You are saying something that is objectively wrong. The south fought to preserve chattel slavery and white supremacy, the Alexander Stephens the vice president of the CSA, explicitly said this in a speech, he said of the rebel government that, and I quote,
"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth."
That is again, a clear articulation, in a public, well-documented speech, by the vice president of the rebellion that the rebellion had nothing to do with freedom, and everything to do with slavery and white supremacy. The only relation to freedom was the explicit and consistently restated aim to deny freedom to black people. If you still want to pretend this isn't about stopping freedom, and enshrining white supremacy, you're literally arguing against the literal words of the people who were rebelling. I can't make this any clearer.
P.S. if you think I'm taking it out of context, here is a link to the entire speech if you want to read it in full:
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/cornerstone-speech/
Well Stephens denies that an acurate acount and we have his acount of what he says he said, not what was in the northern press, but thats by the bye as he made similar statement all over the CS states
Jefferson, Madison and Washington, and many others, were tender of the word slave in the organic law, and all looked forward to the time when the institution of slavery should be removed from our midst as a trouble and a stumbling block. The delusion could not be traced in any component parts of the Southern Constitution. In that instrument we solemnly discarded the pestilent heresy of fancy politicians, that all men, of all races, were equal, and we had made African inequality and subordination, and the equality of white men, the chief corner stone of the Southern Republic...
- Alexander H. Stephens, as recorded by the Richmond Enquirer, March 19, 1861
Source: <<
http://www.cw-chronicles.com/blog/views-of-vice-president-stephens/
He, like nearly all people of that time were white supremasists.
William Tecumseh Sherman, believed that "all the Congresses on earth can't make the negro anything else than what he is; he must be subject to the white man, or he must amalgamate or be destroyed. Two such races cannot live in harmony, save as master and slave."
William H. Seward Secretary of State:
"The population of the United States consists of natives of Caucasian origin, and exotics of the same derivation. The native mass readily assimilates to itself and absorbs the exotic, and these constitute one homogenous people. The African race, bond and free, and the aborigines, savage and civilised, being incapable of such assimilation and absorption, remain distinct, and, owing to their peculiar condition, constitute inferior masses, and may be regarded as accidental if not disturbing political forces. The ruling homogenous family, planted at first on the Atlantic shore, and following an obvious law, is seen rapidly and continually spreading itself westward, year by year, subduing the wilderness and the prairie, and thus extending this great political community, which, as fast as it advances, breaks into distinct States for municipal purposes only, while the whole constitutes one entire, contiguous, and compact nation."
Thaddeus Stevens was even more blunt: back in 1862
This talk of restoring the Union as it was, and under the Constitution as it is, is one of the absurdities which I have heard repeated until I have become sick of it. There are many things which make such an event impossible. This Union never shall, with my consent, be restored under the Constitution as it is!...
In 63
The Union as it was, and the Constitution as it is — God forbid it! We must conquer the Southern States, and hold them as conquered provinces Thaddeus Stevens,
and in 65
"I thought the time had come when the laws of war were to govern our action; when constitutions, if they stood in the way of the laws of war in dealing with the enemy, had no right to intervene.
In 1855, Senator Benjamin F. Wade, said in a speech delivered in the United States Senate, "Who is the judge in the last resort of the violation of the Constitution of the United States by the enactment of a law? Who is the final arbiter, the General Government or the States in their sovereignty? Why, sir, to yield that point is to yield up all the rights of the States to protect their own citizens, and to consolidate this government into a miserable despotism." And he further said on the 18th of December, 1860, "I do not so much blame the people of the South, because I think they have been led to believe that we to-day, the dominant party, who are about to take the reins of government, are their mortal foes, and stand ready to trample their institutions under foot."
