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What Did the Secession Declarations Actually Say? - The Documents of Disunion | Sleepy Facts About History · Sleepy Facts About History

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Welcome to Sleepy Facts About History. In the
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winter of 1860, elected delegates across the
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American South gathered in state capitals to
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sign formal ordinances of secession. They published
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their reasons in newspapers and pamphlets for
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all to read. And if you take them at their word,
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they left the Union for one purpose. They named
0:32
repeatedly and without ambiguity to protect the
0:35
institution of slavery. This episode examines
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the primary source documents, including the secession
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declarations of South Carolina, Mississippi,
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and Texas, alongside the speeches of secession
0:48
commissioners and the Confederate Constitution,
0:50
to understand exactly why the war began. Some
0:55
questions sound simple until you try to answer
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them, and the origins of the American Civil War
1:00
have been heavily obscured by later memory traditions.
1:04
I wanted to understand why the historical record
1:07
of the 1860s was replaced by the lost cause narrative
1:11
in the decades following the conflict. By returning
1:14
to the contemporary evidence, Alexander Stevan's
1:18
cornerstone speech, and the formal declarations
1:21
of the seceding states, we can see what the southern
1:24
political leadership explicitly argued at the
1:27
time, rather than what later generations claimed
1:29
they meant. The episode also explores the initial
1:33
war aims of the Union, correcting the common
1:36
assumption that the North entered the war primarily
1:38
to abolish slavery. Understanding the distinction
1:41
between why the Confederacy chose to leave and
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why the federal government chose to fight provides
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a clearer, more accurate picture of the crisis.
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Join me for a calm, careful look at the historical
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texts that established the true causes of the
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American Civil War. In the winter of 1860, elected
2:05
delegates across the American South gathered
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in state capitals. They signed ceremonial ordinances
2:12
with formal pens. They published their reasons
2:15
in newspapers and pamphlets for all to read.
2:18
And if you take them at their word, they left
2:21
the Union for one purpose. They named repeatedly
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and without ambiguity to protect slavery. In
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the winter of 1860, as the year turned cold,
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delegates traveled to state capitals across the
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American South by rail and horseback. They arrived
2:39
in towns where crowds gathered outside convention
2:42
halls to wait for news. Inside, men elected specifically
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for this purpose sat in legislative chambers
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and courthouses. They deliberated through December
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and January with the gravity of those who believed
2:56
they were making history. When they voted to
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secede, They signed ordinances with ceremonial
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pens. The documents they produced were printed
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in newspapers, distributed as pamphlets, and
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read aloud to assembled audiences. These were
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not private letters or secret memoranda. They
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were formal declarations, published speeches,
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and constitutional ordinances. They were public
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statements of why these states chose to leave
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the United States. And if you read them in sequence
3:30
as they were written and delivered, you encounter
3:33
something that later generations would try to
3:35
obscure. The seceding states said explicitly,
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repeatedly, and in formal language that they
3:42
were leaving the Union to protect slavery. Not
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in a whispered aside. Not between the lines.
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As the central stated reason, this is not a retrospective
3:56
judgment imposed by later historians. It is what
4:00
the secession commissioners, convention delegates,
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and newly formed Confederate leaders said at
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the time, in documents they intended to be read
4:08
and understood. The question this episode examines
4:12
is straightforward. Why did the American Civil
4:15
War begin? The answer, if we listen to the people
4:20
who made the decision to secede, is that they
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feared the destruction of slavery under a Republican
4:25
administration and acted to prevent it. The war
4:29
that followed had multiple dimensions. Millions
4:33
of individuals entered it through varied loyalties,
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fears, and ambitions. But the decision to break
4:39
the Union was made by Southern political leadership,
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and that leadership named its cause. To understand
4:46
why this matters so much in American memory,
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we need to begin with the moment that triggered
4:51
the crisis. On November 6, 1860, Abraham Lincoln
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was elected President of the United States. He
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won 39, 8 % of the popular vote, carrying every
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free state of the North and West. His name did
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not appear on ballots in most southern states.
