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Comment by qiskit | Hacker News Reader

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I’m sorry but this is profoundly and aggressively incorrect. The civil war was not reframed after the fact to be about slavery, quite the opposite in fact. The ‘reframing’ is in fact what you’ve tried to assert, in that it was supposedly a matter of economics rather than slavery (though of course other factors were certainly at play). It’s part of the ‘lost cause’ narrative furthered by the southern states after the civil war.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederac...

https://imperialglobalexeter.com/2015/03/02/debunking-the-ci...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/the-lost-c...

> The civil war was not reframed after the fact to be about slavery, quite the opposite in fact.

Should I believe you or lincoln?

'...My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery...'

https://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/greele...

If the civil war was about freeing slaves, why did lincoln wait so long to end slavery? Why didn't he do it immediately?

> It’s part of the ‘lost cause’ narrative furthered by the southern states after the civil war.

Who cares as long as it is true? I'm not a southerner. Not a fan of the confederacy.

Is your assertion that racist white northerners fought a war against racist white southerners to free black people? Does that make any sense to you? Have you looked into lincoln's opinions of black people?

"I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races [applause]—that 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; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will for ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality..."

This document was simultaneously published by the very committee that issued the initial ordinance of secession in South Carolina, and it explains the decision to secede at great length. It is all about slavery:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Address_of_the_People_of_...

Additionally, articles of secession from other states also explicitly mention slavery in the actual text of the law, including Alabama's ordinance that proposed the Montgomery Convention at which the Confederacy was founded. Even more states explain it in similar justifying documents.

The vice president of the Confederacy delivered a speech establishing slavery as the primary motivator of secession: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornerstone_Speech

Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, is on record before the war explaining slavery as cause, and after the war claiming it was about states' rights (to practice slavery).

This whole debate is semantics and pedantics about the word cause. The reality is that it doesn't make sense to reduce history to a single factor.

The south wanted to secede because the union was threatening their economic interests which relied on slavery. The union did not want the south to secede for their own reasons, of which slavery was not the foremost.

You can not remove any part of that explanation and still describe the "cause" of the war.

The war would not have happened if slaves didn't have economic value. The war would not have happened if the north was indifferent to the south leaving.

Trying to reduce things further than this is a fools errand.

Your linked document is a great example of this. It discusses a great many things. The first half is a history of grievances about states rights and failures of the union to uphold the constitution.

It starts to talk about slavery about half way through if you ctrl-f.

Anyone arguing for their singular preferred cause can find supporting evidence in it because the "cause" of the war was the interaction of multiple factors, so evidence exists for all of them.

The problem is that showing evidence that one factor was critical to the start of the war does not prove that other critical factors do not exist.

You’re missing the point. It’s one and the same. Slaves were valuable economic assets whose value was diminishing as industrialization intensified.

The slavers wanted to conquer the west with slaves to stay relevant. Slavery was about wealth and control, in losing control of poor white people. The northern industrialists wanted cotton. Abolitionists saw the moral disgrace of slavery as an evil. Lincoln was more moderate and prioritized the nation.

The “states rights” bullshit was always bullshit. But then “get shot to keep rich aristocrats rich” isn’t a compelling battle cry. Conversely, the poor Irish and others participating in draft riots saw abolition as competition from the one strata of society lower then them.

Hence, the noble abstract goals of “preserving the union” and “protection our sacred rights” are front and center.

> The slavers wanted to conquer the west with slaves to stay relevant.

Yes, I believe that's why they rejected the Corwin Amendment compromise, which would have allowed them to keep slavery in states that already had it. That deal didn't allow them to use slaves in the west, so they didn't like it.

This is another thing Lincoln said: "One eighth of the whole population were colored slaves not distributed generally over the union but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen perpetuate and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war while the government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it. [...] Fondly do we hope ~ fervently do we pray ~ that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword as was said three thousand years ago so still it must be said 'the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.'" (https://www.nps.gov/linc/learn/historyculture/lincoln-second...)

But hey, the Union wasn't the party who forced the conflict. Let's hear from Alexander Stephens, VP of the CSA, instead:

> Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth.

(https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/cornersto...)

You may be shocked to hear this, but Lincoln was a politician and was occasionally slightly disingenuous in order to achieve his political agenda. There wasn't public support for a war to end slavery. There was public support for a war to preserve the union.

Here's another quote from Lincoln:

"'A house divided against itself cannot stand.' I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved - I do not expect the house to fall - but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other."

