Contrary to the prevailing rewrite of our history, all of the seceding states seemed to think the Civil War: slavery

[applegrove]

Contrary to the prevailing rewrite of our history, all of the seceding states seemed to think the Civil War was entirely about slavery.
A compendium to Bryan’s work…
https://www.battlefields.org/learn/primary-sources/declaration-causes-seceding-states

Applegrove:

I was in US history class in high school in Ottawa, Canada when our teacher announced it was States Rights not Slavery that the US Civil War was fought over. That was in the early 1980s. That was some massive international rewrite.

[BOSSHOG]

1. I always thought

Slavery and states rights were one and the same. Confederate states wanted the right to have slaves, the union be damned. Today “states rights” continue to be a dog whistle for the racist ear.

[applegrove]

3. "States Rights" allows the Confederate movement to continue

in a way the word "slavery" would not encourage a continued Confederacy. It worked.

[ITAL]

6. Not entirely

Most States Rights stuff was definitely slavery, but there was also a lot of skepticism about a strong national government period, especially in the first 3-4 decades of our country's existence. Thomas Jefferson argued states didn't have to accept the Supreme Court decisions they didn't like.

[yardwork]

8. It was about slavery from the very beginning.

Thomas Jefferson owned slaves.

[ITAL]

11. Of course I know he did

However, slavery didn't feature in Jefferson's writings on the matter by and large. His belief that states were the ultimate arbiters on if they should follow the laws of the national government really came to the fore with the Alien and Sedition Acts -- not slavery.

[marble falls]

2. The specific "states right" they were fighting for was slavery.

[bucolic_frolic]

4. The South was a fundamentally different economic system than the North

South was agrarian and relied on slave labor as raw input to the system. They had less manufacturing, relying mostly on imports from England and other European countries. Plantation owners were very wealthy, just like in Barbados.

The North had factories and businesses, partially protected by tariffs that were lobbied for by the same business interests that put Abraham Lincoln at the head of the Republican Ticket. When Lincoln swooned 'freedom and opportunity' workers loved it, but business knew it meant no regulations and rampant growth. Lincoln was known as a small town lawyer for the people, but he also had railroad clients and real estate investments in a growing rail hub.

[AZProgressive]

5. One thing I learned is that the GOP has always been the big business party

Big business used to support an expanded federal government because that meant things like railroad contracts but now that US has grown so large and powerful big business wants to significantly reduce that for fewer regulations and labor rights and the enforcement behind that.

My reply to the OP is I learned right here at DU around the same time I first joined that the Southeast states specifically mentions slavery in their letters of secession.

[Marcuse]

7. The Confederates spoke for themselves. Their Governors and Legislatures were direct, straightforward and very clear.

NeoConfederates have been much more abstract until now:
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/

[Buckeyeblue]

9. Southerners started saying it was about states rights so they wouldn't have to outright defend slavery

There was a moral imperative to end slavery. Otherwise, Lincoln could have just let the south go. Their economy was unsustainable. But the war to end slavery was worth the fight.

[Sin]

10. This is a good watch on the subject.

&t=73s&ab_channel=Vox

[sweetapogee]

12. the state of

Virginia was the only state that lost land as a result of the American Civil War. On June 20, 1863 the state of West Virginia, made up of many western counties of Virginia, was admitted into the union. When I was in college, my West Virginia history professor started every lecture saying, "a child born of civil strife". His opinion, and one that makes a lot of sense to me, was that had the Confederacy prevailed, that same Confederacy would have at a later date, but probably within the 19th century, split into two confederacies, an eastern with a capitol in Richmond VA and another mainly centered around Texas. The reasons for this are complex but if you look at our southern states today, the economy is centered around industry and technology which has an appetite for semi-skilled/skilled workers and is centered in urban areas which is much different from rural plantation farm economy where the main cash crop is not edible. To quote General Longstreet's character played by Tom Berenger in the movie Gettysburg, speaking to R.E. Lee, he said "we should have freed the slaves, then fired on Fort Sumter". And Lee doesn't argue with him. In a representative republic such as we have here, political power is everything and the industrialists wanted to keep that advantage from the planter class, plain and simple. There is no scenario where slavery would have survived in the long term in the US, the ACW simply accelerated the demise. It cost the northern (US) taxpayers I think about 9 million dollars per day in 1860s dollars to fight the war. There was not enough money in the southern states to compete with that long term. Confederate (state) script was basically worthless by April 1865, huge tracts of land were laid waste.