The reality, is the south didn’t feel it was being represented. It felt it would be better on its own (regardless of the slave issue, there’s a whole mess there).
The north, decided it wasn’t going to let the south go its own way. That’s why the south calls it “the war of northern aggression”. (I say this from their perspective) First the north didn’t respect property rights, then it actively attempted to destroy the south’s economy (through tariffs, etc), then it invaded, murdered and seized its wealth and land.
"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin."
In other words: they hold that slavery is the foundation of their economy and commerce; that black slaves in particular are the best suited for labor, by virtue of some racist justifications; and that the institution of slavery is under imminent threat of abolition and therefore they need to secede in order to maintain the slavery status quo.
“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.
You ought to be ashamed of yourself for your conduct in this discussion. And god help you if you walk away from here making the same claims as you have in this thread: they will lead you down into the dark.
The south had decades of arguing the north was attempting to suppress them. The slavery issue was one of many related issues. This really started installing the constitution and usurping the articles of confederation; without appropriate approvals.
It’s like today in the United States, most of the middle (red) states believe life begins at conception. The states on the coasts, plus IL and CO (blue) states have laws implying they won’t protect life until after it leaves the womb. Morally, this triggers the states in the center of the country. The states on the coast argue it’s the “mother’s right to stop the birth”.
I’m not making a moral argument, but describing a fact.
Now, one could argue states rights are the real issue here. Because all the latest political craziness around this topic is simply reverting the idea states set the rights. Each state can run itself how it sees fit. The blue states want to impose their will on the red states (making abortion legal nation wide). I’m sure the opposite would be true if the red states and overwhelming control.
But there’s a ton more the red and blue states are arguing over, this is just one issue. Arguably, it’s the same discussion as slavery - who is a person and when.
The conflict that is continuing to escalate in the U.S. is about so much more. But I think in the end may come down to issues like “states rights”. In reality, the conflict is mostly an urban-rural divide that has gone back to the countries founding.
I agree that we are seeing the same issues play out with abortion, with some states seeking to pass statutes similar to the Fugitive Slave Act to prevent their citizens from obtaining abortion services in neighboring states. If they hold firmly to that perspective, then we may come to an ill end again.
But to hold the opinion that we could avoid a second Civil War by simply honoring states' rights is to willfully ignore history: the political leaders of North and South tested the states' rights framework on the problem of slavery, and it failed.
I quote another primary source, Ulysses S. Grant, who makes this case far more clearly than I can:
For some years before the war began it was a trite saying among some politicians that "A state half slave and half free cannot exist." All must become slave or all free, or the state will go down. I took no part myself in any such view of the case at the time, but since the war is over, reviewing the whole question, I have come to the conclusion that the saying is quite true.
Slavery was an institution that required unusual guarantees for its security wherever it existed; and in a country like ours where the larger portion of it was free territory inhabited by an intelligent and well-to-do population, the people would naturally have but little sympathy with demands upon them for its protection. Hence the people of the South were dependent upon keeping control of the general government to secure the perpetuation of their favorite institution. They were enabled to maintain this control long after the States where slavery existed had ceased to have the controlling power, through the assistance they received from odd men here and there throughout the Northern States. They saw their power waning, and this led them to encroach upon the prerogatives and independence of the Northern States by enacting such laws as the Fugitive Slave Law. By this law every Northern man was obliged, when properly summoned, to turn out and help apprehend the runaway slave of a Southern man. Northern marshals became slave-catchers, and Northern courts had to contribute to the support and protection of the institution.
This was a degradation which the North would not permit any longer than until they could get the power to expunge such laws from the statute books. Prior to the time of these encroachments the great majority of the people of the North had no particular quarrel with slavery, so long as they were not forced to have it themselves. But they were not willing to play the role of police for the South in the protection of this particular institution.
In the early days of the country, before we had railroads, telegraphs and steamboats—in a word, rapid transit of any sort—the States were each almost a separate nationality. At that time the subject of slavery caused but little or no disturbance to the public mind. But the country grew, rapid transit was established, and trade and commerce between the States got to be so much greater than before, that the power of the National government became more felt and recognized and, therefore, had to be enlisted in the cause of this institution.
I didn’t misread it, I read it correctly. Others put meaning into the slave debate, at the time this wasn’t as big as we make it today - it was propaganda and the rewriting of history that made it larger. Primary sources at the time definitely emphasize it, but there are a whole plethora of issues. Further, your coming at the discussion from your position in history today; projecting, if you will. At the start of the war and prior to it, there were decades of the north undermining the south. The fact there was a “fugitive slave act” was because of that undermining by the north.
Regardless, what I was trying to convey was a more factual basis for a discussion. Even in this discussion, the judgement is thick. I try not to portray a judgment, rather focusing on factual statements.
Though, to your point I think we mostly agree and I don’t think the civil war was avoidable. I just view it as a much larger conflict than slavery and I think that’s revisionist history to believe it was the primary cause.
From the founding of this country there have been two waring factions — the federalist and the anti-federalist. Rural vs urban. Populist vs elitist. Democrat vs Republican. Effectively, “what is American”.
It hasn’t changed, really. We’re still having the same debates, pro-life or pro-abortion. The idea behind a Republic is we can resolve those differences and allow greater regional freedom. We have mechanisms of government that enable no faction to dominate (though that’s being eroded). The original idea was states would also leave the union if they so chose - which clearly the northern states wouldn’t allow.
Personally, my fear is that we’re sliding into another “hot” period of the civil war. When we can’t resolve differences AND can’t leave, then war is inevitable.
The first two paragraphs of South Carolina's articles of secession say, "We are seceding because our constitutional right to own slaves is being violated by northern states."
The outcome of the slave issue had serious consequences for the propertied class in the South, too. Did you know that, apart from Southern slave owners, most slave owners of the era were paid for their slaves when they were freed? Even the citizens of Haiti, who earned their freedom through violent rebellion, were eventually forced to repay France for "stealing" themselves for their owners.
It's not propaganda to point at the words of the slave states; it's propaganda to throw sand in the eyes of people seeking to understand what actually happened. I grew up in Mississippi; I saw the battlefield of Vicksburg as a child, I understand the need to relate to those folks. And I understand the feelings of injustice that well up when you and your community are reductively maligned as being nothing but outright racists, or when a statement like "The Civil War was fought over slavery" is then extrapolated to a statement as obviously untrue as "All southerners fought in the war so that they could preserve slavery."
But southerners are full of self-justifying lies, too.
> The fact there was a “fugitive slave act” was because of that undermining by the north.
And what else was the North to do? Do you believe that slavery is immoral? If a runaway slave hitched a train into your state and knocked on your front door, would you send them back to bondage?
This is why the legal question is a dodge: the moral question speaks too strongly. Read the passage I quoted from Grant again, top to bottom. He is as vivid on the question as any writer I have read. And he was there, and you and I were not.
They received additional representation for their slaves, even though slaves couldn't vote. Just more lies on top of lies.
> First the north didn’t respect property rights
The "property" in question being "human beings"
> then it invaded, murdered and seized its wealth and land.
Sounds like justice to me. And most of that land was given back, instead of being distributed to freed slaves as reparation. Which would have been the right thing to do.
"In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof.
The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”"
South Carolina didn't secede because the North wanted to abolish slavery. They seceded because the North refused to return slaves to the South.
Many Northerners took a long time to follow this truth to its logical conclusion: either the North would have to accede to Southern demands and honor their claims to other human beings as property, or they would have to abolish slavery entirely.