# The Civil War was not about states' rights **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 12, 2019, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085 "2019-09-12T02:14:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![l0k1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/bb73d2/32.png) [@l0k1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/l0k1)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/21 "2019-09-12T13:08:29Z")
The Confederacy didn’t think that free states should have the right to make slavery illegal in their own state. Thus the south’s objection to Transit Laws and the famously poor reaction to the Lemon v New York case. “States Rights” like “Lost Cause” is just pandering to people that want to believe racism is honorable and just. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/22 "2019-09-12T13:17:12Z")
> [@snfaulkner](#): > > Is there a list of issues that you are checking off as you make all these threads that have been done to death already? I think it’s great! I’m looking forward to the “Cats should not be declawed” thread and the “Don’t spank your children” thread. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/23 "2019-09-12T13:17:16Z")
> [@kirkrapine](#): > > N.B.: I mean “states’ rights” **as distinct from** “preserving slavery.” It’s a euphemism. And like all euphemisms, it’s used to package something unpalatable as something agreeable. In fact, this specific euphemism has been used over and over again for the purpose of making something awful (slavery, segregation, gay-bashing, etc.) sound reasonable (“states rights”). And like with many such euphemisms, we do well to not just accept the euphemism; what people advocating for “states rights” want is for the states to continue to have the right to discriminate against whoever they so choose - do not doubt for a second that when granted the opportunity to enshrine that discrimination in federal law despite the objection of states, they will abandon their interest in “states rights” at the drop of a hat. But yes, well-recognized, the cause of the [The War To Preserve And Expand Slavery](https://twitter.com/JuliusGoat/status/1163398889262714880) was slavery. There is no serious dispute about this among historians and anyone claiming otherwise should be seen as deeply suspect, as though they had insisted that there were no mass killings at Auschwitz. This is extremely well-trodden ground. ---
**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:** [September 12, 2019, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/24 "2019-09-12T13:24:32Z")
The Southern states also opposed states’ rights for things like the Fugitive Slave Act, which was giving massive power to the federal government over northern states. “States’ rights” was bullshit then. It’s still bullshit now, for the most part. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/25 "2019-09-12T13:27:29Z")
IIRC, just about all of the eleven seceding states issued declarations setting for the reasons for their urgent departure. And they just about all listed preservation of slavery as reason #1. Also there’s Alexander Stephens’ “[Cornerstone Speech](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech),” where the Confederacy’s new Vice-President said that the Confederacy’s “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.” And of course, it is worth recalling that Abraham Lincoln did not propose to end slavery, rather proposing only that no new states be admitted to the Union as slave states. Absent the war, it would have taken a Constitutional amendment to end slavery in the Southern states, and Constitutional amendments need to be ratified by 3/4 of the states. With 15 slave states in the Union, the end of slavery would have probably been at least two generations away - plenty of time for the Southern aristocracy to adapt to changed circumstances. But the idea of slaves _ever_ becoming free and having human rights was anathema to them. ---
**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:** [September 12, 2019, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/26 "2019-09-12T14:06:14Z")
It was specifically about a state’s right to secede. There is really no getting around that. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/27 "2019-09-12T14:15:13Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > It was specifically about a state’s right to secede. There is really no getting around that. Secede? Why would they want to secede? ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/28 "2019-09-12T14:33:08Z")
> [@kirkrapine](#): > > … And Lincoln was not really an abolitionist. If they had not seceded, he would not have done anything to threaten their peculiar institution – at most, he would have vetoed admission of any new slave states to the Union… Yes; Southern appetite for secession was rather low in 1858, and Lincoln himself wasn’t seen as a great “danger.” But there was _another_ man [whose actions had a very strong effect on unifying the southern states and tilting them toward succession](https://books.google.co.th/books?id=ChI3Yh2uqv0C&pg=PA421)(\*) — that man was [John Brown the Martyr.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSSn3NddwFQ) (\* - Several pages near the linked-page 421 help develop that case; I hope Google lets you view several of them.) ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/29 "2019-09-12T15:18:00Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Yes; Southern appetite for secession was rather low in 1858 Of course. Legally, they’d _won_. The Dred Scott decision and the Fugitive Slave Act had effectively made the entire country slave territory. > [@](#): > > Lincoln himself wasn’t seen as a great “danger.” But the abolitionist movement he was part of (to the extent he could be effective at that point) wasn’t going away. This “states’ rights” nonsense, ignoring the Supremacy Clause, didn’t go away after the war, either - it became the cover story for Jim Crow, lynchings, segregation, vote suppression, and other things that usually could not be proudly supported directly. It hasn’t gone away _yet_. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/30 "2019-09-12T15:29:36Z")
> [@kirkrapine](#): > > N.B.: I mean “states’ rights” **as distinct from** “preserving slavery.” Well duh. That’s kind of the whole point. The whole thing was in a very limited, technical sense about states’ rights, but the rights in question all revolved around slavery and its preservation. It’s not like the southern states rebelled because of Federal overreach in any other sort of state right. So saying it’s about states’ rights is a disingenuous modern-day attempt to portray the Southern states as somehow more virtuous than they were. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/31 "2019-09-12T15:40:40Z")
> [@bump](#): > > The whole thing was in a very limited, technical sense about states’ rights, but the rights in question all revolved around slavery and its preservation. Read any secession declaration - \*any \*of them - and you’ll see they were all about slavery and a state’s “right” to practice it. > [@](#): > > So saying it’s about states’ rights is a disingenuous modern-day attempt to portray the Southern states as somehow more virtuous than they were. It’s also a way to defend (or avoid confronting) modern-day racism and related practices, as well as other deplorabilities that conveniently correlate with it. ---
