Premise
While this article is a deviation from both local politics and current events, the conclusions and lessons which can be drawn from this analysis have modern applications which will be useful to reference later.
Thesis
The American South seceded from the US as a response to the election of Abraham Lincoln due to the perception that he would prevent slavery from expanding, which would allow the North to create an anti-slavery coalition and ban it via an amendment. The Civil War was started by the South after a series of escalations as a direct result of secession. Therefore, the American Civi War was started by the South to decide the future of slavery.
Evidence
This is not an exhaustive list, but one that covers before, during, and after secession:
- The South threatened secession over slavery in 1850, ten years before they seceded
- The first state to secede, South Carolina, gave an “Address of South Carolina to Slaveholding States”, asking them to leave to protect slavery
- Every state which gave a reason for leaving cited slavery as the reason
- The Vice President of the Confederacy gave a speech calling slavery the “cornerstone” of their “new civilization”
Common counter-arguments
The average soldier did not fight for slavery.
State entities fight wars for political or strategic reasons; soldiers fight for individual reasons such as patriotism, finances, and camaraderie. Individual soldiers did not start the war, therefore individual motives do not explain it.
Abraham Lincoln said “If I could save the Union without freeing any slaves, I would do it”, therefore slavery wasn’t under threat.
Lincoln believed he had “no power” to “interfere with slavery where it exist[ed]”. However, he also believed slavery was on the path to “extinction” based on the legal theory that it could only be banned via an amendment. The South believed “the prohibition of slavery in the Territories is the cardinal principle of this organization” per Georgia’s article of secession. Thus, they believed Lincoln would not ban slavery where it existed, but would only add non-slaveholding new states, extinguishing it over time.
It was a matter of states’ rights, not slavery.
No. Moreover, the Confederate constitution forbade individual states from banning slavery, explicitly giving the federal government more power over the states on matters pertaining to slavery (see Article IV Section 2(1)).
The states seceded over slavery, but the Civil War was not about slavery; Lincoln fought it to keep the Union together.
Slavery caused secession, and secession caused the war; there was no intermediary period where the South had grievances with the Union that approached the significance of slavery. Lincoln indeed primarily fought to preserve the Union, rather than to free the slaves, but as discussed, he did so with the understanding that a repaired Union was the fastest path to abolition. Toward the end of the war, Lincoln refused peace terms at the Hampton Road Conference that did not include freeing the slaves.
What is the significance?
The US did not stamp the Confederacy out; Lincoln was assassinated shortly after the war, and the Confederacy was welcomed back into the US with open arms. Slavery wasn’t ever banned; the only thing that changed are the circumstances in which it is legal. Jim Crow, the KKK, segregation, “Lost Cause” mythology, and anti-Civil Rights movements were a direct result of the nation failing to move onward from its gruesome past. As such, it is pertinent to today’s dialogues on neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and modern analogs which are prevalent in today’s politics.
Leave a comment
[Guest] Sons of Dixie on August 14, 2025
The Dred Scott outcome explicitly said neither Congress nor a territorial government had the power to ban slavery in U.S. territories. Taney’s opinion made it clear that slaveholders could bring slaves into any territory as a constitutional property right.
📝 massandra (author) on August 15, 2025
You’re “mistaking the map for the territory”, so to speak; your comment touches upon one of the most heated debates of their day. The South felt that Dred Scott applied everywhere, but the North advanced the idea it was isolated to the case it decided. SCOTUS had no means of forcefully preventing a Territory banning slavery even if the intent of the decision was to ban it. As such, even if the South believed on paper that slavery was untouchable, their session was motivated by protecting slavery against the reality of the North’s long-term strategy (outlined in my replies below).
[Guest] patrickcleburne on August 04, 2025
Lincoln, 1861: “a proposed amendment to the Constitution… has passed Congress, to the effect that the Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States, including that of persons held to service… holding such a provision to now be implied constitutional law, I have no objection to its being made express and irrevocable.”
📝 massandra (author) on August 04, 2025
The Corwin Amendment was a proposed amendment to the Constitution to make slavery permanently legal. Confederate advocates tend to portray this as evidence that Lincoln was willing to cater to slaveholding states, and thus, they had no incentive to leave to preserve slavery, so the Civil War was not over slavery.
However, as noted in the post, Georgia’s Declaration of Secession outlines a perceived plan by the Lincoln Republicans to selectively incorporate anti-slavery states into the Union from the Territories:
(Emphasis mine.)
As such, even a Constitutional amendment to preserve slavery could have easily been undone by a future amendment via an abolitionist coalition brought in from the Territories under Lincoln’s plan. The Corwin Amendment was therefore toothless with respect to the actual threat to slavery the Confederates listed as their reason for seceding.
[Guest] bugsy9007 on August 04, 2025
Five slave states, Kentucky, Missouri, Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia fought for the union, so claiming the Civil War was “fought over slavery” is absurd.
📝 massandra (author) on August 04, 2025
The fact that some states didn’t secede due to slavery doesn’t invalidate that many did. Those five states held staying in the Union in higher regard than protecting slavery. The ones who held slavery in higher regard than staying seceded.
The Union absolutely did have slavery, just not in as high amounts as the South–per capita or even in absolute terms. It wasn’t nearly as important to them, but the fact they had it isn’t detrimental to my overall point.
[Guest] Hour-Cup-5904 on August 03, 2025
I got a whole slew of questions for you:
📝 massandra (author) on August 04, 2025
See my second counter-argument in the post; the Corwin Amendment would have protected slavery via an amendment. States such as Georgia stated that they seceded because Lincoln’s goal was to add enough anti-slavery states from the Territories that they would have been able to pass a subsequent abolition amendment: “That party has announced […] that a war must be waged against slavery until it shall cease throughout the United States. The party has thus placed the issue upon the election of a President pledged to administer the Government on principles destructive of our rights and subversive of our interests. […] The prohibition of slavery in the Territories is the cardinal principle of this organization” (emphasis mine).
Every state which gave a reason cited slavery; that the others seceded without giving any other reason is evidence itself. Lincoln called for troops after South Carolina bombarded Fort Sumter, which was the actual start of hostilities. The second wave of secessions happened not because of troop deployment, but because the Confederacy had just attacked a federal installation.
Also addressed by the second counter-argument: Lincoln believed abolition required an amendment. Per my fourth counter-argument, Lincoln later refused peace terms that didn’t include abolition.
Largely irrelevant given that his state was in full violent rebellion and cited slavery as the reason why. He also never proposed a path to abolition, or any way that the South would contribute to this.
I’ve gone over this. He wanted independence from a government that he felt was hostile to slavery.
Lincoln never owned slaves. He signed the Compensated Emancipation Act of 1862 to ban slavery in Washington DC.
This is more trivia than it is a counter-argument; the North had more states total, and slavery was legal in the US when the war broke out, so the North had more “slave states”. It did not have more slaves, though. The North had 2.5x the population of the South, yet the South had 7x as many slaves.