# 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:** 5
**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:** [September 13, 2019, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/81 "2019-09-13T20:53:28Z")
> [@Pantastic](#): > > This is interesting because I had heard it explictly stated too, but also looked at the Confederate constitution after you posted and did not see any clause prohibiting secession. Apparently there was a proposed amendment to add a clause explicitly allowing secession, but it was voted done. Some of the commentary on it theorizes that the drafters felt that if they wrote a clause explicitly allowing secession but otherwise used the language of the US constitution, they were effectively saying “the US constitution doesn’t allow secession, it would requires a clause like the one we added” which contradicted their argument that they were legally separating themselves from a compact. But they did add language strengthening the Fugitive Slave Clause, and additionally added an entirely new provision explicitly stating that > [@](#): > > The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several Sates; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected be Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States. Before the war, the pro-slavery side contended that the U.S. Congress had no power to ban slavery from the territories, which view was affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in the infamous _Dred Scott_ decision. By entrenching that decision in their new constitution you _could_ argue, if you squint at it just the right way, that the Confederacy was admitting that _Dred Scott_ was on shaky ground, constitutionally speaking, or why else would the Confederate States have needed to explicitly make such changes to their new constitution? Before the war the pro-slavery side was also quite indignant at “personal liberty laws” in the free states, regarding them as a clear violation of those states’ obligations under the Fugitive Slave Clause of the U.S. Constitution. [South Carolina’s secession declaration](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp) proclaims those personal liberty laws of the free states to be a major grievance and cause of secession: > [@](#): > > In the present case, that fact is established with certainty. We assert that fourteen of the States have deliberately refused, for years past, to fulfill their constitutional obligations, and we refer to their own Statutes for the proof. > > The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.” > > This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River. And they go on for another solid paragraph on the subject. Not only did the new Confederate Constitution strengthen the language of its own Fugitive Slave Clause (adding the words “or lawfully carried” to the original language about slaves “escaping into another” state) but they also added completely new language that citizens of one of the Confederate States > [@](#): > > shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired. Again, does this mean they were implicitly conceding that the antebellum personal liberty laws were maybe not unconstitutional under the pre-Reconstruction U.S. Constitution after all? It would be an exceedingly odd argument to make to say that the Confederacy _did_ take the opportunity to “clarify” the provisions of the old constitution relating to slavery, but did not do so with respect to secession, so therefore the really important point, from their point of view, must have been the right of 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:** [September 13, 2019, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/82 "2019-09-13T21:00:30Z")
If the North had allowed the secession to occur there would have been no war. The idea that two nations existing next to each other must have conflict is nonsense. There has been more political violence within the US than between the US and Canada. The Civil War also trumps the sum total of conflict between not only Mexico and the US, but between every country in the Western Hemisphere. ---
**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:** [September 13, 2019, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/83 "2019-09-13T22:02:34Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Without boats there would have been no slaves in the Americas, I guess it was all about boats. What boats? The slave trade was abolished in 1807. Slavery was getting along just fine in 1860 without any boats. ---
**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:** [September 13, 2019, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/84 "2019-09-13T22:06:46Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > If the North had allowed the secession to occur there would have been no war. The idea that two nations existing next to each other must have conflict is nonsense. If the United States had allowed other countries to declare war on it without responding there would have been no… wait no, there still would have been a war. Obviously two nations can exist next to each other without conflict. But when one of those nations (the Confederate States of America) declares war on another nation (the United States of America) then there’s going to be a conflict. That’s how wars work. Either side can start one and the other side can’t say no. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/85 "2019-09-13T22:16:28Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > Did Confederates claim a right to secession under the Constitution? Of course. Dispute? > > Did they defend the right when challenged? Of course. Dispute? > > Did they outlaw secession in the Confederacy? Of course. Dispute? They didn’t outlaw secession. That was the point of the post above yours and mine quoted within it. And your "hey, that’s not rank hypocrisy " post was ridiculous regardless. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/86 "2019-09-13T22:42:57Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > If the North had allowed the secession to occur there would have been no war. The idea that two nations existing next to each other must have conflict is nonsense. There has been more political violence within the US than between the US and Canada. The Civil War also trumps the sum total of conflict between not only Mexico and the US, but between every country in the Western Hemisphere. Why do you ignore the slavery stuff? Institutionalized involuntary slavery has got to be the epitome of wrongness in a libertarian society. Why is state’s right to secede so much more important than thousands of people in chains? Why do always ponder “If the North had allowed secession” but are never curious about “If the South had just accepted the winds of change”? