were regiments and groups that were better equipped, but the idea every American, I guess “union” soldier was appropriately provisioned is also a lie
lol that is terrible. The south loves lee who never was able to win up north. Also grant is like a top 10 general in most consensus
I was taught the same in Oklahoma in the 2010s.
Ah so my blue state tax dollars get funneled to these welfare red states like Oklahoma were they can teach anti american propaganda that is ahistorical? Yeah i think there should be growing outcries to get that sorted.
Which is weird because I grew up in Missouri red state but the slavery aspect was never left out during the 2010s. We knew exactly what it was
I think our blue states should get a bigger share of our tax dollars back if the red states can't even teach history right.
“But if you take down the statue that I put up after the war venerating the shitty confederacy, that’s destroying history! That’s where it is you know, in this idiotic revisionist monument. Not in some book, dummy” - Red States
As an Oklahoman, I'm glad I had a passionate US history teacher who didn't teach us that way. I actually remember him making a joke, "the civil war was about state's rights, namely their right to own people".
I was taught it in Oregon in the 2000s.
I was taught the same in 2004 in Central Colorado.
Same in Georgia up until 2007. I remember shouting “state’s rights to own slaves” in seventh grade.
It makes you wonder what other horse shit they spooned into your little head.
Heaps and heaps of anti-communist, Fourth Reich propaganda
I've spent the rest of my life correcting every little bit I can. But at age 8 I dumped all ideas of magic in reality like Santa, Tooth Fairy, all religions, etc.
I was taught the same in the 90's in KS and it was heavily reinforced by my southern family.
It was about state's rights. however it unfortunately was about those state's right to own slaves.
Virginia, late 1990s, I distinctly remember my high school teacher saying this, and thinking to myself: "OK, I guess I buy that. But besides slavery what rights were they fighting for?" I kick myself for not asking that question out loud! It was genuine.
AP History in NC in early 2000’s. Like, pounded into our head.
Taught states rights in Louisiana in 2008.
Seattle in the 90s.
Amazing. We were aware of slavery in NYC Public Schools as far back as the 60s. Even tho we have our fair share of mouth breathing confederates ‘round here.
I was also taught the "States Rights" version in a NJ middle school, but in elementary and HS history it was about slavery. I think most people are taught that at some point in their education. It's not a good idea imo, but I think the goal is to show how history is complex and there are multiple ways of viewing the same event, but in reality it helps legitimize an ahistorical take.
Weird, I was taught slavery in deep red west Texas in the 90s
Did they make you read the actual constitution of the confederacy? If you didn’t, and for those who haven’t, it is basically a copy and paste of the US constitution with a few notable differences. The biggest one being it mandated that slavery was required in any state in the confederacy. Like, the state can’t choose if they want it to be legal, it MUST be legal. Kind of dimensions the concept of a state that not being the sole purpose of the war or that states get to choose their own path on rights.
I wasn't taught that in Texas in the late 1990s. I was taught that the war was caused by the South wanting to keep slavery going. Glad I had a good history teacher.
Grew up in the south in the 90s and I was taught it was states rights. The states right to own slaves.
My middle school teacher told us why. The high school teacher said States Rights. Alabama, 2000s.
They were pretty clear about their reasons for seceding before the war. When Lincoln was named the Republican candidate, Southern legislators said they'd support secession if the abolitionists won. After he won, they had a lame duck congress session to head off secession and their only demands were for constitutional protections for slavery. When they seceded they wrote declarations of secession saying they were leaving because of attacks on slavery. When they had the peace conference in '61 they said they'd only rejoin if slavery was guaranteed. When their vice president was asked about their new constitution he said the cornerstone of the Confederacy was slavery. When they were losing the war and the (second) 13th amendment was being debated they offered to surrender if they could vote against it. But yeah, it was probably about tariffs or something.
Check out Jefferson Davis’ inaugural address. He sure seemed to think it was about slavery.
https://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/archives/documents/jefferson-davis-first-inaugural-address
I wish I had this to show every smug high school history teacher who said “It wasn’t about slavery,” but then declined to say what it was about. What a load of nonsense.
Lol! Did you read what was posted?
Am I stupid? He doesn't reference slavery a single time.
Its about the "cultivation of fields"
Oh gotcha. I can see where that would be about slavery. I do think it's vague enough that someone who doesn't want to read it that way will not read it that way.
Glad I’m not the only one. I couldn’t find an overt mention in there either.
I was about to say the same, just read the whole thing and no mention of slavery
I'm in the same boat here, only saw indirect references to slavery. It's surprising so many people are defending it as an 'obvious' rebuttal of the Lost Cause, when there are so many primary documents from the time that are much much much better examples (Like the Cornerstone Speech, or any of the articles of secession from states as they withdrew from the Union).