He could claim as much as he wanted, once the war started, that his goal was to restore the Union even at the expense of continuing to tolerate slavery, but there was no way the Confederates could possibly take him at his word when he said so.

How do you explain the South's century of aggressive open racism after the civil war in your "it was just economic" theory?

It was about slavery, racism was DEEPLY involved in US slavery, and racism and racists didn't just go away after the civil war.

Sometimes it's as simple as people say it is, over and over and over in their defense of slavery and their post-Civil-War racist laws and propaganda.

You don't need to try to save their reputations. Let them be remembered as the assholes they were.

> How do you explain the South's century of aggressive open racism after the civil war in your "it was just economic" theory?

"Is your assertion that racist white northerners fought a war against racist white southerners to free black people?". What about racist white northerners and racist white southerners confused you?

> You don't need to try to save their reputations. Let them be remembered as the assholes they were.

Saving their reputation by calling them racist white southerners?

You do realize that some northern states had slaves too during the civil war. And the emancipation proclamation only freed the slaves in the south.

If you want to learn what the civil war was really about go look into why west virginia seceded from virgina. Do you think west virginians were less racist than the rest of virginians? Or do you think it was economic?

History makes it pretty clear that southerners were, on the whole, much more openly and institutionally racist than northerners both before and after the Civil War.

The ones that seceded said it was about slavery. Many times. You don't believe them. Why? Why do you care enough to claim that you know their motives better than everyone else?

West Virginia split because they didn't want to go along with Virginia's secession. That's something that happened after the cause, not something that can tell you the cause, though! Maryland and Delaware were less dominated by the slave-holding interests. Its not that interesting.

> Do you think west virginians were less racist than the rest of virginians? Or do you think it was economic?

It was economic in the sense that slavery was not central to West Virginia's economy, but was central to not-West Virginia's economy. A map makes this pretty apparent[0]. The argument isn't that the was was about racism, but about slavery. Those are often related, but aren't precisely the same.

[0]: https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3881e.cw1047000/

> Should I believe you or lincoln?

Both.

The rebellion was about slavery for the rebels and preserving the Union for the Union.

GP addressed the former, Lincoln spoke for the latter.

Don't ask Lincoln, he's not the one who seceded.

Ask the states who left. South Carolina, for instance, directly blames the North's increasing hostility towards slavery - https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_scarsec.asp :

"The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor 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 labor may be due."

This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.

The same article of the Constitution stipulates also for rendition by the several States of fugitives from justice from the other States.

The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But 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 States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa, have enacted laws which either nullify the Acts of Congress or render useless any attempt to execute them. In many of these States the fugitive is discharged from service or labor claimed, and in none of them has the State Government complied with the stipulation made in the Constitution. The State of New Jersey, at an early day, passed a law in conformity with her constitutional obligation; but 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. Thus the constituted compact has been deliberately broken and disregarded by the non-slaveholding States, and the consequence follows that South Carolina is released from her obligation. "

> One-eighth of the whole population were colored slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, but localized in the southern part of it. These slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. All knew that this interest was somehow the cause of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend this interest was the object for which the insurgents would rend the Union even by war, while the Government claimed no right to do more than to restrict the territorial enlargement of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln's_second_inaug...

Lincoln wanted to save the union. He did not care about slaves (there was slavery in the north too, but the economy did not depend on it)

The South seceded because of the threat to slavery and the writing on the wall about the way that was going.

So, yes, the USA Civil War was about slavery. The fact that Lincoln did not fight "for the slaves" or even "free the slaves" (the slaves in the North were not freed by the Emancipation Declaration" but by the Thirteenth Amendment) is not relevant.

It is not "semantics", it is a simple fact.

You said it yourself:

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union"

The North wanted to keep the country together when they went into the war. Tax considerations weren't part of the equation.

I’ve always wondered why people reframing the civil war to be about economics rather than slavery, don’t consider slaves are part of the economy (and that slavery itself is a perversion of an economic system).

If you value free market economics, like we so often do today, then step one ought to be free mobility of labor which means laborers ought to be literally free of physical chains binding them to their “employers”.

You have to ask - if there was no cotten export industry of such a scale, would we of had still had slavery at the scale it was in that era?

If nothing replaced cotton, then probably not, but there are other goods than could have substituted. And of course, eventually someone would have had the bright idea of using slaves in factories and coal mines. In the end it’s hard to avoid slavery by merely being resource poor.

