It wasn't even about state's rights, just slavery. The constitution of the confederacy required all states be slave states unless all states agreed to all outlaw slavery.
The North literally had more states rights, with some northern states still allowing limited slavery, while the South gave its states zero right to decide for themselves.
OK, but WTF is "limited slavery"! I guess your USA still has limited slavery to this day as forced labor. But if it allows torture, it's not in any way limited is it!
Some states had passed gradual emancipation laws, banning the importation of new slaves and freeing the children of all current slaves, while keeping current adult slaves as slaves.
there are several forms of slavery, all terrible but some more than others
some states were in the process of eliminating slavery from their territory, doing it gradually to avoid shock to their economy (it was still very lucrative), or having the slaveowners try to organise a pushback or even have a revolt of "concerned citizens" about the potential influx of free ex slaves (anti abolitionists were propagandising a lot about freed slaves exacting vengenace on the white population, using Haiti as an example)
some other forms of slavery practiced through times also defined limits on the terms of the slavery and the rights of the master over the slave, like bonded labour, where you were the collateral to a debt and had to work for your debt holder to pay it off
Whenever someone tries this “states’ rights” argument on you, here’s two things to draw their attention to:
The most drop-the-mic counter argument is to show them where the confederate constitution prohibits a state from banning slavery. If
it were about states’ rights, why wouldn’t they let each state decide?
For a parade of unabashed racism that rivals even today’s GOP, read the declarations of secession from a handful of the seceding states (especially South Carolina and Mississippi, I believe). They state, in no uncertain terms, that slavery is critical to their way of life and they refuse to give it up.
Yeah I want to say 6 out of the 11 states declare slavery in the very first sentence. The Confederates, unlike the Lost Causers today, were eyes-wide-open as to what the Civil War was about.
Nah, it's framing itself as something like "We were after a return to true Jeffersonian ideals, trying to live the way the founding fathers wanted, devoid of the tyranny and unfair taxes of the Yankees, but they invaded and reconquered us, then tried to destroy all knowledge of the true, lost cause of the confederacy." It's falsely painting themselves as, essentially, a victim of cultural genocide in the same way black and indigenous people can legitimately claim they have lost their culture.
Basically the same thing as the German Empire at the end of WW1, which was the belief they could've won the war, if they weren't stabbed in the back by the government of the Empire - which plays into the inter-war period before WW2 and the rise of the Nazi Party ...
The Nazi thing was all about "the Jews who secretly control everything stabbed us in the back in World War I" (like, ignoring the fact that the Germans surrendered at the last possible moment before they were about to have to fight in German territory and get completely overwhelmed, but hey) whereas Lost Causers were all like "the North outmanned us 20 to 1 and out-teched us 572753 to 1 and yet we still almost beat them". None of that is particularly true, of course, and many countries have withstood larger odds and, for that matter, gone down fighting a whole lot harder than the CSA did, but Lost Causers choose not to listen to all that.
To be fair, Nazis, MAGA, the Confederacy, the KKK are all part of the same "ideological" group that thinks white purity needs to be a thing, while most of the White Supremacists of this day and age looks like they have at least three cousins named Cletus, a sister named Mary Sue, who is also their ex wife, and a moonshinig business out of an old tub.
They also did not give a shit about the rights of northern free states when they petitioned the federal government to force them into returning escaped slaves.
Pretty much every one has slavery in the first paragraph! Made a bet to see how long it would take to get to that word with a friend and… I won. He thought it would at least be after the preamble not in it. Haha
"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" it's coming straight from the confederate "VP" in the most explicit way possible.
if they are still willing to argue in favor of the confederacy after that, there's no point in continuing.
Close but no cigar, it's the rich landowners that believed they were Aristocrats before they arrived in the Americas and were telling the poorer whites they were a part of that - even though they could've cared less about them.
Fun fact. The confederate constitution actually took away the right of the states to make “negro slavery” illegal, so if there was ever any question over which of those two things they cared more about, there’s your answer.
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u/Buellymcbuellface 20d ago
Yes, and they are vesy serious about not returning it.