this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
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You can always follow up when someone says “states rights” with “to do what?”… because the answer was “have slaves”.
Another interesting note I bring into the states rights argument is that the south wanted to force the north to send back escaped people and were actually sending people into the north to kidnap black people, many of whom were never born slaves.
So yeah the north wanted the right to gives rights to the people in it, and the south thought that didn't apply to black people.
I think that gives a bit too much credit to the vast majority of Union citizens. Yes there were some groups of Quakers who actually believed in freeing slaves and protecting their rights, but that was a minority opinion .
The majority of people in the union disagreed with slavery for economic and political reasons that were unattached to the morality of slavery. Even progressive politicians like Abe Lincoln who wanted to free slaves, also wanted them to be shipped to the Dominican Republic or Africa afterwards.
Abolitionist v radical abolitionist and emacipationist v radical emancipationist.
History is fun like that..
And to radicals, there is no greater foe
The war did polarize people into holding stronger opinions than they did before though.
Even if they started as unionists more than anything else, being opposed to the South turned into also opposing what they stood for. As evidenced by a lot of the most popular northern camp songs, matches and letters, it didn't take long for "hang Jeff davis, the traitorous scoundrel" to turn into "hang Jeff Davis, the traitorous, slaving scoundrel. Let's shoot rebels in the name of freedom!".
Wanting to shoot confederates is a weird reason to become pro emancipation, but I'll take it.
And "limited government". Limited to do what?
That’s an easy one.
It means “disassemble all checks and balances, strip the people of all power and authority, and concentrate the power and authority into the hands of a chosen party-aligned dictator or oligarchy.”
Small government doesn’t get any smaller than a totalitarian dictatorship.
Sorta, the valid but shitty argument is that it was an interstate trade dispute the South was mad at the federal government about.
What commodity was the federal government interfering with that got them so angry?
Agrarian South vs. Industrialized North made for an unfair trade balance. You can hardly trade a bale of cotton for a steam engine, that kinda idea I believe. Been 30+ since college American History, forgot the exact gripes.
We could probably find these disputes in the various Letters of Secession. They almost all start with slavery, but there were other complaints.
EDIT: I was wrong. The letters are almost 100% "bla, bla, bla, we're being treated unfairly and we're leaving." Surprisingly little mention of slavery, but get a load of Mississippi's letter! LOL my god, y'all just gonna have to read that one yourself. (I had always assumed that letter was typical and I was wrong.)
EDIT: Oh fuck me, I'm wrong again. The linked are merely the official ordinances, not Letters of Succession. Hence why they're all dry legalese. But I did arouse your curiosity about Mississippi, so here go their letter.
Slaves, duh.
It's not my argument people, it's an explanation of the new version of states rights the right spews in bad faith.