Even in the worst environments, some small elite will always benefit by enslaving the rest of the populace. Take for example, the Danes taking English slaves. It was not an economy bursting with productivity and wealth, yet slavery still existed because “elite” warriors didn’t want to wash their own clothes or grow their own crops or make their own entertainment.

This is why I called slavery an economic perversion. There is no job that can’t be done by someone enslaved. Slaves may start as field workers, but they eventually become supervisors. From bed warmers to dancers, singers, and composers. From household servants, they become palace chefs. From nannies they become tutors. From handmaids they become house stewards and accountants. If the practice isn’t stamped out (or restricted via laws such as a caste system since mere social pressure won’t stop the elite from maximizing profit from more educated slaves), it just grows more varied.

I would bet if institutional slavery existed legally today, even computer programmers would face stiff competition from that source rather than having to worry about jobs being outsourced.

It is interesting that the emancipation proclamation did not free the slaves of the northern and northern occupied states, despite that being there "main concern"

The main concern of the southern states was slavery. The main concern of the north was continuance of the Union as such.

That is, the intent behind seccession was to maintain slavery. The intent behind the emancipation proclamation wasn't (solely) to end slavery, but to encourage rebellion by enslaved southerners.

South Carolina did succeede due largely to its fear that the federal government would nationally abolish slavery. President Buchanan, before leaving office, made a gentlemans agreement that he would leave alone a largely abandoned sand bar military base that was run by South Carolinians inside the boundary of said state. In the middle of the night, a federal navy ship, who took all the armamments from a well established nearby federal military base, went to fort sumter and forced out the occupants by bayonet(kind of aggresive?/s) Cabinet members of Lincolns presidency warned him not to send reinforcements, which they were sure would further provoke sentiments of military provocation. He did anyway. This pissed off the SCians who decided, to hell with it no one gets this sand bar, and so they destroyed the base by cannon fire with no one there to nullify either parties claim. No one died, largely because no one was supposed too. Lincoln, then, decided he should call on the remaining states to build one of the largest armies assembled by the federal goverment to forcibly take back south carolina. This extereme overreaction to the situation is the well known historical reason why the rest of the states promptly left the union in its fear of the clear millitary power grab that was occuring before their eyes. Many powerful southerners did not want their home states succeed, including Robert E Lee! Note: What I did not say in the second to last sentence was that there wasn't sentiment of the follower states of protecting slavery.

Lincoln, like a good lawyer, modified the definition of a word, union, from (meriam webster 1. the formation of a single political unit[okay sure, but read on] from two or more separate and independent. Most dicts use the word "confederacy" for this definition as well) a voluntary agreement between indepenent parts, to involuntary permanance. Did he use trade embargoes like a peace seeking consolidator would? Regardless of your opinion on slavery's involvement, or how righteous either side was, Lincoln, at best, poorly* navigated the waters of the time and was the clear cause of military escalation bringing the greatest casualty of americans lives by population of its respective era.

> Lincoln, then, decided he should call on the remaining states to build one of the largest armies assembled by the federal goverment to forcibly take back south carolina. This extereme overreaction to the situation is the well known historical reason why the rest of the states promptly left the union in its fear of the clear millitary power grab that was occuring before their eyes.

Interesting claim, but it doesn't hold up. The battle of Ft. Sumpter started in April 1861. South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas had already seceded. Only Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee waited until after the battle.

> Did he use trade embargoes like a peace seeking consolidator would?

He wasn't looking to be a piece seeking consolidator, he was looking to put down a revolt. You're welcome to make the argument that actually it would have been better realpolitik to appease the southern states. In fact, I'd love to see that argument!

Fair! My mistake, a little less than half of the states seceded due to the problem I addressed of excessive force which you have not discredited or properly justified.

Again your second paragraph attacks a small technicality. Your saying destroying a run down building on a sandbar is the same as conquering a 32000 square miles? Or are you saying that ignoring the definitions found in all english dictionaries is null and void for this specific use case? Seperating from a definitional union is not a revolt. If my wife leaves me do i get to threaten her with violence and then beat her if she refuses, then chain her permanently to me?

I suggest you read something as basic as the Wikipedia article on sumpter, basically everything you've said about it is wrong, and I'm wholly uninterested in discussing this with someone from an alternate timeline.

What I will say is first, that trying to equate families and countries is rarely valid, and this case is no exception (declaring yourself divorced, for example, does not make it so, and if you take certain actions after unilaterally claiming your union is solved, your partner would be within their rights to invite state force against you!). And second, that yes, firing cannons on soldiers is usually considered an act of war. Everyone involved knew that, the confederacy was already gearing up for war and some think that SC's intent was specifically to provoke a war. So your argument that it was just friendly ribbing doesn't really stand to scrutiny.

