Was the Confederacy Only About States Rights?
I have seen so much posted throughout CF in defense of the Confederacy and states rights I feel the need to post some truths. I will be posting quotes from original documents regarding states rights, the confederate flag and slavery, interspersed with my commentary.
Note; the text in red was in red in the original documents from which they were copied. Anything in bold is a point I emphasized. (sorry copy and paste doesn't do color)
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, February 14, 1865.--Ordered to be printed.
[By Mr. SWAN.
AMENDMENT
To the Negro Soldier Bill.
1 The Congress of the Confederate States of America do enact,
2 That the General-in-Chief commanding the armies of the Confederate
3 States be and he is hereby invested with the full and
4 complete power to call into the service of the Confederate
5 States, to perform any duty to which he may assign them, so
6 many of the able-bodied slaves within the Confederate States,
7 as in his judgment the exigencies of the public service may
8 require.
1 SEC. 2. Be it enacted, That while said slaves are so employed,
2 whether voluntarily offered for service by their owners or
3 impressed in conformity to any existing or future law, such compensation,
4 clothing and rations shall be allowed to and for said
5 slaves as are allowed, by the Act approved February 17, 1864,
6 and Acts amendatory thereto, to increase the efficiency of the
7 army by the employment of free negroes and slaves in certain
8 cases.
voluntarily offered for service by their owners - I find this terminology to be an oxymoron
SECTION 3.
3. The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several States; and may permit them at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the territorial government: and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.
SECTION 9.
1. The importation of negroes of the African race, from any foreign country other than the slaveholding States or Territories of the United States of America, is hereby forbidden; and Congress is required to pass such laws as shall effectually prevent the same.
(to be fair to show that Africans were no longer going to be imported)
4. No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
The Southern States have been for nearly sixty years the object of political persecution by the North, which they have borne with patience and returned with kindness. In 1820, the North entered into a compromise, which has been broken. In 1850 they made new agreements, which have since been violated. In 1860 a legal majority elected a President on the "Platform" that "slavery must be restricted to its present limits." Outraged in our rights, and threatened in our interests, what course is left the South? To fold their arms and await more injury and endure more obloquy? Would this check the aggressions of the North till both North and South were swallowed up in the vortex of ruin? It is clear that the South has no alternative. Far better they should have abandoned the Confederacy than remain only to engage in bitter feuds that compromise the dignity of the country, and sow the seeds of undying hatred.
In 1789, according to our view, the South entered into a civil compact with the North, on certain conditions and guarantees. These have been broken, and the South returns, in her opinion, to her original sovereignty.*
* This principle of sovereignty was repeatedly asserted by New England during the last war, and on January 4, 1815, a report of a committee was made in the Hartford Convention, in favor of immediate secession from the Union, on the plea that the Constitution had been violated by the Embargo Act, and the ordering of the militia into the service of the United States. The report defended the right of secession as follows:
"That Acts of Congress, in violation of the Constitution, are absolutely void, is an undeniable position. . . . . But in cases of deliberate, dangerous, and palpable infractions of the Constitution, affecting the sovereignty of a State and liberties of the people, it is not only the right, but the duty, of such State to interpose its authority for their protection, in the manner best calculated to secure that end. When emergencies occur, which are either beyond the reach of the judicial tribunals, or too pressing to admit of the delay incident to their forms, States which have no common umpire, must be their own judges and execute their own decisions. The States should so use their power as effectually to protect their own sovereignty and the rights and liberties of their citizens."
were it otherwise--were it true that the South owed allegiance to the Federal Government--still, she asserts our own Declaration of Independence in 1776, and the present practice of Europe justify all people in repudiating a government which assails their rights and sacrifices their best interests. If the Northern States do not acknowledge these truths, then are they false to their origin, and seek to substitute for a government of opinion the tyranny of force. The South will adhere to its rights of secession at all hazards, and at every sacrifice.
A few general considerations, and we conclude our narrative. After tracing the course of events recorded in the foregoing pages, the questions naturally arise--What has been the result? What have the Abolitionists gained? The answers may be briefly summed up as follows:
1. They have put an end to the emancipation which originated among the real philanthropists of the South. In their wild and fanatical attempts they have counteracted the very object at which they have aimed. In the language of another, "The worst foes of the black race are those who have intermeddled in their behalf. By nature, the most affectionate and loyal of races beneath the sun, they are also the most helpless; and no calamity can befal them greater than the loss of that protection they enjoy under
this patriarchal system. Indeed, the experiment has been tried of precipitating them upon a freedom which they know not how to enjoy; and the dismal results are before the world in statistics that may well excite astonishment."*
* "Compared with European laborers, the black lives like a prince. He has his cabin generally neat and clean, and always weather-proof. He has likewise his own garden-patch, over which he is lord paramount. He is well fed, well lodged, well clothed, and never overworked. His holidays are numerous, and enjoyed with infinite gusto. Sleek, happy, and contented, the black lives to a great age. The slaveholder finds it to his interest to treat his negroes liberally, and takes every means to make them healthy and contented."
In striking confirmation of the above, we extract from the mortuary records of the last year the following cases of Negro slaves who lived to over a hundred years:
1860--February 2. Female slave, Virginia . . . . . 105
1860--February 15. Milly Lamar, Georgia . . . . . 135
1860--March 25. Sam, Georgia . . . . . 140
1860--April 17. Glasgow, Kentucky . . . . . 112
(Well that settles it for me 4 slaves out of millions transported form Africa who lived long lives, all the reason in the world to believe in the benevolence of slavery )
"With the fairest portions of the earth in their possession, and with the advantage of a long discipline as the cultivators of the soil, their constitutional indolence has converted the most beautiful islands of the sea into howling wastes. It is not too much to say, that if the South should at this moment, surrender every slave, the wisdom of the entire world, united in solemn council, could not solve the question of their disposal. Freedom would be their doom. Every Southern master knows this truth and feels its power."
2. Touch the negro, and you touch cotton--the mainspring that keeps the machinery of the world in motion. In teaching slaves to entertain wild and dangerous notions of liberty, the Abolitionists have thus jeopardized the commerce of the country and the manufacturing interests of the civilized world. They have likewise destroyed confidence. In short, all the kind relations that have ever existed between the North and the South have been interrupted, and a barrier erected, which, socially, commercially, and politically, has separated the heretofore united interests of the two sections.
(the heart of the Confederate matter)
3. They have held out a Canadian Utopia, where they have taught the slaves in their ignorance to believe they could enjoy a life of ease and luxury, and having cut them off from a race of kind masters, and separated them from comfortable homes, left the deluded beings, incapable of self-support, upon an uncongenial soil, to live in a state of bestiality and misery, and die cursing the Abolitionists as the authors of their wretchedness.
From a thread I started was the ocnfederacy just about states rights.