The Confederacy – February 8, 1861 to May 9, 1865
States right to do what?
1. Confederate President Jefferson Davis
a. Grand Ratification Meeting speech, Faneuil Hall on October 11, 1858
i. “The question was considered in the convention which framed the constitution, and after discussion the proposition to give power to the general government to enforce upon a resistant State obedience to the law was rejected. It was upon this ground of exemption from compulsion that the compact of the States became a sacred obligation; and it was upon this honorable fulfilment principally that our fathers depended for the security of the rights which the Constitution was designed to secure. The fugitive slave compact in the Constitution of the United States implied that the States should fulfil it voluntarily. They expected the States to legislate so as to secure the rendition of fugitives.”
ii. “It is a crime too low to be named before this assembly: It is one which no man with self-respect would ever commit. To swear that he will support the Constitution—to take an office which belongs in many of its relations to all the States; and to use it as a means of injuring a portion of the States of whom he is thus the representative; is treason to everything honorable in man. It is the base and cowardly attack of him who gains the confidence of another, in order that he may wound him.”
b. Palace Garden speech, New York on October 19, 1858
i. “It, on the other hand, it is not a right, but Congress should assert it to be one, and the courts should declare that no such right exists under the Constitution… and it is in this sense that Congress has not the power to establish or prohibit slavery anywhere.”
ii. “For had [Mr. Giddings] who was quoted to-night, known anything of the relations between the master and the slave, he would [know]…we live among them with no more fear of them than of our cows and oxen.”
c. Mississippi Legislature speech
i. “The Territory being the common property of States, equals in the Union, and bound by the Constitution which recognizes property in slaves, it is an abuse of terms to call aggression the migration [of slavery] into that Territory…The Federal Government has no power to declare what is property.”
d. Senate Departure speech, US Capitol on January 21, 1861
i. “Had the Declaration announced that the negroes were free and equal, how was the Prince to be arraigned for stirring up insurrection among them?... When our Constitution was formed, the same idea was rendered more palpable, for there we find provision made for that very class of persons as property; they were not put upon the footing of equality with white men--not even upon that of paupers and convicts; but… as a lower caste.”
e. Mississippi House Chamber speech, December 26, 1862
i. “The issue then being: will you be slaves; will you consent to be robbed of your property; to be reduced to provincial dependence; will you renounce the exercise of those rights with which you were born and which were transmitted to you by your fathers? I feel that in addressing Mississippians the answer will be that their interests, even life itself, should be willingly laid down on the altar of their country.”
2. Confederacy Vice President Alexander H Stephens
a. The Corner Stone speech, on March 21, 1861.
i. “Our new government’s…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.”
3. Confederate General Robert E Lee
a. Letter to Brother-in-law, Navy Captain Sydney Smith Lee dated April 20, 1860:
i. “After the most anxious inquiry as to the correct course for me to pursue, I concluded to resign, and sent in my resignation this morning. I wished to wait till the Ordinance of Secession should be acted on by the people of Virginia; but war seems to have commenced, and I am liable at any time to be ordered on duty which I could not conscientiously perform. To save me from such a position, and to prevent the necessity of resigning under orders, I had to act at once, and before I could see you again on the subject, as I had wished. I am now a private citizen, and have no other ambition than to remain at home. Save in defense of my native State, I have no desire ever again to draw my sword.”
b. Spoken at Virginia Convention to Chair John Janney on his reticence to accept command of Virginia armed forces on April 22, 1861:
i. “Trusting to Almighty God, an approving conscience, and the aid of my fellow citizens, I will devote myself to the defense and service of my native State, in whose behalf alone would I have ever drawn my sword.”
War of Northern aggression?
Why did they leave the union?
1. South Carolina
a. Articles of Secession ratified December 20, 1860
b. Declaration of Immediate Causes published December 24, 1860
i. Page 1, Para 1: “The people of the State of South Carolina, in Convention assembled, on the 26th day of April, A.D. 1852, declared that the frequent violations of the Constitution of the United States, by the Federal Government, and its encroachments upon the reserved rights of the States, fully justified this State in then withdrawing from the Federal Union; but in deference to the opinions and wishes of the other slaveholding States, she forbore at that time to exercise this right.
ii. Page 2, Para 5-6: “The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: ‘No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.’ This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition…The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States”
iii. Page 2, Para 7: “The [Federal] Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the [Federal] Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution. The States of ME, NH, VT, MA, CT, RI, NY, PA, IL, IN, MI, WI and IA, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution.”
iv. Page 3, Para 2: “The right of property in slaves was recognized by giving to free persons distinct political rights, by giving them the right to represent, and burthening them with direct taxes for three-fifths of their slaves; by authorizing the importation of slaves for twenty years; and by stipulating for the rendition of fugitives from labor.”
v. Page 3, Para 3: “We affirm that these ends for which this Government was instituted have been defeated, and the Government itself has been made destructive of them by the action of the non-slaveholding States. Those States have assume the right of deciding upon the propriety of our domestic institutions; and have denied the rights of property established in fifteen of the States and recognized by the Constitution; they have 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.”