Your just pushing transparent confederate propaganda at this point. Stop apologizing for traitors and insurrectionists.

We can go ahead and cast it as an economic conflict if we really want -- the conflict between a system based on industrialization and an alternate one based on slavery. But slavery is, as you say, most certainly central to the conflict.

I think the reason you’re getting so much vitriol is that you’re framing this issue without any room for nuance.

It’s accepted that a disagreement over the future economic regime of the Union was core to the American Civil War. Part of that economic future was tariffs, as you highlight. But an even more foundational part was slavery, and it’s role in the economic future of the country. The elites of the North and South vehemently disagreed on the role of slavery in America’s future, and it’s absurd to say this didn’t escalate tensions.

It is not correct to frame slavery as an afterthought. It is not correct to frame the moral issue of slavery as the only reason for the war, because it had enormous economic and political implications beyond its morality.

> It is not correct to frame the moral issue of slavery as the only reason for the war, because it had enormous economic and political implications beyond its morality.

I saw an article that said that by the mid-1800's, the southern states that seceded accounted for half the GDP of the entire US, and slave labour accounted for a majority of that. Abolishing slavery would cripple and impoverish those states, so of course they had to secede. From an economical-political perspective it was the only possible choice.

Imagine that the federal US wanted to prohibit people in California from working with software or media. No more Silicon Valley, no more Hollywood. California would secede in a heartbeat, and every single HN reader living there would strongly support it. Threaten people's way of life, and they'll get kinda angry, regardless of morality.

It's also important to realize that since the southern states were so dependent on slavery, and since people actually have a natural aversion to it, that there existed a system of constant brutal racist propaganda to protect itself. That propaganda was everywhere, it was scientific: Clearly, black people are better suited at working in the sun, cotton requires work in the sun, therefore it is the natural order of things that black people should work the cottonfields. Religious: God rewards the people he loves with prosperity, white plantation owners are the most prosperous, therefore God clearly loves this order of things and wills it so. Political: White nations originating in Europe have subjugated black nations in Africa, and since might makes right, black people from Africa are clearly better off as slaves in America, it's a more civilized life, and therefore the best order of things.

Racism and slavery was simply woven into the fabric of society in a way that's very difficult to imagine today, which is why the reductionism is so misguided. Not being racist or not profiting off of slavery was simply not an option for people living there.

There’s really not a lot of of discussion of foreign trade in the documents the states ratified to enact secession. [0] They sure do talk about slavery quite explicitly though.

[0] - https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati...

> There’s really not a lot of of discussion of foreign trade in the documents the states ratified to enact secession.

Because tariffs are a congressional matter, not a state matter. They were trying to justify secession via the states' rights angle. Also, politicians don't like using money as a justification for their actions. It comes off tacky. They want to appear noble and virtuous. Sorta like how nobody invaded iraq for oil. You invade iraq for democracy. Just like the american independence was about "liberty and freedom" not tariffs and the right to steal native land west of the appalachian mountains. "Liberty and freedom" by slave owners. Using your logic, the iraq war was about democracy and the american independence was about freedom. Do you believe russia is invading ukraine to free ukraine from nazis too?

You're claiming they decided to pretend it was about slavery to "appear noble and virtuous." Really??? That's their way of getting GOOD PR? They knew slavery was unpopular with everyone else but them, but they're doubling down on pretending that's their reason instead of tarrifs because they want to look "noble"? OK.

How goddamn stupid is anyone to believe that shit?

Appear noble... to their constituents who were slave owners and racist white southerns?

I think that's what he means.

> Sorta like how nobody invaded iraq for oil. You invade iraq for democracy freedom.

Fictitious WMD, even more fictitious ties to al-Qaeda (and because, as distinct from North Korea, as described by then -Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Iraq “floats on a sea of oil“, notionally foreclosing leverage for non-military pressure against those fictions.) “Democracy” and “freedom” weren't cited as the reasons for going in, but as things we needed to assure in the aftermath of destroying the existing regime for other reasons. (And then later as “wins” that retroactively justified the invasion even if there never were WMD to protect against.)

Read any state’s declaration of secession. Slavery was the direct cause of the war.

Not by the North to end it, by the South to preserve it.

> The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But 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.

> Markets and tariffs were the reason the south seceded.

