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There’s a problem with this argument.
Confederate states actually controlled the federal government prior to their succession, and strongly opposed states’ rights to ignore federal laws like the Escaped Slaves act. Wisconsin and Vermont had judges and legislators who declared any individual who reached their borders to be free.
Abraham Lincoln had declared opposition to slavery, but said that he would not impose federal law on the states, and had not even threatened to free slaves before the war began.
So while the Civil War did have a lot to do with states’ rights, the Confederates were opposed to them and the Union supported them. This led to the secession, which sort of flipped the script, because then it was Confederate states demanding the right to leave the Union, and the Union saying “no” to that particular demand. It had very little to do with telling Southern States that they could not keep slaves, although there is plenty of reason to expect that it would have gone in that direction without the Civil War. Abolitionists were gaining ground, and Lincoln was morally opposed to it, so it the Confederate states had a reasonable expectation that they would eventually be forced to end slavery, but it hadn’t happened before the start of the war.
To be sure, the Confederacy was a traitorous band of anti-American bigots seeking to create a tyrannical ethnostate of christofascists (fuck, why does that sound familiar?). However, in this case, the answer to Velma’s question in this case is not “keep slaves” but is instead “secede.”
the secession papers of many states announcing the superiority of the white man and their god given right to own slaves flies in the face of this pretty hard.
yeah, you’re right that the confederacy counter-intuitively wanted federal control over state control but that was specifically about forcing the north to return escaped slaves. thinking it was about a state’s right to seceed is circular af, too. why did they want to seceed in the first place? the abolition movement and the refusal of the federal government to help the south enforce slavery.
The secession papers specifically cite the failure of the federal government to enforce the federal law, which is exactly what I said. You’ve restated what I said in your second paragraph, which flies in the face of your first paragraph.
Secession was not he reason for secession. Secession was the only issue in which the Confederate states advanced states’ rights as an argument supporting their position.
And why did they want to secede ?
According to OP, apparently because they weren’t allowed to?
Yeah this line of argument is totally incoherent. The “states’ rights” argument is totally post hoc nonsense and there’s nothing behind it that makes any sense. “States’ rights to what?” is a totally valid and appropriate question. The South had nothing beyond slavery.
From their responses in other comments, I think op would agree with my summary: the war was about states rights to secede, the secession was about slavery
Ultimately, though, the sole motivating force was defense of slavery. Lincoln wanted to keep the union together but that required addressing the thing that split it apart, which was slavery, and ultimately that’s something he did. But that’s Lincoln.
The CSA’s leaders and generals had to justify, at least to themselves, their continued war operations even as the war was destroying their new (fake) country. The only thing they had that motivated them so much was slavery. they were not shy about saying so and they said it consistently.
Trying to get technical over what the war was really about only confuses the matter. The South was determined to do anything it could to preserve slavery, whether forcing it on the Northern states or refusing to acknowledge the validity of the federal government, and all of those things were ultimately going to lead to war.
“States’ rights”, here, is a nonsense justification for the war (and before the war, for slavery) and not the justification the South gave for engaging in war to begin with just as “secession” is. It was always slavery that they were concerned with, and whether states rights supported slavery in the moment or opposed slavery they always sided with slavery. Here’s a sampling of Jefferson Davis in 1860:
Resolved, That the union of these States rests on the equality of rights and privileges among its members, and that it is especially the duty of the Senate, which represents the States in their sovereign capacity, to resist all attempts to discriminate either in relation to person or property, so as, in the Territories—which are the common possession of the United States—to give advantages to the citizens of one State which are not equally secured to those of every other State.
What he’s saying, here, is that it’s a violation of states’ rights (or an establishment unequal rights) to prevent slavery in the territories and in new states. Why does what happens in a new state have anything to do with the rights of (say) Mississippi? Because if enough new free states were admitted to the union they would have enough political power to ban slavery, which is the thing that mattered.
Everyone understands the argument. This is the exactly the sort of pointless who-gives-a-shitism that the post is making fun of.
