The True Meaning Behind the Confederate Flag

[Rubiks]

The confederate flag doesn't objectively mean anything. It's whatever meaning people give it. To me, the confederate flag symbolizes racism and should not be waved.

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

The confederate flag doesn't objectively mean anything. It's whatever meaning people give it. To me, the confederate flag symbolizes racism and should not be waved.

relativism is a nice thought to make everything conform to what you "want" it to represent. It is great for PC classrooms and liberals in general. But really has nothing to do with this thread witch is concerned with historical reality and truth.

 

[ruthiesea]

Those who Wish to remove the Flag

“Any society which suppresses the heritage of its conquered minorities, prevents their history or denies them their symbols, has sown the seeds of their own destruction.”
Sir William Wallace, 1281

If they want unity and diversity, why attack a minority segment of the population? It will only result in division and fighting. The real reason they dislike the flag is it represents conservative Christianity and the last resistance to centralized power in America.

“Why doesn’t the Confederacy just fade away? Is it because we are irresistibly fascinated by catastrophic loss? Or is it something else? Is it because the Confederacy is to this day the greatest conservative resistance to federal authority in American history?”
-Professor David Blight

“The American public is increasingly being trained to view the CSA as a repulsive abomination because the CSA framers and their principles of government pose the most serious challenge to political centralization. Wielders of centralized power have little tolerance for those men and their decentralized principles.” -Marshall Derosa Redeeming American Democracy Lessons from the Confederate Constitution Pelican Press 2007



Question for Liberals

Assuming confederate statues represent racism, I would like to ask a few questions of liberals that seems odd to me. The majority of liberals are atheistic, moral relativist and evolutionist. Since all man evolved from random chemicals that got together for a survival advantage, and there is no God there can be no higher moral code or absolutes. This is why liberalism will be angry with Christians for saying there are absolutes right and wrongs such as abortion, gay marriage etc. To a moral relativist, there is no right or wrong.

"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, and other people are going to get lucky; and you won’t find any rhyme or reason to it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music."
-Richard Dawkins, --Out of Eden, page 133

So given those assumptions often believed by the liberal. How can they turn around and say white supremacy is evil. To be clear as a christian I cant find any justification for white supremacy, but I appeal to the bible for justification. The moral relativist claims there is no higher authority or absolute right and wrong. So a white supremacists is just acting on his chemical reactions and just "dancing to his genes" by being what he is just as a homosexual is acting on his own genes. So if moral relativism is true, how can a liberal claim it is wrong in any way to be a Nazi [who were big government socialist]or racism? I would also like to mention it is the left that is obsessed with race and seeks to divide us.

How much more so can they also claim diversity and tolerance and yet be intolerant of a culture other than there own towards a different people in a different time to tare down statues of confederates? Are we not to seek understanding of other cultures instead of hatred and violence? are we no longer cultural relativist?

 

[tas8831]

relativism is a nice thought to make everything conform to what you "want" it to represent. It is great for PC classrooms and liberals in general. But really has nothing to do with this thread witch is concerned with historical reality and truth.

The truth that the traitor states were only concerned about slavery? I know... Sad that modern day incels and traitors and neo-Nazi-types want to claim it is was about something else.

Confederate states' reasons for secession:

"For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery."

"While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen."


"She [Texas] was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy."

"In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States."

"We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

That in this free government *all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights* [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states."

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world."


'Yup. Nothing to do with slavery at all' the liars and revisionists and neo-Nazis will say...

 

[98cwitr]

I'll drop my .02 on this, as it does seem to be an escalating situation with the monuments coming down to both the sounds of shouts of anger and cheers of gladness.

I was raised in Georgia my whole life, and moved to North Carolina with the explicit intention of staying in the South and remaining within Southern culture. I grew up around racism against black folks, and I grew up with an affection for African-American culture and history. We watched the riots of the 1960s, MLK and Malcolm X speeches, and saw the struggles during Jim Crow.

I personally never saw the confederate memorabilia (ie: monuments, statues, flags, antiques, etc) as symbolism for reminiscent affections for slavery or racism. I always saw them, especially the flag (because we saw that in south GA a good bit), as something that communicated an anti-tyranny message. I say that because I never met anyone who was pro-slavery; like truly would be happy to see it return. Everyone I know and knew all agreed that slavery was a horrid evil because of the dehumanization that occurred, even through Jim Crow after slavery was outlawed.

Was succession underpinned by keeping the institution of slavery legal? Yes, and anyone who is trying to change that fact is simply not being honest; potentially even with themselves if they really believe that. Does that mean anyone who has a battle flag sticker on their truck, or opposes the monuments being taken down is a pro-slavery white supremacist? I think that's a might big leap and is not only unfair to their individual perspectives, but attempts to demonize them into yet another collectivist groupthink effort.

On the surface the South succeeded state by state to oppose tyrannical taxation, tariffs, and the looming economic collapse of very prosperous industries that would have, and ultimately did, cripple the southern states into decades long recession. That said, maybe it was deserved. Building an economy on the backs of slave labor had to be paid for via economic hardship.

I think the greater sin of the South was Jim Crow. Race relations in England for example after slavery was outlawed did not resemble America; and that was because they immediately gave the slaves the human rights they deserved and citizenship they were entitled to. The South has yet to pay that sin off, and I am afraid that sin is being paid here and now with the destruction of Southern culture.

I for one identify as a Southern man as much as I identify as an American, but I must be a Christian first before these and that means I must be a lover of the Truth. In doing so, I fully reject the evils of racism and slavery and put those behind me as a descendant of Confederate patriots. In honoring their struggle against their perception of tyranny from the federal government, and their paramount efforts to combat it via succession and ultimately fighting for their own homeland and country, I do have some admiration for THAT effort specifically, all the while condemning the unpinning of the sins which the South needed to justly pay. Therefore I view the memorabilia in such light: A remembrance to always oppose tyranny, coupled with a love of cherished Southern culture; just as we did against the British during the American Revolution (of which I also had ancestors involved).

One could make the argument that such a view is simply cognitive dissonance, but I would simply say that it's putting all things into perspective and embracing the truth of the entire situation that unfolded on this great ground that the Lord provides.

Those who oppose tyranny for the wrong reasons will always ultimately fail, but serve as a valuable lesson to learn from. Those who oppose tyranny should never be forgotten, but we need to understand that we should always succumb to righteousness. The abolitionists were right and I simply wish our ancestors from the South had handled things differently. Unfortunately, we cannot change history. May God forgive us for our sins.

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

You are not very good at this - even worse than with your laughably inept attacks on evolution, which you propped up with lies and plagiarism, and ignorance.


It cannot be indoctrination when the Confederates themselves declared their primary reason for secession was keeping slaves - and what is the 'confederate flag' for again? Ah, yes - glorifying the Confederates!

Sure, you neo-nazi confederate red-state traitors can whine and carry on all you want, but your traitor heroes stated it pretty clearly. And justified it with Scripture, to boot!

A twofer!

The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States

Sure, no doubt that "The American Battlefiedl Trust" is totally some liberal commie outfit, for sure...

And I am so totally sure that on THIS topic you didn't plagiarize and doctor quotes... Yup... Suuuuure...


Confederate states' reasons for secession:

"For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery."

"While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen."


"She [Texas] was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy."

"In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States."

"We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.

That in this free government *all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights* [emphasis in the original]; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states."

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world."


'Yup. Nothing to do with slavery at all' the liars and revisionists and neo-Nazis will say...

I am sad but not at all surprised to see you avoid my threads that address your posts as well as my question to every atheistic liberal such as yourself as to how you justify your position and anger against what you see as white supremacy. The reason you ignore as we both know is clear, you cannot defend your posts against truth [you even think confederates are and were republicans] and you have no justification for your condemnation of what you see as white supremacy within your atheistic evolutionary worldview.



Having said that you seem to want to derail this thread to the causes of southern secession. I have made those threads but what the hell, why not here as well? So I will start where no indoctrinated liberal [just as with evolution] wants to go, where they have no idea information exists since there high priest dont tell them about and so they cant defend when brought up. In this case of the causes of secession, it will be the upper south. See next post.

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

.

I'll Take My Stand – Causes Of Southern Secession-The Upper South

“This consolidation of the states has been the obiet of several men in this country for some time past. Weather such a change can ever be effected in any manner whether it can be effected without convulsions and civil wars, whether such a change will not totally destroy the liberties of this country time can only determine.”
-Richard Henry Lee 1787

“The states of the deep south might have left the union because of slavery, but the upper south...did not...Lincoln waged war in order to create a consolidated, centralized state or empire. The south seceded for numerous reasons, but perhaps the most important one was that it wanted no part in such a system”
-Thomas J Dilorenzo The Real Lincoln

“If centralism is ultimately to prevail; if our entire system of free Institutions as established by our common ancestors is to be subverted, and an Empire is to be established in their stead; if that is to be the last scene of the great tragic drama now being enacted: then, be assured, that we of the South will be acquitted, not only in our own consciences, but in the judgment of mankind, of all responsibility for so terrible a catastrophe, and from all guilt of so great a crime against humanity.”
- Alexander Stephens The Vice-President of the Confederacy

There was two major successions from the union. The original seven “Cotton states” of AL, MS,TX,SC,FL,GA,LAand later the upper south secession of VA, NC, TENN, ARK, Pro south MO and KY. The upper south states of VA, NC, Tenn and Ark alone had a larger free population than the deep south representing the majority of the future confederacy. There was a difference in general between the The original seven seceding “cotton states” of the deep south, and of the remaining upper south's causes of secession. The upper south either turned down voting on secession, or voted against secession when the deep south left the union and were willing to stay in the union.

“The Majority sentiment in the upper south had been unionist until Lincolns call for troops....Upper south, which had cried equally against coercion as succession”
-E. merton Coulter The confederate States of America Louisiana State University Press

When historians and textbooks talk of the reasons for secession, they almost unanimous point to the cotton states and sadly, the upper south is almost always ignored.