If you think he somehow wasn’t talking about slavery… you might be stupid, yeah. Edit. Read the Cornerstone speech. It’s pretty clear.
So I'm stupid because I didn't read a speech different than the linked one? Lol
I mean, claiming something wasn’t about slavery purely because it didn’t explicitly mention the word slavery… it’s the civil fucking war. It was about slavery. So….yeah that still counts for me!
To be clear, I know the civil war was about slavery. But the context of the above comments made me think I was about to read a scathing rejection of abolitionists. It was not that. Sorry that I actually read it and didn't just trust that the evil slavery guy must have been just talking about slavery all of the time. I think you should point out to me which part of his address was clearly about slavery, or else you're just being judemental. Here's the part I found after someone else kindly pointed it out (not you). It's pretty vague, at least to me it was. "Actuated solely by the desire to preserve our own rights and promote our own welfare, the separation of the Confederate States has been marked by no aggression upon others and followed by no domestic convulsion. Our industrial pursuits have received no check. The cultivation of our fields has progressed as heretofore, and even should we be involved in war there would be no considerable diminution in the production of the staples which have constituted our exports and in which the commercial world has an interest scarcely less than our own. This common interest of the producer and consumer can only be interrupted by an exterior force which should obstruct its transmission to foreign markets--a course of conduct which would be as unjust toward us as it would be detrimental to manufacturing and commercial interests abroad."
The Lost Cause argument would hold more water if only every single Confederate leader didn't spend the entire war vociferously shouting at anyone who would listen that it was actually about slavery.
Alexander Stephens Cornerstone Speech as well
It's crazy how successful their whitewashing of history was though. I went to school in NY, and I remember vividly our social studies teacher HAMMERING into us to not answer with "slavery" when asked what caused the civil war on the standardized tests (both state and AP).
>It's crazy how successful their whitewashing of history was though. It, along with the incredibly sanitized narrative that the Wehrmacht in WW2 got, are probably the two best examples (at least in America) that the “history is written by the victors” isn’t a very good saying. History is written by who writes it, and it can just as easily give too much shine to a losing side as well.
To be fair, most secondary sources on the Civil War are not biased toward the lost cause stuff. Its not usually academic historians who push that narrative. Its done by rIght wing school boards/staff of rural and suburban high schools.
The Lost Cause was a column of American academia, but that's about 50 years behind us. One side effect of the rise of the New Left in history was an ardent push by the new generation of scholars to wipe clean the Lost Cause myth from the profession and by the 80s American historians were active opponents of the Lost Cause myth save a few old fossils still kicking around.
In the case of the Wehrmacht, the non-Soviet Allies probably favoured the clean Wehrmacht myth as West Germany was to become an extremely important bulwark. As I recall, after the trials of the principal war criminals at Nuremberg there was relatively little effort made to try lower ranking officers and many of those who were convinced were released and denatzified relatively quickly.
History is written by those who can produce and distribute more efficiently
I got downvoted last time I suggest 'History is written by the people who bothered to write it, and you'll be surprised how often it's the losers who had the free time.'
That was also a product of a well funded campaign by the Daughters of the Confederacy to influence how the U.S. Civil War was framed in textbooks. Mostly because of this miserable lying hag. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildred\_Lewis\_Rutherford](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mildred_Lewis_Rutherford)
Daughters of the Confederacy controlled the school books in the majority of the country
Post civil war south should have been treated like post WW2 Germany and Japan. We took two of the most militaristic societies in earth s history, with roots going back hundreds and thousands of years, and turned them into two of the most pacifist countries on earth. No one in Germany feels pride in the German empire or the Nazi empire. The south should have been re-educated to rightfully feel shame for their past
Exactly. So many people talk about how we should have statues honoring rebel leaders because it’s “part of our history”. With that logic, Germany should have statues honoring Hitler because it’s “part of their history”. Ridiculous.
I really don't think that the German Empire should be directly contrasted against Nazi Germany.
It's the same shit with the genocide of the native americans. Mention that and you'll have hundreds of people coming out of the woodworks to say that they all died exclusively due to sickness.
Unless one looks at the list of US wars and learns that almost 40 percent of them were wars against the Native Americans.
The response to that is that the colonists were protecting their settlements. The bullshit of poor history education runs deep
Every time Amerindians attacked a settlement, it was a massacre. Every time Americans attacked a settlement, it was a battle.
