# Why the South seceded from the Union **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 28, 2017, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974 "2017-08-28T23:41:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/101 "2017-09-01T18:37:30Z")
The star of the west did carry weapons and reinforcemnets, I believe. It kind of boggles the mind that they couldn’t have waited till noon for a surrender. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/102 "2017-09-01T18:42:21Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > [The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States](https://www.civilwar.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states) > > Georgia: > Mississippi: > South Carolina: > Texas: > As you can see, secession was all about States Rights and nothing more. Great primary cite. It’s interesting that NC and VA, don’t say that they are seceding directly for slavery, but rather because the feferal government is telling slaveholding states that they can’t have slaves, and that the federal government doesn’t have the authority to make that call. (My paraphrase feel free to take issue with it.) It’s an interesting argument. It’s like if you tell me that I am not allowed to beat my wife, and I fight you not because I want to beat my wife but because I take issue with you telling me what to do. Maybe I beat my wife specifically to prove that you can’t tell me what to do. Maybe I fight you because you I’m afraid that I accept that if I can’t beat my wife because you told me not to than that means you might tell me not to mow my lawn or sit in my couch, and now I have to fight you or beat my wife to avoid giving you a precedent. I think this is the crux of the “states rights” argument, which could be distilled into “We are not fighting for slavery but because you don’t get to tell us what to do.” Other iterations of the “It’s none of the Federal Government’s business,” argument are why we have federal tax free municipal bonds issued by states, have had various drinking ages in different states, rules on gay and a whole host of other issues. So clearly, there is some legal credence about what the federal Government can and can’t tell states to do. So, if you are VA or NC I guess you can claim that you didn’t fight for slavery, but for your rights. (Of course the right you are fighting for is the right to have slaves, but never mind that.) Let’s put this another way, just for fun. You see me beating my wife. You tell me to stop. I attack you. Later in court I claim that I was defending myself against you, because you were taking away my rights by telling me what to do, which you are not allowed to do. The fact that the _issue just happened to specifically be about wife beating_ is immaterial. I would have been forced to defend myself in the same manner if you told me not to wear red sneakers. In this scenario does my claim make any sense? It seems to me pretty obvious that this is specious reasoning, and pretty obviously flawed but yet, 150 years later we keep having the same argument. Why? I would be guess that it is true that you are not allowed to tell me not to wear red sneakers, and that for rhetorical purposes we have not established or allowed any distinction between the wearing of red sneakers and the beating of wives, and if indeed these things are equivalent than than this argument makes sense. But they are not equivalent, any more than taxation of municipal bonds is equivalent to slavery. Anyway, I am going through all this to try and see by what way the argument that the civil war was about state’s rights and not slavery mos any kind of sense. I guess my conclusion is that that argument is 100% wrong unless we are talking about VA and NC in which case it is only 99% wrong. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/103 "2017-09-01T19:30:40Z")
**Scylla** there’s two major problems with your analogy. The first is that there was talk and action around secession for reasons unrelated to slavery. A slavery only explanation fails to explain the nullification crisis, for example. The second is the introduction of a third party. A better example would use just a marriage between two people. For example, say a wife is a heroin addict and before she marries her husband she gets explicit agreement that she can continue to use heroin. As the years go by they drift apart, differences arise, and the ties that bind them loosen. Eventually, the wife sees that her husband is going to try and stop her from using heroin, and since the relationship is already strained, she leaves. Why the couple divorced is a complex question. Clearly the wife’s heroin use caused a strain and is easy to point to as an issue. Yet, it can’t be just that because that issue had been there since before the marriage. The explanation has to include the drifting apart and the loosening of ties. Of course, the easy rebuttal to that is that the wife doing heroin is what caused them to drift apart. ---
**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 1, 2017, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/104 "2017-09-01T19:42:56Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > The claim that Fort Sumter was a fort which “existed to collect taxes” is erroneous, and the only support online I can find for it is in Confederate apologist cites. > > In reality, Fort Sumter was conceived after the War of 1812 as protection for the harbor. By