And again:Ben wade
If they [the Southern people] do not feel interested in upholding this Union — if it really entrenches on their rights — if it endangers their institutions to such an extent that they cannot feel secure under it — if their interests are violently assailed by the means of this Union, I am not one of those who expect that they will long continue under it. I am not one of those who ask them to continue in such a Union. It would be doing violence to the platform of the party to which I belong. We have adopted the old Declaration of Independence as the basis of our political movements, which declares that any people, when their Government ceases to protect their rights, when it is so subverted from the true purposes of government as to oppress them, have the right to recur to fundamental principles, and if need be, to destroy the Government under which they live, and to erect upon its ruins another conducive to their welfare. I hold that they have this right. I will not blame any people for exercising it, whenever they think the contingency has come. I certainly shall be an advocate of that same doctrine whenever I find that the principles of this Government have become so oppressive to the section to which I belong, that a free people ought not longer to endure it.... I hope the Union will continue forever. I believe it may continue forever. I see nothing at present which I think should dissolve it; but if other gentlemen see it, I say again that they have the same interest in maintaining this Union, in my judgment, as we of the North have. If they think they have not, be it so. You cannot forcibly hold men in the Union; for the attempt to do so, it seems to me, would subvert the first principles of the Government under which we live.
Note this is B Wade on the side of secession
Lincoln
While I was at the hotel to-day, an elderly gentleman called upon me to know whether I was really in favor of producing a perfect equality between the negroes and white people. While I had not proposed to myself on this occasion to say much on that subject, yet as the question was asked me I thought I would occupy perhaps five minutes in saying something in regard to it. I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races -- that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.
“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in anyway the social and political equality of the white and black races -- that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office,nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man,am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.” What he did believe was that, like all men, blacks had the right to improve their condition in society and to enjoy the fruits of their labor. In this way they were equal to white men, and for this reason slavery was inherently unjust.
In 1848 he supported the Illinois state law of not allowing any blacks to migrate to the state and not allowing blacks citizenship.Abolitionist and even a southern newspapers spoke out against the law. 1836 Tuesday Jan 5 Lincoln was among the voters 36-16 to not allow blacks the right to vote. He voted for a state law that taxed blacks without representation. On may 15 1840 Lincoln attacked Martin Van buren for his support for NY free Negroes the right to vote. In 1858 Lincoln refused to sigh a bill that would allow blacks to testify against whites in court.
Stephen Douglas was merely stating an historical fact when he declared in 1858 that "this Government was established on the white basis. It was made by white men, for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever, and never should be administered by any except white men."
Hobbs v. Fogg
a free Black man sued for the right to vote in Pennsylvania. The State supreme court replied:
...[A] free ***** or mulatto is not a citizen within the meaning of the Constitution and laws of the United States, and of the State of Pennsylvania, and, therefore, is not entitled to the right of suffrage.... But in addition to interpretation from usage, this antecedent legislation declared that no colored race was party to our social compact. Our ancestors settled the province as a community of white men; and the blacks were introduced into it as a race of slaves; whence an unconquerable prejudice of caste, which has come down to our day.... Consistently with this prejudice, is it to be credited that parity of rank would be allowed to such a race?... I have thought fair to treat the question as it stands affected by our own municipal regulations without illustration from those of other States, where the condition of the race has been still less favored. Yet it is proper to say that the second section of the fourth article of the Federal Constitution, presents an obstacle to the political freedom of the *****, which seems to be insuperable.
*
The Ohio supreme court Calvin v. Carter
It has always been admitted, that our political institutions embrace the white population only. Persons of color were not recognized as having any political existence. They had no agency in our political organizations, and possessed no political rights under it. Two or three of the States form exceptions. The constitutions of fourteen expressly exclude persons of color by a provision similar to our own; and, in the balance of the States, they are excluded on the ground that they were never recognized as a part of the body politic.... Indeed, it is a matter of history, that the very object of introducing the word white into our constitution, by the convention framing that instrument, was to put this question beyond all cavil or doubt, by, in express terms, excluding all persons from the enjoyment of the elective franchise, except persons of pure white blood.
Thacher v. Hawk Indiana supreme court
This exclusion of persons of color, or, of any degree of colored blood, from all political rights, is not founded upon a mere naked prejudice, but upon natural differences. The two races are placed as wide apart by the hand of nature as white from black, and, to break down the barriers, fixed, as it were, by the Creator himself, in a political and social amalgamation, shocks us, as something unnatural and wrong. It strikes us as a violation of the laws of nature. It would be productive of no good. It would degrade the white, if it could be accomplished, without elevating the black. Indeed, if we gather lessons of wisdom from the history of mankind — walk by the light of our experience, or consult the principles of human nature, we shall be convinced that the two races never can live together upon terms of equality and harmony.