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Lincoln was a member of the Republican Party,
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founded in 1854 specifically to oppose the expansion
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of slavery into federal territories. The Republican
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platform of that year promised not to interfere
5:25
with slavery where it already existed. but it
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opposed slavery's extension into the western
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territories. For southern slaveholding interests,
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this was alarming enough. The federal government,
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they believed, was coming under the control of
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a party hostile to the institution on which their
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economy, society, and political power rested.
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South Carolina moved first. On December 20, 1860,
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A specially elected convention voted unanimously
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to secede. Other Deep South states followed in
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rapid succession. Mississippi seceded on January
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9, 1861. Florida followed on January 10. Alabama
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followed on January 11. Georgia followed on January
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19. Louisiana followed on January 26. And Texas
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followed on February 1. These were not spontaneous
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mob actions. They were formal proceedings with
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delegates selected to conventions, deliberating
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in state capitals and issuing public statements
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of their reasons. The documents they produced
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are the essential evidence for understanding
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why secession occurred. South Carolina's Declaration
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of the Immediate Causes of Secession, adopted
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December 24, 1860, is the first and in many ways
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the most revealing. It is a long document, written
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in the legalistic language of constitutional
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grievance. But its central claim is unmistakable.
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The Declaration states that the non -slaveholding
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states have assumed the right of deciding upon
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the propriety of our domestic institutions and
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have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery.
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It identifies an increasing hostility on the
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part of the non -slaveholding states to the institution
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of slavery, as the fundamental problem. The election
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of Lincoln, the Declaration argues, means that
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the federal government has fallen into hands
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hostile to Southern interests. The specific rights
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that South Carolina claims are being violated
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are the rights to hold slaves, to reclaim escaped
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slaves, and to carry slaves into federal territories.
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There is no mention of tariffs as a cause. There
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is no abstract argument about states' rights
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divorced from slavery. The right being asserted
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is the right to maintain slavery. Mississippi's
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Declaration, adopted January 9, 1861, is even
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more direct. It opens with a sentence that has
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become famous among historians. Our position
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is thoroughly identified with the institution
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of slavery, the greatest material interest of
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the world. The Declaration proceeds to explain
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that Mississippi's economy rests on slave labor.
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It explains that the products of slave labor
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comprise the bulk of its exports. And it explains
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that the state has no choice but to secede because
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the federal government threatens to destroy this
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system. The grievances listed include Northern
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resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850,
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Northern encouragement of slave insurrection,
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and the Republican Party's opposition to slavery's
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expansion. Again, the document does not frame
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secession as a response to tariff policy, or
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as an abstract constitutional principle. It identifies
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slavery as the interest requiring protection.
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Texas's Declaration of Causes, adopted February
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2, 1861, makes similar claims with additional
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racial language. It declares that Texas joined
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the Union as a Commonwealth holding maintaining
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and protecting the institution known as Negro
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slavery. It accuses the northern states of seeking
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to destroy this institution, and it asserts that
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the African race is rightfully held and regarded
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as an inferior and dependent race. Georgia's
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Declaration, adopted January 29, 1861, lists
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among its grievances northern resistance to the
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Fugitive Slave Act, opposition to slavery's expansion
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into territories, and the perceived threat the
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political equality of slave states within the
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federal system. In each case, the specific right
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at issue is the right to hold human beings as
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property. These declarations were not merely
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internal documents. They were published in newspapers,
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distributed as pamphlets, and read aloud to assembled
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crowds. The Charleston Mercury, a leading secessionist
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newspaper, printed South Carolina's Declaration
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in full and celebrated it as a triumphant assertion
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of Southern independence. The declarations were
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intended to persuade, to justify, and to announce.
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They are, in effect, the seceding state's official
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explanation of their own actions. But the declarations
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were only one form of evidence. Between December
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1860 and April 1861, the seceding states also
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sent commissioners to other slave states. They
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sent them both to the Upper South and to the
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border states. The goal was to persuade those
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states to join the secession movement. These
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commissioners were official representatives,
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empowered to speak for their state governments.
