Slavery was the immediate cause of the Civil War – Part Six
Several major southern newspapers fanned the flames of war as did the Charleston Mercury, when it wrote
We frequently talk of the future glories of our republican destiny on the continent, and of the spread of our civilization and free institutions over Mexico and the Tropics. Already we have absorbed two of her States, Texas and California. Is it expected that our onward march is to stop here? Is it not more probable and more philosophic to suppose that, as in the past, so in the future, the Anglo-Saxon race will, in the course of years, occupy and absorb the whole of that splendid by ill-peopled country, and to remove by gradual process, before them, the worthless mongrel races that now inhabit and curse the land? (my emphasis) And in the accomplishment of this destiny is there a Southern man so bold as to say, the people of the South with their slave property are to consent to total exclusion. . . . ? Our people will never sit still and see themselves excluded from all expansion, to please the North. (Charleston Mercury, February 28, 1860 issue and found in Ken Stampp’s “The Causes of the Civil War,” pp. 148-49)
In another “Charleston Mercury,” editorial, is found the following statement in defense of slavery and secession:
8. Slave property, is the foundation of all property in the South. When security in this is shaken, all other property partakes of its instability. Banks, stocks, bonds, must be influenced. Timid men will sell out and leave the South. Confusion, distrust and pressure must reign.
…
11. The ruin of the South, by the emancipation of her slaves, is not like the ruin of any other people. It is not a mere loss of liberty, like the Italians under the BOURBONS. It is not heavy taxation, which must still leave the means of living, or otherwise taxation defeats itself. But it is the loss of liberty, property, home, country-- everything that makes life worth living. (my emphasis) And this loss, will probably take place under circumstances of suffering and horror, unsurpassed in the history of nations. We must preserve our liberties and institutions, under penalties greater than those which impend over any people in the world.
12. Lastly, we conclude this brief statement of the terrors of submission, by declaring, that in our opinion, they are ten-fold greater even than the supposed terrors of disunion.” (my emphasis) (“Charleston Mercury,” October 11, 1860 edition)
The Richmond Enquirer also long participated in the fray. In one article entitled “The True Issue,” the Enquirer made the following statement summarizing the Southern Cause, essentially stating that the issue of secession had already been settled, and that the true issue before Virginia concerns whether to support the southern “ultimatum.”
The ultimatum of the seceded States is left in no uncertainty; it is to be found in the solemn action of the Montgomery Constitution and may be analyzed as follows:
1. That African slavery in the Territories shall be recognized and protected by Congress and the Territorial Legislatures.
2. That the right to slaveholders of transit and sojourn in any State of the Confederacy, with their slaves and other property, shall be recognized and respected.
3. That the provision in regard to fugitive slaves shall extend to any slave lawfully carried from one State into another, and there escaping or taken away from his master.
4. That no bill or ex post facto law (by Congress or any State,) and no law impairing or denying the right of property in negro slaves, shall be passed.
5. That the African slave trade shall be prohibited by such laws of Congress as shall effectually prevent the same. (“The Richmond Enquirer,” Saturday morning issue, March 23, 1861)
This was the Southern Ultimatum, and by this time it was being codified into new southern state and Confederate law. It was not the perspectives of the army grunt that had power to define southern law. It was the view of Confederate leaders that defined southern law. This view aimed to keep some four million black people in chains, this, because of the southern belief that blacks were innately inferior to whites and thus ordained by nature to be slaves.
State law examples:
No slave in this State shall be emancipated by any act done to take effect in this State, or any other country. (From Article IV, Section 1 of the Alabama Constitution of 1861)
The General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves. (From Article II, Sec. 7, Paragraph 3 of the Georgia Constitution of 1861)
Confederate law examples:
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed. (Article I, Section 9, Paragraph 4 of the Confederate Constitution)
The Confederate States may acquire new territory . . . In all such territory, the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and the territorial government. (Article IV, Section 3, Paragraph 3 of the Confederate Constitution)
When southern states seceded many began issuing Declarations of Seccession, virtually all of which stated in no uncertain terms that slavery was the reason they seceded.
The people of Louisiana were unwilling to endanger their liberties and [slave] property by submission to the despotism of a single tyrant, or the canting tyranny of pharisaical majorities. Insulted by the denial of her constitutional equality by the non-slaveholding States, outraged by their contemptuous rejection of proffered compromises, and convinced that she was illustrating the capacity of her people for self-government by withdrawing from a union that had failed, without fault of hers, to accomplish its purposes, she declared herself a free and independent State on the 26th day of January last. History affords no example of a people who changed their government for more just or substantial reasons. Louisiana looks to the formation of a Southern confederacy to preserve the blessings of African slavery, and of the free institutions of the founders of the Federal Union, bequeathed to their posterity. (George Williamson, Commissioner from Louisiana Feb 11, 1861, and presented to the Texas Secession Convention on Mar 9, 1861. Found in The Journal of the Secession Covention of Texas, pp 120-123., E.W. Winkler, ed.,)
Also see the following links
South Carolina Declaration of Secession
members.aol.com
Mississippi Declaration of Secession
members.aol.com
Georgia Declaration of Secession
members.aol.com
Texas Declaration of Secession
members.aol.com
We see now beyond a reasonable doubt that the Southern Confederacy was, at least in large part, a political machine developed for the immediate purpose of protecting, spreading and legally codifying slavery.
Even the V.P of the Confederacy admitted such in a speech in Savannah; Georgia, March 21, 1861
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 [Confederate] 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. (http://members.aol.com/jfepperson/stephans.html)
The Confederacy clearly seceded from the Union to protect slavery. Slavery was its immediate cause for existence. It clearly aimed codify slavery by its law, even explicitly within its state and Confederate constitutions. For this reason, the Confederacy and its symbols will ever be naturally repulsive to true Americans.
It is true that at one time slavery existed in all states. But when the question came before the nation, the United States rallied behind the Jeffersonian doctrine that served as the basis for its own existence. The Confederacy rallied behind bondage, racism and utter barbarism, defending this with their lives.
Because of the victory of Union soldiers at Appomattox, pro-Confederates may today wave their flag and any other symbol. But they have no more of an ethical right to force freedom loving Americans to pay for it with their tax dollars, any more than liberals have the moral right to force decent Americans to pay for homosexual “art” via the National Endowment for the Arts.
Americans owe a great debt to the hundreds of thousands of Union soldiers who fought and died for their country, and they should never grow so ignorant of the Civil War that they come to embrace the untruths of modern Confederates-- untruths that aim to nullify the excellence of the Union Cause as did that abomination of an article by Jack Anderson.
Pro-Confederates may claim the Union was unfair and whatnot if they choose. Union men died to give modern Confederates that right. Real Americans will never forget the fact that Union men and women literally sang and supported with their lives, the following words:
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
(Continued…) |