No, they weren't.

> Lincoln didn't say "end slavery and we shall have the greatest nation on earth".

The South didn't revolt over something Lincoln said, they revolted over the failure to secure their desire for expansion of slavery into the territories, which they read (probably accurately) as foreshadowing eventual abolition of slavery if they remained in the Union.

Now, they misjudged the prospects of rebellion and so hastened the abolition of slavery by rebelling.

> The South didn't revolt over something Lincoln said, they revolted over the failure to secure their desire for expansion of slavery into the territories

There was no such desire on the South's part, although the claim that there was was common in abolitionist propaganda of the time. The South already knew that none of the territories being added to the Union at that time were suitable for the kind of economy based on slavery that they had in the established Southern states.

> which they read (probably accurately) as foreshadowing eventual abolition of slavery if they remained in the Union

No, what they read (probably accurately) as foreshadowing eventual abolition of slavery if they remained in the Union was...the continuing vociferous demands on the part of abolitionists over decades for the abolition of slavery, which continued to gain more political traction over time. Lincoln's election as a Republican just pushed them over the edge (although another strong signal was sent a couple of years before when all of the abolitionists who kept talking about how we should let the legal process work and abide by its decisions, suddenly switched gears and started talking about ignoring the legal process after the Dred Scott decision). There is no need to attribute fictitious motives of "expansion of slavery" to the South to account for secession. The documented historical facts of the abolitionist movement are more than enough.

Interestingly one of the reasons the south began their war over the right to own people was indeed because they were mad they couldn't force other states in the union to treat Black folks as slaves. Read up on the Fugitive Slave Act (https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/fugitive-...)

Ironic considering the modern lost cause argument of the war being over "states' rights". There was one right they were primarily concerned with - owning people.

> they were mad they couldn't force other states in the union to treat Black folks as slaves

Meaning, I take it, that the couldn't trust northern states to actually obey the Fugitive Slave Act? Even though there was an explicit provision in the Constitution about it?

> Ironic considering the modern lost cause argument of the war being over "states rights"

That's not a "modern" argument. It's the argument the south actually made at the time. And as a matter of law, they were right: both the Constitution and Federal law laid a legal duty on northern states, which northern states refused to obey.

Of course, our "modern" view is that it's perfectly OK to ignore a law if you think it's "wrong"; and this was the argument the north made for ignoring the Fugitive Slave Act: that slavery was wrong, so nobody had any duty to obey a law requiring them to support slavery in any way.

Ironic considering that the same "modern" people who make such arguments also talk about how having a rule of law, where people can't just arbitrarily ignore laws they don't like, is a good thing.

The truth is that both sides at the time of the civil war were wrong. The south was wrong because it was using arguments about rights and the rule of law to deny rights to the slaves. But the north was also wrong because it was undermining the very institution of law, which is wrong even if it's in a good cause, because the institution of law is necessary to have a civil society at all.

With the FSA the south was pushing to force free states to kidnap individuals, something that was illegal to do. There's no constitutional provision for allowing kidnapping and enslaving individuals. In fact there are many rights that explicitly disallow that! The south crying about their inability to force free states to enslave people is an example of the hypocrisy of the modern argument that the south primarily fought over "states' rights" and not slavery, which is 100% bullshit. Read what the southern states said about their reasons for exiting the union: https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati...

The right they talk about? The right to own people. Slavery.

> That's not a "modern" argument

The southern states were concerned with slavery at the time the war started, not "states rights" - as pointed out, they were perfectly happy to attempt to force free states to kidnap people. "States' rights" became the battle cry in the next century, read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy

Prior to then "states' rights" was not something heavily pushed by the south regarding the Civil War, they didn't think that way generally. As pointed out they were happy to reject the northern states' rights to disallow slavery!

> The truth is that both sides at the time of the civil war were wrong.

> But the north was also wrong because it was undermining the very institution of law

No, only the south was wrong here.

> Prior to then "states' rights" was not something heavily pushed by the south, they didn't think that way generally.

You must be joking. Pushing for states' rights by southern states goes back at least all the way to the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions in the late 1790s, and arguably was an important topic for them at the Constitutional Convention in 1787. Relying on Wikipedia as your source on a topic like this is not a good idea.

> There's no constitutional provision for allowing kidnapping and enslaving individuals.

