The Origins of the Civil War Had Nothing to do with Slavery
In 1864, Confederate General Patrick Cleburne warned his fellow southerners of the historical consequences should the South lose their war for independence. It turns out that he was a bit of a prophet. He said if the South lost, “It means that the history of this struggle will be written by the enemy. That our youth will be trained by northern school teachers; will learn from northern school books their version of the war; will be impressed by all of the influences of History and Education to regard our gallant dead as traitors and our maimed veterans as fit subjects for derision.” It was all true.
Historical revisionists flooded America’s public schools with northern propaganda about the people who attempted to secede from the United States, characterizing them as racists, extremists, radicals, hate-mongers, traitors, etc. The situation has not improved much in modern times. True history is rarely what you think it is. With this in mind, let us briefly but factually examine some facts about Abraham Lincoln, American slavery, and the true root causes of the Civil War. I suggest to you it is highly likely that most of what you think you know on these subjects – is completely wrong.
We will start with the issue of secession. Generally speaking, the only people in 1861 who believed states did NOT have the right to secede were Abraham Lincoln and his “radical” Republicans. To say that southern states did not have the right to secede from the United States is to say that the thirteen colonies did not have the right to secede from Great Britain. One seemingly cannot be right and the other wrong. If one is right, both are right. How can people celebrate the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and then turn around and condemn the Declaration of Independence of the Confederacy in 1861? Sheer hypocrisy. This is not to say that Lincoln did not have a valid reason for such, but it is fascinating that the masses do not see the disunity in these positions.
In fact, southern states were not the only states that talked about secession. After the southern states seceded, the state of Maryland fully intended to join them. In September of 1861, Lincoln sent federal troops to the State capital and seized the legislature by force in order to prevent them from voting. Federal provost marshals stood guard at the polls and arrested Democrats and anyone else who believed in secession. A special furlough was granted to Maryland troops so they could go home and vote against secession. Judges who tried to inquire into the false elections were arrested and thrown into military prisons. Here then is the true nature of the “Great Emancipator.”
Before the South seceded, several northern states had also threatened secession. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island had threatened secession as far back as James Madison’s administration. In addition, the states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware were threatening secession during the first half of the nineteenth century–long before the southern states even considered such a thing.
People say constantly that Lincoln “saved” the Union. Lincoln did not save the Union; he saved nothing. He did in fact subjugate the Union. There is a huge difference. A union that is not voluntary is not a union. Does a man have a right to force a woman to marry him or to force a woman to stay married to him? To suggest that states do not have the right to separate in a theoretically free society is a preposterous proposition.
People say that Lincoln freed the slaves. Lincoln did NOT free a single slave. But what he did do was enslave free men. His so-called Emancipation Proclamation had NO AUTHORITY in the southern states, as they had separated into another country. Imagine a President today signing a proclamation to free people in, say, China or Saudi Arabia. He would be laughed out of Washington. Lincoln had no authority over the Confederate States of America, and he knew it.
Do you not find it interesting that Lincoln’s proclamation did NOT free a single slave in the United States, the country in which he DID have authority? The Emancipation Proclamation deliberately ignored slavery in the North. Do you not realize that when Lincoln signed his proclamation, there were over 300,000 slaveholders who were fighting in the Union army? Check the facts.
One of those northern slaveholders was General (and later U.S. President) Ulysses S. Grant. In fact, he maintained possession of his slaves even after the War Between the States concluded. Recall that his counterpart, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, freed his slaves BEFORE hostilities between North and South ever broke out. When asked why he refused to free his slaves, Grant said, “Good help is hard to find these days.”
The institution of slavery did not end until the 13th Amendment was ratified on December 6, 1865. Did you know that Lincoln supported an earlier 13th Amendment? It is the only amendment to the Constitution ever proposed by a sitting U.S. President; then-outgoing President James Buchanan. Here is Lincoln’s endorsed and proposed amendment (original version was known as the Corwin Amendment): “No amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give Congress the power to abolish or interfere within any state with the domestic institutions thereof, including that a person’s held to labor or service by laws of said State.” Lincoln endorsed an amendment to the U.S. Constitution PRESERVING the institution of slavery (1). This proposed amendment was written in March of 1861, a month BEFORE the shots were fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. It was passed by an overwhelming 66% vote by the northern-controlled U. S. Congress, which proves that the North officially and openly supported slavery and has exposed as a farce the North’s pretensions of being “officially” opposed to it.