the time of the Civil War, it was still not completed. In fact, it was only occupied because federal troops had retreated from another, less defensible, fort due to the hostilities of the Confederate locals. > Lincoln was not “arming” Ft. Sumter. He was bringing supplies. He made that explicitly clear before he did it. > This requires context (but first, note the use of the word “provisions”; As stated, Lincoln was not arming Ft. Sumter). > > See, the Confederates had already shot on a ship that had attempted to bring supplies to Ft. Sumter - The [Star of the West](http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/star-of-the-west-leaves-for-fort-sumter); only this had happened in January, 1861, while Buchanan was still President, as Lincoln would not be sworn in until March. > > So, Lincoln is responding to the fact that a) he has federal troops stranded on a half-built fort and b) a previous President had encountered hostilities when a seemingly peaceful private vessel had attempted to bring them supplies. > > Thus, Lincoln was facing a bullying, aggressive Confederate government before he had even taken office. Sure, he wanted the authority to preserve the Union; as others have pointed out, secession was an illegal act. > > But it is a historical fallacy to say that he laid a trap to engender hostilities. The Confederates had already shown a willingness to use arms to prevent U.S. soldiers from being aided. So, Lincoln and his men responded with resolve. There was no subtlety or trickery involved. > > Meanwhile, it appears that if you dig into the specifics of the famous attack, it occurred after the Union commander had pledged to evacuate, albeit in a few days. > > From [here](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/fort-sumter-the-civil-war-begins-1018791/): The first ship was carrying soldiers and military equipment. Also, the confederates were provisioning Ft. Sumter before Lincoln gave the order to provision. You are giving half-truths. I will fill you in when I can it is quite a bit to unpack. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/105 "2017-09-01T20:08:45Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > That should give you something to chew on. I will try to dig up more time allowing. Would you mind digging up something to support the hilarious claim that Fort Sumter was not, as every history of it says, build as part of the Third System of fortifications to protect the U.S. coastline, but was build as a tax collection station? ---
**Author:** ![2sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/e47774/32.png) [@2sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2sense)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/106 "2017-09-01T20:34:14Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > I have never seen a logical argument or historical example for how slavery had to be ever-expanding, though the claim is repeated often. The confederate aristocracy was notorious for being unambitious and lazy. They were not as driven as their Northern brethren to conquer the frontier for example. Besides that, some of the most successful slave economies were on islands! They didn’t run into too much trouble from being constrained from expansion. As in a lot of things the perception was more important than the reality. That the survival of slavery was tied to its expansion was a theme of both pro- and anti-slavery writing and thought. To whatever degree it was true people acted as if it were. The explanation I’ve heard given is the nature of plantation slavery itself exhausted the land. Concentration on cash crops limited rotation options which were already limited by climate. The clover and hay Northern farmers could plant their fields with wouldn’t grow in the South. This left fallow fields more vulnerable to soil erosion (in an area of the country with heavier rains). This also reduced the supply of animal fodder. Animal husbandry differed in the South in other ways. Cattle fever stunted growth and reduced milk production which was already lowered by the hot climate. With reduced incentives Southerners generally let their farm animals run wild in the shade of the woods rather than pasturing them so they could naturally fertilize the soil. As their fields became exhausted they would burn down woods to open more land. This would provide a one time infusion of fertilizer in the form of ash but further exposed the land to erosion. I haven’t been out digging the dirt of Dixie myself but that’s the story I’ve gotten from various history books. It seems pretty logical to me. Plantations became less and less productive as time went on but slavery remained important in more developed areas because plantation owners could maintain their lifestyles by selling labor down the river. I don’t know much about the slave economy of the Caribbean islands. Perhaps they had better land to begin with. The soil in the South tends to be more acidic than in America’s “breadbasket”. The islands might be flatter as well slowing erosion. I’m not sure. ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/107 "2017-09-01T20:51:55Z")
> [@treis](#): > > **Scylla** there’s two major problems with your analogy. The first is that there was talk and action around secession for reasons unrelated to slavery. A slavery only explanation fails to explain the nullification crisis, for example. > > The second is the introduction of a third party. A better example would use just a marriage between two people. For example, say a wife is a heroin addict and before she marries her husband she gets explicit agreement that she can continue to use heroin. As the years go by they drift apart, differences arise, and the ties that bind them loosen. Eventually, the wife sees that her husband is going to try and stop her from using heroin, and since the relationship is already strained, she leaves. > > Why the couple divorced is a complex question. Clearly the wife’s heroin use caused a strain and is easy to point to as an issue. Yet, it can’t be just that because that issue had been there since before the marriage. The explanation has to include the drifting apart and the loosening of ties. Of course, the easy rebuttal to that is that the wife doing heroin is what caused them to drift apart. There may have been talk, but it was all about slavery and protecting the states right to choose to keep slavery legal. Everything else was a side issue to the real issue. ---
**Author:** ![VarlosZ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d78d45/32.png) [@VarlosZ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VarlosZ)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/108 "2017-09-01T20:59:38Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > The US was a dictatorship at this time. Yowza. There are any number of facts which conclusively disprove this assertion, but I’ll just point out two related ones. First, in the 1862 midterm elections, the Republican party got shellacked, and went from having 59% of House seats to 46%. Though they maintained de facto control of the House due to the presence of the Unionists, that just doesn’t happen to ruling parties in dictatorships. More impressively, the alleged dictator himself, Abraham Lincoln, stood for reelection in '64, the first time a chief executive anywhere had done so during a time of civil war. On top of that, it was an election that he figured to lose until fairly late in the game – he was making plans for a big push to win the war in months between the election and inauguration because he expected to be voted out of office. Again, not what happens in a dictatorship. ---
**Author:** ![Pantastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3bc359/32.png) [@Pantastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pantastic)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/109 "2017-09-01T21:02:00Z")
> [@treis](#): > > **Scylla** there’s two major problems with your analogy. The first is that there was talk and action around secession for reasons unrelated to slavery. There’s always assorted talk and action, but mild side issues were not the reason. But don’t ask me, a modern man, instead read the words of the Vice President of the Confederacy, who said: > [@Cornerstone Speech](#): > > 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.” > > 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. [Applause.] 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.” ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/110 "2017-09-01T21:08:14Z")
I haven’t read the whole thread yet, but I think the answer is “slavery”. I’ll go read thru it now to see if I had it right. ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 2017, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/111 "2017-09-01T21:13:42Z")
> [@treis](#): > > A slavery only explanation fails to explain the nullification crisis, for example. Ah, I have a great quote for that. It’s an oversimplification, perhaps, but it comes from John C. Calhoun, Senator during the Nullification crisis. Senator for South Carolina for part of crisis, which would, decades later, be the first state to secede. He seemed to think that was kind of about slavery, too (phrase “domestic institution” and context tell us so) and it being the source of wealth in the South. > [@](#): > > I consider the tariff act as **the occasion, rather than the real cause** of the present unhappy state of things. The truth can no longer be disguised, that the pecular domestick institution of the Southern States and the consequent direction which that and her soil and climate have given to her industry, has placed them in regard to taxation and appropriations in the opposite relation to the majority of the Union, against the danger of which, if there be no protective power in the reserved rights of the states they must in the end be forced to rebel, or, submit it to have their paramount interests sacrificed, their domestick institutions subordinated by Colonization and other schemes, and themselves and children reduced to wretchedness. Thus situated, the denial of the right of the State to interpose constitutionally in the last resort, more alarms the thinking, than all the other causes; and however strange it may appear, the more universally the state is condemned, and her right denied, the more resolute she is to assert her constitutional powers lest the neglect to assert should be considered a practical abandonment of them, under such circumstances. Another southern politician: > [@](#): > > the slave question will be the real issue-All others will be absorbed into it. The hypocrisy of the north & the fears of the South will combine to bring us to the same result, and will Louisiana cling to her sugar and give up her negroes? Link for more on that [here]([Prelude to Civil War: The Nullification Controversy in South Carolina, 1816-1836 - William W. Freehling - Google Books](https://books.google.com/books?id=FPZOEitjDFwC&pg=PA205&lpg=PA205&dq=william+preston+++++%22the+slave+question+will+be+the+real+issue%22&source=bl&ots=t8s8SjojJ7&sig=peioQZ9gKIvLFqlQcW_OzhT4psk&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjos-aU84TWAhXE5SYKHYbSBdYQ6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=william) preston “the slave question will be the real issue”&f=false) [And here](https://freedmenspatrol.wordpress.com/2015/10/05/the-nullification-crisis-and-slavery/) is a web page with various quotes from people at the time. You can see the URL and judge the accuracy and bias for yourself. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2017, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/112 "2017-09-02T01:26:28Z")