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They traveled between states as envoys with a
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specific mission. Their speeches, delivered before
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state legislatures and reported in the press,
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functioned like campaign arguments. They were
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public performances made to audiences that needed
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persuading, not private musings or settled consensus.
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They provide an additional body of contemporary
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evidence. William L. Harris of Mississippi addressed
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the Georgia legislature on December 17, 1860,
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three days before South Carolina formally seceded,
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standing in the legislative chamber. Harris told
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the Georgia legislators that Lincoln's election
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meant the annihilation of slavery. He argued
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that the Republican Party intended to destroy
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slavery by surrounding it with free states, by
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appointing anti -slavery officials, and by encouraging
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slave insurrection. He urged Georgia to secede
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immediately before Lincoln took office to protect
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this vital interest. Stephen F. Hale of Alabama
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carried a similar message to Kentucky on December
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27, 1860. Hale told the Kentucky legislature
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that the election of Lincoln was a fixed fact.
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He said the only question remaining was whether
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the slave states would submit to be degraded
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by remaining in a union controlled by anti -slavery
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forces. He warned that remaining in the union
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would mean the extinction of slavery. and the
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degradation of the Southern people. These speeches
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are significant because they were delivered to
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audiences that needed persuading. Georgia did
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secede, but not unanimously. Kentucky did not
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secede at all. The commissioners were making
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the strongest case they could, using arguments
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they believed would be effective. And the argument
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they made, consistently and explicitly, was that
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secession was necessary to protect slavery from
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Republican rule. They did not argue that secession
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was necessary to lower tariffs, or to protect
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an abstract principle of states' rights, or to
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defend Southern honor in some general sense.
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They argued that the federal government was about
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to act against slavery, and that the only protection
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was to leave the Union. The historian Charles
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B. Dew, in his study of these commissioners'
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speeches, has demonstrated that slavery's protection
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was the overwhelming theme. Du examined every
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available commissioner's address. He found that
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the protection of slavery, the fear of racial
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equality, and the defense of white supremacy
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were the constant arguments. The commissioners
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spoke of our institutions, but everyone understood
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what institution they meant. They spoke of our
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rights, but the specific right was the right
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to hold slaves. This was not coded language.
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It was direct. explicit, and repeated. By February
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1861, seven states had seceded and formed the
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Confederate States of America. Delegates from
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these states gathered in Montgomery, Alabama.
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They met in the Alabama State Capitol to draft
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a provisional constitution and establish a new
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government. They worked partly in secret session,
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hammering out the framework of a new nation in
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a specific place under specific conditions. The
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Constitution they produced, adopted March 11,
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1861, is perhaps the most revealing document
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of all. It is nearly identical to the United
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States Constitution in structure and language,
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with a few crucial differences. Article I, Section
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9, Clause 4 prohibits the Confederate Congress
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from passing any law denying or impairing the
15:06
right of property in Negro slaves. Section 3,
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Clause 3, requires that slavery be protected
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in any new territories acquired by the Confederacy.
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The Confederate Constitution also forbids any
15:22
state from abolishing slavery. Whether United
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States Constitution had been ambiguous or silent
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on slavery in the territories, the Confederate
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Constitution was explicit and protective. This
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constitutional framework reveals what the seceding
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leadership wanted to change. They were not seeking
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a more limited federal government in the abstract.
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They were seeking a government that would explicitly
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and permanently protect slavery. The Confederate
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Constitution actually restricted states' rights
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in one important respect. No Confederate state
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could choose to abolish slavery. The states'
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rights being asserted were specifically the right
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to maintain slavery without federal interference,
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combined with a federal guarantee that slavery
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would be protected in all Confederate territory.