Ask yourself this question: why would the southern states secede from the Union over slavery when President Abraham Lincoln had endorsed and offered an amendment to the Constitution guaranteeing the PRESERVATION of slavery? That makes no sense. If the issue was predominantly slavery, all the South needed to do was to go along with Lincoln, and his proposed 13th Amendment would have permanently preserved slavery among all the states.
To find the true roots and origin of the war, we must start looking at the topics of tariffs and taxes. The State of South Carolina was particularly incensed at the tariffs enacted in 1828 and 1832. The Tariff of 1828 was disdainfully called, “The Tariff of Abominations” by the State of South Carolina. Accordingly, the South Carolina legislature declared that the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were “unauthorized by the Constitution of the United States.”
The true problem was that Lincoln wanted the southern states to pay the Union a 40% tariff on their exports, which was essentially brought forth in the Morrill Tariff Bill of May, 1860 [this is the subject of a coming, more detailed essay]. The South considered this outrageous and refused to pay. By the time hostilities broke out in 1861, the South was paying up to, and perhaps exceeding, 70% of the nation’s taxes. Before the war, the South was very prosperous and productive. Washington kept raising the taxes and tariffs on them.
This is much the same story of the way the colonies refused to pay the demanded tariffs of the British Crown–albeit the tariffs of the Crown were MUCH lower than those demanded by Lincoln. Lincoln’s proposed 13th Amendment was an attempt to entice the South into paying the tariffs by being willing to permanently ensconce the institution of slavery into the Constitution. It did not work; the South said “No.”
In addition, the Congressional Record of the United States forever obliterates the notion that the North fought the War Between the States over slavery. It is now available for everyone to read. The following resolution was passed unanimously in the U.S. Congress on July 23, 1861: “The War is waged by the government of the United States not in the spirit of conquest or subjugation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or institutions of the states, but to defend and protect the Union.” (2)
What could be more clear? The U.S. Congress declared that the war against the South was NOT an attempt to overthrow or interfere with the “institutions” of the states, but to keep the Union intact (by force). The “institutions” implied most certainly included the institution of slavery. Hear it loudly and clearly: Lincoln’s war against the South had NOTHING to do with ending slavery–so said the U.S. Congress by resolution in 1861.
Abraham Lincoln himself said it was NEVER his intention to end the institution of slavery. In a letter to Alexander Stephens who later became the Vice President of the Confederacy, Lincoln wrote this: “Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would directly, or indirectly, interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears. The South would be in no more danger in this respect than it was in the days of Washington.” (3)
Again, what could be more clear? Lincoln, himself, said the southern states had nothing to fear from him in regard to abolishing slavery.
Hear Lincoln again: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it.” (4) He also said, “I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the states where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so and I have no inclination to do so.” (5) Yet despite the broad support for the Corwin Amendment, the ratification process was interrupted one month later when South Carolinian forces laid siege to Ft. Sumter, plunging the nation into a bloody civil war.
It thus seems clear that the Civil War, in any true sense of origin, had nothing to do with slavery or racism. In fact, if one truly wants to discover who the racist was in 1861, just read the further words of President Lincoln.
On August 14, 1862, Abraham Lincoln invited a group of black people to the White House. In his address to them, he told them of his plans to colonize them all back to Africa: “Why should the people of your race be colonized and where? Why should they leave this country? This is, perhaps, the first question for proper consideration. 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 suffers from your presence. In a word, we suffer on each side. If this is admitted, it affords a reason, at least, why we should be separated. You here are freemen, I suppose? Perhaps you have been long free, or all your lives. Your race is suffering, in my judgment, the greatest wrong inflicted on any people. But even when you cease to be slaves, you are yet far removed from being placed on an equality with the white race. The aspiration of men is to enjoy equality with the best when free, but on this broad continent not a single man of your race is made the equal of a single man of our race.” (6)
Review carefully what Lincoln said. He said that black people would NEVER be equal with white people–even if they all obtained their freedom from slavery. Pure and blatant racism.
