# Civil War Was Not Over Slavery? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 3, 2011, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779 "2011-11-03T20:40:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/181 "2011-11-07T00:04:03Z")
I have found the [Opinionator/Disunion](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/category/disunion/) blog to be a fascinating source for information from the period of the civil war. It is described as: \*Disunion revisits and reconsiders America’s most perilous period – using contemporary accounts, diaries, images and historical assessments to follow the Civil War as it unfolded. \* ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/182 "2011-11-07T02:42:02Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > 1. The Constitution guarantees that each state shall have a republican form of government. > > 2. The Constitution gives the federal government the exercise of those powers which are necessary and proper to uphold the Constitution. > > 3. Obviously, it is not possible for the federal government to guarantee a state’s republican form of government if a state can just up and say “screw you, I’m outta here”. > > 4. Ergo, the Federal government has the power to prohibit states from leaving. > > QED. Once the state leaves the Union, the Constitution is no longer valid in that state. Your points would only be valid if the state stayed in the union and tried to switch to an unconstitutional form of government. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/183 "2011-11-07T14:32:04Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Once the state leaves the Union, the Constitution is no longer valid in that state. Nope; you can’t have it both ways (claiming that the Constitution allows secession and that the Constitution is irrelevant to a seceding state). (The actual answer is (b) – the Constitution is irrelevant to a seceding state because the only way a state can secede is to successfully fight off the Federal government’s attempt to put down its insurrection. _Inter arma enim silent leges._) ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/184 "2011-11-07T14:44:32Z")
WillFarnaby, you still haven’t established at all that the right/power to secede for all states (or even _any_ state) lies with the state as opposed to the people. If no state constitution currently claims this right, than doesn’t it lie with the people? ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/185 "2011-11-07T15:50:12Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > Nope; you can’t have it both ways (claiming that the Constitution allows secession and that the Constitution is irrelevant to a seceding state). Sure you can. A state secedes, boom, the state is no longer in the Union nor beholden to the Constitution. (The actual answer is (b) – the Constitution is irrelevant to a seceding state because the only way a state can secede is to successfully fight off the Federal government’s attempt to put down its insurrection. _Inter arma enim silent leges._) [/QUOTE] Ok. So where in the Constitution is there a power to make war to deny secession? ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/186 "2011-11-07T15:57:28Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > WillFarnaby, you still haven’t established at all that the right/power to secede for all states (or even _any_ state) lies with the state as opposed to the people. If no state constitution currently claims this right, than doesn’t it lie with the people? By its very nature secession is an act of a state, not an individual. The states is the body that ratifies the Constitution, so the state is the body that has the right to secede. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/187 "2011-11-07T16:20:54Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Ok. So where in the Constitution is there a power to make war to deny secession? Now, you’re not even trying. There is no “right” to secession. The government has the right to wage war. Section 8: > [@](#): > > **To declare War** , grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; > [@](#): > > To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, **suppress Insurrections** and repel Invasions; Section 9: > [@](#): > > The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when **in Cases of Rebellion** or Invasion the public Safety may require it. The authors of the Constitution clearly foresaw the possibility of insurrection and rebellion and provided for it. (If you try to reply that secession differs from rebellion, I will have to conclude that you are simply posting to keep the thread going, particularly in light of the attack upon Fort Sumter. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/188 "2011-11-07T16:35:01Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > By its very nature secession is an act of a state, not an individual. > > The states is the body that ratifies the Constitution, so the state is the body that has the right to secede. I won’t go into the fact that this seems to contradict what you said earlier. It’s not clear to me at all that “secession is an act of state, not an individual”- why can’t a person secede? Who decides which rights reside with the people vice the states with respect to the tenth amendment? What does it matter that the states ratified the constitution- what does that have to do with the tenth amendment? ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/189 "2011-11-07T16:40:54Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > You are. I would love to see a citation to a serious philosopher of law or jurist that enumerates abrogation of a compact as a “power” of government. Ot of curiosity, would you say that the ability to end a marriage via divorce is a “power”? It seems so to me. And from there, the analogy to characterizing secession as a “power” seems apt. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/190 "2011-11-07T17:14:42Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Ot of curiosity, would you say that the ability to end a marriage via divorce is a “power”? It seems so to me. > > And from there, the analogy to characterizing secession as a “power” seems apt. There is a difference between the power to dissolve a contract contracted under the supervision of a government and the effort to simply walk away from a compact to which one was a party. So, no, it does not seem to be the same thing, to me. A divorce requires a superior entity, the government, to oversee the dissolution of a contract entered by two people under the rules set forth by that government. Secession is a unilateral act by a party to a compact that does not seek authority from a superior entity. Not the same thing, and certainly not a _power_ vested in the seceding entity. If a state wishes to separate from the United States, the appropriate method is to seek a Constitutional Amendment either granting that state separation or granting all states a right to secede. Armed rebellion, already mentioned in the Constitution, is not the appropriate method. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/191 "2011-11-07T18:33:13Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > Ot of curiosity, would you say that the ability to end a marriage via divorce is a “power”? It seems so to me. > > And from there, the analogy to characterizing secession as a “power” seems apt. The “power” of divorce is created by law. If there was no law allowing people to get divorced, they could not legally get divorced. There is no equivalent law creating a power of secession. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2011, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/192 "2011-11-07T18:41:45Z")
