January 18, 2024
Troy D. Smith
“How Do We Know the Civil War Was About Slavery?”
As noted last week, more and more Americans are not
naming slavery as the principal cause of the Civil War. While this used to be
common in the South, it is now the case around the country.
It is not true of professional historians of the
period, though. Professional historians, by definition, base their assessments
on documents from the time. Here are some pertinent ones.
“The Cornerstone Speech,” given by Alexander Stephens,
VP of the brand-new Confederacy, in Savannah on March 12, 1861. He spent a big
part of that speech explaining why he thought the Confederate constitution was
superior to the U.S. constitution- because “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.” There
you have it: the VP said the Confederacy was formed, and a war was about to
start, over the idea that slavery is “the proper status of the negro.” Whereas
the framers of the original constitution believed in equality for all, Stephens
said, “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.”
Only eight days earlier, at his first Inauguration,
Lincoln had said, “One section of our country believes slavery is right, and
ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong, and ought not to be
extended. This is the only substantial dispute.”
Georgia’s declaration of secession said, “The people of Georgia… 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.”
The South Carolina declaration said, “An increasing hostility on the part of
the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a
disregard of their obligations.”
The Mississippi declaration said, “In the momentous step which our State has taken of
dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a
part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have
induced our course. Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution
of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world.”
The Texas declaration
described their state “as a commonwealth
holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery--
the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation
that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race,
and which her people intended should exist in all future time.”
I could go
on and on. But let me conclude with a resolution passed in Cookeville on April
22, 1861, urging Tennessee to secede. It was written by Judge Erasmus L.
Gardenhire:
"The antislavery party is the enemy of the
Union and the Constitution, advocating the equality of the negro and the white
races and the abolition of slavery. To accomplish this the antislavery party
has been organized and now constitutes the dominant party in all the free
States. And now, having possession of the Federal government in all its
departments, it is attempting by conquest and coercion to carry out its
damnable heresies entertained for many years toward the South and its
institutions.”
But wait,
you say, what about states’ rights? I say: states’ rights about what? Slavery.
Nikki Haley said the federal government had stepped on “the rights and freedoms
of the people.” Their rights to do what? Enslave other people.
I will wrap up this topic
next time with a more detailed explanation. For now- the documents speak for
themselves.
--Troy D.
Smith, a White County native, is a novelist and a history professor at
Tennessee Tech and serves on the executive committee of the Tennessee
Democratic Party. His words do not necessarily represent TTU.
Buy the book A Liberal Dose: Communiques from the Holler by Troy D. Smith HERE
You can find all previous entries in this weekly column HERE
A list of other historical essays that have appeared on this blog can be found HERE
Author's website: www.troyduanesmith.com
The author's historical lectures on youtube can be found HERE
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