Slavery or States Rights? What Really Caused the Civil War

Was the Civil War fought over slavery or states' rights? Today we’ll examine the primary sources: the secession declarations of South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas, the ordinances of the other Confederate states, Alexander Stephens's Cornerstone Speech, Jefferson Davis's own words to the Confederate Congress in 1861, and Lincoln's letters on slavery and the Union. We'll also discuss the Corwin Amendment, the Crittenden Compromise, the tariff argument, why poor Southern farmers enlisted, the truth about Black Confederates and the Louisiana Native Guard, Black slave owners, Union atrocities, and how the Lost Cause myth spread from Edward Pollard's 1866 book through the United Daughters of the Confederacy and into Southern history textbooks, including the ones I used growing up in Texas.

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South Carolina Declaration of Causes, December 24, 1860: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp

South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification, November 24, 1832: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/ordnull.asp

Mississippi Declaration of Causes, January 9, 1861: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp

Texas Declaration of Causes, February 2, 1861: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_texsec.asp

Georgia Declaration of Causes, January 29, 1861: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_geosec.asp

Alexander Stephens, Cornerstone Speech, March 21, 1861. Henry Cleveland, Alexander H. Stephens, in Public and Private (1866), pp. 717 to 728: https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/the-corner-stone-speech/

Stephens's disavowal and "Slavery was without doubt the occasion of secession": Recollections of Alexander H. Stephens, ed. Myrta Lockett Avary (1910), diary entry June 5, 1865.

Secession ordinances of all eleven states, including Alabama and Virginia: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/secession-acts-thirteen-confederate-states Also Dwight T. Pitcaithley, ed., The U.S. Constitution and Secession (University Press of Kansas, 2018).

Virginia Ordinance of Secession, April 17, 1861: https://encyclopediavirginia.org/primary-documents/virginia-ordinance-of-secession-april-17-1861/

Secession commissioners, including George Williamson of Louisiana to the Texas convention: Charles B. Dew, Apostles of Disunion (University of Virginia Press, 2001).

Arkansas convention, March 1861 resolutions, and May 6 secession: https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/secession-convention-6304/ James M. Woods, Rebellion and Realignment (University of Arkansas Press, 1987).

Florida's unadopted draft Declaration of Causes: State Archives of Florida, Series 577; reprinted in Pitcaithley (2018).

Washington Peace Conference, February 1861: Daniel W. Crofts, Reluctant Confederates (UNC Press, 1989).

Lincoln's call for 75,000 militia, April 15, 1861, and the secessions of Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina: James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (Oxford University Press, 1988), chapter 9.

Constitution of the Confederate States, March 11, 1861: https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_csa.asp

Jefferson Davis, message to the Confederate Congress, April 29, 1861: James D. Richardson, ed., Messages and Papers of the Confederacy (1905), vol. 1.

Jefferson Davis, Senate farewell, January 21, 1861: https://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/archives/documents/jefferson-davis-farewell-address

Jefferson Davis, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1881), vol. 1.

Edward A. Pollard, The Lost Cause (1866).

General reading: McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom. David W. Blight, Race and Reunion (Harvard University Press, 2001).

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