**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:** [September 12, 2019, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/32 "2019-09-12T15:47:45Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Well duh. That’s kind of the whole point. The whole thing was in a very limited, technical sense about states’ rights, but the rights in question all revolved around slavery and its preservation. It’s not like the southern states rebelled because of Federal overreach in any other sort of state right. > > So saying it’s about states’ rights is a disingenuous modern-day attempt to portray the Southern states as somehow more virtuous than they were. When a state’s right conflicted with protection of slavery, the South chose slavery (as in the “Fugitive Slave Act” which interfered with the right of states to decide how to enforce their laws). When the First Amendment conflicted with slavery, the South chose slavery (as in the laws prohibited anti-slavery literature from being distributed in the South (where there were some abolitionists around, after all)). There was no principle that the South held in higher regard than slavery, no principle they would not abandon if it conflicted with the wish to preserve slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/33 "2019-09-12T16:00:10Z")
Andy L, you left off a big one - the southern states also opposed letting a state decide if it was a slave state or free state, and supported having Congress declare that certain states were slave states regardless of what the population or government of the state wanted. The Kansas–Nebraska act grew out of their staunch opposition to states rights in regards to being a slave or free state in the first place. This really highlights that the only “State’s Right” that they cared about was the right for a state to be a slave state, even deciding ‘slave vs free’ was a State’s Right they opposed. ---
**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:** [September 12, 2019, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/34 "2019-09-12T16:28:51Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Andy L, you left off a big one - the southern states also opposed letting a state decide if it was a slave state or free state, and supported having Congress declare that certain states were slave states regardless of what the population or government of the state wanted. The Kansas–Nebraska act grew out of their staunch opposition to states rights in regards to being a slave or free state in the first place. This really highlights that the only “State’s Right” that they cared about was the right for a state to be a slave state, even deciding ‘slave vs free’ was a State’s Right they opposed. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/35 "2019-09-12T16:40:17Z")
What the OP fails to realize is preservation of slavery was seen as a state right. Read the text of the Corwin Amendment. > [@](#): > > No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State. So it wasn’t about slavery except it was in that the South wanted _the right_ to keep slavery. There were other state-rights issues as well (tariffs and the power of the Feds in a Federalist system being the biggest ones) but slavery was the most tangible and thus become the representation for everyone for “state rights”. ---
**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:** [September 12, 2019, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/36 "2019-09-12T16:46:04Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > What the OP fails to realize is preservation of slavery was seen as a state right. Read the text of the Corwin Amendment. > > So it wasn’t about slavery except it was in that the South wanted _the right_ to keep slavery. There were other state-rights issues as well (tariffs and the power of the Feds in a Federalist system being the biggest ones) but slavery was the most tangible and thus become the representation for everyone for “state rights”. The South very explicitly opposed “states’ rights” on a host of other issues already mentioned. If they were actually for the concept of “states’ rights”, they would have been in favor of them on those issues as well. But they really just cared about slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/37 "2019-09-12T17:29:17Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > What the OP fails to realize is preservation of slavery was seen as a state right. Read the text of the Corwin Amendment. And then remember that the Southern states explicitly wanted the exact opposite, and demanded to interfere in the domestic institutions of new states as they were added by forcing them to be slave states regardless of what the people and/or government of the state wanted. > [@](#): > > So it wasn’t about slavery except it was in that the South wanted _the right_ to keep slavery. So your position is that Confederate Vice President Alexander H Stephens didn’t understand what the South wanted, that in spite of what he said it was all just about some States Rights which happen to include slavery? What documents from before 1865 support your claim? Here’s a quote from his most famous speech on the topic, I think that the VP of the Confederacy is a pretty authoritiative source here: > [@](#): > > But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. 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.”1 > > 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. . . . ---
**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:** [September 12, 2019, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/38 "2019-09-12T18:30:10Z")
> [@ASL\_v2.0](#): > > Secede? Why would they want to secede? According to the articles of secession, mostly slavery. ---
**Author:** ![kirkrapine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/7ea924/32.png) [@kirkrapine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kirkrapine)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/39 "2019-09-12T18:37:44Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > Andy L, you left off a big one - the southern states also opposed letting a state decide if it was a slave state or free state, and supported having Congress declare that certain states were slave states regardless of what the population or government of the state wanted. The Kansas–Nebraska act grew out of their staunch opposition to states rights in regards to being a slave or free state in the first place. This really highlights that the only “State’s Right” that they cared about was the right for a state to be a slave state, even deciding ‘slave vs free’ was a State’s Right they opposed. In the antebellum US, Southern pols had one overriding imperative, which was to preserve the even balance between slave states and free states (or, ideally, to make slave states outnumber free). That way, no antislavery bill would ever pass the Senate. There was even a clique called the [Knights of the Golden Circle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_of_the_Golden_Circle) who hoped to annex Caribbean and Central American countries as slave states. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2019, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/40 "2019-09-12T18:50:46Z")
> [@Beckdawrek](#): > > What do you they wanted states rights for? To preserve control of the House of Representatives. A like the cartoonist Patis definition of the Civil War: “One day, some people took their states and went home. We shot them.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085.md?page=3)