Sometimes it is contended that the Civil War was not fought because of slavery. That is a completely erroneous view. The secession statements made by the Confederate states as they left the Union made clear that the defense of the Peculiar Institution was why they were leaving the Union. Confederate leaders made innumberable speeches at the time citing slavery as the cause of the War. It is only in retrospect that some partisans of the Confederacy attempted to claim that slavery was not the root cause of the conflict.
Alexander Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy, was quite forthright in regard to slavery as the cause of the conflict between the North and the South, as he made clear in his Cornerstone Speech of March 21, 1861. In reviewing his speech from a 21rst Century perspective, it would be easy to write him off as simply a racist monster. Such was not the case. As an attorney he volunteered to represent a black woman accused of murder and successfully defended her. Known for his charity, he paid for the education of over a hundred students from poor families, black and white, male and female. By the time of his death, Stephens had spent all of his funds on charity and died virtually penniless. A friend of Abraham Lincoln prior to the War, he had argued against secession until he realized that it was inevitable. No, the Cornerstone speech was not the work of someone who hated blacks, but of someone who looked upon slavery as part of the fabric of Southern life, and could literally not imagine how the South could exist without it. The passage of the Cornerstone speech that is most striking on the Civil War as caused by slavery is as follows:
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 truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.
In the conflict thus far, success has been on our side, complete throughout the length and breadth of the Confederate States. It is upon this, as I have stated, our social fabric is firmly planted; and I cannot permit myself to doubt the ultimate success of a full recognition of this principle throughout the civilized and enlightened world.
As I have stated, the truth of this principle may be slow in development, as all truths are and ever have been, in the various branches of science. It was so with the principles announced by Galileo it was so with Adam Smith and his principles of political economy. It was so with Harvey, and his theory of the circulation of the blood. It is stated that not a single one of the medical profession, living at the time of the announcement of the truths made by him, admitted them. Now, they are universally acknowledged. May we not, therefore, look with confidence to the ultimate universal acknowledgment of the truths upon which our system rests? It is the first government ever instituted upon the principles in strict conformity to nature, and the ordination of Providence, in furnishing the materials of human society. Many governments have been founded upon the principle of the subordination and serfdom of certain classes of the same race; such were and are in violation of the laws of nature. Our system commits no such violation of nature’s laws. With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye of the law. Not so with the negro. Subordination is his place. He, by nature, or by the curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system. The architect, in the construction of buildings, lays the foundation with the proper material-the granite; then comes the brick or the marble. The substratum of our society is made of the material fitted by nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best, not only for the superior, but for the inferior race, that it should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the ordinance of the Creator. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of His ordinances, or to question them. For His own purposes, He has made one race to differ from another, as He has made “one star to differ from another star in glory.” The great objects of humanity are best attained when there is conformity to His laws and decrees, in the formation of governments as well as in all things else. Our confederacy is founded upon principles in strict conformity with these laws. This stone which was rejected by the first builders “is become the chief of the corner” the real “corner-stone” in our new edifice. I have been asked, what of the future? It has been apprehended by some that we would have arrayed against us the civilized world. I care not who or how many they may be against us, when we stand upon the eternal principles of truth, if we are true to ourselves and the principles for which we contend, we are obliged to, and must triumph.
Thousands of people who begin to understand these truths are not yet completely out of the shell; they do not see them in their length and breadth. We hear much of the civilization and Christianization of the barbarous tribes of Africa. In my judgment, those ends will never be attained, but by first teaching them the lesson taught to Adam, that “in the sweat of his brow he should eat his bread,” and teaching them to work, and feed, and clothe themselves.
The full text of the speech may be read here. After the War, Stephens attempted to back-pedal on his speech here. I will leave to the readers of this post as to whether Stephens is convincing in the attempt.
My freshman Ancient History text on the fall of the (western) Roman Empire: There are as many theories as writers.
Absolutely, Slavery was the cause of the Civil War. Why was it the cause? Talk among yourselves.
Personal connection: A great-great-great grandfather was KIA with the NY 69th at First Bull Run. We have his tintype picture in uniform with the family Bible.
“the Cornerstone speech was not the work of someone who hated blacks, but of someone who looked upon slavery as part of the fabric of Southern life, and could literally not imagine how the South could exist without it.”
Just as today, you have people who consider themselves pro-choice, not because they genuinely hate babies or children, but because they believe the “right to choose” to be part of the fabric of American life and can’t imagine how women’s equality can exist without it?
Perhaps. Although I would note that prior to the Civil War some whites were executed for killing slaves. Now in New York someone who destroys an unborn child in an assault on the mother will face no charges for ending the life of the unborn child:
https://www.theepochtimes.com/accused-murderer-gets-abortion-charge-dropped-due-to-new-law_2795429.html
The law has difficulty with a concept like: you are a human being when we feel like it. Howe many enormities throughout history are due to selfishness and a failure of imagination and empathy?
“This principle of the subordination of the inferior to the superior was the “corner-stone” on which it was formed. I used this metaphor merely to illustrate the firm convictions of the framers of the new Constitution that this relation of the black to the white race, which existed in 1787, was not wrong in itself, either morally or politically; that it was in conformity to nature and best for both races.”
Principles beget princes and princesses. Bishops of the Catholic Church are called Princes of the Church because they adhere to, embody, that is, personify eternal truths; eternal principles. All men personify eternal truths found “the
Laws of Nature and Nature’s God.” by their very being, their very existence. “…all men are created equal” not born equal. Impacted by genetics, culture, nurturing and experience beginning from the very first moment of their existence, all men are different, unique, individual; and they are still one race of men created equal by “their Creator”.
The rational soul endowed by “their Creator” makes all sovereign persons the “same”. Indifference to color, sex, place of birth and capabilities is required by this “corner stone principle” laid down by God, when “their Creator” endowed the immortal human soul with “certain unalienable human rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”. “The pursuit of Happiness” is often described as owning property. The pursuit of Happiness is man’s pursuit of the truth, eternal principles. Truths will set man free.
Owning oneself in truth, personifying eternal principles is called sovereignty. The sovereignty of the person institutes the sovereign state. The state ought not to deny the sovereignty of any person, of any race, of any intelligence, of any maturity.
It is the duty of the state to safeguard, in the words of Alexander H. Stephens “to guarantee” every person’s “pursuit of Happiness”.
Thomas Jefferson knew exactly the principles of freedom in The Declaration of Independence without regard to man and mankind’s preferences. Article IV section 3: “…nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States and the consent of Congress.”
The confederate states had ratified our Constitution to become part of the United States. To secede would be like breaking a marriage vow, to divorce itself from the family, to destroy the Union.
Lincoln did in fact fight the Civil War to maintain the Union. The Civil War was fought to preserve the freedom of all men to pursue their Happiness.
NB “men” and “mankind” represent every member of Homo Sapiens. Notice too, that when any man abandons eternal truth, in this case “that all men are created equal”, he abandons common sense and becomes a lost cause…sand.
Stephens was a Unionist until Georgia’s secession was confirmed. Of course, with the evident fraud in Georgia (and elsewhere), it’s difficult to accept that it actually was confirmed….
Be that as it may, no, his after-the-fact attempt to recast his justification for secession in terms more suitable for the Lost Cause project is unworthy of a man of his undoubted intellect.
Stephens was a titan of his era, and Lincoln (as a fellow Whig) admired him greatly. Indeed, they were friends, another example of what made the sundering of the nation a tragedy.
While their 1865 negotiations at City Point went nowhere, Lincoln ordered Stephens’ nephew to be released from a POW camp after “Alex” asked about his welfare. Stephens was grateful for that gesture, which went far beyond what he’d asked for.
Here’s an interesting article about fraud and related chicanery in the Georgia secession vote.
https://cenantua.wordpress.com/2011/01/20/on-georgias-secession-150-years-ago-yesterday/
Elaine K et al, change a few words in the speech – eg do not speak of slavery but of abortion – and the implications for America today are eerie and frightening. Guy McClung, Texas
GUY MCCLUNG: Yes, very eerie
“Howe many enormities throughout history are due to selfishness and a failure of imagination and empathy?”
True, but now we also have to deal with:
Howe many enormities throughout history are due to [self-asserted moral] selflessness and a failure of imagination and [destructive programs based upon self-asserted moral] empathy?
#its for the children.
Less than 500,000 blacks were brought to the US shores as slaves either from the Caribbean islands or from Africa before 1808, when the international slave trade was abolished. By the time of the Civil War, the black slave population of the US was appox. 4 million and there were 250,000 free blacks. Today, their 50 million descendents are the richest and best educated people of Sub-Saharan African descent in the world. Contrast that with Brazil, a country like the US, rich in natural resources. 1.7 million blacks were brought there as slaves. Slavery existed there until 1888 and they had no civil war to end it. Per capita income in the US is $85,000 vs Brazil $10,000.
Why? Why did the black slaves brought here to the US, like almost all black slaves members of the weakest tribes in Africa, taken by the strongest tribes in war and sold to either Europeans on the coast, or worse to Arabs who castrated all the males before marching them off, become the envy of blacks in other places (we know this because most want to come here)?
I think it’s because white people here in the US, even people who might have thought blacks were inferior, didn’t always ACT that way. Even Stephens thought education would do blacks good, and assisted in it. We hear about General Sherman’s not wanting black soldiers in his Army, but shaking hands with the blacks he met, and treating the black workers he hired for his pioneer work gangs well, and then when he got to Savannah, announcing Special Field Order 15 (40 acres and a mule). In the South, there were few absentee slave owners, most lived near their slaves and viewed them both as valuable “property” and Christian souls. I think both explain why here in the US there was so much “natural increase” as opposed to Brazil, where black slaves died like flies.
Before the revolution, slavery was legal in every colony. After the revolution, more than half of the original 13 colonies outlawed it. Free black men could vote in several of those new states. Free blacks with a sense of enterprise became rich in not just a few instances. In Mississippi, William Johnson became a well-off man in Natchez, before the Civil War. After the Civil War blacks were treated as second class citizens, but even then black colleges were founded (see Howard U, Tuskegee, Morehouse etc). These were either founded outright, or substantially helped by white people.
Black people in the US have benefited so much from our association with white people. And white people have benefited from us! Jazz music and the music that grew from it (Rock and roll, R&B, rap etc) is a mixing of African with American-European music ( a good friend from college called Jazz “Afro-American Classical music”) “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison is one of the three great American novels. Blacks in sports and other areas of American life has enriched it. Anyone who reduces black interaction with white people in America to “white supremacy” and “oppression” is unaware of history and lives in his own mind. The greatness of America does not mean “perfect”. Greatness is a comparison–black people in the US have done better than black people anywhere else!
Comment of the week BPS! Take ‘er away Sam!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXeIxtI–uc&list=RDeXeIxtI–uc&start_radio=1
Given that slavery was an evil institution, although a world wide and historical phenomenon,I think there is an argument to the effect that secession was not unlawful and the Confederate States of America was a lawful entity. I have a hard rime coming to the idea that (1) poor farmers in Michigan and Wisconsin, et. al, went to war to “free the slaves,” who had never seen a slave and knew nothing about slavery, and (2) poor Southern boys, 96% of whom did not have slaves, went to war so that the wealthy plantation owners could keep their slaves. To the contrary, the Union was less than 100 years old and the concept of one’s country was more attuned to one’s state. The fact is that Lincoln’s army invaded the Southon June 21,1861, and the Confederate soldiers were defending their country. The idea that the Civil War was fought for the sole reason of freeing the slaves is unsustainable.
Why didn’t Stephens believe Thomas Jefferson?
The idea that the Civil War was fought for the sole reason of freeing the slaves is unsustainable.
But that it was fought by the Confederate government to preserve slavery is a simple matter of historical record, as Davis noted in his first address to the Confederate Congress:
In addition to the long-continued and deep-seated resentment felt by the Southern States at the persistent abuse of the powers they had delegated to the Congress, for the purpose of enriching the manufacturing and shipping classes of the North at the expense of the South, there has existed for nearly half a century another subject of discord, involving interests of such transcendent magnitude as at all times to create the apprehension in the minds of many devoted lovers of the Union that its permanence was impossible. When the several States delegated certain powers to the United States Congress, a large portion of the laboring population consisted of African slaves imported into the colonies by the mother country. In twelve out of the thirteen States negro slavery existed, and the right of property in slaves was protected by law. This property was recognized in the Constitution, and provision was made against its loss by the escape of the slave. The increase in the number of slaves by further importation from Africa was also secured by a clause forbidding Congress to prohibit the slave trade anterior to a certain date, and in no clause can there be found any delegation of power to the Congress authorizing it in any manner to legislate to the prejudice, detriment, or discouragement owners of that species of property, or excluding it from the protection of the Government.
The climate and soil of the Northern States soon proved unpropitious to the continuance of slave labor, whilst the converse was the case at the South. Under the unrestricted free intercourse between the two sections, the Northern States consulted their own interests by selling their slaves to the South and prohibiting slavery within their limits. The South were willing purchasers of a property suitable to their wants, and paid the price of the acquisition without harboring a suspicion that their quiet possession was to be disturbed by those who were inhibited not only by want of constitutional authority, but by good faith as vendors, from disquieting a title emanating from themselves. As soon, how ever, as the Northern States that prohibited African slavery within their limits had reached a number sufficient to give their representation a controlling voice in the Congress, a persistent and organized system of hostile measures against the rights of the owners of slaves in the Southern States was inaugurated and gradually extended. A continuous series of measures was devised and prosecuted for the purpose of rendering insecure the tenure of property in slaves. Fanatical organizations, supplied with money by voluntary subscriptions, were assiduously engaged in exciting amongst the slaves a spirit of discontent and revolt; means were furnished for their escape from their owners, and agents secretly employed to entice them to abscond; the constitutional provision for their rendition to their owners was first evaded, then openly denounced as a violation of conscientious obligation and religious duty; men were taught that it was a merit to elude, disobey, and violently oppose the execution of the laws enacted to secure the performance of the promise contained in the constitutional compact; owners of slaves were mobbed and even murdered in open day solely for applying to a magistrate for the arrest of a fugitive slave; the dogmas of these voluntary organizations soon obtained control of the Legislatures of many of the Northern States, and laws were passed providing for the punishment, by ruinous fines and long-continued imprisonment in jails and penitentiaries, of citizens of the Southern States who should dare to ask aid of the officers of the law for the recovery of their property. Emboldened by success, the theater of agitation and aggression against the clearly expressed constitutional rights of the Southern States was transferred to the Congress; Senators and Representatives were sent to the common councils of the nation, whose chief title to this distinction consisted in the display of a spirit of ultra fanaticism, and whose business was not “to promote the general welfare or insure domestic tranquillity,” but to awaken the bitterest hatred against the citizens of sister States by violent denunciation of their institutions; the transaction of public affairs was impeded by repeated efforts to usurp powers not delegated by the Constitution, for the purpose of impairing the security of property in slaves, and reducing those States which held slaves to a condition of inferiority. Finally a great party was organized for the purpose of obtaining the administration of the Government, with the avowed object of using its power for the total exclusion of the slave States from all participation in the benefits of the public domain acquired by all the States in common, whether by conquest or purchase; of surrounding them entirely by States in which slavery should be prohibited; of thus rendering the property in slaves so insecure as to be comparatively worthless, and thereby annihilating in effect property worth thousands of millions of dollars. This party, thus organized, succeeded in the month of November last in the election of its candidate for the Presidency of the United States.
In the meantime, under the mild and genial climate of the Southern States and the increasing care and attention for the wellbeing and comfort of the laboring class, dictated alike by interest and humanity, the African slaves had augmented in number from about 600,000, at the date of the adoption of the constitutional compact, to upward of 4,000,000. In moral and social condition they had been elevated from brutal savages into docile, intelligent, and civilized agricultural laborers, and supplied not only with bodily comforts but with careful religious instruction. Under the supervision of a superior race their labor had been so directed as not only to allow a gradual and marked amelioration of their own condition, but to convert hundreds of thousands of square miles of the wilderness into cultivated lands covered with a prosperous people; towns and cities had sprung into existence, and had rapidly increased in wealth and population under the social system of the South; the white population of the Southern slaveholding States had augmented from about 1,250,000 at the date of the adoption of the Constitution to more than 8,500,000 in 1860; and the productions of the South in cotton, rice, sugar, and tobacco, for the full development and continuance of which the labor of African slaves was and is indispensable, had swollen to an amount which formed nearly three-fourths of the exports of the whole United States and had become absolutely necessary to the wants of civilized man. With interests of such overwhelming magnitude imperiled, the people of the Southern States were driven by the conduct of the North to the adoption of some course of action to avert the danger with which they were openly menaced. With this view the legislatures of the several States invited the people to select delegates to conventions to be held for the purpose of determining for themselves what measures were best adapted to meet so alarming a crisis in their history. Here it may be proper to observe that from a period as early as 1798 there had existed in all of the States of the Union a party almost uninterruptedly in the majority based upon the creed that each State was, in the last resort, the sole judge as well of its wrongs as of the mode and measure of redress. Indeed, it is obvious that under the law of nations this principle is an axiom as applied to the relations of independent sovereign States, such as those which had united themselves under the constitutional compact. The Democratic party of the United States repeated, in its successful canvass in 1856, the declaration made in numerous previous political contests, that it would “faithfully abide by and uphold the principles laid down in the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 1798, and in the report of Mr. Madison to the Virginia Legislature in 1799; and that it adopts those principles as constituting one of the main foundations of its political creed.” The principles thus emphatically announced embrace that to which I have already adverted – the right of each State to judge of and redress the wrongs of which it complains. These principles were maintained by overwhelming majorities of the people of all the States of the Union at different elections, especially in the elections of Mr. Jefferson in 1805, Mr. Madison in 1809, and Mr. Pierce in 1852. In the exercise of a right so ancient, so well established, and so necessary for self-preservation, the people of the Confederate States, in their conventions, determined that the wrongs which they had suffered and the evils with which they were menaced required that they should revoke the delegation of powers to the Federal Government which they had ratified in their several conventions. They consequently passed ordinances resuming all their rights as sovereign and Independent States and dissolved their connection with the other States of the Union.
Excellent post (there are still loonies who deny slavery causation). You need a follow-up post that discusses how Stephens overcame severe physical limitations to achieve a remarkable political career.
Mr. McClarey, your post deals effectively with Davis’ speech and but does not address the question of the Confederate soldiers fighting for their country, which was invaded by Lincoln’s Army. Nor does it address the motives of the Union soldiers, who had never seen a slave and knew little to nothing of slavery. Imagine yourself as a Confederate soldier in Virginia or Georgia or Mississippi, trying to hold on to your meager farm, no slaves involved, and being attacked, killed, and burned out by the Union army. There is an argument that Lincoln should just have left the Confederacy alone, thus saving over 600,000 lives. The cost was too great. Those who comment must understand that the Union was less than 100 years old, most citizens regarded as their state as their country, and secession was not prohibited. See Lee’s refusal to accept command of the Union army, on the basis that he could not take up arms agaist his country, Virginia. I say again, the idea that the war was fought to “free the slaves” is unsustainable. The causes of the war are much more complex and subtle.
Most Confederate soldiers could honestly say they were not fighting for slavery as most of them were poor and slaves were expensive to purchase. However that does not alter the fact that without slavery there would have been no war. Most Union soldiers were fighting for the Union, and if freeing the slaves aided in accomplishing that goal, most of them were for it.
Sandy-
You say that slavery could not be the cause of the war because many involved did not have slaves or, conversely, never saw a slave.
In contemporary America, abortion looms very large in politics – even though majority of those, for or against, have never participated in an abortion or set foot in an abortion clinic.
Direct participation is not necessary for passions to run quite high.