The South Was Right

Carrying the Torch of Our Ancestors

Introduction

In modern times, mere mention of the Confederacy invokes images of a racist, brutish people fighting to preserve the world’s last bastion of slavery. Thankfully - as we’ve been taught - such a people were thoroughly destroyed by the great emancipators of the egalitarian North. These sentiments are reinforced, and therefore justified, by the admittedly poor state of the contemporary South; a region that leads the country in crime, poverty, and illiteracy. In more recent times, monuments of Confederate heroes - like Robert E. Lee, Thomas Jackson, and Jefferson Davis - have been removed from the public eye; a symbol of “our nation’s healing from its white supremacist past.”

Modernity’s obsession with Southern erasure was met with tacit approval from many on the Right. Northerners, Reconstructed Southerners, and all flavors of Republicans cheered on as our heroes were unceremoniously and maliciously cleansed from history. Republicans, self-righteously touting themselves as the “Party of Lincoln,” justified this erasure on the grounds that leftists would limit themselves to only the '“racist,” Confederate heroes. After all, and as they love to repeat, “Democrats are the real racists.”

Such naivety was quickly crushed as monuments to Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, and other Founding Fathers were likewise dismantled on similar charges of racism. Republicans were aghast. How could leftists reduce these great men to one mere character trait? Didn’t they know they were multifaceted, nuanced, and otherwise heroes of our beloved Republic? Reductionism is the point. It’s something Southerners have long understood; reducing our history to the lowest common denominator allows leftists to falsely claim the moral high ground they need to attack us, our history, and even our God. The key, then, is not to give an inch.

However, while many on the Right began to understand the reductionists tactics of the left, they still remain comfortably seated atop their own self-righteousness when it comes to the Civil War. Rather than confront themselves with the fact that the War Between States was perhaps the first and biggest victim of leftist reductionism, the majority is content to cling to the simplified narrative that South fought for slavery, and slavery alone.

Herein lies the mission of this article. Rather than engage in a fruitless debate about the efficacy of the Southern cause in 1861 alone, I hope to demonstrate that the War was the culmination of a near millennium-long dispute over centralized authority. The insidious myth that our ancestors fought and died solely to perpetuate the enslavement of Blacks would be laughable if it wasn’t so pernicious. Of course, to address the elephant in the room up front, it would be extremely dishonest to ignore the fact that slavery was, for several States, a primary motivator behind secession in 1861. However, as I intend to articulate, the Southern cause was an infinitely more complex political critique of the Federal Government’s slow, tyrannical centralization of power away from the union of States. The South, then, remained true to the American founding ethos; sic semper tyrannis.

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

Thomas Jefferson

Historical Background

English History

As alluded to in the introduction, the philosophies that underlay the American Civil War were not a flash-in-the-pan dispute, but rather a millennium-long debate in English history. I won’t belabor this section too deeply, yet suffice it to show that debates over centralized v. localized authority have long fraught our people since the days of King Alfred the Great.

In the 9th century, Danish Vikings ravaged the English countryside with little resistance. However, upon ascension to the thrown, King Alfred undertook massive security reforms that allotted the English the defense infrastructure necessary to repel such invaders. Among other policies, King Alfred instituted a trifold militia structure to localize defense powers amongst the entirety of his kingdom. In addition to universal armament, his Saxon Fyrd System charged every able-bodied male to participate in militia training, which would be led by the local Sheriff, the county-lead for nation-wide defense. The Sheriffs were thus in charge of security specific to their local towns. The system included Hue & Cry (law enforcement), Watch & Ward (guards/patrols), and the still-present Posse Comitatus (activation-ready armed reservists). In this manner, national defense was localized, city-to-city, and respected the various authorities of England’s varying towns.

However, whereas the Anglo-Saxons earned a reputation for their localized civilian militia, the Normans were known for their centralized military structure. After the Norman Conquest of 1066, the English grew resentful of the new, standing Norman army, viewing it as a tool of the Crown’s oppression. Rather than answer to the local populace like the militia would, the Norman army was a centralized, professional unit loyal only to the new Norman Monarchs.

Later, in 1215, King John was forced to sign the Great Charter, more commonly known as the Magna Carta. King John’s infamous reputation for autocratic abuses sparked a revolt of local barons, thus enshrining the right of the people to rebel if appeals for redress pass without remedy (art. 61). Therefore, for the very first time since 1066, the central power of the Crown was decentralized, allowing for legitimate checks against restrained power by local authorities.

Fast-forwarding past various waxes and wanes in English arms/militia regulations, it was the English Civil Wars wherein the issue of central versus local control came really came to a head. In 1629, King Charles I dismissed Parliament and built a widely-unpopular standing army. Conflicts thus erupted over a monarch’s absolute authority, and, specific to this discussion, who controlled the militia - King or Parliament? When, in 1642, Charles I led a failed-march on Parliamentarians with 400 men, war broke out. Parliament and the King issued conflicting orders on military authority, and, when the Royalists were defeated, Charles I stood trial and was executed. It was at Charles’ Trial for High Treason wherein President of the High Court of Justice John Bradshaw first remarked the famous words:

“Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.”

However, despite the Parliamentarians seemingly-championing a localized, people-focused rule, the opposite occurred. Oliver Cromwell instituted a Puritan Military Dictatorship, wherein Royalists, religious dissenters, and basically all else were greatly oppressed. Years later, following the collapse of Cromwell’s Puritan dictatorship, Parliament enacted the Declaration of Rights, more popularly known as the English Bill of Rights. Among other provisions, the English Bill of Rights specifically condemned the abuses of centralized power levied by Charles II and James II, and forbade the keeping of a central, standing army without the consent of Parliament in peacetime. It also allowed Protestants the right to bear arms, as decentralized security was deemed necessary to the defense of the state.

The parallels of the English and American Civil Wars are hard to over-emphasize. In fact, myriad prominent Confederates invoked the English Civil War as both precedent and inspiration for their own rebellion. President Jefferson Davis, in his farewell address to the U.S. Senate, said: “When the men of the North shall refuse to recognize our rights, we must imitate the example of our fathers. The cause in which we are engaged is not unlike that which engaged the attention of the people of England when they resisted the encroachments of the Crown.”

Various other Confederate leaders likewise grounded the Southern cause in tradition of the English Civil Wars, such as Confederate Secretary of State Robert Toombs, who said: “We have the right to secede. The States formed this Union; they can dissolve it… Our fathers asserted this right against Great Britain. It is the same right which the people of England asserted against arbitrary power in the days of the Stuarts.”

I can continue to provide such quotes ad nauseam, but suffice it to say that the Confederate elite viewed their struggle as a mere continuation of the very struggles that wrought their ancestors: the struggle between the “tyranny of one” versus the “sovereignty of many.”

Civilizational and Cultural Divides

Astute readers of history may be keen to point out that despite the Confederacy’s claim to the right of rebellion as exercised by the Parliamentarians, they contradictorily descend from the Cavaliers. The Cavaliers were England’s aristocratic Royalists who, after suffering through the loss of the English Civil Wars and Cromwell’s Puritan dictatorship, migrated to Virginia and other lowland Southern states. Although more Southerners descend from the indentured servants of the Cavaliers rather than the Cavalier nobility, themselves, Cavalier culture undoubtedly shaped the culture that came to define Southern aristocracy.

Interestingly enough, it was the Puritans who dominated the bulk of early Northern settlers, particular in New England. Religious fundamentalism and antipathy towards royal tradition thus influenced Northern outlooks towards religion, life, and especially politics. Understanding this historical and cultural divide brings clarity to the Colonies’ attitudes towards the American Revolution: while the Puritan-influenced Patriots of New England were militaristic in their fervor for independence, southern aristocrats were reticent.

To further exemplify that a vast divide existed between the North and South far before the founding, one need only look at their antebellum cultures. As many know, the North gained renown for its impressive industrial growth and tight-knit immigrant communities. Pleasant soil conditions favored smaller farms contra massive Southern plantations, which too subsided in favor of the booming manufacturing sector. Large urban cities - New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, etc. - came to house over 25% of all Northerners by 1861. Since urban industry dominated the American economy, Northern slavery died out. Field hands in the rural North were thus replaced by immigrant labor in big cities, as seven out of every eight immigrants to the early U.S. went to the North. Consequently, the North was the political home to the Republican/Whig Party, the party of businessmen, engineers, immigrants, and academia.

