Causes of the Civil War in their own words then some of mine
The best place to start is the "Declaration of the Immediate Causes Which Induce and Justify the Secession of South Carolina from the Federal Union."
the highlights include: "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 General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution...the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice
fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia...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...A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction."
Mississippi declares in its " A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union."
"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. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin... It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.
It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.
It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.
It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.
It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.
It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.
It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.
It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better. [yeah freedom is worse than slavery-jpu]... We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England. [i thought the American Revolution was along the lines of "no taxation without representation"-jpu]
Georgia's and Texas's declarations can also be found at the lead link.
When the South held more power in Congress things were fine. As soon as the balanced tipped against them, by the establishment of a suspected abolitionist in the Executive Branch the writing was on the wall. The will of the North could be imposed by normal legislative behavior on the South. Congress would no longer compromise on letting in any new slave states. The North would continue to look the other way when slaves escaped. They recognized a higher law, which was brought before their eyes in a huge way by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Some states had even allowed Africans to vote. This "peculiar institution" was an African Holocaust. And racist Americnas profited from it. The cotton gin prevented the US from letting slavery quietly disappear. And the Southern plantation owners wouldn't allow it to disappear by the will of all the people nor any other means. How could any Southern white in the Lower South feel secure when half its population was black? If it had treated slaves so nicely, what would they have to fear? Because slavery is a violence against the soul. And the South felt no inhibitions could be put on it, since one restriction could lead to another. No, America had to atone for her sin with the greatest loss of life in any of its wars before or since. Of course, it couldn't deal with its racism until it had eliminated its oppression.
As I've noted before, anyone who hasn't read H. B. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin would serve themselves by so doing.
plenty of intro links include the following:
Causes of the Civil War
Slavery in the Civil War Era
A Northern Perspective
the highlights include: "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 General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution...the current of anti-slavery feeling has led her more recently to enact laws which render inoperative the remedies provided by her own law and by the laws of Congress. In the State of New York even the right of transit for a slave has been denied by her tribunals; and the States of Ohio and Iowa have refused to surrender to justice
fugitives charged with murder, and with inciting servile insurrection in the State of Virginia...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...A geographical line has been drawn across the Union, and all the States north of that line have united in the election of a man to the high office of President of the United States, whose opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery. He is to be entrusted with the administration of the common Government, because he has declared that that "Government cannot endure permanently half slave, half free," and that the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction."
Mississippi declares in its " A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union."
"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. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin... It has grown until it denies the right of property in slaves, and refuses protection to that right on the high seas, in the Territories, and wherever the government of the United States had jurisdiction.
It refuses the admission of new slave States into the Union, and seeks to extinguish it by confining it within its present limits, denying the power of expansion.
It tramples the original equality of the South under foot.
It has nullified the Fugitive Slave Law in almost every free State in the Union, and has utterly broken the compact which our fathers pledged their faith to maintain.
It advocates negro equality, socially and politically, and promotes insurrection and incendiarism in our midst.
It has enlisted its press, its pulpit and its schools against us, until the whole popular mind of the North is excited and inflamed with prejudice.
It has made combinations and formed associations to carry out its schemes of emancipation in the States and wherever else slavery exists.
It seeks not to elevate or to support the slave, but to destroy his present condition without providing a better. [yeah freedom is worse than slavery-jpu]... We must either submit to degradation, and to the loss of property worth four billions of money, or we must secede from the Union framed by our fathers, to secure this as well as every other species of property. For far less cause than this, our fathers separated from the Crown of England. [i thought the American Revolution was along the lines of "no taxation without representation"-jpu]
Georgia's and Texas's declarations can also be found at the lead link.
When the South held more power in Congress things were fine. As soon as the balanced tipped against them, by the establishment of a suspected abolitionist in the Executive Branch the writing was on the wall. The will of the North could be imposed by normal legislative behavior on the South. Congress would no longer compromise on letting in any new slave states. The North would continue to look the other way when slaves escaped. They recognized a higher law, which was brought before their eyes in a huge way by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Some states had even allowed Africans to vote. This "peculiar institution" was an African Holocaust. And racist Americnas profited from it. The cotton gin prevented the US from letting slavery quietly disappear. And the Southern plantation owners wouldn't allow it to disappear by the will of all the people nor any other means. How could any Southern white in the Lower South feel secure when half its population was black? If it had treated slaves so nicely, what would they have to fear? Because slavery is a violence against the soul. And the South felt no inhibitions could be put on it, since one restriction could lead to another. No, America had to atone for her sin with the greatest loss of life in any of its wars before or since. Of course, it couldn't deal with its racism until it had eliminated its oppression.
As I've noted before, anyone who hasn't read H. B. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin would serve themselves by so doing.
plenty of intro links include the following:
Causes of the Civil War
Slavery in the Civil War Era
A Northern Perspective
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