Lincolns Call For Volunteers/ Consent of the Governed/ State Sovereignty

“The South maintained with the depth of religious conviction that the Union formed under the Constitution was a Union of consent and not of force; that the original States were not the creatures but the creators of the Union; that these States had gained their independence, their freedom, and their sovereignty from the mother country, and had not surrendered these on entering the Union; that by the express terms of the Constitution all rights and powers not delegated were reserved to the States; and the South challenged the North to find one trace of authority in that Constitution for invading and coercing a sovereign State.-the one for liberty in the union of the States, the other for liberty in the independence of the States.”
-John B Gordon Confederate General Reminiscences of the Civil War

“Lincolns republican party was determined to use coercive means to secure a centralized national system of government, a system incompatible with the compact theory of the union.”
-Marhsall Derosa Redeeming American Democracy Lessons From the Confederate Constitution pelican Press 2007

The single most important event that caused the upper south to join the confederacy was Lincolns call for volunteers to “suppress” the seven cotton states of the confederacy. Lincoln spoke loud by his actions when he called for volunteers to invade the confederacy of the deep south. His opinion was not that America was a collection of sovereign self governing States joined in a voluntary union by a constitution the compact theory, but a centralized nation or empire dictating to the states. He made it clear the deep south could not self govern themselves but were subject to their master the federal government. Lincoln in his inaugural address stated the union created the states, not the states ratifying the union [nationalist high federalist view] thus the power and authority lay with the federal government and not with the states.

“Northern States of a political school which has persistently claimed that the government thus formed was not a compact between States, but was in effect a national government, set up above and over the States...The creature has been exalted above its creators; the principals have been made subordinate to the agent appointed by themselves.”
-Jefferson Davis Message to confederate Congress April 29, 1861

The upper south and many in the north for saw Lincolns call for volunteers against the cotton states as a major violation of the constitution, a violation of those states sovereignty, and a main cause for secession. For example

“opposing secession changes the nature of government from a voluntary one, in which the people are sovereigns, to a despotism were one part of the people are slaves”
-New York Journal of commerce 1/12/61

“The great principles embodied by Jefferson in the declaration is... that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed” Therefore if the southern states wish to secede, “they have a clear right to do so”
-New York tribune 2/5/61

Secession is “the very germ of liberty...the right of secession inheres to the people of every sovereign state”
-Kenosha Wisconsin Democrat 1/11/61

“the leading and most influncial papers of the union believe that any state of the union has a right to secede”
-Davenport Iowa Democrat and news 11/17/60

The southern states and many in the north [and the majority through American history] saw themselves as a collection of sovereign states joined by a contract [The constitution] and if that contract was violated or not upheld, it could, and should be discarded. When the cotton states felt there contract was violated by the federal government, they felt they had every right to leave.

“That however wrongfully any state might resume its Independence without just cause, the only remedy was conciliation, and not force, that therefore the coercion of a sovereign state was unlawful, mischievous, and must be resisted, there Virginia took her stand”
-R L Dabney a defense of Virginia and the South 1867

“[upper south]Forced to chose between Lincolns demand and what they believed to be morally correct and Honorable...seceded as well”
-Brevin Alexander Historian Professor of History at Longwood University

Most both north and south felt no war would come from what was seen by many as a legal right to secession by sovereign states. To the upper south this was a war of self government of sovereign states vs a federal government that was willing to use military force to control its populous by forcing the states to stay in the union . We would no longer be a self governing populous and collection of states but a nation controlled by a powerful centralized federal dictator. The south held to the Jeffersonian view of the union best described in the 1852 democrat platform and the Kentucky resolutions by Thomas Jefferson in 1798 and the Virginia resolutions by James Madison of 1800 that of a decentralized union of states the compact theory and the majority view in the united states before the civil war.

The war “Destroyed voluntary union of the founders and mad all Americans servants rather than masters of their own government”
-Thomas Dilorenzo author of The Real Lincoln and Lincoln Unmasked

"What we call liberty our founders called bondage...we have not freed the slaves we have extended the plantation, know, we are all slaves"
-Peter Marshall JR The Great War Debate

“Hapless would be the condition of these states if their only alternative lay between submission to a government of self construed, or, in other words, unlimited powers and the certainty of coercion.”
-J.K Spauling State Sovereignty and the Doctrine of Cohesion 1860

This also confirmed many southerners fear that Lincoln and the “radical” republicans would drastically transform the American republic. This is why many in the south saw the American civil war as their second war for independence.

“Southerners would have told you they were fighting for self government. They believed the gathering of power in Washington was against them… When they entered into that Federation they certainly would never have entered into it if they hadn’t believed it would be possible to get out. And when the time came that they wanted to get out, they thought they had every right”
-Shelby Foote

Many in the north recognized that this war was one of self governing states vs a controlling central federal government. Before being deported by Lincoln, A northern politician saw Lincolns war and purpose of the war as to

“Overthrow the present form of Federal-republican government, and to establish a strong centralized government in its stead...national banks, bankrupt laws, a vast and permanent public debt, high tariffs, heavy direct taxation, enormous expenditure, gigantic and stupendous peculation . . . No more state lines, no more state governments, but a consolidated monarchy or vast centralized military despotism.” later saying “instead of crushing out the rebellion,” the “effort has been to crush out the spirit of liberty” in the Northern states.
-Clement L. Vallandigham D-Ohio NC spoke of the Reason for Lincolns war 1863


Preserving the Constitutional Republic

“The South's concept of republicanism had not changed in three-quarters of a century; the North's had. With complete sincerity the South fought to preserve its version of the republic of the Founding Fathers--a government of limited powers"
-James M. McPherson Ante-bellum Southern Exceptionalism

"All that the South has ever desired was the Union as established by our forefathers should be preserved and that the government as originally organized should be administered in purity and truth."
-Gen. Robert E. Lee Quoted in The enduring Relevance of Robert E Lee

“It is said slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.”
-Confederate General Patrick Claiborne 1864

Lincoln and the republican party had set out to transform the union from a confederation of sovereign states, to a centralized nation controlled by the federal government. Lincoln sought to expand the central government far beyond the scope of what was intended by the founders or the constitution. He was dedicated to higher tariffs, centralization, national bank, internal improvements, protective tariffs, in support of the homestead act, [ in 1858 the northern vote supported 114 of 115 the south rejected 64 of 65] a pacific railroad act, and grants to states for agricultural and mechanical collages and other federal expansions. The republicans were openly big government nationalist with an overall disregard for the 9th/10th amendments and state sovereignty. Since the north had abandoned the Constitution and the republic replaced with a centralized democracy, the upper south had no choice but join the confederate Constitution witch maintained the original compact theory of the union.

“We quit the Union, but not the Constitution—this we have preserved. Secession from the old Union on the part of the Confederate States was founded upon the conviction that the time-honored Constitution of our fathers was about to be utterly undermined and destroyed. ”
- Hon. Alexander H. Stephens to the Virginia Secession Convention, April 23, 1861

“When the South raised its sword against the Union’s Flag, it was in defense of the Union’s Constitution.”
-Confederate General John B. Gordon

“Southerners persistently claim that their rebellion is for the purpose of preserving this form of government”
-Private John Harper 17 Maine regiment

“I love the Union and the Constitution, but I would rather leave the Union with the Constitution than remain in the Union without it.”
-Jefferson Davis

It was commonly believed in the south, that it was the north that should secede. As Henry Wise of Virginia said “Logically the union belongs to those who have kept, not those who have broken, its covenants...the north should do the seceding for the south represented more truly the nation which the federal government had set up in 1789.” They saw the growing majority of the north interfering with their culture within their states and violating the constitution. They feared democracy would rule and mod rule would take over America. So they wished to restore America to its original Constitution republic of confederated states as originally created to safeguard individuals liberty from mob rule and democracy. To see the effects of this and why states rights and states sovereignty were so vital to our union, see here

From Union to Empire- The Political Effects of the Civil war

From Union to Empire The Political Effects of the Civil war

“If they (the North) prevail, the whole character of the Government will be changed, and instead of a federal republic, the common agent of sovereign and independent States, we shall have a central despotism, with the notion of States forever abolished, deriving its powers from the will, and shaping its policy according to the wishes, of a numerical majority of the people; we shall have, in other words, a supreme, irresponsible democracy. The Government does not now recognize itself as an ordinance of God...They are now fighting the battle of despotism. They have put their Constitution under their feet; they have annulled its most sacred provisions; The future fortunes of our children, and of this continent, would then be determined by a tyranny which has no parallel in history.”
-Dr. James Henly Thornwell of South Carolina our danger and our duty 1862

“If the Confederate States, ever had any doubt as to the necessity of a separation from the people of the North, that doubt would be removed by the recklessness with which they allow their own liberties to be trampled on. They appear to have no idea of free Government. Those necessary restraints on power — those nicely adjusted balances, by which justice and liberty are secured in a free government, are not understood.”
-Report on the confederate committee of foreign affairs 1861

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

...

State Secession Documents

“Under the favor of Divine Providence, we hope to perpetuate the principles of our revolutionary fathers”
-Jefferson Davis Inaugural Address Richmond 1862

Each of the upper south states made it clear by their actions and words that Lincolns call for volunteers, state sovereignty, and self government, were the major cause of secession.


Virginia


“The principle now in contest between north and south is simply that of state sovereignty”
-Richmond Examiner Sep 11 1862

“A union that can be only maintained by swords and bayonets... has no charm for me”
-Robert E Lee

“I had rather be a private in Virginia's army than a general in any army to coerce her.”
-Jeb Stuart quoted in Jeb Stuart the last Cavalier by Burke Davis

After the secession of South Carolina Virginia stayed faithful to the union and worked to bring the deep south back into the union, yet on January 7 1861 Virginia passed a anti-coercion resolution by a vote of 112-5 describing the right of secession and of state sovereignty. They would oppose any attempt at cohesion by the federal government and “we will resists the same by all the means in our power.” Warning the federal government not to coercion of the deep south. Than on April 4th 1861 voted by a 2-1 margin to stay in the union. After Lincolns call for volunteers Virginia voters gathered again and by a vote of 126,000 to 20,400 Virginia left the union making good on their promise. In the minds of Virginians, that reason was Lincolns call to volunteers and the violation of state sovereignty.

“”This result has been foreseen since the beginning of the week. As soon as it was known, that it was the intention of the northern president to usurp war making powers, and wage war against sovereign states of the confederacy [deep south] and that Virginia was called on to contribute men and money....no one doubted what her action would be...when the union became an engine for oppression...she could not hesitate to throw herself on the side of freedom.”
-Richmond Whig Editorial April 19,1861 Sic Semper Tyrannis State Independence

“”Let us consider for a moment the results of a consolidated government, resting on force, as proposed by the dominate party at the north....a consolidated despotism, upheld by the sword and cemented by fear....now it [the union ] has been seized upon by a sectional party, it is claimed that its powers are omnipotent, it s will absolute, and it must and will maintain its supremacy, in spite of states and people, at the point of the sword...it is organizing fleets and armies to wage war upon the authors of its being [the states].”
-Richmond Whig Editorial A Government of Force April 10 1861

Governor John Letcher was opposed to secession until Lincolns call for volunteers when he became firmly a secessionist.