If you want to argue that the explicit Constitutional provision about fugitive slaves (Article IV, Section 2, last clause) is inconsistent with other provisions of the Constitution, you can try to make that argument. But just claiming that the Constitution doesn't allow fugitive slaves to be returned to their owners, and calling doing so "kidnapping" without any supporting argument, when the Constitution has an explicit provision that requires fugitive slaves to be returned to their owners, is nonsense. You can't just ignore parts of the Constitution you don't like.

> only the south was wrong here

I don't think you have fully thought through your position.

> you can try to make that argument.

Are you claiming that slavery is constitutional?

How does that square with the 4th amendment against unreasonable search and seizure? The fugitive slave laws allowed anyone to seize anyone they thought might be a slave. Clearly unconstitutional. Also clearly kidnapping! I'd like to hear how you would not consider this kidnapping.

How does it square with the 5th amendment? No one can "be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." Kidnapping someone clearly violates this amendment.

The 6th and 7th amendments guarantee the right to an impartial jury and a jury trial - however the laws the south wanted to force on the north (a hypocritical violation of states' rights) allowed people to be kidnapped without going through these processes.

You can argue that the constitution is contradictory, but you cannot reasonably argue that the fugitive slave acts do not violate the bill of rights.

> I don't think you have fully thought through your position.

You are ignoring the facts. The south's stated reason for leaving the union was to continue the institution of slavery. The modern "states' rights" argument _regarding the war_ is an attempt to ignore that the state right explicitly called for by those states was the right to own other people.

> Are you claiming that slavery is constitutional?

It was until the Thirteenth Amendment was passed, yes.

I think you have some serious learning to do about the Constitution.

As for how the Bill of Rights was interpreted to be consistent with the fugitive slave provision of the Constitution, that's simple: the jurisprudence of the time did not apply the Bill of Rights to slaves. I'm sure this will seem very shocking to you, but it's quite clear from the historical documents (see, for example, my reference to the Dred Scott decision upthread).

> you cannot reasonably argue that the fugitive slave acts do not violate the bill of rights

Perhaps you can't, but the judges and juries of the time had no problem doing so at all. See above. Even abolitionists did not make this claim. They claimed that slavery was wrong and that laws such as the fugitive slave law were unjust, but they never claimed they were unconstitutional. Their response to provisions like that in the Constitution was to say that the Constitution itself was unjust; for example, William Lloyd Garrison called it "a covenant with death and an agreement with hell". And they were perfectly ok with violating the Constitution in the name of what they believed to be the greater good of abolishing slavery. But they never argued that the Constitution's fugitive slave provision was inconsistent with the Bill of Rights, because nobody believed that to be the case.

> You are ignoring the facts.

No, I'm not. I just appear to have a much better understanding of their historical context than you do.

> If you want to argue that the explicit Constitutional provision about fugitive slaves (Article IV, Section 2, last clause) is inconsistent with other provisions of the Constitution, you can try to make that argument

The fugitive slave provisions of the Constitution were, by definition, consistent with the Constitution, however morally repugnant they were. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, OTOH, provided for the summary detention of accused escaped slaves by affidavit without warrant or probable cause or even any establishment of a reasonable basis, denied accused escaped slave the right to be heard in their own defense, denied them jury trial on the accusation, denied them trial before a judicial officer on the accusation, allowing the accusation to be heard by special commissioners who were paid a premium for ruling that the accused was, in fact, a fugitive without even a pretense of evenhanded justice, and commandeered state officers to assist with enforcement. On any reasonable reading—notwithstanding that its purpose was Constitutionally valid—it violated the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 10th Amendments, and the suspension clause.

(The Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 has a subset of the same problems.)

> On any reasonable reading—notwithstanding that its purpose was Constitutionally valid—it violated the 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, and 10th Amendments, and the suspension clause.

The Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision did not take this position. They took the position that the Constitution's protections simply did not apply to slaves. (In fact the decision said that those provisions didn't even apply to free blacks.)

Of course you can say that the Supreme Court was simply wrong. But under our system of law, the Supreme Court's rulings on Constitutional provisions are final unless overridden by an amendment--as the Dred Scott decision was overridden by the Thirteenth Amendment. So as a matter of law, the fugitive slave laws were Constitutional until the Thirteenth Amendment was passed. Just as, for example, it's Constitutional (unless a future Amendment changes things) for Congress to regulate a farmer's growing of wheat for personal use under the Commerce Clause (Wickard v. Filburn), or for a city to seize people's homes and turn them over to a private developer under the eminent domain power (Kelo v. New London). You might think those decisions were wrong (I do), but they're still the law of the land unless and until a Constitutional Amendment overrides them.