The South, on the other hand, remained defined by its agrarian aristocracy. It’s important to caveat, however, that despite the North’s reputation for business and the South’s for agrarianism, it is not that the South was destitute or in any case riven by comparative impoverishment. A hierarchical gentleness, not profits, motivated a chivalric tradition which opted for a slower, quieter life than its Northern counterpart. Remnants of Cavalier culture thus animated a respect for tradition with a healthy reticence to adopt the North’s fast-paced, industrial business mindset. As an aside, this appreciation for the natural hierarchy of man likewise justified the institution of slavery. After all, there was no Biblical, natural, or societal reason to doubt that hierarchies of man did indeed exist, including an enslaved class. Of course, this does not mean that Northern “egalitarianism” rejected slavery, just that it supported it for a different incentive: capital production.

Moreover, contrary to the unfortunate Southern caricature of today, antebellum Southerners placed great importance on education, military training, and religion. In fact, military education was seen as a necessary prerequisite for the Southern gentleman’s entry into society. Such military training thus included education in the classics: ancient philosophy, famous war stratagems, and proficiency in Greek and Latin. If you’ve ever seen the movie Tombstone, you’ll remember Doc Holliday’s surprising ability to speak Latin. In any case, the South viewed their love of tradition as both staying true to the Founders, as well as being in stark contrast to their Northern counterparts.

“We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens, and make military instruction a regular part of collegiate education. We can never be safe until this is done.”

Thomas Jefferson, letter to James Monroe, Jun. 19th, 1813

In sum, the Northern and Southern United States were comprised of very different people with very different ideas on politics, religion, and society. This section was to provide you with a brief historical understanding of the varying cultural and philosophical arguments that first pitted the Anglos against the Normans, then the Parliamentarians against the Royalists, and finally the South against the North. As I move forward with the post, its important to keep in mind that such debates/wars remained fresh on the minds of many before and during the Civil War. There can be no better exemplification of history’s weight on the minds of Americans than the following quote:

“Our enemies are a traditionless and a homeless race; from the time of Cromwell to the present moment they have been disturbers of the peace of the world. Gathered together by Cromwell from the bogs and fens of the North of Ireland and of England, they commenced by disturbing the peace of their own country; they disturbed Holland, to which they fled, and they disturbed England on their return. They persecuted Catholics in England, and they hung Quakers and witches in America.”

President Jefferson Davis, Speech at Jackson, MS, Dec. 26, 1862

Southern Political Philosophy

Jeffersonian Influences

One can hardly embark on the journey of Southern political philosophy without due regard to Thomas Jefferson. Jeffersonians, as his political disciples were anointed, viewed the U.S. Constitution as a compact between distinct, sovereign States for which consent could be withdrawn. The Federal Government was thus limited to a short list of enumerated powers, applying only to basic administrative tasks, such as foreign treaties and regulating commerce. Pursuant to the Tenth Amendment, all other powers conceivable were therefore reserved by the several States. It is important to repeat Jeffersonian Democracy’s emphasis on the sovereignty of the States, especially the sovereignty to define and control the means of any such unenumerated powers. In this regard, early America was properly referred to as “the united States of America,” intentionally leaving united lower-cased as to highlight the decentralized nature of the country. Myriad antebellum government documents, Court opinions, and other such official writings even refer to the Union as such.

The Jeffersonian opposition to a strong central government found its foil in the Hamiltonians, or as more commonly known, Federalists. Contrary to Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton believed in a powerful federal government. As such, Federalists viewed the Constitution’s necessary and proper clause as permissive, granting Congress the authority to take all measures it deemed necessary. Jeffersonians, on the other hand, viewed the clause as restrictive; only actions that were absolutely necessary, no more. Consequently, the first major clash between Hamilton and Jefferson came in regard to the creation of a national bank. Jeffersonians critiqued the Federalists as only caring for the wealthy, elite Americans, despite many being Southern aristocrats, themselves. However, the Cavalier influence on the Southern Jeffersonians viewed such aristocratic and chivalric traditions to be exemplified in the yeomanry, not in businesses. In that regard, it makes good sense that Jeffersonians enjoyed a base of support from most rural Americans, of which both the South and America as a whole was dominated.

As for the national bank, Jeffersonians believed that the best way to prevent tyranny was to limit the Federal Government’s power to raise and spend money. Anti-Federalists, with which Jefferson was aligned, had previously advocated that original taxing power belong to the States. Of course, this effort failed, making sense why the very first problems facing the new Republic were tax revolts, the Shay’s and Whiskey Rebellions. Like State taxing power, Jefferson eventually lost the national bank controversy to Hamilton. For this reason, Jefferson’s subsequent election - the very first time in U.S. history a different political party assumed the Oval Office - was dubbed “the Revolution of 1800.” Jefferson promised to abolish all inland federal taxes, much to the chagrin of the previously ruling Federalists. He argued that the international sale of agricultural goods - the sector on which America was built - produced enough revenue to render federal taxes unnecessary; excesses in profits would be spent of manufacturing tools, which would be reinvested back into the agricultural sector, thereby creating a cycle of surplus using the market, not taxes.

There was also the issue of the military: was each State to have its own militia or would there be a single, standing army? At first glance, such an issue seems of trivial import to understanding the Southern mind. After all, it was South Carolina’s John C. Calhoun, himself, who reorganized the militias of the several States into a one, standing army. Think back, however, to the start of this post. The military structure debate was not a mere conversation about the best and most efficient means of national defense, but a deeper, philosophical one. That Thomas Jefferson and the South demanded a State-by-State, localized militia system reflected their views on the U.S., as a whole. State sovereignty was the end-all, be-all of the union. Rather than view States as mere administrative units - like many do today - the South understood each State to be its own sovereign quasi-country. Consequently, such sovereign authorities would and should provide for their own defense and, if needed, rally to support the common defense of its kindred States should a crisis arise. In this regard, to the South, a national, standing army carried the same threat of foreign oppression as did the Norman army when it came to rule over the newly-conquered English countryside.

To exemplify how diametrically opposed the North and South were with respect to Statehood and their role in the Union, consider Abraham Lincoln’s own words. In expressing his confusion as to why a State should have any sovereignty, he declared:

“By the way, in what consists the special sacredness of a State?… If a State and a county, in a given case, should be equal in number of inhabitants, in what, as a matter of principle, is the State better than the county? Would an exchange of name be an exchange of rights?

Calhoun and the Southern Mindset

Jeffersonian Democracy’s real influence on the South would come in the form of nullification. John C. Calhoun, who spearheaded the Nullification Crisis, thus carried the torch of Jeffersonian political thought for the South. In his A Disquisition on Government, Calhoun lamented a tyranny of the majority whereby a mere 51% of the population could assert its will on the rest. Such concerns reflect Alexis de Tocqueville and James Madison’s own warnings during the founding. In Federalist No. 10 and No. 51, Madison argued that such a tyranny was the natural conclusion of direct democracy, thereby necessitating a republic with checks and balances. Such concerns thus led to our creation as a Representative Republic. Calhoun, for his part, expanded on these concerns in asserting the necessity of a “concurrent majority” which could mitigate an unchecked numerical majority. This concurrent majority is simply a consensus/amalgamation of minor interests; a more efficient system whereby major sections of the whole deal specifically with actions that affect them.

Theoretical opponents warned that such a concept was actually anti-majoritarian, and thus anti-democratic. The numerical majority represented the will of “the people,” therefore taking power away from the government and placing it in this hands of the average American. Calhoun, however, responded with a simple demonstration. Equating the numerical majority with the will of the people would allow the government to oppress any minority class by popular mandate. And, noting the incredible diversity of thought in the populous U.S., such a system would grant any interest-group or voting block power to tyrannize the rest of the country. This is especially problematic when a certain issue applies solely to one segment of the population, but has drastically different effects for the other. Case in point, high tariffs proved wondrous for the industrial North, yet completely decimated the agrarian South. This topic will be explored in detail in the next section.

A crude summary of Calhoun’s theory nevertheless, the “concurrent majority” was State sovereignty manifest. In order to protect against the tyranny of the majority, “organisms” were thus necessary “to collect the sense of the community.” While Calhoun never specifically said what the organisms were, it’s evident that he at least meant the States. If the South was already culturally attached to localized politics, and if Jeffersonian thought gave such sentiments a philosophical foundation, then Calhoun cemented a ubiquitous legal and moral duty for States to exercise that authority against a tyrannical power. Calhoun argued that any major federal action must be approved by a concurrent majority of affected States. Since States represent the wills of their respective people, their consent must be obtained in order to guard against federal tyranny. These minority interests must therefore have veto power to nullify any attempt of majority oppression. In practice, this meant that States retained the power to nullify any such law the federal government passed that was a clear and obvious attempt to oppress the national minority. Taken to its logical conclusion, States, as members of a willing, consent-based compact to a Union, could therefore revoke that consent and depart the Union should it devolve into despotism.