Crandall v. The State Connecticut supreme court
The persons contemplated in this act are not citizens within the obvious meaning of that section of the Constitution of the United States which I have just read. Let me begin by putting this plain question: Are slaves citizens? At the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, every State was a slave State.... We all know that slavery is recognized in that Constitution; it is the duty of this court to take that Constitution as it is, for we have sworn to support it.... Then slaves were not considered citizens by the framers of the Constitution....
Are free blacks citizens?... To my mind it would be a perversion of terms, and the well known rules of construction, to say that slaves, free blacks, or Indians were citizens, within the meaning of that term as used in the Constitution. God forbid that I should add to the degradation of this race of men; but I am bound, by my duty, to say that they are not citizens.
The Federal law on citizenship makes it a constitution of white people only Naturlization and imigration Act
https://www.revolvy.com/topic/Natura...on+Law+of+1802 was where a person becomes a citizen, of a state with that states permission. Only whites can be citizens of a state, in this Federal law.
It took a constititional amendemnt to make former slaves citizens, as every State law and Federal law allowed only for white citizens.
So Dredd scott was confirming what states SC had already rulled to be the case and was further the case because federal law made ita union of free white people and no one else.
Here is how the courts understand Dredd scott
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/fed.../393/case.html everything before the court is precedent.
4. A free negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country and sold as slaves, is not a "citizen" within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States.
5. When the Constitution was adopted, they were not regarded in any of the States as members of the community which constituted the State, and were not numbered among its "people or citizens." Consequently, the special rights and immunities guarantied to citizens do not apply to them. And not being "citizens" within the meaning of the Constitution, they are not entitled to sue in that character in a court of the United States, and the Circuit Court has not jurisdiction in such a suit.
7. Since the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, no State can by any subsequent law make a foreigner or any other description of persons citizens of the United States, nor entitle them to the rights and privileges secured to citizens by that instrument.
DS
Now…the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution. The right to traffic in it, like an ordinary article of merchandise and property, was guaranteed to the citizens of the United States, in every state that might desire it, for twenty years. And the government in express terms is pledged to protect it in all future time if the slave escapes from his owner. This is done in plain words–too plain to be misunderstood. And no word can be found in the Constitution which gives Congress a greater power over slave property or which entitles property of that kind to less protection than property of any other description….
As for any citizen of a free state wishing to own a slave, in a state that does not allow slavery, i direct you to the Constitution, Article IV Section 2.
The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States.
This gaurentess to any citizen anywhere the right to own a slave.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/privileges_and_immunities_clause
“Free them and make them politically and socially our equals? My own feelings will not admit of this . . . . We cannot then make them equals”
-Abraham Lincoln The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln
“I tell him very frankly that I am not in favor of negro citizenship”
-Abraham Lincoln
“I will to the very last stand by the law of this state[ Illinois], which forbids the marrying of white people with Negroes.”
-Abraham Lincoln
Over two decades in the state of Illinois as a lawyer and politician he never once said a word in favor of abolitionist, the abolish movement, or black rights. He never spoke out against the many unjust laws of the state that did not allow blacks to gather in large numbers, learn to read In 1848 he supported the Illinois state law of not allowing any blacks to migrate to the state and not allowing blacks citizenship
He fought and won, in court, representing a slave owner to have his property returned.
"What I would most desire would be the separation of the white and black races,"
-Abraham Lincoln Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, vol. 2, p. 521 17 July 1858
“If all earthly power were given to me...my first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land”
-Abraham Lincoln 1854
"I have urged the colonization of the negroes, and I shall continue. My Emancipation Proclamation was linked with this plan. There is no room for two distinct races of white men in America, much less for two distinct races of whites and blacks. I can conceive of no greater calamity than the assimilation of the negro into our social and political life as our equal.... We can never attain the ideal union our fathers dreamed of, with millions of an alien, inferior race among us, whose assimilation is neither possible nor desirable" (address delivered at Washington, D.C.; in Roy P. Basler, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume V, pages 371-375).
I will say, then, that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races; that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say, in addition to this, that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And in as much as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.Abraham Lincoln
"You and we are different races. We have between us a broader difference than exists between almost any other two races. Whether it is right or wrong I need not discuss, but this physical difference is a great disadvantage to us both, as I think your race suffers very greatly, many of them by living among us, while ours suffer from your presence.... It is better for us both, therefore, to be separated."
