On Thursday you published a letter concerning the Confederate flag, stating that the Civil War was fought over “states’ rights, not slavery.” This is an often-repeated but ridiculous falsehood. If you wish to know why the war was fought, just read the secession declarations published by each state.
For example, Mississippi (avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp) . The very first sentence in their declaration referring to the reason for secession says “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery.” What could possibly be clearer than that? For Georgia (avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.as) slavery is the subject of every single paragraph in their “declaration of the immediate causes” of secession. They refer to slavery 35 times in a two-page document.
Some state declarations of secession do refer to “states’ rights.” They refer to three, and only three, state’s rights. They refer to the right of states to allow slavery. They refer to the right of slave-holding states to demand that escaped slaves be returned by non-slave-holding states, and they refer to the right of newly forming states (like Texas and Kansas) to institute slavery. So you see, “states’ rights” is just code for “slavery” and pretending otherwise is stupid. And by the way, the Southern states did not immediately choose “Confederate States of America” as their name. Therefore, in their declarations of secession, most of the states of the Confederacy simply referred to themselves as “the slave-holding states.” They had no uncertainty about why they were going to war — why should we?
Mark Bothwell
Sultan
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