I answered that question. They wanted to secede because the federal government wasn’t enforcing federal law, specifically the escaped slaves act. States were using their own courts and their own legislatures to free slaves, and the federal government was not willing to override states’ rights. The states’ right to own slaves was not in jeopardy at that time. The only states’ right that the secessionists wanted to avail themselves of was the right to secede, which they didn’t actually have.
The fact that the confederates originally wanted a federal right to own slaves is little different from them wanting states’ rights to own slaves. The fact that they changed from one argument to an incompatible one, and both were about the right to own slaves is just further proof that the arguments are simply disingenuous pretext. The civil war was about the right to own slaves.
The Confederate states had a federal law enshrining slavery. They had states’ rights to own slaves. At no point prior to secession did the federal government try to take a state’s rights to own slave or pass federal legislation abolishing slavery. They didn’t change arguments, slavery was always the priority, it was just opposing states’ rights while states were freeing slaves while the federal government was supposed to try to stop them.
None of this makes the picture above wrong.
Just because something is indirect does not mean it isn’t ultimately the overarching reason.
Yes, the direct reason was secession, but the reason for secession was slavery.
There was nothing indirect about it. The direct reason was slavery. Slavery was federal law. It was not state law in every state, and the Confederate states did not want to stay in the union if the federal government wasn’t going to enforce slavery in states that had abolitionist state laws. The federal government was not trying to tell Conferates that they had to free their slaves, so the Confederates were not on the states’ rights side of the slavery issue when they attempted to secede. They opposed states rights to abolish slavery.
When they seceded, they used, in part, the argument that states had the right to secede from the union. They did not, and we fought a big war over it.
Ask yourself this though, if the debate were over something like, the right to own a platypus, instead of the right to own a person, do you think there would have been a war? Of course not, because it wasn’t about what was or wasn’t written down or any technicality, it was about slavery. It would have been the same outcome no matter what the law said because at the end of the day some people wanted slaves, and other found the practice abhorrent - it was a fatal flaw baked into the founding of the country. And as the scales began to tip against the slave holders they found whatever reasons/excuses/whatever they needed to to retain their power
It’s usually “They seceded to protect states’ rights”, and “They seceded to protect states’ rights to secede” kind of runs into an issue when you consider that the Confederacy did not regard Confederate states as having the right to secede.
They seceded because they did not have faith in the union to enforce slavery, which was federal law. There were more government representatives from slave owning states, and there was no risk of abolition prior to their secession.
It wasn’t “the union” enforcing federal law (or not) but rather the federal government–and good for them, people of good conscience should not enforce such a law.
Yes, but today the people trying to argue the Civil War was about states rights all secretly wish they could own slaves.
Those people are confused, understandably, because states’ rights was the rallying cry of southern bigots during their opposition to the Civil Rights Movement and desegregation. Bigots don’t tend to be the most enlightened or thoughtful people, and this is a topic that trips up even intelligent and informed people.
They aren’t confused, they just don’t give a fuck if what they’re saying is right or wrong. They only care if it gets them position in the argument.
This is a really interesting thread, thank you. I’ll read the secession documents again with this in mind.
Confederate states actually controlled the federal government prior to their succession, and strongly opposed states’ rights to ignore federal laws like the Escaped Slaves act. Wisconsin and Vermont had judges and legislators who declared any individual who reached their borders to be free.
This is why I think the overturn of Roe v. Wade is dangerous. They’re already trying to outlaw women traveling within the state to get an abortion somewhere else, how long until they try arresting them in another state?
I’m pretty sure arresting on return and arrests for helping people to leave the state are already happening.
It’s certainly close enough that there are preemptive reports asserting that it would be federally illegal: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-justice-department-says-constitution-protects-right-travel-abortion-2023-11-09/
The Alabama lawsuits seek to block the state from criminally prosecuting those who facilitate out-of-state travel for an abortion. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall has said those who aid travel can be charged with conspiracy if the out-of-state abortion would have been illegal in Alabama.