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The new Confederate vice president, Alexander
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Stevens of Georgia, made this explicit in a speech
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delivered extemporaneously to a crowd in Savannah
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on March 21, 1861. Reporters transcribed the
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speech as Stevens spoke, capturing his words
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without the filtering of prepared text or later
16:33
revision. Stephens' cornerstone speech has become
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one of the most important primary documents for
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understanding Confederate ideology, precisely
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because Stephens spoke candidly about what the
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new government rested upon. The Confederacy,
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he said, was founded on the great truth that
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the Negro is not equal to the white man, that
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slavery subordination to the superior race is
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his natural and normal condition. He described
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this as the cornerstone of the new edifice, in
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contrast to the United States, which he claimed
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had been founded on the false assumption of human
17:13
equality. Stevens argued that the Confederacy's
17:17
foundations are laid, its cornerstone rests upon
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the great truth of racial inequality and slavery.
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He predicted that the Confederacy would be admired
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by future generations for having established
17:29
this truth as the basis of government. Stevens
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later tried to soften the meaning of this speech,
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claiming in post -war writings that he had been
17:39
misunderstood. But the contemporary newspaper
17:42
transcripts show what he said. And what he said
17:46
was consistent with the secession declarations,
17:49
the Commissioner's speeches and the Confederate
17:51
Constitution. The new nation was founded to protect
17:55
slavery and white supremacy. This was not a hidden
17:58
purpose. It was an announced purpose. It is important
18:04
to understand what this evidence shows and what
18:07
it does not show. It establishes what the seceding
18:10
political leadership said their reasons were.
18:13
It does not establish what every individual Southerner
18:17
believed or what every Confederate soldier fought
18:20
for. The motivations of millions of individuals
18:24
were varied and complex. Many non -slaveholding
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whites supported secession out of loyalty to
18:32
their states. fear of economic disruption racial
18:35
prejudice or belief that their interests were
18:38
bound up with those of slaveholders some opposed
18:42
secession significant opposition existed in every
18:46
seceding state though it was overcome by the
18:49
secessionist majority in the upper south virginia
18:53
arkansas tennessee north carolina secession did
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not occur until after fort sumter and lincoln's
19:00
call for troops in april 1861 Four slave states,
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Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware, never
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seceded at all. The decision to secede was made
19:12
by political leadership, and that leadership
19:15
stated its reasons. Understanding those stated
19:19
reasons is the first step toward understanding
19:21
the war's origins. The contrast with the Union's
19:26
position is equally important and often misunderstood.
19:29
Lincoln in his first inaugural address delivered
19:33
march 4 1861 promised not to interfere with slavery
19:38
where it already existed he stated explicitly
19:41
i have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere
19:46
with the institution of slavery in the states
19:49
where it exists i believe i have no lawful right
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to do so and i have no inclination to do so what
19:57
lincoln denied was the right of secession itself
20:01
He argued that the Union was perpetual, that
20:04
no state could lawfully leave it, and that his
20:07
oath of office required him to preserve, protect,
20:11
and defend the Union. The initial Union war aim
20:15
was therefore preservation of the nation, not
20:18
abolition of slavery. This distinction matters
20:21
because it corrects a common conflation. The
20:24
Confederacy seceded to protect slavery. The Union
20:28
fought initially to preserve the Union. These
20:32
were different purposes. The Emancipation Proclamation,
20:36
issued January 1, 1863, came only after the war
20:41
had been underway for nearly two years. It applied
20:45
only to Confederate -held territory, not to the
20:48
border states that remained in the Union. Lincoln
20:51
framed it as a military necessity, authorized
20:54
by his war powers as commander -in -chief, rather
20:58
than as a general abolition of slavery. The 13th
21:02
Amendment, abolishing slavery throughout the
21:05
United States, was not proposed until 1864 and
21:09
ratified in 1865. The Union's war aims evolved,
21:14
but they did not begin as a crusade against slavery.
21:18
Understanding this distinction prevents the error
21:21
of assuming both sides fought for the same reason,
21:24
or that the North entered the war to freely enslave.
