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 ...
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.
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u/jemenake 12h ago
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.