Ehh, don't confuse the catalyst for the reactant.Absalom wrote:Yeah, I understand that one of the founding principles of the CSA was that the central government should enforce slave-owning rights even when a slave was brought into a state where slavery was illegal: this was what Southerners of the time meant by "state's rights". The Republican take-over of the south appears to have clouded this issue.Siber wrote:Also from what I've read since of the constitution/structure of the CSA, I'm not sure it really was that much of a confederation by any of the definitions people have offered. Admittedly that's just from Wikipedia browsing, so that could easily be wrong.
So much of what happened is viewed with a modern lens that slavery and racism seem to trump all other concerns. One must remember that the Democrat party is the offspring of the Anti-Federalist movement. These people opposed the centralized power of the Federal government since its inception and ratification. This opposition is why we even have a Bill of Rights, the constituent nation-states only approved the Constitution on the condition of its creation. This political body foresaw a creeping accumulation of power into the hands of the central authorities, especially the courts and the Presidency.
The general attitude amongst the South was divided between one of gradual emancipation and continued slavery. The gradual emancipation view, shared by men like Washington, Lee, Jackson etc., took some hard hits following Nat Turner's rebellion and the Harper's Ferry raid. Abolitionists viewed these as natural events, just deserts, or even treated the offenders as heros with flags at half staff and church bells rung in memoriam in the case of Brown. Nat Turner particularly stung because this was an intelligent, educated slave who, by his own admission, said his slave owners treated him kindly - before he led a rampage butchering men women and children. This resulted in a series of draconian laws designed to prevent slave education. The abolitionists, seeing the lack of internal will, then sought to use the central authority to force emancipation on the slave holding states. This played into the Anti-Federalist/Democrat view as an abuse of power from the Federal government since there is no such enumerated power in the Constitution, and stoked fears of further revolts and massacres from the slaves, whom, in many areas, had a greater population than whites.
TLDR: The abolitionist effort through the Federal government proved the point the Anti-Federal Democrats were making since 1787. Thats where the "states rights" issue comes in. Do the ends justify the means? Answer almost always depends on which side of the gun you stand.