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/87 "2019-09-13T23:14:58Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Well yeah, but the North didn’t go to war to abolish slavery. That’s what I’m trying to say; they weren’t concerned enough with the slave issue to go to war except that the South was seceding as a result of it. That’s true, it was a side bonus, but when Lincoln saw his chance and knew the war was being won, he jumped on it. It also made sure GB wasnt going to aid the CSA anymore. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2019, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/88 "2019-09-13T23:16:27Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > If the North had allowed the secession to occur there would have been no war. … The South, along with Han- shot first. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/89 "2019-09-14T00:41:09Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > > [@bump](#): > > > > Well yeah, but the North didn’t go to war to abolish slavery. That’s what I’m trying to say; they weren’t concerned enough with the slave issue to go to war except that the South was seceding as a result of it. > > That’s true, it was a side bonus, but when Lincoln saw his chance and knew the war was being won, he jumped on it. It also made sure GB wasnt going to aid the CSA anymore. The North didn’t need to start a war to end slavery. Slavery was ending without one. In fact, this brings us right back to the impetus for the conflict: Southern states seceded to protect slavery. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/90 "2019-09-14T01:20:35Z")
> [@Sunny\_Daze](#): > > The North didn’t need to start a war to end slavery. Slavery was ending without one. In fact, this brings us right back to the impetus for the conflict: Southern states seceded to protect slavery. Very stupidly, since there was no plans to end slavery within the Southern aristocrats lifetimes. It would have been a slow , step by step process starting with the Fugitive Slave act. I suspect that it would have taken half a century to end slavery. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/91 "2019-09-14T02:28:55Z")
> [@kirkrapine](#): > > Well, I don’t know about that. Once the principle of secession were established as legitimate, both the USA and CSA would have become very fragile unions, liable to fragmentation at any time, and that could have led to a **lot** of wars. I’m glad I’m living on a politically unified landmass, unlike Europe. So you’re an Australian? ---
**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:** [September 14, 2019, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/92 "2019-09-14T03:16:26Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Well yeah, but the North didn’t go to war to abolish slavery. That’s what I’m trying to say; they weren’t concerned enough with the slave issue to go to war except that the South was seceding as a result of it. The North certainly didn’t go to war to abolish slavery, but the people of the Northern states were concerned enough with the slave issue to elect a President of the United States (and a large number of Congressmen) from the Republican Party; the Republican Party was not in favor in immediate abolitionism (and was very careful to say so), but there was no question that it was a party that (as [my own state said](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_geosec.asp)) was “admitted to be an anti-slavery party”: > [@](#): > > …anti-slavery is [the Republican Party’s] mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. Of course that’s a polemic document by a bunch of Slave Power secessionists. The [1860 Republican Party platform](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/National_republican_platform._Adopted_by_the_National_Republican_Convention%2C_held_in_Chicago%2C_May_17%2C_1860.jpg) was strongly Unionist, denouncing the rising talk of secession and explicitly disavowing any idea of trying to overturn “the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment”, and (without actually using his name) denounced John Brown’s raid (“we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes”). The 1860 Republican Platform nonetheless declared > [@](#): > > That the normal condition of all the territory of the United States is that of freedom; That as our Republican fathers, when they had abolished slavery in all our national territory, ordained that “no person should be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” it becomes our duty, by legislation, whenever such legislation is necessary, to maintain this provision of the Constitution against all attempts to violate it; and we deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislature, or of any individuals, to give legal existence to Slavery in any Territory of the United States. The [1856 Republican Platform](https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/republican-party-platform-1856) had referred to slavery as a “relic of barbarism”. This was the party which a majority of the citizens of the free states of the North had just voted into office. ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/93 "2019-09-14T19:55:17Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > The North certainly didn’t go to war to abolish slavery, but the people of the Northern states were concerned enough with the slave issue to elect a President of the United States (and a large number of Congressmen) from the Republican Party; the Republican Party was not in favor in immediate abolitionism (and was very careful to say so), but there was no question that it was a party that was “admitted to be an anti-slavery party”: True nor is there a reason I can see to reject the statements in secession declarations, SC’s, the first, particularly that they thought Lincoln and the Republicans abolitionists. “On the 4th day of March next, this party will take possession of the Government. It has announced that the South shall be excluded from the common territory, that the judicial tribunals shall be made sectional, and that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States.” [https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th\_century/csa\_scarsec.asp](https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp) That was overdramatization taken literally, but the constant repetition that the Union didn’t fight to abolish slavery is mainly about current day debates\* I think, just like the more ridiculous assertion that the war wasn’t over slavery from the secessionist POV. The idea it wasn’t about slavery from unionist POV is not _as_ wrong, but still not really accurate. If the