“the Constitution of the United States has invested Congress with the sole power "to declare war," and until such declaration is made, the President has no authority to call for an extraordinary force to wage offensive war against any foreign Power: and whereas, on the 15th inst., the President of the United States, in plain violation of the Constitution, issued a proclamation calling for a force of seventy-five thousand men, to cause the laws of the United states to be duly executed over a people who are no longer a part of the Union, and in said proclamation threatens to exert this unusual force to compel obedience to his mandates; and whereas, the General Assembly of Virginia, by a majority approaching to entire unanimity, declared at its last session that the State of Virginia would consider such an exertion of force as a virtual declaration of war, to be resisted by all the power at the command of Virginia; and subsequently the Convention now in session, representing the sovereignty of this State, has reaffirmed in substance the same policy... and it is believed that the influences which operate to produce this proclamation against the seceded States will be brought to bear upon this commonwealth, if she should exercise her undoubted right to resume the powers granted by her people, and it is due to the honor of Virginia that an improper exercise of force against her people should be repelled.”
-Governor of Virginia JOHN LETCHER”.
http://www.nytimes.com/1861/04/22/n...-secretary-cameron-state-affairs-norfolk.html

Virginia did not give a lengthy declaration of why it left the union [The voting showed already] just a short ordinance of secession and a mention of Lincolns call for men.


Virginia ordinance of secession

“Declared that the powers granted under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression; and the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States” [Cotton States]

“Had Lincoln not made war upon the south,[cotton states] Virginia would not have left the union”
-William Thomas Poague Confederate artilleryman


Arkansas

“This convention pledging the State of Arkansas to resist to the last extremity any attempt on the part of such power to coerce any State that had seceded from the old Union, proclaimed to the world that war should be waged against such States until they should be compelled to submit to their rule, and large forces to accomplish this have by this same power been called out, and are now being marshaled to carry out this inhuman design; and to longer submit to such rule, or remain in the old Union of the United States, would be disgraceful and ruinous to the State of Arkansas”
-Arkansas causes of secession

Before Lincolns call for volunteers the people of Arkansas voted to stay in the union by a vote of 23,600 to 17,900. Than on March 4 1861 the Arkansas convention voted 40-35 to stay in the union with the president of the convention a unionist. On May 6th 1861 after Lincolns call for men, Arkansas regathered and this time only 5 votes went against secession, 4 of them would relent and join the movement. The before and after votes, as well as the Arkansas declaration for secession give the clear reasons for joining the confederacy.


“The people of this commonwealth are free men not slaves, and will defend to the last extremity, their honor, lives, and property, against northern mendacity and usurpation”
-Arkansas Governor Henry Rector Response to Lincolns call for Volunteers


North Carolina

North Carolina will “Be no party to this wicked violation of the laws of the country, and to this war upon the liberties of a free people”
-John Ellis Governor North Carolina

Having previously turned down even voting on secession, North Carolina responded to Lincolns call for volunteers by than unanimously adopted a secession ordinance, showing the impact it had on the state.

“Lincoln has made a call for 75,000 men to be employed for the invasion of the peaceful homes of the South, and for the violent subversion of the liberties of a free people.. whereas, this high-handed act of tyrannical outrage is not only in violation of all constitutional law, in utter disregard of every sentiment of humanity and Christian civilization, and conceived in a spirit of aggression unparalleled by any act of recorded history, but is a direct step towards the subjugation of the whole South, and the conversion of a free Republic, inherited from our fathers, into a military despotism, to be established by worse than foreign enemies on the ruins of our once glorious Constitution of Equal Rights. Now, therefore, I, John W. Ellis, Governor of the State of North-Carolina, for these extraordinary causes... in defense of the sovereignty of North-Carolina and of the rights of the South, becomes now the duty of all.the 17th Day of April, A. D., 1861, and in the eight-fifth year of our independence.
-JOHN W. ELLIS Governor north Carolina
LEARN NC has been archived


Tennessee

“Tennessee will not Furnish a man for purposes of coercion, but 50,000 if necessary for the defense of our rights, and those of our southern brothers”
-Isham Harris Tennessee Governor

On February the 9th Tennessee voters turned down secession by a 4-1 margin. However after Lincolns call to volunteers Governor Isham Harris wrote President Lincoln saying if the federal government was going to “coerce” the seceded states into returning, Tennessee had no choice but to join its Southern neighbors. Harris recalled the Tennessee legislature on May 6 for another vote this time to join the confederacy. Than on June 8 voters approved the measure by a 2-1 margin.

Kentucky

Kentucky originally acted on its sovereignty and remained neutral, however events forced it to join the war. The official Kentucky government was pro north by about about a 3-1 margin but chose to keep its neutrality. However there was gaining support for the south when Lincoln called for volunteers. The Kentucky Governor wrote "President Lincoln, I will send not a man nor a dollar for the wicked purpose of subduing my sister southern states.”

Later neutrality would be violated by southern troops and the state would join the union, however a pro south Kentucky government was set up and was accepted by Jeff Davis into the confederacy on December the 10th as the 13th confederate state. States rights was the main cause for the pro south Kentucky government reason for secession.


Declaration For Leaving The Union

“Whereas, the Federal Constitution, which created the Government of the United States, was declared by the framers thereof to be the supreme law of the land, and was intended to limit and did expressly limit the powers of said Government to certain general specified purposes, and did expressly reserve to the States and people all other powers whatever, and the President and Congress have treated this supreme law of the Union with contempt and usurped to themselves the power to interfere with the rights and liberties of the States and the people against the expressed provisions of the Constitution, and have thus substituted for the highest forms of national liberty and constitutional government a central despotism founded upon the ignorant prejudices of the masses of Northern society, and instead of giving protection with the Constitution to the people of fifteen States of this Union have turned loose upon them the unrestrained and raging passions of mobs and fanatics, and because we now seek to hold our liberties, our property, our homes, and our families under the protection of the reserved powers of the States, have blockaded our ports, invaded our soil, and waged war upon our people for the purpose of subjugating us to their will; and Whereas, our honor and our duty to posterity demand that we shall not relinquish our own liberty and shall not abandon the right of our descendants and the world to the inestimable blessings of constitutional government: Therefore, .... because we may choose to take part in a cause for civil liberty and constitutional government against a sectional majority waging war against the people and institutions of fifteen independent States of the old Federal Union, and have done all these things deliberately against the warnings and vetoes of the Governor and the solemn remonstrances of the minority in the Senate and House of Representatives: Therefore, .....have a right to establish any government which to them may seem best adapted to the preservation of their rights and liberties.”
-Declaration of causes of Secession Kentucky


Missouri

“Your requisition is illegal, unconstitutional, revolutionary, inhuman, diabolical, and cannot be complied with”
-Missouri Governor Jackson Response to Lincolns call for Volunteers

The slave state of Missouri was almost universally pro union. When the south sent delegates to try and convince the state to join the south, they were booed and jeered so that the CSA delegate could not even be heard. On March 21 1861 the Missouri convention voted 98-1 against secession, but in its sovereignty, kept its neutrality. Later many in the state became angry and felt their state sovereignty was violated during the “Camp Jackson Affair” with General Lyon capturing the arsenal in St Louis and when union soldiers opened fire on civilians and pro confederates killing dozens. Many felt the federal government was violating the states neutral position and support for secession grew rapid in the state. Lyon would than push the official Governor and state legislature out of Jefferson city.

“The events in St Louis pushed many conditional unionist into the ranks of secessionist” -James McPherson Battle Cry of Freedom

This led to a end to neutrality and both a pro confederate and pro union government in the state. Missouri was accepted on November 28th as the 12th confederate state. Pro south Missouri reasons for secession, centered around constitutional violations of the Lincoln administration.

Missouri Declaration For leaving The Union

“Has wantonly violated the compact originally made between said Government and the State of Missouri, by invading with hostile armies the soil of the State, attacking and making prisoners the militia while legally assembled under the State laws, forcibly occupying the State capitol, and attempting through the instrumentality of domestic traitors to usurp the State government, seizing and destroying private property, and murdering with fiendish malignity peaceable citizens, men, women, and children, together with other acts of atrocity, indicating a deep-settled hostility toward the people of Missouri and their institutions; and Whereas the present Administration of the Government of the United States has utterly ignored the Constitution, subverted the Government as constructed and intended by its makers, and established a despotic and arbitrary power instead thereof”
-Causes of Secession Missouri

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

..

Slavery's Impact on the Upper South

“Secessionists were well aware that slavery was under no immediate threat within the Union. Indeed, some anti-secessionists, especially those with the largest investment in slave property, argued that slavery was safer under the Union than in a new experiment in government.”
-Clyde Wilson distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of South Carolina

“The condition of slavery in the several states would remain just the same weather it [the rebellion] succeeds or fails”
-U.S Secretary Seward to US Ambassador to France

“The war was at first was not about slavery, but was a struggle over the limits of states rights and the powers of the government in washington”
-David G Martin PHD in History from Princeton University


With slavery equally protected north or south and even more so in the north, the upper south states of VA, NC, TENN, ARK, KY, MO makes it hard to conclude slavery had much or anything to do with their reasons for leaving. When the original deep south states left the union, there were more slave states remaining in the union, than within the newly formed confederacy. Most upper south state declarations did not even mention slavery or only in passing, and that usually associated with violations of states rights or the constitution. But they heavily spoke on states rights, states sovereignty and Lincolns call for volunteers as the reason for secession. Those states chose to stay with the union before Lincolns call for volunteers, that they saw as a massive violation of state sovereignty.

“So far from engaging in a war to perpetuate slavery, I am rejoiced that slavery is abolished. I believe it will be greatly for the interests of the South. So fully am I satisfied of this, as regards Virginia especially, that I would cheerfully have lost all I have lost by the war, and have suffered all I have suffered, to have this object attained.”
-Robert E Lee 1870

“It was necessary to put the South at a moral disadvantage by transforming the contest from a war waged against states fighting for their Independence into a war waged against states fighting for the maintenance and extension of slavery…and the world, it might be hoped, would see it as a moral war, not a political; and the sympathy of nations would begin to run for the North, not for the South.”
-Woodrow Wilson, “A History of The American People”


Slavery was Safer in the Union Than the Confederacy


“Howard county [MO] is true to the union” “our slaveholders think it is the sure bulwark of our slave property”
-Abeil Lenord Whig party leader at the onset of the war

For the upper south slavery in fact was safer in the union than the confederacy. Slavery was constitutionally protected in both the northern and southerner states for the entire civil war. Lincoln and the north supported the Corwin amendment that would have protected slavery forever in the the U.S constitution and used it to try and stop secession.

