The Civil War was Absolutely About Slavery
Many factors led up to the Civil War, but only one was central to the cause of it: SLAVERY. The 1861 Texas Articles of Secession prove this beyond a doubt and anyone arguing anything less has not done the research needed, or is engaged in racial fiction. The reasons for war, written by the slave owners themselves, is quite clear. This document points clearly to the reasons why the southern slave owning states started the war. The racial factors are many including: the Three-fifths Compromise, slave revolts, the Haitian Revolution, white supremacy, the wars with Mexico to expand slavery, the Compromise of 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act, the Dred Scott Decision, the rise of the Knights of the Golden Circle, the publication of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” John Brown’s Raid at Harpers Ferry, the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, and others.
All of these events led to the Civil War, and slavery itself dominates economic factors, politics, and social dynamics in explaining the conflict. In reading the letters of hundreds of northern and southern soldiers they were certain the war was about slavery (Manning, 2007). Any historian saying it was not about slavery is misinformed, lazy, or a racist. Texas slave owners gave their reasons, which was later covered up by the Myth of the Lost Cause, a false history written to explain away slavery. Slick verbal and written manipulation of words was used, such as “States’ Rights’ and “Northern Aggression.” These terms are pure slave owner propaganda, for “States’ Rights” meant the right of the slave holders in each state to own slaves, while “Northern Aggression” meant the abolitionist movement.
The Articles read: “She (Texas) was received into the confederacy with her own constitution, under the guarantee of the federal constitution and the compact of annexation, that she should enjoy these blessings. . .. 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, … Her institutions and geographical position established the strongest ties between her and other slave-holding States of the confederacy. . .. By consolidating their strength, they have placed the slave-holding States in a hopeless minority in the federal congress, and rendered representation of no avail in protecting Southern rights against their exactions and encroachments. . .. and their pledges to continue them to the final consummation of these schemes for the ruin of the slave-holding States. . .. They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and the negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States. . ..”
If one counts the words in the document the majority of them relate to the question of slavery, sometimes couched in coded language. For example, “crusade” is a code word for abolition, and “outlaws” is coded to mean abolitionists. “Seditious pamphlets” is anti-slavery material and “murder” is used to describe the actions of those that fought against slavery. The document finally says, “We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, . . . that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race.” There can be no real doubt that slavery was the reason.