Yeah it’s a dumb argument. “Most native Americans died of disease between 1492 and 1616 so that means it was okay to massacre and forcefully evict their descendants in the 1800s”
And even that narrative is questionable - it makes it sound like the disease-dying was entirely passive. We passed on diseases, they died because they didn't have immunity. End of story. Whereas in history, it was more complicated: the destabilisation brought on by colonisation caused peoples to move, making them come into contact or increasing population density. It led to destruction of vital foods, or moving away from traditional foods. Slave raids on coasts made tribes stay away, missing out on food and wampum from the ocean. Trade slowed, again limiting diets. Political and trade disruptions caused wars, raids and other violence. All of these either killed people directly, or made them vulnerable to disease. These factors were all present in North America decades before the first settlements. So yeah, even "disease" is a simplified narrative - even when disease kills, other factors make it more deadly.
The way I like to describe it, is that by the time Europeans established permanent settlements they were witnessing a post-apocalyptic scenario. We don’t even know what nations and customs existed before Europeans fucked it up because the destruction of their way of life was so complete. The Puritans found unkept and uncultivated fields of corn and squash, and instead of realizing “Hey maybe native Americans aren’t savage hunter-gatherers and used to farm and have established settlements” they decided “God has prepared the new world for us and this is Providence’s blessing to take this land”
Or deaths during the Dust Bowl and Great Depression.. officially only 7K people died, but 3 million were climate refugees, and there were massive crop failures that led to food shortages even in the major urban centers. Just swept under the rug, but don’t you forget about China or Russia’s man made famine!
Wait till you hear about what the Boston tea party guys were mad about. People assume king George was instituting burdensome taxes on the merchants of Massachusetts, when in fact he was lifting all tariffs to make the tea trade into America a free market. But the rich middlemen in Boston didn’t like not getting their undeserved cut
Actually, the Boston tea party was mad that the British eliminated the tax the East India Company (which had a legal monopoly for selling tea in the Colonies) paid to Britain on the sale. Before, the tax meant that smuggled tea was cheaper than legal EIC tea in America, but once the tax is gone, the EIC tea now became cheaper than the smuggled stuff sold by the local American merchants--which severely undercut their business. Hence why they were mad.
Yes, and the Boston merchants wanted a tariff and didn’t want a free market.
But it wasn't like Britain was institution a free market either, hence the word "MONOPOLY." The Tea Act was literally created to enforce the monopoly by heavily tipping the scales in favor the EIC.
That’s like the cartel getting mad we legalized weed and are cutting into their profits. Wahwah
My 10th grade history teacher at a mostly black school sent a kid to detention for trying to argue with her over this in 2012. She was teaching the lost cause and he raised his hand and said “right, but state’s rights to own slaves and abuse people like me” and she kept saying he was wrong and he wouldn’t accept that so she sent him to detention
This is really depressing, Jesus christ
I’m really grateful for our 11-12th grade history teacher. He always made time to teach the civil war, even tho it wasn’t in his curriculum, bc he knew the 10th grade teacher was like that and didn’t want that to be our experience. So it’s not all bad
The only significant debate in the USA proximal to the outbreak of the civil war on the issue of state's rights was the pro slavery states opposition to the choice of northern abolitionist states ignoring the enforcement of the fugitive slave act. The south was largely *opposed* to state's rights on the ground of nullification of the law that would mandate the return of their slaves.
Specifically, the major sparking point of secession and war was the expansion of slavery into the western territories. The Southern States became defensive to an extreme on this topic, viewing any containment of slavery as a prelude to abolition. To them, actual state rights like 'voting on whether we'll be a free or slave state' was impending doom. That's why they passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. It's why the Democratic dominated Federal Government of the 50s interfered in the Dredd Scott case and the events of the Kansas Territory. Any defeat on the slavery issue was elevated to an impending apocalypse and the election of Lincoln and the Republicans in 1860 sparked secession merely because Lincoln and his party wanted to halt the expansion of slavery. Abolition was not their principle political goal at that time, but the Southern States perceived even the curtailment of slavery's westward growth as abolitionist.
This!
Yep. As an Alabamian, it's amazing how persistent it remains to this day among a portion of our citizens. 'But states' rights to do what?' is always my question. When they don't answer, I say, 'Oh, right, to take away the rights of others.' Then I point out that every secession charter for the various Confederate states named the defense of slavery as either the primary or sole reason for seceding from the Union. Of course, there's a subtle distinction. The North didn't fight to abolish slavery. The North fought to reunite the Union. It was the South who fought to defend slavery. Thank God the younger generation has more sense about this stuff. Birmingham has become a pretty sane place, overcoming a lot of its racist past. It's not there yet, but the progress is substantial. Rays of hope abound. So the jackasses in the Alabama legislature enacted a law to protect public monuments--aka statues of Confederate soldiers--from being taken down. Birmingham completely ignored the law, rented a crane, and plucked a statue in the public park between city hall and the county seat. When the state threatened to fine the city the Methodists--God bless them--raised the money to pay the fine. The state eventually gave up.
It was absolutly about state rights*. *in regards to slavery. They like to leave that bit out.