“No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof[ slavery], including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.”
-Corwin Amendment

The united states supreme court had ruled in favor of the fugitive slave laws and the use of federal agents to return runaway slaves to their masters. A confederacy would have no protection for runaways north. Lincoln and the north did not invade the south to end slavery. Lincoln had no problem with the upper south slave states in the union as he called for volunteers to attack the deep south to repress the rebellion [not slavery]. The 1860 republican platform plank 4 said slavery was a state issue and they would not interfere with slavery. Lincoln also said the states had the right to chose on slavery and he would not interfere with slavery.

“I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere Untitled with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so”
-Abraham Lincoln Inaugural address

After the deep south left the union the federal government decided it would not end slavery in the house on Feb 1861 and senate march 2 1861. On July 22 1861 congress declared “This war is not waged , nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions [slavery] of those states.” October 8th 1861 the newspaper Washington D.C National Intelligence said “The existing war had no direct relation to slavery.”

“Seven-tenths of our people owned no slaves at all, and to say the least of it, felt no great and enduring enthusiasm for its [slavery’s] preservation, especially when it seemed to them that it was in no danger.’ ”
-John G. Barrett, The Civil War in North Carolina


Fight to Maintain Slavery? Or put Down Arms to Maintain Slavery?

“As for the South, it is enough to say that perhaps eighty per cent. of her armies were neither slave-holders, nor had the remotest interest in the institution. No other proof, however, is needed than the undeniable fact that at any period of the war from its beginning to near its close the South could have saved slavery by simply laying down its arms and returning to the Union.”
-Confederate Major General John B. Gordon Causes of the Civil War

If the south fought only for slavery, it only had to not fight the war. Slavery was protected and not under attack by Lincoln in the states it already existed. At any time as Lincoln promised, the south just had to lay down arms and come back into the union with slavery intact, yet they chose to fight for another cause.

“The emancipation proclamation was actually an offer permitting the south to stop fighting and return to the union by January 1st and still keep its slaves”
-John Canaan The Peninsula campaign

“Peace now would save slavery, while a continued war would obliterate the last vestiges of it”
- Raleigh North Carolina newspaper July 1863 quoted in Americas Civil war Magazine

Virginia alone freed more slaves prior to civil war than NY, NJ, Pennsylvania,and New England put together. South Carolinian Mary Chestnut said slavery was a curse, yet she supported secession. She and others hoped the war would end with a “Great independent country with no slavery.” On June 1861 Mary Chestnut said “Slavery has got to go of course.”

“We were not fighting for the perpetuation of slavery, but for the principle of States Rights and Free Trade, and in defense of our homes which were being ruthlessly invaded.”
-Moses Jacob Ezekiel


Jefferson Davis CSA President/ Abraham Lincoln USA President


“The North was mad and blind; it would not let us govern ourselves, and so the war came, and now it must go on unless you acknowledge our right to self government. We are not fighting for slavery. We are fighting for Independence.”
-President Jefferson Davis, CSA

It is interesting that both the CSA and USA presidents would agree that the war was not over slavery. Yet today we are told slavery was the sole cause of the war. In Jefferson Davis's farewell address to the US congress, his inaugural address in Montgomery as confederate president and second inaugural in Richmond, he explained liberty, states rights, tariffs and the founders were the main reason for states leaving the union. Jefferson barley mention slavery and only in passing in just one of the three important speeches. The south was leaving because Davis said the north fell to simple majority [Democracy not constitutional republic] what Davis called the “Tyranny of unbridled majority.” Near the end of the war Jefferson Davis sent a diplomat to both France and England to try and convince them to recognize the confederacy offering the confederacy would abolish slavery, yet keep their country. Few things Jeff Davis and Abraham Lincoln would agree upon, but one is the war was not over slavery.

“So long as I am president . It shall be carried on for the sole purpose of restoring the union”
-Abraham Lincoln Aug 15 1864


Some of England's Opinion

“[T]he contest is really for empire on the side of the North, and for independence on that of the South, and in this respect we recognize an exact analogy between the North and the Government of George III, and the South and the Thirteen Revolted Provinces. These opinions…are the general opinions of the English nation.”
-London Times, November 7, 1861

“I saw in State Rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy.”
-British Lord Action Correspondence with Robert E Lee


The vast majority in Europe at the time of the civil war believed the war was not over slavery but either tariffs or states rights. In the book The glittering illusion: English sympathy for the Southern Confederacy [http://www.amazon.com/Glittering-Illusion-Sympathy-Southern-Confederacy/dp/0895265524]

its shows how the majority of lay people in England supported the confederacy and believed the war was not over slavery. Englishman Sir John Dalberacton convinced many in England to feel sympathy for the CSA because he said they were fighting a tyrannical government and defending states rights. English statesman Richard Cobden pointed out in December 1861, the British “are unani-mous and fanatical”; that subject was free trade.

“The Northern onslaught upon slavery is no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern states... the love of money is the root of this...the quarrel between the north and south is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel”
-Charles Dickens, 1862

 

[tas8831]

So boring....
The south lost what they started in order to preserve slavery. get over it...


Weird that there is no state in Germany with the Nazi flag as part of it...

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

So boring....
The south lost what they started in order to preserve slavery. get over it...


Weird that there is no state in Germany with the Nazi flag as part of it...

So in other words as i said I would present facts and information the indoctrinated liberal is unable to handle as they were not allowed to hear this stuff from their high priests who's word they take as gospel and thus instead we are instead given statements of authority with no support "they started in order to preserve slavery. get over it." Now I fully understand this kind of statement you have accepted from your high priest of liberalism and taken as truth, or at least desired it to be. I think as my posts show historically this is just not true. So while you might accept a baseless false claim by what you see as an authority as what to believe, and thus make the same baseless statement to me and ask me to believe they started in order to preserve slavery. get over it." My standard is actual truth, thus i cannot believe you because your statement is historically false. But I must ask, why do you care given your worldview?


Question for Liberals

Assuming confederate statues represent racism, I would like to ask a few questions of liberals that seems odd to me. The majority of liberals are atheistic, moral relativist and evolutionist. Since all man evolved from random chemicals that got together for a survival advantage, and there is no God there can be no higher moral code or absolutes. This is why liberalism will be angry with Christians for saying there are absolutes right and wrongs such as abortion, gay marriage etc. To a moral relativist, there is no right or wrong.

"In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, and other people are going to get lucky; and you won’t find any rhyme or reason to it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is at the bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good. Nothing but blind pitiless indifference. DNA neither knows nor cares. DNA just is, and we dance to its music."
-Richard Dawkins, --Out of Eden, page 133

So given those assumptions often believed by the liberal. How can they turn around and say white supremacy is evil. To be clear as a christian I cant find any justification for white supremacy, but I appeal to the bible for justification. The moral relativist claims there is no higher authority or absolute right and wrong. So a white supremacists is just acting on his chemical reactions and just "dancing to his genes" by being what he is just as a homosexual is acting on his own genes. So if moral relativism is true, how can a liberal claim it is wrong in any way to be a Nazi [who were big government socialist]or racism? I would also like to mention it is the left that is obsessed with race and seeks to divide us.

How much more so can they also claim diversity and tolerance and yet be intolerant of a culture other than there own towards a different people in a different time to tare down statues of confederates? Are we not to seek understanding of other cultures instead of hatred and violence? are we no longer cultural relativist?

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

I'll Take My Stand – Causes Of Southern Secession The Cotton States

"Forced to take up arms to vindicate the political rights, the freedom, equality, and state sovereignty which were the heritage purchased by the blood of our revolutionary sires"
-Jefferson Davis 1863 quoted in Battle cry of freedom James McPherson Oxford U Press

The first states to leave the union were the original deep south “cotton states” leaving as individual states to later form a confederacy and a constitution. Those states were Alabama, Mississippi, Louisianan, Texas, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. The deep south were similar in culture and politics yet within the deep south cotton states their were multiple causes that led to secession.

The Election of A Republican President

“The election of Lincoln personified the trend of national centralization, as a reaction, some of the southern states [deep south]...seceded.”
-Marhsall Derosa Redeeming American Democracy pelican Press 2007

“To nationalize as much as possible, even currency, so as to make men love country first before their states, all private interest, local interests, all banking interests, the interests of individuals everything should be subordinate now to the interests of the government”
-John Sherman Republican Senator of Ohio

“It [republican party] is, in fact, essentially a revolutionary party”
-New Orleans Delta 1860

“Lincoln was the founding father of big government”
-Thomas J Diolernzo Author of the real Lincoln and Lincoln unmasked

The election of the new “radical republican” party candidate Abraham Lincoln directly led to the secession of the deep south. This new political party was the first in American history based solely on sectional [northern] interests and boosted by recent immigration to the national stage. Many even in the north blamed the republicans voters for disunion. President Buchanan [who did not believe in legal secession] and other northern democrats and unionist blamed republicans and said the south would be justified in resisting if a republican was elected. This northern sectional party's interests were the antithesis to the southern interests. The south held to the Jeffersonian view of the union best described in the 1852 democrat platform and the Kentucky resolutions by Thomas Jefferson in 1798 and the Virginia resolutions by James Madison of 1800 that of a decentralized union of states the majority view before the civil war.

“My politics are short and sweet...I am in favor of a national bank...in favor of the internal improvements system and a high protective tariff”
-Abraham Lincoln

"Lincoln and the Republicans intended to enact a high protective tariff that mothered monopoly, to pass a homestead law that invited speculators to loot the public domain, and to subsidize a transcontinental railroad that afforded infinite opportunities for jobbery."
-David Donald Lincoln Reconsidered

“Those who elected Mr. Lincoln expect him to secure to free labor its just right to the territories . . . to protect by wise revenue laws, the labor of our people; to secure the public lands to actual settlers . . . to develop the internal resources of the country by opening new means of communications between the Atlantic and Pacific."
-John Sherman Republican Senator brother of William T Sherman

The republicans were for higher tariffs, protective tariffs, federal internal improvements, a national bank, in support of the homestead act, [ in 1858 the northern vote supported 114 of 115 the south rejected 64 of 65] a pacific railroad act, and grants to states for agricultural and mechanical collages among others. The republicans were openly big government nationalist who placed authority and sovereignty with the federal government and not with, as they south had maintained from the first, the peoples of the sovereign states. The south thought the republicans would disregard the constitution, states rights, and would rule the union by mob rule. All of these proved true.