> But the north was also wrong because it was undermining the very institution of law

Yeah, but by that logic the whole US was wrong for rebelling against England.

> by that logic the whole US was wrong for rebelling against England.

If we include in the north's logic the claim that secession was wrong for the southern states, then yes, one could argue that by the same logic it was wrong for the colonies to secede from Britain. Although there was a difference: the colonies had no effective representation in the British Parliament, they were just colonies, whereas the southern states were not colonies of the US, they were states and had the same representation in the US Congress as other states.

> Meaning, I take it, that the couldn't trust northern states to actually obey the Fugitive Slave Act?

You mean the one (either the 1793 or the 1850 one, though the latter was both worse in this regard and—ironically given the common argument that the Confederacy was motivated by “states rights”—also violated federalism by commandeering state officers for enforcement rather than relying federal resources to enforce federal law) that unconstitutionally presumptively denied habeas rights to anyone alleged by a private person to be an escaped slave?

> But the north was also wrong because it was undermining the very institution of law

No, that was also the South.

> Markets and tariffs were the reason the south seceded.

No, it was slavery.

> Tarrifs were the reason for the civil war.

No Southern secession, and the Northern response to prevent it, was the proximate reason for the Civil War. The South seceded due to slavery.

Yes the North didn't go into the war to free slaves. They did it to keep the country together. But as the war progressed its position on abolition hardened until it became a war aim.

You and dragonwriter keep repeating the false statement.

> The South seceded due to slavery.

No. They left after the north raised the tariff. They justified the secession on states' rights ( one of the notable being slavery ).

The south didn't secede after the north freed the slaves, threatened to free the slaves, etc. They left after they lost a decades long tariff battle to the north. The fight in the first part of the 1800s wasn't over slavery. The major fight between the north and south was tariffs/trade. It was industrialization vs agricultralism. It was never about slavery because some northern states also had slavery before and during the civil war.

If the civil war was about slavery, why didn't delaware and maryland also secede with slave owning states?

Why did west virginia secede from virginia? Could it be because west virginia major industries sold minerals, coal, etc to the industrial north? While the rest of virginia was agriculturally based?

> No. They left after the north raised the tariff

No, they didn't.

Lincoln was elected in Nov 6, 1860. [0]

South Carolina seceded around a month later, on December 20, 1860 [1]. Georgia began drafting a new constitution in January 1861[2], after voting to secede a few days earlier.

The Morill Tariff passed in the senate on Feb 20, 1861, two months after SC seceded, and one month after GA.[3]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_United_States_presidentia...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Carolina_Declaration_of_...

[2]: https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/government-poli...

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morrill_Tariff#Renewed_Senate_...

It's rich of you to call everyone else's statement false when you're the one promoting ignoring the primary texts including the declarations of secession of the states in favor of your hypothetical 15-decade-later mindreading.

But all your questions have answers if you actually looked shit up instead of being suckered into being a mouthpiece for historical revisionism to deflect attention from the sins of the past.

West Virginia split because they didn't want to secede. Did they want to stay because of economic reasons? It doesn't really matter to this question, the war was started by states secession, so the reason for the first move is what matters.

Maryland and Delaware were further north and less dominated by slave-holders than the states that did secede. Anti-slavery sentiment in the pre-war US was very geographically distributed, after all. It was actively debated and voted on, but it didn't carry the day.

Especially Delaware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Delaware#Delaware_i...

"Slavery had been a divisive issue in Delaware for decades before the American Civil War began. Opposition to slavery in Delaware, imported from Quaker-dominated Pennsylvania, led many slaveowners to free their slaves; half of the state's black population was free by 1810, and more than 90% were free by 1860."

> why didn't delaware and maryland also secede with slave owning states?

Have you looked at a map to see where they are? They would've been curbstomped fairly quickly if they tried. And although slavery was legal in Delaware, 91% of the Black population there was free at the start of the ACW.[1]

> The south didn't secede after the north freed the slaves, threatened to free the slaves,

The South seceded because they feared the North would free the slaves.

> Why did west virginia secede from virginia?

Because they disagreed with Virginia's secession from the United States.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware#Slavery_and_race

> Slavery was at best an afterthought. Markets and tariffs were the reason the south seceded. Tarrifs were the reason for the civil war.

This is so wrong it's a wonder how anyone could think this.

Put it like this: the reason the South wanted low tarrifs was because they were a low cost producer.

And they were a low cost producer because of slave labor.