Lincoln’s statement above is not isolated. In Charleston, Illinois, in 1858, Lincoln said in a speech, “I am not, nor have ever been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. 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; 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 from living together on social or 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.” (7)
Lincoln’s views on black people can be found in summary in the public speech he gave at Springfield, Illinois, on June 26, 1857: “Our republican system was meant for a homogeneous people. As long as blacks continue to live with the whites they constitute a threat to the national life. Family life may also collapse and the increase of mixed breed bastards may someday challenge the supremacy of the white man.” (8)
One more. In a speech given at Springfield, Il on June 26, 1857, Lincoln said, “
There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people, to the idea of an indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races…A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation but as an immediate separation is impossible the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas.” (9)
Abraham Lincoln declared himself to be a white supremacist. Why do our history books and news media not tell people the truth about Lincoln and about the War Between the States? Because it is contrary to the current political agenda.
By the time Lincoln penned his Emancipation Proclamation, the war had been going on for two years without resolution. In fact, the North was losing the war. Even though the South was outmanned and ill-equipped, the genius of the southern generals and fighting acumen of the southern men had put the northern armies on their heels. Many people in the North never saw the legitimacy of Lincoln’s war in the first place, and many of them actively campaigned against it. These people were affectionately called “Copperheads” by people in the South.
Lincoln’s war was not about people, it was about collecting taxes and tariffs from the South, and about preserving (and “subjugating”) the Union. Nothing more and nothing less. Unfortunately for him, Lincoln faced much opposition to the war from elements in the North, and also the North was factually losing the war. As a result, Lincoln needed to suppress northern opposition and rally the people to his cause. Taxes, tariffs, and preservation of the Union would not accomplish the goal. He needed something much better.
In order to rally people in the North, Lincoln needed a moral crusade. This is what his Emancipation Proclamation was all about. It explains why his proclamation was not penned until 1863, after two years of fruitless fighting. He was counting on people in the North to stop resisting his war against the South if they thought it was some kind of holy war. Also, Lincoln was hoping that his proclamation would incite blacks in the South to insurrect against southern whites. If thousands of blacks would begin to wage war against their white neighbors, the fighting men of the southern armies would have to leave the battlefields and go home to defend their families. THIS NEVER HAPPENED.
Not only did blacks not riot against the whites of the South, many black men volunteered to fight alongside their white friends and neighbors in the Confederate army. Unlike the blacks in the North, who were conscripted by Lincoln and forced to fight in segregated units, thousands of blacks in the South fought of their own free will in a fully-integrated southern army. You never see this mentioned in the history books or hear it in the schools.
By the time Lincoln launched his war against the southern states, slavery was already a dying institution. The entire country, including the South, recognized the moral evil of slavery and wanted it to end. Only a small fraction of southerners even owned slaves. The slave trade had ended in 1808, per the U.S. Constitution, and the practice of slavery was quickly dying, too. In another few years, with the advent of agricultural machinery, slavery would have ended peacefully–just like it had in England. It did not take a national war and the deaths of over a half million men to end slavery in Great Britain. America’s Civil War was unnecessary, at least in terms of slavery. The greed and need for strong and centralized power by Lincoln’s “radical” Republicans in the North, perhaps combined with the cold heart of Lincoln himself, is responsible for the tragedy of the so-called “Civil War.”
Virtually every act of federal usurpation of liberty that we are witnessing today, and have been witnessing for much of the twentieth century, had its origin in Lincoln’s war against the South. Truly, we are living in Lincoln’s America, not Washington and Jefferson’s America. Washington and Jefferson’s America died at Appomattox Court House in 1865.
