One of the myths about the Civil War is that the Southern states seceded to protect slavery. This is an incorrect interpretation of the historical record for the following reasons. 1. As Tom Woods points out at the 13:50 minute mark of this video, in fact many southern planters didn't want secession. 2. Besides, only one-third of the southern population owned slaves. This fact alone makes it unlikely that slavery could ever have been the dominant reason for secession. 3. The US Constitution already protected slavery to an extent, so if Southerners only cared about slavery, then they should have stayed inside the Union since then they could have cited the US Constitution to enforce slavery. Remember that the 'Fugitive Slave Clause' required Northerners to return slaves to Southerners, and Southerners were objecting to the lack of enforcement by the North of a provision that they had agreed to. That section said: No person held to service or labour in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due. Indeed, by seceding, the Confederate States made maintaining slavery harder since their slaves could now escape to the North. Yet the 11 southern states seceded anyway - despite knowing that slavery was safer in the Union - because slavery wasn't their predominant concern. 4. If preserving slavery was the primary objective, then it made sense for southerners to stay within the Union since Abraham Lincoln had endorsed a deal that would have maintained slavery indefinitely had they stayed in. Why secede when the Northern Congress in March 1861 passed the Corwin amendment that would have guaranteed protection of slavery? Instead, the South decided to leave for other reasons, such as:
The fact that high tariffs and wasteful government spending by the North was a concern can be confirmed by reading Thomas DiLorenzo's books and from the primary sources originating from the South Carolina convention. It is also confirmed by the historical sequence of events:
Now, of course, slavery was not completely absent. But the bulk of the South Carolina Declaration talks about political principles: it mentions that the North has breached the constitutional compact and slavery is cited as an example.
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