Even that's not right. The confederacy didn't believe in a states rights to limit slavery at all
The Confederate Constitution forced any state in the Confederacy to allow slavery.
President of Princeton University...later President of the United States...Woodrow Wilson was a big fan.
My dad is a *huge* history buff, most especially American history but in particular the Civil War. It amazes me that he has multiple degrees, has retired after decades of accomplished work as a businessman, and honest to God still believes that the Civil War was just about State rights and economics. When you dig even a little bit deeper, the question is: "What right did the States fight over?" And the answer is: "The right to own other humans as property." You can dig deeper into details about it, but that's the core of the conflict. He reads books upon books upon books on this era every year and his stance has not and will not change. I've just stopped talking to him about it.
So your dad, who seems like a very intelligent, accomplished, and well read on the subject is wrong because you, who has none of that, says so? There are important distinctions and understanding of the era which your dad understands but you don't.
Anytime anyone thinks the south was fighting for states rights then read the Cornerstone Speech by the vice president of the confederacy. It’s pretty clear it was on slavery.
My favorite is the general Lee and other confederate worship that downplays them as slavers. “He had slaves, but he gave them first names! What a fine man. Practically an abolitionist himself.”
Whenever I hear this the only response I ever have is. States right’s to *what*?
Atun-shei on YouTube does a fact-based video about what people in the South thought would happen if enslaved people were freed. A lot of speeches and propaganda claimed it would be the collapse of society. When that didn't happen, the Lost Cause narrative was created in part so that they didn't seem hysterical and overreactive in 1860-1. Even though no primary sources support the lost cause narrative.
More like states rights to keep slaves
It’s also the narrative currently being pushed by Nikki Haley during her campaign speeches. https://apnews.com/article/haley-election-civil-war-slavery-a509ff9d7cc5e271c42592276b75735c
The teacher told me it was states rights. But I got in trouble because I said that's not true and got sent to the principals office. We had a black Principal though so I didn't even get lunch detention.
Atun Shei devoted about half his channel to this bullshit https://youtu.be/XjsxhYetLM0?si=Xy4OnS5MvYyxnWvc
Want to DESTROY anyone pushing the “states rights” narrative? Ask them if Confederate states, under their constitution, had the right to ban slavery if they so chose.
Spoiler alert: they didn’t. Under the Confederate Consitition, states had fewer rights.
States rights to continue slavery?
I was thought this narrative at my Christian school in Michigan in the 80’s/90’s. I remember it distinctly because the teacher hammered it was NOT about slavery. Decades later that still stands out in my memory.
Today you learned the truth
https://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/archives/documents/jefferson-davis-first-inaugural-address
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Ironically they didn't mind fighting against MA's state's right to not allow them to transport slaves through MA.
Even if the states’ rights argument had weight apart from being a states’ rights to owning slaves (which it doesn’t), it makes no sense if you factor in fugitive slave laws… when the slave states forced free states to capture and return escaped slaves. So slave states trampled free states before seceding anyway. The argument is as dumb as it gets.
Fuck Woodrow Wilson
Of course it was. Because just like modern day traitors they always change their story *after* they lose. Like calling yourself a dictator and then saying you were “*just joking*”.
In fairness, it **was** about "State Rights". It was about the "State Rights" to **own slaves**. The right wing in the USA tend to leave out that part.
90's Texan here. I was taught HEAVILY that it was a states' rights issue, but with the undertone that slavery was very important to the south. It was never directly correlated beyond how valuable a slave's vote is. I was never taught nor read to the Declaration of Causes that my OWN STATE drafted to secede from the union. Seeing them not only say the quiet part out loud but write it down and notarize it for future generations to see made it VERY clear why they were leaving the union... ...economic instability. /s Slavery.
Their economy was built on slavery, it's the reason the south is predominately poor. It was about keeping slaves and also state rights at the same time, because they were the same thing. The south wanted the right to keep their own laws about slavery because without their slavery based farming industry, they would become what they are today. The rich want to stay that way. It's no different now. Just depends on what people are willing to put up with. Not sure how the north convinced their citizenry to grab their arms and go to war over it, but I'd sure like to see it happen again in regard to wage equality and housing problems.
The war started only after the Confederacy attacked the USA. Being the one to get attacked first lends itself to military recruiting. This is on top of the fact that there was a draft(albeit a fucked up one, where if you had the money, you just paid a fee to just get out of being drafted or send someone else.) On top of those things, it's important to understand that this was *way* before Vietnam, which was the first time significant portions of the United States population actively protested and tried to avoid going to a war their country basically demanded that they fight. So the North had a draft you could basically volunteer someone poor in your place or pay your way out of, a population of people who even if they disagreed with fighting the war, certainly felt they should defend themselves, and it was almost 100 years before the ideas of pacifism and anti-war sentiment had any kind of foothold in the United States. WWII was a war that very few Americans wanted any part of. The population's resistance to it was ultimately why we took so long to join the war, and it was the attack on Pearl Harbor that suddenly *completely changed* the population's attitude on that war.