> [@WillFarnaby](#): > > The first ship was carrying soldiers and military equipment. Also, **the confederates were provisioning Ft. Sumter** before Lincoln gave the order to provision. You are giving half-truths. I will fill you in when I can it is quite a bit to unpack. Are you saying that the Confederates were shipping supplies to Fort Sumter? (What sort of supplies?) Or was Major Anderson buying some food from local vendors and you are now claiming that meant “the Confederates” were “provisioning” Fort Sumter? Or do you refer to the supplies to the civilian workers who were engaged in completing construction of the fort, (authorized and funded by the Federal government months before), that was interrupted when Anderson moved his men from Fort Moultrie? Or is there some other action that you claim was occurring? Do not accuse others of half-truths when you make vague references without supporting citations. > [@treis](#): > > **Scylla** there’s two major problems with your analogy. The first is that there was talk and action around secession for reasons unrelated to slavery. A slavery only explanation fails to explain the nullification crisis, for example. Southern states opposed secession when New England considered that act during Mr. Madison’s War, claiming that they would be willing to shed blood to preserve the Union if New England considered secession subsequent to the Hartford Convention. Although Calhoun was a prominent politician and proponent of Nullification, the actual consideration of that action was pretty much limited to South Carolina. It was not a “Southern” movement. The South also fiercely attacked nullification when Northern states sought to ignore or bypass Fugitive Slave laws. In the fledgling United States, there were frequent challenges to the understanding of the Constitution and Nullification was one of the issues. However, the South was not consistent in its attitude toward nullification and there was no serious movement to invoke it leading up to the war. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2017, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/113 "2017-09-02T06:00:17Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > The Southerner ruling classes saw a threat down the road (the political unsustainability of slavery in the USA) and took the wrong strategy to deal with it, because they _really did not want to deal with it_. > > Of course\*\* the only good, rightful thing for them to do was to accept this way of life had no future, and figure out Plan B before the hammer dropped\*\*. But noooo, the Planter Class just knew they were Entitled by God to their ways. Yeah, when thinking on this, I keep coming back to the idea that the South seceded because a group of jerks couldn’t be bothered to find a new job that didn’t involve owning another person. I try to figure out another angle that makes sense with the facts of the situation, but I can’t find one. And they were wrong that they couldn’t keep farming cotton profitably without employing slavery. Fort Worth became a prominent city in the cattle trade after the Civil War, and Dallas became prominent city in the cotton trade around the same time. People still grew plenty of cotton in the south after the war, and some got rich doing so. Migrant farm workers like my grandparents picked cotton, no slavery necessary. Yes, they could be described as my cotton-pickin’ grandparents, should you desire to do so. ---
**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 3, 2017, 4:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/114 "2017-09-03T04:36:50Z")
> [@scabpicker](#): > > Migrant farm workers like my grandparents picked cotton, no slavery necessary. Yes, they could be described as my cotton-pickin’ grandparents, should you desire to do so. Were they non-union cotton pickers who were hired during a strike by the Cotton Pickers Union? ---
