Abolitionists were a small and beleaguered minority. Few northerners demanded immediate abolition. In his second inaugural, Lincoln spoke of "American", not southern, slavery – his point being the complicity of the entire nation in the sin of slavery. What does it mean to say that slavery caused secession and the war? Not that the South was evil and the North moral. They insist that differences over other issues – states rights, the tariff, constitutional interpretation – led the nation into war. Yet, many Americans today resist this basic truth. This is now an unquestioned axiom among historians. The new nation's "cornerstone", declared Confederate Vice-President Alexander H Stephens, was the principle "that slavery, subordination to the superior race" was the "natural and moral condition" of black Americans.įour years later, in his second inaugural address, Lincoln would affirm that slavery was "somehow" the cause of the war. Its founders forthrightly announced that they had created a slaveholders' republic. Within a few months, 10 slave states had joined South Carolina in the Confederate States of America.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |