YEAH, THAT’S WHAT IT WAS ABOUT

“The people of Georgia having dissolved their political connection with the Government of the United States of America, present to their confederates and the world the causes which have led to the separation. For the last ten years we have had numerous and serious causes of complaint against our non-slave-holding confederate States with reference to the subject of African slavery…Our Northern confederates, after a full and calm hearing of all the facts, after a fair warning of our purpose not to submit to the rule of the authors of all these wrongs and injuries, have by a large majority committed the Government of the United States into their hands. The people of Georgia, after an equally full and fair and deliberate hearing of the case, have declared with equal firmness that they shall not rule over them. A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia.” – Georgia Declaration of Causes, January 29, 1861

“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. That we do not overstate the dangers to our institution, a reference to a few facts will sufficiently prove.” – Mississippi Declaration of Causes, January 9, 1861

“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…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.” – South Carolina Declaration of Causes, December 20, 1860

“She was received as a commonwealth holding, maintaining and protecting the institution known as negro slavery– the servitude of the African to the white race within her limits– a relation that had existed from the first settlement of her wilderness by the white race, and which her people intended should exist in all future time.” – Texas Declaration of Causes, February 2, 1861

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The Lie

According to Encyclopedia Virginia, there are six tenets to the Lost Cause Myth:

1. Secession, not slavery, caused the Civil War.
2. African Americans were faithful slaves, loyal to their masters and the Confederate cause.
3. The Confederacy was defeated militarily only because of the North’s overwhelming manpower and resources.
4. Confederate soldiers were heroic and saintly.
5. The most heroic and saintly of all was Robert E. Lee
6. Southern women were loyal to the cause and sanctified by the sacrifice of their men.

Let’s take a sledgehammer to the load-bearing wall of the Myth – the Civil War wasn’t fought over slavery. As it was told to me growing up, had the northern states just let the Confederacy be, there would have been no war. 

The Confederacy (please read this in your best Foghorn Leghorn) didn’t want to keep slaves, you see. They were simply tasked with the care of lesser beings, whom God (in his wisdom) had placed in their care. After a time, slavery would have gone away and then the Confederacy would have become a happy Utopia where an inferior race was “managed” by the superior White man. 

No, I didn’t hear this at neighborhood Klan rallies, I heard this at church.   I didn’t have to seek out the kooky skinheads at school, I just had to go to American History class.

I was told that to the people of the time, the fight wasn’t about slavery.  That was just something Yankees came up with to make Southerners feel bad about themselves after the fact.  And that those damn Yankees did that because of the whooping they got.

But, then, what the hell are these Declarations of Causes?

The Truth

The Truth is that four States issued Declarations of Causes when they seceded from the Union.  I had never seen or heard of these until 2023, when I stumbled on a random Reddit post.  Bookmark that link – it has the same effect on Lost Causers that garlic has on vampires.  I plucked out the juiciest sections, but please read them in their entirety.  And, if you’ll allow me to use the same joke twice, please read the whiny parts of South Carolina and Mississippi in your best Foghorn Leghorn.

This…this is a tough section to write.  What can I say when the sons of bitches already said it all?

“But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.”

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. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.” Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President, Confederate States of America, March 21, 1861.

Let’s say we entertain the attempt at an intellectual argument that if the war was about slavery, then why didn’t Lincoln say that from the start? 

The answer, as always – and in the most American way possible – is politics.  There were four states that permitted slavery and were on the fence about secession – Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri.  In the early stages of the war, Lincoln had to toe the line to ensure that those states didn’t also leave the Union.  Can you imagine if Maryland secedes, and DC is suddenly surrounded by a foreign country?

Also, until after the Seven Days’ in 1862, there was still a chance that the two sides would make up and the parts would become whole.  While that chance existed, Lincoln couldn’t do the one thing that would make reunion impossible – touch slavery.  It wasn’t until the war had essentially gone total in 1862 that it was clear that the parts were irretrievably broken with no hope of reassembly and would have to be replaced with something new.  Then, and only then, was it politically safe for the Union to make the war about ending slavery.

The individual soldier?  Well, it matters less what he’s fighting for.  This is not a dig at individual soldiers – I come from a military family.  But does the gun care where the soldier points it?  No, and while the individual soldier surely contemplates his purpose in the larger scope of geopolitics, what he believes doesn’t matter as long as he fights.  In 1863, the Union made the war about ending slavery.  The army didn’t evaporate or stop fighting. It grew in strength and power and, ultimately, ended slavery.

Why it Matters

Until 1865, slavery existed in America.  Slavery was included in our constitution, those in bondage were counted as three-fifths of a person.  Slavery was known to be the poison pill at our founding.  Slavery was the main source of conflict between the sections before the war.  Slavery is America’s original sin.

It’s painful.  It’s ugly.  It hurts. 

It’s on the list of things that makes me cry if I think about it.

But it’s the truth.

And in 1860, the majority of the country voted for a man they knew would likely take slavery on – if only to contain it.  And when States left to protect their right to own slaves (see what I did there?), they gave him the political support to restore the union and end slavery.

In 1865, they were successful.  Through might of arms, political stamina, innovation, and downright courage, millions of people were freed from bondage.  We should celebrate this every day.

But the poison of the Myth has the power to erase that accomplishment from history.  Just like the “Great Men” argument, this part of the Myth makes it easy for one to make dark leaps in logic.

If the South didn’t secede to protect slavery, and the Union only went to war to keep the South from leaving – then slavery wasn’t worth fighting over?  If slavery wasn’t worth fighting over, was it that bad?  Or, alternatively – if we weren’t fighting to end slavery, then are they right that one race is superior to another?

This pillar of the Myth is the most destructive and was effectively used to ruin the proper reintegration of the South into the Union.  It’s been used as the philosophical basis for racists laws and structures since the end of Reconstruction.

It’s stolen our history from us.

And it’s time we took it back.