**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 3, 2017, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/115 "2017-09-03T06:01:51Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > I think this is the crux of the “states rights” argument, which could be distilled into “We are not fighting for slavery but because you don’t get to tell us what to do.” > > Other iterations of the “It’s none of the Federal Government’s business,” argument are why we have federal tax free municipal bonds issued by states, have had various drinking ages in different states, rules on gay and a whole host of other issues. So clearly, there is some legal credence about what the federal Government can and can’t tell states to do. > > So, if you are VA or NC I guess you can claim that you didn’t fight for slavery, but for your rights. (Of course the right you are fighting for is the right to have slaves, but never mind that.) But this wasn’t the argument that the southern states were making. They explicitly said they wanted a strong national government that would actively support slavery - even in states that didn’t want slavery. They were arguing that slavery was a nationally protected right and no state could infringe on it. ---
**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 3, 2017, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/116 "2017-09-03T11:44:24Z")
> [@Hectorik](#): > > I remember the day that I sat in U.S. Government class as a senior in high school and asked the question, _ **“What do the Democrat and Republican parties represent? Do they mean to say that the Democrats propose a democracy and that the Republicans propose to support a republic?”** _ You were a high school _senior_ when you asked this? If I was your teacher, I’d’ve felt tempted to say “Yes, and the Whig Party were fanatically anti-baldists.” ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/117 "2017-09-03T12:18:10Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > The Southerner ruling classes saw a threat down the road (the political unsustainability of slavery in the USA) and took the wrong strategy to deal with it, because they _really did not want to deal with it_. > > Of course\*\* the only good, rightful thing for them to do was to accept this way of life had no future, and figure out Plan B before the hammer dropped\*\*. But noooo, the Planter Class just knew they were Entitled by God to their ways. The rational, sensible thing to do would have been to say, “this way of doing things is doomed within a generation, let’s start figuring out something different to do to cut our losses”. But the rulers did not have the mentality, someone bringing up such an alternative would be rudely shown the door as some sort of subversive blasphemer. Soooo, they were the original [political] climate change deniers? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/118 "2017-09-03T12:30:54Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **Scylla** : > > Great primary cite. It’s interesting that NC and VA, don’t say that they are seceding directly for slavery, but rather because the feferal government is telling slaveholding states that they can’t have slaves, and that the federal government doesn’t have the authority to make that call. (My paraphrase feel free to take issue with it.) And the kicker is, regardless of how justified the Feds would have been in saying that, _they weren’t actually saying that_. Even the North agreed that, much though they might like to prohibit slavery, they didn’t have the authority to do that (absent a Constitutional amendment that stood no chance of passage at that time). The South wasn’t upset about something that the Union was actually doing; they were upset about something that they worried that the Union might do at some unspecified future time. But by golly, they were upset _right now_ about it. Now, the Union might have been able to pass that amendment at some point in the future, if enough more new free states got added than new slave states (as looked likely to happen). So the South’s fears on that score weren’t entirely ungrounded. But if it did happen, then (contrary to those states’ claims) it would have been perfectly legitimate, since amendments are part of the Constitution. And it’d take a lot of new states before that happened. If the South wanted to actually react to that event when it happened, they could just as well have waited until all those new states were added, and then secede. Presumably, they didn’t wait because that would have made their propaganda lies (that the government wasn’t allowed to do that) more bare. Well, and because they were spoiling for a fight. ---
**Author:** ![Tzigone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/839c29/32.png) [@Tzigone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tzigone)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/119 "2017-09-03T13:54:27Z")
> [@](#): > > If the South wanted to actually react to that event when it happened, they could just as well have waited until all those new states were added, and then secede. Was it this forum where I read a discussion of what the optimal date for the South to secede and succeed (more specifically, being able to win a war, not being able to avoid one)? > [@](#): > > Presumably, they didn’t wait because that would have made their propaganda lies (that the government wasn’t allowed to do that) more bare. Well, and because they were spoiling for a fight. Not sure about that - while there definitely was some talk about what the Federal government was allowed to do, there was a lot more about slavery being God-ordained, natural, right and moral. I don’t know that they felt they needed much smokescreen at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8dc957/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2017, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974/120 "2017-09-03T14:48:10Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > It makes sense if you assume that Robert E. Lee was a Time Lord. It makes sense now! Why were all those slave owners known as Master?! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-the-south-seceded-from-the-union/794974.md?page=7)