“We quit the Union, but not the Constitution—this we have preserved. Secession from the old Union on the part of the Confederate States was founded upon the conviction that the time-honored Constitution of our fathers was about to be utterly undermined and destroyed. and that if the present administration at Washington had been permitted to rule over us, in less than four years, perhaps, this inestimable inheritance of liberty, regulated and protected by fundamental law, would have been forever lost....We have rescued the Constitution from utter annihilation. This is our conviction, and we believe history will so record the fact ”
-Hon. Alexander H. Stephens Speech to the Virginia Secession Convention, April 23, 1861

“The north sought to convert a union of brotherhood and mutual benefit into a “nation” which they would dominate in their own interests”
-Clyde Wilson University of South Carolina Professor

The republicans during the civil war and finishing with reconstruction, would radically transform the American union into their new centralized nation, their own version of America. So the south seceded.

“To save us from a revolution”
-Jeff Davis quoted in battle cry of freedom

“Lincoln waged war in order to create a consolidated, centralized state or empire. The south seceded for numerous reasons, but perhaps the most important one was that it wanted no part in such a system”
-Thomas j Dilorenzo The Real Lincoln

“Northern States of a political school which has persistently claimed that the government thus formed was not a compact between States, but was in effect a national government, set up above and over the States...The creature has been exalted above its creators; the principals have been made subordinate to the agent appointed by themselves.”
-Jefferson Davis Message to confederate Congress April 29, 1861

The Confederate Constitution

“It was clear from the actions of the Montgomery convention that the goal of the new converts to secessionist was not to establish a slaveholders reactionary utopia. What they really wanted was to create the union as it had been before the rise of the new Republican party”
-Robert Divine T.H Bren George Fredrickson and R Williams America Past and Present

“when the dogmas of a sectional party, substituted for the provisions of the constitutional compact, threatened to destroy the sovereign rights of the States, six of those States, withdrawing from the Union, confederated together to exercise the right and perform the duty of instituting a Government which would better secure the liberties for the preservation of which that Union was established.”
-Jefferson Davis Inaugural Address Richmond 1862

The original deep south cotton States that left the union first acted as sovereign republics, it was called “Calhouns states right running riot.” But would soon join in a confederacy with its capital in Montgomery, Alabama. They joined and formed the Confederate constitution on March 11 1861. The CSA constitution limits central [ federal] power. The south thought to keep government weak and poor so that states would do the majority of governing. The CSA saw it as the original America constitution properly interpreted and clarified heavily influenced by Jefferson, Calhoun, and the anti federalists. President Jeff Davis said “The constitution framed by our founders, is that of these confederate states.” It was formed after the original united states constitution with some alterations. By these alterations we can see some of the reasons that the south left the union.

“The confederate revolution of 1861 was a reactionary revolution aimed at the restoration of an american democracy as embodied in the Constitution of 1789.”
-Marshall L. Derosa Redeeming American Democracy Lessons from the Confederate Constitution Pelican Press 2007

CSA State Sovereignty

“We, the people of the Confederate States, each State acting in its sovereign and independent character, in order to form a permanent federal government, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity — invoking the favor and guidance of Almighty God — do ordain and establish this Constitution for the Confederate States of America.
-CSA Constitution preamble

Each state being sovereign had only one vote on the confederate constitution ratification regardless of population. A main change in the CSA constitution from the United states version of “we the people of the US in order to form a more perfect union.... CSA version reads “we the people of the confederate states,each state acting in its sovereign and independent character ...” The confederacy formed a decentralized government resting on the ultimate sovereignty of the state witch allowed nullification and secession.

“It was not necessary in the Constitution to affirm the right of secession, because it was on attributive of sovereignty, and the states had reserved all they had not delegated.”
-Jefferson Davis the rise and fall of the confederate government

They clarified the people of the states had sovereignty and not the the mass of people [“we the people”] as held by Lincoln and Webster. Further they were a federated [confederated] government, not a consolidated one. The CSA constitution removed the term “general welfare” from the US preamble as they felt it was misused by Lincoln and earlier whigs to say the federal government had powers for internal improvements.

“The CSA framers placed the government firmly under the heads of the states”
-Marshall L. Derosa Redeeming American Democracy Lessons from the Confederate Constitution

“The CSA congress can have no such power over states officers. The state governments are an essential part of the political system, upon the separate and independent sovereignty of the states the foundation of the confederacy”
-Judge Robertson 1864 Confederate Virginia supreme Court Case Burroughs v Peyton

The states had the right to recall powers delegated [not granted] to congress. In the CSA 10th amendment, In uncertainties in ruling between states and CSA government, the states would override the federal government. The confederacy never organized a supreme court since the final sovereignty lied with the states on the constitutionality of laws passed. When discussion arose of a confederate supreme court William Yancy of Alabama said “when we decide that the state courts are of inferior dignity to this court [csa supreme] we have sapped the main pillars of this confederacy.”

“The fear of centralizing tenancies, past experiences under the federal supreme court, and a desire to protect states rights led to the failure to establish a confederate supreme court.”
-J G Deroulhac Hamilton the State Courts and the Confederate Constitution

“The establishments of the [federal] supreme court, with appellate power over the supreme courts of the states would be utterly subversive to states rights and state sovereignty.”
-Henery S Foote of Tennessee dec 16 1863

All power to amend the Constitution was taken out of congress and given to the states. A state convention could be called to amend the Constitution by three states allowing a minority of states to stop all federal action until their grievances were herd and dealt with. Senators were elected by state officials.

“The confederacy was founded upon decentralization”
-Ken Burns The Civil War PBS documentary

Some USA federal court cases were moved to the states in the CSA version. Confederate officials working only in a state are subject to impeachment by that state. The Confederate states also gain the power to make river-related treaties with each other. In the US, the federal government regulates bodies of water that overlap multiple states. CSA had Fewer members of congress. The states of the CSA had the right to coin money. The confederates had the idea that the country capital would not be permanent [ Even Richmond the second capital was never suppose to be permanent] but float from state to state to avoid centralizing power. The CSA Presidents could not be reelected, not wanting politicians to say what was needed for reelection. There were no political parties within the csa. Later during the war President Jeff Davis complained that he did not have the control like Lincoln to fight the war, because of local and states rights.

“States rights dogma...produced secession and the confederacy”
-E Merton Coulter The Confederate States of America Louisiana State University press

For other examples of the CSA Constitution moving to decentralization see Redeeming American democracy lessons from the confederate Constitution by Professor Marshall Derosa.

CSA Weak Federal Government and Fiscal Responsibility

"the confederacy was founded on the preposition that the central government should stay out of its citizens pockets"
-Christine m Kreser Cash for combat Americas civil war magazine

“CS constitution emphasis on small government and states rights”
-Lochlainn Seabrook The Constitution Of The Confederate States Of America Explained A Clause By Clause Study Of The Souths Magna Carta

“If the Confederate States, ever had any doubt as to the necessity of a separation from the people of the North, that doubt would be removed by the recklessness with which they allow their own liberties to be trampled on. They appear to have no idea of free Government. Those necessary restraints on power — those nicely adjusted balances, by which justice and liberty are secured in a free government, are not understood.”
-Report on the confederate committee of foreign affairs 1861

The CSA allowed for fair trade, had uniform tax code and restricted ominous bills and no corporate bailouts, or government subsides. The post office must be self sufficient within two years of ratification. The CSA President had line item veto on spending, No cost overrun contracts were allowed. Congress could not foster any one branch of industry and greater consensus was needed to pass spending bills.

“Montgomery [confederate constitution]...One leading idea runs through the whole—the preservation of that time-honored Constitutional liberty which they inherited from their fathers....the rights of the States and the sovereign equality of each is fully recognized—more fully than under the old Constitution...But all the changes—every one of them—are upon what is called the conservative side..take the Constitution and read it, and you will find that every change in it from the old Constitution is conservative. ..in it are settled many of the vexed questions which disturbed us in the old Confederacy. A few of these may be mentioned—such as that no money shall be appropriated from the common treasury for internal improvement; leaving all such matters for the local and State authorities. The tariff question is also settled. The presidential term is extended, and no re-election allowed. This will relieve the country of those periodical agitations from which sprang so much mischief in the old government. If history shall record the truth in reference to our past system of government, it will be written of us that one of the greatest evils in the old government was the scramble for public offices—connected with the Presidential election. This evil is entirely obviated under the Constitution which we have adopted...
-Hon. Alexander H. Stephens Speech of the to the Virginia Secession Convention, April 23, 1861

"The question of building up class interests, or fostering one branch of industry to the prejudice of another, under the exercise of the revenue power, which gave us so much trouble under the old Constitution, is put at rest forever under the new. We allow the imposition of no duty with a view of giving advantage to one class of persons, in any trade or business, over those of another. All, under our system, stand upon the same broad principles of perfect equality. Honest labor and enterprise are left free and unrestricted in whatever pursuit they may be engaged in....the subject of internal improvements, under the power of Congress to regulate commerce, is put at rest under our system. The power, claimed by construction under the old constitution, was at least a doubtful one; it rested solely upon construction. We of the South, generally apart from considerations of constitutional principles, opposed its exercise upon grounds of its inexpediency and injustice.”
--Alexander Stephens "Cornerstone Address," March 21 1861

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

Tariffs

“And so with the Southern States, towards the Northern States, in the vital matter of taxation. They are in a minority in Congress. Their representation in Congress, is useless to protect them against unjust taxation; and they are taxed by the people of the North for their benefit, exactly as the people of Great Britain taxed our ancestors in the British parliament for their benefit. For the last forty years, the taxes laid by the Congress of the United States have been laid with a view of subserving the interests of the North. The people of the South have been taxed by duties on imports, not for revenue, but for an object inconsistent with revenue–to promote, by prohibitions, Northern interests in the productions of their mines and manufactures... The people of the Southern States are not only taxed for the benefit of the Northern States, but after the taxes are collected, three-fourths of them are expended at the North. ”
-Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding States Convention of South Carolina 1860

"The South has furnished near three-fourths of the entire exports of the country. Last year she furnished seventy-two percent of the whole"
-Daily Chicago Times, December 10, 1860

“The revenues of the General Government are almost entirely derived from duties on importations. It is time that the northern consumer pays his proportion of these duties, but the North as a section receiving back in the increased prices of the rival articles which it manufactures nearly or quite as much as the imposts which it pays thus in effect paying nothing or very little for the support of the government.”
-Florida causes of Secession

As so often is the case in wars, money, in this case tariffs, had long been a point of conflict between the two sides. In 1824 the government tariff doubled. The south voting against the tariff being raised and the north voted for it, dividing the country along the 1860 civil war lines in 1824 over tariffs. Tariffs supplied the government 90% of it income and even gave a surplus to what the government needed. The majority was paid by the south given its inport/export agrarian economy. Ye the money was used in the north to protect its manufacturing, industrialist, and federal internal improvement programs. This the south thought was unconstitutional for the government to aim at a section or industry of the economy specifically for a tax to benefit another.