21:28
The evidence from 1860 and 1861 is clear and
21:32
consistent. Yet within a generation after the
21:36
war, a different account had become dominant
21:38
in much of American memory. This was the Lost
21:42
Cause tradition, a systematic reinterpretation
21:45
of the war's origins that minimized slavery's
21:48
role and emphasized other factors. Former Confederate
21:52
leaders, in memoirs and public statements, reframed
21:56
their own motives. Jefferson Davis, in his two
22:00
-volume work, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate
22:03
Government, published in 1881, presented secession
22:08
as a constitutional struggle over states' rights
22:11
and federal power. He mentioned slavery only
22:15
as one of several issues, and portrayed the Confederacy
22:18
as defending a principle of limited government
22:21
against northern consolidation. Alexander Stevens,
22:25
in his post -war writings, similarly reframed
22:28
the conflict as a constitutional dispute, softening
22:31
or denying the explicit white supremacism of
22:34
his cornerstone speech. These memoirs were not
22:38
simply personal recollections. They were political
22:42
arguments made in a specific post -war context.
22:45
The Confederacy had lost the war. Slavery had
22:50
been abolished. The moral and political legitimacy
22:54
of the Confederate cause was in question. Former
22:57
leaders had strong incentives to present their
23:00
cause in terms that would seem more defensible
23:03
to future generations. Constitutional principle,
23:07
resistance to centralized power, and regional
23:10
self -defense were more appealing justifications
23:12
than the explicit defense of human bondage. The
23:16
lost cause tradition was not merely the work
23:19
of former leaders. It was embedded in textbooks,
23:22
memorialized in monuments. and taught in schools
23:26
through organized effort. Organizations like
23:29
the United Daughters of the Confederacy funded
23:32
textbook purchases. They erected statues that
23:36
celebrated Confederate heroism while ignoring
23:39
or minimizing slavery. And they promoted this
23:42
interpretation in public memory. By the early
23:46
20th century, many Americans had absorbed a version
23:50
of the war's origins in which slavery was incidental.
23:53
Tariffs or constitutional abstraction were central,
23:57
and both sides had fought with honourable motives
24:00
for defensible principles. This memory tradition
24:03
served the political needs of sectional reconciliation,
24:07
but it distorted the historical record. Later
24:11
memory sometimes claimed the war was about tariffs,
24:14
but the tariff of 1857 was actually low and southern
24:19
supported. Tariffs appear rarely, if at all,
24:23
in secession documents. States' rights in secessionist
24:27
usage meant specifically the right to maintain
24:30
slavery, not a neutral constitutional principle
24:33
that could be separated from the institution
24:36
it was invoked to protect. Modern historians,
24:40
beginning in the mid -20th century and continuing
24:43
to the present, have recovered the contemporary
24:45
evidence. By returning to the secession declarations,
24:50
the Commissioner's speeches, the Confederate
24:52
Constitution, and the Cornerstone speech, scholars
24:56
have restored slavery to the center of causal
24:59
explanation. This is not a matter of imposing
25:02
present -day morality on the past. It's a matter
25:06
of reading the documents that the seceding leadership
25:09
itself produced. When South Carolina says it
25:13
is seceding because of hostility to slavery,
25:16
when Mississippi says its position is identified
25:19
with slavery, When Stevens says the Confederacy
25:22
rests on racial slavery as its cornerstone, these
25:26
are not later interpretations. These are contemporary
25:30
statements, made by the people who made the decisions.
25:35
The recovery of this evidence does not mean that
25:38
slavery was the only factor in the complex history
25:41
of the antebellum South. Economic differences
25:44
between North and South, while inseparable from
25:47
slavery, had their own dynamics. Constitutional
25:51
theories about federalism and states' rights
25:54
had long histories independent of slavery, even
25:57
if secessionists deployed them in slavery's defense.
26:01
Cultural differences, religious divisions, and
26:05
political rivalries all shaped the sectional
26:08
conflict. The Republican Party's opposition to
26:12
slavery's expansion was motivated by a mixture
26:15
of moral opposition to slavery, commitment to
26:18
free labor ideology, and racial concerns that
26:22
did not necessarily imply racial equality. The
26:26
Antebellum North was not a society free from
26:28
racial discrimination or economic exploitation.