If Calhoun’s theory proves too abstract or complicated, here is a simple, understandable example. Should the private interests of the majority of the U.S. sway national policy, it would affect everyone. This doesn’t need to be States, but any interest. For example, imagine that 51% of the country successfully lobbies for a new national policy that prioritizes coastal environmental protection. States like California, New York, etc. are worried that climate change/pollution may degrade its coastline, and they want everyone to step up and take action. As such, the EPA promulgates new regulations wherein States must develop actionable plans that drastically reduce pollution out of fears of a degrading coastline. This plan is extremely costly, but the majority acknowledges that its worth it in the long run. The problem is that for States like Wyoming or South Dakota, they neither have a lot of toxic waste nor even a coastline that’s affected. Nonetheless, because of the new national regulation, they will have to formulate costly mitigation plans that could drive businesses away without reaping any real benefits. In such situations, Calhoun argues that a concurrence of minority interests - Wyoming, South Dakota, etc. - are therefore able to nullify such laws only as they applies to them, and not for the whole country. Important to note, Calhoun did not believe States had right the nullify any law or policy they simply disliked, but rather those they deemed unconstitutional and arbitrarily comprised to oppress them. Keep this theory in mind when I discuss perhaps the biggest problem in the antebellum period: tariffs.

The Years Before the War

If you are American, your U.S. history class probably covered the following series of events: Jamestown and the Mayflower, the American Revolution, U.S. Constitution, Louisiana Purchase, War of 1812, and maybe the Trail of Tears before reaching the Civil War. In this manner, you move from the founding, to revolution, to westward expansion, and out of nowhere, a conflict based on slavery. However, this path conveniently leaves out imperative context in North-South relations in the decades leading up to the Civil War. How many of you even learned about the Nullification Crisis, or Bleeding Kansas, or the Corwin Amendment in school?

The Inconvenient History of Tariffs

The conveniently overlooked events of the early 19th century are imperative to understanding the South’s secession in 1860-1861. Particularly, early America’s turbulent history of tariffs. As mentioned previously, the North was dominated by heavy industry and bustling urban centers, while the South remained ubiquitously agrarian. Agrarian nonetheless, the South quickly became one of the world’s preeminent cotton producers, in no-small thanks to slavery. Following the invention of Eli Whitney’s cotton gin in 1793, the South was able to export massive amounts of cotton to industrial centers in the North and across Europe. Chief among such industrial centers were Manchester and Liverpool, England, which were the most advanced textile hubs in the world. In return for precious cotton, tobacco, and sugarcane, England, France, and Germany traded all manners of manufactured goods back to the South.

The South opted for European manufactured goods because European prices were far cheaper than those from the industrialized North. Northern prices, the Southerners realized, were so high that they would gut the Southern economy and render its farming profitless. So, while the North was self-sufficient in manufactured necessities, the South was entirely reliant on foreign trade. Therein lies the controversy with tariffs.

The first tariffs enacted by Congress were the Tariffs of 1816 and 1824, charging 35% ad valorem and hiked duties on cotton, wool, and cotton bagging. Although the South felt such tariffs were unfair burdens imposed by the North upon the South, they passed and were signed into law. The first protest against such tariffs were thus launched by Virginia’s William Branch Giles, who cited Thomas Jefferson’s Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 as evidence of Congress’ lack of authority to pass protective tariffs.

The Tariff of 1828 became known as the Tariff of Abominations for its outrageously high taxes on both exported raw materials (45%) and imported goods (35%). The South was outraged. Not only did the tariffs ravage the Southern economy, but the European powers with which the South traded responded with tariffs in kind, further destroying the value of Southern crops. Interestingly enough, the Tariff of Abominations was never actually supposed to pass. Martin Van Buren drafted it as a ploy to get Andrew Jackson elected President. Since he knew the South would rally behind Tennessee’s Jackson over the North’s John Quincy Adams anyway, he drafted the most heinous tariffs that directly benefited swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York in order to garner Northern support for Jackson, too. Surprisingly, however, the tariff passed and was enacted. The South expected newly-elected Andrew Jackson to quickly attack the tariff, and when he didn’t, all hell broke loose.

Jackson’s own Vice President, John C. Calhoun, led the charge for the tariff’s nullification. As a South Carolinian, Calhoun was keenly aware of past tariffs drastic effects on his home state. In the mid-1820s, South Carolina lost 56,000 Whites to either death or flight, seeking better economic opportunities elsewhere. The ever-fertile Gulf Coast drew in many South Carolinian farmers, many even selling their slaves in order to afford basic necessities. As such, economic disaster ravaged South Carolina, leaving the state with a much higher slave population than White; a situation that made elites especially wary of potential slave revolts.

In any case, John C. Calhoun launched a nullification campaign on constitutional grounds. Calhoun cited fellow Southerners Thomas Jefferson and James Madison’s Virgnia and Kentucky Resolutions, respectively, as legal precedent. Jefferson stated:

“In cases of an abuse of the delegated powers… a change by the people would be the constitutional remedy; but, where powers are assumed which have not been delegated, a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy: that every State has a natural right in cases not within the compact, to nullify of their own authority all assumptions of power by others within their limits: that without this right, they would be under their dominion, absolute and unlimited.”

Madison went further, asserting:

“In cases of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the States… have the right, and are in duty bound to interpose to arrest the evil, and for maintaining… the authorities, rights, and liberties appertaining to them. ... The Constitution of the United States was formed by the sanction of the States, given by each in its sovereign capacity. It adds to the stability and dignity… that it rests on this solid foundation. The States, then, being parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity that there can be no tribunal above their authority to decide, in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated.”

It was evident to Calhoun, thus, that any abusive amalgamation of power by the federal government would rightfully be met with State resistance and, if such abuse continued, the right of any such State to nullify any such abusive law. Calhoun then published his 35,000-word “Exposition and Protest,” which laid out a constitutional attack on the Tariff of Abominations. Thereby justifying the right of nullification, Calhoun argued the tariff was unconstitutional on the grounds that it favored manufacturing over agriculture. Important to note, Calhoun did not rest his argument on the excesses imposed by Congress, but rather on Congress’ abuse of tariff power in disproportionately and solely protecting Northern industry. This, the South argues, was emblematic of an unconstitutional amalgamation of power by the Federal Government; one that would inevitably lead to tyranny and empire. In his “Exposition,” he states:

“To divide power, and to give to one of the parties the exclusive right of judging of the portion allotted to each, is, in reality, not to divide it at all; and to reserve such exclusive right to the [Federal] Government, is to convert it, in fact, into a great consolidated government, with unlimited powers, and to divest the States, in reality, of all their rights.”

Thus born the Nullification Crisis. States were divided on Nullifier and Unionist lines, which pretty much exactly lines up with the map of the Confederacy v. Union thirty years later. The crisis ended after South Carolina, with the sympathies of Alabama, Georgia, and Virginia, threatened to secede from the Union, leading to Henry Clay’s Compromise Tariff of 1833. The new tariff lowered tax rates, allowing both Jackson and Calhoun to claim victory as tariff powers continued, but their damage to the Southern economy diminished.

Andrew Jackson, haven grown exceedingly frustrated with Southern opposition, prophetically remarked: “the tariff was only a pretext [for secession], disunion and a Southern Confederacy is the real object. The next pretext will be the negro, or the slavery question,” as a disguise for the South’s real motivations: “the great principle of self-government” against a growingly centralized Federal Government.

Leading Up to Lincoln

Before turning to the ever-important issue of slavery, it’s imperative to discuss the continuing role of tariffs in Southern secession. For the decades leading up to 1860, Southern Democrats in Congress kept tariffs low and, therefore, the South happy. President Polk’s Walker Tariff of 1846 both reduced rates to 25% as well as provided equal protection for raw materials and manufactured goods. The Low Tariff of 1857 lowered rates to its lowest point since 1816, at just 15%, in reaction to Britain’s rescinding of their own raw materials tariff. The move was actually so economically beneficial that it boosted U.S. revenue from $20 million in 1840 to $80 million in 1857. The Southern economy was fully restored, yet Northern industrialists were incensed over the lack of protection for the iron trade.

It can be said, then, that secession was truly sparked by the Morrill Tariff, the Radical Republicans’ plan to completely eviscerate the Southern economy in favor of a protectionist regime. To put into context how egregious the Morrill Tariff was, compare it to the Tariff of Abominations. Whereas the Tariff of Abominations almost led to Southern secession over a 45% tax, the Morrill Tariff enacted a whopping 70% tax on dutiable imports in addition to another 38-48% across all exported items. Further damning, by 1860 and before the Morill Tariff, the South comprised of less than 30% of the U.S. population yet was already paying more than 85% of the taxes.