"The instant the Government was organized, at the very first Congress, the Northern States evinced a general desire and purpose to use it for their own benefit, and to pervert its powers for sectional advantage...until they have saddled the agricultural classes with a large portion of the legitimate expenses of their own business. We pay a million of dollars per annum for the lights which guide them into and out of your ports. We built and kept up, at the cost of at least another million a year, hospitals for their sick and disabled seamen when they wear them out and cast them ashore. We pay half a million per annum to support and bring home those they cast away in foreign lands. They demand, and have received, millions of the public money to increase the safety of harbors, and lessen the danger of navigating our rivers. All of which expenses legitimately fall upon their business, and should come out of their own pockets, instead of a common treasury...The North, at the very first Congress, demanded and received bounties under the name of protection, for every trade, craft, and calling which they pursue, and there is not an artisan in brass, or iron, or wood, or weaver, or spinner in wool or cotton, or a calicomaker, or iron-master, or a coal-owner, in all of the Northern or Middle States, who has not received what he calls the protection of his government”
-Robert Toomb's Speech before the Georgia Legislature, November 13 1860

“In the first years of the Republic the navigating, commercial, and manufacturing interests of the North began to seek profit and aggrandizement at the expense of the agricultural interests. Even the owners of fishing smacks sought and obtained bounties for pursuing their own business (which yet continue), and $500,000 is now paid them annually out of the Treasury. The navigating interests begged for protection against foreign shipbuilders and against competition in the coasting trade. Congress granted both requests, and by prohibitory acts gave an absolute monopoly of this business to each of their interests, which they enjoy without diminution to this day. Not content with these great and unjust advantages, they have sought to throw the legitimate burden of their business as much as possible upon the public; they have succeeded in throwing the cost of light-houses, buoys, and the maintenance of their seamen upon the Treasury, and the Government now pays above $2,000,000 annually for the support of these objects. Theses interests, in connection with the commercial and manufacturing classes, have also succeeded, by means of subventions to mail steamers and the reduction in postage, in relieving their business from the payment of about $7,000,000 annually, throwing it upon the public Treasury under the name of postal deficiency.”
-Georgia causes of secession

“The people of the Southern States, whose almost exclusive occupation was agriculture, early perceived a tendency in the Northern States to render the common government subservient to their own purposes by imposing burdens on commerce as a protection to their manufacturing and shipping interests. Long and angry controversies grew out of these attempts, often successful, to benefit one section of the country at the expense of the other....abuse of the powers they had delegated to the Congress, for the purpose of enriching the manufacturing and shipping classes of the North at the expense of the South.... ”
-Jefferson Davis Message to confederate Congress April 29, 1861 (Ratification of the Constitution

Tariffs would be Raised again in 1828. Congress passed what southerners called the tariff of abominations to help northern industry. Only 1 out of 105 southerners voted positive [the agrarian north west sided with the south], yet the north east voted for it [as they received free southern money that was used largely in the north] and it passed. This led South Carolina to first use a threat of secession. South Carolina Senator John Callhoun in the 1820's said of conflict between the north and south over tariffs “The great central interest , around which all others revolved” South Carolina argued they had states rights to reject unconstitutional federal ruling as a sovereign state, something Thomas Jefferson had recommended. Over the tariff Mary Chestnut said South Carolina "heated themselves into a fever that only bloodletting could ever cure." The tax had been 15% and the south had been complaining for decades.

“It does not require extraordinary sagacity to precive that trade is perhaps the controlling motive operating to prevent the return of the seceding states to the union”
-Boston Transcript March 18 1861

“High protective tariffs reduced the price of cotton and effective imposed a tax between 10-20% while they raised the income of northern labor and the profits of northern manufacturers”
-Robert William Fogel The Rise and fall of American Slavery

The Morrill Tariff Act passed the U.S. House of Representatives on May 10, 1860, on a sectional vote, with nearly all northern representatives in support and nearly all southern representatives in opposition.

“The last session of Congress they brought in and passed through the House the most atrocious tariff bill that ever was enacted, raising the present duties from twenty to two hundred and fifty per cent above the existing rates of duty. That bill now lies on the table of the Senate... The result of this coalition was the infamous Morrill bill - the robber and the incendiary struck hands, and united in joint raid against the South.”
-Robert Toomb's Speech before the Georgia Legislature, November 13 1860

“The passage of an obscure, ill-considered, ill-digested, and unstatesman like high protectionist tariff act, commonly known as the‘ Morrill Tariff. The result was as inevitable as the laws of trade are inexorable. Trade and commerce . . . began to look South . . . .Threatened thus with the loss of both political power and wealth, or the repeal of the tariff, and, at last, of both, New England –and Pennsylvania . . . demanded, now coercion and civil war, with all its horrors . . .”
-Clement L. Vallandigham Congressman Ohio 1863

With the election of Abraham Lincoln whose central campaign objective was to triple the tariff and the tariff issue was the “keystone” of the republican party “protection for home industry” was the campaign poster of the 1860 republican party. South Carolina did what it had done decades before, and seceded from the Union over the higher tariff rates soon to be imposed on the south by the north. It was not just the south, NYC mayor Fernando Wood wanted to make NYC a “free city” [free trade] and secede from the Union. As John Randolph of Roanoke said in a speech in congress in 1823 “ If the old [founders] congress had possessed the power of laying a duty of 10% as walorem on imports, this Constitution would never have been called into existence.” The debate over tariffs and internal improvements was not just a debate over those items, but a debate over the nature of the federal government. Free trade was a vital aspect of southern agrarian interests. The CSA Constitution allowed for free trade.

“An agricultural people, whose chief interest is the export of a commodity required in every manufacturing country, our true policy is peace, and the freest trade, which our necessities will permit. It is alike our interest, and that of all those to whom we would sell and from whom we would buy, that there should be the fewest practicable restrictions upon the interchange of commodities. There can be but little rivalry between ours and any manufacturing or navigating community, such as the Northeastern States of the American Union.”
-Jefferson Davis inaugural speech in Montgomery Alabama

“the agitation concerning African slavery in the South was commenced. This institution was purely sectional, belonging to the South. Antagonism to it in the North must also be sectional. The agitation would unite the South against the North, as much as it united the North against the South; but the North being the stronger section, would gain power by the agitation. Accordingly, after the overthrow of the tariff of 1828, by the resistance of South Carolina in 1833, the agitation concerning the institution of African slavery in the South was immediately commenced in the Congress of the United States. It was taken up by the Legislatures of the Northern States; and upon one pretext or another in and out of Congress, it has been pursued from that day to the fall of 1860, when it ended in the election of a President and Vice President of the United States, by a purely sectional support. The great end was at last obtained, of a united North to rule the South. The first fruit the sectional despotism thus elected produced, was the tariff lately passed by the Congress of the United States. By this tariff the protective policy is renewed in its most odious and oppressive forms, and the agricultural States are made tributaries to the manufacturing States. It has revived the system of specific duties, by which, the cheaper an article becomes, from the progress of art or the superior skill of foreign manufacturers — the higher is the relative tax it imposes. Specific duties, is the expedient of high taxation, to enforce its collection. This tariff illustrates the oppressive policy of the North towards the South, and abounds in high taxation by specific duties. It is a war on the foreign commerce of the country, in which the Southern people are chiefly interested. Exclusively an agricultural people, it is their policy, to purchase the manufactured commodities they need, in the cheapest markets. These are amongst the nations of Europe, who consume five-sixths of the agricultural productions of the South. The late tariff passed by the Congress of the United States, was designed to force the Southern people, by prohibitory duties to consume the dearer manufactured commodities of the North, instead of the cheaper commodities of European nations. What is this but robbery? Does it not take from one citizen or section and give to another? The foreign trade of the United States, has always been carried on, by our agricultural productions. Our exports, are the basis of the imports, of the United States. Upon what principle of justice or of the Constitution, have the people of the North intervened between us and our natural customers, and forced us by the use of the Federal Government — laying prohibitory duties on the production of foreign nations — to consume their productions?
-Report on the confederate committee of foreign affairs 1861

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

Loss of Political Power

“The majority, mean to plunder and wrong the minority. They mean to make the weaker section their tributaries. Between a representation incompetent to protect, and no representation, there is no difference, where there are conflicting interests in a legislative body. And in the election of a Chief Magistrate, of what use is the right of suffrage, when, if every man in the oppressed section should vote against the candidate of the stronger section, (as the Southern States did in the late Presidential election) they cannot prevent his election. …. By the forms of a free government therefore, a many-headed despotism may be established by a stronger section over a weaker section, far worse than the despotism of one man. One man may have a conscience; but men acting in masses, seldom exhibit conscientious scruples. Individuality and responsibility, are lost in numbers. That “a corporation has no soul,” is the proverbial aphorism of English law, indicating the unscrupulousness of men acting in masses. A single despot has no motive to oppress one portion of his people, more than another; but here, one half of a country rises up to plunder and oppress another half.”
-Report on the confederate committee of foreign affairs 1861

“The majority section may legislate imperiously and ruinously to the interests of the minority section not only without injury but to great benefit and advantage of their own section. In proof of this we need only refer to the fishing bounties, the monopoly of the coast navigation which is possessed almost exclusively by the Northern States and in one word the bounties to every employment of northern labor and capital such a government must in the nature of things and the universal principles of human nature and human conduct very soon lead as it has done to a grinding and degrading despotism.”
-Florida Declaration of Causes of Secession

“The Southern States, now stand exactly in the same position towards the Northern States, that the Colonies did towards Great Britain. The Northern States, having the majority in Congress, claim the same power of omnipotence in legislation as the British parliament. “The General Welfare,” is the only limit to the legislation of either; and the majority in Congress, as in the British parliament, are the sole judges of the expediency of the legislation, this “General Welfare” requires. Thus, the Government of the United States has become a consolidated Government; and the people of the Southern State, are compelled to meet the very despotism, their fathers threw off in the Revolution of 1776.”
-Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding States Convention of South Carolina 1860


Between 1800-1850 the House was controlled by the north but the south could block anything from the north in the senate. However with the edition of states like Minnesota 1858 Oregon 1859 and Kansas 1861 for the first time the north controlled the senate. Lincoln said he would not allow any more slave states into the union. Southerns saw as a excuse for northern political dominance for the republican political agenda. The south had seen their political power decline, and now saw the attack on slavery into new territories as a attack on the whole economic system of the south by the majority or mob of the north. The south saw the loss of political power, economic power, and rights granted by the constitution under threat from the majority north. In 1860 Pennsylvanian and New York alone had more seats in congress than the entire deep south of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana, South Carolina, Texas and even Arkansas and North Carolina added on to that. A Georgian sated “we are either slaves in the union or free men out of it” in time the north would control the south politically with no safeguards from the constitution or state sovereignty as they placed authority with the federal government.

