The big lie

One of the things that really drives me nuts is when people state that the Civil War was about State's Rights, and not about slavery.  A lot of the time, this statement is in reference to complaints about the Confederate Battle Flag representing slavery and racism.  Well, the Civil War was indeed about State's Rights...THEIR RIGHT TO HAVE SLAVERY!!!!!   The complaints are 100% right, the flag represents slavery.  Proof after the jump.


Don't believe me?  Well why don't we just analyze the statements from the Confederate leaders themselves:

Jefferson Davis (Senator from Mississippi and PRESIDENT of the Confederacy) explaining why Mississippi seceded:

“she had heard proclaimed the theory that all men are created free and equal, and this made the basis of an attack upon her social institutions; and the sacred Declaration of Independence has been invoked to maintain the position of the equality of the races.”

Hmm, sounds like it was about slavery to me.  Let's see what Mississippi's Declaration of Secession states its reasons were:

"In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.

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".

 WOW, that really sounds like Mississippi thought the war was about slavery. 

Well, what did the Alexander Stephens (Representative from Georgia and the VICE PRESIDENT of the Confederacy) think?:

"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."

From his 1861 "Cornerstone Speech."

What did the Georgia's Declaration of Secession state?

 "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. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution. While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact".

In total, it mentions the word slave or slavery 35 times.  If the war wasn't about slavery, why did they mention it so many times?

Finally, lets look at the Declaration of Secession from Texas:

"That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states".

So, if you like the Battle Flag, fine.  If you like it because of "heritage, not hate", that's fine as well.  But Goddamnit, DO NOT try and justify your adoration of the flag with the idea that the Civil War was not about slavery.  Because as I have just shown, the people involved in the actual war had no problem admitting it was about slavery.  So why can't you as well?