> [@Steve\_MB](#): > > You might want to rethink that – a [quick bit of Google-fu](http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/US_States_Rate_Ranking.html) put Georgia at 9th highest in crime versus 14th/15th (depending on year) for Indiana… Well, I probably should have emphasized rural there, as Atlanta skews things. Not that rural locals are entirely honest, either, but I’ve found that rural Georgians are intensely honest and honorable. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/193 "2011-11-08T23:44:50Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Sure you can. A state secedes, boom, the state is no longer in the Union nor beholden to the Constitution. Okay, so, the minute a state secedes, it’s no longer a part of the Union, is no longer bound by the Constitution, and is effectively a foreign nation. Where in the Constitution does it say the federal government may not make war on foreign nations? ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/194 "2011-11-09T00:22:27Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Okay, so, the minute a state secedes, it’s no longer a part of the Union, is no longer bound by the Constitution, and is effectively a foreign nation. Sounds like a really great scam, doesn’t it? Join the union because you’re deeply in debt (as Texas did) and then a few years later, after the rest of the Union has paid off your debt, secede. In reality, if succession had been intended to be allowed, the Constitution would have a procedure to resolve issues of commonly held debt and commonly held property. The absence of such procedures is an indication that secession was not planned for. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/195 "2011-11-09T00:51:51Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Okay, so, the minute a state secedes, it’s no longer a part of the Union, is no longer bound by the Constitution, and is effectively a foreign nation. > > Where in the Constitution does it say the federal government may not make war on foreign nations? Which is why I called it the War of Northern Aggression. Does anyone have an explanation, if secession doesn’t exist as some of you have said, as to why the Confederate states were not afforded representation even directly after the war? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/196 "2011-11-09T03:02:27Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Does anyone have an explanation, if secession doesn’t exist as some of you have said, as to why the Confederate states were not afforded representation even directly after the war? Punishment for rebellion. They had to demonstrate that they were not planning to turn around and play the same game all over again. Secession is not permitted, but neither is rebellion. When a person commits a felony, they are often stripped of certain rights, (such as the right to vote), that they do not have restored the moment they walk out of prison. On the other hand, they were not all rounded up and hanged or shot for treason, so it tended to work out well for them in the long run. ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/197 "2011-11-09T03:09:58Z")
The Republicans of the day also seem to have thought the war to put down the secessionist rebellion had something to do with slavery, since a lot of Reconstruction involved efforts to protect the civil rights of the newly-freed slaves from being taken away by their former masters–at least until the “Corrupt Bargain” in 1876, after which white Northern Republicans abandoned their black compatriots to the tender mercies of Jim Crow. ---
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/198 "2011-11-09T03:23:34Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Punishment for rebellion. They had to demonstrate that they were not planning to turn around and play the same game all over again. Secession is not permitted, but neither is rebellion. > > When a person commits a felony, they are often stripped of certain rights, (such as the right to vote), that they do not have restored the moment they walk out of prison. > > On the other hand, they were not all rounded up and hanged or shot for treason, so it tended to work out well for them in the long run. So the constitutional authority to deprive U.S. citizens of representation is found where? Was every single southern citizen a “rebel” or “traitor”? If not, why were these citizens deprived of representation if their state had always remained a U.S. state? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/199 "2011-11-09T04:32:48Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > So the constitutional authority to deprive U.S. citizens of representation is found where? > > Was every single southern citizen a “rebel” or “traitor”? If not, why were these citizens deprived of representation if their state had always remained a U.S. state? Representation comes through the states and to the extent that citizens of those states failed to prevent the insurrection, they later suffered, (briefly), under the punishment accorded those rebellious states. (They were always free to move to a law-abiding state if they wished to be represented in Congress.) You are also pretending that the a state of rebellion has no affect regarding the status of a state. That the states had no right to secede does not mean that their rebellion caused no disruption to their status as states in good standing. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779/200 "2011-11-09T04:57:41Z")
The fact that Reconstruction was poorly handled isn’t really an argument for or against secession being legal… Yes, formally speaking, the military occupation of the South, and the interruption of representation and voting rights there, were unconstitutional. And it led to such abominations as the Hayes/Tilden fiasco, where, in the opinion of some, the U.S. Presidential election was illicitly swayed by Grant and the federal troops in occupation. Still, the South was devastated by the war, and it would have been impossible to have gone back immediately to any kind of business as normal. They wouldn’t have been able to manage the logistics of holding full and free elections, at least at first. Was it legal for the South to secede? We’ll never really know, as the parties settled out of court… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/civil-war-was-not-over-slavery/601779.md?page=11)