Southern Apostles of Disunion Explain the Reason for Secession (the Cause of the Civil War)

What caused the Civil War? Let Southerners tell you why:

Surely Southerners, most of whom did not own a single slave, would not have fought a rich man's war had that war been strictly about slavery, right? It must have been for a noble cause, such as the preservation of states' rights over a tyrannical federal government or the riveting issue of tariffs, correct?

Winslow Homer's Prisoners from the Front (1866)

Over the course of a semester, I have ample time to discuss the history of the Old South (prior to the abolishment of slavery) and its people–all classes and races within southern society–and in doing so, I give voice to the southern people, their beliefs, fears, and motivations, allowing them to speak for themselves in the primary sources they have left for posterity. In the space of 2 to 3 months, I have plenty of time to cover the Old South's landscape–providing its social, political, economic, and legal context–and put it all into historical context with developments north of the Mason-Dixon Line. But since C-SPAN isn't knocking on my door to film my classes as part of their American History lecture series and you may not be able to come sit in on my class for an entire semester, allow me to share with you how I confront the issue of why the South chose to secede and thus fight a civil war. After providing 10 to 12 weeks of historical context up to the point of the election of 1860 (an election in which the Republicans, a new, sectional party, swept into power to control the executive and legislative branches, thus putting the South into a minority power) we arrive at the secession winter of 1860-61. This is the point in time in which the southern states decided to sever their bonds with and rebel against the Union of states that the Founding Fathers had created. Note the time (Dec. 1860-Mar. 1861) in which the first set of southern states acted to secede and establish their own form of government. Up to this point in time, the Southern states had either controlled or shared power with their northern neighbors in the federal government. With the election of an anti-slavery Republican president and Congress in Nov. 1860, the South feared that it would lose its ability to shape policy in respect to slavery. Despite the Republican party's pledge to respect the Constitution with regards to an individual's property rights (which offered a federal protection of slavery in the states in which slavery legally existed according to individual state constitutions), Southern leaders felt they had no legal recourse but to secede.

Stephen Hale of Alabama, who would serve on Alabama's secession commission, best sums up Southern sentiment at this time in a Dec. 27, 1860 letter to Kentucky's governor, Beriah Magoffin:“Upon the principles then announced by Mr. Lincoln and his leading friends, we are bound to expect his administration to be conducted. Hence it is, that in high places, among the Republican party, the election of Mr. Lincoln is hailed, not simply as a change of Administration, but as the inauguration of new principles, and a new theory of Government, and even as the downfall of slavery. Therefore it is that the election of Mr. Lincoln cannot be regarded otherwise than a solemn declaration, on the part of a great majority of the Northern people, of hostility to the South, her property and her institutions—nothing less than an open declaration of war.”

Again, I allow my students to let the Southern people speak for themselves, to explain in their own words why they chose to secede. Therefore, the best way to resolve the question of why the South chose to secede and thus fight a Civil War, is to look at how they justified their decision to leave the United States in their secession conventions. Now, these secession documents tend to be long and thus I have chosen excerpts. That said, I encourage you to read the documents for yourself in their entirety (need help finding them, please let me know!). You will find in each document not only the same list of reasons (preservation of slavery, white supremacy, states' rights, tariffs, etc.) for secession, but also a common theme as the primary cause for severing their bonds with the United States–slavery is always made a clear objective. In my classes, I choose to use Mississippi's secession document, which speaks for itself, clearly stating their position up front; however, I have included excerpts from additional states and then I conclude with fitting statements from Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Vice President Alexander Stephens, who told Americans then (and still speaks to us today) on what ground the Confederacy was founded. Friends, don't take my word for it, listen to the architects of secession for yourself.

Mississippi:
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. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.

Texas:
Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated States to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquillity and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received 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.

South Carolina:
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.

Georgia:
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, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic.

What did the South's most respected leaders, those who held the highest offices in the Confederacy, have to say about slavery, white supremacy, and the cause of secession?

Jefferson Davis, Jan. 21, 1861 farewell speech in the U.S. Senate:
 "[W]e are to be deprived in the Union of the rights which our Fathers have bequeathed to us....Our Constitution was formed, the same idea was rendered more palpable, for there we find provision made for that very class of persons as property; they were not put upon the footing of equality with white men."

Alexander Stephens, Cornerstone Speech March 21, 1861 (Stephens' remarks on the Confederate constitution):
 "[Slavery] was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution.... Our new government...its foundations are laid, its cornerstone 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."