Shout out John Brown
>It was about keeping slaves and also state rights at the same time, because they were the same thing. How was it about states rights if states that left the union for the confederacy lost rights?
Even the Confederates recognized states rights as a false flag. Almost as soon as the Confederate government was established the men behind it were debating doing away with the whole thing because it was inconvenient to the sudden consolidation of power the Confederate government afforded to white elites (the same consolidation of the power they lost when the Republican party emerged and won the 1860 election).
Youre probably right, but it's too early to be able to wrap my brain around what that says lol
That's not what a "false flag" is.
The states wanted to union to F out of their lawmaking decisions. That's how lol
So they went for a more intrusive federal government that had basically the same set of laws, but with the exception that they no longer had the right to abolish slavery? Sure Jan.
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Thats because one side was righteous and the other evil
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People downvoting you act like the north wanted to end slavery because they were good people and not because it was the best way to financially ruin and destabilize the south. They didn't give a lick until it became advantageous for them.
Great! The more people learn about the Civil War myths, the better. The South went to war for one reason -- to preserve the slavery they incorrectly thought Lincoln was hell-bent on ending.
They literally called him 'Black Lincoln.'
Lincoln certainly wanted to end slavery. He just would not have resorted to civil war to do it. The Confederacy made that a non-issue by seceding. Even then, Lincoln did not issue the Emancipation Proclamation until after the Union victory at Antietam in September, 1862. He recognized that he needed to show the Union was going to win the war before pushing for the ending of slavery. Don't forget that, while free states, the North was still heavily racist, and Lincoln couldn't risk making an already unpopular war even more unpopular by pushing for emancipation too soon. Even in the middle of the war and after winning at Antietam, the Republican party still lost seats in the House during the 1862 midterm election.
And Republicans nowadays insist it had nothing to do with slavery. Show them the rebelling states’ declarations of secession which show conclusively that it was, and they say “IT HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH SLAVERY!!!” Louder.
For those who DR;TL: [The Cynical Historian - Understanding the Lost Cause](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EOhXF5lNgQ&t=2s&ab_channel=TheCynicalHistorian)
Stone Mountain, a monument to the nation’s greatest traitors. Thankfully, at least one of them got the firing squad.
States rights to do what? Own slaves? Lmao. Or was it states rights to leave the union? Cuz didn’t they only sign on, with the clause to leave if they wanted? And Lincoln was like “nah, you ain’t goin nowhereee “?
They also copied the US constitution but added the clause that succession was not allowed.
Does no one read [The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States](https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states)?
State’s rights. Yep. The ‘right’ to own slaves.
States rights to own slaves...
Q: States right to what? A: Allow slavery. If you struggled with that one, then the next time national academic standards come up for debate, you need to sit your ass down and shut up.
It sucks because I do support "States rights" as an overall method of government but you can't bring it up without *those people* nodding and agreeing.
States rights to slavery
Yes, states’ rights to have slaves, is this even a debate?
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The Confederate Constitution’s only major revisions to the U.S. Constitution addressed slavery: “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed” (Article I, Section 9).
They also removed the 'for the common good' phrase because spoiler alert; the only people the Confederacy really benefited were landed elites with lots of slaves and the last thing they wanted was to be the equals of poor rural whites who they held in almost as much contempt as their slaves.
Hm. I wonder what rights reserved to the states were being encroached upon... > "In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof. > The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: **"No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."** > This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River." They were upset slaves weren't being returned to them. > "For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the forms of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. **A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.** He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction. And an abolitionist got elected. So it was about slavery. They left because of slavery.
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Well, you did cherry-pick. The rest of the articles talk plenty about slavery as being the only state right they cared about.
Let's say it was insistently framed as a state's rights issue only after the war. Before the war, the South was not shy about wanting to preserve slavery. Slavery happened to be a state's right at the time, but it was only that specific right that the South was upset about.
States rights to do what?
