Why do southern neo-confederates say slavery had nothing to do with the Civil War?

Question

While you guys have opinions from revisionist confederate historians, I have civil war era documents stating otherwise.

The South seceeded from the Union because they wanted to keep their slaves. That was the ultimate cause of the Civil War.
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DECLARATION OF SECESSION, MISSISSIPPI
"In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course."

"Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/csa/missec.htm

DECLARATION OF SECESSION, GEORGIA
"The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. 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. They have endeavored to weaken our security, to disturb our domestic peace and tranquility, and persistently refused to comply with their express constitutional obligations to us in reference to that property, and by the use of their power in the Federal Government have striven to deprive us of an equal enjoyment of the common Territories of the Republic."
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/csa/geosec.htm

DECLARATION OF SECESSION, TEXAS
"In all the non-slave-holding States, in violation of that good faith and comity which should exist between entirely distinct nations, the people have formed themselves into a great sectional party, now strong enough in numbers to control the affairs of each of those States, based upon an unnatural feeling of hostility to these Southern States and their beneficent and patriarchal system of African slavery, proclaiming the debasing doctrine of equality of all men, irrespective of race or color-- a doctrine at war with nature, in opposition to the experience of mankind, and in violation of the plainest revelations of Divine Law. They demand the abolition of ***** slavery throughout the confederacy, the recognition of political equality between the white and ***** races, and avow their determination to press on their crusade against us, so long as a ***** slave remains in these States."

"We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable."
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/csa/texsec.htm

THE CORNERSTONE SPEECH
"The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution — African slavery as it exists amongst us — the proper status of the ***** in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the "rock upon which the old Union would split." He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted."

"Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the ***** 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."
- Alexander H. Stephens, VP of the Confederacy, March 21 1861
http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?documentprint=76

Answer 1

I doubt that it had nothing to do with it, but even Abraham Lincoln stated that he was not opposed to slavery if it would insure the continuation of the Union.

Answer 2

State's rights was the main issue there, which is what they're trying to point out. However, the state right in mind was treatment of African Americans in the southern states. Really, you're both right. The official reason, though, is because the North would not let the south keep their state's rights. The war was fought by those who didn't start it. It was a rich man's war. Many southerners were dirt poor and didn't own any slaves. I do like one part in the Mississippi secession that you didn't put, though, that proved amazingly true: It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better. Anyway, who are these "neo-confederates" you're talking about? If historians were neo-confederates, wouldn't it be preached that the south won?

Answer 3

Slavery was a minor issue at the time. There were political and economic issues that caused the South to want to secede. Slavery was thrown in by the Northern Republicans later, after the war started, for good measure. The Southern plantation economy depended on cheap or slave labor in order to make money from their agricultural system and so to destroy the system the North needed to get rid of slavery. Mechanization that was in its infancy in the North had not yet made it to the South. Eventually it would have but then it didn't. In the North farms were small and managable by a family and a hired hand or two. The Southern plantations required many people as all the work had to be done by hand in those days. So getting rid of Slavery was a convenient way of destroying the South's major means of support, agriculture.

Answer 4

Hang on a sec, if you pay attention to you history you would realize that slavery was a small factor in the Civil War and that the idea of states rights was the larger factor in this war. The southerners resented the northerners for trying to enforce their views and way of life on to them and those who originally seceded did not make it about slavery because these states you mentioned seceded at a later date than Virginia and South Carolina and they were not so much seceding about slavery but what they viewed as the destruction of their economy i.e. farming and agriculture which would accompany the freeing of the slaves. They were also seceding because most Southern states did not vote for Abraham Lincoln and he was not even on most ballots in the southern states but he was elected anyway and this was one way of protesting what they viewed as an unfair system of electing presidents in which the industrialized north had more voting power than the agricultural south. I am not supporting or defending slavery inf fact slavery is wrong but if you want to reallly discuss the issue you need to point out both sides of the coin and allow people make their decisions on what they believe but I have a problem that history has been revised and it it know taught that slavery was the only reason for the Civil War but it had to ultimately due with the idea of States Rights and we still fight that issue to date with some who want the states to have more power than the federal government and some are more in favor of a powerful federal government and weak states.

Answer 5

You are correct, but State's Rights played a major role in the divide, as well. Slavery was a symbol of Southern power that threatened the Northern way of life.

Great Book: April, 1865. The month that saved America by Jay Winik. Not exactly on the reason for the war, but one of the better Civil War perspectives. It will open your eyes to how things are what they are today.

Answer 6

I am surprised at how many actually got this one right. Lincolns own words:
What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union.
From his letter to Horace Greeley

He also wrote letters to the governors of the seceding states clearly stating his intention to allow slavery as long as they stayed in the union.

The letter John Lupton found Tuesday in the Lehigh County Historical Society's holdings was one Lincoln wrote as part of an unsuccessful ratification process for a constitutional amendment Congress adopted during the term of his predecessor, President James Buchanan, that would have made slavery the law of the land.

The president remembered for abolishing slavery had been willing to push the amendment as "kind of a carrot to the Southern states" if that would preserve the union, said Lupton, associate director of the Papers of Abraham Lincoln Project of the Illinois Historic Preservation Agency.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1672825/posts

The slaves were simply a political tool. Sorry your view is the revisionist one! Its an attempt to paint American history as a great history of progress.

Answer 7

That war didn't necessarily start about slavery but it certainly ended because of it. Europe was going to broker a peace agreement until Lincoln made the war about slavery. Then all bets were off as no country in the world wanted to ally itself with a country that allowed slavery.

Answer 8

The stance on slavery was tied to other issues as well. To say that the South was fighting on one issue only - the continuation of slavery - is also saying that the North was fighting on one issue only - the end of slavery. Neighter is 100% correct.

The Southern States, seeing that they would always be a minority as new states in the west joined the Union, knowing that they would always be out voted in Congress on other issues key to them decided to succeed. They saw this as their only was to perserve their economony and culture.

Answer 9

The "neo-confederates" as you call them--who are simply a racist element within the neoconservatives-have been trying for years to recast the Civil war in a way that exonerates their cultural (and in many cases literal) ancestors.

However--while you are correct as far as it goes, the causes of the Civil war (which very definately centeed on the slavery issue) are not that simple. I'm not criticizing you--but if you're going to argue this issue, you need to learn more. I suggest, for starters, Eric Foner's "Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men." its readly available and highly readable. It is also one of the most even-handed (not liberal or conservative) and well-researched books on the causes of the Civil War there is.

Answer 10

Most anyone will tell you that slavery was an issue but not THE issue. The issue was states rights.

Of course, I don't blame you for your ignorance. History was written by the winner whether correct or not and is force fed to our children in the public school system .