My favorite rebuttal to the idea that the Confederacy seceded in order to preserve States’ Rights is this excerpt from the Confederate constitution:
Article I Section 9(4): No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed.
If states rights were so important to the Confederacy, I have to wonder why their constitution stripped the states of the right to abolish slavery in any capacity.
Technically, it stripped ALL legislatures of the ability to restrict slavery in any way, making slavery a permanent feature of the Confederate government.
The rights argument is trivial to rebut, just like you did. Pick any letter of secession sent to Congress and you’ll likely find the institution of slavery listed as the top concern.
Here go Mississippi:
A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.
In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.
My favorite rebuttal to the idea that the Confederacy seceded in order to preserve States’ Rights is this excerpt from the Confederate constitution:
If states rights were so important to the Confederacy, I have to wonder why their constitution stripped the states of the right to abolish slavery in any capacity.
Technically, it stripped ALL legislatures of the ability to restrict slavery in any way, making slavery a permanent feature of the Confederate government.
The rights argument is trivial to rebut, just like you did. Pick any letter of secession sent to Congress and you’ll likely find the institution of slavery listed as the top concern.
Here go Mississippi:
A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.
In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.