Now, leftist historians will be quick to point out that the Morrill Tariff was enacted on March 2, 1861, which is after the Southern States seceded from the Union. Therefore - they argue - the Morrill Tariff could not have been a reason for secession. However, the Morrill Tariff was first proposed during the 35th Congress in 1857. The tariff was later re-proposed in 1859, but was blocked by an internal House dispute over who would be the Speaker. As such, the South was keenly aware of the Republicans’ plan to hike tax rates to 70% years before the 1860 election ever occurred. Even so, in May 1860, the Ways and Means Committee proposed the Morrill Tariff again, this time passing the House before reaching the Senate in late November, 1860. Since the Senate was dominated by Southern Democrats, the bill was put off - not defeated - for vote until after the 1860 election. Historian Allan Nevins therefore remarks that “the tariff was a prominent issue in the 1860 election.” As such, to regard the Morrill Tariff as an ex post facto justification is an intellectually dishonest reductionist campaign by leftists; ostensibly to reject the economic and political grievances of the South, leaving only slavery as the South’s reason for secession. The South was long-aware of the looming catastrophe that was the Morrill Tariff; they had just avoided secession over a 45% tax, and knew that Republican control would entail the unimaginable 70% tax.

When, in 1860, Abraham Lincoln and the Radical Republicans won, secession ensued. In December 1860 and early 1861, seven Southern States seceded, taking their Senators with them. As such, when the Second Session of the 36th Congress commenced in late December 1860, it lacked the opposition it needed to defeat the Morrill Tariff. Republican victories in the 1860 election thus expanded Northern control of the Senate, leading to the tariffs passing in February 1861, and subsequent enactment on March 2nd. Consequently, the Morrill Tariff was the result of years of lobbying by Radical Republicans; a plan that weighed heavy on the minds of the South since its inception in 1857, forcing the South to secede before it could experience the tariff’s poisonous fruits in 1861.

To really drive home the importance of tariffs in the Southern mind, one can observe several official ordinances issued by Southern States. Of the thirteen States that seceded, only four mentioned slavery as a reason, or in Mississippi’s case, the reason for secession. However, the official Confederate publication regarding the South’s reasons for secession (The Report of the Committee on Foreign Affairs on the Relations to the Affairs Between The Confederate and United States) asserts that:

"That union was affected, in the late Presidential election. On the fiscal operations of the government in the laying and expenditures of taxes, they were previously not sufficiently unified, completely to rule the South. The Party weight of the South… were generally opposed to the protective tariff policy - the grand sectionalising instrument of the North… After the overthrow of the Tariff of 1828, by the resistance of South Carolina in 1833, the agitation of the institution of slavery in the South was commenced by Congress of the United States… The great end was at last obtained, of a united North to rule the South. The first fruit… was tariff lately passed by the Congress… By this tariff the protective policy is renewed in its most odious and oppressive forms, and the agricultural States [the South] are made tributaries to the manufacturing States [the North].

Likewise, the Constitution of the Confederate States went so far as to explicitly forbid the government abuse of tariffs in the very first enumerated power granted to Congress in Article I § 8(1): “nor shall any duties or taxes on importations from foreign nations be laid to promote or foster any branch of industry.”

It bears repeating, and emphasizing, that the South’s intransigence to the North’s excessive tariffs were not due to the tariffs, alone. To make that argument would be reductionism, itself, which is the opposite point of this post. Rather, as Calhoun explained and the Confederate Constitution affirmed, the Federal Government’s wielding of tariffs in order to protect only the Northern industries placed it in a position of picking and choosing which side to protect and which to destroy; an inherent corruption of federal authority. Thus, the Tariff of Abominations and the Morill Tariff, along with “agitations against slavery,” were not isolated abuses but rather the pattern of a corrupt federal government, centralizing power away from the States to favor its own interests. For both the Founders and Confederacy, the centralization of power was the first step to tyranny. In the words on Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens:

“Depend upon it, there is no difference between Consolidation and Empire; no difference between Centralism and Imperialism. The consummation of either must necessarily end in the overthrow of Liberty and the establishment of Despotism.”

Alas, we have finally arrived at slavery.

Slavery and Secession

Was Slavery the Reason for Secession?

Mississippi’s “A Declaration of the Immediate Causes” details, “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world… 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.”

Georgia’s own declaration of causes asserts, “a brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party.”

South Carolina, after listing a laundry list of complaints against the North’s history of abusing the Constitution, declares “[the North has] denounced as sinful the institution of slavery; they have permitted open establishment among them of societies, whose avowed object is to disturb the peace and to eloign the property of the citizens of other States. They have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes; and those who remain, have been incited by emissaries, books and pictures to servile insurrection.”

Texas, too, in their “Declaration of the Causes,” writes that “[Texas] 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.”

It would appear, then, that the endlessly-repeated narrative about the Civil War was correct; that, according to these four Confederate States, slavery was in fact the reason for their secession. Well, I truly hate to go against such plainly dispositive primary sources, but, again, this is not the case. Of the thirteen States of the Confederate States, only four saw it worth mentioning slavery as a cause for secession. This means nine, nearly 70% of the Confederacy, did not see it fit mentioning as a legitimate grievance.

Further, of the four States that did indeed mention slavery as a cause for secession, only two, Mississippi and Georgia, declared it to be the primary reason. Texas and South Carolina, however, used agitations against the institution of slavery as an example of the North, via the Federal Government, abusing the agreed-upon delegations of power in the Constitution to serve their own interests. Accordingly, South Carolina embarked on a lengthy analysis of American history, citing the separate and equal powers of the consenting States to one union before even reaching the issue of slavery. Texas likewise detailed its own history as a previously-independent country, lamenting the Federal Government “who for years almost entirely failed to protect the lives and property of the people of Texas against the Indian savages on our border, and more recently against the murderous forays of banditti from the neighboring territory of Mexico; and when our State government has expended large amounts for such purpose, the Federal Government has refuse reimbursement therefor, thus rendering our condition more insecure and harassing than it was during the existence of the Republic of Texas.” As such, both South Carolina and Texas articulate their defense of slavery as a reason for secession insofar as it is but one of a continued pattern of abuse of federal authority in the unequal and malignant treatment of the South. Therefore, given that only a small fraction of Southern States even mentioned slavery as a cause for secession, and given that only two such States believed the defense of slavery to be the cause of secession, it can hardly be said that the traditional narrative of secession is true. In reality, the Southern States - having the recent history of oppressive tariffs in mind - recognized a pattern of abuse of federal authority in usurping powers from the States and for the advancement of the North’s own private ends, not for the common good.

Compromises and Controversies

Unlike the Morrill Tariff, there was no pending legislation before Congress that would limit slavery in any regard. The election of Lincoln and the Radical Republicans, then, did not mean the abolishment of slavery nor even any restriction thereof. In this regard, one would be forgiven for thinking that Southern secession had nothing at all to do with the protection of slavery. After all, if the Radical Republicans had no eyes on restricting slavery, yet the South seceded in consequence of their rise to power, how can it be said that South’s primary interest in secession was the preservation of slavery?

This, however, is a line of reasoning I would caution my fellow Southerners from resting their arguments on. In the same manner that leftists abuse the words of the Mississippi ordinance or the timing of the Morrill Tariff, this, too, would be a reductionist view of history. If there is one thing that this post sets out to do, it is to present an intellectually honest historical narrative. Key-holing solely on the Radical Republicans’ apathy towards slavery in 1860 as proof of slavery being a non-issue would be to cunningly reduce the problem to a single election at a single time. In plain English, slavery was indeed on the minds of the South come secession.

Just as a half-century of tariffs weighed heavily on the minds of the South, so, too, did the recent decades of slavery-informed conflict. Much centered on the issue of western expansion and the control of Congress. As many are already aware, the Missouri Compromise of 1820 prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territories north of the 36°30’ parallel. Contentious as this was, tempers flared as the U.S. sought to admit the lands it newly acquired from victory in the Mexican-American War. As was legislated during the Missouri Compromise, the vast majority of the land fell below the 36°30’ parallel and thus meant they would be slave states. For this reason, many abolitionist Northerners felt that they were victims of a conspiracy between the Southern elite and western expansionists. This wasn’t a completely baseless argument. After all, the vast majority of the military personnel responsible for conquering Mexico were soon-to-be-famous Southerners like Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. This was so clearly the case, in fact, that Abraham Lincoln is once noted to have had the following exchange with General Winfield Scott:

Lincoln: “Why is that you were able to take the City of Mexico in three months with five thousand men, and we have been unable to take Richmond with one hundred thousand men?”

Scott: “I will tell you. The men who took us into the City of Mexico are the same men who are keeping us out of Richmond.”