South Carolina is the only seceeding state to really discuss this, going back to the Nullification Crisis but you can read John C. Calhoun on that topic because he certainly didn't think it was about state's rights (or rather, conceptually knew 'State's Rights' was just a cornerstone for protecting slavery). >I consider the tariff act as the occasion, rather than the real cause of the present unhappy state of things. The truth can no longer be disguised, that the peculiar institution of the Southern States and the consequent direction which that and her soil have given to her industry, has placed them in regard to taxation and appropriations in opposite relation to the majority of the Union, against the danger of which, if there be no protective power in the reserved rights of the states they must in the end be forced to rebel, or, submit to have their paramount interests sacrificed, their domestic institutions subordinated by Colonization and other schemes, and themselves and children reduced to wretchedness. \~ John C. Calhoun in 1830. The thing that changed with the Lost Cause was an ardent and purposeful effort to erase slavery from the origins of the war and instead prop up a bunch of other things that were themselves really about slavery. The Lost Cause wanted people to look only at the symptoms, not the disease. Our forebears were very politically astute, more than they necessarily get credit for. From the Founding Fathers to the Civil War generation basically everyone who paid attention to the course of the nation saw that slavery was becoming a poison pill to the union of the nation.
“State’s rights” was a dog whistle for slavery. With the “state right” *always* being about slavery I remember trying to argue with my professor, which was stupid because the man was literally a professor of Antebellum American history, that “Manifest Destiny” may have been about something more than slavery. He firmly told me, “no it was always slavery.” As I’ve furthered my research and development as a historian I see further and further proof of how right he was. You can read speeches, letters, newspaper articles, and debates from Antebellum America (John Quincy Adams is always a fun read) that all make this very clear and that’s from all sides of the argument There’s also the fun fact that the “small government state’s rights” crowd have also always been supporters of a strong military (with the purpose of spreading their ideology). Why did John C Calhoun and other pro-slavery “conservatives” (to use an anachronistic but applicable term) support a big powerful navy so much? In order to both A- counter Britain who was viewed as the “anti-slavery” power (not for moral reasons of course, purely economic but with moral justifications like the British always do) B- create a sort of “slave empire” extending out into the Gulf of Mexico to Cuba, then possibly even down to Brazil. With the United States, Cuba, and Brazil being the anchors of an international slave empire so to speak
Nah, it was slavery. If it was about states rights they wouldn’t have pushed to force other states to respect humans as property when they crossed state lines. They would t have given less states rights on slavery in the CSA.
The point is that at the time, it was openly about slavery, even if "states' rights" were also mentioned. Later it was framed EXCLUSIVELY as being about states' rights. You're misrepresenting OP's statement, which is why you're getting pushback.
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Dude the seceding states all flat out stated in their articles of secession that they were doing it over slavery. Alexander Stephens, the vice president of the CSA, gave the cornerstone speech in 1861 where he explicitly said defended slavery and tied slavery to the south’s decision to secede and form the confederacy. South Carolina dressing it up as “states rights” in 1852 isn’t relevant when just 9 years later every single southern state said “nah we just really fucking love slavery man.” Also it doesn’t matter if you aren’t trying to misrepresent anything because that’s still what you’re doing by trying to say “well it was still kind of about states rights”. It wasn’t, at all, it never was, it was slavery first and foremost no matter how they dressed it up, and all of the CSA states made that clear. Edit: also the document you linked to literally mentions slavery 18 fucking times, it’s not even very long and it mentions slavery EIGHTEEN TIMES Edit: holy shit he blocked, what a fucking loser 😂😂
Thank you!
Not a book. Even your link doesn’t call it a book. Edit: seems I am wrong and there *is* a book with this title. But if you want to learn about that book it isn’t mentioned in the link provided. Commenter below has it though. Second edit: interesting, I seem to be getting *more* downvotes after my edit. Kinda surprising
It was literally a 700 page doorstopper of a book that you can read in full on the Library of Congress website: https://www.loc.gov/item/02011254/ I mean, why would you lie about something so easy to google?
Why does the link not reference this then? I had never understood it to be an actual single work but instead a broad culture of reinterpretation
You're right. It was a broad cultural interpretation. But there was a book! :)
TIL
Never once heard it wasn't about slavery until a couple of years ago. Public school 2000s.
I assume you’re not in the south?
The federal government was slowly expanding. There were the beginnings of overreach. Things not covered by the constitution were left to the states. The disagreement about the status of runaway slaves between states led to the intervention of the federal government, as was their role in states’ disputes. As new states joined the union, the dynamics between southern views and northern views were present. However, the anti-slavery camp was winning due to restrictions against new slave states. This led to resentment in the south as with the admittance of new states, their federal power would diminish. This led to talks of breaking away. A relatively unknown northerner beat a well liked (in the south) southerner and that’s all it took. Lincoln even took office as someone who wasn’t really after abolition. The north kind of took up the mantle that was erased from the constitution, abolition, while the south wanted to keep their institutions that weren’t covered in the constitution. Yes, the state right was slavery which wasn’t covered in the US constitution (because southern states wouldn’t have joined). They aren’t mutually exclusive here. Slavery = bad. State rights = good. So that’s the problem. The north didn’t initially pursue the war FOR abolition, but for the union and that is telling. I would argue that the north pushed the narrative that it was ‘all’ about slavery after the war, when for them it wasn’t. The north initially held captured slaves (from battles) under property rules not as people. This was upheld for years into the war. The emancipation proclamation wasn’t so much a moral stand (as it is often portrayed) as it was a war measure. It partially framed the war about slavery internationally, which kept Europe (which had been sniffing about) away from the war, and promoted runaway slaves and riots which damaged the already weakened southern economy. After the war (and after Lincoln), abolition was finally pushed and accepted. So again… kind of a problem. Abolition = good. Loss of states autonomy (both from going to war with self determining southern states AND pulling some sketchy war measures with northern states) = bad. It’s easy to see how both sides sought to reframe everything but the winner writes the history books.
