I’ve heard it all my life. “The Civil War was not fought over slavery.” I was NOT taught that in grade school in south Georgia. But I’ve heard it from those seeking to honor the memory of the Confederate States of America. Every time racial strife heats up in the USA I hear this refrain over and over again, “The Civil War was not fought over slavery.” Well let’s look at the ugly truth.
In 1861 the “republic of Georgia” seceded from the Union. In the first sentences of the ordinance of secession the primary reason for the war is . . . African slavery.
The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. 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. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property. . .
The most prominent Georgia politician of the day was Alexander Stephens – the governor of Georgia and vice-president of the Confederate States of America. In what has become known as the Corner Stone speech, which he gave in Savannah on March 21, 1861, Stephens offered many reasons for succession and civil war. But he stated that African slavery was the immediate cause.
. . . 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 is not the spin of a Yankee historian, these are the words of the Vice-president of the Confederate States of America.
Let’s take a look at the document of which Mr. Stephens was so proud – the Constitution of the Confederate States. The CSA constitution enshrined into law the institution of slavery.
Article I, Section 9, Clause 4: “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.”
Article IV, Section 2: “The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired.”
Article IV, Section 3, Clause 3: “The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several States; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States.”
My final offering is from the Reverend James Henry Thornwell, an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America. In A Southern Christian View of Slavery, Thornwell states the primary reason for the Civil War:
The antagonism of Northern and Southern sentiment on the subject of slavery lies at the root of all the difficulties which have resulted in the dismemberment of the federal Union, and involved us in the horrors of an unnatural war.
He then proceeds to offer a biblical justification for the horrible institution of slavery, a justification I have repeatedly heard through the years (for my response see here).
I suspect that those who seek to preserve the “honor” of the old CSA would like to forget these words spoken by their “heros.” These words should never be forgotten. They should be carved into stone to forever remind humanity of the evils of injustice.