Funnily enough, Northern abolitionists felt so strongly about this that they actually formally attempted to secede from the Union in 1842 and again in 1857 (New England Anti-Slavery Convention and Worcester Disunion Convention, respectively). As a side note, this was not the only time the North tried to secede from the South. In the late 18th century, Northern merchants actually viewed the South’s control of the Mississippi River as a threat to its desire to solely control the Union’s waterways for trade and expansion. Yet I digress.

The annexation of Mexican territories below the 36°30’ parallel was bound to result in an imbalance between the slaveholding South and non-slaveholding North. Such an advantageous scenario, however, was disrupted by the Wilmot Proviso; a bill that would ban slavery in the newly annexed territories. This led to the Compromise of 1850, wherein California was admitted as a free State but the territories of New Mexico and Utah were free to decide for themselves. Not all were happy with this compromise, however. Unsurprisingly, it was South Carolina who threatened to secede over what it viewed as another federal assault on the rights of States. Ultimately, it was unable to garner enough support.

Decades of Lead

There is perhaps no slavery-related event that weighed as heavily on the minds of the South as Bleeding Kansas. Whereas previous controversies centered around the legal status of slavery in the newly acquired territories, Bleeding Kansas was the Union’s first experience in assassinations, armed raids, and years of violent bloodshed.

Crudely summarized, the issue centered around Kansas’ admission as a free or slave state. At the time of its admission, Kansas’ decision would flip the balance of power in the Senate to the South or North. Southern-aligned Kansans who immigrated from Missouri thus engaged in a bitter political contest with immigrants from the North. These so-called “Free Soilers” were paid by abolitionists, the New England Emigrant Aid Society, and Northern political organizations in order to flood border territories with the goal of turning Kansas sharply against the South. Northern newspapers cultivated mass hysteria over Kansas’ fate, leading to a reported “20,000 Yankees sent to the Kansas territory” (only a fraction of that actually came). The Northern immigrants were not merely planning to flood the polls, but preparing for war. In fact, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s brother, Henry, is noted to have shipped crates of rifles with each Northern group. One such militant immigrant was John Brown, who moved from Ohio with the expressed goal of instigating and ultimately waging bloody war against Southern-aligned Kansans.

The fighting erupted when a Southern Democrat shot a Free-Soiler over a completely unrelated issue, for which the Douglas County Sheriff actually arrested another Free-Soiler, instead. Free-Soilers thus organized a posse to break into the prison, shoot (but not kill) the Sheriff, and free the wrongfully-arrested Free-Soiler. Here, the first instance of armed conflict - in what would be known as Bleeding Kansas - proved to be the catalyst for a series of back and forth reprisals, each deadlier than the last. Southerners, scandalized by the Free-Soilers blatant disregard for law, concluded that the “abolitionists must be lashed into submission.” A Southern militia was raised by Governor Wilson Shannon who then went on to sack and pillage the Northern-dominated city of Lawrence.

Outraged, the already-maniacally criminal John Brown decided that he had enough. With his sons and several armed, radical ideologues, Brown raided the village of Pottawatomie Creek in reprisal. TheJayLino describes the horrific events of the now-deemed Pottawatomie Massacre in his own article, vividly:

That night, Brown, four of his sons, his son-in-law, and two companions descended upon the homes of simple Southern settlers, not slaveholders, but mere farmers, whose greatest crime was their presence on land contested by Northern emigrant societies. At one cabin, Brown and his men dragged a settler named James Doyle from his home, along with his family. Doyle, for one, was shot point-blank in the face. His sons, William and Drury, were subjected to savage mutilation. William was stabbed in the face, slashed over the head, and shot in his side. Drury was “beaten and hacked to death,” his fingers and arms severed in the process. After he fell, his skull was cut open, and he was stabbed repeatedly long after his death. At the home of a certain Allen Wilkinson, the elderly man was taken from his bed as his wife begged for his life. Her pleas were ignored by Brown’s men, who similarly hacked Wilkinson to death as they killed the preceding three unarmed men. At the James Harris cabin, the raiders seized a man named William Sherman. They marched him to the creek’s edge, where one blow from a broadsword severed his left hand, leaving it hanging by a strand of flesh as he raised it in a futile defense. Further blows opened his skull, and he fell into the shallows, where chunks of his brain drifted off downstream. This massacre accomplished nothing except for transforming wives and children into widows and orphans.

Such evil was sensationalized by the Northern elite, using the massacre as a shining example of abolitionism in New England newspapers. Clearly satisfied with Brown’s barbarism, New England aid societies intensified their already-bountiful monetary and arms support to like-minded guerillas on the frontier. Brown’s Northern-funded plan to universalize slave revolts was finally brought to an end when none other than Robert E. Lee, himself, captured the villain during his raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia.

By then, however, the message was loud and clear. The North was unambiguous in its desire to seize political control of the U.S. by any means necessary. Weaponizing radical abolitionists to cold-blooded murder was but a means to their ambitious ends. In this regard, slavery was merely the pretext for the North’s lust for power. As such, while there was no anti-slavery measures proposed nor even mentioned by any of the Radical Republicans, it was clear to the South that such policies were certainly forthcoming. For States like Mississippi, who’s entire economy was built on slave-laden agriculture, such agitations would not be tolerated. For the South writ large, however, whether it be by tariff, abolitionism, or any other aggrandizement of federal authority, the North was amassing power to serve its own interests. Thus, the 1860 election’s granting of widespread authority to Radical Republicans was the realization of the South’s worst fears: an aggressively-federalizing North with virtually unlimited popular mandate.

The Corwin Amendment

Most Americans are aware that the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution outlaws slavery. After all, it was endlessly reinforced in public school curricula as the defining end-point of the Civil War: the triumph of the abolitionist North versus the slave-holding South. Like tariffs, however, many will be surprised to learn that our beloved Department of Education pedagogy has conveniently neglected to mention what is perhaps the most important “what if” of the 19th century history. I am speaking of what was almost our Thirteen Amendment; more commonly known as “the Corwin Amendment.”

As noted above, the December of 1860 was a tumultuous time in Congress. The Radical Republicans had just won an overwhelming victory in the 1860 election, leading to mass panic. By the time the Second Congress has reconvened, a full-on secession crisis had emerged. South Carolina announced its intention to secede with the rest of the South was cautiously reticent. So as to ameliorate the South’s fears, both the Senate and House formed respective committees for the express purpose of working towards amicable resolution. Proposals were set forth, by both Northern and Southern Congressmen alike, in the spirit of compromise and good will. In total, 200 resolutions were proposed in addition to 57 would-be amendments to the Constitution. None had more weight than that of Ohio’s Thomas Corwin, who proposed the following amendment:

No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any State, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State.

While the Corwin Amendment does not mention slavery by name, it was ubiquitously recognized as having the effect of shielding slavery from Constitutional amendment and acts of Congress. The terms “domestic service” and “persons held to labor” are in fact direct references to early drafts of the U.S. Constitution, wherein slavery was referred to as such.

While Congress was debating the amendment’s merits, however, Texas, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Alabama announced their own intentions to secede from the Union. Consequently, one would think that any such amendment designed to protect slavery would be destined to fail without the votes of seven Southern States, yet this was not the case. The Deep South’s absence notwithstanding, the Corwin Amendment achieved the requisite two-thirds vote necessary to be sent to the States for ratification.

Immediately, lame-duck President James Buchanan ceremoniously signed the amendment as a measure of his unambiguous support. And what will certainly come as a surprise to many, Abraham Lincoln, himself, expressed his support for it. In fact, the Corwin Amendment’s importance was apparently so weighty on the mind of Lincoln that he felt the need to mention it in his inaugural address, saying:

I understand a proposed amendment to the Constitution—which amendment, however, I have not seen—has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service ... holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.

The amendment was then sent to the States for ratification. Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, Maryland, and Rhode Island all ratified the Corwin Amendment. Virginia, too, ratified the Corwin Amendment, as it had not yet seceded, but its ratification remains controversial as its pro-secession legislators had long-walked out of State Congress. The Corwin Amendment’s ratification process was ultimately suspended by the outbreak of war at Fort Sumter in mid-April, 1861.

One must pause to consider the full gravity of the Corwin Amendment. Here is Congress attempting to soothe the great wounds that fractured North and South. Understanding the South was particularly defensive over the institution of slavery, a Northern Senator proposes enshrining, and thus perpetuating, slavery into our Constitution. Such an amendment was met with two-thirds Congressional approval, quick ratification by Northern States, and even the support of Abraham Lincoln. Yet the South still rejected it. If slavery was truly the sole cause of secession, why wouldn’t the South jump at the chance to memorialize the enslavement of Blacks in Constitutional perpetuity? After all, according to the mainstream narrative, this is all the South desired; nothing more, nothing less.