> This is so wrong it's a wonder how anyone could think this.

A very long propaganda campaign (oddly, by the very same people who argue that slavery was actually a good thing that was done for those subject to it who should be thankful for it) has established it as an article of faith for a large population in this country, despite the fact that the rebels were quite explicit that the rebellion was about slavery.

I thought this was impossible, but sure enough here on HN there is someone who is literally making that exact argument: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31454920

> This is so wrong it's a wonder how anyone could think this.

I and everyone I knew was taught this is school by people who wanted to push the narrative, and it took a long time to figure out it was false.

> it took a long time to figure out it was false

Yeah I mean you have to first ignore what those Southerners themselves said were their actual reasons for secession (slavery), and what they wrote down on paper (we're leaving 'cuz we want to keep our slaves). It obviously takes a long time to learn how to ignore actual facts.

> push the narrative

Those dastardly schools, pushing Confederate states' constitutions at young impressionable minds to convince them that the Confederacy was evil. We have to stop them! /s

EDIT: I misunderstood the parent poster. Apologies.

Indeed, we went to great lengths to avoid confronting actual primary sources. It's not enough to just teach alternative history, you also have to teach learned helplessness, that only certain authorities are trustworthy, and to promote a general climate of proud ignorance (looking up things in books is for losers and caring about education is for suckers).

> we went to great lengths to avoid confronting actual primary sources

So you're saying you looked up the primary source documents for Southern secession and you still believe slavery wasn't a cause?

I think you're picking a fight here that's not there: its relatively uncontroversial that there's been an aggressive campaign since the civil war to minimise slavery as a factor, particularly in the South - you will easily find "war of northern aggression" types because that is what they are taught.

Thanks for explaining. I didn't think Southern schools were still teaching the Lost Cause as history so recently.

All of the current FUD in the southern states against CRT etc. seems like another attempt to take control of the historical narrative to once again start feeding lies to the young and mint a new generation of unquestioning voters that believe in a false history.

No, poster is saying the schools taught them not to look at those sources, because the lost cause lie was to be taught and could not sink in if the primary sources were available (which 100% contradict the "states rights" argument taught in many schools in the US, mostly in the south)

One doesn’t storm Harper’s Ferry over Mercantilism.

“Lost cause” theories are considered the actual revisionism by the vast majority of historians, due to the many pieces of strong evidence supporting slavery being the major issue driving the war.

Let’s start with the articles of secession. Ctrl-F on these and you’ll find “slave” mentioned more than 80 times. https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declarati...

There were the journals of the actual soldiers fighting the war, who frequently mentioned how slavery was their motivation for fighting the war.

There was the intense focus on slavery leading up to the war, like a slave state being admitted for every free state. There was the Caning of Summers where a man was nearly beaten to death on the senate floor over a very rude speech he gave over slavery https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caning_of_Charles_Sumner

There were the northerners coming into slave states and inciting slave rebellions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown_(abolitionist)

In general, the idea that slavery wasn’t a motivator of the war was mostly pitched to Britain who was mostly abolitionist at the time, but overwhelmingly it was mostly pitched after the war had already concluded. Before and during the war the confederates were quite clear their motivation for waging the war was primarily slavery. They were very open about this, which is why historians tend to be doubtful about a theory which seemingly was only ever popularized to make the confederates save face. Historians aren’t keen to go “oh these people who mentioned slavery over and over when they were seceding didn’t care about slavery that was just a prank and I know how they really felt, checkmate Lincolnites!”

Nobody doubts that economics weren’t a major factor in the war, but slavery was discussed far far far more often than tariffs. Tariffs are mostly brought up nowadays because they’re more palatable, not because of the strong evidence the average southerner or southern leader was fighting for tariffs.

>Lincoln did nothing to free the slaves when the war started

True. Lincoln’s initial goal was to keep the union together, whereas the confederates were fighting for slavery. Keep in mind the Civil war was by far the deadliest war in US history, I believe more Americans died in that war than every subsequent war combined. Ending slavery is a noble goal, so is preventing the 620k deaths that happened.

It was only later on, largely due to the aforementioned British pressure that he gave his emancipation proclamation largely as a strategic move to prevent Europe from entering the war since after the proclamation their entrance into the war would be seen as supportive of slavery. However, Lincoln did want to end slavery eventually and many in the union fought for the sake of abolition. Note how a civil war was started soon after Lincoln was elected with the secessionists repeatedly mentioning slavery, his support of abolition was no secret.

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