”liberty is always destroyed by the multitude, in the name of liberty. Majorities within the limits of constitutional restraints are harmless, but the moment they lose sight of these restraints, the many-headed monster becomes more tyrannical, than the tyrant with a single head; numbers harden its conscience, and embolden it, in the perpetration of crime. And when this majority, in a free government, becomes a faction, or, in other words, represents certain classes and interests to the detriment of other classes, and interests, farewell to public liberty; the people must either become enslaved, or there must be a disruption of the government. ”
-Confederate Admiral Raphael Semmes 1868

“Equality and safety in the union are at an end”
-Howell Cobb of Georgia 1860

“The real issue involved in the relations between the North and the South of the American States, is the great principle of self-government. Shall a dominant party of the North rule the South, or shall the people of the South rule themselves. This is the great matter in controversy.”
-Robert Barnwell Rhett Montgomery, Alabama, 1860

“The contest on the part of the north was for supreme control, especially in relation to the fiscal action of the government.. on the other hand southern states, struggling for equality, and seeking to maintain equilibrium in government”
-Rose Oneal Greehow My Improvement and the first year of Abolition rule in Washington 1863

Northern Violations of the Constitution- Majority Rule or Constitutional Republic?

“The people of the North have endeavored to destroy its limitations. To make it sectional in its operations, and subservient to their sectional interests, and to make the government of the United States itself a consolidated government, has been the aim of their steady and unintermitted efforts. …..All encroachments by Congress on the Constitution of the United States, they have uniformly upheld; until at last the Constitution, by their interpretation, is virtually abolished, and now consists only in three words — “the general welfare,” of which they are the judges and dispensers....With the Constitution overthrown, and the government of the United States in the hands of a hostile section, not only liberty, but self-preservation, demanded their separation from it.....In seceding therefore, from the United States, the Confederate States have only exercised a right inherent in all Sovereignties. In their judgment, the agreement they had made with the Northern States had been grossly violated. Its whole purpose was overthrown. Instead of an agency of very limited power, having for its object the defence of the States against the aggressions of foreign nations, it has been converted into a government of unlimited internal powers. Unless the people of the Confederate States were prepared to surrender forever their liberties, there was but one course left for them to pursue — they must escape from the domination of such a government...“The people of the North have steadily upheld the policy of setting aside the Constitution, and of thus rendering the government of the United States omnipotent in its legislation. They have endeavored to drain the treasury, to carry on internal improvements, and at the same time by its exhaustion, to afford a pretext for higher tariff duties to replenish it! They pushed their oppressions, by the tariff, to such an extent in 1828, that the whole South protested against it; and when one of the Southern States resisted it, and a compromise was effected by which the taxes were to be reduced and limited, they overthrew the compromise, and renewed the oppressions..... With these various means of sectional aggrandizement — protective tariffs — appropriations from the treasury — the exclusive settlement of our territories — and anti-slavery agitations — they have at last succeeded in uniting the North against the South. To escape their ruthless mastery, the Southern States were compelled to secede from the Union with them”
-Report on the confederate committee of foreign affairs 1861

“Announce a revolution in the government and to substitute an aggregate popular majority for the written constitution without which no single state would have voted its adoption not forming in truth a federal union but a consolidated despotism that worst of despotisms that of an unrestricted sectional and hostile majority, we do not intend to be misunderstood, we do not controvert the right of a majority to govern within the grant of powers in the Constitution.
-Florida Declaration of causes of secession

“South Carolina has twice called her people together in solemn Convention, to take into consideration, the aggressions and unconstitutional wrongs, perpetrated by the people of the North on the people of the South.”
-Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding States Convention of South Carolina 1860

“We are fighting for the god given rights of liberty and independence as handed down to us in the constitution by our fathers”
-Confederate General John B Gordon to Pennsylvanian woman at York 1863

“I believe most solemley that it is for constitutional liberty”
-Confederate General Leonidas Polk June 22 1861 Reasons for Southern Secession

The south saw the north as violating the constitution in many ways. The south thought their liberties threatened by a growing northern majority and political influence. Had the constitution not been violated, and their rights maintained, there would have been no need to separate. The south saw the tariffs aimed at certain industry as a violation of the constitution. They saw the north's attempt to use that money to benefit the Norths wanted internal improvements as another violation of the constitution. The federal government under the control of Lincoln sought to violate the 10th amendment and states rights by not allowing the western states to decide on slavery, instead the federal government would overpower the states, and violate the constitution to the benefit of northern polices. Among others.

“Northern population was increasing, by immigration and other causes, in a greater ratio than the population of the South. By degrees, as the Northern States gained preponderance in the National Congress, self-interest taught their people to yield ready assent to any plausible advocacy of their right as a majority to govern the minority without control. They learned to listen with impatience to the suggestion of any constitutional impediment to the exercise of their will, and so utterly have the principles of the Constitutionbeen corrupted in the Northern mind that, in the inaugural address delivered by President Lincoln in March last, he asserts as an axiom, which he plainly deems to be undeniable, of constitutional authority, that the theory of the Constitution requires that in all cases the majority shall govern; and in another memorable instance the same Chief Magistrate did not hesitate to liken the relations between a State and the United States to those which exist between a county and the State in which it is situated and by which it was created.”
-Jefferson Davis Message to Congress April 29, 1861 (Ratification of the Constitution)

“The experiment instituted by our revolutionary fathers, of a voluntary Union of sovereign States for purposes specified in a solemn compact, had been perverted by those who, feeling power and forgetting right, were determined to respect no law but their own will. The Government had ceased to answer the ends for which it was ordained and established. To save ourselves from a revolution which, in its silent but rapid progress, was about to place us under the despotism of numbers...The tyranny of an unbridled majority, the most odious and least responsible form of despotism, has denied us both the right and the remedy. Therefore we are in arms to renew such sacrifices as our fathers made to the holy cause of constitutional liberty ”
-Jefferson Davis Inaugural Richmond 1862


“Under the latitudinarian construction of the Constitution which prevails at the North, the general idea is maintained that the will of the majority is supreme; and as to Constitutional checks or restraints, they have no just conception of them..to keep the federal government within its proper sphere of delegated powers, that the Confederate States, each for itself, resumed those powers and looked out for new safeguards for their rights and domestic tranquility. These are found not in abandoning the Constitution, but in adhering only to those who will faithfully sustain it...They [the north] do not seem to understand the nature or workings of a federative system. They have but slender conceptions of limited powers. Their ideas run into consolidation...Whilst I was in Congress I knew of but few men there from the North who ever made a Constitutional argument on any question. They seemed to consider themselves as clothed with unlimited power...They looked upon it simply as a government of majoritiesThey did not seem to understand that it was a government that bound majorities by constitutional restraints. ”
-Speech of the Hon. Alexander H. Stephens to the Virginia Secession Convention, April 23, 1861

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

Two Separate Cultures and Politics “Yankees” and American


“If their was not a slave from Aroostock to the sabine, the north and the south could never permanent agree”
-Richmond Daily Whig April 23, 1862

“Slavery has nothing whatever to do with the tremendous issues now awaiting decision. It has disappeared almost entirely from the political discussions of the day. No one mentions it in connection with our present complications.“The question which we have to meet is precisely what it would be if there were not a negro slave on American soil.””
-New York Times quoted in the Richmond Whig April 9 1861

“The Southern people...maintained a species of separate interests, history, and prejudices. These latter became stronger and stronger, till they have led to a war which has developed the fruits of the bitterest kind.”
-General Sherman to Union Maj. R.M. Sawyer 1864


“The best definition ever given. It was a war of one form of society against another form of society”
- Shelby Fotte

The north and south started growing apart from each other socially, religiously, economically and politically. At times both would refer to each other as a separate race of people, usually northern Anglo-Saxon and southern scotch-Irish. These divides went back to early America. In some ways the war started politically with the federalist/anti-federalist and the nationalist vs the compact theorist of the Constitution . The south being largely Jeffersonian and anti-federalist/compact and the north federalist/nationalist.

“Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the States, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail.”
-John Calhoun South Carolina Senator J 1831

“The confederate states of america was the consequence of a constitutional crises the origins of which could be traced back to the US Constitution of 1789.”
-Marshall L Derosa the Confederate Constitution of 1861 University of Missouri Press 1991

“Not over slavery but centralization and local sovereign government going back 70 years to federalist and anti federalist...they[ The south] quit the union to save the principles of the constitution"
-Alexander Stevens A Constitutional View of the late war Between the States 1870

In 1819 a future disunion was predicted over the fight over a national bank. Later these differences were predicted to lead to the civil war back in 1824. A Congressional committee on northern interference in the south stated

“The hour is coming or is rabidly approaching, when the states from Virginia to Georgia, from Missouri to Louisianan, must confederate, and as one man say to the union we will no longer submit our retained rights to the sniveling insinuations of bad men on the floor of congress. Our constitutional rights to the dark and strained contraction of design men upon judicial benches. That we detest the doctrine, and disclaim the principle, of unlimited submission to the general [Federal] government.... Let the North, then, form national roads for themselves. Let them guard with tariffs their own interests. Let them deepen their public debt until a high minded aristocracy shall rise out of it. We want none of all those blessings. But in the simplicity of the patriarchal government, we would still remain master and servant under our own vine and our own fig-tree, and confide for safety upon Him who of old time looked down upon this state of things without wrath.”

The cultures were separating as well. The south was generally conservative in cultural and religion compared to the north adding God to the Constitution and whos motto was “God will vindicate.” The north was being transformed by large number of European immigrants who often came from the failed socialist revolutions of 1848. The north was also increasingly influenced by New England. Before the 1850's new england was seen as out of the american mainstream and “southern” was the American mainstream. 9 of the first 11 presidents were southern plantation owners, 7 of the first 12 were Virginians [many two term] 9 were southern, and 1 from New York, at that time was “southern” in politics. Washington, Jefferson, Jackson were the norm in America. After the war of 1812 New England was often seen with disdain by the rest of America.

