This is the second installment in my series of history lessons. A CNN poll taken on the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War found that 42% of Americans don’t believe that the cause of secession was slavery. Can you imagine that? 42%. That many people who were either taught false history or didn’t pay attention to the correct history that they were taught (which probably has to do with the part of the country where they attended school.)

Slavery has been a hot button issue for this country from the time it started to the time it was abolished, and the aftermath is still felt today. In his initial draft of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson condemned the injustice of the slave trade and acknowledged that slavery violated the natural rights of the enslaved. The Continental Congress rejected the passage and deleted it from the final document. It showed their commitment to subordinating the issue of slavery to the larger goal of securing the unity and independence of the United States. Jefferson later tried to ban slavery in all Western Territories in 1784, but it failed in Congress by one vote.

When Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860, it forced the hand of the Southern slave-holding states. During the election, they had made threats to secede if Lincoln was elected. Some of the Southern states went so far as to not include Lincoln on the ballot. The slave-holding states were afraid that Lincoln would not allow slaves into new territories, and would at some point take away their rights to own slaves. So in 1861, just a short time before Lincoln’s inauguration, the South seceded. Starting with South Carolina.

The fortunate thing about this part of history is that we don’t have to guess about why the Southern slave-holding states seceded. We simply have to go to their secession documents and listen to what they tell us. So, just pull up a chair and follow along. Remember, if you have any questions, please just raise your hand.

Let’s start with South Carolina. A state, which according to the 1860 census was made of 57% slaves, was the first to secede. In the document titled “Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union”, we find the following:

For twenty-five years this agitation has been steadily increasing, until it has now secured to its aid the power of the common Government. Observing the *forms* [emphasis in the original] of the Constitution, a sectional party has found within that Article establishing the Executive Department, the means of subverting the Constitution itself. A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that “Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free,” and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.

This sectional combination for the submersion of the Constitution, has been aided in some of the States by elevating to citizenship, persons who, by the supreme law of the land, are incapable of becoming citizens; and their votes have been used to inaugurate a new policy, hostile to the South, and destructive of its beliefs and safety.

Now on to Georgia. Georgia was made up of 44% slaves. Below is from their causes for secession document:

The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery.

Mississippi, which was made up of 55% slaves, stated the following in their secession document:

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. That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.

And good ole Texas. Texas, at the time, was made up of 30% slaves. In their secession document, they wrote:

Texas abandoned her separate national existence and consented to become one of the Confederated Union to promote her welfare, insure domestic tranquility and secure more substantially the blessings of peace and liberty to her people. She was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery– the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits– a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time. Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. Those ties have been strengthened by association. But what has been the course of the government of the United States, and of the people and authorities of the non-slave-holding States, since our connection with them?

Now if that is not enough evidence for you, we can look at Alexander H. Stephens and his “Corner Stone” speech. Stephens was the Vice President of the Confederate States. The following is from his speech:

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. 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.

So, as you can see, the cause for secession was slavery. It’s not that slavery was a small part or a big part of the reason for secession; it was the only reason. That’s not an opinion. That is a fact based on the words of the people who actually seceded, and I think they have all the authority on the matter. Don’t you?

Oh those pesky facts