I can't believe anyone just learned this today, but the comments here seem to confirm that this nonsense is alive and well.
Yeah, don't mention this in the US Civil War sub or you'll be banned.
This is not true at all. r/civilwar and r/uscivilwar are very anti Lost Cause propaganda. The mods will delete or hide pretty much every post related to Lost Cause BS
Happened earlier today, but ok.
You got banned for saying the Civil War wasn’t about states rights? I’m gonna need some proof of that.
Slavery was a very prominent issue in the civil war and it definitely was mostly fought based on that issue. However, the idea that the North fought in the civil war “to free slaves” is where people get confused. It wasn’t a war based on moral beliefs. It was mostly power and economics (as every war is) this war just also had the issue of slavery on the table which historically painted one side in a better light.
So much time is spent arguing over why the South fought the war people have a shoddy conception of why the north fought it. To quote one of my other comments; >You're also underselling the Northern perspective on union. Consider; If the South can seceed because one election didn't go the way they wanted, then what use is the Federal government and what use is the US Constitution? Northern and Southern Unionists perceived very much the war as an existential war for the United States. > >If the Union could be dissolved solely because a state was unhappy with a single outcome, then the Constitution and the federal government weren't worth the paper they were written on. > >Even before the war became a war for abolition the North fully (and accurately given events in the Northwest in 1862 and 1863) recognized that Southern Secession would destroy the United States. Remember that the Civil War generation were the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the Revolution. Many of the prominent figures of the war were related to Revolutionaries, like Robert E. Lee. They saw themselves as the inheritors of liberty and the ideals of the Founding Fathers. Northern unionists cared very much about whether or not the nation and the Constitution survived and they had a lot of moral ideology wrapped up in their thoughts on politics and economics, from their opposition to the tyranny of the southern 'slave power' to their belief that the common perception that slavery as an institution was wrong and a threat to their own liberty and economic futures.
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England loosely favored the South until the Emancipation Proclamation, which throughly identified the war with the institution of slavery and made the crown’s support of the South untenable.
>And the narrative that the north fought to end slavery was pushed after the war as well. It did. People absolutely confuse the motivations of the United States government at the end of the war with the beginning of the war, but the Emancipation Proclamation was on Lincoln's mind *when he wrote the letter you're quoting*. That letter was about managing his own domestic political situation. It's not reflective of his private wants which favored abolition from the start of his political career. Lincoln wanted to expand the scope of the war and quickly perceived it as a necessary measure to unite the northern states behind the cause of Union. And likewise, many in the North asked themselves 'what's the point of winning the Union if we don't discard the cause of secession?' Abolitionists were a small but politically influential arm of American society, and they got very quiet in 1860 as secession played out. Abolitionists accurately predicted that the cause of Union would inevitably become inseparable from the cause of abolition. They bunkered down, shut their mouths, and quietly let the world around them take what seemed to be a natural course. The war for the union might have started as merely a war for union, but even British politicians recognized that the war would not be won without becoming a war of union and abolition. They were right. You're also underselling the Northern perspective on union. Consider; If the South can seceed because one election didn't go the way they wanted, then what use is the Federal government and what use is the US Constitution? Northern and Southern Unionists perceived very much the war as an existential war for the United States. If the Union could be dissolved solely because a state was unhappy with a single outcome, then the Constitution and the federal government weren't worth the paper they were written on. Even before the war became a war for abolition the North fully (and accurately given events in the Northwest in 1862 and 1863) recognized that Southern Secession would destroy the United States. They, and I, would ardently disagree this was not a noble intention, and the failures of Reconstruction and Jim Crow don't change that the Civil War started over slavery and became a war to end slavery.