Despite his racial views, Lincoln’s true legacy is much larger than today’s history books suggest. Presidents like Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, all had numerous commonalities among them, not the least of which was the fact that they all extolled the virtues of Hammurabi, Alexander, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne, and Napoleon. They were each also responsible for expanding (either by force or fraud) a centralized government; they believed in strong and centralized governmental power. In a very real sense, Abraham Lincoln planted the seeds for the globalist Woodrow Wilson, who planted the seeds for the socialist Franklin D. Roosevelt, who planted the seeds for the socialist Lyndon Baines Johnson, who planted the seeds for the socialist Bill Clinton, who planted the seeds for fasio-socialist George W. Bush, and so on. This commentary is not meant to suggest that these Presidents were wrong in their views regarding centralized power and socialization, but rather is intended to identify a historical chain that the history books fail to point out.
This brief article has presented a barebones but factual assessment on the character and actions of Abraham Lincoln, the issue of state secession during Civil War times, and on the true root causes of the Civil War. Simple deductive logic suggests that if we desire to find out what a historical figure believed and did, then rather than looking at opinionated third party discussion, we would instead look at and directly rely on the exact words written and spoken by the historical figure. Likewise, if we want to understand the root causes of a historical event like the American Civil War, logic dictates that we would look at the exact words written and spoken by those who started and prosecuted the war. This was the process and chain of logic utilized in this essay.
Endnotes
(1) The United States Statutes At Large; Thirty-sixth Congress Sess. II Res. 9, 11, 12, 13. 1861. p. 251 .
(2) A Joint Resolution passed by the United States Congress on July 23, 1861. Found in the United States Congressional Record.
(3) Personal letter from Abraham Lincoln to Alexander H. Stephens, December 22, 1860. As found in, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 4,Roy P. Basler, 1953, published by the Abraham Lincoln Association. P. 161.
(4) Personal letter from Abraham Lincoln to Horace Greeley, August 22, 1862.
(5) Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861.
(6) Address by Lincoln to a group of negro men at the White House, August 14, 1862. As found in, Lincoln: Speeches and Writings 1859-1865, by Abraham Lincoln, published by the Library of America, 1989, p. 353.
(7) Lincoln’s speech from the fourth debate between himself and Douglas, in Charleston, IL, September 18, 1858. As found in, Political Debates: Between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas, by Cleveland Burrows Bros. , 1897, p. 251.
(8) Roy P. Basler, editor, et al, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1953-1955 [eight volumes and index]), Vol. II, pp. 255-256. (Cited hereinafter as R. Basler, Collected Works.).; David A. Hollinger and Charles Capper, eds., The American Intellectual Tradition (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1989), p. 405, 408, 409.
(9) Speech on the Dred Scott Decision, Abraham Lincoln, Speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 26, 1857.
For Further Reading
Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe 2007 Thomas J. Dilorenzo
The Real Lincoln 2003 Thomas J. Dilorenz
The Truth of the War Conspiracy of 1861 H.W. Johnstone
Truths of History 2012 Mildred L. Rutherford
The Un-Civil War: Shattering the Historical Myths 2011 Leonard M. Scruggs
Further Quotes
President Woodrow Wilson, in his multi-volume History of the American People, offered this explanation as to why the issue of slavery was so exaggerated during and after the war:
“It was necessary to put the South at a moral disadvantage by transforming the contest from a war waged against states fighting for their independence into a war waged against states fighting for the maintenance and extension of slavery.” History of the American People, by Woodrow Wilson, Harper & Brothers, 1902
Charles Dickens, beloved British author (Dickens, by Peter Ackroyd, 1991, p. 291):
“The Northern onslaught upon slavery is no more than a piece of specious humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern states.”
London Times, November 7, 1861, p.7:
“The contest is really for empire on the side of the North, and for independence on that of the South, and in this respect we recognize an exact analogy between the North and the Government of George III, and the South and the Thirteen Revolted Provinces.”
Confederate Lt. General John B. Gordon, later distinguished Governor and U.S. Senator from Georgia:
“As for the South, it is enough to say that perhaps eighty percent of her armies were neither slave-holders, nor had the remotest interest in the institution. No other proof, however, is needed than the undeniable fact that at any period of the war from its beginning to near its close, the South could have saved slavery by simply laying down its arms and returning to the Union”
Reminiscences of the Civil War, by General John B. Gordon, 1904, p. 19.
Sandra Lynn Sandavol 