It is clear, then, that the South’s motivations for secession extend far beyond mere slavery, far beyond black-and-white policies of any certain President or Congress, and far beyond half-hearted reconciliation efforts. One therefore cannot deny that the South’s motivations for secession involved deeper, structural concerns with the North’s abuse of the federal government to centralize power in an arbitrary manner. As such, whether it be by tariffing, abolitionism, or any other future abuse, the South understood that the Union of States was weaponized far from its original compact and for the explicit interest of the North. In this manner, the South followed closely the precedent set by our Founding Fathers in seeking independence and self-determination away from a people who no longer looked out for the common interest.

War & Aftermath

While the intricacies of the War Between States are of great importance, this post does not seek to go into detail regarding its battles, themselves. Rather, this section seeks to disabuse us of the many illusions taught and reinforced to us about the circumstances of the war, its players, and its aftermath.

The Northern Cause

The first delusion that must be done away with is the ludicrous idea that the North fought for the emancipation of Southern slaves. Such a fantasy could not be further from the truth. Rather than emancipation, the North waged war on the Confederacy simply for the sole purpose of keeping its empire. As you may recall, only weeks before the outbreak of war at Fort Sumter, Abraham Lincoln, himself, expressed his support for enshrining slavery into the Constitution. Instead, consider Lincoln’s own words, written in his own hand, to editor of the New York Tribune, Horace Greeley. Despite being a New Yorker, Greeley supported the South’s peaceful secession, and inquired to know what Lincoln’s motivations were for his invasion. Lincoln responded:

Hon. Horace Greeley Executive Mansion

As to the policy I "seem to be pursuing" as you say, I have not meant to leave any one in doubt…

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that….

I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free. Yours,

A. LINCOLN

Other Northerners were not so eloquent or “politically correct.” General William Sherman, for example, reassured Southerners that he was “definitely not an abolitionist,” and that “ain’t gonna be no n***ers in Uncle Billy’s Army.” Likewise, after burning Atlanta, much of the South, and its many civilians to a crisp, Sherman told the Atlanta Mayor "We don't want your Negroes, or your horses, or your lands, or any thing you have, but we do want and will have a just obedience to the laws of the United States.” In fact, Sherman was so against abolitionism that when he resigned as Superintendent of a Louisiana military school, he informed Louisiana’s Governor that he would help Southern Whites “protect themselves against negroes and abolitionists,” but could not tolerate secession.

The Emancipation Proclamation

The second, and perhaps more ubiquitous delusion, is that Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation” freed the slaves. It did not free a single one. Relevant provisions of the proclamation read:

"All persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free…

Now, therefore I, Abraham Lincoln… order and designate as the States and parts of States wherein the people thereof respectively, are this day in rebellion against the United States, the following, to wit:

Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, (except the Parishes of St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, St. John, St. Charles, St. James Ascension, Assumption, Terrebonne, Lafourche, St. Mary, St. Martin, and Orleans, including the City of New Orleans) Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia, (except the forty-eight counties designated as West Virginia, and also the counties of Berkley, Accomac, Northampton, Elizabeth City, York, Princess Ann, and Norfolk, including the cities of Norfolk and Portsmouth[)], and which excepted parts, are for the present, left precisely as if this proclamation were not issued.”

Here, one can see that the proclamation has an emancipatory effect ONLY insofar as the slaves reside in any State or county in rebellion against the United States. Secession, of course, was not an all-or-nothing affair; many counties in many states refused to join their respective capitals in secession from the Union. As such, Lincoln makes clear that for such counties which remained in the union, any slaves found therein shall remain enslaved. States like Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, and Delaware were all slave-holding states, but the proclamation did not free those slaves. Likewise, since the proclamation only affected those slaves under the jurisdiction of the Confederacy, Lincoln had no authority/power to emancipate them. The Confederate States of America was its own sovereign and independent country; no such proclamation from Washington, D.C. could affect its internal policies. Lincoln knew this. Thus, the effect of the Emancipation Proclamation was not to free slaves (as the slaves in the Union remained in chains), but rather in hopes of sewing internal chaos and fomenting slave revolts in the South.

The Reconstruction Amendments

The final delusion regarding the North’s supposed “moral crusade” comes in regard to the passing of the Reconstruction Amendments, particularly the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. If you adhere to liberal orthodoxy, the story is fairly straightforward. After the Union’s victory over the barbaric Confederacy, the egalitarian North quickly and unanimously voted to emancipate the slaves and end tyranny everywhere. The Thirteenth Amendment, of course, is the amendment that abolishes slavery in the United States, and was ratified in 1865, the same year General Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox.

As you may have guessed, the real story is far more complex. After the end of the war, the Union placed the Southern States under military occupation. This effectively stripped them of the rights and privileges of States, instead turning them into occupied zones of federal authority. The Union then wasted no time in submitting the Thirteenth Amendment for ratification, but there was a major problem. Pursuant to Article V of the U.S. Constitution, amendments require the ratification of three-fourths of States, 27 of the then 36 States. The North was unable to reach such a threshold alone, and thus required the Southern States to ratify the amendment as a condition to federal recognition of their State governments and return to national politics. Thus, only after normalization of State authority in the South was the Thirteenth Amendment ratified and entered into force.

The story of the Fourteenth Amendment, however, is far more pernicious. Whereas the Thirteenth Amendment merely encouraged the South’s cooperation as a means to speed up normalization, ratification of the Fourteenth occurred at the end of a rifle. When the Fourteenth Amendment was submitted to the States for ratification, many States - North and South - rejected it. In response, Congress passed the Reconstruction Acts of 1867, which returned the South to brutal military rule. Among the many heinous and tyrannical abuses the Act manifested, the following are pertinent to this conversation. Firstly, the Act created ten military districts wherein Union generals reigned and were so authorized enforce federal laws, remove/replace/appoint local authorities, and supervise all political processes. These military districts were far more oppressive than the initial military occupation zones, elevating the presiding general to a quasi-dictatorial level. Secondly, each Southern State was required to repudiate its former constitution and instead write a new constitution; one that guaranteed citizenship, voting rights, and equality to freed Blacks. Finally, all former Confederate officials, soldiers, and ideologues were barred from political office. Practically, this meant any avowed supporter of the Southern cause was banned from being a politician, judge, policeman, or even civil servant.

This context is imperative in understanding the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification. As said above, many Northern States rejected it. As such, more so than the Thirteenth, it desperately needed the votes of the South. Remember how the Reconstruction Acts of 1867 barred all Confederates from holding office? And how presiding Union generals had the power to appoint people to political office? This entailed that State legislatures were now solely comprised of newly emancipated Blacks, Unions soldiers, and/or Northern carpetbaggers who moved South for personal economic gain. As a result, “the South” ubiquitously voted to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment through their Union-puppet governments. Had this not been the case, the Fourteenth Amendment would have never gotten anywhere close to the requisite three-fourths of States to pass. As such, the very legitimacy of such amendments is up for debate. Does the fact that the South had no free will in ratification change their legitimacy? Does using foreign puppet-governments to bludgeon a radical agenda through ratification disillusion you to their supposed democratic mandate? One thing is clear, however. The utter fantasy that the North fought for the emancipation and equality of slaves is shown false by the fact that the North, itself, could not muster enough votes to enshrine emancipation and birthright citizenship into the Constitution. Instead of relying on the “egalitarian North,” the Radical Republicans in Congress resorted to military force, zombie voters, and “democracy” born from the end of a rifle barrel.

Our Southern Heroes

Whole posts - or better yet, books - should be devoted to each and every hero mentioned herein, but let this serve as a short, key-holed summary of such monumental men. Given modernity’s endless slander campaign against our ancestors, I find it necessary to mention many of our great heroes in the proper, respectful context they deserve. I’m sure many astute readers of history are happily equipped to add any anecdotes, nuggets, or facts that I fail to mention, and thus I must beg your pardon for the painfully short synopses below.

Robert E. Lee

There is perhaps no better place to start than with the man President Eisenhower called, “noble as a a leader and a man, and unsullied [in] the pages of our history.” That man, of course, is General Robert E. Lee. The Man of Marble, himself, General Lee descended from the heights of Southern aristocracy, embodying the very epitome of its chivalrous ideal. Further solidifying his name into American nobility, General Lee married Mary Custis Lee, the daughter of George Washington’s adopted son. Of course, Lee’s greatness extends far beyond mere rank and titles. He was an exceptionally noble man, one that valued God and his duty as a Christian above all else. For this reason, Eisenhower further wrote that “through his many trials, he remained selfless almost to a fault and unfailing in his faith towards God.” Such a Christian faith likewise informed his views on the all-important slavery question. Lee believed slavery was an unfortunate evil; one that was eventually dying out but necessary to bring Blacks to Christ. In his letter to his wife, Lee stated:

“How long their subjugation may be necessary is Known & ordered by a wise & merciful Providence. Their emancipation will sooner result from the mild & melting influence of Christianity, than the storms & tempests of fiery Controversy. This influence though slow is sure. The doctrines & miracles of our Saviour have required nearly two thousand years to Convert but a small part of the human race, & even Christian nations, what gross errors still exist! While we see the Course of the final abolition of human slavery is onward, & we give it the aid of our prayers & all justifiable means in our power we must leave the progress as well as the result in his hands who Sees the end.”