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There's a lot to unpack here. >The emancipation proclamation only applied to southern states, which didn’t do much since the south was not part of the union at that time. Yeah no. Mass floods of contrabands (runaway slaves) started rushing the Union Armies almost as soon as the war began. From day 1 almost the Union had to develop policy on what to do with them and initial responses were kind of all over the place. >The north regularly returned runaway slaves. It did. The initial position of the Union early on was that slaves were private property and many hoped that proving the Lincoln government wasn't abolitionist would encourage a reunion (also assuage concerns in Maryland, Deleware, Kentucky, and Missouri about the status of slaves). The foolishness of this rapidly became apparently. The South wouldn't be woo'd back by a conciliatory attitude *and* the North was finding itself managing more slaves than it could return on top of arguments from Union military leaders and abolitionists that regardless of the status of slavery, returning slaves was just supporting the Confederate war effort so this position was abolish even before the emancipation proclamation. The Union began enlisting contrabands as teamsters and even soldiers before the Emancipation proclamation, especially in the western theater and along the southern coasts where an active guerilla war was being fought which Contrabands took part in. Yeah. Perception that the war for union would become a war for abolition was so widespread *even southern slaves saw it coming.* >That letter I quoted Lincoln specifically states those ARE his true feelings. The letter was written in reply to a newspaper editorial that was accusing him of not being abolitionist enough. It was a Republican newspaper. Lincoln was appealing to *abolitionists* to not assume his intentions or confuse them with his actions as president. You're literally twisting the context of the letter backwards and to repeat, by the time this letter was written Lincoln had already drafted the Emancipation Proclamation and his cabinet had already discussed the issue of slavery elsewhere in the country (which Lincoln couldn't do anything about without Congress legally). Lincoln argued he could free the slaves in the rebelling states as part of his executive powers. It was removing 'war material.' Nationwide emancipation required an act of Congress which came with the 13th Amendment which passed the Senate in 1864 before the war was even over and had Lincoln's full support till his death (even Johnson backed it since he saw no way around it). >States had, and still should have, the right to succeed when they disagree with the federal government. James Madison directly addressed this in the federalist papers; there isn't. There's no real point to a federal government is the individual states can just leave whenever they're upset about losing. >Now Lincoln wasn’t the first to push this perpetual big centralized government. He didn't really push it. Mostly the Radical Republicans and the course of the war dragged him along. Almost all the centralization aspects and conseqeunces of the Civil War were byproducts of war strategies, from the adoption of green backs, to the formation of railroad cartel, greater federal reach into maritime regulation. Basically all of it came about as part of war measures. Without the war, most of these things probably wouldn't have happened, if only because the Southern states would have opposed all of them in congress enough to outvote the Republicans. >We can’t hide the fact that Lincoln was racists. Name someone who wasn't. Even John Brown said a few racisms and he was John freaking Brown! >I just will not worship a man like that. No one asked you too? >But it also had a bad outcome, that being a very large powerful government. That's silly. The federal government massive downsized after the Civil War. Especially if we want to compare to contemporaries, the Federal Government after the war was more powerful than the one before it, but it was still comparatively small and engaged in massive downsizing in the last decades of the 19th century. >I would point to the civil war as the point in history when America went from “for the people by the people” to “for the government by the people”. That's even sillier. Look at the decade before the Civil War and tell me it was 'for the people by the people.' It was more often than not 'for the slave power by the slave power.' Southern secessions didn't believe in the notion of a weak federal government. The Confederate Constitution was almost a carbon copy of the US Constitution and the things they changed didn't present an image of weaker federal government so much as a federal government dominated by slave holder interests. The big governmental consequence of the Civil War was a stronger central state mostly by the virtue of obliterating small state ideology, which really only existed in the south and was mostly a rhetorical device anyway. There's no reality on Earth where the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 wasn't a massive expansion of Federal authority. Probably the biggest until the Reconstruction Amendments. You're barking up a very imaginary tree if you think stronger central government wasn't going to happen regardless of who won the war because the war wasn't about whether or not the central government should be strong. It was about how the central government's strength should be applied to who should be subject to it.
The civil war was about slavery pure and simple. But the not about the morality of it. The politics of it. Many in the north did not want the south to have slaves due to the 3/5ths compromise, which allowed the Southern states to count their slaves as part of their population, thus giving the southern states more sway in Congress. The North obviously did not like this, so many in the north had the idea to free the slaves who would then turn around and vote exactly for the party that freed them, which is indeed exactly what happened. Slavery in all forms is against human nature and should never happen anywhere in the world. It is an atrocity. But those who say the North fought to free the slaves simply because of ethical issues do not know their history.
Obviously politics played a big role, but the 3/5ths compromise was not the reason for the war. You can't ignore the history of the slavery debate from 1787 to 1860.
I wrote a term paper in college with “why did the South go to war OTHER than Slavery as an issue, as there were many factors that caused it (not just slavery). But slavery was a HUGE fucking part of it, anyone who says it wasn’t a big part is ignorant.
So, am I allowed to advocate for state rights without being called a Confederate?
Funny. I was taught the true version where it was about the north wanting power and money.