“There is at work in this land a Yankee spirit and an American spirit”
-James Thornwell 1859

New Englander's settled in western States and New York. Over time New York became half populated by decedents from New England and flooded with socialist European immigrants. Once new England could control half the north, the south was taken care of after the war, and new england was no longer outside mainstream, but know the south was out of the mainstream and the problem that needed to be fixed.

“The north changed radically after the founders of the united states, especially in the 1850's”
-Dr. Clyde Wilson Professor of History University of South Carolina

“Southern society has never generated any of the loathsome isms, which northern soil breeds...the north has its Mormons, her various sects of Communists, her free lovers, her spiritualists, and a multitude of corrupt visoniaries”
-R.L Dabney A defense of Virginia and the South 1867


“It was a profound conservative movement. It was in fact a counterrevolution against the excess of northern demagoguery, mob rule, and dangerous fanaticism imported from Europe”
-E. merton Coulter The confederate States of America Louisiana State University Press

“The union became a synonym for “modern” and a really counterpart to the south”
- David Goldfeild War is good for Business Americas civil war Magazine


Main References

-Secession Acts of the Thirteen Confederate States
Home
-Confederate States of America - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union
Avalon Project - Confederate States of America - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union
Florida Causes of secession Florida Declaration
- Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding StatesConvention of South Carolina December 25, 1860 Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding States | Teaching American History
-Abraham Lincoln First Inaugural Address Monday, March 4, 1861
-Jefferson Davis' First Inaugural Address Alabama Capitol, Montgomery, February 18, 1861
-Jefferson Davis' Second Inaugural Address Virginia Capitol, Richmond, February 22, 1862
-Confederate States of America - Message to Congress April 29, 1861 (Ratification of the Constitution)
Avalon Project - Confederate States of America - Message to Congress April 29, 1861 (Ratification of the Constitution)
-The confederate constitution American Civil War :: Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library :: University of Georgia Libraries -The Confederate States of America, 1861--1865: A History of the South by E.Merton coulter 1950
-The Confederate Constitution of 1861: An Inquiry Into American Constitutionalism By Marshall L. DeRosa University of Missouri Press
-Redeeming American Democracy Lessons from the confederate constitution Marshall L. Derosa Pelican press 2007
-The Constitution Of The Confederate States Of America Explained A Clause By Clause Study Of The Souths Magna Carta Lochlainn Seabrook Sea Raven Press 2012
-Virginia/Kentucky resolutions 1798 http://billofrightsinstitute.org/fou...y-resolutions/
-James Madison, Report on the Virginia Resolutions 1800 http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/found.../v1ch8s42.html
-Calhoun Ft Hill Address http://teachingamericanhistory.org/l...-hill-address/
-ANEXPOSITION Of the Virginia Resolutions of 1798,
JudgeAbel P. Upshur
Judge Abel P. Upshur – DallyPost Tactical
-Alexander Stephens "Cornerstone Address," March 21 1861:
Internet History Sourcebooks
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Robert Toombs's Speech to the Georgia Legislature
-From Union to Empire Clyde Wilson The Foundation for American Education Columbia SC 2003
-The Great Civil War Debate hosted by american vision c-span Peter Marshall Jr. vs Steve Wilkin s
-Nullification How to resits Federal tyranny in the 21st Century Thomas Woods Regnery Publishing inc Washington D.C 2010
-The Yankee Problem An American dilemma Clyde N Wilson Shotwell Publishing Columbia South Carolina 2016
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- Lincoln Unmasked what your not suppose to know about Dishonest Abe Thomas J Dilorenzo Three rivers Press Crown Forum 2006
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-From Union to Empire essays in the Jeffersonian Tradition Clyde Wilson The Foundation for American Education Columbia South Carolina 2003
-The South was Right James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy Pelican 2014
-Nullification Reclaiming consent of the Governed Clyde Wilson Shotwell Publishing Columbia South Carolina 2
-Lincolns Marxists Al Benson Jr and Walter Kennedy Pelican Press 2011
-Battle Hymns The Power And Popularity Of Music In The Civil War By Christian Mcwhirter The University Of North Carolina press 2012
-The states rights tradition nobody knows Thomas Woods
-Battle Cry of Freedom James McPherson Oxford university Press
-Virginia Iliad the death and destruction of the Mother of States and of Statemen H.V Traywick Jr Dementi Milestone Publishing Inc 2016
Gary Gallagher the American civil war great courses in modern history lecture series Teaching company 2000
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-Robert E Lee letter to his wife 1856
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-Jefferson Davis The rise and fall of the confederate government
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-Jesse James last rebel of the civil war T.J Stiles Alfred A Knopf 2002
Interview with Historian Shelby foote http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/printmember/foo0int-1
-Shelby Foote on the confederate flag
-A Defense Of Virginia And The South R.L Dabney 1867 Sprinkle publications
-Raphael Semmes, Memoirs of Service Afloat During the War Between the States Baltimore, MD. Kelly Piet & Co. 1868 -
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2001.05.0133:chapter=6age=66
-Major General John B. Gordon Causes of the Civil War. 1903
-A Constitutional view of the late war between the states: its causes By Alexander Hamilton Stephens 1870
-The Private Mary Chesnut The Unpublished Diaries C Vann Woodward Elisabeth Muhlenfeld NY Oxford Press 1984
-The politically incorrect guide to the south Clint Johnson 2007 Regnery publications inc
-Report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/review/report-of-the-committee-on-foreign-affairs/
-The politically incorrect guide to the civil war H.W Crocker third 2008 Regnery publications inc
-The politically incorrect guide to American history Thomas e woods 2004 Regnery publications inc
-The south was Right James Ronald Kennedy and Walter Donald Kennedy Pelican 2014 reprint
-General Stand waties confederate Indians 1959 by Frank Cunnigham University of Oklahoma press
-The US constitution
-33 questions about American history you're not suppose to ask Thomas Woods Crown forum NY 2007
-I'll Take my stand the south and the agrarian tradition by twelve southerners 1930 Louisianan state university press
-Rutland Free Library Rutland, Vermont
-Southern Secession and Reconstruction David Livingston Emory University professor
-Why the war was not About Slavery Clyde Wilson Professor of History at the University of South Carolina
-Myths of American slavery Walter D Kennedy 2003 Pelican publishing company
-Myths and Realities of American Slavery John C Perry Burd Street Press 2002
-Everything You Were Taught About American Slavery Is Wrong Ask A Southerner Lochlainn Seabrook Sea raven press 2014
-The Civil war PBS series by Ken Burns
-The American heritage series By Historian David Barton at wallbuilders.com
-Building on the American heritage series by David Barton 2011
-Warriors of honor- The faith and legacies of Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson 2004
-Still Standing The stonewall Jackson Story 2007
-The life of Stonewall Jackson
-Tenting Tonight the Solders life Time Life Books James Robertsonv

 

[tas8831]

YAWN. You lost, get over it.

And stop plagiarizing and doctoring quotes - it makes your religion look pathetic.

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

YAWN. You lost, get over it.

And stop plagiarizing and doctoring quotes - it makes your religion look pathetic.

so in other words we see I was correct. Liberals have no idea how to respond since they only ever believe their high preist who lie to them so when they dont have the high priest around, they are lost and cannot defend there own views they pretend to hold. Whos religion looks pathetic? depends how you judge. Making claims that cannot be supported an inability to respond to me is pathetic. Clearly presenting historical truth and original sources in context is your view of pathetic. So we will never agree since we have separate authorities on how to judge. But you ar after all an evolutionist who claims slavery and white supremacy are bad, so I am not looking for a logical or rational response. But I do enjoy it. Exposing such worldviews is what Christians should be doing.

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

The confederate flag doesn't objectively mean anything. It's whatever meaning people give it. To me, the confederate flag symbolizes racism and should not be waved.

some people [such as myself] do not hold to relativism and the modern liberal belief we can create our own truth, rather some [like me] think what is actually historically true matters. Regardless of modern attempts to change historical truth.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Slavery is the reason South Carolina tried to leave the Union.

"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.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

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.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.

The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.

Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.

We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do." - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union, December 24, 1860


Slavery is the institution upon which the Confederacy was established.

"But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution, African slavery as it exists amongst us – the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails..." - Vice President of the CSA, Alexander H. Stephens, Cornerstone Speech, March 21, 1861

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Tolkien R.R.J]

Slavery is the reason South Carolina tried to leave the Union.

"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.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation.

The ends for which the Constitution was framed are declared by itself to be "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

These ends it endeavored to accomplish by a Federal Government, in which each State was recognized as an equal, and had separate control over its own institutions. The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.

We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.

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.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.

The guaranties of the Constitution will then no longer exist; the equal rights of the States will be lost. The slaveholding States will no longer have the power of self-government, or self-protection, and the Federal Government will have become their enemy.

Sectional interest and animosity will deepen the irritation, and all hope of remedy is rendered vain, by the fact that public opinion at the North has invested a great political error with the sanction of more erroneous religious belief.

We, therefore, the People of South Carolina, by our delegates in Convention assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, have solemnly declared that the Union heretofore existing between this State and the other States of North America, is dissolved, and that the State of South Carolina has resumed her position among the nations of the world, as a separate and independent State; with full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do." - Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union, December 24, 1860


Slavery is the institution upon which the Confederacy was established.

"But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution, African slavery as it exists amongst us – the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails..." - Vice President of the CSA, Alexander H. Stephens, Cornerstone Speech, March 21, 1861

-CryptoLutheran

Thank you sir for joining the discussion. Have you ever herd the winner writes the history? see we are given only a few selected documents out of context of antebellum american politics, and told this was "the cause" of secession. There are about a half dozen documents we are given to prove the federal government was morally correct to destroy the union of the founders as well as the principles in the declaration that are suppose to show the south left to preserve slavery. I am sorry to see another who has swallowed the narrative.


It is true that the federal governments intrusion on the rights of the states and its violation of the Constitution in regards to slavery was indeed an issue for the deep south. But one must first understand the union that was.

From Confederation to Consolidation the Political Effects of the Civil war

We were not "america" as one indivisible nation. We were a union a collection of states. So we must first understand how states reacted to previous federal intrusion on liberty and why it was such a big deal. If we come from this historical context, than we see the actual causes of secession plainly in even those limited writings that do mention slavery. We can see this some in my causes of southern secession the cotton states found here.

I'll Take My Stand – Causes Of Southern Secession-The Cotton States


To ignore the many causes of the cotton sates other than the federal governments intrusion on the rights of the states and its violation of the Constitution in regards to slavery would be lying. As a christian i hope you agree that is a sin.


But i will address the documents you have brought up in full next post. It will also support my thread on antebellum america politics and show just how careful those who want to deceive the public about the causes of secession must be.