It must be stated, however, despite such feelings of Christian brotherhood and sympathy for the enslaved Blacks, Lee was indeed supportive of slavery as an institution. Many Northern abolitionists, in fact, not only wanted the slaves emancipated, but also sent back to Africa. For Lee, this was a greater evil. Should Blacks be sent back to Africa, they would not be able to learn about and accept Jesus Christ. Thus, the lesser evil was a temporary institution that could lead to the evangelization of an entire race. An evil nonetheless, his legal qualms were more concerned with the manner by which they would achieve emancipation. Believing that a fiery controversy borne from Northern abolitionists would perpetuate animosity between the races, Lee preferred to let slavery die out naturally in the South just as it did in the North. This, for Lee, could have been as short as a few years or as long as half a century. As such, just as this fact doesn’t make Lee some sort of revisionist emancipator, it so too rebukes the fanciful notion that he was a cartoonishly evil, racist oppressor. In fact, his worries that a “fiery controversy”-led emancipation would perpetuate racial conflict has proven to be prophetical.

Lee’s prognosis on slavery was not his only prophecy that came true. Perhaps most famous was his warning that “the consolidation of States into one vast Empire, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of ruin which has overwhelmed all that preceded it.” Many who vehemently oppose Lee and the Confederacy may find sympathy in such a warning; contemporary American policy has no shortage of foreign forever wars and internal abuses of power. Lee, however, needed not wait until modernity to see such abuses manifest. Lee was true believer in reconciliation and peaceful participation in Union reintegration. He urged his fellow Southerners to participate in good faith with Union demands, believing it was necessary to heal the wounds of secession’s schism. This was a particularly remarkable position, given that Radical Reconstruction imposed a military dictatorship on the South, barred the South from political participation, and engendered a slander campaign against their culture and cause. Despite his good faith effort in promoting reconciliation, it is reported that Lee (although unconfirmed and debated) Lee expressed his regret to Texas’ Governor Stockdale. If real, the travesties that took place during Radical Reconstruction must have been so devastating as to lead Lee to say something as shocking as:

“Governor, if I had foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Court House—no, sir, not by me. Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in my right hand.”

Finally, many know all too well the story of Lee’s near-appointment to High Command of the Union Army by Abraham Lincoln, and how it was Lee’s devotion to Virginia that forced him to decline. Such a fact owed to Lee’s ubiquitous respect as a commander, and more so as a man. In Lee’s own words, “If Virginia stands by the old Union, so will I. But if she secedes (though I do not believe in secession as a constitutional right, nor that there is sufficient cause for revolution), then I will follow my native State with my sword, and, if need be, with my life.” It is for this reason Sir Winston Churchill remarked, “[Lee] was opposed to slavery and thought that, ‘secession would do no good,’ but he had been taught from childhood that his first allegiance was to the state of Virginia.” In this manner, Lee’s true crime was his loyalty to his homeland, the place of his birth, of his ancestors, and of his descendants: Virginia. Consequently, one can clearly see why President Eisenhower so ferociously defended Robert E. Lee’s placement on his list of “the four greatest Americans.” I should be so inclined as to agree.

Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson

Like Lee, General Thomas Jackson was a Virginian, West Point graduate, and decorated hero of the Mexican-American War. These two great generals so too are linked in their shared fiery passion for and unwavering faith in the Lord, Our God. Many are aware that Jackson’s nickname, “Stonewall,” was borne from his standing firm in the face of gunfire and Union advancement, providing a rallying point for his men. What many are not aware of, however, is how such bravery came to be. Jackson himself stated, “my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe as in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time of my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to always be ready, whenever it may overtake me.” For this reason, biographers have noted Jackson to think “of war as a religious crusade,” and himself “as an Old Testament warrior.”

Jackson’s Christian faith was not limited to just the battlefield. A strict observer of every Godly commandment, Jackson forbade military action on Sundays, the Lord’s Day, and limited activities to newspapers and conversation. Jackson likewise cared deeply for Blacks, seeing them as his equals in regards to a universal need for Jesus Christ. As such, Jackson was quite controversial in his creation of Sunday Schools for enslaved and free Blacks. His wife, Mary Anna Jackson, wrote, “He had a deep interest in the spiritual welfare of the colored people and organized a Sunday-school for them.” Care nonetheless, Jackson still believed the institution of slavery was permitted by God, albeit not the heinous, chattel treatment of many of his contemporaries. Jackson believed that Blacks had souls and must be instructed in the way of salvation. Such a view promulgated his paying of fines for Blacks in order to allow them to learn to read, specifically the Bible. Jackson, of course, owned slaves himself, but his reputation for compassion and fairness led multiples slaves to request to be sold to him. Jackson is even noted to have bought a young slave girl, Emma, who had a severe disability because he felt he and his wife could more properly care for her.

As a commander, few were more effective. Jackson’s three consecutive defeats of Union forces in Shenandoah Valley, his home, shot him up to national repute. After assisting General Lee in the Second Manassas Campaign, Jackson’s expert flanking maneuver and subsequent defeat of Union General McClellan earned him promotion to Lieutenant General. He won the Battle of Chancellorsville, but was unfortunately mistakenly fired upon by his own after returning from a reconnaissance mission that night. General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson died from such wounds, reposing in the Lord on May 10, 1863 in Lexington, Virginia.

Other Notable Figures

As stated above, each person mentioned truly deserves their own book. Hoping to not extend this post to a drawn-out encyclopedia, however, I’ve added more brief nuggets on a few other, particularly important figures. Specifically, General Nathan Bedford Forrest and General Patrick Cleburne.

In the nicest, most politically correct manner of speaking possible, General Nathan Bedford Forrest was the “bad cop” to General Lee’s “good cop.” Unlike Lee and Jackson, Forrest had no prior military training before the War Between States, enlisting as a private in the 7th Tennessee Cavalry Regiment. Owing to his incredible discipline, fearlessness, and leadership, Forrest became one of the only soldiers to enlist as a private and be promoted to General. Forrest worked many miracles on the battlefield, not least was his breaking of General Ulysses S. Grant’s siege of Fort Donelson, his resounding successes in the West Tennessee Raids, and the Battle of Fort Pillow (and the ensuing Fort Pillow Massacre). For this reason, a newspaper reporter who followed Grant’s army remarked, “Forrest was the only Confederate cavalrymen of whom Grant stood in much dread.” General Sherman likewise viewed Forrest as the most powerful and cunning of all Confederates, saying “that devil Forrest must be hunted down and killed if it costs ten thousand lives and bankrupts the Federal treasury.” Sherman then added, “[Forrest} was the most remarkable man our civil war produced on either side.” In fact, General Robert E. Lee is reported to have been asked who the greatest general of the war was, and he responded, “Sir, a gentleman I have never had the pleasure to meet, General Nathan Bedford Forrest.”

If Forrest was truly remarkable and heroic as a military commander, his post-war endeavors may leave many in want. Seeing as not to present my own fanciful picture of the Confederacy as an idyllic, Christian utopia, the “controversial” must be presented alongside with the good. If many are unaware of Forrest’s incredible exploits during the war, it is likely due to his more famous impact on American history: the Ku Klux Klan. Of course, when one thinks of the Ku Klux Klan, images of white-hooded, cartoonishly evil cross-burnings come to mind. It must be stated, then, that the Klan had three iterations, of which the first was under Forrest’s leadership. Forrest’s Klan was not emblematic of the typical, white-hooded Klansmen one thinks of today, but rather a paramilitary organization designed to continue the war against occupying Northerners via insurgency and guerilla warfare. In practice, Forrest’s Klan worked in the shadows against Northern federal agents occupying the South with the goal of using hybrid warfare to return the South to a state of sovereignty and possibly even independence. Of course, while Forrest’s Klan’s main targets were Republican politicians, Union servicemen, and federal agents, the Hearings of 1871 show that the Klan likewise directed heinous violence towards innocent Blacks and newly-formed, Union-funded Black militias.