26:32
These complexities are real and important. But
26:36
the specific question of why secession occurred
26:39
and why the war began has a clear answer in the
26:42
contemporary evidence. The seceding states left
26:46
the Union because they believed a Republican
26:48
administration threatened the security, expansion,
26:52
and political future of slavery. They said so.
26:55
They wrote it in formal declarations. They spoke
27:00
it in official speeches. They embedded it in
27:03
their constitution. They celebrated it as their
27:07
founding principle. Later claims that the wars
27:10
about tariffs or abstract constitutional disagreement
27:13
emerged as memory. not as contemporary explanation.
27:17
The war that followed engaged millions of Americans
27:21
in ways that exceeded the stated purposes of
27:24
leadership. Union soldiers fought for preservation
27:28
of the Union, for abolition, for their comrades,
27:31
for pay, for adventure, for reasons as varied
27:35
as human motivation itself. Some enlisted believing
27:40
they were defending the nation as it existed.
27:43
Others came to embrace emancipation as the war
27:46
progressed. Many simply fought because they were
27:49
drafted, or because the men beside them were
27:52
fighting, or because they needed the wages. Confederate
27:56
soldiers fought for their states, their homes,
27:59
their families, their understanding of honor,
28:01
sometimes for slavery directly, often for a complex
28:05
mixture of loyalties that did not reduce to any
28:09
single cause. Many had never owned slaves and
28:13
never expected to. They fought because their
28:16
state had seceded and they understood their duty
28:19
in local, personal terms. The experience of war
28:24
transformed purposes on both sides. Men who had
28:28
enlisted to preserve the Union found themselves
28:30
destroying slavery. Men who had seceded to protect
28:34
an institution found themselves witnessing its
28:37
collapse. Emancipation became a Union War aim
28:42
because the war itself made it possible and necessary.
28:46
The destruction of slavery became a consequence
28:48
of Confederate defeat, whatever individual Confederates
28:52
had fought for. The history of the war is not
28:55
exhausted by its origins, and the origins are
28:59
not exhausted by the experience of those who
29:02
lived through it. But origins matter. They establish
29:06
what was being defended and what was being contested,
29:09
what choices were made and what alternatives
29:12
were foreclosed. A decision to break the Union
29:16
was made by Southern political leadership in
29:18
the winter of 1860 -61. That leadership stated
29:22
its reasons with a clarity that later generations
29:25
tried to obscure. Understanding what they said,
29:28
in their own words and at the moment of decision,
29:32
is essential to understanding how the war began.
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and why the question remains contested in American
29:38
memory. The documents are there. They have always
29:43
been there. They say what they say. What remains
29:48
uncertain, even with this evidence recovered,
29:51
is the full texture of individual experience.
29:55
We can know what secession conventions declared,
29:58
but we cannot fully know what every delegate
30:01
believed in his private thoughts. We can know
30:05
what commissioners said in official speeches,
30:07
but we cannot fully know what persuaded their
30:09
audiences or what doubts they suppressed. We
30:13
can know that millions of people, enslaved and
30:16
free, lived through this crisis with a complexity
30:19
that official documents only partially capture.
30:23
The historical record is rich but incomplete,
30:26
and some questions about motivation and meaning
30:29
remain open to interpretation and debate. What
30:33
can be said with confidence is that slavery was
30:36
the essential cause of secession. Established
30:40
by the seceding leadership's own words, in documents
30:43
they produced to explain and justify their actions,
30:46
the war began because these states chose to leave
30:50
the Union to protect slavery, and the federal
30:53
government chose to resist that departure. Millions
30:57
of people then entered the war through varied
31:00
loyalties, fears, ambitions and understandings
31:04
of what that cause required. The war transformed
31:07
everything it touched, including its own purposes.
31:11
But it began with a specific decision, made for
31:14
a specific reason, stated explicitly at the time.
31:18
The evidence has survived. It is available to
31:23
anyone who reads it. and it tells us, with a
31:27
clarity that later memory tried to dissolve,
31:30
why the American Civil War began.