States rights, slavery and the Confederacy

When I said that John Scalzi was showing typical excessive Yankee generosity toward the neo-Confederate arguments, here's an example of what I mean. Don't get me wrong, he does a decent job. I even learned a new insult - "pan-hit ignorance" - from his post. I have no idea what it means, but it sounds great! Our AOL Journalmeister writes:

I've noted before that the Confederate sympathizer position on states' rights is rather highly debatable -- which is, lest we forget, one of the major reasons we all had that Civil War thing going on -- and that in any event, having suggested their innovative view of states' rights, the Confederate states were then obliged to defend it by use of arms.

No, "states rights" was not one of the major reasons we had the Civil War. Yes, the Southern "slave power" (the slave states) did make states-rights arguments up until 1850 or so. But when it came to choosing between "states rights" and the preservation of slavery, the Slave Power came down hard on the side of slavery and national power every time.

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was a use of national power to override states rights when it came to helping slaveowners recover their human property who had absconded. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 was a crass exercise of national power by a proslavery Supreme Court, and foreshadowed measures encouraged by the reactionary Buchanan Administration to forbid free states from excluding slavery from their own states.

When it came to slavery, the Slave Power always put the exercise of national power on their behalf above any consideration of states rights. To see an example, check out the January 7, 1861, speech by Tennessee Governor Isham Harris in the archives of the Tennessee Sons of Confederate Veterans, an organization that promotes the idea that slavery had nothing to do with the Confederacy. Harris cites five Constitutional amendments that he says would induce the slave states to remain in the Union. All were about slavery. The fifth would deny any state the right to end slavery unless all other slave states agreed to it.

When states rights conflicted with slavery, the Slave Power always sided with slavery and against states rights.

Tags: civil war, confederate states of america, isham harris, neo-confederats, states rights