Despite Forrest’s position as de facto leader of the Ku Klux Klan, his racial opinions radically changed in the 1870s. In 1869, Forrest disbanded the Klan for, among other reasons, a lack of discipline, its resorting to wanton violence, and mission-creep. Whereas Forrest was explicit in his purpose to oppose Reconstruction policies and protect White communities, he felt the Klan had grown a chaotic proclivity to lash out against civilians, both Black and White. Consequently, many were surprised when Forrest spoke of racial harmony in his speech the Pole-Bearers Association, a Black civic organization. Specifically, Forrest said, “We have but one flag, one country; let us stand together. We may differ in color, but not in sentiment,” “When I can do anything for you, I shall be glad to do it… when you are oppressed I will come to your relief,” and even “I am your friend… and if I can be of service to you in any way, I will do it.”

The final Confederate hero I mention is General Patrick Cleburne. Dubbed “Stonewall of the West,” Cleburne is noted to have perhaps been the most effective commander of any figure in the entire war. Born in Ireland, Cleburne immigrated to Arkansas in 1849 to work as a pharmacist. In this regard, Cleburne echoed Forrest’s own path to leadership. He was not a graduate of any military academy nor member of the aristocracy. Instead, Cleburne enlisted in the Arkansas State Militia, promoting far up the ranks through merit alone. Cleburne’s decision to fight for the Confederacy was not borne out of any affection for the institution of slavery - he himself claims to not care for it - but rather affinity for the South and their complaints against federal overreach.

Cleburne is perhaps most famous for his plan to emancipate all Southern slaves in order to enlist them in their fight against the Union. As an astute reader of history, Cleburne cited:

“Will the slaves fight? The helots of Sparta stood their masters good stead in battle. In the great sea fight of Lepanto where the Christians checked forever the spread of Mohammedanism over Europe, the galley slaves of portions of the fleet were promised freedom, and called on to fight at a critical moment of the battle. They fought well, and civilization owes much to those brave galley slaves... the experience of this war has been so far that half-trained negroes have fought as bravely as many other half-trained Yankees.

It is said that slavery is all we are fighting for, and if we give it up we give up all. Even if this were true, which we deny, slavery is not all our enemies are fighting for. It is merely the pretense to establish sectional superiority and a more centralized form of government, and to deprive us of our rights and liberties.”

Patrick Cleburne likewise proved prophetical in his critiques of Lincoln and the Radical Republicans. In his January 1864 memorandum, Cleburne warned that “every man should endeavor to understand the meaning of subjugation before it is too late… it means the loss of liberty, property, and all that makes life worth living.” Cleburne clearly understood what Southern defeat entailed. Contrary to General Lee’s optimistic, good-faith engagement in reconciliation efforts, Cleburne knew better than most that the North would enact its wrath on the South and her descendants. Prophetically, Cleburne warned:

"Surrender means that the history of this heroic struggle will be written by the enemy, that our youth will be trained by Northern school teachers; learn from Northern school books THEIR version of the war, and taught to regard our gallant dead as traitors and our maimed veterans as fit subjects of derision."

There can be no better prognosis of our current situation. Today, the Southern cause is reduced, ridiculed, and derided as uniquely evil. It’s heroes shamed and erased, and our own citizens force-fed a Northern narrative to hate our own ancestors. It is here I conclude, in both celebration of our heroes and in solemn memory of a heroic struggle so malevolently expunged from public memory.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Southern cause was far more complex than the modern mainstream narrative would have you believe. Rather than a singularly-focused, slavery-or-nothing divide, the War Between States was borne out of a centuries-long cultural and political rift. To reduce the conflict to 1861 alone is convenient, to be sure, but a painfully faulty premise. Rather, the war can only be understood in its proper historical context, accounting for the myriad cultural, religious, and political philosophies that underlay each side’s motivations. Whereas the North had long forsaken tradition in favor of expedience, profits, and empire, the South remained committed to a slower-paced, decentralized English manner of life. In that regard, it is not a stretch to say that the works of John C. Calhoun paralleled the very struggles that precipitated the Magna Carta. Nor was Abraham Lincoln’s centralization of power too attenuated from King Charles I’s own rise to tyranny. Thus, to understand American history is to understand our heritage, our blood, and our ancestors. There’s a reason why the loudest, most vile voices decrying the South come from immigrants fresh off the boat; they cannot hope to understand our culture, much less our history.

I would caution my fellow Southerners to stop simply yelling “States’ Rights,” hoping it solves all our worries. “States’ Rights” has become a nothing term, shouted endlessly into the void to the point where it has lost all meaning. In that regard, it has gone the way of “fascism,” the left’s favorite buzzword that has no actual meaning or definition behind it. It is true, however, that the issues of antebellum America largely boiled down to State sovereignty; whether the U.S. should be one, centralized empire or a union of consenting, sovereign States. As was the issue in the Nullification Crisis, the Revolution of 1800, the Confederation Period, and even the English Civil Wars, so too was the issue of government authority the cause of the Civil War. In that manner, the Civil War may be more properly called “the Second American Revolution.”

Specifically, such federal authority was first abused in its levying of arbitrary tariffs. As a reminder, it was not the tariffs per se that was the abuse of federal authority, but the uneven manner for which they were enacted. When the federal government enacts any national policy it is, in theory, beneficial to the nation, as a whole. Tariffs, however, benefitted only the North and devastated only the South. It is in this regard that the federal government abused its authority. Since the majority of the U.S. lived in the North, it could simply shoe-horn its own interests through Congress to the detriment of the South. In this regard, the South asserted State sovereignty; the constitutional idea that any such arbitrary national policy could be nullified as it pertains to that specific State. Tariffs had destroyed the Southern economy, rendered its agrarian lifestyle meaningless, and set its citizens on the course of destitution. When the Radical Republicans sought to enact the Morrill Tariff, the writing was on the wall. This union could not last.

Moreover, the notion that the South was motivated solely by slavery is quite evidently a reductionist lie. Yet, simultaneously, the counter-claim that slavery was irrelevant to secession is likewise untrue. Since the North had long-abandoned its own use of slaves, agitations against the institution were the source of controversy for at least thirty years. Various compromises, Bleeding Kansas, and the fear that Lincoln was a secret abolitionist motivated many in the South to support secession before slavery, too, was outlawed. Of course, by 1860, only 5% of individual Southerners actually owned slaves. A far cry from the modern narrative that all Southerners were a Calvin Candie-esque white supremacist. Yet the fear that it could be outlawed affected many. Not in regards to personal fear for loss of property, nor for anger that a Black could be equated to a white. Rather, the idea that the North could outlaw slavery was worrisome, mostly, in that it represented yet another Northern use of the federal government to attack the South. If slavery did weigh on the minds of Southerners, it was not nearly as important as modernity would have us believe. After all, the North offered to enshrine slavery into our very Constitution! The South rejected it. Should the war been solely about slavery, the South would have jumped at the chance to ratify the Corwin Amendment. Rather, even if slavery was protected, the South understood that the North’s abuse of federal authority would not end. If not by tariffs, nor by slavery, it would always be something else. As the South feared, the U.S. was becoming an empire.

This post has hopefully served as an overview for the true historical context behind the Southern cause. A true depiction nonetheless, my only regret is how brief this was. This post did not even touch the fact that all Native Americans fought on the Southern side, or that “Honest Abe” was an actually an insult meant to mock the tyrant, or even the pervasive and insidious presence of Communist ‘48er Germans in the Union. Yes, you read that right. Failed Communist revolutionaries from Germany immigrated en masse to Chicago, where they radicalized Northerners in painting the war as a class struggle; Karl Marx even had constant correspondence with Lincoln! But I digress.

The point of this post was not to win you over to the South’s political beliefs or to make you hate your own country. I, myself, am not a Jeffersonian Democrat nor do I espouse reverence for Enlightenment philosophy. Rather, I wrote this post to detail that the South’s position was legitimate; grounded in genuine legal grievances regarding the North’s abuse of Constitutional authority. In that manner, you need not even agree with the South’s legal argument, just that you recognize their cause was not some cartoonishly racist endeavor. For those of you who think the U.S. should always have been a centralized, industry-run empire, I recognize that it is therefore even legitimate for you to support the North and Lincoln. However, to those of you who do so, I must ask: where has that industry gone? What have been the fruits of empire? The Rust Belt’s factories, which insisted upon tariffs that ravaged the South, have long left for China or India. A government that only cared about profits in 1860 has continued to do so. This time, it is your parents and grandparents without jobs, your neighborhoods filled with immigrants, and your culture being erased and demonized. Our centralized empire has become the world’s most powerful, but what have been the fruits? We’ve turned our backs on the Lord, export forever wars, import foreign hordes, and promote sexual degeneracy. In this regard, I ask that we take a page from the Southern playbook; to slow down, worry less about profits, and more about God and family.

“For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?”

Mark 8:36

DEO VINDICE

IC XC NIKA