secessionists had had some other central reason to want to leave it’s plausible that unionist sentiment might still have been similar, especially post-Sumter. However in real history like you say a Northern plurality elected a leader and party which had tended to soft pedal in public statements its later manifest opposition to slavery itself, as a compromise w/ Southern sensibilities while the Union still seemed salvageable by peaceful means. But the Republicans were basically hostile to slavery. That statement in the SC declaration was an exaggeration of the facts of December 1860, but not baseless paranoia about the potential implication for slavery of Republican political domination. Both revisions de-emphasizing slavery have more truth at the individual level. A lot or perhaps most Confederate soldiers were motivated by defense of their state\*\*, not necessarily support of slavery per se. And relatively few individual Union soldiers were principally motivated by abolitionism. Still, slavery was the central issue for secessionist leaders, which they openly said. But opposition to slavery was also important on the Union side, at least indirectly at first, and more directly later in the war. \*about a US societal or ‘white’ historical debt to African Americans, and opposition to the idea that grievous Union casualties in the ACW did anything to pay it. \*\*also a lot of the later secession declarations gave heavy emphasis to Sumter, an abuse of Federal power in their view. That feeling was also real, though slavery was still the underlying cause of the confrontation. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/94 "2019-09-14T20:23:09Z")
The South seceded to protect slavery. The north committed to war because: 1. Their property was seized 2. To maintain the Union. ---
**Author:** ![Dale\_Sams](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/779978/32.png) [@Dale\_Sams](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dale_Sams)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/95 "2019-09-14T20:25:36Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#): > > That’s some magnificent snark right there. The Facebook litmus test as to whether or not Lincoln or Twain actually said something is: Can you immediatly understand it without reading the sentence twice? Then they didn’t say it. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/96 "2019-09-14T20:34:13Z")
> [@kirkrapine](#): > > It could not have been. Southern states started announcing their secession immediately after Lincoln was elected – before he had actually done anything to threaten their internal autonomy – before he had even taken office. 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. The Southern elites must have known that, but they didn’t care; they simply did not care to remain in the Union under a president whose party included an abolitionist wing. The Civil War was about preserving states’ rights… to implement slavery. Lincoln probably wouldn’t have abolished slavery, but he did oppose the admission of new slave states. This would have culminated in a majority-abolitionist Congress. Therefore the South decided that if they wanted to continue slavery, they needed to start a war before they were outnumbered by other states (even more badly than they already were). ---
**Author:** ![Corry\_El](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@Corry\_El](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Corry_El)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/97 "2019-09-14T21:39:59Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > The South seceded to protect slavery. The north committed to war because: > > 1. Their property was seized > > 2. To maintain the Union. But the seceding states must have been protecting slavery from something, unless the whole thing was a big misunderstanding. Unless the SC secessionists were suffering a paranoid delusion they saw a serious trend toward abolitionism in the election of Lincoln. And seems in the simplistic terms you might prefer, the SC secessionists have to be judged correct in their claim: slavery was abolished under “that party” (see quote above) within a few years. In today’s still not quite as divisive US politics, does one side take the soft ‘general election’ type rhetoric of the other about its more controversial positions at face value? Are they necessarily delusional if they don’t? Also consider how the Union war effort was sustained under Republican political dominance through serious military setbacks over four years if assuming that opposition to slavery was not a significant motivation in Union leadership and society at any level. Again, for the individual racing to volunteer after Sumter, slavery wasn’t necessarily a major personal motivation (seldom on Union side, but often not on Confederate side either, at individual soldier level). But at the big picture level there’s a logical limit to how much we can de-emphasize hostility to slavery on Union side and still say ‘protecting slavery’ didn’t just mean ‘paranoid delusion’ on the Southern side. The secessionists were protecting slavery from a real threat, an anti-slavery sentiment which gradually revealed itself as a significant factor sustaining the war effort to victory on the Northern side. IOW it’s not as simple as you say. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/98 "2019-09-14T21:40:17Z")
> [@Dale\_Sams](#): > > The Facebook litmus test as to whether or not Lincoln or Twain actually said something is: Can you immediatly understand it without reading the sentence twice? Then they didn’t say it. Here’s a bit of advice: cynicism isn’t a substitute for intelligence or knowledge. [https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Abraham\_Lincoln’s\_Second\_Inaugural\_Address](https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln%27s_Second_Inaugural_Address) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/99 "2019-09-14T22:37:55Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > A person can believe the right to secede is present under the US Constitution, fight to defend said right, and still believe that secession should be outlawed in the Confederate Constitution. Of course. Hypocrisy is a standard human trait. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2019, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085/100 "2019-09-14T23:44:40Z")
> [@kirkrapine](#): > > Then why did the Confederate Constitution forbid secession? Probably in expectation of the confederate states, if they managed to secure their independence from the north, inevitably going to war with each other. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-civil-war-was-not-about-states-rights/840085.md?page=6)