-Abraham Lincoln, speech to a group of black freedmen in Washington D.C., August 1862
“Mr Lincoln is quite a genuine Representative of American prejudiced and negro hatred and far more concerned for the preservation of slavery...Mr Lincoln is urging his colonization scheme.. shows his bigotry his pride of race and contempt for negroes”
-Fredrick Douglass The Life and Writings of Fredrick Douglass
https://digital.scetv.org/teachingAm.../Secession.htm
How its taught in S Carolina.
Academic Standards
Standard 8-3: The Student will demonstrate an understanding of the American Civil War- its causes and effects and the major events that occurred during that time.
8-3.4 Compare the attitudes of the unionists, cooperationists, and secessionists in South Carolina and summarize the reasons that the members of the South Carolina secession convention in 1860 voted unanimously to secede from the Union, including concerns about states' rights and fears about abolition.
8-3.6 Compare the effects of the Civil War on daily life in South Carolina, including the experiences of plantation owners, women, Confederate and Union soldiers, African Americans and children.
Historical Background Notes
The idea of secession is not new in the United States. The right to secede at will was based upon the fact that each state was sovereign, becoming so by a successful revolt against England. The treaty of 1783 recognized free, sovereign and independent states. This sovereignty was also recognized in the Articles of Confederation and under the Constitution. New states claimed all the rights of the old ones, having been admitted on equal standing.
Assertions of the right and necessity of secession were frequent from the beginning of America’s history. New Englanders were constantly warning that national action unblessed by their approval would bring their withdrawal, (Roger, internet article). One such threat of disunion was given if opposition to Hamilton’s plan was made by the Southern states over the Assumption Bill (Ellis 2001, 77, 80; Roger, internet article). The acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase caused another series of threats by New Englanders in 1803 and again in 1811 on account of the proposed admission of Louisiana as a state. The first serious discussion of secession from the United States was in 1814, at the Hartford Convention. The then-five New England states met at Hartford, Connecticut to discuss the Massachusetts State Legislature’s proposal that New England secede from the Union, but the discussion did not result in action (Wikipedia, internet article).
As early as 1790, the idea of secession was also present in the South. These warnings were in response to talk of ending slavery (Ellis 2001, 105). The Nullification Crisis of 1832 brought about another series of threats from the southern states. This came in response to a national tariff which increased the prices that southern agriculturist paid for manufactured goods and threatened to undermine their foreign markets by inciting counter-protection that would hurt the economy of the staple-producing and exporting South. The nullification crises revealed that South Carolina would not tolerate any federal action that seemed contrary to their interest or raised doubts about the institution of slavery. The nullifier’s philosophy implied the right of secession as well as the right to declare laws of Congress null and void (Divine 1982, 329, 331).
By 1860, secession came to be generally accepted by the South as the only means of preserving its institutions from the interference of the North. Those in favor of secession argued that the federal government was a union of states; as part of that union, the states had trusted that their rights would be respected. Interfering with slavery went against the rights of the Southern states and was, therefore, unconstitutional. Southern secessionists believed that the Declaration of Independence gave people the right to change their government when it no longer served them.
Some other states for quick comparison.
When curriculum standards were approved in 2010 by Texas' Republican-controlled Board of Education, debate focused on slavery being a Civil War "after issue."
The state's fifth- and seventh-graders taking Texas history courses, and eighth-graders taking U.S. history, are now asked to identify the causes of the war, "including sectionalism, states' rights and slavery."
Eighth-graders also compare ideas from Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address with those from Confederate President Jefferson Davis' inaugural address, which did not mention slavery and instead endorsed small-government values still popular with many conservatives today.
The eighth-grade curriculum also lists Confederate Gen. Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson alongside Frederick Douglass, a 19th century abolitionist, as examples of "the importance of effective leadership in a constitutional republic."
Michigan "Explain the reasons (political, economic, and social) why Southern states seceded and explain the differences in the timing of secession in the Upper and Lower South."
Virginia's standards of learning for U.S. history to 1865 include "describing the cultural, economic and constitutional issues that divided the nation" and "explaining how the issues of states' rights and slavery increased sectional tensions."
