Did the South Really Fight “For” Slavery?

Revisionist historians have recently rebranded the War of Northern Aggression or the American “Civil War” as one between the good guys – Yankees – who sought to free the slaves versus the bad guys – Southerners – who sought to maintain the institution of slavery.  For years, Southerners have argued that the fight was over states’ rights.  Northern apologists would counter the argument, stating that the “right to own slaves” was the state right that the South fought to preserve.  Unfortunately, for many Southerners who found themselves in such arguments, they would frequently revert to economic arguments, such as the Tariff of Abominations in 1828 (a tariff designed to protect Northern industries at the expense of Southern agricultural exports).  But, that argument fell flat for two reasons.  First, the Tariff was removed in 1833, well before the secession movements of the 1850s and eventually 1860.  Second, it reduced cultural and historical realities to an economic argument, depriving Southerners of their unique construct.  In essence, it played into the hands of Northern apologists who do not believe the South is a unique ethnicity worthy of independent cultural survival. 

To compound upon the idea that Southerners fought for slavery, revisionist historians will point to occasional language in the various secession documents regarding the “peculiar institution” (slavery) in perpetuity.  Rarely do Southerners have an answer for that levied charge.  But the reality is that slavery language was fairly rare in the various secession documents and since 92% of Southern Whites owned no slaves, it would be hard to state that they were motivated by the same reasons as those few elites who owned the vast majority of slaves.  The fact is that mechanized tractors would have likely ended the institution of human enslavement, and globally it eventually did. 

The United States South was not the only area of the world to own and employ slaves.  Black slaves are still legal in Africa.  In 2008, Mali was the last African country to outlaw hereditary slave status, but those born into the condition prior to 2008 remain slaves.  Most Asian countries did away with slavery in the post-World War II era.  France, while outlawing slavery early-on within its European continental borders, allowed slavery to continue until 1899.  Brazil, the largest single benefactor of African enslavement, outlawed the practice in 1888.  Of course, five Union states maintained slaves throughout the “Civil War,” including Delaware, which refused to ratify the 13^th and 14^th Amendments until 1901. 

Thus, it seems odd that the American South is uniquely vilified for a practice that began well before its founding.  From earliest times, we know primitive men captured other primitive tribes and impressed them into slavery.  Indigenous peoples of the Americas had slaves.  The Aztecs and Mayas enslaved and slaughtered countless number of various peoples.  Yet, when the Spanish arrived onto the shores of modern-day Mexico, were the Aztecs fighting for the continuation of slavery?  Of course not, and therein lies the problem with the argument that the South fought “for” slavery.

I want you to consider the following argument regarding the slavery issue: the United States was never designed to succeed as a unified, federally managed entity – the South was bound to secede regardless as to whether or not slavery was a consideration.

I am not a Rainbow Confederate.  I am not going to tell you how many black Confederates there were or articulate that poor Southerners were the real victims of slavery.  Those are nonsense positions.  Rather, the fact is, the Constitution, unlike the Articles of Confederation, had no such clause that made the United States an “enduring nation.”  The Constitution explicitly set forth conditions for statehood, which requires the majority consent of the governed to become a state of the Union.  Since Southerners voted to leave that Union, it could be argued that the relationship between state and union was nullified.  Whereas this argument has never been tested in a court, I believe the South would have won its case in the Supreme Court.  Lincoln, a lawyer, likely agreed and chose to invade the South on the soft pretext of the firing on Fort Sumter, a federal installation on sovereign Carolinian territory, rather than risk defeat in court.  The oft-touted Texas v White (1869) case that is frequently misused to claim that the courts weighed in on secession, never took up the merits of the argument of secession; the court preferred to consider the argument a moot point due to the fact that the issue was settled on the battlefield.  Consequently, the Southern states had every right to secede, just as they do now, and most recently argued by none other than California. But why secede in the first place?

There are a multitude of reasons the South chose to secede.  Yes, economics played a role.  Yes, culture played a role.  Yes, deep seated political differences – both international and domestic – played a role.  For a very few, the issue of slavery played a role.  But the South did not fight “for” slavery.  How do we know?  The Corwin Amendment.

The Corwin Amendment, introduced by Representative Thomas Corwin of Ohio, offered a political solution to keep the South in the Union by granting an unconditional right to slavery in perpetuity.  The amendment was offered before the majority of the South chose to secede.  It stated: “No amendment of this Constitution, having for its object any interference within the States with the relations between their citizens and those described in second section of the first article of the Constitution as “all other persons”, shall originate with any State that does not recognize that relation within its own limits, or shall be valid without the assent of every one of the States composing the Union.” Thus, the Union offered an option to avoid any hostilities, maintain slavery, and yet, the Southern states chose to secede, anyway.   The amendment would have surely passed over the objections of a handful of Republican radicals because the South would have enough of a bloc with the Midwest and more reasonable Northeastern politicians, especially those from New York, to ensure its passage.  Yet, they rejected the option.

Now, think of this analogy for a moment: someone comes into your home and says, “Give me your money!” it would be absurd to respond, “No, you may not burn my house down!”  The Union fought “to preserve a Union,” not to free slaves.  Lincoln himself said as much.  The North fought to force the South into a Union against her will.  If the North did not invade the South to free the slaves, and in fact offered slavery in perpetuity, how could the South have fought for slavery?  It makes no sense.  Why fight for an institution that the North not only agrees you can keep, but that same North enjoyed the support of five other slave holding states?  It makes no sense whatsoever.

In reality, the South chose to secede for a number of reasons, but mainly because the Union was simply not working out for them or their interests.  Northern industrialists dominated the political discourse of the United States to the detriment of the agrarian South.  Southerners, especially in Texas, were betrayed by the North during the War with Mexico, when then Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln called Southerners liars by virtue of the “Spot Resolution” (making him an unacceptable president in 1860 for the South).  The fact that Northern states refused to send troops to aid Texas spoke volumes to Southerners – especially when Southerners volunteered troops to the North when war nearly broke out over a border dispute with Great Britain (over Canadian territory) only a few years earlier.  The brutal mistreatment of the South during and shortly after the Panic of 1837 by Northern bankers led to near genocidal levels of Southern dead due to starvation and privation.  Those born in the South during that time would easily hold resentments against Yankees. 

Of course, much of that which I just wrote is documented by the eloquence of the 19^th Century Fire-Eaters, many of whom originally hailed from the North and settled in the South.  They were uniquely positioned to see the distinct cultural dynamics of the two peoples – Southerner and Yankee.  Yancey, Ruffin, Rhett, Quittman, and former Vice President John C. Calhoun, among many others, may have mentioned slavery in their writings and speeches, but it was the unique identity of the Southerner himself that they touched upon most frequently.  It is worth finding their writings to understand why Southerners chose secession.

Slavery – an institution that was broadly accepted by the majority of the world in 1860 – was not the catalyst for secession.  A desire to carve out a more Southern friendly government was the catalyst for secession.  The South had every right to enjoy a new polity of its own design.  For many of the same reasons many Americans talk of secession today, the South wanted secession in 1860: different peoples, different values, different economic constructs… simply different. 

Did the South fight for slavery?  No.  They fought because they were (and are) a free people who, when they voted to leave the Union, were invaded by that very same Union.  They were forced at gunpoint to remain in a Union against their will.  That is why they fought.  The United States was a voluntary Union.  Lincoln et al broke that arrangement.  After all, a voluntary Union of states held together by murder, rape, and torture, does not sound very voluntary, does it?