2. North Carolina
3. Mississippi
a. Mississippi State Convention, January 7 to 26, 1861
i. Day 3 (Jan 9), Page 10: “And whereas, The continued agitation of the slavery question tends to the disquiet of the people of the slaveholding States…It is the opinion of this Convention that a further continuance of the State of Mississippi as a member of the United States of America, is incompatible with the interests of the State.”
ii. Day 16 (Jan 24), Page 34-35: Establishing property tax on slaves.
iii. Day 18 (Jan 26), Page 38: “That in the opinion of this Convention, it is not the purpose or policy of the people of the State of Mississippi to re-open the African slave trade.”
iv. A Declaration, Page 47: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery--the greatest material interest of the world.”
v. A Declaration, Page 48: “It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst… It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better.”
vi. Remarks of JW Clapp: “Woman was to be degraded, by conferring upon her rights foreign to her sex…Agrarianism, now directed against the public domain, will be directed against property rights in some other form. The Bible is to be overthrown…the Deity Himself dethrone… These are the fearful elements at work under the foundations of society in the non-slaveholding States, and which must work out their legitimate results--first anarchy--then civil commotion and bloodshed, from which a refuge will be sought in military despotism.”
4. Florida
a. Constitutional Convention of January 10, 1861
i. Article XV, Section 1: “The General Assembly shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves.”
i. “It is denied that it is the purpose of the party soon to enter into the possession of the powers of the Federal Government to abolish slavery by any direct legislative act.”
ii. “Their natural tendency, everywhere shown where the race has existed, to idleness, vagrancy, and crime increased by an inability to procure subsistence. Can anything be more impudently false than the pretense that this state of things is to be brought about from considerations of humanity to the slaves?”
iii. “It is in so many words saying to you we will not burn you at the stake but we will torture you to death by a slow fire we will not confiscate your property and consign you to a residence and equality with the african[sic] but that destiny certainly awaits your children – and you must quietly submit or we will force you to submission – men who can hesitate to resist such aggressions are slaves already and deserve their destiny.”
5. Alabama
a. Ordinances and Constitution of the State of Alabama
i. Secession and New Convention began January 7, 1861
ii. New Constitution Ratified February 12, 1861
iii. Page 4, Sec 2, Para 2: “And as it is the desire and purpose of the people of Alabama to meet the slaveholding States of the South, who may approve such purpose, in order to frame a provisional as well as permanent Government upon the principles of the Constitution of the United States.”
6. Georgia
i. THE SECOND FUCKING SENTENCE: “For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery”
ii. “While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen.”
iii. “The prohibition of slavery in the Territories, hostility to it everywhere, the equality of the black and white races, disregard of all constitutional guarantees it its favor, were boldly proclaimed by its leaders and applauded by its followers.”
iv. “With these principles on their banners and these utterances on their lips the majority of the people of the North demand that we shall receive them as our rulers.”
v. “The prohibition of slavery in the Territories is the cardinal principle of this organization.”
7. Louisiana
a. Secedes January 26, 1861, vote passes 113-17
b.
8. Texas
i. “She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery-- the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits-- a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.”
ii. “They demand the abolition of negro slavery throughout the [nation], the recognition of political equality between the white and negro races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a negro slave remains in these States.”
9. Virginia
a. Ordinance of Secession approved April 17, 1861
i. Page 1: “…the Federal Government having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern slaveholding States.”
10. Arkansas
a. Ordinance of Secession approved May 6, 1861
b. Arkansas Convention on March 20, 1861
i. Preamble: “We, the people of the State of Arkansas, in convention assembled…do hereby declare the following to be just causes of complaint on the part of the people of the southern states.”
ii. Section 1: “The people of the northern States have organized a political party, purely sectional in its character, the central and controlling idea of which is, hostility to the institution of African slavery.”
iii. Section 2: “They have denied to the people of the southern States the right to…the same protection to their slave property... They have by their prominent men and leaders, declared that the institution of slavery is incompatible with freedom, and that both cannot exist at once.”
iv. Section 3: “They have declared that Congress possesses…the power to abolish slavery in…the slaveholding States.”
v. Section 6: “They have degraded American citizens by placing them upon an equality with negroes at the ballot-box.”
11. Tennessee